I can see Pearl ending up on TV somewhere next season.  He is a very telegenic personality and would do well on TV a-la Jim Valvano.

One can only assume they will be looking at VCU’s Shaka Smart to take Pearl’s place.

Notre Dame’s Michael Floyd has the talent to be a top pick, but his personal life may keep him from a big payday right out of college.  His drinking issues could end up costing him a ton of money this time next year.  He could end up being next year’s Warren Sapp.

It sounds more and more like Auburn’s Nick Fairley could end up as this year’s Warren Sapp.  All of the pre-draft chatter has teams being a bit concerned about his character and the fact that the first year he is draft eligible he decides to play up to his talent level.

If the Eagles put Kevin Kolb up for bid prior to the draft look for them to maneuver high enough up in the draft to be able to nab Nebraska’s Prince Amukamara or possibly Patrick Peterson.  It seems unlikely, though, that they will be able to move up high enough to grab Peterson.  There is expected to be a strong market for Kolb if the Eagles look to move him.

It is being rumored that the Seahawks are showing an interest, but with a lack of blue chip talent at the position in the upcoming the draft the Eagles may be hoping a team like the 49ers or the Cardinals step up and offer their first round pick for him.

Denard Robinson was running away with the Heisman but he appears to have come back to the pack a bit.  Sure he still leads the nation in rushing, but he has missed parts of two games due to injury already this year and one begins to wonder if the injuries catch up to him by the end of the year, and the two straight losses hurt a bit as well.  It will be tough if the Wolverines only end up with six or seven wins this season.

For my money I am going with either Auburn’s Cam Newton or Oregon’s LaMichael James when all is said and done.  Newton has more rushing touchdowns and better passing numbers than Robinson as it is, and not to mention he plays in the SEC.  I bet Urban Meyer wishes he still had Newton right about now.

The BCS’ worst nightmare will be if TCU and Boise are the lone remaining unbeaten teams come the end of November.  Does anyone really want to see those two teams play for the national championship?  Does anyone believe those two teams are better than some of the other one loss teams that are out there right now?

I am not sure it comes to that though, as I think Oregon is going to run the table in the regular season.  They just seem to have the feel of being a team destined to finish the regular season undefeated.

I continue to wonder whether Jake Locker is really all that.  He seems like a quality college quarterback, but I really wonder whether he has the chops to be a quality NFL quarterback.  He was brutal against Nebraska and seems to struggle with consistency in a conference that is not exactly renowned for great defensive teams.  He just has the feel of a guy who teams are falling in love with because of his athleticism and not necessarily what he does on the football field.

The thing has had me wondering ever since the scandal at UNC broke over which players took what from agents is why some of these guys even bothered coming back to school in the first place.  Robert Quinn had to come back to school, but guys like Marvin Austin and Greg Little were seen as talent that would have gone in the first three rounds so why not just leave school if you are that interested in “living the life”.

Did anyone see the Gators losing three games let alone three in a row this season?

I am beginning to wonder if Mark Ingram is playing at 100%.  He looked great his first two weeks back but has only been so-so the last three games and has not carried the ball more than 15 times after getting 24 carries against Arkansas.

I really like the potential class of receivers in the 2011 draft.  A. J. Green, Julio Jones, Johnathan Baldwin, and Michael Floyd are all tall, strong, and fast receivers.  I cannot remember another year where there were potentially this many receivers who are over 6′ 3″/200 pound and can get down the field.

There are not a lot of running backs to be excited about in terms of next year’s draft at this stage.  I like Ingram’s future provided he stays healthy.  The comparison’s of him to Emmitt are pretty apt.

I love LaMichael James’ speed and big play ability at the next level, I only wonder how well he stands up to the punishment of the NFL as he is on the smallish side for a back.  At any rate his elite speed will make him a candidate to be a first round pick in April.

There is something about Jacquizz Rodgers that makes me think he can be a play-maker in the NFL.  He reminds a bit of Warrick Dunn or a Dave Meggett where you look at him and think there is no way he can do it in the NFL but he does.  He is small but he has this toughness and quickness about him that suggests he can play at the next level.

