More of the same

I'm probably in the vast minority here, but I'm having a hard time getting worked up anymore about the stupid things Lane Kiffin does (ooh, a Twitter controversy!!!). Not because he's stopped doing stupid things, of course -- he hasn't -- but because it's starting to feel like throwing a twig into a bonfire. What's the point?

So I'll go the other direction and give him some credit for not discriminating in his ability to generate anger. It's no surprise that Florida fans and the rest of the SEC hate him -- they hate everybody -- but when you can generate the same feelings within your own locker room ... as Ron Burgundy would say, that's amazing.

With new Volunteers strength coach Mark Smith leaving the program due to some undisclosed issues that "had been brewing for some time," Kiffin has now seen the departure of an assistant coach and a whopping 11 scholarship players. I should clarify here and point out that there may well be additional reasons beyond Kiffin's pure evil for those players' departure -- I don't feel like researching the background of each one -- but I can say from personal experience that this presents more of a problem than anything Kiffin has done or said so far.

I'm not referring to the long-term concern of whether players actually like Kiffin; if he wins, they'll like him. What I'm talking about is the numbers issue, and the fact that the loss of 11 scholarship players simply can't be accounted for when it comes to depth.

Watching Michigan last year, it was painfully evident that any chance the offense had at being good (after the graduation/early exit of six starters) was taken away when players continued to defect for various reasons. It was bad enough when the season began with a former defensive tackle starting on the offensive line and a walk-on starting at QB, but things became much worse when a number of players proved ineffective or were injured, because there was absolutely nobody behind most of those guys.

Significant roster turnover has become fairly commonplace after a coaching change and shouldn't by itself be considered an indictment of what Kiffin is doing. Tennessee might even be fortunate enough to avoid those issues, of course (although they probably won't if karma has any say). But Kiffin's attention-grabbing schtick, which is disturbingly pleasing to Volunteers athletic director Mike Hamilton ...

"When you think about the fact that our football program was 5-7 last year, and we've got a coach that's not coached a game yet in college football, but yet we're on the front page of USA Today sports ... it's really quite amazing."

... probably won't go over quite as well if his debut season goes anything like Rich Rodriguez's.

Turn back the clock

I'm a sucker for tradition. I'm sure part of that is due to growing up in the Midwest and watching Michigan, Notre Dame, etc., but there's also a part of me that just hates the way everything now is catered to the dregs of society.

I don't need "MAKE NOISE!!!" videos and halftime extravaganzas -- I'm perfectly happy enjoying the natural atmosphere of the game and maybe some entertainment from the marching bands (excuse me while I yell at some kids to get off my lawn).

However ... I have to admit that I've enjoyed watching the Red Wings play the Blackhawks at Wrigley Field and the NFL play games in London and Mexico City, if for no other reason than the knowledge that I'm seeing something that's never been done before. Traditions and rivalries are borne of the teams involved and the history between them, not the field the game is played on. Seeing a traditional matchup in an untraditional place doesn't make it any less interesting.

How does this relate to college football? According to the New York Times, the Yankees are interested in bringing football to old Yankee Stadium in an homage to some of the historic events it hosted many decades ago (or possibly as just a way to milk a little extra money out of a now-useless baseball stadium).

As cynical as I am about the motivations, this probably shouldn't excite me -- but it does. And despite my general loathing of Notre Dame's ability to market itself far better than it has any right to*, I'm even more excited that one of the initial proposals for a game in New York includes Notre Dame taking on Army in 2013, exactly 100 years since the game between those schools that revolutionized the forward pass.

Let's be realistic: Barring the return of Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside, Army won't be putting up much of a fight against Notre Dame anytime soon. But a game between two old-school powers at an old-school venue would be pretty damn cool. I would tune in just for the experience, and I think a lot of casual fans would, too.

* Note to Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick: Feel free to schedule a future "home" game against Michigan in Detroit, Ann Arbor or anywhere else that will provide you less of an advantage than South Bend. Thanks.

WTF is going on at Kansas State?

One of the oddest coaching moves of the offseason was Kansas State's decision to resurrect Bill Snyder from the dead and bring him back as coach in hopes that he can once again make the Wildcats relevant.

Ron Prince, who was never a particularly exciting hire, was cast aside with a buyout for $1.2 million and an undetermined amount of "longevity" money (probably not much since he was only at KSU for three years). This seemed like a fairly standard agreement, and Prince has since gone back to Virginia (where he was previously a coordinator) as a special-teams coach.

But to say that things have suddenly gotten weird would be an understatement. The school has sued Prince over an additional $3.2 million in deferred compensation included in a contract that was signed on the same day as his 2008 contract extension -- agreed to with former AD Bob Krause -- that would have paid him about $1 million every other year from 2015-2020 if he were to be fired without cause.

