Post-Scrimmage Press Conference 4/2/11
Spring football enters it's final week with just 4 practices remaining until the Spring Game next weekend. The big news for some out of Saturday's scrimmage is that Miles continues to be impressed with Jordan Jefferson's improvement and that he believes Lee's experience in the system still keeps him ahead of Mettenberger. The defense was the highlight of the scrimmage with a short-yardage goal line stand. The Spring Game starts at 3pm Saturday on ESPN.
There is a lot of good reaction to the Nikki Caldwell hire from over the weekend. Swish Appeal, SBNation's Women's Basketball blog thinks it's a good hire of an up and coming name, and the Bruins fans are disappointed in losing a coach who was building a program. My only concern is that as one of Pat Summit's more successful former assistants, she may be a flight risk when Summit retires/takes over the Vol men's team. All I've seen as far as salary is rumors from the LA media that it will be over $900K, possibly making her one of the Top 5 paid coaches in the sport. There will be a press conference later today introducing her.
One scandal at a time. The Texas A&M rivals.com writer who reported that Patrick Peterson made an unofficial visit to A&M after meeting Willie Lyles in Houston elaborated that he asked PP7 himself if the friend in Houston was Willie Lyles 2 weeks after the original story ran in 2007. Other than Peterson's original statement last week, LSU isn't commenting on the matter and A&M is saying it had no knowledge of the matter until the report came out last week..
On the matter of the HBO-Stanley McClover situation, Saban says it didn't happen without actually sounding like he knows what he's talking about. The SEC says it's looking into the matter. For his part, McClover met with NCAA investigators after the show aired but would not give them any names. Unless someone else comes forward or he has a change of mind, this story likely ends here.
On the matter of the Fiesta Bowl, it appears the organization has many more problems than just the recently fired CEO. Employees lying to investigators, no-bid contracts awarded to companies owned by board members, and $13,000 worth of golf balls are just some of the highlights from the investigation's report. The BCS has announced it will be conducting it's own investigation.
On the matter of the NCAA and paying players (legally), after being criticized in both the HBO special and an excellent report during last week's Frontline on PBS, NCAA President Mark Emmert now says he will bring up the topic of increasing compensation to players at the board meeting later this month. In all, it was a pretty rough week for the NCAA.
Between these problems and the ongoing issues in men's basketball, TeamSpeedKills wonders if the bad old days are back in the SEC.
In TV land, The Pac-10/12's TV rights are up for bid and ESPN is suing CUSA over making a new deal with Fox before their previous arrangement expired.
It's an argument that seems a bit over the top coming from the only folks who hate Auburn more than Alabama, but Dawg Sports argues that Auburn should get the death penalty.
Speaking of Auburn, they'll have a car at Talladega this month.
Houston Nutt likes his circles.
H/T to Big McLargeHuge for tipping us off to this review of LSU Pitchers in the Pros from '90 to '10 by SB Nation's Minor League blog.