More fun for Kiffin

Lane Kiffin has been thoroughly (and rightly) criticized for the controversy he's caused since taking over at Tennessee, so when he was cited for a third minor recruiting violation this week, the consensus response was, "Can't this guy stop screwing up?"

For once, though, there's really nothing to criticize. His "violation" was using a recruit's name (Bryce Brown, to be specific) when talking on a radio show in Knoxville about the growing trend of players delaying their commitment past National Signing Day.

Yes, Brown is considering attending Tennessee, and there is a rule that forbids coaches from publicly discussing uncommitted recruits. But citing a high school player as an example of something completely unrelated to the Vols' recruitment of him seems like a pretty insignificant slip of the tongue.

This is one instance in which Kiffin's previous remarks -- and the frenzy they caused -- have brought unnecessary attention to a mostly harmless remark. Normally I'd defend the guy, but ... well, he's the only one to blame for the intense spotlight he's now under.

Things are changing at Notre Dame

A couple of interesting announcements came out of South Bend on Friday, one of which garnered most of the headlines.

Charlie Weis announced that he will take over play-calling duties for the Irish next season, a task he ripped away from offensive coordinator Mike Haywood for the final four games of 2008. Haywood has since left to become head coach at Miami (Ohio), so this wasn't too big of a surprise. The big question is: Will it make a difference for the Notre Dame offense?

In Weis' four games as de facto offensive coordinator, the results were as follows:

* 27-21 win over Navy -- 110 passing yards, 230 rushing yards (one touchdown came on a blocked punt)
* 24-23 loss to Syracuse -- 292 passing yards, 41 rushing yards (one touchdown came on what was essentially a Hail Mary to Golden Tate on the final play of the first half)
* 38-3 loss to USC -- 43 passing yards, 50 rushing yards (the Irish managed four first downs and 1.9 yards per play)
* 49-21 win over Hawaii -- 413 passing yards, 65 rushing yards (one touchdown came on a kickoff return)

I think it's safe to say that USC and Hawaii were outliers compared to the normal defenses Notre Dame will face, but altogether -- not including the special-teams touchdowns -- the Irish averaged 24 offensive points, 162 passing yards and 97 rushing yards.

For a point of reference, Navy, Syracuse and USC all allowed slightly more points on average than the Irish scored against them, and all of those teams allowed far more yards on average than the Irish accumulated against them.

Obviously, Weis wasn't a big boost to the offense overall (I have a feeling that Pete Carroll isn't too terrified about this announcement).

The only real difference in the win over Hawaii -- other than the Warriors' terrible defense -- was that Weis, because of his mangled knee, was in the booth rather than on the sidelines. Weis pointed out in his press conference that this is something he's considering doing on a permanent basis, but I'm not sure there's ever been a major college head coach who's tried that.

And don't forget this quote from almost exactly one year ago:

"I think that when you're play-calling on offense, you might not necessarily be the best head coach. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to be a better head coach," he said Friday.

Weis decided to move away from play-calling after meeting with his old boss, Bill Belichick, before the Patriots played the New York Giants in the regular-season finale Dec. 29. Weis said he talked more with Belichick about how to be a better coach than about X's and O's.

I can't see Weis staying in the booth as a realistic long-term option, even with his apparent desire to focus almost exclusively on the offense. And even if he does, it's doubtful that it would make that big of a difference on a game-to-game basis.

What will make a difference, though, is this nugget that was buried a little further down in the stories that matriculated out of the press conference.

Weis also announced that defensive coordinator Corwin Brown has been promoted to associate head coach and now will be co-defensive coordinator with linebacker coach Jon Tenuta.

Tenuta, who joined the team last year and helped change Notre Dame's scheme to a more attacking style, will call the defensive plays in 2009.

Tenuta was considered one of the best and most aggressive defensive coordinators in the country during his tenure at Georgia Tech, with his teams finishing in the top 25 in total defense every year he was there (from 2002-07). What was surprising was not Notre Dame's interest in him last offseason -- a lot of teams were seeking his services -- but that he was willing to take a lesser position on the defensive staff under Corwin Brown.

