1. Alabama needs defensive linemen in its class of 2013.

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.

Quarterback Connor Mitch from Wakefield High School in Raleigh, N.C., committed to South Carolina on Tuesday.

Alabama, Auburn and LSU were contenders to land Mitch.

“I don’t know if it was a difficult decision, but it was stressful,” Mitch told the Charlotte Observer. “There was a lot going on in my head. But with South Carolina, it was love at first site. I knew I wanted to go there after my first visit. It has everything that I want.”

Mitch, who’s ranked the nation’s No. 13 quarterback by ESPNU, has the qualities of a pro-style passer.

“Connor has the size and is a very accurate passer,” Wakefield coach Rod Sink told the Observer. “He also has the ability to read the defense and make the right pass.”

Let’s make a few things very clear right off the bat:

1.  We at MrSEC.com do not believe the Southeastern Conference has any interest in expanding again anytime soon.  Sources at multiple schools across the conference — in both athletic departments and in university administrations — have told us as much.  Repeatedly.

2.  We do not believe there are secret discussions taking place now that would lead to any existing ACC schools moving to the SEC.  That includes any combination of Clemson, Florida State, NC State, Virginia Tech, Virginia, Duke or North Carolina.

3.  We do not believe even a full-scale collapse of the Big East would lead to further SEC expansion.  For argument’s sake, let’s say the Big 12 grabbed Cincinnati and Louisville from the Big East (to get to 12 schools).  Let’s also say such a move would force Notre Dame into the Big Ten and that Jim Delany’s league would then grab either UConn or Rutgers from the Big East (to get to 14 schools) and tap into the New York television market.  And for the sake of argument, let’s also say that the ACC would gobble up South Florida and either Rutgers or UConn (to get to 16 schools).  Even if all that occurred — and we think it’s highly unlikely all that will occur — we still do not believe the SEC would expand further.

As we’ve stated before, we believe part of the reason conference commissioners are currently pushing for a playoff and considering doing away with “AQ” and “non-AQ” status altogether is a desire to slow down conference realignment.  Most leagues have made changes in the last two years.  They would like to gauge what impact those changes will have before making further moves.  Nixing AQ status would kill off one of the motivations schools have had for jumping leagues.

All that said, conference realignment remains a hot topic.  Fans still have questions.  They wonder what’s coming down the line for the SEC and other conferences?  Next year?  Five years from now?  Ten years from now?

Well, if/when expansion ever works its way back onto the SEC’s agenda, the same rule that applied to the last round of expansion will also apply to future moves — 75% of the Southeastern Conference’s presidents will have to vote in favor of expansion.

Last summer, nine of the SEC’s 12 presidents had to vote in favor of extending invitations to Texas A&M and Missouri (once those schools contacted the league and asked for admission, of course).  SEC public relations guru Charles Bloom informed us today that “the granting of membership is by a vote of at least three-fourths of the (existing) membership” and that that rule remains in place.

So in a 14-school league, a three-fourths vote would equal 10.5 members “which then makes 11 the minimum vote total,” according to Bloom.

Why does this matter?

Last summer there was some debate over whether or not SEC members Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and South Carolina had banded together to keep out Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville and/or Clemson from the SEC.  Some said there was an official, yet unspoken SEC stance against expanding into states already making up the Southeastern Conference football.  Others said there was an informal agreement among those schools and that everyone suspected they would stand together if forced.  Still others said there were no such plans to block schools at all.  (South Carolina officials said publicly, for instance, that they would have had no problem if Clemson had asked for an invitation… though that could have simply been a case of saying the right things in the press.)

Moving forward, even though the league has expanded, those same four schools — Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and South Carolina — could still work together to prevent one or more of their in-state rivals from joining the SEC if they chose to do so.  It would still only take four “nays” to vote down any proposed new member.

Thankfully, it does not appear as though we’ll have to worry about any expansion-related issues regarding the SEC anytime soon.

Knock on wood.

Yesterday in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier told a group of Gamecock boosters that his school and the SEC’s newest school — Missouri — are going to create a trophy for their new annual football game:

“We’re going to have a trophy for that game like we do for the Clemson game.  We already have the state championship trophy.  Since Missouri is also in Columbia, we’re going to have The Battle of the Columbias with a big trophy.  It should be fun.”

That according to the good folks at GamecockCentral.com — the Rivals site covering USC (and, yes, that means the quote’s behind a paywall).

Carolina and Missouri will battle for the first time as league mates this September.  In Columbia.  Columbia, South Carolina, that is.

Whether a trophy will kickstart the schools’ new rivalry is anyone’s guess.  Arkansas and LSU are border rivals and they’ve played for the Golden Boot trophy every year since 1996.  Even so, none other than ex-Razorback coach and AD Frank Broyles — who helped lead the Hogs to the SEC — recently said, “We don’t have a rivalry” in the SEC.  Trophy or no trophy, Arkansas-LSU hasn’t created the blood feud that once existed between UA and Texas, which is one reason Hog fans are happy to see old SWC rival Texas A&M join the SEC.

