Talking points: Kiffin is the Anti-Dale Carnegie edition

by Joel on Jan 27, 2009 7:43 AM EST in Rocky Top Talking Points Comment 11 comments

Tennessee

Lane Kiffin on How to Make Enemies and Irritate People. Woo!
Recruiting update. The Coaching Chimera was in Louisiana Monday making its final pitch to five-star DB Janzen Jackson. Preliminary result? Still committed to LSU, but he hasn't "canceled" Tennessee out yet. Basically the same story with Marsalis Teague, except he's committed to Florida and entertaining overtures from the Chimera. Marlon Brown visited Florida last weekend, who "definitely moved up" in Brown's mind. Still, he "cannot wait" for his visit to Rocky Top this weekend. Florida WR James Green? Still committed to Tennessee.
Bruce Pearl is calling this week's games against LSU and Florida a "crucial, crucial week." College GameDay will be here for the Florida game, so bring your own your woos. Home has not been quite as sweet recently for the Vols, though, with Tennessee losing more games in Thompson-Boling in three weeks (Gonzaga, Kentucky, Memphis) than they lost in the past three years.
Pearl, on the latest manipulations of the big orange balloon: "I've never played this slow, but I've never had a team that was as big and couldn't get out and extend defensively. While we've found a remedy defensively, it's hurt our offense.'' Chest bump to Inside Tennessee, who says that's like Mike Leach switching to the wishbone.
Partial transcript of a Sports Animal interview with Mike Hamilton. I think this guy knows what he's doing.

SEC

Alabama basketball coach Mark Gottfried has gotten himself fried. Georgia basketball coach Dennis Felton is still feeling the effects of last year's improbable run in the SEC Tournament and has thus far avoided the frying.

Nation

The Mountain West Conference (you, Utah, TCU, BYU et al?) is pushing for an automatic berth into the BCS.
Duke replaces Wake Forest as the No. 1 team in college basketball.

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Quick thoughts:

1) The MWC’s proposal is obviously going to get defeated, but I don’t think they ever planned on winning it anyhow. I believe this move is done for two reasons: to further the conference’s status as a serious BCS and future-major-player hopeful – particularly for recruiting purposes; and to lay the groundwork for subsequent pushes for inclusion in the BCS. Assuming the bowl system lasts through the next round of negotiations, look for the MWC to go all-out at that time.

2) Recruit stalking has been very entertaining this week. Scout, at the moment, has us at #13 with 19 commits and Rivals has us at #15 with 18 commits. Naturally, those numbers are worth very little as UT and the other teams watch recruits come and go with the breeze over the next few weeks. Still, that’s a much better position than we anticipated a day or two after the Wyoming game.

3) The GVX news coverage has really picked up over the last month. Now that the sports programs are generating beat reporter-based news, they’ve picked up their game. As much as people bag them for fluff articles, it’s a nice change and worth a mention.

by Hooper on Jan 27, 2009 10:06 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Would Mike Leach would recruit kids who would require him to change his philosophy?

Somehow I doubt it, but I don’t have an account at that site so I don’t know how Inside Tennessee is making that comparison.

by wvvol on Jan 27, 2009 11:22 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Mountain West

It’s obviously the elite non-BCS conference and showed such in their bowl games, but the WAC with Boise State and Hawaii could also make such a pitch. The BCS won’t happen this time around, but the attention to the schools and the conference makes recruiting that much easier, especailly for the lesser knowns of the conference. Some BCS attention will allow them to make a stronger pitch and thus, land better recruits. Good tactical move by the Presidents and AD’s of these schools.

Paging Scotty Hopson!

by Volorado on Jan 27, 2009 12:14 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

The timing is pretty good, too.

Odds are this proposal won’t be rejected until after NSD. Even though the recruits have to know that this won’t go anywhere, it’s good to plant in their mind that the MWC fully intends on being an “elite” conference.

I’ll have to see if I can track it down, but Craig Thompson (the MWC commissioner) has said that there’s very little chance they’ll invite Boise State into the conference. They like having 9 teams and playing 4 home / 4 away against the entire conference every year. When it comes to writing schedules, that’s a terrific symmetry, even if it does preclude a conference championship game. I don’t see them booting a school in favor of Boise State either; the MWC itself was founded by all the historic WAC teams that got tired of the superconference idea and decided they like playing each other more. Those old “rivalries” (for lack of a better term) really do resonate well within the region and help keep game attendances up. Booting SDSU in favor of BSU would be the most likely option, but that also removes a school from the Southern Cal recruiting area – a move they’re very unwilling to do.

And yes, I’m a MWC homer.

by Hooper on Jan 27, 2009 12:40 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Really? We had no idea. ;)

Although to be honest, I don’t know why they wouldn’t look at the Pac-10 for a model on how to operate a 10-team conference. Yeah, you’ll have weird home-road splits each year, but that’ll balance out. Adding a Boise State to their portfolio would be huge.

by Graysnail on Jan 28, 2009 8:16 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I'd love to see BSU get added.

The Boise State president hasn’t exactly been quiet about the idea, either. If the MWC ever did offer BSU, they’d have an in-principle agreement worked out before the press even had a chance to break the news. I understand why the MWC is so skittish about it, though. The teams in the MWC are all the teams that used to be the WAC before the WAC expanded to that 16-team “superconference” fiasco. Now that they’re back to the good old days, they’re reluctant to do anything that heads in that direction again.

by Hooper on Jan 28, 2009 8:45 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

That and there's no incentive for the BCS to add another conference even if the MWC did pick up BSU.

I think that if an existing major conference continues to bite it, then a domino effect becomes a real possibility; say the ACC starts (okay, keeps) tanking and the MWC / Boise State end up with at least one top 5 – top 10 team each year for the next few years. If that happens, I could see something like:
- BCS questions the ACC’s credibility
- MWC picks up Boise State
- MWC applies to the BCS looking to take the place of the ACC
This way they’d have the raw stats and BCS appearances to back it up; as of now, MWC + BSU is 3-0 in BCS games, so it’s not like they haven’t failed to bring it.

Secondary point: how well has the ACC / Big East traveled to games, anyway? There’s a financial aspect that we’re not considering here, and quite frankly if it can be proven that MWC will travel at least as well as ACC, that’s a huge benefit.

by Graysnail on Jan 28, 2009 1:22 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

As far as travel is concerned:

Utah, BYU, TCU and Boise State all travel very well. Colorado State would as well, if they ever get back on top. Wyoming does their best, but there’s a definite upper limit in effect and it’s not impressive. Air Force is like any academy; they might not have to do much traveling, given their extensive base of military members/ex-members/retirees. Not so sure about the rest.

So, as long as the bigger names stay on top, the argument will get stronger. The worst case would be for Wyoming or New Mexico to run the table and land in the top 10; there’s no way for those fanbases to fill the Rose Bowl or something equivalent. Not that they wouldn’t try.

by Hooper on Jan 28, 2009 1:39 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Well, I figured Wyoming wouldn't travel well...

But I was talking about teams who might actually make the BCS. :) At the end of the day, you need a few fanbases that are solidly committing to travel; that’s all most conferences have, as I don’t recall how well Wazzou travels, for example. I don’t think Rutgers travels too well either, but WVU fans are crazy enough to make up for a lot of people.

by Graysnail on Jan 28, 2009 1:50 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs