RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
Tuesday Headlinin': The last day of Tommy Bowden
from Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo! Sports by Matt Hinton
• How are you going to criticize a coach who does everything right? So Mike Gundy might ask about Tommy Bowden's unceremonious midseason axing at Clemson, and so The State's Ron Morris does ask today with typical "What's wrong with society" clucking under the actual headline, "Bowden did everything right, except win":Â
More importantly: who's on deck? The State floats five names, which are essentially the five names that come up for every job: Will Muschamp, Gary Patterson, Jim Grobe, Bobby Johnson and Bowden's interim replacement, Dabo Swinney, who's supposed to have a fighting chance if he keeps the Tigers out of the tank over the second half of the year. There are no tea leaves to be read at this stage, only message boards, and they don't want Patterson, they don't want Bobby Johnson, they don't want Lane Kiffin, so that leaves a working wish list of Muschamp, basically. But we knew that already.
• Possession receiver, adieu. Kentucky's best offensive playmaker -- its only reliable offensive playmaker, really -- Dickie Lyons, Jr., is out for the season with the dreaded double tear (PCL and MCL) in the Cats' loss to South Carolina, effectively ending his college career. Lyons has three times as many receptions this year (33) as Kentucky's No. 2 receiver, and though his career totals (141 catches, 1,752 yards, 18 touchdowns) are a ho hum season for Michael Crabtree, Dickie had his share of highlights, too, as a second banana to Keenan Burton, Rafael Little and later Steve Johnson:
Another sometimes overlooked receiver/return man, North Carolina's Brandon Tate, is also out for the season (link includes video of fateful punt return against Notre Dame) after an MRI revealed a torn ACL for the Tar Heels' all-purpose yards leader. Tate led the entire conference in all-purpose yards as a junior and was on his way to an even better senior year, at just shy of 200 yards per game rushing, receiving and returning kicks, with five touchdowns in UNC's first five games before Saturday. His college career is over, too, and also not without its share of highlights.
• What is this, 'per-speck-tiv' of which you speak? The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Ron Cook isn't going to win any friends on the West Virginia side of the Gazette's circulation writing stuff like this about the Mountaineer State's Public Enemy Number One, especially amid the giddiness that surely followed Rich Rodriguez's loss to Toledo:Â
Not if it's overtaken and hacked up for torch kindlin', Ron, by jilted West Virginians or the anit-Rod faction of the Michigan Fan Civil War. As a representative of the southern end of this maize-n-blue quasi-rivalry, you're supposed to make lame, Rod-related puns, forget his guiding hand during the most successful three-year run in West Virginia history and take what's happening at Michigan at the moment as evidence of Rodriguez's true ineptitude when not gifted with Pat White in the shotgun. There is no place for patience here.
Quickly ... Poor Marshall Lobbestael is out for the season for Washington State. . . . Ball State's Dante Love is out of the hospital after the neck injury that ended his football career last month. . . . Georgia tight end Bruce Figgins will finish the season with a torn labrum, but the Dogs have to cut the penalties and score touchdowns in the red zone. And Mark Richt speaks out on Tommy Bowden, who coached Richt's son, a backup quarterback at Clemson, without really saying anything. . . . And there's some optimism around Pitt football, which can only mean something terrible is about to happen.
from Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo! Sports by Matt Hinton
Bowden did everything right at Clemson. His teams won an average of nearly eight games his first nine seasons. Every one of his teams qualified for a bowl game. His players graduated, and they rarely were involved in off-field incidents. Bowden stacked solid recruiting class on top of solid recruiting class. He represented the athletics department and the university in the highest manner. His ethics were never questioned. NCAA probation was never associated with his program.
Yet Bowden failed in one key area that overrode all the rest. Clemson did not win an ACC championship under his direction. In the end, after all was considered, winning a championship trumped all of Bowden’s outstanding work.
Terry Don Phillips, Clemson’s athletics director, admitted as much on Monday.
“There is a point where the competitive portion will override all the good things you’ve done in these other areas,” Phillips said.
That is the sad part Yet that is where we are in college athletics, inching closer to the professional ranks. ...
