2:15 PM In Memphis to face the Grizzlies, Utah Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin took his team to the National Civil Rights Museum on their day off. The museum is housed at the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot & killed in 1968.
1:45 PM 18-year-old golfer Jessica Kordawon the Australian Open Sunday for her first LPGA title. Her father Petr Korda won the 1998 Australian Open in tennis.
Despite Stewart’s dirty play, which included a 10-yard run-up, the Vandy player was given the same, subsequent punishment by SEC Commissioner Mike Slive as Geathers. (Geathers reflexively retaliated with a single punch attempt before walking away from Stewart on his own.)
Each player will miss the first half of his next game - Stewart against Army and Geathers against Florida.
Slive’s unwillingness to issue a more severe punishment to Stewart, who engaged in perpetrating a play that could have easily, and seriously, injured Geathers, is nothing new for the SEC Commissioner but no less indefensible.
Unless of course, you’re Vanderbilt football coach James Franklin.
Wednesday Franklin, like Slive, engaged in an opposite day evaluation of Stewart’s blatantly dirty play:
“I think when you watch the tape, Logan, you can see he was running and he was trying to get his hat across (the front of Geathers’ legs). There was a point where, in my opinion watching the tape, he wasn’t going to be able to get his hat across and he should have pulled off and he didn’t. We explained that to him and we explained that to the rest of the team.”
If I, like Franklin and Slive, had a dirty job that nobody wanted maybe I’d feel the same way.
Today Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive suspended Vanderbilt center Logan Stewart and Georgia defensive tackle Kwame Geathers for the first halves of their next games.
The punitive action was a response to an altercation between the two during Georgia’s 33-28 win over Vanderbilt in Nashville on Saturday. From that incident, SEC Commissioner Slive decided that Stewart will miss the first two quarters of Vandy’s game against Army this Saturday and Geathers will do the same in Georgia’s game against Florida in Jacksonville.
While there’s no excusing Geathers for briefly retaliating after Stewart applied a vicious, blindside clip that clearly targeted the knees of the UGA DT, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would’ve reacted any differently than Geathers did.
Stewart’s move to collapse the knees of the towering Georgia defensive lineman with a chop block - following a 10-yard sprint behind the play - certainly indicated an intent to injure on the part of the Vanderbilt offensive lineman. And there’s not a college football player alive who wouldn’t have had the same, reflexive retaliatory reaction as Geathers if they were targeted for such a dangerous, dirty play.
(Watch Stewart give a “thumbs-up” after clipping Geathers)
Stewart knew full well that perpetrating such an act could easily end the football career of Geathers, but he did it anyway. In a blatant, premeditated way.
What kind of message does it send when Slive sentences Geathers to the same amount of sideline time as Stewart?
That if a victim responds to being wronged, no matter how serious the crime, he gets the same sentence as the instigator who tried to injure him.
Last night - via WSMV-TV in Nashville - I posted video from the postgame, on-field exchange between Vanderbilt Coach James Franklin and Georgia Coach Mark Richt.
During the heated, essentially one-way conversation, Franklin slammed UGA Defensive Coordinator Todd Grantham in attempting to explain the ensuing altercation between the two teams following Georgia’s 33-28 win over the Commodores in Nashville.
The video includes subtitles to identify what Franklin and Richt said in real time. Transcript:
Franklin: ”36 [Shawn Williams] comes up, after a tough game, talking — to me!”
Richt: “Okay.”
Franklin: ”Rubbing our face in it right after the game!”
Richt: “He’s a dumb—.”
Franklin: “And then your coach when I tell him about it, then he goes after me and the fight starts.”
Richt: “That’s what I thought happened, I apologize. It’s horse —- horse —-.”
After complaining to Richt, Franklin then vented his spleen to a Georgia assistant coach:
Franklin: “Hey, 36 after a tough game, come over and going to talk —- in my face after the game. That’s not how my guys do it!”
