ESPN is reporting that former LSU WR Demetrius Byrd is in intensive care following a car wreck in Miami, where Byrd was prepping for this weekend’s NFL Draft.

College football is a dirty business, no more so than in the first week of February. Coaches and kids display their disloyalty in ever-shocking ways, as coaches pull offers at the last minute and kids dis hats with the wrong logo.

I follow recruiting a little bit. I am not Tom Luginbill – I can’t discuss whether a kid projects as more of an ‘athlete’ at the next level, or whether he’s got enough ‘burst’ to be an edge rusher.

But when it gets close, I eagerly read commitment lists, check out Youtubery and try to figure out how a kid fits into a college’s depth chart. I read about the type of offense he ran in high school, his test scores, and whether he might need a year at Hargrave.

But loving this aspect is like loving a girl addicted to crack. The more time I spend with it, the worse I feel, and the more I get scared that I might catch something.

David Logan Schroeder has provided a nice summary of this year’s SEC recruiting hijinks in this article on Bleacher Report, and it illustrates nicely how ridiculous the whole business has become.

This year featured a kid talking trash to a hat, one coach pulling a scholarship offer at the eleventh hour, another coach ominously saying that “kids should honor their commitments,” and kids stringing colleges along until the bitter end.

The whole thing is putrid and needs to be fixed. While that fix may be an early signing period, or just greater restrictions on recruiting, or the abolition of recruiting altogether, I don’t know.

But I do know that the current system stinks, and I am glad that it’s over and I don’t have to think about it for another year.

A few weeks ago, Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno signed a three-year extension to his contract, ensuring that he will roam–or perhaps roll on–the Nittany Lion sideline until at least 2011.

Paterno’s extension brought to an end speculation about who his successor would be, since his current deal expired this year.

Paterno’s quote in the announcement was “There’s no reason for me not to think that I can go for a while.”

In case you are unaware, Paterno is 82 years old.  He was born in 1926, slightly less than three years before the really big stock market crash of 1929.  In other words, when people say that we could be entering another Great Depression, it resonates with Joe Paterno.  He lived it.

He has been the head coach at Penn State for 43 years, and has been on the football staff for 58 years.  He joined the staff during the Truman administration.

Paterno, along with Florida State’s Bobby Bowden, is the dean of coaches.  He is the elder statesman, the winningest Division IA coach of all time.  

And there is no doubt that he has been great for the University.

But Paterno’s extension is bad for Penn State University.

It’s true, the Nittany Lions enjoyed a bit of a renaissance this year, rolling up an 11-1 record and earning a trip to the Rose Bowl to face USC.

But speaking as one who is not close to the situation, and has no inside information, there is no way that I can believe that having Joe Paterno on the sideline, or in the press box, for the next three years can be good for the Penn State football program.

Does Paterno do all of the things that other top-notch head coaches, such as Nick Saban, Bog Stoops, Urban Meyer or Pete Carroll do? Can he maintain a workaholic schedule, sleeping only in snippets, and breaking down film for 15 hours a day?

Of course not.

I can already here the arguments that Paterno can accomplish the same things those guys can in limited duty because he is a legend, but I don’t buy it.

Does Paterno call plays, or even wear a headset?  Nope.  

Can JoePa endure a hot two-hour practice in early August?  I doubt it.

In fact, problems with his leg and hip forced him into the press box for several games this year.  Before the season, JoePa admitted he thought about being up there full time, saying, “I enjoyed being upstairs, I really did.  I sat down, had a nice time, had a cup of coffee…I was even able to watch television.”

Seriously?

Joe Paterno’s extension is not about Penn State winning more games.  The amount of coaching that Joe Paterno actually does nowadays must be very little.

No, Joe Paterno’s contract is about Joe Paterno, and choke-hold he has on Penn State. If Paterno really did care about the University as much as he cares about himself, he would step aside gracefully, and admit what all must face: Father Time is an opponent that cannot be defeated. 

It is apparent that the Nittany Lions need to promote one of their own assistants or hire someone now, or they will risk falling off when Joe Paterno is no longer around to figurehead the program.