Here is the thing, Bobby, anyone with half a clue already knew you were not leaving of your own free will, so why bring it back up again.  We all knew you were grasping at straws hoping you could turn it around the way Joe Paterno did after a string of mediocrity in the early 2000′s.  Sure Paterno was able to hold onto his job despite a run of 26-33 from 2000 to 2004 which is a far sight worse than the 38-27 record you put up in the five seasons since 2004.

The thing is your teams were mediocre in what has been a pretty mediocre conference the last few years.  You started losing home games to teams you never used to lose to, even on the road.  You simply were not bringing in scads of elite talent any more.  The fact is a lot of players Bowden used to recruit, red shirt, and squirrel away on the bench for two or three years started going to other schools like USF where they knew they would get a chance to compete and start by the end of the Sophomore year and would not have to sit on the bench for two or three seasons hoping they might get into a game.

Bobby says he wanted just one more year to have a go at it, but, would he have really left quietly after next season?  What if the ‘Noles did the unthinkable and won 10 or 11 games next season?  We all know Bobby would have kept his fat behind right there at FSU for another season.  He wanted just one more year to see if he could recapture that magic and hang onto his job for another two or three years.

What really gets me about it all though is how he has said that his relationship with Wetherell may be irreparably damaged.  You see Bowden thought he had Wetherell in his back pocket because he coached him back in the day and helped get his gig as the school’s president.  He figured there was no way Wetherell would fire his old college coach.

It seems awfully petty for Bowden to hold any of this against Wetherell though.  Has he not been paying attention to how unhappy the boosters have been with the program for the last two or three years?  Does he not remember when a group of well-heeled alumni passed the hat to collect enough cash to buy out the remainder of his son’s (Jeff Bowden) contract so they could go out and hire Jimbo Fisher to replace him as the offensive coordinator?

Bobby has to know Wetherell was acting under the direction of the school’s board of directors does he not?  I am pretty sure he was probably told that if he did not get Bowden out of the way they would probably find someone who would.  It was either Bowden goes or both he and Bowden would go, ironically enough Wetherell has since left the school since then on his own accord.  Sure Wetherell says it was his decision to let Bowden go, but does anyone really believe it was his decision and his alone to be made?

But I guess I just do not understand why he cannot simply let it go.  He saw the writing on the wall when they hired Jimbo Fisher as his eventual successor.  He knew the boosters were ready for a change.  He would have a case if his teams were actually producing on the field, but they were not doing anything dozens of other coaches could have done in his place.  He was no longer an elite head coach and it was simply time for him to go.  It is sad that he could not come to those terms on his own, and it is kind of sad to see him speak out the way he has.

Did I hear that right?  The coach of the lowly Duke Blue Devils turned down the the mighty Volunteers?  The same school where he served as an assistant and cut his college coaching teeth on for 18 years before.  Cutcliffe was reportedly interested in the job but balked once the AD informed him that they wanted him to retain some of the coaches that did not go with Lane Kiffin to USC.

It does not make sense to me why they would dictate such a thing to a coach like Cutcliffe who already has a staff in place and has been around the block a few times.  It is not as if this is Cutcliffe’s first head coaching gig and he should be able to hire the assistants he is comfortable and familiar working with.  Given that you have already been turned down by your the first two coaches you spoke with in Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp and Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun why are trying to dictate to Cutcliffe who he needs to retain?

It was also reported that Cutcliffe gave the school a drop dead date of Friday to come up with an acceptable offer.  He did not want to dilly dally around with national signing day a mere three weeks away.

Talk about kicking a program when it is down though.  I mean one would think that any coach in America would jump at the chance to coach at a place like Tennessee over Duke.  Granted, Cutcliffe seems to be turning the program around, but prior to this past season Duke had been the laughing stock of the ACC for over a decade now.  Duke is, always has been, and probably always will be a basketball school first and a football school second.  Football is king at Tennessee.

Tennessee has the fan base and is willing to spend money to do whatever it takes to maintain a successful football program.  Duke, on the other hand, seems to have had the attitude in years past that they only field a football team because the conference makes them.  Prior to conference expansion Duke probably would have ended its football program if it thought it could get away with it and not face banishment from the conference for doing so.