While Franklin has a point about the behavior of Williams, if that’s in fact what happened between the Georgia player and Vanderbilt Coach, perhaps his enthusiasm for making accusations to the Georgia coaching staff should’ve instead been channeled into avoiding a further altercation by getting his team off the field.
A postgame scene on the field between Vanderbilt Coach James Franklin and Georgia Defensive Coordinator Todd Grantham last Saturday has led to Grantham being reprimanded by UGA AD Greg McGarity - with the SEC mulling possible punishment for the UGA DC.
Though videotape of the incident between the two coaches suggests Franklin may deserve at least some blame for instigating the altercation.
Before Grantham admittedly went Dusty Rhodes on Vandy’s main man, Franklin can be seen on video pointing at and shouting in the direction of Georgia football player Shawn Williams - but only after Williams is 10 yards away with his back turned and Grantham is conveniently within earshot.
With that in mind, a case can be made that Franklin waited to get the attention of Grantham, or any member of the Georgia coaching staff, before the Vandy coach loudly complained about Williams while gesturing in the player’s direction.
Video from a WSMV-TV report in Nashville also showed Franklin throwing Grantham under the bus in his explanation of what happened to Georgia head coach Mark Richt, who actually seemed to sympathize with the opposing coach by responding, “that’s what I thought happened. I apologize.”
And as first noted by Clay Travis of OutkickTheCoverage.com, it sounds like Richt may have also referred to either a Georgia player or Grantham as a “dumbass” as Franklin was describing what allegedly led to the altercation.
So what dastardly act by the Georgia players angered Franklin enough to call out UGA player Williams in front of Grantham?
Franklin told Richt that the Bulldogs were, “rubbing our face in it after the game.”
Running back Isaiah Crowell was as celebrated a signing as Georgia football coach Mark Richt has experienced since he arrived in Athens.
(Will Crowell refusal to give up #1 cost speedster Smith offensive touches?)
But if the man charged with mapping UGA’s game plan Saturday against South Carolina is right, Crowell may actually be speeding Richt’s Georgia coaching demise rather than solidifying it.
On Tuesday at his weekly press conference Richt was asked if he planned on using speedy starting UGA cornerback Branden Smith, who played both ways his first two seasons but did not appear on offense last week against Boise State, on offense Saturday against South Carolina. Richt:
“Between Branden Smith and [Brandon] Boykin we do want to continue to use them on offense with Richard [Samuel] and Isaiah [Crowell], and that’s probably going to be the majority of the carries.”
One small detail: Smith, a junior, wears #1, the same number claimed by Crowell when he granted the Bulldogs an intercollegiate audience last February. A team can have two players with the same number, so long as the similar digits remain on opposite sides of the ball. But if Smith and Crowell line up astride on offense, duplicate numerals are not be allowed.
Such numeralogics aren’t lost on Richt, Smith and Crowell - with all three indicating in recent months that the matter would somehow be resolved if offense again was possible for the same Smith who torched South Carolina for a 61-yard touchdown run in 2009.
But on the same day Richt confirmed he hoped “to continue to use” Smith as a two-way weapon, UGA offensive coordinator Mike Bobo on Tuesday flatly maintained that Crowell and Smith would not be appearing on the field at the same time and that there was “no solving” the duplicate jersey number issue between the two. Bobo: Read more…
As the University of Alabama sinks into an ever-widening scandal involving the display of current Alabama football player memorabilia at a Tuscaloosa menswear store, Monday the University of Georgia took a proactive step to slam the gate on such activity.
The day after Alabama’s fan day, which featured current Crimson Tide football players signing all manner of UA memorabilia provided by random attendees, UGA released the following statement on its official website:
Despite the litany of NCAA violations now confirmed to have happened at T-Town Menswear, Joe Schad recently reported the following in an ESPN.com story titled, “Source: Alabama Found No Wrongdoing“: Read more…
It’s no secret that, outside of a certain sweater-vested gent in central Ohio, the highest profile college football coach in danger of immediately losing his job is Georgia’s Mark Richt.