Perhaps they keep Paterno in a little office on the ground floor of the athletic building and when they are showing around the fat-cat donors, they take them into that little office and say “Look, here’s Joe Paterno, coaching legend.  We have to ask you to keep your voices down now, Joe is easily startled when he is sleeping.”

Eighty-two years old. Time to hang it up, Joe, and let Penn State, an organization bigger than yourself, move on.

Miles versus Saban.  Les versus Nick.  The Hat versus the Nicktator.  Crazy fourth down calls versus volcanic eruption on the sidelines during 45-10 blowouts.

When Alabama hired Saban, Tide fans crowed.

“We have got us a great coach now,” they said.  “Your coach is an idiot, and we have the man who made LSU what it is!”

“Oh yeah?” LSU fans replied. “Les has lost fewer games in his first three years than Saban did in any of his three years, and we did get another national title under Les, including the AP title!  So there!”

One can only picture the two fan constituencies on opposite sides of a gym in the 1950s, one side chanting “We’ve got Saban, yes we do, we’ve got Saban, how about you!” and the other replying “We’ve got Lester, yes we do, we’ve got Lester, how about you!”

But who is really a better coach?

I asked six high school coaches from the state of Louisiana this question.  All were happy to talk about it, but all asked that I not use their names.  I had extended conversations with two of them about it, and much shorter conversations with the other four.  Three are head coaches; three are assistants.

My first question:  Better coach, Miles or Saban?

The responses:

“Saban.”

“Saban, no question.”

“Saban.”

“Saban, without a doubt.”

“Saban, easily.”

One coach begged off, saying that he didn’t watch a lot of college football due to concentrating on his own team.

The coaches who answered the question were unanimous in their appraisal.  Saban is the better coach, hands down.

Here are some of the comments that the coaches made on the subject:

“X’s and O’s, Saban is the best in the country.  He’s so far ahead of everybody else it’s scary.”

“Saban is the best planner in the country.  He has his days planned out to the minute, he knows what they need to be doing every single minute of the day.”

“I went to a talk by Saban a few years ago, and it was incredible.  The stuff he was talking about was just unbelievable.”

“He’s always going to find good assistants, though because of what you will learn, the contacts you will make, and what it looks like to have him on your resume.  He demands perfection, not just from his coaches, but from players, trainers, staff, everybody.”

But two of the coaches added caveats.

“He’s an (euphemism for jerk). Everybody knows it.  He’s incredibly difficult to work for. He works his assistants like slaves.”

“If you work for him, you are not going to like him.  He has fired GA’s on the field for forgetting headsets.”

One of the coaches, who has heard Saban speak, had a question for the Saban, but chose not to ask it when Saban sarcastically responded to another coach’s question.

Those same qualities that made Saban such a success at LSU wore thin in his five years in Baton Rouge.  By the time he left, according to more than one of the coaches, nobody in the football or athletic departments was sad to see him go.

And the man they brought in to replace Saban at LSU is vastly different in personality.

“He’s more of a CEO-type coach.  He hires his coaches and lets them do their jobs,” another said.

“Which guy do I like better?  Miles, by a long way,” one coach said.

That same coach pointed out that Saban’s arrogance had harmed relationships with coaches in the state.  He pointed as one example to coach at a school in southeast Louisiana (to whom I did not talk) who had grown so sick of Saban that he wouldn’t send his prized recruit to LSU.

When Saban left and Miles was hired, the coach did a one-eighty and encouraged the player to reconsider the Tigers.  The player eventually committed to LSU.

Some of the difficulty with this question comes in the definition of what the coach is.

College coaches must be master organizers, arranging practice schedules, recruiting trips, professional development and so on for the more than 100 people including players under them.

They must be master salespeople, capable of convincing more than 20 seventeen-year-olds every year, along with parent(s) and other interested parties, that the school and program that the coach represents is the perfect place for them.

They must monitor and assist in the academic development of nearly 100 18-22 year-olds.