Now, though, with Tenuta calling the plays, the Notre Dame defense suddenly has the brainpower behind it to actually strike fear into opposing offenses. The Irish had 27 sacks last year -- good for 50th nationally -- while Georgia Tech was first in the country with 48 sacks in 2007. Even with somewhat of a discrepancy in pass-rushing talent, the scheme had a lot to do with each of those numbers.

With some young talent in the front seven -- defensive end Ethan Johnson, nose tackle Ian Williams, outside linebacker Steven Filer, freshman defensive tackle Tyler Stockton (an early enrollee) and uber-recruit Manti Te'o -- Weis and the offense might have to carry just a little less of the load, which I think every Notre Dame fan would agree is a good thing.

No nonsense or no sense?

Mike Bellotti, who may or may not be Oregon's coach by the start of the season, is suggesting a couple of key changes to the NCAA rules committee.

Bellotti, the NCAA football rules committee chairman, said Wednesday officials should eject more players for flagrant personal fouls, and agreed to seek input on whether some celebration penalties should be live-ball penalties, which could result in losing points.

While the ejections will be a point of emphasis next season, the celebration recommendation is not even a formal proposal yet.

The part about ejections seems fairly obvious. If you purposefully attempt to injure another player, you should be ejected. There's no question about that.

The celebration part, though, ventures into a bit of a gray area.

Bellotti said the change was not likely to take affect for at least two years, and even if approved would likely apply only to players who begin taunting opponents before crossing the goal line. The penalty would be assessed from the spot of the foul, like offensive holding calls in college football. Teams would not be penalized, Bellotti said, for a group celebration after the score because the NCAA wants to emphasize the team concept, not individuals.

I like the elimination of penalties for team celebrations -- if a guy can't celebrate a touchdown with his teammates, how is he supposed to celebrate? College football is still a game played mostly on emotion, and it's ridiculous to think that it can be cut off as soon as the whistle blows.

The other part, though, seems like a typical NCAA proposal: Good in theory, not so good in practice.

In no way do I condone taunting, but there are a whole lot of situations that are borderline in that regard. Pointing at an opponent as you go into the endzone certainly qualifies, and the idea of treating it the same as a typical holding or illegal formation penalty seems reasonable. But what about a backflip or a dive over the goal line? What about high-stepping?

Think of some of the ticky-tack "unsportsmanlike conduct" calls you've seen over the last few years and consider that under Bellotti's proposal, those would have resulted in the reversal of a touchdown.

The idea itself is fine, but if it's instituted, there needs to be a clear definition of what constitutes taunting -- and, most importantly, the officials need to stick with it.

Not yet

I won't do it. With one of my general rules as a writer being not to humiliate myself, I refuse to put up a "way too early" top 25 for next season -- I'll start in on something along those lines after spring practices.

You've probably seen all these rankings -- most of which came out immediately following the national title game --on various other sites, but I think we all know that by acknowledging the "way too early" part, the writers are admitting the general stupidity of attempting such an endeavor.

Their only real benefit is providing the general public with a vague idea of which teams have the most talent coming back from last season, while not accounting at all for incoming recruits, position battles that have yet to be decided, etc.

I lend a little more credence, though, to the ones from nationally recognized writers and organizations -- ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Rivals -- because those tend to provide a pretty good point of reference for what the national media think of certain players and teams.

The elite teams are usually pretty easy to identify. This fall, it'll be Florida, Texas, USC and Oklahoma (probably in something close to that order) at the top of the polls. Further down in the top 10 -- and even more so in the top 25 -- it gets a little sketchier.

One team at the rear of most of these rankings ... well, let's see if you can identify it based on these numbers from last season:

• Rushing offense - 77
• Passing offense - 62
• Pass efficiency - 85
• Total offense - 74
• Scoring offense - 62
• Rushing defense - 67
• Passing defense - 69
• Pass efficiency defense - 37
• Total defense - 58
• Scoring defense - 41
• Turnover margin - 49

With numbers that poor, it must be a talented team -- maybe a Florida State or Miami -- that simply underperformed last year, right?

Wrong. Those numbers belong to Michigan State.