Volunteers fans have to be scratching their heads over this recent turn of events.  This is supposed to  be a fairly prestigious coaching job right?  Why is it that they seem to having so much trouble finding the right successor to Phil Fullmer?  It now sounds like they are looking at Louisiana coach Derek Dooley, son of the legendary Vince Dooley.

Dooley is not exactly the guy that jumps to mind when one thinks of the next head coach at a major college football program.  Sure he has the pedigree given who his father is and he was an assistant under Nick Saban for a handful of years, but, his record and experience as a head coach is pretty limited.

He has three years of head coaching experience all with Louisiana Tech compiling a 17-20 record.  He has just one winning season and bowl appearance to his credit and that came in his second season there meaning the team got better his second season and took a step back his third.  Dooley has yet to prove he can build and sustain a winning program of any kind.

That is not to say Dooley will not end up being the guy to lead the Vols for the next 20 years, but, it is a bit of a roll of the dice going with someone so unproven as a head coach.

There has been lot said about Kiffin having little to no loyalty and always looking out for number one.  Consider that he could not make it through two seasons in Oakland and left in a storm of controversy.  Prior to being let go he had made a habit of rolling certain members of the front office under the bus in front of the press.  Al Davis fired him and claimed it was due to conduct detrimental to the team.  He basically called him a liar and said he did not want him around any more.

It is probably safe to say that the truth lies somewhere in the middle between Kiffin and Davis.  Davis does not exactly have a good track record as it pertains to his coaches of late.  He ran Jon Gruden out of town despite him getting the team to the precipice of a Super Bowl appearance, he ran Bill Callahan out of town despite him getting the team to the Super Bowl, and he barely gave Mike Shanahan a chance before moving on to Art Shell.  We will not even get into the bevy of coaches that have led the franchise to a record 7 straight seasons of 11 or more losses.

But Kiffin seemed to be trying to get himself fired.  He was clearly in over his head and no longer wanted to be there but there was no way he was going to quit and walk away from the over $1 million the team still owed him.  After being let go by Oakland he laid low for a while before the University of Tennessee came calling in November of 2008.

This seemed like a good fit for both Kiffin and the university.  He gets back into coaching at a relatively high profile job and he gets his father, defensive whiz Monte Kiffin, to come run his defense while he focused on running the offense.  From day one he raised a lot of eyebrows and rattled some cages at Tennessee.

He seemed intent on picking a fight with Urban Meyer and the University of Florida claiming it was going to be great singing Old Rocky Top all day after they beat Florida.  He also lobbed some grenades Gainesville’s way by making vague claims about improper recruiting practices while he himself was skirting the rules in some of his recruiting practices.

Granted a lot of what Kiffin does is within the rules of the NCAA but a lot of what he does seems a bit underhanded and duplicitous.  He seems to go out of his way to run down and denigrate his rivals which is what endears him to his fan base.  They love the fact that he is brash and talks trash to his opponents.  He is becoming the Vince McMahon of college football.  He is here to be the biggest and the best and those in his path better get out of his way lest they want to get steam-rolled in the process.

The one big question though is he willing to do it by any means necessary?  Is he willing to stay within the rules or is he going to continually skirt the rules and always have the NCAA looking over his shoulder at what he is doing?  Keep in mind he was at Tennessee for only 14 months and managed to rack up six, albeit minor, violations.  The thing is when it comes to college programs where there is smoke there is fire.

USC is facing probation over the whole Reggie Bush scandal and it remains to be seen if anything comes over the Joe McKnight situation.  The NCAA has let USC get away with skirting the rules in the past when they let Dwayne Jarrett repay his half of the rent that Matt Leinart’s father paid for instead of losing his eligibility.

So with the specter of probation hanging over the program they go out and hire a coach who is known for being an ace recruiter, but, he is also known for pushing the envelope, is a bit questionable ethically, and has never really won anything.  He went 7-6 and lost badly to Virginia Tech in the Chik-Fil-A Bowl.  His career record as a head coach in college and the NFL is 12-21 and he now has arguably the highest profile coaching job in the country.

