By Franz Beard
A few thoughts to jump start your Tuesday morning:
“My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.” – Hedley Lamarr from “Blazing Saddles”
A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO BASTE
1. Matt Hayes ranks the SEC football coaches: In his weekly column at Saturday Down South, Matt Hayes ranks the 14 SEC football coaches. He ranks Kirby Smart ahead of Nick Saban. I’m of the opinion when Kirby has won a national championship against an Alabama team playing without its two stud wide receivers, then maybe. Until then. Absolutely not. Curiously, he also has Mark Stoops of Kentucky on his top tier.
Here are the Hayes rankings:
Tier one: 1. Kirby Smart, Georgia; 2. Nick Saban, Alabama; 3. Mark Stoops, Kentucky
Tier two: 4. Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M; 5. Brian Kelly, LSU; 6. Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss; 7. Sam Pittman, Arkansas
Tier three: 8. Mike Leach, Mississippi State; 9. Shane Beamer, South Carolina; 10. Josh Heupel, Tennessee; 11. BILLY NAPIER, FLORIDA
Tier four (hot seats): 12. Brian Harsin, Auburn; 13. Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri; 14. Clark Lea, Vanderbilt
Here is how I rank them: 1. Saban; 2. Smart; 3. Kiffin; 4. Fisher; 5. Stoops; 6. Leach; 7. Kelly; 8. Pittman; 9. NAPIER; 10. Heupel; 11. Beamer; 12. Harsin; 13. Drinkwitz; 14. Lea.
2. Hottie Toddy! Ole Miss is 2-0 at the CWS; Auburn still alive; Stanford his-to-ry:
So much for the NCAA selection committee which had Ole Miss (42-22) as one of the last teams to make it into this year’s tournament. The Rebels are unbeaten in the postseason and they’re 2-0 in Omaha after their crushing 13-5 win over Arkansas (47-21) Monday night. That means no game for the Rebels until Wednesday night as they wait the winner of tonight’s elimination game between Arkansas and Auburn (46-21). Auburn staved off elimination Monday afternoon by erupting for six straight runs to send No. 2 seed Stanford packing, 6-2.
Ole Miss hammered seven Arkansas pitchers for 13 hits including Tim Elko’s 23rd, a 2-run homer in the top of the second, and a 2-run homer from No. 9 hitter Calvin Harris, a 2-run shot in the fifth. Harris also had two doubles. Leadoff hitter Justin Bench had a 4-hit day.
Freshman Hunter Elliott (5-3) got the win, giving up three runs and six hits in 6-1/3 innings.
For five innings Auburn seemed as if it was on the verge of elimination, but the Tigers pushed across four runs in the top of the sixth, scoring three on a bases-clearing double by Cole Foster to take command of the game. When Stanford threatened to rally in the seventh, Auburn brought on stopper Blake Burkhalter, who struck out five of the eight batters he faced to pick up his 16th save of the season.
Auburn’s win assures that the SEC will have at least one team making it to the championship final.
In Tuesday’s other elimination game, 5th-seeded Texas A&M (46-19) will face Notre Dame with the winner moving on to face unbeaten Oklahoma on Wednesday. Five of the six teams still standing in Omaha are either currently in the SEC or soon to be joining.
3. Still not sold on Brian Kelly at LSU: Yes, I know the argument. If Coach O can win a national championship at LSU, then so can Brian Kelly. Brian Kelly won national championships at Grand Valley State in Michigan, won at Central Michigan and Cincinnati, and he made the College Football Playoff at Notre Dame. What do all these schools have in common? They are in the Midwest and none of them play in the SEC. When Notre Dame faced SEC teams in the playoff, the Irish got hosed. That does not give me the warm and fuzzies about Kelly challenging for championships any time soon.
