2. Florida defensive tackle Leon Orr is in trouble again after getting caught driving on a suspended license.

3. Vanderbilt running back  Lafonte Thourogood is transferring.

4. Clemson will be without one – possibly two – high-profile players when they open up against Auburn.

5. When it comes to Auburn this fall, different probably means better.

6. Two incoming freshman at Georgia are anxious to get their college careers started.

7. Contrary to a USA Today report, Ole Miss says its athletic department turned a profit in 2011.

8. Expect the college football playoff process to get really messy.

9. Kevin Scarbinsky on Derrick Thomas:  ”The College Football Hall of Fame just revisited his grave. And spit on it. Again.”

Extras

10. Seven million reasons why it’s good to be Mike Kryzewski.

11. The wife of former Syracuse assistant Bernie Fine plans to sue ESPN for libel.

A week ago Monday, Tony Barnhart of CBSSports.com made the case for a college football playoff involving the four best teams in the nation, period.  In that piece — which, as you know, we totally agree with — included this quote from ACC commissioner John Swofford:

“I’m a big believer in conference championships and that resonates with me.  But if you’re selling a four-team playoff, and it’s not 1-2-3-4, then the credibility of the system is undermined.”

To date, the Big Ten and Pac-12 have been the leagues trying to limit the number of non-conference champs who could reach a playoff.  The ACC and SEC have been in favor of inviting the top four teams regardless of league silverware.

But between last Monday and this past Monday, Florida State’s Andy Haggard opened his mouth and sent shockwaves across the landscape of college football.  He put FSU on the auction block.  That put Swofford in a tough spot.

On Monday — in a post titled: Did An FSU Trustee Just Cost The SEC A Playoff Partner – we wondered if Swofford might change his tune regarding a playoff for political purposes.  We wrote:

“(Faced with losing FSU) Does Swofford suddenly switch sides in the current playoff talks?  If the ACC were to suddenly join the Big Ten and Pac-12 in pushing for a champs-only or champs-mostly style of playoff, he’d be exerting pressure in two places.  Faced with a champs-only plan, Notre Dame might be forced to actually join a league and the ACC would have a one-in-three shot at grabbing them (along with the Big Ten and the Big 12).  In addition, Florida State might suddenly view the ACC, Pitt, Syracuse and all those other ‘basketball schools’ as looking pretty good.  What’s the easiest path to a national title and beaucoup playoff dollars: Besting Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, West Virginia and TCU in the Big 12 or beating, well, uh, the field in the ACC?  The ACC would clearly be the easier path at the present time (even though FSU has only one its league once and it’s division twice since 2005).  In that scenario, it might make greater financial sense for Florida State to stay put.”

So guess what Swofford said earlier today:

ACC commissioner John Swofford said ACC membership prefers conference champ model in playoff

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyCBS) May 16, 2012

Well, whaddya know?

This will most likely be seen as a tit-for-tat deal with the Big Ten and Pac-12.  ”You stop pushing for on-campus semifinals and we’ll go along with your plan of taking any conference champs ranked in the top six.”

But don’t think for a second that this isn’t also being driven by Swofford’s need to either a) lure Notre Dame into the ACC or b) hold on to Florida State.

* For months, rumors have swirled of Florida State and Clemson (then Miami) leaving the ACC for the Big 12.

* No traditional journalist in America could get a single source to confirm any of that even off the record.  (Not even Joe Schad threw out a “sources say.”)  I can’t stress enough how unbelievably uncharacteristic — and telling — that is.

* The ACC and ESPN announced a new deal, but instead of being viewed as a positive, many viewed it as a negative.  But they did so for many of the wrong reasons.

* The AD at Florida State, Randy Spetman, said last Friday that his school was committed to the ACC.

* A day later, the chairman of FSU’s board, Andy Haggard, nuked Spetman and the ACC and ESPN and said the board “unanimously” agreed with him that it’s time to listen to other offers from the Big 12 or the SEC, etc.  FSU football coach Jimbo Fisher backed Haggard’s comments that afternoon.

* Later that same day, FSU president Eric Barron downplayed Haggard’s trustee/booster’s comments.  He and the ACC put out statements saying Haggard had his facts wrong regarding the new TV deal.

* To the west, the University of Texas is on record as saying it’s in favor of the Big 12 remaining a 10-school league, at least for now, and AD DeLoss Dodds — probably the most powerful man in the Big 12 — said FSU is a “long ways away” from joining the Big 12.

* Newly-appointed Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said yesterday he wants expansion to slow down, but he also admitted that he has to discuss the possibilities with his schools’ presidents.

* Officials at FSU, Texas and inside the Big 12 have all said there have been absolutely no talks and that no one has even begun any sort of negotiations.

* ESPN — having just re-worked a deal with the ACC in hopes of giving that league more stability — certainly wants FSU to remain in place and not jump to the Big 12, which would set off further moves and force the network to tear up and then re-work more contracts.

* Monday, FSU’s president sent out an email listing the complaints some FSU folks have with the ACC while simultaneously listing even more issues they would have with the Big 12.  In the process, he kicked the Big 12 right in the diplomas calling that conference “academically weaker” than the ACC.

Got all that?  Well now ex-Florida State football player and former trustee Derrick Brooks has gone on Tim Brando’s radio show and said the following:

“This is no new discussion for Florida State in terms of leaving the ACC.  Whether it be the SEC talk, Big 12, you know, what other conference.  It’s nothing new…

I finished up my trusteeship recently, but I’m still very involved.  You know, and the Big 12 is coming after us and it’s no doubt that we’re gonna listen.  You know, if anyone comes in to talk, I think there’s no harm in listening to what the pitch is.

But there’s been no commitment at all and I think from our president’s standpoint, you know, he was just attempting to put things out there from his perspective, saying ‘these are the pros and, as I see it, these are the cons, as I see it.’  But at the end of the day, you know, we’ll measure each one and if it’s a good decision then the board will decide.  You know, not me as a president, but the trustee board will decide what happens and hopefully by the Big 12 flirting or courting us it gives the ACC that much more credibility…

From my understanding it is the Big 12, you know, wanting to talk to us… now again, that’s from my understanding that appears to be the case.”

Observations:

* Even in previous conference realignment moves — with people lying all over the place — I’ve yet to see a situation quite like this one where no one seems to be on the same page.  Right down to Haggard’s rant about the details of a TV contract that were not the actual details of that TV contract.  This isn’t like watching a soap opera… it’s like watching a Mexican soap opera when you can’t speak Spanish.

* Why is it every time someone on or once on FSU’s board speaks — first Haggard, now Brooks — he mentions the SEC as a possibile dance partner for the Seminoles?  It seems that either a) FSU is longing desperately for an invite to the SEC or b) that FSU’s board knows the SEC would/will/is talking to them (which would mean there is no hard and fast agreement within Mike Slive’s league to steer clear of schools in current SEC states.)  The SEC — typically, wisely — remains quiet regarding FSU, allowing that school, the Big 12 and the ACC to stumble all over themselves instead.

* Brooks’ comments regarding the email sent out by FSU president Eric Barron make it seem even more clear that — as we wrote yesterday — if State does join the Big 12, Barron won’t be the president at the time of arrival.  Brooks sounded like a jock making sure everyone knew that the board, not the nerd, would make the final call. There’s a battle inside FSU at the moment and unlike the similar fight that was waged at Missouri last year, this one’s much more public and it’s getting a good bit nastier.

* It’s possible that Haggard and Brooks and FSU are simply trying to “pull a Texas” on the ACC.  By openly flirting with other leagues — as the Longhorns did with the Pac-10 and Big Ten and, reportedly, the ACC over the past few years — the Seminoles seem to be making a leverage play with commissioner John Swofford.  ”Give us something extra.” What’s amusing about this is that “Lil’ Texas” could wind up living in a league with the “Original Texas” and then we’d really get to see some tug-o-wars.

* Brooks’ comments make Bob Bowlsby and the Big 12 look bad.  Bowlsby and Big 12 officials have consistently said they’re not even all on board with expansion at this point with Texas being the one, big, known holdout (though Longhorn Rivals’ site Orangebloods.com is trying to help drive an FSU-to-Big 12 move).  Barron insulted the Big 12 with his “academically weaker” comment and he must have done so intentionally.  Brooks’ comments make the Big 12′s new commissioner — who’s not even officially on the job yet — look either misinformed or dishonest.  Unintentionally Brooks might have ticked off a few Big 12′ers himself.

* Finally, how the Big 12 chasing FSU would give the ACC more credibility is anyone’s guess.  I’m guessing Swofford is feeling less confident these days, not more confident in his own conference’s future.

At this point, anything at all is possible and anyone trying to read the tea leaves is wasting their time.  There are simply too many leaves to be read.

Which means the last 30 minutes I spent writing those observations… yeah, I’ll never get those minutes back.

UPDATE — This just keeps getting better.  Brett McMurphy of CBSSports.com reports that FSU’s AD told him of today’s radio interview: “I don’t know where Derrick got that.”

We at MrSEC.com have obtained a quick video breakdown of the current FSU situation:

Yesterday Stallings opened up again about the Aggies move, why they made it, and why he believes fans will need to be a little patient:

“First I didn’t want to go to the Pac-10.  I would have rather kept the (Big 12) conference intact (in 2010). Since it wasn’t going to be intact, I would rather go the SEC than anywhere else.

I think the Longhorn Network made it an uneven playing field (in the Big 12).  I could care less what Texas does.  If that is to their advantage, that is fine.  I thought it was to the advantage of Texas A&M to go the SEC…

You talk about going into the SEC… It’s a tough conference to play in.  There are just no easy games.  I don’t want expectations to be high.  (The Aggies under first-year coach Kevin Sumlin) are going to do as well as they can.  Let’s give it a little time.”

Cue the Texas and Texas A&M fans to bash one another over who started what and who’s in better shape moving forward.  That argument will rage on for years.  And if the Aggies struggle in Year One of their SEC era, you can bet they’ll have to listen to a lot of people say, “I told you so.”

But give it time — as Stallings suggests — and A&M should be A-OK in the SEC.  If Arkansas and South Carolina can become Top 10 programs in college football’s toughest conference, a school with the recruiting base of A&M should be just fine, too.  Long-term.

Over the weekend we paid close attention to see how much coverage ESPN would give to Florida State booster Andy Haggard’s rant against the ACC’s contract with the network.  In terms of homepage coverage on ESPN’s website, there was none.  Not a blip, not a blurb, not a headline that we saw.

Even though the most powerful booster/trustee at a traditional football power had shivved his own school’s administration and the Atlantic Coast Conference while inviting other leagues to contact his school… “the worldwide leader” (small caps) remained mum on the subject.  On Monday a couple of ESPN’s college sports bloggers took up the topic, but not to any great degree.

Yesterday, ESPN’s Burke Magnus — the senior VP of college sports programming — wrote a short defense of ESPN’s deal with the ACC on something called ESPN Front Row (yet another of ESPN’s endless offshoots):

“The new agreement with the ACC provided a win for all involved. Fans will be served with more ACC content than ever before through a wide variety of outlets, devices and technologies. ESPN added value through four more years of an ACC agreement, plus more football games, more basketball games, more ACC sports content and new sponsorship rights for conference championships. The ACC has received significant additional financial compensation and unprecedented exposure for the added value and the longer term.

While ESPN has televised college sports for more than three decades, we recognize the rights landscape is evolving and more competitive than ever, and fans are savvier about their content choices. Our company works hard to provide fans with the widest selection of content from the schools and conferences they love.”

No doubt.  And no one does a better job of covering live games and events than ESPN.

Unfortunately, what was once a go-to leader in real, honest-to-God news coverage is no more.  By becoming a partner of the ACCs and SECs of the world and by buying the BASS leagues of the world and by starting and owning college football bowl games, the network has killed its news credibility.  (It’s also become larger and richer than any sports entity in history and for that we salute the network.  We’re not saying ESPN’s leaders aren’t dadgum sharp and savvy.)

I’m not a man who watches bass fishing on television.  In fact, I suspect if I ever find myself in Hell, fishing weigh-ins will be on television ’round the clock accompanied by a soundtrack of songs by The Carpenters.  Still, I do know there are two fishing leagues in existence.  BASS — which is owned and covered by ESPN — and FLW — which gets practically nary a mention on “SportsCenter.”  So is ESPN’s coverage of BASS news?  Or is it promotion for ESPN programming?

Ditto the network’s coverage of the New Mexico Bowl, The Hawai’i Bowl, the BBVA Compass Bowl and more.  For that matter, as a friend pointed out to me the other day, those long-running “SportsCenter” ads featuring current coaches and athletes remain delightful.  But does shooting an ESPN promo with Player X impact the amount of coverage ESPN dedicates to Player X if/when he’s arrested for drunk driving or beating his wife?

When a news organization has to put out an article defending its television contract with an athletic conference, it’s stopped being a news organization and simply become a programming organization.  Here’s hoping someone with enough money and chops to do actual news coverage — Yahoo! Sports, I’m looking at you — can step up and fill the sizeable void in news gathering that ESPN has decided to leave wide open (without ever admitting that it’s left it wide open, of course).

It’s a darn shame, too.  Before “SportsCenter” turned into a video game aimed at teenagers, it was an important, relevant source of true news for sports fans.

Now ESPN is left mostly silent when its own dealings become news, emitting only press release-type spin from a little-read web page.  Oh, to have more Bob Ley and less Skip Bayless/Stephen A. Smith gibberish.

Sidenote — Something in Magnus’ release might interest a few remaining SEC fans who can’t seem to grasp that adding Missouri and Texas A&M will force ESPN to cough up more dough to Mike Slive’s league via an expanded contract or a new SEC Network partnership:

“… the additions of Pittsburgh and Syracuse as ACC members triggered a composition clause in the existing agreement. This clause is designed to allow for both partners to address the value of the conference taking into account the change in membership. There was no specific valuation formula based on total number of schools or on a per school basis. It is not an “out clause” nor does it trigger a complete renegotiation of the entire agreement. Again, conference composition clauses are standard in our industry and are part of every ESPN college rights agreement.”