The issue isn't whether the agreement exists -- it's that the school claims it had no idea the deferred compensation was agreed to and that it was never approved by the administration. Kansas State president Jon Wefald explained the lawsuit by saying that "we do regard this secret agreement as null and void.”

Huh? Why in the world would an athletic director try to conceal the terms of a coach's buyout (if he did indeed to try to conceal them)? And if he wasn't trying to conceal them, why was the deal signed in a separate contract from the three-year extension the school had already approved? Very odd.

On the other hand, while I'm no lawyer, I have a hard time believing that the "oops we didn't know about that part" argument is gonna fly. A school official (the athletic director) signed off on a deal with someone under his authority (a coach), and unless there is some explicit requirement that a high-level administrator give his approval, I don't see what course of action Kansas State can take other than go after Krause to try to find out what the hell he was doing.

There are a lot of unanswered questions here; all I know is that there are some serious issues in the K-State athletic department.

Purdue feeling Marve-lous

After a few weeks of waffling between Purdue and Tennessee, former Miami QB Robert Marve is set to announce that he'll become a Boilermaker, according to ESPN.

As I mentioned a few weeks back, given Purdue's dire situation at quarterback (senior Joey Elliott and pretty much nobody else), Marve is all but assured the starting spot when he's eligible to play again in 2010.

In a vacuum, Tennessee probably would've been the better choice -- the QB situation isn't much better, but the tradition and national exposure certainly are. The problem was that because Miami wouldn't release Marve from his scholarship if he transferred to Tennessee, LSU or another school within Florida (apparently because of accusations of tampering), he would have had to pay his own way for a year with the Volunteers. And as anyone who's ever paid their own way through college can tell you, that's not such an attractive option when there's a scholarship on the table.

But if Marve chose Purdue in order to play under new head coach Danny Hope in the Joe Tiller-developed passing offense, I have to question that decision (although based on his high school photograph above, it seems entirely likely that he simply really likes black-and-gold uniforms and helmets with a big "P" on the side).

It's worth noting that since Drew Brees graduated in 2000, Purdue's production at the QB position has been less than impressive. I believe pass efficiency is the most accurate measuring stick of a quarterback's success, so let's go to the numbers:

2008: 76th (Curtis Painter)
2007: 46th (Painter)
2006: 45th (Painter)
2005: 96th (Painter)
2004: 10th (Kyle Orton)
2003: 52nd (Orton)
2002: 41st (Orton)
2001: 95th (Brandon Hance)

Not what you expected, right? Kyle Orton had a good senior season and had impressive peripheral numbers as a junior, but he never duplicated Brees' overall success, especially in the wins column. And after Orton, we're left with Curtis Painter -- who Mel Kiper had a man-crush on as a junior, even if the statistics didn't justify that level of praise -- and one-year starter Brandon Hance, who was clearly not good in his shot at glory.

But there's a bigger problem for Purdue, one that might not stand out on a week-to-week basis but that has to be a long-term concern for Hope. Since the Rose Bowl appearance in Brees' senior season, the Boilermakers haven't beaten either of the top two teams in the final conference standings in any season, nor have they scored more than 21 points in any of those games (the lone exception being a 31-28 road loss to Iowa in 2002). If you're going to build your team around a high-octane offense, that offense had better show up in the biggest games.

The million-dollar question is whether those struggles are due to a drop-off in QB play, a drop-off in overall talent or the rest of the conference adjusting to a spread passing attack that's no longer unique. If it's the former, Marve could be the solution. But if it's not ...

I don't mean this to be an indictment of Marve, necessarily. Let me reiterate here that he is talented -- he was considered a top-10 QB nationally coming out of high school, and even in an abysmal offense at Miami, it says something that he was able to win the starting job as a redshirt freshman.

But it'll be interesting to see how he performs. Considering that Marve is one of the highest-rated QB recruits Purdue has ever landed, if the not-so-encouraging offensive trend continues against Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan, I think we can safely draw the conclusion that Purdue simply will never return to its Brees-era glory days and probably can't be expected to compete for a conference title.

Catching up: Syracuse still doesn't matter

* Greg Paulus is officially a Syracuse Orange-man/guy/player/entity (I refuse to call a player an Orange). Brian Bennett, an ESPN blogger, had an interesting take on Paulus' decision, basically saying that regardless of the impact Paulus has on the field, he has at least thrust Syracuse back into the collective national consciousness (if only for five minutes). He's right in a sense: Syracuse can use all the positive attention it can get, because it hasn't been relevant in years. But I highly doubt that Paulus' mere presence on the roster is going to inspire the next Donovan McNabb, Marvin Harrison or Dwight Freeney to head to Syracuse for four years of bad football in a cold-weather city in a mediocre conference. And without a massive influx of talent, even the best coach in the country -- which Doug Marrone probably isn't -- wouldn't be able to make the Orange respectable again at a national level.

