Here’s the news from the Eastern side of the SEC today (we’ll give the BCS title-chasin’ Florida Gators their own section this week), complete with links to the big stories:

The biggest news in the East Division is the recruiting battle being waged by Georgia and Tennessee over… an ace recruiter.  Rodney Garner, current Georgia defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator has been targeted by Lane Kiffin as the next piece to his “super staff.”  Garner, who coached at UT in the 90s, was expected to make a decision yesterday, but that has now changed.

Tennessee has offered Garner about $400,000 (a $150,000 or so raise over his Georgia salary).  That’s not a surprise, UT is spending their US dollars like they’re Confederate script.  (If you read MrSEC, then you knew this would be the case a month ago.)

So why didn’t the decision come yesterday?  Mark Richt and Garner were in talks last night to keep the star recruiter in Athens.  UGA athletic director Damon Evans had this to say about boosting Garner’s salary: “We’ll do what’s appropriate for Georgia.  There’s always going to be other schools out there — the market changes constantly in this business — and we can make sure that we do what’s appropriate.”

Back to Tennessee for a second, on the basketball front forward Tyler Smith is taking the blame for the Vols’ 92-85 loss at Kansas over the weekend… despite the fact he scored 21 points and grabbed nine rebounds.

Academically ineligible freshman Daniel West has decided to go ahead and enroll at Tennessee and pay out of state tuition for a year… to solidify his role as a Vol point guard next season.

And now back to Georgia, where the AJC’s Mark Bradley writes that things are far from quiet on the Bulldogs’ football front.

All the Kentucky fans looking for a signature win by Billy Gillispie and Patrick Patterson will have to wait a little longer following Louisville’s last-second 74-71 victory over the Cats yesterday.

John Clay of The Lexington Herald-Leader writes that the classic rivalry delivered a classic game.

On the negative side, Kentucky still couldn’t find a third scording option after Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson.  But on the postive side, UK’s players weren’t buying into any talk of moral victories.

Coming off a surprise Gamecock win at #19 Baylor this weekend, The State in Columbia provides a quick preview of tonight’s Carolina game with Wofford.

When the football future is as murky as it is in Columbia, I figured it would be okay to link to this day-old column in which Joe Person of The State provides the five biggest questions facing the Gamecocks in 2009.

Not to be outdone, this Travis Haney of The Charleston Post and Courier gives you his version of the five biggest questions facing Carolina.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 5th, 2009 at 10:47 am and is filed under Florida, Homepage . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.