Congrats to Alabama; Jim Leavitt Fired; Tech Alums Irate Over Leach Firing
January 8, 2010 by dwil
Colt McCoy sits dejectedly on the bench after being knocked from the BCS Championship game.
Congratulations to Alabama for their 37-21 win over Texas in the BCS Championship game ——– I guess.
Though some alleged pundits want to downplay Colt McCoy’s getting knocked out of the game on Texas’ fifth play (Rob Parker), his leaving the game obviously took the air from the Texas Longhorns team. By the time the Longhorns regained their composure the first half was already over and Alabama was ahead 24-6.
All the game really proved is that, while the Crimson Tide front seven might be slightly better that Texas’, the Longhorns secondary and two of its linebackers were better than Alabama’s, that Alabama had no quarterback, that with McCoy the Texas receivers probably end up with five plays that end up in touchdowns, instead of two because the Crimson Tide secondary was that bad (and that includes Javier Arenas who, even with Garrett Gilbert in the game, was nowhere around the ball), and that Mark Ingram really did deserve the Heisman Trophy, after all.
NIck Saban tried is best to keep quarterback Greg McElroy from having to make a play to extricate his team from trouble and to milk the clock in the second half enough to allow Ingram to get over his cramping and reenter the game. Saban’s ploy worked, barely, and Gilbert proved just inexperienced enough to fail to recognize – presnap – an obvious blitz from his blind side late in the game.
By the way, is Ingram the first major recruit Alabama has had in the last 20 years from as far north as Michigan (Ingram)? And exactly how did he get away from the, oh, 10 or so major college programs (from USC on on side of the country to Penn State on the other and including the best Big 10 schools, and Notre Dame) because I know it could not have been because of the lame story ESPN, ummm, ABC told viewers about a promise to keep Ingram in the classroom and out of trouble.
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Jim Leavitt was fired as South Florida Bulls head coach. On November 21, Leavitt was alleged to have grabed walk-on Joel Miller by the throat and hit him twice. All the South Florida players who were interviewed about the incident denied Miller was grabbed by his throat or hit. Jerrell Young a Bulls safety, told the St. Petersburg Times that Leavitt grabbed Miler by his shoulder pads, as reported by AOL Fanhous.com. Young threatened to leave the team if Leavitt was fired and has told his younger brother, a Bulls recruit, not to attend the school if Leavitt did get fired.
Leavitt was fired despite the fact that Miller and his father recanted Miller’s story.
Jim Leavitt was the only head coach in the history of South Florida’s 13-year-old football program.
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Texas Tech alumni are irate over Mike Leach’s firing. Alums from across the U.S. are petitioning the university to fire key adminstrators including chancellor Kent Hance and are withholding their funding from the school:
The Denver, Colorado chapter of the Texas Tech Alumni Association is the largest Tech Alumni group outside the state of Texas. “We have a coach here who last year had a huge favorable write up in New York Times Magazine, an extremely favorable feature on 60 minutes, our graduation rate is the best of any public university in the nation, how do you fire this guy? We could not have packaged up $20 million and gone out and bought what Mike Leach brought to us,” said Kirkland.
During the bowl game on Saturday Kirkland started a petition. “It asks for the resignation or firing of the three key administrators involved in this fiasco certainly Gerald Myers the athletic director, Chancellor Kent Hance, and University President Guy Bailey,” said Kirkland.
Asking only Texas Tech Alumni and one former faculty member to sign, before passing it on to the listed administrators. “In addition we are calling on our fellow Red Raiders to withhold donations and future ticket purchases until this thing is sorted out and hopefully until we get these other actions we’ve requested,” said Kirkland.
Rhonda Rhodes head of the Denver Tech alum chapter has attempted to demean Kirkland as “not an active member of the chapter, also saying he does not speak for the chapter. Kirkland has refuted Rhodes’ claims and admits he does not speak fro the entire chapter.
However, that there is a nationwide alum movement against the universities and selected administrators is undeniable:
Also since the firing, the Lubbock based Texas Tech Alumni Association has been flooded with letters, emails, and calls. “The overwhelming majority are very upset about it, very mad and threatening to withdraw all support from Texas Tech,” said Executive Vice President of the Texas Tech Alumni Association Dr. Bill Dean.
Dean says more than 100 alumni have already asked for their memberships not to be renewed, meaning at least a $35 donation a year per person. “Let’s not punish the entire university for the problem in athletics,” said Dean.
Dean has urged alumni not to withdraw right away. “What I’ve asked the university to do is to be forth coming with the reasons for this firing and I don’t think we know all the reasons yet and I think there are things we don’t know, but I think the public or at least the alumni public is entitled to know,” said Dean.
In what can be described as alumnus in-fighting, Executive Vice President of the Texas Tech Alumni Association Dr. Bill Dean has backed Rhodes:
“Mr. Kirkland is an alumnus but he is not currently a member of The Texas Tech Alumni Association. In fact, he has never joined the association. He is certainly entitled to express his opinions about the firing of Mike Leach but he definitely does not represent the Texas Tech Alumni Association or its Denver chapter,” says Dean.
That the alum leaders are isolating Kirkland and the validity of participation in the association is a sign that the leaders are attempting to minimize the public perception of the outcry against administrators, especially Hance.
The firestorn over the deposed coach, apparently, is only beginning.
D
The pink-elephant in the room last night was how Brent and “Herby” ran from the obvious, Colt McCoy punked out last night!!! I have watched that hit over and over and I’m sorry but that kid didn’t want to play last night. Its the national championship game and he put his skirt on after that hit!
I’m feeling you on ‘Bama’s defense too. Their secondary was awful last night. On the two TD’s Shipley caught I didn’t see a safety within 10 yards on either play. And whats up with Nick Saban acting so dry after winning? He acted like Texas had beat them by 30.