On top of all that, they have to be masters of the zone blitz, zone blocking, zone coverage, and zone reads.  They must know how to call their own offense, run the defense, and talk in-depth about the benefits of the rugby punt versus the traditional punt, tackle twists and chipping on ends,  play-action and shotgun, and be able to do it all under pressure.

And speaking of pressure, they have 12 three-hour periods on Saturdays in the fall to prove that the rest of the year has not been wasted.  And if they fail the test, there are 90,000 people sitting their watching it happen and all to eager to let them know about it.

Viewed in this light, Saban has to be viewed as the better “football-man.”  But Miles appears to excel in other, less visible but perhaps just as important parts of the job.  However, it would be pure folly to accuse either of being a failure in the area that is not their respective strengths.

Suffice it to say that the two are near the top of the college coaching heap at the moment, and the challenge for both is just to stay there.

And have been doing a lot of thinking about this blog.  I am trying to work on a non-blog project at the moment, but will probably use this space as a testing space for some of  the material.  In addition, I will be posting occasional posts on other topics, like what I am going to do in a few minutes.

Anyway, I hope the legions (if legion=2) of readers will check back from time to time and enjoy.

No, I don’t have one that was sent to the Downtown Athletic Club.  But I was contacted by Shotgun Spratling, who runs a blog called The Blue Workhorse, and they were polling sports bloggers to name the Blog Heisman.

So, I dutifully sent in my ballot earlier this week.  Click here for the results. 

And here is my ballot:

1. Colt McCoy – The junior completed nearly 80% of his throws in addition to being the leading rusher of the team that beat both Big 12 title game contestants.
2. Tim Tebow – He made an outrageous claim after the loss at Ole Miss, then he backed it up the rest of the season, landing the Gators in the NCG.
3. Michael Crabtree – the award is supposed to go the ‘best’ player in college football, and he is a better player than everybody except for the two guys above him.

Here are some randome, poorly thought-out rationalizations:

•  McCoy is the only all-Big 12 player on that offense, Bradford has 7.
• Some of my pro-McCoy feeling is my personal distaste for Stoops this year, and my impression that the Sooners have been less than impressive in bowls over the last few years.  But Texas did beat OU, and McCoy completed almost 80% and led the ‘Horns in rushing.  I just can’t get past that right there.
• Tebow just absolutely carries that team, all the time.  And they are in the NCG.
• Crabtree is just a man. 

This week, I am ranking on resume, and so Alabama, by virtue of being the only undefeated team in conference, gets the top slot.  Like everyone else, though, I think Florida is a team that could end the Tide’s magical run through the season.  The game should be a great contrast in styles, power Bama vs. track meet Florida. I like the rest of SEC fandom, am eagerly anticipating it.

As for the rest of the ballot, Ole Miss ascends due to the fast finish.  Georgia must drop after laying that egg against Ga Tech, but then there are all kinds of head to head result issues.  So without apology, here is the ranking:

1. Alabama -  Not the kind of football that makes you giddy, but the kind that wins
2. Florida – The kind that makes you giddy, when Harvin, Demps, and Tebow are all firing
3. Ole Miss – What a finish for the Rebs.  Nutt is the anti-Orgeron
4. Georgia – ACC punk #1.  I did NOT see that coming
5. Vanderbilt – Good year, solid team, is this the ceiling for Vandy, or can they go even highter?
6. LSU – Do I hear a YAW YAW YAW in LSU’s future?  Or will a rejected Volunteer join the Tigers?  Or will Les do nothing, which will certainly anger the fans?
7. South Carolina – ACC punk #2.
8. Tennessee – Good finish as they carry Fulmer out.  Kiffin a good hire, methinks.  Team needs some juvenation.
9. Arkansas Got upset win against crumbling Tigers, but still a bad year.
10. Kentucky – Started strong, faded fast.  Welcome to Wildcat football.
11. Auburn – Tubby swears he doesn’t force assistants on people.  Right, and you don’t coach the illegal chop block, either.
12. Mississippi State – Croom doomed after loss at La Tech in opening week.

As you may have noticed if you read this blog regularly, and you are a very select group, I have not been posting much lately.