For those who’ve wondered, there’s a definitive mention from ESPN of the “look-ins” Slive has mentioned previously.  And if the ACC could get a slight bump by adding Syracuse and Pittsburgh, expect the SEC to get a major bump by adding Missouri and Texas A&M (bigger markets, more cable households).

Bateman, whose offer list included Auburn, Florida, LSU and Washington, released this statement to announce his commitment:

“This has been a great time in my life, I have had the rare opportunity to be able to choose from many great schools that would allow me to get a college degree and continue to play the game that I love. This has been a very difficult decision only because I was able to meet and get to know so many wonderful coaches at so many great universities. I have chosen to attend the University of Alabama. I am honored that I will get to learn from Coach Saban and Coach Nussmeier and will get to represent Alabama, the state and the University. I want to thank my coaches at Cottonwood for all they have done for me and mostly to my parents who have made this all possible.”

Bateman, who is Alabama’s 12th commitment for the 2013 class, is ranked the nation’s No. 6 pocket passer and 61st overall prospect by ESPN RecruitingNation.

Well, maybe not for everyone.

Years ago — during the short reign of King Kiffin of Knoxville — the Chick-fil-A folks tabbed Tennessee to play NC State in their 2012 game.  At the time, reps for the game said both programs would be on the rise under then-new coaches Lane Kiffin and Tom O’Brien.  Well, the Wolfpack at least won the Belk Bowl last year — I believe the trophy is a bronzed pair of women’s slacks — but the Volunteers have struggled since Kiffin abdicated his Tennessee throne after a single season.

So facing a possible dud game for the first time, the Chick-fil-A crew announced in 2010 that a double-header would be played, adding Auburn and Clemson to the mix.  Most assumed that “double-header” meant the games would be played on the same day, but the press release for the AU-CU game said specifically that dates — plural — and times were still to be determined.

Earlier this year we learned that UT-NCSU would be given a Friday slot and Auburn-Clemson handed the traditional Saturday start time.  Yesterday, we learned the kickoff times as well:

* Tennessee-NC State, Friday, August 31st at 7:30pm ET on ESPNU

* Auburn-Clemson, Saturday, September 1st at 7:00pm ET on ESPN

That’s a nice win for both sets of Tigers.  Not so much for the Vols and ‘Pack, who not only will be kicking off on an ESPN sub-channel, but they’ll be playing opposite Friday night high school games.

In short, Auburn and Clemson will likely get the recruiting boost they were looking for when they signed up for the Chick-fil-A game.  Tennessee and NC State might as well be playing on the C-SPAN at 3am.

“It will be a very SEC-like atmosphere.  It’s one of the few places in the Big 12 that I would say that about…

You ever been to College Station?  It’ll be the only time you go.”

That’s a pretty small shot to take – and it drew laughs according to The Gainesville Sun — but you can bet Aggie fans won’t be amused.  (Possibly because living in College Station has already put them in an ornery mood.  We kid!)

The key for Muschamp will be to make sure Gator fans are smiling just as wide as they leave College Station as they were last night.

In January, a South Carolina trustee cooked up a plan for the SEC to adopt an NHL-like point system for counting wins within the league — one full point for a divisional win, one half point for a cross-divisional win.  That idea came and went.  Maybe because the SEC region is such a hotbed for professional hockey.

Steve Spurrier then came out last month and suggested that division games only should count toward determining division champs.  This would make the SEC the first major league or conference, college or pro to play games that didn’t really count in its standings.  South Carolina-Auburn last year — ultimately, the game that cost USC a trip to Atlanta — would have been nothing more than an exhibition when it came to the SEC leaderboard.

LSU’s Les Miles then came out in support of Spurrier’s plan.  Vanderbilt’s James Franklin did likewise late last week.

Now, if you read this site, you know that we’re part of the vocal majority who can’t imagine the league doing any such thing.  Even commissioner Mike Slive has said he would have a hard time conceiving a plan in which some SEC games meant more than others.  And Georgia’s Mark Richt said he didn’t think Spurrier’s plan would pass muster.  

(Perhaps this debate is another reason for the SEC to petition the NCAA to drop divisions as a pre-requisite for a championship game and to just go divisionless.)

As we’ve pointed out, there are scenarios possible under Spurrier’s plan that are much more troubling than what his Gamecocks went through last year.  Say Carolina (or LSU or Vandy) goes 7-1 in league play overall.  Subtract the two cross-divisional wins which are meaningless and the Cocks (or Tiger or Dores) would finish 5-1.  Now let’s say their loss comes to a divisional foe.  The foe wins the rest of its division games and thus holds the tie-breaker over Carolina (or LSU or Vandy).  But if that opponent drops its two cross-divisional games and finishes 5-3 in league play, don’t you suspect Spurrier (or Miles or Franklin) would quickly complain that the teams weren’t really 5-1 each… their team was 7-1 while the other guy’s squad was just 5-3.

At least Alabama’s Nick Saban seems to get it.  Like yours truly, he understands that opponents rotate year to year and what might be an easy schedule this year might not be next year: 
“I just think that’s one of those things that’s not always going to be controlled.  It’s not manipulated with who you play.  We have a rotation, we have to go through it. 

I think the other division games you play on the other side are important to our fans and there’s a lot of tradition involved in some of those games.  I think if you minimize the importance of those games, that wouldn’t be in the best interest of our league.”

The Tide coach went on to say that he would listen to Spurrier’s proposal in Destin in a few weeks.  Here’s hoping the majority of coaches and athletic directors agree with Slive and Saban and Richt rather than Spurrier, Miles and Franklin.  If they don’t, we’ll just be addressing this issue from a “change it back!” perspective the first time some team gets “jobbed” (in their view) by the new system.

Interestingly, many supporters of Spurrier’s plan say they favor it because it would create fair scheduling.  How long would it take, though, for cries of “Why do we have to play three tough games on the road while they get their toughest games at home” to ring out?

Not long.

There’s no such thing as a “fair” schedule.  Until the SEC mimics English soccer’s Premier League and everyone in the conference plays everyone else twice — home and away — there’s nothing even close.  And even then teams would still play on different dates.  Injury factors, weather factors, and discipline factors would all play a role in keeping schedules uneven.  ”You got ‘em when they were weak, but we played ‘em when they were healthy!”

Spurrier, Miles and Franklin can speak their minds in Destin.  But God help the league if they win over their fellow coaches and the ADs and the presidents and the commissioner.  We’ll guarantee you right now that such a change would only lead to more belly-aching from more coaches in the future.

SEC games that don’t actually count as SEC games?  Yeesh.

That view — coupled with the fact that not one source at any school or league would confirm the Florida State/Clemson/Miami/Big 12 rumors to a single journalist at a any traditional news source — led us to believe there was nothing to the FSU realignment talk.  In fact, we still believe the trustees at FSU bought too much into rumors of TV contract flubs, reacted to those rumors, and gave the rumors more credence than deserved.  FSU board chairman Andy Haggard lit a fuse that was previously unlit, in other words.

So it’s not surprising for us to see that brand spanking new Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby has come out and said exactly what we were saying a month ago — a cooling off period on expansion would be nice:

“My opinion is college athletics would be well served by some period of smooth water and not all of the angst and disorganization that goes with moves from one league to another… 

Conference realignment will continue to be an issue and one we all have to be vigilant about.  I think the topic will be on every agenda going forward.  But it’s on every other conference’s agenda going forward, too…

It’s all about driving value for the member institutions.  There is a case to be made for optimal value being driven by the status quo, and there is a case to be made for some form of expansion.  And I’m not prejudging or adopting either side of that right now.”

Ways to read those comments:

1.  The Big 12 doesn’t want to expand before doing some serious research and learning exactly how the last round of moves will impact the league.

2.  Bowlsby and several others in the Big 12 want to expand, but with Texas in favor of remaining a 10-team league the new commish can’t buck them.  Yet.

3.  League powers are split on expansion an Bowlsby — as a newbie — is trying to figure out who to back and how.

4.  Bowlsby means what he says about wishing for smoother waters, but things change on a daily basis and it’s possible the Big 12 could add schools never… or by sundown.

5.  Bowlsby is flat lying while his league hammers out a deal with FSU right this very moment.

We’ll go with Option 4 on that list.

Presidents and league commissioners across the country are looking for stability for themselves.  Whatever insures stability for their own league or school, they’ll support.  Unfortunately, one league’s move to stabilize itself will in turn destabilize a brother conference.  Thus, the wheel never stops spinning.

But the people running the schools and leagues are smart men and women.  Most realize that it’s better to gauge the changes they’ve just made and then decide whether more changes are necessary than it is to just rush willy-nilly into more changes.  If you don’t know how a 10- or 14-team Big 12, SEC or ACC will work out, why rush to 12 or 16 schools?

Unfortunately, presidents are owned by trustees.  Trustees are often nothing more than wealthy fans driven more by emotion than the cooler, nerdier presidents.  Trustees can make presidents do things they don’t initially want to do.  That’s what happened at Missouri.  That’s what happened to an extent at Texas A&M.  And that appears to be what’s happening at Florida State.

We believe Bowlsby and others would prefer to catch their collective breath before diving back into the depths of the churning realignment seas.  The trustees and fans who ultimately drive these decisions with their checkbooks… not so much.

Doug Matthews – a former Tennessee assistant coach and friend of Fulmer – told WGFX-FM in Nashville that communication had been made by Arkansas with Fulmer, who denied at the time having been contacted by the Razorbacks.

Arkansas, of course, decided to hire John L. Smith, who served as an assistant in Fayetteville from 2009-11 before leaving for a brief stint as Weber State’s head coach.

But Fulmer, who was selected to the College Football Hall of Fame on Tuesday, made it clear he would have been very interested in coaching at Arkansas had the Razorbacks offered him the position.

“The Arkansas job I would have jumped all over,” Fulmer said Tuesday during an interview on WGFX. “That was a really special situation and a really good team and had a chance. And that’s what I’ve said all along – I’m looking for an opportunity you can go compete for championships. At this stage in my career, I’m not looking for a dead end somewhere.

“I miss coaching. I also enjoy time with my family and children and grandchildren and all those things and the business that I’m in. Once you’ve done it for as long as I have, you have a passion for young people and the competition and all those things. You obviously miss it.”

Fulmer, who told WGFX that Arkansas officials spoke to his representatives, said he recognized why the Razorbacks went with Smith.

“I certainly understand the familiarity with John L. was a good thing for them as it turns out and I hope he does well,” Fulmer said.

Fulmer is more than familiar with Tennessee having served as a player, assistant coach and head coach at the school. He was asked if he could see himself returning to the school in an administrative or other role in the future.

“You never say never in the athletics world,” Fulmer said. “Today is kind of more of a day to celebrate what all we accomplished as a staff and as an organization during that time and not really to reflect on what could be somewhere down the road. Tennessee is my school and I love it dearly and the people that had anything to do with my leaving Tennessee are not there any longer and we’ll see what happens.”

Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart appears hopeful that Fulmer’s presence on campus will be more frequent. He was asked Tuesday during the school’s caravan stop if he would like to see Fulmer around the program more often in the future.

“Absolutely, and that’s what I’ve stressed to him,” Hart said.

Isaac, who’s considered the nation’s No. 6 running back by ESPNU, chose USC over Auburn, Michigan and Notre Dame. He visited all four schools during the spring. Other schools to offer a scholarship to Isaac include Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio State and Oklahoma.

“I just got out on (USC’s) campus and loved everything about it,” Isaac told told the Chicago Sun-Times. “The players, the coaches, the people around the program, everything they took me through. I knew it was the right fit.”

Isaac is USC’s sixth commitment for the class of 2013. Five of those players are ranked on the ESPNU 150 list.

Smith, who signed with Alabama in February, chose the Tide over such schools as Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Ohio State, Texas and Southern California.

Alabama should be thankful it didn’t have to beat out Tennessee for Smith’s services. That’s because in a Q&A with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Smith revealed a secret about his recruitment.

“I really liked Tennessee,” Smith said. “All my junior year, I would come home and play ‘Rocky Top’ on YouTube and then hit repeat.”

That kind of interest could have given Tennessee an advantage in its recruitment of Smith. That’s why he told the AJC his biggest disappointment from the recruiting process was the lack of communication from the Vols.

“A coaching change happened with whomever recruited my area during my junior year,” Smith said. “I didn’t know who was recruiting me until later that spring. By that time, I was like, ‘OK, we’re going to shift it to Alabama and Auburn.’”

The coaching change Smith referenced involved former defensive line coach Chuck Smith, who left Derek Dooley’s staff following the 2010 season. It’s unclear who on the staff was responsible for recruiting Smith during the spring of his junior year.

It’s puzzling why Tennessee would be slow to recruit Smith, who’s ranked the nation’s No. 2 cornerback and 31st overall prospect in the 2012 class by ESPNU. Atlanta, which is less than a four-hour drive from Tennessee’s Knoxville campus, is also a city of focus in recruiting for the Vols.

It’s possible Smith wasn’t ranked as highly on Tennessee’s board as most other schools, although that would be surprising. There’s also no guarantee Smith would have signed with the Vols even if they had begun to recruit him earlier in the process.

But there’s a reason Smith was disappointed in the slow recruitment from Tennessee. Vols fans will likely join him in that frustration.

2.  Auburn defensive coordinator Brain VanGorder wants his defensive backs to get stronger.

3.  Suspended Arkansas receiver Kane Whitehurst has been given a release to transfer.

4.  Three Hog footballers arrested over the weekend have only themselves to blame.

5.  It was a down year this year, but Florida could have as many as nine players drafted into the NFL next spring.

6.  Georgia AD Greg McGarity expects success from his coaches… or else.

7.  The Dawgs offensive line will be the team’s biggest question mark entering the fall.

8.  James Franklin is offering a lot of scholarships to Vanderbilt and he’s doing so early (and successfully).

9.  Missouri and Kansas are doing battle over license plates.

10.  There’s been a lot of change in the SEC, but you can expect the run of success to continue.

Former Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer – who posted a 152-52 record at his alma mater before being forced out — joins a host of Vols already in Hall, including ex-UT coaches Robert Neyland and Doug Dickey.