You’re right to be skeptical about the puff pieces on Saban and Ingram, but I wouldn’t be terribly surprised that a relationship between Saban and Ingram’s father (borne at Michigan State or something like that) is a chunk of what’s behind it. The rest could be a pro-style system where RBs are a big part of the offense plus the fact that a couple years ago, the sole Big 10 program worth bothering with was Ohio State. USC had a log-jam at RB.
Post-LSU BCS title, Saban was a big enough figure to recruit nationally — he just never had to because he could comb the South for talent (and, of course, he was in the NFL for a couple years.) Of course, there are the presumptive illicit reasons, but we need some smoke first.
Dwil – You and I watched the exact same game, clearly. But, the fact that Saban mentioned at halftime that they had one game plan for McCoy that they had scrapped makes me wonder whether those passing routes would have been open if Colt had played (there would have help underneath, in any case). Regardless, I did think that Texas could have won the game as they would have been the best pass-first offense the Tide would have seen this year. Or, McCoy-first, I guess. Ah well.
@mactown – Disagree with you here. In fact, when I first saw that hit, I immediately said aloud, That looked awkward. There was just something about how he got it that didn’t look right at the time, and I was surprised that Brent-Kirk didn’t notice it. (Although they missed quite a few things last night, I thought — not Brent’s best game, and Kirk maybe didn’t want to step on Brent’s toes by pointing out things Brent was missing?)
Embarrassing that ESPN/ABC didn’t mike up Keith Jackson correctly during the coin toss.
(dwil – I forgot to edit the intro sentence: Agree with all of your points in the post, in case that’s not clear.)
Tyler Smith was kicked off Tennessee’s basketball team.
des-
Yeah, saw that… thanks for the mention.
Everybody-
Aparently, McCoy’s father went to the locker room and his son couldn’t throw a seven-yard pass to his dad. The hit was in that one place below the shoulder pads and above the new back pads worn that is vulnerable – and dude led with his helmet and hit right in the right place.
LA, S2N-
Yeah, yeah I know about the MSU thing, but c’mon. Mark Ingram, Sr. should know alabama is no place for a Black man – from above the Mason-Dixon line. When Ingram stunk up the joint in a couple of games the press and fans down there were all over his ass, and without him Alabama is a 9-4 team at best….
And yeah, Saban talked that talk, but what that meant – to me, at least – was that he somehow knew one of his players was going to take McCoy out, so he already had a back up plan to run the ball and have his wideouts run half-assed pass patterns?
I don’t know, maybe I just don’t trust that cat…..
And yeah, not having KJ miked sucked big nutz, but hey, it’s the Big Disney’s world and KJ is old news, so doing the right thing and honoring the man who made televised college football is out of the question, y’know? To hell w/ the Big Subliminutz.
(damn, I am a little surly today, huh? … lmao)….
And nice call by somebody for Texas at the end of the half – dumbasses. Just think if UT was up 21 -17 and McElroy has to throw – it would be game over, even with a backup QB.
And FUCK Mel Kiper for talking down McCoy. That’s wrong. Dude has never seen McCoy throw an out pattern from NFL hash marks and apparently never noticed McCoy throw easy 50-yard passes during games. Oh wait, McCoy isn’t 6’6″, can’t throw 112 yards and according to Kiper McCoy’s “measurables” (as he puts it) didn’t include a 17″ dick.
PETS CARROLL IS SUPPOSED TO BE GONE FROM USC TO SEATTLE – THEY FIRED MORA… MIKE RILEY IS BEING TARGETED BY SC.
Yeah, from what I could tell from numerous replays (missed 1st quarter), that was a pretty decent hit on just the right spot. We’re talking full-speed mass from the same dude that eventually intercepted that shuffle pass for a TD. I still feel that even if McCoy is healthy, ‘Bama takes it in a close one by playing defense and/or grounding out the clock.
As for Pete, I’m still willing to bet he’s back next year at USC. Unless it’s over buckets of cash or the NCAA brigade is headed toward L.A., there’s no way he’d leave for Seattle!
As for the Leavitt story, I suppose these admin’s (and parents!) want a little more success and a lot less aggression…???
@ dwil
Mention Kiper’s Big Board to Bill Polian and watch him go ballistic…Polian once related, how, prior to the draft, he casually dropped Antoine Bethea’s name to Kiper and Kiper didn’t “have a clue” who he was talking about.
Drjb-
I remember that. Polian totally out Kiper. But I know that since Mellie Mel always knows his names and his fucking “measurables.” He and that other pompous twerp ESPN has doing the draft. They need to take some measurables on my hacky sack.
@dwil
Hhahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa…LMBAO!!!!
Kiper and Todd McShay spend more time watching “measurables” and combine times and less time with players who actually WIN. Dudes need to watch more game tape — and not just cats from the D-IA higher ups.
D – no one should trust a D-IA coach, no matter how good. Nick Saban ceded all trust from the outside world when he said he wouldn’t be the next coach at Alabama, or something close to that.
As for Ingram being south of the Mason-Dixon: I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an implicit bit of trust between parents and coaches that the program shields their sons from that ish. It’s not true, but it makes it more palatable — and winning makes it disappear. But it really is about who you know there.
@ Signal
Yeah, you’re absolutely right…but, Kiper is the product of such a fake and fu%ked-up system that he actually evaluates players for insurance purposes with LLoyds of London. Horse-crap!!! The worth of a scout and/or talent evaluator should be gauged on his “finds.” Kiper and that other joker can, truthfully, make no such claims. At the sociological level, they both are nothing more than products of economic stratification and corporate privilege.