First, I apologize.

When I took a job in sports journalism I thought that I would have plenty of time and inclination to write on the side about LSU and other important sports points.  But I haven’t.  Truth is, most of the time when I get home from sitting in front of my mac at work all day, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of another one and do more work.

One major frustrating thing about that is that I feel like I have things to say.  Some ideas that have been floating in my brain to do, but that I haven’t gotten around to are:

1) My survey of high school coaches on the Miles vs. Saban debate.
2) Why I hate Bob Stoops.
3) The inane history of the BCS, and why what we have now is exactly what we had before.
4) What LSU needs to do in the offseason
5) Why several Louisiana schools should seriously consider FCS.

Plus, the whole thing about trying to spend time with the family, when I am gone 2-3 nights per week with work has been tough.

So what should I do, then?  Am I to continue in passivity that stagnation may increase?  By no means!

But I am not sure what exactly to do.  I would love it a couple of people were willing to do this thing with me, and thus would provide a (slightly) more collaborative feel to the site, which would ease up the pressure of posting every day, and allow us to feed off of one another’s posts.  But so far, my attempts to find individuals to do this has failed.

I could just shut it down, but I don’t really want to do that, because I enjoy it.

Plus, this LSU season has been disappointing, but I have also been traveling a good bit, and it is not easy to blog when one is spending quality time with family.

So again, I am at a loss.

I have really enjoyed being a part of the SEC Power Poll – that has been great.  There are a lot of great, and very well-written blogs in that left hand sidebar, so go check some of them out.

On that note, I will put my final ballot up today or tomorrow, and we will be coming out with an All-SEC team in a few weeks, so be sure to look for that.

So, then the great question: Whither go we hence?

I don’t know.  Suggestions welcome.

….fayetch him sahm ahsed tea…..

In leadup to the this week’s LSU-Ole Miss game in Baton Rouge, I am exchanging some questions with Juco All-American from from the Ole Miss blog Red Solo Cup.   My answers to his questions will be up over there so go check it out.

1) How happy are you that the Rebels are no longer coached by the Ogre?  And how happy are you that it’s Houston Nutt that took his place, and how do you think he is doing?
It’s difficult to express how happy we are to have a coach that can actually teach technique. I have a strong mutual friend with a prominent assistant coach on our team. That coach was explaining to my friend what “Ogre,” as you so kindly referred to him, left for the program in terms of coaching. He said that O left a lot of high school coaches and players who had never been taught technique. How we managed to keep it close against y’all two years ago absolutely baffles me.
On the other hand, we have seen our players play better and better each week under HDN. They’re not out of position as often anymore, and they’re playing relatively heady football. I can’t believe it. OUR players are playing like they’ve played football before. Insane. I was relatively upset when we hired Nutt, but I’m happily eating plates and plates of crow now. There are coaches in America that I would rather have than Houston Nutt, but there aren’t many.

2) You guys have had an up and down year: lost to Vanderbilt, Wake and South Carolina, and a win over Florida.  Why is that, and what needs to happen to change that?
I think that the team was adjusting to coaching for the first half of the season. They didn’t know how to play with a lead/play to win, etc. The win against Florida, I’ll admit, was mostly a fluke. 29 out of 30 times we play that game, we lose. In that same way, the loss to Vanderbilt was a fluke. I want to meet a team that can turn the ball over seven times in a game and win that game against a bowl-bound opponent.
The loss to Wake was so early in the season that our team didn’t realize they are good. They were playing like losers even though Jevan had his best game since Texas High School. Our pass defense, as you’ll see, is absolutely pourous, but they were significantly worse at the time, and Riley Skinner just picked us apart.
We lost to South Carolina because they are a better team than we are, or at least they were on that day. 