It seems like quite an undertaking for a coach who has never shown he can win anything being the man in charge.  It is one thing to be able to recruit the top talent, but, quite another to win with that talent.  Ron Zook was a great recruiter at Florida but could never seem to figure out how to beat the upper crust in the SEC.  So, it remains to be seen as to whether Kiffin is the next Urban Meyer or if he is the next Ron Zook.

If I were an USC fan I would have liked to see the school hire a more established, seasoned coach who has shown he can build a program and sustain it.  I would have also liked to see them hire someone with a bit more loyalty than Kiffin.  Will the fact that he bailed on UT after one season hurt him at USC?  If Kiffin hits the ground running and manages to win 30 games and a conference championship or two his first three years there will his eyes turn back towards the NFL?

Pete Carroll managed to fight the urge for three or four years before finally giving in to the Seahawks overtures last week.  But, it has also been said that Carroll’s chilly relationship with Athletic Director Mike Garrett and impending probation played a factor in him finally deciding to make the move.  The fact that the ‘Hawks ponied up $30 mil and authority of personnel did not hurt either.

I doubt Kiffin is going to have that kind of will power.  He impresses one as someone who has his eye on the next job before he even starts the one he just landed.  The second Kiffin establishes himself at USC he is probably gone.  There is nowhere else to go in the college ranks and everyone will write off his stint with Oakland as someone who was just unfortunate enough to coach for Al Davis.

I have a feeling that Kiffin may not be at USC longer than five years and he will be out of there one of two ways.  Either he gets in there and wins a ton of ball games and goes back to the NFL, or, he leaves in another storm of controversy as the violations pile up and the school has no choice but to cut him loose.  One way or the other the Kiffin Era at USC is liable to be one wild ride and I cannot wait until he and Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh face off for the first time.

What had me going was one fan who called in and said he cried tears of anger when he heard the news that Kiffin was jumping ship to USC.  Really?  You cried over losing your head coach?

My immediate thought, though, was are you crying that you lost your coach or because you came to the realization that your program is not as awesome as you think it is?  Don’t get me wrong Tennessee is great job to have, and a lot of coaches would love to have that job.  It is a SEC school that has a rabid fan base which means you have plenty of money to spend.  It also means the school is willing to let in some kids who normally would not get in and possibly look the other way at some of the indiscretions that go on off the field.

All that being said, however, the stark reality is that the University of Tennessee football program is not in the same league as USC’s.  Sure the Volunteers typically manage to stay in the mix atop the SEC and when things break their way can contend for a national championship, but, honestly, the program is closer to that of a Clemson than a USC, Texas, Florida, or Alabama.

It is a program that thinks it should contend for a national title every year and is disappointed when it does not.  Much like Clemson fans think because they were a national powerhouse for a while in the 80s they think they should be a top ten program every year.

The other thing that got me while I was listening was how some of the fans were making idle threats towards Kiffin.  One said something along the lines of Kiffin better get out of town as quickly as possible.  Is that really necessary?  Are you seriously going to find out where Kiffin lives and go beat him down?

Come on Volunteers fans I know you love your football but what had Kiffin really done for you in the year he has been there?  Sure he landed some recruiting classes that were allegedly top notch, but, we had yet to see what he was going to do with them.  There are those who thought Monte Kiffin was the main reason for making it to a bowl game this season not Lane.

Lane Kiffin won 7 games in one season for you Volunteers fans and he got smoked in the Chik-Fil-A Bowl by Virignia Tech.  He did not beat any ranked teams and his only road win was at Kentucky and that one went to overtime.  The thing about Kiffin is he is a good salesmen and gets people hyped up for his program but he has yet to deliver the goods as a head coach.

Who knows USC could be doing Tennessee a favor by taking Kiffin off their hands.  It is one thing to be a great recruiter it is quite another to win with those recruits.  Just ask Tommy Bowden.