Former Texas A&M coach RC Slocum — who posted a 123-47-2 record before being forced out  – says his election is “validation of the players, the assistant coaches and the entire staffs I was so fortunate to work with here at Texas A&M.”

The election of former LSU tailback Charles Alexander — a two-time All-American and Heisman Trophy finalist — “is an important recognition for one of the legendary figures in LSU athletics history,” according to Tiger AD Joe Alleva.

Congratulations to all three men.  You don’t get much higher honors than being voted into your sport’s hall of fame.

In other words, this might be a little bit more serious than the run of the mill backup quarterback arrest story.

The question now becomes: “How will head coach Gary Pinkel respond?”

In 2008, Tiger D-lineman Jimmy Burge was arrested for leaving the scene of an accident and he was allowed to remain a member of the football team.  Last year, however, defensive back Tristen Holt was dismissed from the squad after a similar incident.

Obviously, Berkstresser’s previous conduct and the details of his case will influence Pinkel’s decision.  But with Franklin still recovering from his surgery, don’t be surprised if Pinkel doesn’t take Berkstresser’s status as the current #1 quarterback into account, too.

At this rate, will Missouri and Georgia have enough bodies on the field to actually play the Tigers’ SEC opener in September?

Below you’ll find the total expenses for each public SEC school — as a private school Vanderbilt doesn’t share its budget — from 2006 through 2011.  In the end, we tally the numbers to see who’s spent what on athletics over a six-year span.

Remember, Missouri and Texas A&M were Big 12 schools during this stretch.  So here are your total athletic expenses year-by-year for 13 of the SEC’s 14 schools:

Observations:

* Combined, the SEC’s schools have spent $5,595,974,982  on athletics since 2006.  That’s billion with a B.  Somewhere an economics professor just fainted.

* It’s no surprise that the traditional “Big Six” football programs in the SEC — Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU and Tennessee — would have been the top six spenders if not for the addition of Texas A&M.  (Before sending angry emails about my reference to a “Big Six,” note that the SEC in 1992 put Auburn in the West Division and Vanderbilt in the East Division despite geography in an effort to put three powers in one division (Bama, Auburn, LSU) and three in the other (Florida, Georgia, Tennessee).

* It is surprising that Arkansas’ athletic outlay has been so low compared to its SEC rivals, but remember, numbers can be tweaked.  As any Hog fan can tell you — and will likely shout at you — the UA athletic department never goes into debt thanks to donors who are down with paying up front, in cash (in most cases).

* How long before someone in the Magnolia State reads this chart, sees that Ole Miss and Mississippi State have spent about $350,000,000 less on athletics over the last six years, and starts a push for those schools to leave the SEC for the Big 12?  (Kidding, of course.  The SEC’s even-Steven revenue share actually aids those schools.)

Now let’s take a look at the increase in athletic spending for each school from 2006 to 2011, just those two years.  And since we’re looking at those two years only, the percentage increase we’ll show you should be used as only a ballpark indicator of budget growth.  Mississippi State, for example, had been remarkably steady in its growth until making a big jump in 2011.  That doesn’t mean they will spend the same amount of cash in 2012.  You can see in the chart above that several SEC schools have seen spikes and declines over the past six years.

Still, here’s a look at the total dollar increase from 2006 to 2011 along with the percentage growth for each school:

As you can see, the percentages can be a little bit deceiving.  Mississippi State basically doubled it’s budget from 2006 to 2011.  But the Bulldogs grew from just — just? — $25 million in ’06 to $36 million in ’10.  In 2011 came the bounce to $51 million.

Similarly, big-spending schools like Florida and Tennessee didn’t show a big percentage growth, but overall they’ve been the league’s spendthrifts over the last six years.

After looking at all these numbers, it becomes more and more evident why the board of trustees at Missouri pushed their school toward the Southeastern Conference.

The database is wildly interesting, but it’s not quite perfect.  First, only public schools are required to share their expenses and revenues so Vanderbilt and other private schools are not included.  Second, schools fudge numbers, cook books, or any other cliches you can imagine.  There is no definitive number that can be used to compare School X to School Y because the two schools might tally up their numbers in totally different ways.

Having said that, these numbers are about as close as one can get to actually determining the health — or illness — of an athletic department in a given year.

In the chart below, we’ll use USA Today’s data to show you the total revenue, total expenses, and total net profit for each SEC program in 2011.  But remember, Vandy isn’t included and Missouri and Texas A&M were making Big 12 money in all of the years studied:

Again, these numbers can be doctored by the schools to appear any way they like.  In several years we’ve seen SEC programs report a net profit of exactly $0 for a year.  Maybe they pulled a Michael Scott and spent their surplus at the last minute, but we think it’s more likely they’re tweaking things as they see fit.

But…

Looking at Missouri’s net athletic profit in 2011 — according to USA Today’s numbers — it’s not to hard to figure out why the school is jumping to the SEC this year.

It was a stunning response to Haggard’s statements on Saturday.  Aside from Texas officials in years past, I can’t recall many university presidents referring to other conferences as being “weaker” academically.  Especially not when their school was supposedly angling for an invite into that very league.

Before we look at what Barron said, let’s tackle some obvious points:

1.  Barron is having to convince his own board that any move to the Big 12 would be rash and imprudent.  Ditto the fanbase.  His email reads like a private communication rather than as something he knew would hit the press.  It wasn’t given the once-over and twice-over and proof-reading polish that these types of statements usually receive.  (Hey, Barron could fit in as a writer here at MrSEC.)  There is emotion in his words.

2.  The fact that he sent the email at all tells you that there’s suddenly a movement growing to get FSU out of the ACC and into the Big 12.  Haggard on Saturday claimed he could speak “unanimously” for his board.  Was he going rogue? Does he really have everyone’s backing?  Barron’s email suggests that if he didn’t have strong support before his statement he certainly has it now (unanimous or not).

3.  Before Haggard gave credence to the incorrect info regarding the ACC’s contract with ESPN, Seminole fans seemed split on a move.  Since Haggard spread his incorrect info, the FSU messageboards and other social media outlets show a strong, strong fan push toward exiting the ACC.  ”Give us Iowa State!”

4.  This move is being driven by the internet.  We noted on Saturday that the tail could be wagging the dog a bit in this whole FSU-to-Big 12 situation.  First, bloggers and messageboarders say FSU and Clemson are moving to the Big 12 for more money and because they’re tired of everything favoring the North Carolina schools.  Then the chair of FSU’s trustees takes that misinformation and spreads it.  That makes national news (everywhere but at ESPN, the ACC’s television partner).  After it makes national news, public opinion spins even further in the direction of a move.  Tail… wagging… dog.

5.  Further, the two Rivals.com sites covering Texas and Florida State are working together to drum up support for the move and to goad more FSU fans into supporting the move.  Orangebloods.com wrote a response to Barron’s email yesterday arguing against all of his points.  All that was missing was a “please come to the Big 12, FSU” at the end.  Soon, Warchant.com posted Chip Brown’s story on its own site and today that site has posted its own response shooting down Barron’s email.  It’s pretty clear how the Rivals sites want things to culminate.

6.  Ironically, Orangebloods.com — viewed by many as a PR arm for Texas’ athletic director — is actually breaking ranks with DeLoss Dodds on this issue.  Dodds wants the Big 12 to remain a 10-school league.  Why not split the new TV contract among fewer schools, have an easier path to the national title without a league championship game, and give yourself a 1-in-10 chance of winning the league rather than a 1-in-12 or -14 or -16 chance by expanding?  He told Kirk Bohls of The Austin American-Stateman yesterday that FSU is “a long ways away” both in terms of distance and of joining the Big 12.  ”There’s no traction.  There’ve been no conversations between Florida State and the Big 12… I’m for 10.  I think Oklahoma wants to alk about it.  If the rest of the league wants more than 10, we’ll be good partners (and accept that).”  So yet again Big 12 schools are apparently all over the map on this with Texas claiming they’ll be a good partner when even new commissioner Bob Bowlsby referred to the Longhorns as the league’s “800-pound gorilla” just a wee ago.  Seeing if  Texas will acquiesce to Kansas State’s wishes will show us just how happy and friendly the Big 12 schools really are these day.  (Using KSU only as an example of a school that might favor adding FSU.)

7.  All the above — Barron’s email, Dodd’s comments, etc — appear to further prove our “Wag the Dog” theory.  Reports of a done deal were the nonsense everyone in the traditional media said they were.  But those very reports have led some to start thinking more and more about a move and now those against a move are having to make their cases against an FSU-Big 12 marriage.  Regarding the traditional media in all of this, isn’t it likely that at least one — one! — reporter working the rumors would have found someone to fess up before Haggard’s rant?  No one from The Topeka Capital-Journal to The Tallahassee Democrat to The Dallas Morning News to Yahoo! Sports to ESPN could get a single source to confirm any of this.  Then it blew up Saturday thanks to Haggard’s reaction.

8.  Despite Barron and Dodds making it clear they’re against a move, neither said specifically that a union wouldn’t occur.  Barron’s long email made no such definitive statement.  (Mainly because he couldn’t.  The board of trustees is his boss.  They’ll make the call… just as the board did at Missouri a few months ago.)  And Dodds said he’d be a good soldier if that’s what’s required.  So, no, Barron’s email and Dodd’s public stance of being pro-10 schools don’t nix the chatter or the possibility of a move one bit.

Now, take a look at Barron’s email.  It’s startlingly strong:

I want to assure you that any decision made about FSU athletics will be reasoned and thoughtful and based on athletics, finances and academics.  Allow me to provide you with some of the issues we are facing:

In support of a move are four basic factors argued by many alumni:

1. The ACC is more basketball than it is football, and many of our alumni view us as more football oriented than the ACC
2. The ACC is too North Carolina centric and the contract advantages basketball and hence advantages the North Carolina schools
3. The Big 12 has some big football schools that match up with FSU
4. The Big 12 contract (which actually isn’t signed yet) is rumored to be
$2.9M more per year than the ACC contract. We need this money to be competitive.

But, in contrast:

1. The information presented about the ACC contract that initiated the blogosphere discussion was not correct. The ACC is an equal share conference and this applies to football and to basketball – there is no preferential treatment of any university with the exception of 3rd tier
rights for women’s basketball and Olympic sports. FSU is advantaged by that aspect of the contract over the majority of other ACC schools.

2. Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas A&M left the Big 12, at least in part because the Big 12 is not an equal share conference. Texas has considerably more resource avenues and gains a larger share (and I say this as a former dean of the University of Texas at Austin – I watched the Big 12 disintegration with interest). So, when fans realize that Texas would get more dollars than FSU, always having a competitive advantage, it would be interesting to see the fan reaction.

3. Much is being made of the extra $2.9M that the Big 12 contract (which hasn’t been inked yet) gets over the ACC contract. Given that the Texas schools are expected to play each other (the Big 12 is at least as Texas centered than the ACC is North Carolina centered), the most likely
scenario has FSU playing Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, and West Virginia on a recurring basis and the other teams sporadically (and one more unnamed team has to join to allow the Big 12 to regain a championship game), we realize that our sports teams can no longer travel by bus to most games – the estimate is that the travel by plane required by FSU to be in the Big 12 appears to exceed the $2.9M difference in the contract – actually giving us fewer dollars than we have now to be competitive with the Big 12 teams, who obviously do not have to travel as far. Any
renegotiated amount depends not just on FSU but the caliber of any other new team to the Big 12.

4. Few believe that the above teams will fill our stadium with fans of these teams and so our lack of sales and ticket revenue would continue.

5. We would lose the rivalry with University of Miami that does fill our stadium

6. It will cost between $20M and $25M to leave the ACC – we have no idea where that money would come from. It would have to come from the Boosters which currently are unable to support our current University athletic budget, hence the 2% cut in that budget.

7. The faculty are adamantly opposed to joining a league that is academically weaker – and in fact, many of them resent the fact that a 2% ($2.4M) deficit in the athletics budget receives so much attention from concerned Seminoles, but the loss of 25% of the academic budget (105M) gets none when it is the most critical concern of this University in terms of its successful future.

I present these issues to you so that you realize that this is not so simple (not to mention that negotiations aren’t even taking place). One of the few wise comments made in the blogosphere is that no one negotiates their future in the media. We can’t afford to have conference affiliation
be governed by emotion – it has to be based on a careful assessment of athletics, finances and academics. I assure you that every aspect of conference affiliation will be looked at by this institution, but it must be a reasoned decision.

Eric Barron
President

Wow.  Barron is obviously trying to calm down his trustees and a fanbase that’s increasingly feeling the urge to move.  But some of his comments suggest he might be trying to scuttle any chances of an FSU-Big 12 merger from the inside, too.

In Point 2 he makes the Big 12 appear weaker without those four schools that have left it.  He says that Texas — where he was a former dean of the geosciences school — rules the conference.  He’s basically saying what we wrote yesterday: If Seminole fans think there’s a Carolina bias in the ACC, just wait’ll you land in the Big 12 with Texas.

In Point 7 he states that the FSU faculty are “adamantly opposed to joining a league that is academically weaker.”  Holy crap, he just flat called the Big 12 “academically weaker.”  We’ve written time and again that schools don’t move to academically weaker leagues — especially schools from the ACC, Pac-12 and Big Ten.  Some Big 12′ers have emailed to ask about Mizzou and Texas A&M moving to the SEC?  First, neither the Big 12 — a league formed in the mid-90s — nor the SEC were viewed on par academically with the other three leagues I specifically referenced.  Second, when A&M and Mizzou moved to the SEC, they made it the stronger conference than the Big 12 in terms of the number of AAU schools.  (Again, rant against the AAU if you wish, but that’s a measure used and pushed by academicians across the country.)  More importantly, neither MU or A&M publicly dissed the SEC as being academically inferior even during the non-denial/denial stage of their courtships.