4. Aggie fans will grow impatient if Jimbo doesn’t win the SEC West in the next two years: As much as Aggie fans are loving that Jimbo Fisher has beaten Nick Saban on the field, beaten him on the recruiting trail (with a little help from some gozillionaire friends) and he’s taken on Nick in a verbal war of words, they still want to win championships. They rewrote the original 10-year, $75 million deal. The new one will pay him in excess of $94 million through 2031. Subtract $9.4 million for each year he’s on the job through 2021 to figure out the buyout money, but let’s face it, if the Aggie boosters get super restless in a couple of years, they’ll write the checks without blinking. Remember, only God and the Longhorns have more money than the Aggies. Meanwhile, Jimbo has won the same number of SEC East championships as predecessor Kevin Sumlin. At least Kevin produced a Heisman Trophy winner (Johnny Manziel). Not to be belaboring a point, but the Aggies haven’t won a national championship since 1939 and a conference championship since the 1998 Big 12. Jimbo is 34-14 in four years on the job with one New Year’s Six bowl. Dan Mullen was 34-15. He went to three New Year’s Six bowls.
5. FSU can’t afford to fire Mike Norvell even if he doesn’t win eight games this year: Florida State fans are starting to feel Norvell’s contract runs through 2025 and is set to pay him $4.5 million in 2023, $5 million in each of 2024 and 2025. His buyout is 85 percent of whatever is owed so if FSU has a losing season in 2022, it would cost 85 percent of the $14.5 million left on his contract. FSU doesn’t have $12,325,000 to spare. They’re stuck with Norvell if he doesn’t win.
6. Ole Miss will have the toughest offense to defend in the SEC: The Rebels lost Matt Corral, Jerion Ealy, Snoop Conner, Henry Parrish Jr., Dontario Drummond and Braylon Sanders. Big deal. Lane Kiffin went to the transfer portal and brought in quarterback Jaxon Dart (Southern Cal), running backs Zach Evans (TCU) and Ulysses Bennett (SMU), receivers Jalen Knox (Missouri) and Malik Heath (Mississippi State) and right tackle Mason Brooks (Western Kentucky). Now throw in four returning starters on the offensive line and the single most underrated receiver in the SEC in Jonathan Mingo and you have the makings of an offense that could be every bit as good and maybe better than last year when Ole Miss averaged 492.5 yards and 33.7 points per game. Because the Rebels run the ball so well (217 yards per game and 33 rushing touchdowns last year), they can play defense with their offense by keeping an undermanned defense off the field.
7. I’m not buying the hype for Notre Dame or Southern Cal: Marcus Freeman is the new coach on the block that has the media thinking he’s the guy who’s going to do what Brian Kelly never could do at Notre Dame, which is to actually win a playoff game. He’s breaking in a new quarterback, his best running back has moved on to the NFL and you time his receivers with a sundial. Over on defense he has four returning starters. The Irish will seem to be better than they are because of a pansy schedule. Pencil in losses to Ohio State, BYU and Clemson.
Southern Cal will certainly be better than last year’s 4-8 and Lincoln Riley will make the offense exciting, but who are we fooling? There are only four difficult games on that schedule – Fresno State, at Utah, UCLA and Notre Dame. Like Notre Dame, the Trojans will be better on paper than they are on the field. Riley and the Trojans are going to have a very difficult time winning the Southern Division of the Pac-12. I think both Utah and UCLA are better.
8. The Orlando Magic have the No. 1 draft pick … again: Decisions, decisions, decisions. The Magic are contemplating whether to take Duke’s Paolo Banchero, Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren or Auburn’s Jabari Smith with the first pick in Thursday’s NBA Draft. They could also trade the top pick, which would seem the merciful thing to do since whoever Orlando chooses is destined to get off to a lousy start for his career.
I gave up on the Magic years ago when they drafted Chris Webber but chose to trade him to Golden State on draft day for Penny Hardaway. Then the Magic let Shaq get away to the Los Angeles Lakers where he teamed up with Kobe Bryant to win three championship rings. The Magic are still trying to win their first NBA title. I call it the curse of Shaq. For example, Grant Hill was in the midst of a brilliant NBA career when he signed a free agent deal with the Magic. He spent most of seven seasons with the Magic in the training room and was a shell of his former self in his final six seasons after departing Orlando.
So no matter who the Magic choose Thursday night, I expect him to underwhelm us and for nothing to change. Friends who live in Orlando call them the Tragic. I agree.