If there is anything to cry over, Vols fans, it is the fact that the school is actually entertaining the idea of bringing Phil Fulmer back to coach the team.  The guy you successfully ran off for not delivering a conference championship in 10 years or a top ten finish in nine.

You better start praying that Fulmer becomes your next Athletic Director as is rumored to be the case and not your next football coach or else you will be right back where you did not want to be in the first place.  Buck up Volunteers fans you be back in the mix before you know and Tennessee football will go on with or without Lane Kiffin to run the show.

Given that USF just fired its football coach for allegedly assaulting one of his players one has to seriously wonder about the validity of this rumor.  Seriously, if you are the South Florida Athletic Director how do you justify in your mind running out and hiring a coach who was fired just two weeks ago for allegedly abusing one of his players?

Does anyone else see the hypocrisy in such a thing?  Is Doug Wollard not happy with his position of Director of Athletics for the University of South Florida?  Is he trying to get fired?  Because hiring Leach after the recent scandal with Jim Leavitt is a good way to do so.

I understand USF’s desire to compete with the big boys in football and Leach’s name potentially brings some cache and credibility to the program, but, is he not a liability at this stage?  Does he not need to work his way back into a head coaching position?  Good luck convincing any recruits worth their salt to come play for Leach the head coach.  South Florida need not look very far to find a good fit for their program.

East Carolina coach Skip Holtz has already gone on record saying he has an interest in the job and is coming off back-to-back seasons in which he won 9 ball games in addition to the Conference USA Championship.  The Bowden brothers, Terry and Tommy, are also out of work and would be good fits for the USF program.

With a few viable candidates out there it boggles the mind that Woolard would even consider damaged goods like Mike Leach.  Mike Leach is a last ditch hire when all else fails.

It is somewhat surprising to hear that Carter and Austin will return for a senior season as both are considered potential first round draft picks.  Carter is currently ranked as the 21st best prospect by Scouts, Inc. while Austin is rated 43rd by the same service.

Williams and Burney are a pair of ball hawks in the secondary who would have gone fairly high in the draft.  Williams is a potential late second to early third round pick while Burney is probably a late third to early fourth round prospect.

Sturdivant excels at stuffing the run and likely would be a second or third round prospect.

Little has the size and athletic ability to play in the NFL, however, he has yet to put it altogether at the receiver position for the Tar Heels.  At times he looks like an All American and at other times he disappears and one does not even notice he is in the game.  If he were to come out he could go as high as the third round based on his physical tools alone.

A lot of the draft experts had Locker pegged as shoo-in to be a first round selection, possibly the first quarterback taken, and quite possibly the top pick in the whole draft had he decided to leave school a year early.

What makes this truly interesting is not that he is passing up a ton of money to come back and hone his skills another year before trying his wares in the NFL, but, rather, that there very well could be a lock out after next season.  On top of the impending work stoppage there has been a lot of chatter about the owners and the commissioner wanting to negotiate a rookie salary cap in the next collective bargaining agreement.  This would bring an end to the exorbitant $30 and $40 million signing bonuses and guaranteed money the league’s top picks enjoy today.

The commissioner is said to favor a rookie salary structure similar to that of the NBA’s where draft picks are allotted a certain amount of money based on where they are selected for the first several years they are in the league meaning Locker could be leaving upwards of $30 million on the table it such a structure is in place when he enters the draft.

Financially speaking this is a huge gamble for Locker, but, for his overall success as a football player in the NFL it is the right move.  I have never understood all of the hype around Locker.  Sure he is a great athlete that runs around and makes plays and has a strong arm, but, his accuracy is highly questionable.  He completed just over 58% of his passes this season which is not stellar for a big time quarterback prospect.  The numbers get worse when one looks at his games against the better defenses in the Pac-10.

He failed to complete more than 52.3% of his passes against Stanford, Arizona, and Oregon.  For the season he completed 60% or more of his passes in just four of the Huskies 12 contests.  Nobody was even thinking about Locker as a pro quarterback until the Huskies upset USC and one wonders if that is a big reason for him being rated as high as he is.

