1. Florida

2. Alabama

3. LSU

4. Georgia

5. Georgia Tech

6. Auburn

7. South Carolina

8. Clemson

9. Virginia Tech

10. Miami

11. Arkansas

12. Tennessee

13. UNC

14. Kentucky

15. Mississippi St.

16. Ole Miss

17. Boston College

18. FSU

19. NC State

20. Wake Forest

21. Duke

22. Vanderbilt

23. Virginia

24. Maryland

Look - is there even an argument at this point? Many of those that did not grow up in the south seem to want to lambast the “SEC love fest” heard on our morning show. I say the SEC is merely receiving it’s just due as far and away the best league in college football.

There are now four SEC teams above ANYBODY in the All Cupcakes Conference, and six, or half of the SEC, are above everyone but the Yellowjackets. As any chef will tell you, the proof is in the puddin’.

I harken back to analogies I used before the season began, and add a new one to the mix;

- The NFL is to the SEC what the SEC is to college football.

- The SEC is to college football what the NFL is to any and all other professional football leagues.

- (New) The SEC is to the ACC in football what the ACC is to the SEC in basketball.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend, and on to game week of the biggest college football game in the Emerald Coast’s history - #1 and undefeated Florida vs. #2 and undefeated Alabama in the championship for the conference that is the crown jewel of college football!

This should be fun!

marcryan General

Sources close to the Florida State University football boosters have reported that one big-money booster has weighed in on whether or not legendary head coach Bobby Bowden should return for 2010.

The question is, how much weight does $15 million carry in Tallahassee?

The unnamed booster has reportedly offered to donate $15 million toward the construction of an indoor training facility for the Seminole football program.  One condition, however, is that Jimbo Fisher, not Bowden, be the man to coach the football team in the new practice facility.

Plans have been announced for the facility but funding remains an issue.  (Design firm Ellerbe Becket has provided the school preliminary pictures here, here, here, and here.)

Director of Athletics, Randy Spetman, has confirmed that there are some donors willing to provide what he called, “seed money.”  “We do have some [money] committed for the project and a number of interested donors, but are not at a point to announce any kind of time line.”

If my sources are correct, the reason there is no time line for the donation is there has been no time line announced for Bowden’s departure.

This appears to be yet another twist in a seemingly ever more acrimonious split between Bobby Bowden and the Florida State University football program he essentially built.  After 34 years together, maybe it’s true…there is no easy way to say goodbye.

Stay tuned for more…

~Smokey Joe

Joe Mayes ACC, Florida State

When Florida State head football coach Bobby Bowden was asked what departing defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews has meant to him during their past quarter century together, Bowden pulled a reference from Southern history.  “What did [Stonewall] Jackson mean to [Robert E.] Lee?” he said, analogizing his relationship with his longtime assistant and friend to that of the two Civil War generals.  “He said it was his right arm.”

And so it has been for the past quarter-century:  Andrews as Bowden’s right arm as the two men built, from the ground up, a Nationally-prominent football program together.

You know the records.  Fourteen consecutive ten-win seasons from 1987-2000.  Fourteen consecutive top-5 finishes in the AP poll.  More than 150 players drafted by NFL teams.

And much of the Seminoles success over the years was predicated on Andrews’ defensive schemes that transformed the football landscape from coast-to-coast.  He crafted defensive game plans to attack the opponents’ offense before the offense could attack them.  He put great athletes in positions to make big plays and created an atmosphere in which these athletes pushed the envelope of what had previously been the role of the defense.

Of course, this atmosphere resulted in incidents like those involving former Florida Heisman winning quarterback Danny Wuerffel during the mid-1990’s.  Andrews charges were accused of dirty play, of trying to deliberately hurt Wuerffel and other opposing teams’ offensive stars.

Andrews role in these incidents can be debated but what is certain is that offenses in college football had to adapt and transform in response to the Noles’ attacking, focused aggression.

This influence extended beyond the college game, too.  Andrews developed 18 first-round NFL draft picks during 26 seasons at Florida State beginning with cornerback Deion Sanders in 1989.  In total, 73 former Nole defenders have been taken by NFL teams, including stars like Sanders, Peter Boulware, Derrick Brooks, Terrell Buckley, LeRoy Butler, Sam Cowart and Marvin Jones.