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: The NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, has put forward a proposal for changes to the transfer portal that will be sent to the Division I Board of Directors. The Board of Directors will meet on June 3 where the proposal will be discussed. If they like it, they’ll send the proposal to the Division I Council for feedback on July 20. The feedback will be forwarded to the Board of Directors which will vote on August 3.
Confused? You should be, but this is how the NCAA works, which goes a long way toward understanding why it’s time for the football schools to secede and form their own organization. Far too many important issues faced by the NCAA – particularly those involving football, which pays the freight for everything from water ballet to co-ed squamish championships – get caught up in this paper shuffle that goes from one committee to the other.
This is a simple discussion. The current transfer portals aren’t working. We’ve got thousands of kids in the portal, a large portion of which won’t have scholarships when the dust clears. The way the portal is currently designed coaches have to spend nearly as much time re-recruiting their own players as they do recruiting new ones to come in and replace those who will be departing.
The portal isn’t a bad thing. Coaches can leave for a job without having to sit out a year, so why shouldn’t players have the same right? However, things could be simplified if windows were established for players to enter the portal. The American Football Coaches Association has proposed two windows – one that is from the final Sunday of November until the December 15 start of the early signing period; the other from April 15-May 1. Players who wish to transfer would only be allowed to place their name in the portal during that time.
Putting some guidelines like windows to the transfer process should slow things down and in many cases, eliminate that hasty decision made during the season or immediately after National Signing Day. You would think that if the NCAA were really concerned about athletes it would speed up this process by eliminating the paper shuffle that’s going on and get new guidelines in place as quickly as possible. The college football and fall sports season will begin in a matter of weeks.
One other item of note. The NCAA is also said to trying to speed up the infractions process. It’s fairly obvious that the current system isn’t working when you consider that schools like LSU and Kansas (and several others) still haven’t had their day in court for basketball violations that occurred six years ago. It would be interesting for someone to go through each school’s alleged list of crimes to determine which ones would be considered violations now that we have NIL, also known as “Now it’s legal.”
A few thoughts to jump start your Tuesday morning:
“My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.” – Hedley Lamarr from “Blazing Saddles”
A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO BASTE
1. Matt Hayes ranks the SEC football coaches: In his weekly column at Saturday Down South, Matt Hayes ranks the 14 SEC football coaches. He ranks Kirby Smart ahead of Nick Saban. I’m of the opinion when Kirby has won a national championship against an Alabama team playing without its two stud wide receivers, then maybe. Until then. Absolutely not. Curiously, he also has Mark Stoops of Kentucky on his top tier.
Here are the Hayes rankings:
Tier one: 1. Kirby Smart, Georgia; 2. Nick Saban, Alabama; 3. Mark Stoops, Kentucky
Tier two: 4. Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M; 5. Brian Kelly, LSU; 6. Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss; 7. Sam Pittman, Arkansas
Tier three: 8. Mike Leach, Mississippi State; 9. Shane Beamer, South Carolina; 10. Josh Heupel, Tennessee; 11. BILLY NAPIER, FLORIDA
Tier four (hot seats): 12. Brian Harsin, Auburn; 13. Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri; 14. Clark Lea, Vanderbilt
Here is how I rank them: 1. Saban; 2. Smart; 3. Kiffin; 4. Fisher; 5. Stoops; 6. Leach; 7. Kelly; 8. Pittman; 9. NAPIER; 10. Heupel; 11. Beamer; 12. Harsin; 13. Drinkwitz; 14. Lea.
2. Hottie Toddy! Ole Miss is 2-0 at the CWS; Auburn still alive; Stanford his-to-ry:
So much for the NCAA selection committee which had Ole Miss (42-22) as one of the last teams to make it into this year’s tournament. The Rebels are unbeaten in the postseason and they’re 2-0 in Omaha after their crushing 13-5 win over Arkansas (47-21) Monday night. That means no game for the Rebels until Wednesday night as they wait the winner of tonight’s elimination game between Arkansas and Auburn (46-21). Auburn staved off elimination Monday afternoon by erupting for six straight runs to send No. 2 seed Stanford packing, 6-2.