Think Big 12 presidents will enjoy reading Points 2 and 7?  Think Barron didn’t know they’d be ticked at reading them?

Barron has walked so far out on a ledge that there’s almost no room left for backtracking.  At least not for him.  If the board of trustees ignores the points he’s put forth and decides to push for a Big 12 move it’s hard to imagine Barron being the the Florida State president if/when the school entered that league.

This is all looking more and more like Barron and his pointy heads versus Haggard and his hot heads.  Meanwhile, it also appears that there might be yet another Texas versus Everybody fight brewing in the Big 12.

Welcome to Dysfunction Junction… where the Big 12 and Florida State meet.

Again we ask the following question: When’s the last time the Big Ten or SEC had any kind of public battles like this?  The Pac-12 under Larry Scott’s leadership has also learned to keep its fights and arguments in-house, behind locked doors.

That’s not the case in the ACC or Big 12 yet.  That’s why those leagues still aren’t as stable as the Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12, television dollars be damned.

For now, we at MrSEC.com await the next round of the internal fight in Tallahassee that’s being waged externally for all to see.  What happens between FSU and the Big 12 could destabilize an already shaking college football landscape further.  So watch with care, SEC fans.  The moves at Florida State could set off a chain of events that might just impact your league in the long run.

We didn’t see that one coming.  Probably because it wasn’t actually coming until Haggard believed what he read on the internet and kickstarted a Seminole Summer, rather than an Arab Spring.

Dodson, a running back, committed to Ole Miss while Perry gave his pledge to play wide receiver at Vanderbilt. Many, including Dodson and Perry, wondered if they would choose the same school. In the end, the two players had different interests.

“Ever since we were little, we talked about going to the same school and playing together at the same college,” Perry told the Memphis Commercial Appeal. “I guess things don’t always work out like you want them to, but I know Mark’s gonna do well down at Ole Miss, and I know I’m gonna do good at Vanderbilt. Hopefully when we play against each other, it’ll be like nothing’s different.”

Both Dodson and Perry chose programs that are in the early stages of a new era. Vanderbilt coach James Franklin is coming off a successful first season in Nashville while Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze is preparing for his opening season in Oxford.

Dodson was intrigued by the idea of playing in Freeze’s new offense.

“I see the program is on the rise,” Dodson said. “It’s gonna take a year or two, but the recruiting class is shaping up very well. You just have to be patient.”

In fact, Mitchell is set to become the Dawgs first two-way player since Champ Bailey.  Said Mark Richt:

“He’s a very good football player obviously as an offensive player.  He may be just as good or better on defense. We’re going to have our first true two-way player. (Brandon) Boykin was a two-way player and Branden Smith was, but they really couldn’t run every single play in the offensive system. Malcolm will know every play offensively. He’ll know every defense defensively so he’ll have a chance to play a lot of football for us.”

Bailey played at least 100 plays for Georgia in seven game during his junior season in 1998 and put up better numbers than 1997 Heisman-winner Charles Woodson in doing so.

ESPN’s Andy Katz reports today that “multiple sources” have told him that “the highest-profile game that could occur is Kentucky at Georgetown.”

He also speculated on some of the other matchups, saying he wouldn’t be surprised to see Louisville at Florida, Marquette at Missouri and Tennessee at Notre Dame.  ”But those last four appear to be more speculation at this point,” he wrote.

The Big East is still trying to decide whether it will line up two more of its teams for the challenge this year, as the SEC has expanded to 14 teams with the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M.  If the Big East does not include two more squads, two SEC teams won’t be able to take part in this year’s challenge.

2.  This writer believes college hoops coaches and their endless promises on the recruiting trail are to blame for all the transfers these days.

3.  College football — obviously — doesn’t appear to be done with realignment yet.

4.  The NCAA is considering a need-based stipend for college athletes.

5.  Auburn’s freshman football players are already rolling onto campus.

6.  Tiger receiver Trovon Reed was arrested for missing a court date over unpaid parking tickets.

7.  Is Will Muschamp ready to lead a revival of Florida football?

8.  Ex-Wright State combo guard Julius Mays will be eligible immediately once he transfers to Kentucky this offseason.

9.  What’s to become of the Missouri-Kansas rivalry?

10.  In case you missed it, Vanderbilt’s James Franklin has now joined Steve Spurrier and Les Miles in believing the SEC should not count cross-divisional games in the standings.   (Leave your nasty comments for us below, but we still think this is a goofball idea… and that there’s a reason no one else uses such a system… and that the first time a 5-3 team went to Atlanta over a 7-1 team, everybody would scream for the old system.)

I know this first-hand because I spoke to two people inside the top levels of two ACC schools last week and they both told me all was well in their league.  The sources were off so we were off.  Ditto everybody else in the traditional media.  And though Dan Wetzel’s excellent column on ACC rage behind the scenes paints the picture as being obvious in hindsight, I don’t recall Wetzel writing any of this before Andy Haggard’s comments, either.  Perhaps a “we in the media” might’ve worked better in his column.

Now, on the other side of the fence you have the bloggers and Twitterers and messageboard posters.  Most are anonymous.  Most run with any rumor they hear.  Some are correct.  Most aren’t.

But here’s what’s interesting:

* Traditional media members get little credit when they get a story right (“It’s your job!), but they get eviscerated whenever there’s a mistake made or a “failed to see it in advance” type of issue.  Like the FSU story.

* The blogs and Twitter users and messageboarders pay no price whatsever for getting it wrong when they toss stuff against the wall to see what sticks, but when they hit on a story — or even just a portion of a story — they’re hailed as real, big-time newsbreakers.

We’re a website.  I hate the word “blog” because there are three writers on this site and still others provide outside, freelance type commentary as well.  But we’re closer to a blog than we are to the traditional media.  There aren’t 100 of us and we don’t have copy editors looking over our stuff (obbvyussly).  However, we try to carry ourselves like the traditional media because the three guy making up this site’s staff all have traditional media backgrounds.  So throwing out ideas to see what sticks or writing about “nip slips” isn’t tops on our agenda for gaining credibility.

Basically, we’ve got a foot in both camps.  So there’s no bitterness associated with the above observations.  We’ve been on both ends of the spectrum and enjoyed the rewards of both.  We’ve also been discredited as being too traditional and as being up-against-the-wall-stuff-tossers.

Trying to walk that line — hell, trying to find that line to walk — we just find it interesting that the two parties are held to two such totally different standards.

Then again, people in this day and age basically go to news sources that validate their own opinions anyway.  Whether it’s Fox News or MSNBC, many people view those right- and left-leaning networks as being “fair and balanced,” simply because they tell the listener/viewer what they want to hear.  Ditto NPR or Rush Limbaugh.

It’s the same with traditional media versus new media.  If you want buttoned-up facts, you turn to traditional sources and sometimes you’re going to be a day late.

If you want speculation and to hear what might happen next before anyone else hears it, you turn to folks who are more likely to run with a rumor without finding two corroborating sources first.  But you’ll have to live with a lot more false information.

To each his own.  As stated, we’re somewhere in the middle of those two groups.  Just trust us on this one — the two types of media are held to very different standards.

1.  Here’s the full extent  of FSU trustee Andy Haggard’s “I was only trying to say” backtrack from Sunday.

2.  The ACC meetings got going yesterday and the Seminoles in attendance were “calm and relaxed.”  (As opposed to Nathan Thurm.)

3.  Want amazing?  ESPN’s ACC blogger Heather Dinich lists “What to Watch” at this week’s gathering but does not mention the comments of Haggard or FSU’s AD or FSU’s president.  At all.  She barely mentions Jimbo Fisher’s comments and thanks him “for keeping the expansion talk alive.”  Wow.

4.  David Ubben, ESPN’s Big 12 blogger does talk about Haggard’s comments, but it’s clear that ESPN has put this topic on the backburner.  I kept looking but I never saw this enormous, wild story make the homepage at ESPN.com over the weekend.  Never.  And you can bet that if it weren’t an ESPN contract that had FSU so ticked off you’d have seen Haggard’s comments and all the rampant speculation they touched off getting a lot more play.  ”Worldwide Leader” indeed.

5.  CBSSports.com’s Dennis Dodd is talking about a four-league universe.  (He thinks ESPN will try to get FSU to stay put.  We do, too, as we’ve mentioned.)

6.  Matt Hayes of The Sporting News — taking things a bit further than we did today — suggests FSU would get “slaughtered” in the Big 12.  (As we said when folks made those comments about Texas A&M last year, we’re not buying that based on FSU’s rich history.  Power programs always rise again.  However, at the moment there’s no question the Big 12 is tougher than the ACC football-wise and the Noles haven’t been tearing up the ACC.  Additionally, if some FSU fans think the ACC favors UNC and Duke, wait’ll they land in the Big 12 with Texas.)

7.  Chadd Scott of ChuckOliver.net does a good job of explaining Tier 3 media rights if you’re not well-versed on that subject.

8.  Warchant.com says “it’s all about the money” for Florida State.

As it turns out, Haggard was railing about Tier 3 rights and a pro-North Carolina school bias within the ACC without actually knowing what he was talking about.  His view of the new contract was driven by Twitter, messageboards, blogs, etc.  Those sources were wrong when it came to the details of the contract.  Therefore Haggard was wrong, too.

Enter Florida State president Eric Barron who tried to put the toothpaste back into the tube with this statement late Saturday night:

2. Here’s a look at how Georgia will be able to bring in more than 25 players in 2013.

3. Defensive end David Bellamy put the work in to receive an offer from Georgia.

4. Running back Trey Rodriguez was wearing a Florida shirt when he met a rival school’s coach.

5. Florida has offered in-state defensive end prospect Joey Ivie.

6. Here are the top performers at this weekend’s Baltimore NFTC.

7. Wide receiver Ryan Jenkins of Marietta, Ga., will cut his list of schools soon.

8. 2014 running back Joseph Yearby has committed to Florida State.

2. Kevin Scarbinsky on The Sporting News ranking of Alabama’s Nick Saban at No. 1 and Auburn coach Gene Chizik at No. 36: “The Sporting News got it right, and The Sporting News got it wrong. There isn’t a better coach in college football than Saban. There aren’t 35 coaches in college football better than Chizik.”

3. What will those same rankings look like in 10 years? “Here’s a wild card: Bobby Petrino. He’s 51, banished from the current rankings but there’s still time to get back in the hunt.”

4. Just how good was the 2011-2012 athletic season for the University of Alabama?  “It’s the best in a long, long time.”

5. Could former Alabama quarterback Phillip Sims play sooner rather than later at the University of Virginia?

6. Sims’ departure has moved incoming freshman Alec Morris one notch closer to the top.

7. A “monster rebuilding project” awaits new Mississippi State basketball coach Rick Ray.

8. John Calipari’s search for one more recruit at Kentucky.

9. Why Houston’s Mack Rhoades is probably not a candidate for the athletic director job at Texas A&M.

10. Why football will endure:  ”Football will continue — will survive, endure, ramble on — because there will always be a stream of players to play it.”

Extras:

11. Mike Bianchi: More than ever, Florida State fans feel they are a football school hopelessly trapped in a basketball league. 

12. Dan Wetzel on the ACC television deal: “In Tallahassee, it may have been the last straw.”

But we at MrSEC.com spoke to sources at SEC schools who thought realignment was slowing down, not speeding up.  We spoke with officials from two ACC schools who we have connections to and they both thought the talk of FSU/Clemson to the Big 12 was absolutely bonkers.  ESPN had just cooked up new television deals for both those leagues.  Why would they do that if they thought all that work could soon go up in smoke?  Even Orangebloods.com — the Rivals site that covers Texas — had repeatedly called the idea a “longshot” and like, oh, so many others had said there had been no contact between Big 12 officials and the folks from Florida State and Clemson.

Add to this 20 years of Florida State officials talking about how partnering with ACC schools had helped their own academic image and it was hard to imagine the FSU administration backtracking.  Plus, the commissioners of all the conferences are currently working on what’s expected to be a new postseason playoff plan.  Seems like it would be difficult to agree on a plan if you don’t even know who’ll be playing where in a couple of years.

So we were inclined to buy it — for once — when FSU athletic director Randy Spetman said this on Friday:

“We’re in the ACC. We’re committed to the ACC.  That’s where our president and the board of trustees has committed to, so we’re great partners in the ACC.”

Well, uh, no.  At least that’s not the case according to the outgoing chairman of Florida State’s board of trustees, Andy Haggard.  On Saturday, he completely cut the legs out from under his school’s athletic director, the Atlantic Coast Conference, and ACC/FSU television partner, ESPN.  Hell, Haggard sawed through more legs than a Civil War doctor.  His barrage against his own league and — by default — his own athletic director was epic.

He was ticked that the ACC gave away its Tier 3 rights for football to ESPN while holding on to its basketball rights:

“It’s mind-boggling and shocking.  How can the ACC give up third tier rights for football but keep them for basketball?… It continues the perception that the ACC favors the North Carolina schools.”

(Remember that part.  It’s important.)

As for the long-held argument made time and again by the “Knowledge is Good” crowd in Tallahassee that ACC + FSU = Win, Haggard scoffed:

“No FSU graduate puts on his resume or interviews for a job saying they are in the same conference as Duke and Virginia.  Conference affiliation really has no impact on academics.”

And then he dropped the bomb that yes indeedy he wants Florida State to start talking to the Big 12:

“How do you not look into that option?  On behalf of the Board of Trustees I can say that unanimously we would be in favor of seeing what the Big 12 might have to offer.  We have to do what is in Florida State’s best interest… With the SEC making the kind of money it does it’s time to act.  You can’t sit back and be content in the ACC.  This is a different time financially.  This isn’t 10-15 years ago when money was rolling in.”

