The Rest of College Football

[Optimus Prime]

It's certainly going to be interesting to see what USC does after firing Kiffin as it's a rarity to get pinkslip in September in this business. If they land an alpha candidate especially after Brandon settled for Hoke, I'll puke.

BTW there's no BCS bowl this year or title run the next.

[Wild Hoss]

I understand why they fired him, but its not a good precedent that SC set IMO.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Obviously, a lot more to Hayden firing Kifin than just the drubbing at the hands of ASU.

Actually, the timing is good.

Ogeron finishes out the year as interim, it gives Hayden time to sort our his options and make a hiring announcement at the end of the regular season (early Dec time frame). New coach is on staff within a week at practices for and running the show for the bowl game (USC will win 6 but not much more). No interruption in recruiting due to the process ..... the one M f'ed up and the one USC probably didn't.

[lineygoblue]

Jack DelRio is being mentioned as a candidate.

[Hannibal]

Hasean Clinton-Dix has been suspended and an Alabama assistant coach has been placed on administrative leave for "loaning" Haha $500. This assistant is allegedly a bagman for an agent ala John Blake.

[entropy]

I think you missed a couple of zero's...

[entropy]

The University of Mississippi is investigating a student newspaper report that alleges that a handful of Ole Miss football players disrupted a university theater production of "The Laramie Project" by harassing actors with "borderline hate speech" on campus Tuesday night.

The play is based on the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shephard.

[+] EnlargeHugh Freeze
Cooper Neill/Getty ImagesA handful of coach Hugh Freeze's football players face potential punishment for using hateful speech while disrupting a campus play.

The Daily Mississippian reported that approximately 20 Ole Miss football players were among the disruptive audience. Play director and faculty member Rory Ledbetter told the student newspaper that members of the audience were using homosexual slurs and insulted the body types and sexual orientation of cast members.

"The football players were certainly not the only audience members that were being offensive last night," Ledbetter told the student paper. "But they were definitely the ones who seemed to initiate others in the audience to say things, too. It seemed like they didn't know that they were representing the university when they were doing these things."

Ole Miss Dean of Students Thomas J. (Sparky) Reardon told ESPN.com on Thursday that the university has its Bias Incident Response Team meeting "to delve into what happened and to look if there are any possible charges there."

"They'll make any recommendations there to us, to me, at the university and we'll move from there," Reardon said. "I've been in touch with the theater department and the athletic department and we're waiting on their report."

Dr. Donald Cole, who is the Assistant Provost and Assistant to the Chancellor Concerning Minority Affiairs, told ESPN.com on Thursday that not all of the 20 alleged football players involved have been identified, but that the university "definitely [has] a good idea" who they are and that a punishment will be handed down to the students involved at the appropriate time.

"We haven't entered the punishment stage yet," Cole said. "We are just trying to contain the situation and get everything in order."

Reardon said that he had spoken to someone in the athletic department, but not head football coach Hugh Freeze. There has been no official comment from the athletic department on the incident, but Freeze did tweet this Thursday morning:

Cole said that the university plans to meet with coaches in the immediate future to discuss the situation and the possible punishments.

The student newspaper also reported that Ledbetter said that a member of the athletic department sent him an email, apologizing for the incident.

Ole Miss Theatre Department Chair Rene Pulliam also told the paper that the football players were asked to apologize by the athletic department as well.

"Many of the athletes did apologize afterward," Cole said. "As some of the athletics officials got involved, they made them apologize again.

"Some of the language that was used at this particular play was quite biased and quite offensive and very difficult to understand."

"We're going to have to let them know the seriousness of what they've done, and I think that if they were to realize this, then I think future apologies will be a lot more sincere."

The timing of this incident couldn't have come at a worse time for the university. It occurred two weeks after the university's inaugural UM Creed Week, which celebrates the university's creed that begins, "I believe in respect for the dignity of each person," and ends with "I pledge to uphold these values and encourage others to follow my example."

Cole also said that there was a "kickoff event" for the school's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) group on campus Thursday afternoon and a previously planned symposium on the semantics and ethics of racial language Thursday morning.

"The truth is that we have lots and lots of teaching to do, and we have to understand that we have a new group to teach every year," Reardon said. "I hope that we can move forward from this point and working with these students we have, they can learn what's appropriate and what's not appropriate."