Ole Miss hammered seven Arkansas pitchers for 13 hits including Tim Elko’s 23rd, a 2-run homer in the top of the second, and a 2-run homer from No. 9 hitter Calvin Harris, a 2-run shot in the fifth. Harris also had two doubles. Leadoff hitter Justin Bench had a 4-hit day.
Freshman Hunter Elliott (5-3) got the win, giving up three runs and six hits in 6-1/3 innings.
For five innings Auburn seemed as if it was on the verge of elimination, but the Tigers pushed across four runs in the top of the sixth, scoring three on a bases-clearing double by Cole Foster to take command of the game. When Stanford threatened to rally in the seventh, Auburn brought on stopper Blake Burkhalter, who struck out five of the eight batters he faced to pick up his 16th save of the season.
Auburn’s win assures that the SEC will have at least one team making it to the championship final.
In Tuesday’s other elimination game, 5th-seeded Texas A&M (46-19) will face Notre Dame with the winner moving on to face unbeaten Oklahoma on Wednesday. Five of the six teams still standing in Omaha are either currently in the SEC or soon to be joining.
3. Still not sold on Brian Kelly at LSU: Yes, I know the argument. If Coach O can win a national championship at LSU, then so can Brian Kelly. Brian Kelly won national championships at Grand Valley State in Michigan, won at Central Michigan and Cincinnati, and he made the College Football Playoff at Notre Dame. What do all these schools have in common? They are in the Midwest and none of them play in the SEC. When Notre Dame faced SEC teams in the playoff, the Irish got hosed. That does not give me the warm and fuzzies about Kelly challenging for championships any time soon.
4. Aggie fans will grow impatient if Jimbo doesn’t win the SEC West in the next two years: As much as Aggie fans are loving that Jimbo Fisher has beaten Nick Saban on the field, beaten him on the recruiting trail (with a little help from some gozillionaire friends) and he’s taken on Nick in a verbal war of words, they still want to win championships. They rewrote the original 10-year, $75 million deal. The new one will pay him in excess of $94 million through 2031. Subtract $9.4 million for each year he’s on the job through 2021 to figure out the buyout money, but let’s face it, if the Aggie boosters get super restless in a couple of years, they’ll write the checks without blinking. Remember, only God and the Longhorns have more money than the Aggies. Meanwhile, Jimbo has won the same number of SEC East championships as predecessor Kevin Sumlin. At least Kevin produced a Heisman Trophy winner (Johnny Manziel). Not to be belaboring a point, but the Aggies haven’t won a national championship since 1939 and a conference championship since the 1998 Big 12. Jimbo is 34-14 in four years on the job with one New Year’s Six bowl. Dan Mullen was 34-15. He went to three New Year’s Six bowls.
5. FSU can’t afford to fire Mike Norvell even if he doesn’t win eight games this year: Florida State fans are starting to feel Norvell’s contract runs through 2025 and is set to pay him $4.5 million in 2023, $5 million in each of 2024 and 2025. His buyout is 85 percent of whatever is owed so if FSU has a losing season in 2022, it would cost 85 percent of the $14.5 million left on his contract. FSU doesn’t have $12,325,000 to spare. They’re stuck with Norvell if he doesn’t win.
6. Ole Miss will have the toughest offense to defend in the SEC: The Rebels lost Matt Corral, Jerion Ealy, Snoop Conner, Henry Parrish Jr., Dontario Drummond and Braylon Sanders. Big deal. Lane Kiffin went to the transfer portal and brought in quarterback Jaxon Dart (Southern Cal), running backs Zach Evans (TCU) and Ulysses Bennett (SMU), receivers Jalen Knox (Missouri) and Malik Heath (Mississippi State) and right tackle Mason Brooks (Western Kentucky). Now throw in four returning starters on the offensive line and the single most underrated receiver in the SEC in Jonathan Mingo and you have the makings of an offense that could be every bit as good and maybe better than last year when Ole Miss averaged 492.5 yards and 33.7 points per game. Because the Rebels run the ball so well (217 yards per game and 33 rushing touchdowns last year), they can play defense with their offense by keeping an undermanned defense off the field.
