Category: College Football (Page 254 of 296)

Two weeks ago when Lloyd Carr announced he was effectively stepping down from head coach at the University of Michigan, rumors of Les Miles coaching the maze and blue started spreading like wildfire.

Well, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

The University of Michigan’s search for a new football coach took its first significant step forward Wednesday night, as athletic director Bill Martin asked for, and received, permission to talk to Louisiana State University coach and former Wolverine player and assistant Les Miles about succeeding the retired Lloyd Carr.

Wolverine fans shouldn’t get their hopes up yet. While this would make a nice homecoming story for Miles (he played under legendary UM coach Bo Schembechler and also was an assistant for him), LSU isn’t going to allow him to head north without at least offering him a lucrative extension. Plus, Michigan isn’t known for shelling out huge contracts to head coaches. Carr made less than $300,000 annually, which is still a lot of money but given UM’s size and reputation, one would think they would pony up a little more for a head football coach.

Something tells me that if this becomes a bidding war for Miles, LSU is going to retain his services. However, you can never downplay where a man’s heart lies. Maybe Miles is willing to accept around the same amount of money he made at LSU this season (just less than $1.5 million) to coach at his alma mater. Carr made just under $1.5 million this season too, so obviously UM would probably be fine with signing Miles in that price range.

The season for firing head coaches is apparently here in college football:

– Sources tell ESPN.com that head coach Huston Nutt will not be back at Arkansas next year. Don’t feel too bad for Nutt though – apparently he’ll still get a buyout settlement for around $3.5 million.

– Georgia Tech fired head coach Chan Gailey after six years of service. Interesting that Gailey was fired just one season after he was mentioned as a possible candidate for an NFL head-coaching job in Pittsburgh and Miami.

– Texas A&M has decided to replace Dennis Franchione with former Green Bay Packers head coach Mike Sherman. As long as Sherman doesn’t sell a secret newsletter to boosters with information about his football program, I think he’ll do all right.

– LSU defensive coordinator Bo Pelini is getting a strong look at Nebraska’s head coaching job. Hiring the defensive coordinator of the third ranked defense in the country might be a good idea considering the Cornhuskers gave up nearly 40 points a game this season.

Has there been a wilder ride than the 2007 college football season? Every week there’s an upset or a thrilling finish and whether pundits like it or not, parity has made college football exciting.

This week’s upset special was Arkansas’ thrilling 50-48 triple overtime victory over LSU. It took another frenzied last minute comeback for the Tigers to even reach overtime, but once there their usually stingy defense failed them. The Razorbacks scored touchdowns on all three of their overtime possessions and even converted a fourth and 10 that if failed, would have given LSU the victory.

How much bigger does Saturday’s Kansas-Missouri game get with LSU losing? How about #3 West Virginia vs. #20 Connecticut? Ohio State just got new life as well and now they have to root for a UCONN upset of WV. Amazing how the Buckeyes could sneak back into the national title picture a mere two weeks after losing to Illinois at home.

What a season.

Easily the college football game of the week – if not the year – occurs Saturday when #4 Missouri takes on #2 Kansas for the chance to possibly play for a national title. With what’s at stake in this year’s “Border War”, many members of the media (including Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star) have taken the opportunity to proclaim that the game is much more than your standard college football rivarly.

However, the guys at SPORTSbyBROOKS.com say that the media has gone crazy in overstating the hatred between the two schools (and states for that matter.).

The rivalry, despite two perennially horrible teams, is remarkably intense and compares favorably with others that we’ve experienced personally (OSU-UM, UF-UGA, USC-UCLA, Clemson-USC). But some of the things we’ve been reading this week about the contemporary conflict between the schools (and states) is downright ridiculous and completely untrue.

We grew up and lived in KC, smack between the two schools. We never, EVER heard someone mention anything about slave state-this or Jayhawk-rape-that. We’re sure the folks in KSMO would like to think that this is the most important sporting event the Western Hemisphere has witnessed since the Royals absolutely trounced the Redbirds in the ’85 World Series (thank you Jack Clark!), but it isn’t. But you wouldn’t know that by following media accounts this week authored by Missouri and Kansas carpetbaggers.

The media over-hyping the magnitude of a game? Never!