[entropy]

University of Alabama assistant strength and conditioning coach Corey Harris has been placed on administrative leave for providing impermissible benefits to suspended football safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, TideSports.com has learned.

UA head coach Nick Saban announced Wednesday that Clinton-Dix has been indefinitely suspended for violation of team rules but did not specify the nature of the violation.

In looking into the matter, the UA compliance office also discovered that Harris had a connection to a representative of a sports agent. UA's internal investigation has found no indication that Clinton-Dix has had contact with any agent or agent representative. Efforts to reach Harris were unsuccessful.

Harris made a short-term loan to Clinton-Dix in an amount less than $500 at some point in the summer, an apparent violation of NCAA Bylaw 16.11.2.2, which states that "an institutional employee or representative of the institution's athletics interests may not provide a student-athlete with extra benefits or services, including, but not limited to ... a loan of money." Clinton-Dix has provided bank records to UA athletic compliance department representatives that show a withdrawal in the amount he said he repaid to Harris, TideSports.com has learned.
- See more at: http://alabama.rivals.com/content.as....FAVxqLuM.dpuf

=============

since it was a loan, nothing will happen

[whodean]

The Rest of CF

Right to suspend coach and player while it's figured out.

[JRB]

I don't know that USC set any precedent with the firing of Kiffin. College head coaches have been fired early in seasons many times before-- two years ago, New Mexico fired Mike Locksley before the end of September(and that probably wasn't early enough-- he might have deserved to get fired before his first season was over). Pat Haden knew what he had, knew he wanted to make a change, and knew that, with Texas also struggling this year, he might have premier competition for any whale of a head coach he wanted to land. He wanted to make sure USC was at the head of the line.

As much as I dislike Lane Kiffin, I have to say, I don't know how much better he ought to have been expected to do given the circumstances he's inherited along the way. The Raiders went 5-15 during his tenure in Oakland--Art Shell went 2-14 the year before Kiffin was hired, and Tom Cable went 17-27 after Kiffin got fired. The Raiders are just a consistently dysfunctional organization. Tennessee won two more games in Kiffin's only year there than the Vols did in Philip Fulmer's last year, and the Vols haven't had a winning season since. Kiffin certainly inherited an enormously successful program at USC, but he also inherited crippling sanctions. As bad as USC's looked at times these last couple of years, the overall record under the circumstances wasn't that bad. This has been pointed out elsewhere, but I'll mention it here-- you could argue that the worst thing Lane Kiffin did for his long-term job security at USC was win the Oregon game in 2011. If they don't win that one en route to finishing 10-2, there's no way USC, down that many scholarship players, goes into last year #1 in the polls. The failure to meet the unrealistic expectations his 2011 team had helped establish doomed Kiffin.

Now, having said all that, I wouldn't hire the guy. His people skills are reportedly terrible to non-existent, and he's gotten too many opportunities on the backs of other people's success. At any rate, he's burned too many bridges to get another head coaching job right away. But if he keeps his head down and does a good job for someone as a coordinator, or as a position coach in the NFL, I could see a smaller school giving him one more chance a few years from now.

[Optimus Prime]

Well then, I guess Kiffin had no idea what he was walking into when he dumped Tennessee? Simply, Beta candidates need not apply. There's no mystery here, 10 million over 4 years to launch the program on an upward trajectory or good riddance.

[JRB]

Well then, I guess Kiffin had no idea what he was walking into when he dumped Tennessee?

Sort of. He took the SC job six months before the sanctions were announced. Now, he was on the SC staff when some of those violations took place, and I certainly don't think anyone should feel sorry for the guy, but a lot of people, including the SC braintrust at the time and their mouthpieces in the media, were insisting that sanctions would be minor to non-existent.

There's no mystery here, 10 million over 4 years to launch the program on an upward trajectory or good riddance.

I imagine USC will pay quite a bit more than that if they manage to convince one of their top choices to take the job. With the sanctions ending next year, that coach might get a five- or six-year contract, but he's not going to get that long to demonstrate that the program's going in the right direction.

[entropy]

ISU has hosed tonight.

[entropy]

Bill Byrne tweeted about the fumble no-call: "Watched it happen too many times. When TU needs a call they get the call. Clearly a fumble."

Wow.

[entropy]

Tim Brando tweet:

"The ending of tonight's game should be an embarrassment to the Big 12. Texas runs the league. No way was that not a fumble. Unreal."