“On behalf of the Board of Trustees I can say that unanimously.”  Really?

Boom.  (And we ain’t talkin’ Will Muschamp.)

We’ll break this down from a few different angles below, but that’s just an amazing interview for Haggard to have given Warchant.com — the Rivals site covering FSU — just one day after his own school’s athletic director had said the complete and total opposite.  We know — we’ve written it — ADs lie.  You can call it spinning if you like, but technically, they lie.  Often.  Still, they’re usually not outed within 24 hours by their own top trustee.

Just remarkable.

Even more amazing?  Seminoles football coach Jimbo Fisher — who sources had pegged as a pro-ACC guy — told The Orlando Sentinal post-Haggard’s rant:

“There have been no official talks, but I think you always have to look out there to see what’s best for Florida State.  If that [jumping to the Big 12] is what’s best for Florida State,then that’s what we need to do.”

If Haggard dropped Fat Man, Fisher unloaded Little Boy.  Both fell right into the laps of Spetman and the ACC.

Some thoughts:

It seems the tail’s been wagging the dog at FSU

You would think Haggard would be pretty clued in to the ACC/ESPN television contract.  He’s FSU’s top trustee until his term ends — reportedly — at the next board meeting.  But like so many others in the last few days, he was actually all wrong regarding those hotly-debated Tier 3 rights.

Jim Lamar of The Tallahassee Democrat reports that ACC assistant commissioner Michael Kelly said Saturday that all ACC schools have the exact same Tier 3 rights.  Moreover, all the men’s basketball and football games go to ESPN.  Now, that won’t put any more cash in FSU’s coffers, but the idea of the basketball schools being given an advantage?  Unless Kelly is lying — and the contracts would be pretty hard to forge — Haggard was 100% off base on that front.

Which makes this writer wonder just how connected to this process he’s been.  Could that be the source of his anger?  Is this an Arab Spring type of moment we’re witnessing, driven by rumors, exaggerations, anonymous blogs and social media?

Think about it:  The ACC cuts a deal with ESPN.  One blog drives the story that FSU and the Big 12 are talking.  Somebody floats their rage over the Tier 3 rights on a messageboard or two.  It hits Twitter.  An outgoing, left-out (and possibly angry about it) Haggard sees all this and decides to do a number on his own AD and ESPN because he  believes what he sees in the blogosphere, the messageboards and Twitter.  But then it turns out that a good part of his spiel is based on faulty information.  ”They’re favoring the North Carolina schools!”  Uh, no, actually they’re not.

Additionally, FSU reportedly made all of a whopping $350,000 last year on its Tier 3 rights.  In other words, it’s not like the new deal with ESPN is really going to cost the Florida State a whole lot of cabbage.  It wasn’t making it under the old deal, either.

Trouble is — the damage is already done.

What can the ACC say now?

Nothing.  There is no way back from what Haggard’s done.  Perhaps as an attorney and uber-booster he knew all along he could drive FSU to the Big 12 by simply opening his mouth.  Trustees at Missouri forced chancellor Brady Deaton’s hand last year.  Key boosters and trustees led the charge for Texas A&M to join the SEC, too.

The ACC has already come out to declare that the deal is even-Steven for everyone.  They’ve said the perception of uneven Tier 3 rights is “totally inaccurate”.  Kelly also said, “There is no change in fundamental rights at this time.  ESPN does have the rights to all of our football and all of our men’s basketball games.  There is no opportunity for our conference or our schools to produce games beyond that in those two sports.”

So it’s the exact same deal ESPN and the ACC had put together years ago.  They just extended it.

Some FSU fans won’t care, though (and that number grows every time a guy like Haggard spreads inaccurate information about the deal that was cut).  The deal may be even, but it’s still worth $3 million less per year than what other schools in other conferences are making.  Nevermind the fact that if the Seminoles had been winning as much as the ACC expected when it brought them in, the league’s contract would’ve probably paid a whole lot better.

Ironically, the ACC’s spring meetings begin today in Amelia Island, Florida.  Oh, that should be a fun event.  Especially for Spetman, who thanks to Haggard, will arrive without the use of this testicles.

What can Spetman do?

Call Bill Byrne at Texas A&M, perhaps?  Call a realtor?

Spetman’s been emasculated by his school’s top money man.  Whether he’s the chairman of the board or just Johnny Millions, Haggard will continue to have clout via six-inch sheets of green paper.  Lots of ‘em.  And clearly he’s not in the same corner as his athletic director when it come to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Worse, nothing Spetman says from this point forward can ever be believed again.  Literally.  He was either a liar regarding FSU’s interest in the Big 12 (and was outed quicker than most lying ADs) or he is just a stooge standing in front of the real power brokers on FSU’s board (which is closer to the truth for most athletic directors, including Spetman).

He may stay in Tallahassee and Haggard may be discredited as having gone rogue, but Spetman’s credibility is kaput.  Dunzo.  Finito.

What can FSU do to save face?

Florida State president Eric Barron put out a press release Saturday night trying to calm the storm (or cover up whatever’s happening behind the scenes):

Naturally, the Big 12′s already interested

There will be a lot of “told ya so’s” coming from the crowd that said a deal had already been struck between FSU and the Big 12.  By all accounts that’s not true.  Sources from Lubbock to Austin to Tallahassee have all said there’s been no contact between the parties and that the Big 12 hasn’t even talked expansion with its new commissioner Bob Bowlsby.

You can bet they’ll talk about it now.

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports immediately responded to the Haggard/Warchant.com story by Tweeting that a Big 12 source said, “I can’t imagine how we wouldn’t be interested in Florida State.”  He went on to say that there’s “legit concern in ACC” that Miami may also try to leave if FSU goes.

Where’s ESPN’s coverage of this?

The chairman of Florida State’s board of trustees just said he wants the Big 12 to give the Seminoles a ring and as of midnight this morning, ESPN.com did not have the story as one of its featured frontpage headlines.  Hmmm.  That wouldn’t be because Haggard’s statements make the ACC/ESPN deal look bad, would it?

Or maybe ESPN is just hoping/praying that the deals it negotiated with the Big 12 — paying it a higher-then expected fee just to keep it together — and the ACC — extending its deal through the late 2020′s — aren’t going to be tossed into the trash heap just yet.  ”Ignore it, maybe the story will go away.”

The Dude abides

Hey, we at MrSEC.com have been right on a lot of things regarding conference expansion.  So right in fact that a lot of other sites have copied our material and then patted themselves on the back for getting our predictions and theories right.  But we can admit when we were wrong.

In this case, “The Dude of WV,” a blogger who won’t sign his name to his posts, had heard from someone who knew some FSU backers were ready to move.  Kudos.

Now, the “done deal” part of the story, well, that’s pretty much been shot down by everyone who a) has legitimate sources and b) signs his name to his posts.  Still, we didn’t think this was coming.  We trusted our sources.  On FSU’s interest in the Big 12 — or at least in one very influential man’s interest — those sources were wrong.  Which means we were wrong.  Which means we tip our hat to the unknown West Virginia fan who tossed his horseshoe a lot closer to the stake than most anyone else on this FSU/Big 12 thing.

Blankety-Blank, Blankety-Blank

Speaking of our sources, I followed up with a good friend who happens to be in a pretty high-up position with an ACC school’s administration.  After being told repeatedly for the last week that folks in the league really did feel good about the future and that FSU officials were A-OK with the new ESPN deal, I zipped him a text this afternoon: “What gives?”

His response?

Well, I can’t tell you exactly what he said because this is a family site.  But I can give you the gist.  The folks at his school were not happy.  They were blindsided.  And Haggard was viewed as a “petulant child” — that is a quote — for his outburst.

Academics don’t matter

Perhaps to Haggard academics don’t matter, but to most top dogs at major universities, they sure as heck do.  No school has left the Big Ten, Pac-12 or ACC in decades in order to move to a richer league with a worse academic reputation.  If FSU heads to the Big 12, it will be the first.

The grant and research money that can be brought in for schools via cooperative programs such as the Big Ten’s Committee on Institutional Cooperation is enormous.  Try more than $500 million each year.  

A school like Florida with its $100,000 athletic budget?  UF recieves more than $550 million annually in sponsored research funding.

Academics might not matter to Haggard and they might not matter to Florida State (despite 20 years of saying just the opposite).  There might not be enough shared academic/research cash in the ACC to give FSU pause in the first place.

But for a man to suggest conference affiliation doesn’t have anything do with academics?  He sounds like a guy who was born rich and didn’t have to do a lot of homework of his own in college.

We’ve talked to so many university officials over the years who’ve said that getting “name” schools into a league is big, big, big for the pointy heads running those schools.  If academics didn’t matter, why has the SEC been promoting Missouri and Texas A&M’s AAU status non-stop since they climbed aboard?

The Big 12 would be catching a big fish

If the Big 12 lands Florida State, that’s a win for Bowlsby’s league and a loss for Mike Slive’s.  Missouri has a better academic reputation, solid athletics, and will bring in a lot of new cable households in a brand new part of the country.  We’re all in on Mizzou, so don’t start screaming when you read this, Tiger fans, but…

Florida State is a national brand.  When it comes to national television ratings, FSU versus Arizona State would draw more eyes than Mizzou versus Arizona State.  Florida State versus Georgia would get better ratings than Missouri versus Georgia.

No, FSU wouldn’t add a new state or new households to the SEC.  If the league doesn’t start a new network with ESPN, then what’s the difference on that front?  Florida State would’ve been a bigger brand name and would have drawn bigger numbers for every SEC contest they played.

FSU to the Big 12 would be a major coup for a league that was on a respirator about 12 months ago.

The Big 12 would also get a nice little tit-for-tat by picking up the Noles.  The SEC just got a foothold in Texas with A&M.  FSU would give the Big 12 a foothold in Florida.  Take that, SEC.

FSU would get more cash, but…

Let’s face facts, Florida State is a national brand despite the fact they’ve fallen off in football over the last decade.  If they couldn’t beat the Wake Forests and Georgia Techs of the ACC for a league title, just how are the Seminoles going to fare in the Big 12 with Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, West Virginia and TCU?  Careful what you wish for, Mr. Haggard.

In addition, FSU already has a rival with Florida and could easily develop rivalries with Georgia, Auburn, Alabama and others in the much closer SEC.  At some point Seminole fans might be faced with road trips to Lubbock, Ames and Manhattan (Kansas) that make their current excursions to Atlanta, Coral Gables and Tobacco Road seem like neighborhood strolls.

Clemson, Miami, Louisville and Notre Dame… you’re on the clock

What once was an unsubstantiated rumor supported by no quotes an written by an unknown person has quickly become an honest-to-God mega-story thanks to Haggard’s comments (and Fisher’s response to them).  You can bet the expansion/realignment talk will go absolutely nuts at this point.

FSU will be viewed as a done deal and schools all over America will be kicked around as being the next to join the Big 12… or Big 14… or Big 16.

What about Notre Dame?  The Big Ten?  Will the Big East collapse?  Will the ACC?

You can also expect all the talk of a 16-school SEC to start up again.  Expansion chatter is good for business when football and basketball are out of season.  So get ready to read that Commissioner Slive has secretly flown into Blacksburg and Raleigh and Chapel Hill and Durham.  Get ready for East Carolina fans to start their campaign for SEC entry again.  Get ready for rumors of a Big 12 versus SEC tug-of-war for Florida State to commence.

Oh, it’s all coming.

Damnit.  (Trust me, I’m not excited to be writing about this stuff at 1am on a Sunday morning.)

If you’re a conference commissioner, good luck on the playoff front

Those talks between the league commissioners and Notre Dame’s AD just got a lot more interesting, didn’t they?  Let’s see if they can design a playoff system while also trying to figure out who’ll be playing who on a regular basis.

Will Florida State get any Texas A&M-style blowback?

Last summer, a myriad of national writers took aim at Texas A&M for destabilizing college football with its move to the SEC.  (How the third school to leave a league was to blame for realignment, I’m still not sure.)  But let’s see if the columnists now hammer Florida State for with equal vigor for kicking off Expansionpalooza 2012.

Shoot, let’s see if ESPN ever gets around to even mentioning this story.

While we think the SEC should have grabbed Florida State…

Have we made this clear yet?  If FSU lands in the Big 12, that’s a huge plus for the Big 12 and — like the extension of their grant of rights and their new TV deals — it will further stabilize a league where everyone needs a set of handcuffs to stick together.

But…

When you consider how loudly factions at FSU just broke ranks and went in separate directions, you think, maybe the Seminoles really wouldn’t have been a good fit for the SEC.  Seriously.  When’s the last time you saw an SEC or Big Ten school do something like Haggard and Florida State just did?  Never?  Those are the two top leagues in America because they don’t air their dirty laundry.

Saturday in Tallahassee was dysfuntional at best.  And while the Big 12 is clearly improving, it could have easily changed its name to the Dysfunctional 12 over the last few years.  Maybe FSU is better off with the Texases and Oklahomas of the world after all.

Nah.

We still think the SEC and/or FSU missed the boat on this one.  Florida State should be in the Southeastern Conference.

Kudos to the Big 12 if they land ‘em.

I think that deal’s supposed to be done in two months, right, Dude?

I gotta start following that guy’s Twitter feed.

2. Bruce Feldman explains his Bobby Petrino to Kentucky idea.

3. Williams-Brice Stadium will have a different look this fall.

4. Mike Anderson: “At UAB in our second year, we made the Sweet 16. My second year at Missouri, we made the Sweet 16. The, the third year, the Elite 8. See where we’re headed here?”

5. New Mexico assistant Ryan Miller joins the basketball staff at Mizzou.

6. Former Kentucky player Sean Woods is now the basketball coach at Morehead State.

7. Which early season basketball tournament looks to have the strongest field next season?

8. SEC baseball becoming more like SEC football – dominant.

Extras

9. If Texas said yes to West Virginia, would it really say no to Boise?

10. 50 years later, NBA legend Don Nelson finally gets his college diploma.