3) Having said that, you guys are on a little bit of a roll coming into Baton Rouge.  What has been the biggest reason for this recent success?
I hate to harp on coaching, so I won’t. I think that a big contributing factor is the lack of turnovers. Our players are holding onto the ball better, not fumbling. Jevan’s not throwinig interceptions. In our last three games (wins over Auburn, Arkansas, and UL-Monroe) we have one total turnover. Over that same timespan, we have six takeaways. With that ratio, you’re going to win games. I think that Jevan is starting to realize that he doesn’t have to win games on his own. If there’s no throw to be made, he’s not throwing into coverage. His completion percentage isn’t so hot, but who cares? He throws the ball where only his receivers can get to it. 

4) Honestly, Houston Nutt is the scariest coach in the nation as far
as I am concerned.  His teams never seem to match up to LSU
talent-wise, but they always play LSU tough and get big wins, like
last year and 2002.  He has a history of getting huge games out of
lesser known players, like Peyton Hillis last year, or DeCori
Birmingham in 2002.  What little-known (i.e. not Jevan Snead) player
should I be watching out for and why?
I’ll do this for two players, one offensive and one defensive.
First, the defense. Everyone was talking about Greg Hardy at DE and Peria Jerry at DT before the season started. They’re both potential first round picks. We know this. However, there is another defensive end who is really coming into his own this season. Louisiana’s own Kentrell Lockett. Lockett has 27 tackles on the season from the defensive end position. 7.5 of those are TFLs. He also has recovered two fumbles and blocked the extra point that won the game against Florida. I don’t have his statistics over these past three games (because ESPN is lazy with defense and the school’s stats aren’t sortable) but he has been monumental in our last three wins, always seeming to be in the backfield disrupting plays. He will play on Sundays.
The offensive player I’m going to name may be a little bit cheap, but it’s just going to have to do. Our starting halfback, Cordera Eason has really come into his own during the past four games. I had written the junior off early in the season when the sexy-pick freshmen Brandon Bolden and Enrique Davis were getting more snaps than him. It appears that Eason worked harder when he saw the competition coming, and he has gotten the bulk of the carries over our last three games (all wins) averaging over 100 yards and six yards per carry over that span. Eason has become the back we all hoped he would be when Orgeron signed the four star in 2005. If there’s anyone other than Jevan and our highly touted receivers (who are three physical freaks) it’s Eason.

5) Your turn: Prediction, and how will it happen?
Well, you had to expect I would pick Ole Miss to “upset” the tigers, which I will. Still, I think it’s going to be very close, and it probably depends on which Jarrett Lee shows up. If you turn the ball over more than once against us, I think we’ll run away with it, winning by 14. When it comes down to it though, our pass defense is just not good enough (since Orgeron signed a whopping one corner during his tenure at Ole Miss). I think the rebels win a close one by four. It will come down to the wire, but I would guess Lee will fold at the end of the game allowing us to ice the victory with a field goal to go up by four.

Sorry for not posting my SEC Power Poll Ballot this week.  I did it very hurriedly at work, and didn’t get a chance to enter any comments. 

But one commenter did strike a master stroke of genius, and it was directed at LSU.  Joe Cribbs Car Wash had this to say about the Tigers:

I dunno, I’m starting to think opposing defenses are sending Jarrett Lee e-mails like DEAR MR. LEE: MY NAME IS PRINCE TEBO MUTOMBO OF THE REPUBLIC OF PIKSIXIA AND I HAVE INHERITED 47,000 FOOTBALL POINTS AFTER THE DEATH OF MY FATHER KING LORENZO MUTOMBO OF PIKSIXIA. I NEED YOU TO HELP ME KEEP MY FOOTBALL POINTS SAFE. IF YOU ARE WILLING TO PAY VIA INTERCEPTION TRANSFER A SMALL SCOREBOARD INCREASE FEE OF SEVEN FOOTBALL POINTS FOR ME, I WILL MOVE MY POINTS TO A SAFE ACCOUNT IN GAYNESVILLE AND BE ABLE TO GIVE YOU 7,000 FOOTBALL POINTS AS A TOKEN OF MY GRATITUDE. THEY WILL BE YOUR POINTS YOU CAN USE TO WIN YOUR TEAM FOOTBALL. PLEASE HELP ME MR. LEE.

Brilliant!

Below is the poll results, and check out Garnet and Black Attack for the full selection of comments.