“Not a single day goes by when I am coaching, mentoring or teaching somebody that I don’t use things Coach Andrews taught me,” Sanders said upon hearing the announcement of Andrews retirement.

The Nov 21 game against Maryland will mark Andrews’ final game in the stadium he helped double in size, from 40,500 seats to more than 83,000.  Just once more, he’ll send his troops onto the field named for his boss for the previous 26 years.  He’ll travel to Gainesville next weekend and, if the Seminoles are able to win one of their final two games, maybe even to a bowl game to close things out on a high note.

But after that, if head coach Bobby Bowden does decide to come back for one final year in 2010, he’ll be doing it without his right arm.

Joe Mayes ACC, Florida State

OK, I don’t care who you are, this is funny.

And if you don’t find it funny, take off your Tebow jammies, put down your Gator Crunch! cereal, take a deep breath, and get some fresh air.

Link to source. 

Happy Saturday, football fans!

Joe Mayes Florida

Forgot the Monday nighter.  Need a big win to go over .500 for the week.

Joe Mayes NFL

Bye week for Buffalo, Cleveland, Oakland, St Louis, Minnesota, and the Jets. Other than millions pining for Brett Favre, will anyone notice the Bills, Browns, Raiders, and Rams aren’t playing? Just like their first 8 weeks so far.

On to the picks. Whatever you do, do NOT bet these picks.

Joe Mayes NFL

Urban Meyer has now joined the ranks of those who have complained about officiating in the South Eastern Conference. Meyer specifically referenced the cheap shot taken on Timothy Tebow last week in the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. And yes, I just referred to it as the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. And I forever shall.

But back to business.

If you haven’t seen the play, feel free to scroll down to the Brandon Spikes article (about three down,) and it’ll be the very first video after the “updated” section.

So what did Urb have to say?

According to Jon Soloman of the Birmingham News:

“That should have been a penalty, in my opinion,” Meyer said. “Obviously, it should have been. You’ve got to protect quarterbacks. That’s the whole purpose. It’s right in front of the referee. I’m not sure how they’re going to handle that, but … that was one of the plays we did send in.”

So Urban has now complained. Add him to the list that includes Bobby Petrino (post Florida game,) Dan Mullen (post Florida game,) Steve Spurrier, Nick Saban (on his radio show,) and Lane Kiffen.

There’s two angles here.

1.) What does the SEC do? Coaches are becoming more and more willing to break SEC bylaws to step out and question - openly question - the calls of the referees.

2.) Everyone .. specifically the ones wearing blue and orange .. who said last week that those calls were “just something that you overcome” and “part of the game” … will you now offer the same critique o’ comments to Coach Urban Meyer? If I recall, there was a penalty called on an Arkansas fan for a late hit that DIDN’T happen and everyone said “you deal with it.”

Anyone volunteer to tell Urb to “deal with it?”

rb

Rob Brown General

Thanks to our buddy Jay Busbee for this one.

If you didn’t get to see the Talladega race over the weekend, you missed a humdinger. And by “humdinger,” I mean “good opportunity to take a nap.” Not many people were happy with the results of what was otherwise background noise for the other weekends activities to some, and a waste of a perfectly good “that could be on a football game” big screen at the bar.

Except for one lap deep in the race. With about nine laps remaining, Ryan Newman decided to do his best impression of Carl Edwards doing his best impression of an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

First, to refresh your memory, here’s what happened to Carl back in April:

First off, I’m still not sure if I’m a fan of Brad Keselowski. I still don’t know if the move he pulled to get past Carl was good, or bad. There have been some who said it was fair, and some who said it was a rookie being too anxious to win a race and costing someone else a finish.

Let me also say that I became a HUGE Carl Edwards fan that day. When he ran across the finish line I actually stood an applauded. That’s how you play a man’s game and finish strong.

That being said, it was a very scary moment in a very INTENSE race that day - much bump drafting and touching and tagging and the finest 43 drivers in the world doing what they do.