Campos, who had scholarship offers from Illinois, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State, chose Missouri as much for the school as the football.

“I would really like to go on to the NFL,” Campos told the Des Moines Register, but I’m hoping to get my master’s degree in engineering. Hopefully I can do both.”

Campos, who’s the 12th prospect to commit to Missouri’s class of 2013, will be playing what’s regarded as the nation’s top conference in the SEC. Valley head coach Gary Swenson believes Campos will be able to adjust in college.

“He played his best games against the people we considered our best opponents,” Swenson said.

Skinner gave a quick commitment to Arkansas defensive line coach Steve Caldwell when he called on Thursday.

“My coach told me I was supposed to call Coach Caldwell when I got home and I did,” Skinner told 247Sports. “He asked me if I was ready to commit. I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He told me coach (John L.) Smith wanted to offer me a scholarship and I committed on the spot.”

Skinner is the second prospect to commit to Arkansas’ class of 2013. The other is running back Kaleb Blanchard from Denham Springs (La.) High School.

Skinner chose Arkansas over offers from Mississippi State, Texas A&M and Louisiana-Lafayette.

Doesn’t he know FSU’s already got an agreement in place to move to the Big 12 along with Miami, Clemson and others?  A deal to start their own television network?  A deal that would grant them a full-share of revenue as soon as they enter Big 12?  And a deal for the Big 12 to help buy the Noles’ way out of the ACC?

Apparently not:

“We’re in the ACC. We’re committed to the ACC.  That’s where our president and the board of trustees has committed to, so we’re great partners in the ACC… I’m not out negotiating.”

Further, Spetman told The Sentinel that any reports about any Florida State officials talking to Big 12 officials are — in the writer’s words — patently false:

“They’ve said I’ve been in Texas all this week.  My wife was wondering how I was getting back and forth every day…  I don’t know why people have written (about FSU to the Big 12).  I don’t know how they can say that — and I don’t mean to pick on the media – but how can the media person come out and say that there was a Florida State person in a meeting that wasn’t true?  How can they get away with that?  To my knowledge, nobody from our organization was there.  So I don’t know how they can get away with saying that.”

Spetman also said he and his fellow FSU officials “weren’t actively seeking” an invitation to the SEC last summer, either.

Things change.  People lie (or “spin” if you prefer).

But Spetman’s definitive comments sure seem to confirm what we wrote last week and what we’ve been told all this week from people actually working inside athletic departments and university administrations — Florida State and Clemson aren’t going to the Big 12 in the near future.

2.  The SEC will try out wireless communication for its officiating crews this fall.

3.  A great find.  Now you can read a letter Paul “Bear” Bryant wrote to an incoming Alabama freshman about 40 years ago.  (We pause for Tide fans to wipe their tears.)

4.  Think Nick Saban will remind his team about Jim Delany’s “that team” remark when they open with Michigan this fall?

5.  LSU chancellor Mike Martin is a finalist to become the chancellor at Colorado State.

6.  Here’s a look at Mississippi State’s safety position p0st-spring drills.

7.  And here’s a look at Florida’s receiving corps after spring practice.

8.  This writer tells you which nonconference teams he thinks Georgia should schedule in football.

9.  Kentucky hoops signee Nerlens Noel says the NCAA hasn’t contacted him directly and that he’s in “great position to qualify” academically.

10.  Steve Spurrier and Frank Martin visited Augusta, Georgia yesterday saying, “It’s great to cross the state line and still be in Gamecock Country.”

It took a day, but Nick Saban has responded.  Asked yesterday about the Delany’s comment, Bama’s coach said, “Don’t be so self-absorbed,” while not naming Delany directly:

“Too many people are about their own self-preservation rather than doing what’s best for college football.  The whole reason we are talking about doing this is for the fans, and the fans want the four best teams.  To come up with a plan where, instead of having Numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 playing but you have Number 1, 3, 6 and 12 or whatever, it doesn’t make any sense.  They don’t do it in basketball, so for once, let’s do what’s best for college football…

A lot of it (in terms of alternate playoff plans) is targeted at our league.  Last year at one point, we had LSU, Arkansas and us ranked 1-2-3 in the BCS.  Two years in a row, we played Florida in the championship game and we were ranked 1-2.  Some people don’t like that.”

No kidding.  SEC fans had better hope that the Mike Slive/John Swofford bloc can hold more sway with small conference commissioners than the Delany/Larry Scott bloc.  If not, we could indeed be looking at a four-team playoff that doesn’t invite the four best teams in the country.  (Only in college football…)

And for those out there who repeatedly tell this writer that conference champs should be given special treatment because we have no way of accurately selecting the four best teams, we also have no way of accurately selecting the four best conference champions.  Under the plans kicked around, those same rankings that would be inaccurate in choosing the top four teams in the country would be used to select which conference champs are in and which are out.

Oops.

Below is the national Top 10 followed by the rest of the SEC’s squads:

1.  Kentucky — 23,721

2.  Syracuse — 23,618

3.  Louisville — 21,503

4.  North Carolina — 20,159

5.  Wisconsin — 17,181

6.  Creighton — 16,655 (Yes, Creighton.)

7.  Tennessee — 16,543

8.  Ohio State — 16,511

9.  Indiana — 16,462

10.  Kansas — 16,445

18.  Vanderbilt — 13,698

23.  Arkansas — 13,096

27.  Alabama — 12,484

32.  Missouri — 11.830

37.  Florida — 10,434

45.  South Carolina — 8,868

50.  LSU — 8,661

60.  Mississippi State — 8,019

71.  Texas A&M — 7,383

74.  Georgia — 7,079

81.  Auburn — 6,502

91.  Ole Miss — 5,770

By conference, SEC teams averaged 11,513 fans per game, second only to the Big Ten (12,868).  The Big 12 (11,057), Big East (10,881) and ACC (9,876) lagged behind the SEC.

Football may come first in the Dixie, but SEC fans turn out in big numbers to watch hoops as well.  In total, SEC schools sold more than 2.4 million tickets to home basketball games last season.

For those keeping score at home…

Orangebloods.com — the Rivals site that covers Texas — wrote yesterday that maybe, just possibly Florida State could consider a move to the Big 12.  Now, last week the same site reported that they’d been told by people at Clemson and Florida State that representatives from those schools had had no conversations with the Big 12 at all.  Yesterday’s piece didn’t conflict that.  Yet it’s still being passed around the internet as though there’s some breaking news involved.  Granted, they make a good case for all the reasons FSU might want to consider a move, but they don’t say the Seminoles are considering a move.

In fact, in another post from Chip Brown — the site’s administrator — Orangebloods refers to “the longshot scenario that Florida State would possibly leave the Atlantic Coast Conference.”  So while the site itself says it’s been told the parties haven’t actually talked and that such a move is a “longshot scenario,” it’s being passed along on other sites that a new gospel has been handed to us, written by Brown, stating that FSU is ditching the ACC for the Big 12.  Talk about seeing what you want to see and reading what you want to read.

Further, Orangbloods writes that FSU president Eric Barron “is seen as an academic who is not tied in closely with athletics and prizes FSU’s place in the academically strong ACC,” despite working for the University of Texas from 2006 through 2008.  In addition, the site says football coach Jimbo Fisher “is apparently opposed to leaving the ACC.”  Oh, and the site questions whether or not AD Randy Spetman — facing a budget shortfall — is in any postion to push his school into a new league.

Funny.  While Orangebloods is being tabbed as breaking some sort of news of an FSU move, in reality the site looks to be stating, “Hey, it’s possible, but there are a lot reasons to think it won’t happen.”

(Ironically, this is the exact same stance we’ve taken here, here, and here only to be clubbed over the head for it by Big 12 messageboarders.)

Another person being quoted by Big 12 fans is someone who refers to himself as “The Dude of WV.”  Yep, no name.  We just know the following from his tagline: “The Dude abides.  Truth seeker, philosopher, sPitt hater, and Mountaineer fan.”  Well that sounds like an objective point of view.  (Nevermind the unwillingness to sign his name to his work.)

At any rate, the Dude wrote last week that not only have their been talks between FSU, Clemson and the Big 12 — you listening, Orangebloods? — but that “both FSU and Clemson have reached a tentative agreement to leave the ACC for the Big 12.”  Well, hell, that’s strong as new rope, as we say Down South.

Yesterday, he provided an update that starts with this bit of homerism:

“The vast majority of media pundits and traditional journalists just can’t accept an ACC team would leave for the Big 12.  They offer a litany of reasons why any move would be a bad idea.  Yet switch ‘Big 12′ with ‘SEC’ and they all agree a move would be a great thing.”

No, grand sweeping generalizations there.  But, since the Dude chose to go there…

People would think an SEC move for Clemson and Florida would make more sense than a Big 12 move for three simple reasons:

1.  Those schools are already in the same region of the country which would make travel easier and cheaper.

2.  Those schools already have existing rivalries with SEC schools.

3.  The SEC is a more stable league than the Big 12.  We wrote earlier this week — though it was ignored by several Big 12′ers because it didn’t fit their “You hate the Big 12″ narrative — that the Big 12′s decision to extend its grant of rights is a terrific step for the league and goes along way toward stabilizing things inside that conference.  However, the SEC has no exit fees.  Think about that.  They’re so unworried about schools leaving that they don’t even have exit penalties in their handbook.  On the other hand, the Big 12′s granting of media rights is akin to a married couple saying, “Yeah, we trust each other, but we better handcuff ourselves together just in case.”

Those three points are facts.  We here at MrSEC.com cover the SEC, we don’t pull for, root for, or puff up the SEC.  Those three points aren’t homerism, they’re reality.

So is this: You know why Notre Dame is never mentioned in connection with the SEC?  Because that school would more likely align itself with a league better known for its academics, like the Big Ten or the ACC.  SEC fans won’t like to hear that and we’re sure to hear that by adding Missouri and Texas A&M Mike Slive’s league has now grown to four AAU schools total, more than the Big 12.  True.  But it’s still a fact that the ACC, Big Ten (and Pac-12, too) have better reputations academically than the SEC.

Notre Dame’s also a lot closer to the Big Ten and the Big 12 than it is to the SEC.  That doesn’t hurt us to say that because we… don’t… care.  We cover.  We give honest opinions unclouded by allegiance to a school (or hatred toward sPitt, for example).

But back to the Dude’s latest ultra-popular expansion piece…

Yesterday he wrote that FSU has already asked the Big 12 “to help with the ACC buyout and demanded a full share of Big 12 revenues from the start.  And they want Miami to join them.”  Further he adds: “Miami’s money problems are worse than FSU’s and FSU believes that travel in the new Big 12 East would not be that much of a burden with WVU, Clemson and Miami in the division.  Add Louisville or Maryland in there and travel is no longer an issue.”  And for a sweetener: “FSU really likes the spirit of cooperation they are getting from the Big 12.”

Yep, because when you think of the Big 12 in recent years, the words “spirit of cooperation” often come to mind.

So last week we had FSU and Clemson with tentative deals to jump leagues.  Now we have a Big 12 featuring Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Texas Tech, TCU, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, West Virginia, Florida State, Clemson, Miami, and Louisville or Maryland making up a new 14-school league.

Now that seems like a big jump in a week’s time, but that’s what’s been sent to my john@mrsec.com email account about 50 times since yesterday afternoon.  (Most of those emails also mention that Notre Dame will jump in as a non-football member of the league, too, to bring the total number of Big 12 schools to 15.)

That would be a helluva conference, no two ways about it.  Good football and basketball, mega-brands, a huge geographic footprint for recruiting and a big “electronic” footprint in terms of desirable television matchups.  And if the Dude’s nailed that one, we’ll be the first to tip our hat to him.

But doesn’t it seem that there would be a lot of hoops to jump through to make all of that happen?  And doesn’t it also seem odd that ESPN and Fox would cut new TV deals with the Big 12 if they thought all those moves — or any of those moves — were truly likely in the short-term?  Just saying.

That’s not all, of course.  Brett McMurphy of CBSSports.com writes that Boise State might now be reconsidering its decision to join the Big East.  If so, they could get directions from TCU on how to leave a conference before ever entering it.

And Andy Katz of ESPN.com writes that according to his sources, Louisville AD Tom Jurich “told the Big East board of directors that the Cardinals want to be in the Big 12 or the ACC.”  But wait, there’s more.  ”Connecticut, meanwhile, states publicly that it wants to stay in the Big East, though a number of UConn sources have said privately that they want to be in the ACC with Notre Dame.”

Of course, they do.

While all the world appears to be spinning off into the Realignment Twilight Zone again, we’re sticking to the same points we’ve been making for a week:

1.  Any changes in conference affiliation aren’t likely to lead the SEC to expand anytime soon.  The smaller conferences — we’re looking at you, Big East — might be drawn and quartered like William Wallace, but the big boys probably aren’t going to be adding four to five teams, regardless of what anonymous writers with good taste in movies claim.  (Two thumbs up for “The Big Lebowski”)

2.  If the Big 12 expands, it will do so probably in hopes of getting back to 12 teams in order to add a conference championship game (which Big 12 officials have publicly stated isn’t an actual goal).  Louisville almost got in over West Virginia last year.  Katz’ news on Jurich and the Cardinals wanting to join the Big 12 or ACC is perfectly believable.  That’s why we’ve listed Louisville as the most likely school to join the Big 12… if invited.

3.  We’re still not convinced that adding a league championship game by grabbing Louisville and Cincinnati — the other school we’ve thought makes the most sense if a biggie can’t be grabbed — would add enough revenue to justify even adding two more schools.

4.  No one pays attention to academics, but academic budgets are far larger than athletic budgets.  Would a move by FSU increase or decrease its academic standing?  Would that in turn lead to more grants for research or less, more funding or less, more donations or less?  These things don’t matter as much to schools like Boise State and San Diego State who need to grab every penny — academic, athletic or otherwise — that they can find.  They do matter to Top 100 universities, their presidents and their donors.  Keep in mind, in the history of expansion the three most-respected leagues academically have never lost a single team to a conference with a lesser academic reputation.  Not the Pac-12.  Not the Big Ten.  Not the ACC.  Call that dumbluck or claim “there’s a first time for everything,” but to date, the schools most prideful of their academic standing have never stepped down the ladder.