7. I’m not buying the hype for Notre Dame or Southern Cal: Marcus Freeman is the new coach on the block that has the media thinking he’s the guy who’s going to do what Brian Kelly never could do at Notre Dame, which is to actually win a playoff game. He’s breaking in a new quarterback, his best running back has moved on to the NFL and you time his receivers with a sundial. Over on defense he has four returning starters. The Irish will seem to be better than they are because of a pansy schedule. Pencil in losses to Ohio State, BYU and Clemson.
Southern Cal will certainly be better than last year’s 4-8 and Lincoln Riley will make the offense exciting, but who are we fooling? There are only four difficult games on that schedule – Fresno State, at Utah, UCLA and Notre Dame. Like Notre Dame, the Trojans will be better on paper than they are on the field. Riley and the Trojans are going to have a very difficult time winning the Southern Division of the Pac-12. I think both Utah and UCLA are better.
8. The Orlando Magic have the No. 1 draft pick … again: Decisions, decisions, decisions. The Magic are contemplating whether to take Duke’s Paolo Banchero, Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren or Auburn’s Jabari Smith with the first pick in Thursday’s NBA Draft. They could also trade the top pick, which would seem the merciful thing to do since whoever Orlando chooses is destined to get off to a lousy start for his career.
I gave up on the Magic years ago when they drafted Chris Webber but chose to trade him to Golden State on draft day for Penny Hardaway. Then the Magic let Shaq get away to the Los Angeles Lakers where he teamed up with Kobe Bryant to win three championship rings. The Magic are still trying to win their first NBA title. I call it the curse of Shaq. For example, Grant Hill was in the midst of a brilliant NBA career when he signed a free agent deal with the Magic. He spent most of seven seasons with the Magic in the training room and was a shell of his former self in his final six seasons after departing Orlando.
So no matter who the Magic choose Thursday night, I expect him to underwhelm us and for nothing to change. Friends who live in Orlando call them the Tragic. I agree.
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: The NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, has put forward a proposal for changes to the transfer portal that will be sent to the Division I Board of Directors. The Board of Directors will meet on June 3 where the proposal will be discussed. If they like it, they’ll send the proposal to the Division I Council for feedback on July 20. The feedback will be forwarded to the Board of Directors which will vote on August 3.
Confused? You should be, but this is how the NCAA works, which goes a long way toward understanding why it’s time for the football schools to secede and form their own organization. Far too many important issues faced by the NCAA – particularly those involving football, which pays the freight for everything from water ballet to co-ed squamish championships – get caught up in this paper shuffle that goes from one committee to the other.
This is a simple discussion. The current transfer portals aren’t working. We’ve got thousands of kids in the portal, a large portion of which won’t have scholarships when the dust clears. The way the portal is currently designed coaches have to spend nearly as much time re-recruiting their own players as they do recruiting new ones to come in and replace those who will be departing.
The portal isn’t a bad thing. Coaches can leave for a job without having to sit out a year, so why shouldn’t players have the same right? However, things could be simplified if windows were established for players to enter the portal. The American Football Coaches Association has proposed two windows – one that is from the final Sunday of November until the December 15 start of the early signing period; the other from April 15-May 1. Players who wish to transfer would only be allowed to place their name in the portal during that time.
Putting some guidelines like windows to the transfer process should slow things down and in many cases, eliminate that hasty decision made during the season or immediately after National Signing Day. You would think that if the NCAA were really concerned about athletes it would speed up this process by eliminating the paper shuffle that’s going on and get new guidelines in place as quickly as possible. The college football and fall sports season will begin in a matter of weeks.
One other item of note. The NCAA is also said to trying to speed up the infractions process. It’s fairly obvious that the current system isn’t working when you consider that schools like LSU and Kansas (and several others) still haven’t had their day in court for basketball violations that occurred six years ago. It would be interesting for someone to go through each school’s alleged list of crimes to determine which ones would be considered violations now that we have NIL, also known as “Now it’s legal.”