Lo, for the days of Howard, Switzer and the Bear, when there was no pressure to produce results on the field and the "student" in "student-athlete" actually meant something. I'm surprised I made it all the way through that sentence without my fingers spasming wildly across the keyboard (maybe I have a future in newspapers, after all, or politics). Among Bowden's peers, Papa Bowden is generic, and Steve Spurrier, as usual, sums it up the best: "We’ve got our own problems in here that we don’t need to comment on other people’s issues.”Yet Bowden failed in one key area that overrode all the rest. Clemson did not win an ACC championship under his direction. In the end, after all was considered, winning a championship trumped all of Bowden’s outstanding work.
Terry Don Phillips, Clemson’s athletics director, admitted as much on Monday.
“There is a point where the competitive portion will override all the good things you’ve done in these other areas,” Phillips said.
That is the sad part Yet that is where we are in college athletics, inching closer to the professional ranks. ...
More importantly: who's on deck? The State floats five names, which are essentially the five names that come up for every job: Will Muschamp, Gary Patterson, Jim Grobe, Bobby Johnson and Bowden's interim replacement, Dabo Swinney, who's supposed to have a fighting chance if he keeps the Tigers out of the tank over the second half of the year. There are no tea leaves to be read at this stage, only message boards, and they don't want Patterson, they don't want Bobby Johnson, they don't want Lane Kiffin, so that leaves a working wish list of Muschamp, basically. But we knew that already.
• Possession receiver, adieu. Kentucky's best offensive playmaker -- its only reliable offensive playmaker, really -- Dickie Lyons, Jr., is out for the season with the dreaded double tear (PCL and MCL) in the Cats' loss to South Carolina, effectively ending his college career. Lyons has three times as many receptions this year (33) as Kentucky's No. 2 receiver, and though his career totals (141 catches, 1,752 yards, 18 touchdowns) are a ho hum season for Michael Crabtree, Dickie had his share of highlights, too, as a second banana to Keenan Burton, Rafael Little and later Steve Johnson:
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3McA4XW1b84&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="285" height="233">Popout <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/X8wpLrIoECU&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="285" height="233">Popout
His deceptive speed belongs to the ages now. Godspeed, Dickie. You took Craig Steltz off the groundAnother sometimes overlooked receiver/return man, North Carolina's Brandon Tate, is also out for the season (link includes video of fateful punt return against Notre Dame) after an MRI revealed a torn ACL for the Tar Heels' all-purpose yards leader. Tate led the entire conference in all-purpose yards as a junior and was on his way to an even better senior year, at just shy of 200 yards per game rushing, receiving and returning kicks, with five touchdowns in UNC's first five games before Saturday. His college career is over, too, and also not without its share of highlights.
• What is this, 'per-speck-tiv' of which you speak? The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Ron Cook isn't going to win any friends on the West Virginia side of the Gazette's circulation writing stuff like this about the Mountaineer State's Public Enemy Number One, especially amid the giddiness that surely followed Rich Rodriguez's loss to Toledo:Â
Like him or hate him personally, Rodriguez is a great coach and he will win big at Michigan if they don't run him out of town first. It's only a matter of time. Rodriguez needs to bring in players who are a fit for his unique spread offense, which always seemed to be a step ahead of everybody else's when he was at West Virginia. Getting quarterback Terrelle Pryor out of Jeannette High School in the spring would have hastened the process greatly, but that didn't work out, and Pryor picked Ohio State. That's recruiting. You win some, you lose some.
[...]
Bottom line, big picture?
The Rodriguez bandwagon will fill quickly, sooner rather than later.[...]
Bottom line, big picture?
Not if it's overtaken and hacked up for torch kindlin', Ron, by jilted West Virginians or the anit-Rod faction of the Michigan Fan Civil War. As a representative of the southern end of this maize-n-blue quasi-rivalry, you're supposed to make lame, Rod-related puns, forget his guiding hand during the most successful three-year run in West Virginia history and take what's happening at Michigan at the moment as evidence of Rodriguez's true ineptitude when not gifted with Pat White in the shotgun. There is no place for patience here.
Quickly ... Poor Marshall Lobbestael is out for the season for Washington State. . . . Ball State's Dante Love is out of the hospital after the neck injury that ended his football career last month. . . . Georgia tight end Bruce Figgins will finish the season with a torn labrum, but the Dogs have to cut the penalties and score touchdowns in the red zone. And Mark Richt speaks out on Tommy Bowden, who coached Richt's son, a backup quarterback at Clemson, without really saying anything. . . . And there's some optimism around Pitt football, which can only mean something terrible is about to happen.
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