If I were a NFL GM I would probably stay away from a Locker if I am in the market for a franchise QB.  Teams are not willing to wait on quarterbacks any more like they have been in the past and Locker is clearly another year or two away from being ready to compete in the NFL.  Locker is a great talent, but, I want to see him show more consistency and complete over 60% of his passes next season before claiming he is a blue chip quarterback prospect.

The biggest news of the week was the punch seen round the world when Oregon’s LeGarrette Blount punched Boise State’s Byron Hout in the jaw during the post game handshake.  The whole melee started when Hout pushed Blount and then said something to him.  Blount subsequently went off the deep end and could be seen arguing and almost coming to blows with teammates.  The incident culminated with him almost going into the stands after a fan who was heckling him.  Fortunately security was able to contain him and herd him back to the locker room.

The fallout of the whole incident resulted in Blount being suspended for the balance of the season.  This seems a bit harsh and he probably should have been suspended indefinitely until he met certain requirements to be reinstated to the team.  Boise decided not to suspend Hout who should have drawn a suspension of some kind for instigating the whole incident.  The WAC needs to step in and suspend this kid, why they have not is beyond me.

One preseason BCS favorite, Oklahoma, took one on the chin against Brigham Young losing at home 14-13.  Not only did OU lose the game but they also lost Heisman quarterback Sam Bradford who left the game in the first half after a shoulder injury.  Oklahoma says it is only a sprain, he could miss two to four weeks, and are hoping he is good to go in time for the trip down to Miami.

To add insult to injury the Sooners also learned that tight end Jermaine Gresham, considered by many to be the top TE prospect eligible for the 2010 draft, underwent season ending knee surgery on Tuesday.  One wonders if he is re-thinking his decision to come back to school.  He likely would have been the top tight end taken in last April’s draft.

The best, or at least most entertaining, game of the week, surprisingly enough, ended up being Miami versus Florida State.  The game had been a clunker the last few times it had been played on Labor Day Weekend but after some thrilling contests the past couple of years it earned its spot back on Labor Day and did not fail to deliver the goods.  The game was not the most well executed but it featured several lead changes and served as the coming out party for Miami quarterback Jacory Harris on the national stage.

While Harris did throw a pair of picks he also rolled up 386 yards including some clutch throws that led Miami back from a nine point second half deficit.  Harris looks like he is the real deal for the ‘Canes and we know now why Miami’s backup quarterbacks decided to jump ship.  You see Harris is only a sophomore meaning the earliest those guys were going to get a chance to play would be 2011.

I am curious as to why Javarris James starts over Graig Cooper.  Is it because James is a senior and Cooper is only a junior?  Cooper just has the look and feel of being the better runner than James does.

Sophomore Travis Benjamin looks like he might be the next big time receiver to come out of Miami.  He ran up 128 yards on just four catches and several long gainers.

I keep hearing and seeing a lot of stuff about the U being back after Monday’s win but let us not get ahead of ourselves here.  Not too long ago there were those saying there was a real chance that Miami could start the season 0-4 with a brutal stretch featuring Georgia Tech, a trip to Blacksburg, and a home date versus Oklahoma.  Win two of the next three games and then we can talk about Miami being back in terms of being a relevant program again, until then let us keep the chest thumping to a minimum.

After all we are talking about a Florida State team that was ranked due to tradition mostly.  We are also talking about a Florida State program that has been maybe a notch better than Miami the past few years but not significantly better.  The ‘Noles have gone 23-17 over the past three seasons and have not been terribly relevant nationally for several years now.  On top of that the ‘Canes always play the Seminoles close, that game is rarely a blowout.  Beating Florida State is not what it was 10 to 15 years ago when the ‘Noles were always in the national championship mix.

Speaking of programs on the rebound the Michigan – Notre Dame game coming up this weekend looks a lot more interesting than it initially did.  Michigan made a huge statement by running out to a 31-0 halftime lead against Western Michigan, while, Notre Dame squashed Nevada 35-0.  ND’s Jimmy Clausen and Michael Floyd hooked up four times for 189 yards and three scores.  But let us not get ahead of ourselves with these teams either.  It is not like Nevada or Western Michigan are going to be challenging for New Year’s Day bowl games this season.