* With all the changes at Boston College this offseason, it had to be especially disappointing for new coach Frank Spaziani to find out that outside linebacker Mark Herzlich, last season's ACC defensive player of the year and the heart of the Eagles defense, is battling a rare form of cancer in his left leg. The status of his football career is uncertain, although that's probably low on his lost of priorities at this point. Best of luck to him.

* A disastrous offseason at Pitt somehow continues to get worse, as senior middle linebacker Adam Gunn has been suspended after an arrest on a charge of public drunkenness and various other offenses. I don't even know what else to say about Pitt except that I'm actually starting to feel sorry for Dave Wannstedt, and I never thought that was possible prior to the last four months. Even in a wide-open Big East, it's hard to see the Panthers making much of a run.

* Former five-star recruit Kevin Grady, who's now buried on Michigan's depth chart at running back, apparently has serious difficulty following directions. After passing out behind the wheel last July and blowing an incredible 0.24, Grady is now serving seven days in jail after a court came to this determination:

Court officials said he failed to properly report to probation agents in Ann Arbor, failed to complete a victim impact panel and alcohol highway safety education class, failed to complete 24 hours of community service and tested positive for opiates, a type of pain killer.

Nice. Grady was in Lloyd Carr's doghouse on a handful of occasions and had already been given a second chance by Rich Rodriguez after his first arrest, so I'll be surprised if he's still on the team come fall practice.

There's no "O" in Pitt

Who'd have ever thought Dave Wannstedt would yearn for the good ol' days of 2008? It's hard to believe, but the way things are going at Pitt right now, the offense next season will have a hard time approaching even the mediocre performance of last year (LeSean McCoy excepted).

It was only about two weeks ago when I wrote this piece following the dismissal of receiver T.J. Porter:

... with LeSean McCoy and LaRod Stephens-Howling now in the NFL, Pitt desperately needs the passing game to step it up this year in order to have any semblance of an offense. With fifth-year senior Bill Stull at QB, stud sophomore Jonathan Baldwin and senior Oderick Turner at receiver and the talented Nate
Byham at tight end, the pieces are in place ...

Yeah, those pieces aren't exactly coming together. It was announced on Sunday that Baldwin, probably the most talented player on the team, has been charged with misdemeanor indecent assault, summary harassment and summary disorderly conduct after an alleged incident with a woman on a bus.

I never want to jump to conclusions, but a suspension -- at the minimum -- seems likely. Wannstedt obviously "wasn't available for comment on the matter," presumably because he was busy punching himself in the face and trying to figure out if Larry Fitzgerald has any eligibility remaining.

Don't mess with Texas Tech

Texas and Oklahoma will probably always be the big dogs in the Big 12 South, but Texas Tech has established itself a nice little niche, consistently positioned for a middle-tier bowl game and occasionally (as in 2008) nipping at the heels of a BCS bid.

The conventional wisdom says that in an offense so reliant on the passing game, a talented -- and preferably experienced -- quarterback is necessary to maintain that success, so a "rebuilding" year would seem to be in store after the loss of Graham Harrell.

But there's a question that seems worth asking in regard to Mike Leach's air-it-out attack: Does it matter who takes the snaps?

Survey says ...

2000-02: Kliff Kingsbury (averaged 65.6%, 3,792 yards, 30 TD, 12 INT, 7.66 wins)
2003: B.J. Symons (65.4%, 5,833 yards, 52 TD, 22 INT, 8 wins)
2004: Sonny Cumbie (65.6%, 4,742 yards, 32 TD, 18 INT, 8 wins)
2005: Cody Hodges (66.5%, 4,238 yards, 31 TD, 12 INT, 9 wins)
2006-08: Graham Harrell (averaged 69.9%, 5,124 yards, 44 TD, 11 INT, 9.5 wins)

... not so much. The five Red Raider quarterbacks in the Leach era, three of whom had only one season as a starter, all put up remarkably impressive and similar numbers in nearly every area, from completion percentage to touchdowns to yards to wins (Symons' season was somewhat of an anomaly because of a jump in attempts). Throwing out the idea that Leach has a cloning lab somewhere in the dusty unknown outside Lubbock, I think the logical conclusion from those numbers is that the system is damn near foolproof.

What does that mean for this season? Well, it DOESN'T mean that you should expect a tie for first in the division every year -- don't forget that a lot of things had to go right for Tech to beat Texas last year, and the departure of Michael Crabtree won't go unnoticed.

But if you had drastically lowered your expectations based on the loss of Harrell or the lack of starting inexperience for redshirt junior and heir apparent QB Taylor Potts, you should probably reconsider.