The statistics themselves aren't surprising -- they're about what you'd expect for a mediocre team that played a weak schedule but was obliterated by the two excellent teams it played (Ohio State and Penn State) and lost to the only two other teams that could be considered good (Cal and Georgia).

But the Spartans seem to be getting a surprising amount of love from the media, showing up in the top 25 or in the "honorable mention" section of the pre-preseason rankings by Rivals, Mark Schlabach at ESPN, Stewart Mandel at Sports Illustrated ...

All this for a team that was 9-4, lost the star running back (Javon Ringer) who accounted for over 87% of the team's rushing attempts, lost the fifth-year senior QB who saw pretty much every meaningful snap the last two seasons and lost the right side of its offensive line -- and those are just the offensive departures.

On defense, linemen Brandon Long and Justin Kershaw are gone, as are all-conference safety Otis Wiley (probably the best player on the unit) and nickel corner Kendell Davis-Clark.

Sack leader Trevor Anderson returns, and the linebacking corps is young and fairly talented ... and I guess the receivers should be good, assuming Mark Dantonio can find a quarterback (the favorite appears to be redshirt sophomore Kirk Cousins).

I don't know, I just don't see this as a top-25 team. Pretty much the only thing the Spartans really have going for them is a relatively easy schedule -- they don't have to play Ohio State (Illinois takes the Buckeyes' place in conference play), and Cal is replaced in the nonconference portion of the schedule by Western Michigan.

But assuming that these rankings are mostly an analysis of returning talent, including a team in the top 25 because of a weak schedule seems a little strange.

A few other notable oddities:

* Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury-News has Mississippi ranked fifth and Oklahoma State sixth -- and that's a drop for the Cowboys, who were second in his rankings before Sam Bradford announced his return to Oklahoma. The Cowboys are also ranked fourth by Joe Person at The State (Columbia, S.C.). Zac Robinson, Kendall Hunter and Dez Bryant give Oklahoma State one of the best offensive trios in the country -- maybe the best -- but those rankings are still a little shocking to see in print.

* Bruce Feldman at ESPN has Oregon fourth -- well ahead of USC -- and Mississippi sixth. In fact, Ole Miss is in the top five in two other rankings and in the top 16 in every significant one I've found so far. Granted, the Rebels were very strong late in the season -- they won their final six games, including impressive victories over LSU and Texas Tech. They also were the only team to beat Florida. However, let's not forget that this team lost to Wake Forest, Vanderbilt and South Carolina (as well as Alabama) and loses its best lineman on each side of the ball (Michael Oher and Peria Jerry)

* Alabama is ranked fourth by Dennis Dodd of CBS, Matt Hayes of Sporting News and Tony Barnhart of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The defense should be very good, but I have big-time concerns about the offense after what Utah was able to do in the Sugar Bowl with Andre Smith suspended. Smith is now gone, as are guard Marlon Davis, center Antoine Caldwell, running back Glen Coffee and quarterback John Parker Wilson. Julio Jones and the stable of talented young running backs will make some big plays, but I don't think the offense will be good enough to justify a top-five ranking.

Bryce Brown has a handler

If you follow recruiting closely (or much at all), you're probably somewhat familiar with Bryce Brown. He's a running back out of Wichita, Kan., who happens to be the top-rated player in the country, according to Rivals.

Brown has had kind of a wacky recruitment -- after committing to Miami last year, he apparently reconsidered and chose to delay his decision beyond Signing Day. He is now scheduled to make an official announcement on March 22, and at least one more official visit (to Tennessee) is on his itinerary between now and then.

Brown's older brother, Arthur, was a five-star linebacker last year who ended up at Miami. During his commitment, a guy named Brian Butler appeared on the scene as the brothers' "manager."

Butler has since become prominent in the Midwest as an organizer of high school camps, spokesman for various recruits and a personal trainer (although at 5-foot-8, 350 pounds, Butler may not be the best guy to go to for health advice).

The New York Times recently did a little research on Butler and uncovered some interesting tidbits:

In his representation of about 30 players from around Kansas, Butler has upset many local high school coaches. They say he persuades players to skip school-organized summer workouts in favor of his own — an assertion Butler denies. Coach Brian Byers of Wichita East High School said he suspected Butler of telling the Brown brothers to “shut it down” in games once they piled up big statistics.

