Heavyweights and Champions

It is Senior Bowl  (click to gamesite) week.  Tomorrow at 3:00 p.m., the college seniors deemed to be the best  prospects to enter the NFL will be convened in Mobile, Alabama to put on the final football game of the season.  The Senior Bowl has been played annually since 1950 (the photo at the right is from 1958, that's FB Ray Nitschke #31), with all but the first game taking place in Mobile.  It has been a newsy week in Mobile:

• Alabama's nose tackle and sometimes fullback, Terrence Cody, weighed in at 370 pounds.  It is not what you would call a svelte 370, if there is such a thing.  Click here to see a photo of the man-mountain, but beware, this is not for the squeamish.  Clothes make the man. Put some on him, quickly.
• Tim Tebow, the pride of Gatorland for these last few years, has been making news for a pro-life commercial he's done.  Women's rights groups have been raising a ruckus, decrying Tebow's position.  I find this absolutely absurd, these people bitching about this young man speaking his mind on this matter.  Whatever position you personally support, don't you find it refreshing that a talented young athlete has the strength of character to express his opinion as Tebow did?  I am seeing Tebow's position in juxtaposition to the plethora of young athletes who bang their ways through their celebrity years with no thought to the consequences.  Let him speak his mind, I say.  Make up your own mind and teach your children about responsibility and consequences.
• The other area of Tebow's celebrity, his on the field performance, has been drawing criticism, too.  It seems that he hasn't looked good taking snaps under center and that he's been locking on to receivers instead of working through progressions.  In other words, he's performed as everyone expected, given the context in which toiled in college.  Stay tuned.
• There was robbery in a frat house at the University of Oregon.  A couple of laptops and a guitar were swiped. Two of the Ducks' star players have a cloud hanging over them...actually, they're being accused by one of the victims.  Other local sources are suggesting that the two players were not involved, pointing out inconsistencies in the accuser's story.  Once again, stay tuned.
•  Making a positive impression in Mobile has been Idaho guard Mike Iupati, who is 6'5", 325 lbs and measured 35 inch long arms.  This man has arms like legs!

Finally, a non-Senior Bowl story about a football dinosaur, Jack Pardee (click).

Coaching Changes

This coaching college football thing, it's pretty volatile, you know?  I haven't ever kept count of the moves, so I was surprised by the arithmetic after I read this paragraph that comes from VegasInsider.com:

There have been 22 coaching changes dating back to the start of last season, not counting Urban Meyer's ``gone-today, here-tomorrow' stunt, with vacancies still open at East Carolina and Louisiana Tech. That means this season's game of musical chairs will have more than the average number of participants for the last decade (19), but still well short of the 32 coaches who changed places in 2000.

There's 120 head coaching jobs. 

22 changes is 18%.  The average number of changes, 19, is 16% of the total.  Those are big numbers. 

Some of the coaches get recycled, most do, in fact, so it's not like draw and discard.  You can play off the discard pile, and certainly you can steal from others.

Average length of tenure across the entire universe isn't too revealing, as you have Joe Paterno on the one hand, with his 112 years of seniority in Happy Valley, and you have your Lane Kiffin on the other hand, who moves around like a water drop on a hot griddle. 

I have no sagacious conclusion, just a lot of flying factoids.

So there. 

By the way, if you missed it (lucky you) the East-West Shrine game on Saturday sucked.  I turned it off and the game gods punished me.  The Sunday newspaper informed me that I missed Mike Kafka's MVP winning performance at the end of the game. 

Go 'Cats!

Class of 2010

The lads who cavort about the various stadia across the USA each autumn for our entertainment and the greater glory of Fillintheblank U. have short careers.  That is one of the attractions of the college game, the always evolving cast of athletes.  Those who have been physically blessed, worked hard  and been fortunate enough to avoid injury may get the opportunity to display their talents as professional football players. Their passage is an annual event and it's coming up: the NFL draft.

I went to CBS sports online and took a peek at their projections for the top 50 selections in the upcoming draft.  There's some very recognizable names and some not-so-recognizable names.  Here's some of the nuggets that I uncovered after massaging the list a bit.

By school, the projected first 50 come from:
2 Alabama Crimson Tide, hail to the champions
0 No boys from Boise
2 California Golden Bears
5 Florida Gators
1 Florida State Seminole
1 Fresno State Something or other (it's Bulldogs, had to look it up)
3 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
1 Idaho Potato (they are the Vandals)
1 Iowa Hawkeye (this is the massive OT, Bryan Bulaga)
2 LSU Tigers
1 Maryland Terrapin
1 Michigan Wolverine
1 Nebraska Cornhusker (everybody's #1, DT Ndamukong Suh)
1 Northwestern Wildcat (DE Corey Wooten)
2 Notre Dame Domers (Jimmy Claussen and Golden Tate)
0 Yes, zero from Ohio State
4 Oklahoma Sooners
2 Oklahoma State Cowboys
2 Penn State Lions, Nittany type
2 Rutgers Wise Guys ( ok, Scarlet Knights)
2 South Florida Bulls (a DE and a CB)
4 USC Trojans
1 Tennessee Volunteer, not currently under indictment
3 Texas Longhorn runners-up (Colt McCoy & Jordan Shipley, plus LB Sergio Kindle)
1 UCLA Bruin
1 Arizona Wildcat
2 Clemson Tigers

By position, the first 50 are made up of:
1 center (Maurkice Pouncey of Florida, good name for a center)
1 strong safety
1 offensive guard (Idaho's Mike Iupati)
2 free safeties
2 tight ends
2 inside linebackers
4 outside linebackers
4 quarterbacks (in reverse order of selection: Tebow, McCoy, Bradford & Claussen)
4 running backs (the first one: CJ Spiller of Clemson)
5 defensive ends
6 cornerbacks
6 defensive tackles (including 2 of the first three overall selections)
6 offensive tackles (OT's get more $$$ than anybody but QB's)
6 wide receivers (OK State's Dez Bryant being the first)
0 kickers of any variety

1 Bryan, 1 Brian.
2 Brandons.
1 Ndamukong, going off at #1, but we said that already.
26 on defense, 24 on offense.