5.  Even if the Big East disintegrates, it’s likely that each power league other than the SEC will scoop up a school or two.  Louisville and Cincinnati or Notre Dame to the Big 12.  Notre Dame or Rutgers to the Big Ten.  Notre Dame or UConn to the ACC.  None of those moves would force the 14-school SEC to react.

6.  While some continue to trumpet Virginia Tech and NC State as future members of the SEC – ignoring the fact that the majority of NCSU’s board is put in place by UNC’s board — we don’t see the SEC raiding the ACC.  In fact, if the SEC has a pal among the other Big Five leagues right now it appears to be John Swofford and his conference.  As 14-schools leagues, the SEC and ACC are fighting similar battles right now when it comes to the layout of a new playoff system (assuming the Big Ten and Pac-12 presidents don’t blow that whole idea up).

Yesterday, we wrote that the ACC’s new television agreement should hush some of the rumors regarding ACC defections.  One commenter asked beneath our story, “What fans have you been talking to?”

The answer: None.  We don’t form our opinions and go on the record with those opinions based on what we read on messageboards.

Instead I’ve personally spoken to people inside two SEC athletic departments, two SEC administrations, two ACC administrations, and one high-ranking television executive (not with ESPN or Fox) in the past 24 hours.

Those seven phone calls and email conversations have led those of us at MrSEC.com to believe that what we’ve said all along is still true — expansion and realignment at the highest levels is slowing down, not speeding up.  Everyone seems to believe the Big East could crumble at any moment.  No one seems to believe FSU or Clemson will leave the ACC, despite the rumors which — to date — have not had a single quote attached to them.

So if you’re thinking FSU might land in the Big 12 North as the folks at WFOR-TV in Miami seem to, you might want to take a deep, deep breath.  Sure the Big 12 could be the Big 20 tomorrow.  Never say never.

But I think Big 12 fans and everyone else should pay attention to what Oklahoma State president Burns Hargis said regarding his league’s possible expansion:

“No, I don’t think there’s a consensus on it.  I think there are a lot of variables [and] a lot of factors that have to be considered.  Right now we have a lot of views on it, but they’re all subject, I think, to what we believe the future of college athletics will be and who might we ask to join.

I do think there’s a strong feeling in the conference for the round-robin nature of our schedules.  I know our athletic directors really like that [and] I think fans really like that.  So there would have to be a very good reason to abandon that.”

Money is a very good reason.  That said, it certainly sounds as though the Big 12 — like most other leagues out there — would rather catch its breath and see how its most recent changes play out before racing into more moves.

Blair Kerkhoff of The Kansas City Star seemed to agree with that sentiment while appearing on a West Virginia-based radio show this week:

“At least the league isn’t backpedaling and having to add schools to save its existence.  Now it adds schools to enhance its existence, if it decides to.  My gut is telling me is it has to be the right schools.  You don’t add for the sake of adding…

I threw out Florida State and Clemson only because those names have been popping up since February.  I had not written that in any story or blog, but I said ‘if we’re going to round up everybody, let’s include those two.’ 

Everybody that I’ve talked to in the Big 12 and at schools in the conference office tell me there have been no conversation between those schools and the Big 12.  But, that’s not to say back channeling hasn’t happened or various other ways that schools can communicate with conferences.”

True enough.  But again, with previous expansion moves there has always been some level of talk among the major players before a move took place — the Pac-12′s Larry Scott flying hither and yon to meet with various Big 12 school officials in 2010, SEC officials and Texas A&M officials chatting one another up in 2011, etc.

At some point, the big boys may start talking.  Until then, the “it’s coming and it’s coming fast and it’s ALMOST HERE!” crowd probably need to relax.

We could be wrong.  No doubt about it (even though we trust our sources because they’ve given us great information over the past four years).  But we don’t believe the Big 12 will be raiding the ACC and the Big East and grabbing Notre Dame in the next week or so.

We think a lot of this stuff just feeds on itself.  Remember, there was a time when the Pac-10 was definitely going to add Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Baylor.  There was a time when the Big Ten was definitely going to add Missouri, Notre Dame, Rutgers and Connecticut.

So put your money on the hype if you like.  You might hit the jackpot.  We at MrSEC.com will be keeping our cash in pocket until we hear something just a bit more definite.

UPDATE — Chuck Carlton of The Dallas Morning News writes: “…two sources indicated that Florida State’s name has not yet been mentioned in expansion talks among Big 12 athletic directors.  One source also wondered about the rumor’s resiliency and what it said about legitimate Florida State discontent.  And multiple sources listed Louisville as the most likely Big 12 possibility, given the wobbly Big East and the Cardinals’ runner-up status to West Virginia int he most recent expansion sweepstakes.”

That’s how long it is until we’re tracking the faxes on National Signing Day 2013.  And since it’s already May — wasn’t it Christmas last week? — we think it’ll seem like a blink of the eye until that day arrives.

It’s been three weeks since our last check of the Big Board and several schools have picked up commitments in that time.  Below we’ll show you how your favorite team — and your hated rivals — are stacking up to date in terms of committed prospects.

As usual, we’ll use Rivals.com’s rankings.  For each star they assign, we’ll dole out a point.  But we’ll also award a point to 0-star recruits because sooner or later those commits will be graded, too (and if they wind up in the SEC, they’ll most likely receive no less than two or three stars).

First, we’ll show you the SEC’s 14 programs rank in terms of total talent points committed on this May 10th:

Next, let’s take a look at the average points per commitment for each program, in order to figure out what caliber athlete is interested in each program (as of now):

And finally, here’s a peek at which schools have picked up the most total points since our last comparator on April 17th:

Franklin went on to deliver his now famous “we are not gonna sit back and take stuff from anybody” speech in the postgame presser.  Grantham was later told to tone things down by Mark Richt and AD Greg McGarity.

That episode hasn’t been forgotten.  Asked yesterday by a Dawg fan if Richt might send Grantham to the pressbox for this year’s matchup with Vandy, Richt laughed and said:

“Yeah, he may need to go upstairs.  You know what, I think the Bulldog Nation likes a little piss and vinegar…

We all as coaches have to set the right tone and that kind of thing.  But it was an interesting exchange, I’ll say that.  I don’t think we’ll have much trouble getting jacked up to play the Vanderbilt Commodores this year, I’ll tell you that.”

Here’s guessing Franklin would say the same about his team getting up for Georgia this year.

But now The Sporting News — Hayes with fellow writer Steve Greenberg, in fact — has ranked all the college football coaches in the country from #1 all the way to #124.  Some anonymous coaches also weigh in on their colleagues in some of the breakdowns of each.

Below we’ll show where each SEC coach fell in their rankings as well as who is above and below each coach:

1.  Nick Saban, Alabama

Just above him: No one

Just below him: Chris Petersen, Boise State

4.  Les Miles, LSU

Just above him: Urban Meyer, Ohio State

Just below him: Bob Stoops, Oklahoma

8.  Steve Spurrier, South Carolina

Just above him: Gary Patterson, TCU

Just below him: Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech

14.  Mark Richt, Georgia

Just above him: Mark Dantonio, Michigan State

Just below him: Bronco Mendenhall, BYU

25.  James Franklin, Vanderbilt

Just above him: Brady Hoke, Michigan

Just below him: Gary Pinkel, Missouri

26.  Gary Pinkel, Missouri

Just above him: James Franklin, Vanderbilt

Just below him: Dabo Swinney, Clemson

36.  Gene Chizik, Auburn

Just above him: Ken Niumatalolo, Navy

Just below him: Bo Pelini, Nebraska

46.  Dan Mullen, Mississippi State

Just above him: Mike London, Virginia

Just below him: Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M

47.  Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M

Just above him: Dan Mullen, Mississippi State

Just below him: Paul Rhoads, Iowa State

59.  Will Muschamp, Florida

Just above him: Dave Christensen, Wyoming

Just below him: Paul Pasqualoni, UConn

74.  John L. Smith, Arkansas

Just above him: Mark Hudspeth, Louisiana-Lafayette

Just below him: Todd Graham, Arizona State

77.  Hugh Freeze, Ole Miss

Just above him: Terry Bowden, Akron

Just below him: Larry Coker, Texas-San Antonio

90.  Joker Phillips, Kentucky

Just above him: Doc Holliday, Marshall

Just below him: Mike MacIntyre, San Jose State

99.  Derek Dooley, Tennessee

Just above him: Norm Chow, Hawaii

Just below him: Garrick McGee, UAB

You can get the full explainers right here.  We’ll just tell you that four SEC players made this year’s list with three other just missing the cut.  And those super-skilled athletes are…

2.  Devin Taylor, DE, South Carolina

3.  Justin Hunter, WR, Tennessee

6.  Knile Davis, RB, Arkansas

8.  Jay Prosch, FB, Auburn (transfer from Northwestern)

Just missing the list were:

Eric Reid, DB, LSU

Jesse Williams, DT, Alabama

Lerentee McCray, LB, Florida

(You can tell its May when people start posting all their different lists.  It’s not football or basketball season… it’s list season.)

2.  Alabama AD Mal Moore opens up about firing Mike Shula and hiring Nick Saban.

3.  Mike Anderson has added a juco forward to Arkansas’ 2012-13 roster.

4.  LSU guard Ralston Turner has been given a release from new coach Johnny Jones and will consider transferring.

5.  Texas A&M’s next AD will need for Kevin Sumlin and Billy Kennedy to succeed.

6.  Here’s a post-spring look at Florida’s running back situation.

7.  Freshman John Theus will get a shot to crack Georgia’s starting O-line in preseason camp.

8.  Come Monday, Mark Richt will be able to use his phone again.

9.  The academic status of Kentucky signee Nerlens Noel might be a bigger issue than ongoing NCAA snooping.

10.  Indiana’s Tom Crean discusses the end of the UK-IU basketball series.

11.  South Carolina junior guards Eric Smith and Brian Richardson intend to stay put under Frank Martin.  (Sorry, but it’s behind a paywall, folks.)

12.  Derek Dooley feels that all the anchors that were weighing down Tennessee’s program are gone.

13.  Frank Haith is building his Missouri program with transfers (from Auburn, Oregon, Pepperdine, Tulsa and UConn).

14.  Mel Kiper lists nine SEC players on this Top 25 Big Board for next year’s NFL draft… and only two of those players are seniors.

From a football perspective, the Aggies also differentiated themselves from the Longhorns.  A&M coaches can now ask recruits if they’d rather play in the SEC — home to six-straight BCS champs and the #1 producer of NFL talent by far — or in the 10-team Big 12 with trips to Ames, Manhattan (Kansas), and Lubbock on the agenda.

Speaking on The Paul Finebaum Show yesterday, new Aggie football coach Kevin Sumlin said all of those expectations are becoming a reality on the recruiting trail already:

“Quite frankly, the move to the SEC has really, really, in the state, kind of separated us.  I think it’s really given a clear choice to prospective students and student-athletes here in the state, given that you have the Big 12, you have the Big East and the SEC and I think that there’s some clear differences between the leagues.  I’ve seen the change in recruiting.  There are guys out there that understand that the SEC is, without a doubt, the best conference, the best league to play in, particularly when it comes to football…

In some ways moving to the SEC has really separated us not only from the other schools in the state, but particularly Texas, and given guys a clear choice.  We’re not all playing in the same league.  This is a school in a state with such great high school football that gives (them) a chance to be on such a platform and compete and play in a league with the best players in the country.”

So what is it about the SEC that draws in recruits?  It’s what we wrote above, said Sumlin — a ticket to the NFL:

“I think it’s a combination of national championships, I think it’s a combination of you look at the number of draft choices out of the SEC, which clearly is the leading league in the last 10 years, you look at television exposure, player development.

Guys that obviously want to play in the NFL, the caliber of players that are in the SEC and the stigma of playing in the league has really, really benefited us, in particular, not only in the class we signed in February, but I think right now where we are in recruiting, there is no doubt it’s helped us.”

Sumlin has been appointed to run what is potentially a gold mine.  Yes, A&M has struggled in recent years and the SEC West is currently the tougher of the league’s two divisions.  An uber-quick rise shouldn’t be expected.

However, like LSU pre-Nick Saban, A&M has everything a coach needs to win if it can find the right coach to start the ball rolling again:

1.  Good facilities

2.  Great fan support

3.  A Top 20 all-time tradition

4.  A deep, deep recruiting pool

5.  A conference home that turns recruits into NFL prospects

With the right coach, Texas A&M has more potential upside than any of the other three schools the SEC has added in the past two decades.  That’s saying something.  Arkansas and South Carolina have already shown that they can be Top 10 programs.  Newcomer Missouri was ranked #1 in the nation as recently as 2007.

But none of those schools boast all five of the positives we list for A&M going in their favor.  Those schools have to work a little bit harder to win the prize.  Texas A&M, on the other hand, is just looking for the right Saban or Les Miles or Steve Spurrier or Bobby Petrino (minus the baggage) or Gary Pinkel to tap into all the potential.  Whether that man is Sumlin remains to be seen, but the potential for great things is there.

According to Sumlin, recruits are already picking up on that fact.

I used the word “like” above for a reason.  Slive seems likeable.  Even if he’s steaming mad, you wouldn’t know it.  There are rarely — if any — barbs or potshots thrown at other leagues or schools/teams from other leagues.  Whether he means it or not, he presents himself as being pro-college athletics, not just pro-SEC.

With Delany, he makes no bones about the fact that he views all other conferences — athletically and academically — as being inferior to the Big Ten.  He has in the past made it quite clear that he holds the SEC specifically in great disdain.  He did so again yesterday during a conference call with AP writers.  His grumpy attitude is sure to leave people in the Yellowhammer State ticked.