Normally I don’t subscribe to a coach putting a home up for sale as a sign of anything, but in this case, it might be applicable.
On May 17 Richt put his lake house up for sale. Though this is no ordinary second home.
Richt is asking $1,990,000 for a Lake Hartwell compound which features eight bedrooms and was reportedly purchased by the Bulldogs coach only two years ago.
The practice includes head coaches signing more players than there are scholarships available, then using various, stealth tactics to essentially cut current players deemed as non-productive.
Or, in some cases, a player who was promised a spot as a recruit, and who turned down other schools, ends up without a scholarship.
The most infamous purveyor of such techniques is Alabama’s Nick Saban. Why?
1) He regularly oversigns
2) He hides player scholarship information from the media under false pretense (federal privacy laws do not govern such information)
3) He makes a lot of money
4) Alabama makes a lot of money from its football program
Though thanks to the media, and coaches like Richt, the Tide may be finally turning against Saban and his compatriots in the practice.
During his talk to Georgia fans last week, Richt said of oversigning:
“If you bring them (recruits) in in the summer, and you work them and you let your strength staff work with them, and you kind of decide which ones you like the best, and you tell five of them, ‘Hey we know we signed you, and we expected you to be able to come in, we don’t have space for you, we’re really sorry about that but we don’t have space for you – you’re gonna have to leave and come back in January.’
“These other coaches have been over-signing, trying to grayshirt, trying to make sure they never come up short of that 85 (scholarship limit) number. But in doing so have they done it in an ethical way, which is what you’re asking. And I’d say not. That’s why the NCAA is trying to change its rules. ..
“.. There’s been a bit too much of the winning at all costs in college football. And I hope the tide turns in the other direction.”
On Feb. 2, 2011, college football recruiting signing day, Saban went out of his way to defend his oversigning to the media, reading off prepared notes as he defended himself:
Here’s part of Saban’s statement:
When you look at the numbers without knowing all the facts and internal information, I think that is a little premature and unfair.
So how does one procure such facts?
Good question, as Saban blocks, some say unlawfully, such “internal information” to the media that is otherwise volunteered to the public by virtually every other similarly situated school in the country.
Or you can ask former BIRMINGHAM NEWS reporter Ian Rapoport, who had this infamous exchange with Saban on April 14, 2008, about Alabama player scholarship information:
Rapoport: “The numbers is issue. First, do you know, is Colin Peek on scholarship?”
Saban: “I don’t know. You ask me, do I know…”
Rapoport: “I think you do know.”
Saban: “You’ll have to ask somebody else. … You’re asking the wrong guy.”
Saban later admitted to the reporter that the player was indeed on scholarship.
More from the conversation:
Rapoport: “How are you going to handle the numbers and when do you start to worry about it?”
Saban: “I’m not worried about them. It’ll all work out. I mean, the whole thing has a solution to every issue. You don’t put yourself in a position where you don’t know what’s coming, then have to take it in the chops. Aiight? We know how it has to be managed, and it will be managed.”
Saban: “And you don’t need to call me and ask me to write a column for you, and I won’t call you and ask you how to manage our numbers. How’s that?”
Rapoport: “So you’re not going to tell us?”
Saban: “I’m not going to tell you what? It’s none of your business. Aiight? And don’t give me this stuff about the fans need to know, because they don’t need to know.”
Rapoport: “I would never say that.”
Saban: “Don’t even ask. Aiight?”
As an Alabama football beat writer who had to face Saban ever day that season, Rapoport played off the exchange as playful in his report of the conversation. But the video may suggest otherwise. At the very least, Saban got his point across.
On 2/2/2011, Saban said of the criticism of his oversigning: “When you look at the numbers without knowing all the facts and internal information, I think that is a little premature and unfair.”
When Saban was asked point blank about “all the facts and internal information” on 4/14/08, the coach replied: “It’s none of your business.”