Additionally, Butler has been selling website subscriptions for information on Brown's recruitment. It probably goes without saying, but this is bad.

“We’ve got to the point where a handler or a street agent starts a Web site to charge money for an update,” said Tom Luginbill, the national recruiting director for ESPN and Scouts Inc. “I’m not in line with that. I think that is a precedent that could become very scary and very ugly.”

Bryce Brown, who graduated from Wichita East a semester early, said he did not mind that Butler was trying to profit from their relationship.

“If there’s anybody that needs to be making money off of me, it needs to be the person that’s put the time in,” he said.

I think the worst part is that Brown realizes he's being exploited, and he doesn't even care becuase of his twisted understanding of loyalty.

Butler's version of the story, of course, is that he's just trying to help these kids out. But we all know what's really going on -- the coaches certainly know:

Many coaches in the city of Wichita have discouraged or prohibited Butler from training their players, and Butler acknowledges that most of his business comes from the suburbs.

If Butler was truly making these players better through training while helping them land scholarships -- which would also help promote the high school -- don't you think the coaches would be a little more cooperative?

The reasoning for this "discouragement" quickly becomes even more obvious a little further into the article in regard to the recruitment of a running back named Huldon Tharp.

Tharp's coach, Dave Fennewald, was attempting to help him land a scholarship by sending out tapes, calling college coaches, etc. But when Butler told him that Tharp had been offered a scholarship by Miami, he was "very surprised."

Tharp said he never knew Miami was recruiting him as a fullback. Late Tuesday night, Tharp said that he never received a written scholarship offer from Miami. He said he “was just talking to them.”

Asked if Butler told him that he was going to tell people that he had a Miami scholarship offer that did not technically exist, Tharp said, “Yeah.”

Late Tuesday night, Butler said he spoke to a Miami assistant, who told him that he had verbally offered a scholarship to Tharp. “There’s not a problem,” Butler said, adding, “It’s a 100 percent fact that he was verbally offered.”

Miami officials confirmed twice late Tuesday that they did not offer Tharp a scholarship.

It's one thing to push and prod a little to help a guy find a place on a D-I roster, but it's quite another to flat-out lie in an attempt to gain publicity. Butler has also had the requisite "unsuccessful business ventures," including a failed career as a rapper, a forgery conviction in 1997 and a warrant for unpaid state taxes this year.

This has been a problem for years in college basketball -- players have "handlers" or "mentors" who leach onto them at the first sign of success and exploit them to land jobs with colleges or camps, where they can hook up with even more talent in an effort to ride someone's coattails to fame and riches.

College football has been remarkably free of these guys, but unfortunately, it appears that those days are coming to an end.

News and notes

* Former Penn State quarterback Pat Devlin, a highly sought-after recruit in 2006, has transferred to Delaware. This isn't too surprising considering Daryll Clark's stranglehold on the QB job, but keep in mind that Devlin stepped in and led the Nittany Lions' winning touchdown drive against Ohio State last season. Devlin was obviously concerned about a lack of playing time, especially with the secural of top QB recruit Kevin Newsome as Clark's heir apparent. He'll have two years left to wear the coolest uniform in the FCS.

* Maryland joined the coach-in-waiting party by naming offensive coordinator James Franklin as the successor to Ralph Freidgen. Freidgen has three years remaining on his contract -- although his weight might have a say in how long he actually coaches -- but Franklin is only 37, so he's got plenty of time. He's only been Maryland's O-coordinator for the past year, but he held the same position at Kansas State for two years before that and was recruiting coordinator at Maryland in 2003 and 2004. His career path demonstrates a fast track to a college head coaching job, and considering his relative youth, the Terps seem to have done well in locking him up.

* Tony Franklin, who was fired after six games as Auburn's offensive coordinator last season, was hired Thursday as O-coordinator by Middle Tennessee State. Franklin was very successful in his two years at Troy, when he was actually able to run his version of the pass-happy Air Raid offense (as opposed to his tenure at Auburn, where nobody's quite sure what was going on). Assuming Middle Tennessee State gives him that freedom again, there's no reason he shouldn't be able to replicate the success he had in 2006 and 2007.