Talking about his desire to reward conference champions and not just the four best teams in the polls, Delany was asked about a team that didn’t win its own division:

“I don’t have a lot of regard for that team.  I certainly wouldn’t have as much regard for that team as I would for someone who played nine conference games in a tough conference and played a couple out-of-conference games ont eh road against really good opponents.  If a poll doesn’t honor those teams and they’re conference champions, I do.”

Hmmm.  Now what school didn’t win its division but did win the BCS title last year?  Oh, yes, Alabama.  Of the dreaded SEC.  It won’t be long before this comment is put before Nick Saban who will say something to the effect of: “I don’t believe a school should be punished because it happens to play in a tougher division and tougher, deeper conference than another.”  Here’s guessing we’ll get that comment today if someone can get to Saban.

To Delany’s point, one must wonder if he realizes that he’s just said that he doesn’t hold Nebraska’s 2001 team in very high regard, either.  That’s Nebraska of the Big Ten now, mind you.  The Cornhuskers were co-North division champs of the Big 12 in ’01, but they lost the tie-breaker to their championship game thanks to a late-season loss to division rival Colorado.  The Buffaloes went to the Big 12 title game in their place.  So technically, Nebraska didn’t win its division, just like Alabama.  Also like Bama, the Huskers were tabbed to play in the BCS title game anyway (though they lost to Miami).

In a Delany-driven world — where most people would no doubt frown a lot — teams like Alabama 2011 and Nebraska 2001 not only wouldn’t get a shot at the title, but they wouldn’t even make a four-team playoff.

But back to Delany’s comments:

“Some people think it should just be the top four teams; some people think it should just be the four highest-rated champions.  I was just floating some ideas of how you might have a hybrid where champions were respected and there was  still room for at-large.

The polls don’t always measure strength of schedule.  Some conferences are playing nine games, some are playing eight.  The Pac-12 is playing nine and then go out and play a round-robin game against us, that’s 10 and some of them are going to play Notre Dame — that’s 11 difficult games.  If they’re ranked fifth in the country and they won a conference championship, I think that’s quite an accomplishment.  Some teams don’t even win their own division.  They started off highly in the rankings, lose early, don’t play a championship game and they might end up at four.”

Or at #2, as was the case with Alabama.

The bigger issue here is something that we warned you about back on February 28th when we wrote that by deciding to stick with an eight-game conference schedule:

“…the (SEC) would hurt itself rather than help itself by softening its schedule.  Other leagues are making their schedules tougher.  The Big 12 is playing a nine-game slate.  The ACC will move to a nine-game plan when Syracuse and Pittsburgh enter that league.  Big Ten and Pac-12 teams will begin playing on a yearly basis on top of their current in-conference schedules in 2017.  The other major conferences are all guaranteeing themselves more BCS-level opponents per season.  If the SEC sticks with an eight-game plan, all the anti-SEC’ers out there will finally have a reason to vote down the league in future polls.  No longer will the SEC be a mini-NFL.  Oh, coaches will tell you that eight SEC games are harder than nine BCS games in other leagues, but folks outside the South won’t buy it.  You can be sure of that.”

So it took what?  About 70 days for other leagues to start pointing out that they play more BCS-level games than the SEC, which appears dead-set on standing pat with an eight-game plan?  Well, told ya so.

And now we’ll tell Commissioner Slive and his 14 league presidents something else — fix this.  If you go to a nine-game schedule, your teams will face each other more often, you’ll make more money from the networks (thanks to better games), fans will be paying to see more conference games and fewer patsies, and you’ll fend off any strength-of-schedule questions that might come your way by rival league commissioners, rival coaches, or — egads — poll voters and computer formulas.

The SEC’s athletic directors want more home games for gate purposes (though they already play more games and make more TV money than they did 10 years ago) and they want more cupcakes on the docket for bowl-eligibility purposes.  While I would love to think that Slive would step up and lead this bunch back to a nine-game schedule at the SEC Meetings in Destin, it appears too much water has passed under that bridge.  By all accounts, Slive and his presidents have let the league’s ADs come up with the new schedule options.  So it’s late in the game to chuck all the eight-game options and break out a new nine-game format at this point.

That’s a shame.

Because you’re already seeing what an eight-game schedule will do for the SEC.  It will give ammunition to all the anti-SEC people in America.  And they are legion at the moment.  With the Big Ten’s Delany right out in front.

The deal came as a result of the ACC’s move to nab Pittsburgh and Syracuse from the Big East conference in 2011.  Instead of 12 schools making $12.9 million per year from the old deal, the 14 schools of the new ACC — whenever Pitt and Syracuse arrive — will make an estimated $17.1 million per year.

That $17.1 million per school figure still lags behind the Pac-12′s new deal (about $21 million per school per year), the Big Ten (more than $20 million per) and the new Big 12 television deals announced earlier this week (about $20 million per).  SEC schools have been making about $17 million per year, but Mike Slive’s league is currently negotiating bumps in pay with both ESPN and CBS as a result of Missouri and Texas A&M entering the league.  When the smoke clears, it’s expected the SEC will make more per school than any other conference (either through enhanced deals or the launch of a new SEC network — with ESPN as potential partner — or both).

Overall, however, all of these leagues are now in the same general ballpark (even considering that the ACC has given ESPN its Tier I, II, and III rights).  That fact — as well as the timing of yesterday’s announcement — is being taken as a sign by most that those recent, much-hyped rumors of Clemson and Florida State moving to the Big 12 were in fact baseless.  We wrote as much last week.  It’s unlikely that ESPN would cut and announce new deals with the Big 12 and the ACC within a week’s time if the network thought there was even the remotest chance it would have to tear those deals up and negotiate new ones due to an impending Big 12 raid on the ACC.  A raid to take place before the end of summer according to some websites and many Big 12 supporters on messageboards.

We suspect, however, that those who’ve been behind the Clemson/FSU rumors — as well as those who’ve simply been hoping the rumors are true — will stick to their guns and point to the Tier III dollars lost by the ACC as a “sure” sign that the Tigers and Seminoles will jet from their current league.  And we’re still won’t buy it.

The ACC has a better academic reputation and more money flowing through its current academic partnerships than the Big 12.  Remember, research budgets at most major universities dwarf athletic budgets.  Additionally, we still can’t imagine the presidents at Clemson and FSU being able to sell their fans on traveling to places like Manhattan (Kansas), Lubbock, and Ames over places like Coral Gables, Chapel Hill and Atlanta.  For that matter, what about the parents of recruits?  Think Southern families would want to make longer trips to see their kids play football in a distant conference home?  Texas A&M and Missouri are going east instead of west by joining the SEC.  Clemson and FSU would be jumping an entire region in their move to go even farther west.

While anything’s possible when it comes to realignment and expansion, we at MrSEC.com think the current cycle has pretty much played itself out.  We’ve been saying that for a while now and from the folks we’ve spoken to at multiple SEC institutions, two ACC institutions, and one Big Ten institution… everyone seems to be in agreement.  Any remaining moves are likely to be either small or isolated.  Example: The Big 12 might decide to run at Louisville and another Big East team to max out at 12 schools and host a football championship game.  But with ESPN announcing deals with both the Big 12 and the ACC in the past week, we think that’s less likely as well (for the time being).

ACC commissioner John Swofford immediately put the following spin on his league’s new contract via press release:

“We are excited to have further enhanced our partnership with ESPN through the extension of our multimedia contract. We are proud that ESPN has invested so deeply in the ACC both from a resource and exposure standpoint.  As we look to the future, this relationship will be tremendous for our schools, fans, coaches and student-athletes.”

He could have just as easily said, “We feel much more stable today than we did yesterday.”  Better still: “We’ve been more stable than a lot of you have thought ever since we invited Pittsburgh and Syracuse to join us last year.”

2. Arkansas assistant Paul Petrino is recruiting like he’s staying with the Razorbacks beyond 2012.

3. Add Ohio State to the list of schools offering athlete Jalen Reeves-Maybin.

4. Nick St. Germain will have an opportunity to kick at South Carolina this season.

5. South Carolina quarterback commit Connor Mitch promises to be loyal to the Gamecocks.

6. The month of May will be busy for Georgia coach Mark Richt.

7. Vanderbilt coach James Franklin knows it’s important to recruit Memphis.

8. Kevin Sumlin believes Texas A&M has separated itself from Texas in recruiting.

He plans to use Les Miles’ football team as an example.

“We have to do what our football team has been to do and that’s put a fence up around the state of Louisiana,” Jones said Tuesday, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate.

A lot of Jones’ focus will likely be on in-state 2013 targets Jarrell Martin and Brian Bridgewater, two forwards who hold offers from the Tigers. Neither player has committed to a school.

“I’m going to petition the NCAA for him to be eligible immediately.  He’s a great kid.  A family situation occurs like that and you’re so far from home, you deserve to have that opportunity and not have any penalty for it.”

Muschamp said last week that Stewart told him “he wanted to leave to get closer to home due to some personal issues.”

Kudos to Florida’s coach for showing some heart.  Whether it’s Mark Richt’s open door policy for transfers or John Calipari’s desire to push his players to the pros as soon as possible, these types of stances have to help coaches on the recruiting trail.

Too bad more coaches don’t realize that.

On Tuesday, The Herald-Leader ran a cartoon poking fun at John Calipari’s role in ending the Kentucky-Indiana basketball series.  Naturally, the reaction hasn’t been great. 

The drawing features (as you can see below) Calipari’s trophy case.  There are two spots “vacated” referring to the Final Four seasons that were wiped away at UMass and Memphis.  There’s a large NCAA championship trophy — complete with two dollar signs on it.  And there’s another trophy marked “Lose At IU, Take My Ball And Go Home Award.”

I gotta say, that’s a bit rough for a local paper.  Not the Indiana part or even the vacated banners part, but the dollar signs on the trophy.  The cartoonist — Joel Pett — says those dollar signs were a statement about the money-driven NCAA, not Kentucky.  Here’s guessing most Cat fans won’t buy that argument, but we’ll take him at his word.

Pett told WTVQ-TV in Lexington that “everyday he tries to draw about something that angers him.”  The end of the UK-IU series angered him because he is a Bloomington native, his father was a professor at Indiana, and Pett himself went to school there.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with poking a little fun at sacred cows, even if those cows happen to reside in a nearby field.  The Lexington Herald-Leader should cover Kentucky.  It shouldn’t worship Kentucky (as many fans would wish).

Sites like KentuckySportsRadio.com took immediate issue with the cartoon and the paper.  Perhaps unwisely, Pett also decided to call into their radio show today.  (Full disclosure: I’ve been on with those guys, too, and while we’ve never met, KSR’s Matt Jones is a Middlesboro, Kentucky native like myself.  I like them and I often laugh at their hugely-successful site.)

Here’s the problem I’ve got with them today, though.  While fans and fansites like KSR are outraged when someone flings a barb at their team, they see nothing wrong with doing the exact same thing to someone else.  Example: Today they posted a cartoon mimicking Pett’s style that takes aim at Rick Pitino’s trophy case.

Oh, now that’s funny.  The Herald-Leader’s attempt at humor?  Obviously those dirty, ol’, egg-sucking mules are just a bunch of hacks.

Here’s the irony.  As someone who reads every local paper across the SEC on a daily basis and does so without any team to root for… I can say that most SEC papers are very fair in their reporting.  Fans almost never see it that way, but I can think of only one paper in the SEC that repeatedly seems to be either out to help or out to hurt Hometown U.  (That would be The Gainesville Sun, by the way, and the only time you’re likely to find something negative there is if the Gators lose and the writers are angry about it.)  The Herald-Leader is home to Jerry Tipton — who Cat fans view as the devil incarnate — but it’s also home to John Clay.  Clay is quite often pro-Kentucky in his stance (though he surely got some heat this week for not gobbling up Calipari’s nonsense about “nontraditional” scheduling).

Overall, as an outsider with no dog — or cat — in the fight, I would actually list The Herald-Leader as being one of the more positive papers in the SEC when it comes to covering their local basketball team.  They also happen to cover the hell out of that team to boot.

But again, I don’t have an agenda.  If you have an agenda as a reader, you’re going to perceive an agenda in the words of a writer, whether one actually exists or not.  Trust me, I’ve been called a lover and a hater of every program in the SEC and I can’t figure out how the heck that’s possible.

Across the league, most SEC hometown papers are viewed as being too harsh, too critical and too negative toward the local heroes.  In reality, most of them produce tons of coverage and attempt to do so in an objective fashion.

The Herald-Leader probably went a little overboard with yesterday’s Calipari cartoon, yes.  But I’ve got news for Kentucky fans, as an outsider looking in, your local paper is nowhere near as negative as you believe it to be.  Then again, when you compare it to fansites like KSR that revel in talking up the Cats and beating down everyone else — even ex-coaches who brought Kentucky great success in the ’90s — there’s no way an objective paper can appear as anything but negative.

If only some of that success and some of those titles had come in football.

Former Texas A&M football coach Jackie Sherrill has decided to pass on being politically correct and has instead spoken his mind regarding Byrne’s watch:

“No question Bill did a great job with the upgrading of facilities with the non-revenue sports, and when you look at the overall athletics department, certainly you see great improvement in those areas.  Unfortunately, when you look at every university, it is remembered by what it did in football.  When you talk about Alabama, you’re not talking about golf.  When talking about Southern Cal, [you're] not talking about tennis…

Unfortunately, we have not been successful in one area, basically the one most universities are judged on.  There were a lot of successes [for A&M], more than any other school in the Big 12, but when you talk Big 12 you mention Oklahoma or Texas first because of football.”

The parents of A&M’s equestrian team might not want to hear that, but it’s the truth.  If A&M had been winning championships in football, Byrne — whether he backed a move to the SEC or not — would probably still be in place today.  Presidents and trustees aren’t as quick to force guys out when they’re overseeing winning, money-making football programs.

Byrne wasn’t.  And now he’s out.