Now, if you didn’t see this weekend’s accident:

(For those of you interested, this wasn’t the first time Newman has spent the end of his race with his car on it’s roof. It also happened in Daytona back in 2003:

I think the most important thing to be recognized is that the safety development time spent on these cars has been not only impressive, but clearly it’s worked. Watching it, if someone told you Ryan Newman lost his life in that accident, you’d believe it, I’m sure.

The drivers didn’t take so much of a positive view on the outcome.

“It was a boring race, and it was a ridiculous race. To see 43 cars run single file is not what we showed up here today for. We’ll see what happens,” Newman said.

“I respect NASCAR, I wish they would respect us”

That’s what Newman himself had to say after the emerging from the infield care center as reported in the article cited above from Lee Spencer, senior writer from foxsports.com.

“The more rules, the more NASCAR is telling us how to drive the race cars, the less we can race and the less we can put on a show for the fans,” Newman said. “I will go back in the day, Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip … all those guys, they respected each other.”

Some have said the key would be taking off restrictor plates and letting drivers have “more control” over the race - count Denny Hamlin amongst that group:

“The one thing I noticed today that was different was that we were hitting each other harder on the straightaways. You’ll see when the big one happens today, it will be because someone hits someone too hard on the straightaway. It’s because we can’t push each other.”

Keep in mind, Hamlin said that BEFORE the race - and it proved 100% accurate when the race came to it’s wrecked conclusion.

So, what does NASCAR do next? They’ve already dug themselves a hole using what appears - to listeners of the show anyway - to be a pretty unpopular points system to declare a champion at the end of the year. Lose the restrictor plates? Limit bump drafting altogether?

We’ll talk about it with our buddy Jay Busbee on Thursday.

rb

Rob Brown General

UPDATE:

I have found the first video of some of the shenanigans committed by the University of Georgia before the Brandon Spikes incident. This is defensive end Nick Williams of the University of Georgia taking a cheap shot at Tim Tebow after he clearly handed the ball off and was no longer involved in the play:

So we had much discussion this morning about the apparently attempt of Brandon Spikes to get his hand into the helmet of UGA running back Washaun Ealey after a run for no gain. For those of you who didn’t see it, here is the video of the event:

Or, in full speed.

It was announced earlier then Urban Meyer would suspend the linebacker after the incident. Meyer also said that Spikes was “retaliating” for an attempt by a UGA player earlier in the game attempting to do the same to him. The fourth-leading tackler on the team (42) will spend the first half of Florida’s upcoming game against Vanderbilt on the bench.

Earlier in the year, Spikes missed two games due to a groin injury, including one series at Arkansas and the entire Mississippi State game.

Article here.

rb

Rob Brown General

So I think the majority of people who listen to The Ticket - except, of course, Marc Ryan, who includes it amongst his subscriptions to Better Homes & Gardens, Teen Cosmo, and US Weekly - avoid gossip magazines like the plague. But every now and then a story hits that’s so amazing, you can’t help but read it top to bottom.

Especially when it involves making fun of A-Frau…. I mean, Alex Rodriguez.

I can’t really put it much better than they did in the article:

A former Rodriguez fling remembers seeing portraits of the slugger, 34, as a centaur hanging over his bed.

“He was so vain,” his ex tells Us Weekly. “He had not one, but two painted portraits of himself as a centaur. You know, the half man, half horse figure?”

Adds the ex, “It was ridiculous.”

So, while the majority of us see A-Rod as a fake-n-baking, steroid-using choke artist who has blindly stumbled into a fit of good luck during the post-season this year, he apparently has a MUCH better view of himself. A freaking centaur. Wow, the dungeons-and-dragons nerds who live in their parents basements called, A-Rod. They want their nerdiness back when you get a few minutes.

Oh, NOW I get it, Kate Hudson!!

IF you want to read the rest of the article, which you don’t, you can find it here. Also, it proves that he and Kate Hudson are sleeping together. So if nothing else, remember that people who paint themselves as Centaurs and hang them in their bedroom can get smoking hot movie stars. The rest of us can’t.

Damn you, A-Fraud. Damn you.

rb

Rob Brown General