* LSU defensive tackle Charles Alexander was granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA. Alexander has had an injury-plagued career, but he started six games in 2006 and eight games last season and will be the most experienced player on an otherwise young defensive line. He's technically the only returning starter as well, but don't feel too sorry for LSU. With Al Woods and Drake Nevis competing for the other starting job at defensive tackle and '08 sack leader Rahim Allen taking over at one end spot -- not to mention redshirt junior Lazarius Levingston trying to hold off youngsters Sidell Corley and Chancey Aghayere for playing time -- this will still be a ridiculously talented unit.

* Miami hired Philadelphia Eagles "offensive assistant" Mark Whipple as offensive coordinator. Whipple has spent most of his career as a college head coach -- at New Haven, Brown and UMass -- and his offensive numbers have been pretty impressive everywhere he's been. I won't go through all the statistics, but suffice it to say that he likes to throw the ball -- not in a Texas Tech way, but in a West Coast-ish type of way, probably closer to what you've seen with the Eagles. Smart Football points out that Whipple's career has been in neutral since his national title at UMass in 1998 -- his teams tailed off and he was eventually hired by the Pittsburgh Steelers as quarterbacks coach, then fired, then hired by Andy Reid as an offensive assistant. But assuming that he has a pulse and that at least some of the widespread praise is accurate, this will be a clear step up from Patrick Nix, who oversaw offenses ranked 110th and 89th in total yards his two-year tenure. Whipple, by the way, is not related to this guy.

* In one of the strangest Signing Day announcements in the history of bizarre announcements, three-star linebacker Kalial Glaud flipped a coin to decide between Rutgers and West Virginia. The coin came up tails, and Glaud committed to Rutgers. Seriously.

Hooray for mismatches

Michigan filled the final opening in its 2009 schedule on Friday with a game against Delaware State on Oct. 17. Delaware State, by the way, is a historically black college in the FCS that finished 5-6 last season.

You're probably expecting the typical complaint here about the OUTRAGE of scheduling an FCS opponent and the indignity of it all, but here's my dirty little secret: As a Michigan fan, I wanted the worst possible opponent to fill that opening.

Here's the thing: Rich Rodriguez is entering a crucial year, with many fans furious over the team's 3-9 record last season. He isn't in danger of being fired, even if he finishes with another losing record -- the school invested a ton of money into buying him out of his contract with West Virginia, and athletic director Bill Martin has no interest in conducting another coaching search -- but there's a lot to be said for positive momentum, both on the field and among the fans and media.

The schedule isn't particularly difficult next year ...

... so I don't think Michigan will struggle to reach a bowl game, but you never know. Utah didn't look like such a tough opponent heading into last season, but I'll bet that in hindsight, Martin is wishing he'd gone out and scheduled Michigan Tech instead.

And for all the criticism about scheduling, I don't think people always realize that finding an opponent in real life is nothing like picking your opponents in NCAA Football 09. Michigan's administration has admitted that it doesn't want to lock itself into another home-and-home series besides Notre Dame, so the top-tier options are all but eliminated. And with a lot of non-BCS schools looking to soften their schedules in an effort to get bowl-eligible, there aren't a whole lot of teams jumping at the chance to travel to the Big House.

Martin had this to say in his official statement:

"It's very difficult to line up an opponent this late in the process and we appreciate the efforts made by each institution that we spoke with."

Delaware State obviously wasn't the first choice, but at the end of the day, it might be the best. No one will remember after the season that a win over an FCS school was part of Michigan's resurgence, just like nobody remembers that Florida hammered The Citadel, Alabama routed Western Kentucky and Texas Tech beat two FCS opponents last year.

In a few years, I'll be back to whining about the lack of a premier nonconference game other than the annual tradition-fest against Notre Dame. For now, though, I'll take wins wherever they're available.

On a mostly unrelated note, if you're not familiar with the long-standing feud between Delaware State and Delaware, which refuses to play its in-state counterpart, check out this 2007 article by ESPN.com writer and Delaware alum Jeff Pearlman. It'll make you appreciate some of the great rivalries in college sports.