Do Ohio State fans have anything to worry about after a rather lackluster performance against Navy this past weekend?  In the grand scheme of things, probably not, as Tressel’s teams are always good for throwing up a clunker the first or second week of the season.  They should probably worry a bit about the impending USC game this weekend though as the Trojans looked extremely sharp against San Jose State.  Granted San Jose State is not even in USC’s league but the Trojans did exactly what they were supposed to do against a team like San Jose.  They buried them to the tune of 56-3.  The one big advantage OSU will have this weekend is USC is starting a freshman quarterback who will be playing in his first big game on the road.

It was a less than stellar opening weekend for the ACC with North Carolina State taking it on the chin at home to South Carolina losing 7-3, Wake Forest losing at home to Baylor 24-21, Virginia losing to William & Mary 26-14, Duke losing to Richmond 24-16, Maryland getting run out of the stadium at Cal 52-13, and Virignia Tech losing to Alabama 34-24.

North Carolina State looked ill-prepared for its game against South Carolina which is atypical of a Tom O’Brien coached squad.  O’Brien usually has his teams ready to go and typically does not lose due to lack of execution and/or sloppy play.  Russell Wilson looked like he was quarterbacking his first game at times out there and we will not even go into the dropped passes that dearly cost them.  The Wolfpack easily could have won that game had their receivers been able to hold onto a few key throws.  As it is ‘Pack fans can be happy with how the defense showed up to play and looked better than anticipated, but, they have to be mortified with how ill-prepared the offense looked in that game.

The SEC haters were probably giddy to see conference heavyweights struggle on the road this weekend.  Georgia came out of Stillwater with a 24-10 loss and LSU got it could handle from Washington escaping with a 31-23 win.

I am still not sold on Jevan Snead being that great of a quarterback.

Ole Miss and Oklahoma State might be the two teams come the end of the season folks will be wondering why they were picked as preseason top ten teams.

Cincinnati could be this year’s BCS buster.  The Bearcats mauled Rutgers on Monday and they really do not play anyone of significance this season unless a team or two on their schedule are significantly better than anticipated.

I really wonder how serious this got.  Lou Holtz?  Come on what about him screams politician?  There is nothing that says ‘statesman’ about Lou Holtz.  Have you heard him speak lately?  His lisp seems to get worse and worse as the years go on.  There are times that I can barely understand what he is saying and I want to reach through the TV screen and shove one of those vacuums that the dentist uses to suck the saliva out of your mouth.  Holtz perpetually sounds like he just came from the dentist and is shot up with Novocaine or something.

Don’t ge me wrong Holtz is charismatic and can be entertaining at times.  But have you seen the crap he agrees to do on ESPN?  Anyone who agrees to that tripe has to have some issues when it comes to exercising good judgment.  Part of me wonders if the only reason he entertained this idea was so that he could get out of debasing himself in front of the camera the way they have him to do on ESPN.  I actually feel sorry for him at times when I watch some of the skits they have him do.  Why ESPN cannot simply stick to reporting the news I will never know.  After all didn’t they hire their production and writing staff based on their sports knowledge and not their comedic writing skills?

Another part of me wonders if Holtz entertained the idea because he is tired of doing TV and he knows he is not going to be able to get another coaching gig.  Maybe Skip would hire him, but maybe not, Lou did fire him when he was coaching South Carolina after all.  Actually, I am kind of disappointed that Lou will not be running for office. One can just imagine what kind of a train wreck that campaign would be.  It would probably look like a Gallagher concert with the first couple of rows wearing rain coats in fear of getting slobbered on by Lou.  It would probably be a pep rally and if we were lucky he break out the Dr. Lou sketch and have college players and coaches from the state of Florida call and ask him questions about his stances on the issues.

In the end, though, it is probably best that Lou sticks with what he knows and stays at ESPN.  After all he has provided us with years of soundclips and fodder that could be used against him in a campaign to potentially portray him as a blithering idiot.  It has always been said that sometimes discretion is the better part of valor and it probably applies in this case.