It takes at least one of three things to create a rivalry:

1.  Time — Schools that have played just 20 times won’t have the build up bad feelings that schools that’ve played 80 times will have.  The longer the history, the better the rivalry.

2.  Championship Races —  A recent example inside the SEC is the Florida-Tennessee rivalry.  Those schools had rarely played one another when the league went to divisions in 1992.  But just as they were launching an annual matchup, both schools found themselves in the Top 10 for much of the decade, battling back and forth for the East Division crown.  A heated rivalry was born.

3.  Odd Circumstances — A coach badmouthing another school or another coach.  A school turning in another for NCAA violations.  Crazed fan behavior.  Recruiting wars.  Pick your poison, but a rivalry can quickly be created if one side feels slighted by the other in any way, shape or form.  Especially in the Deep South where dueling’s only gone out of style because it was outlawed.

This isn’t to say Missouri and South Carolina won’t make for good — albeit distant — rivals in the long run.  And we at MrSEC.com are all in favor of trophy games.  We think creating The Battle of the Columbias trophy is sharp.  A natural move would be to somehow incorporate a personified Columbia into the prize itself, a la the Columbia Pictures logo at left.  We just believe it’ll take more than a trophy to ratchet up the hate between two schools that have rarely battled one another.

SIDENOTE — This news might pop the balloon of those few folks who’ve been holding out hope/belief that the SEC was secretly planning a raid of the ACC to reach 16 schools and push Missouri back to the SEC West.  We’ve told you that the SEC isn’t planning such a raid for months, but talk of NC State and Virginia Tech never seems to die.  Well, if the administrations at Carolina and Mizzou felt their rivalry would be short-lived, it’s doubtful they’d be adding any trophy.  If the league expands again and stays with an eight-game league schedule, USC and MU would face each other about twice a generation as non-division foes.

Things can change quickly when it comes to realignment and expansion, but for now, this seems to be a bit more proof — small as it is — that the presidents in Mike Slive’s conference aren’t eyeballing any further moves at the moment.  At least not to the east.

Earlier today, we showed you how the SEC continues to dominate the NFL draft.  Then we showed you why you can expect that trend to continue — and even grow — in the future.  Now we look specifically at the 14 SEC member institutions to see which programs have been producing the most draft-worthy talent for the National Football League’s 32 teams.

First, here’s a look at the number of NFL draft picks produced by each school over different periods of time: this past week’s draft, the most-recent five years (2008-2012), the most-recent 10 years (2003-2012), and the past 20 years (1993-2012).

Programs are listed according to this year’s draft numbers:

Before anyone screams that we’ve ranked their favy-wavy school lowest in a tie because we hate them… we actually just fell back on plain ‘ol alphabetical order to separate those schools tied with four picks, two picks, or one pick each.

As you can see, when you add in Missouri and Texas A&M, this year’s SEC draft class would have jumped from 42 players selected to 47 overall.

But which programs are on the rise and which are on the decline from a talent perspective?  Admittedly, that’s a tough question to answer.  A school that had one player drafted this past season might wind up with six or eight or ten next year depending on success, decisions to leave school early, etc.

In order to answer that question then, we’ve decided to just compare the past five draft classes for each school to the total number of players drafted from each institution over the past 20 years.  Column B divided by Column D, in other words.

Below we’ve listed each SEC program according to the percentage of total NFL picks (1993-2012) that have come from the last five drafts (2008-2012).  This should give us a very loose, very ballpark idea of which programs are headed up and which programs are headed down in terms of overall talent.

Let’s just go ahead and state the obvious “yeah, buts” right off of the bat.  For some schools, there was nowhere to go but up (or down).  Other schools have gone through recent coaching changes and coaching changes always lead to attrition.  Folks at Auburn, Florida and Tennessee can certainly point to that as being a factor in their low percentages.  Also, teams like Auburn or Tennessee — which leaned heavily on youth last year — might begin to see their numbers change next April or the next.

That said, here just a couple of observations:

1.  Credit Gary Pinkel for the outstanding job he’s done at Missouri in terms of raising the school’s overall talent level the last five years.  SEC fans will scoff and point to the Big 12 as being an inferior conference, but the Tigers did outgun both South Carolina and Arkansas in bowl games on Pinkel’s watch.  For comparison’s sake, Mizzou is entering a tougher top-to-bottom SEC than the one Arkansas and South Carolina joined 20 years ago, but the Tigers are better positioned in terms of their current roster than either of those schools were when they climbed aboard Roy Kramer’s ship.

2.  Speaking of South Carolina, nearly 40% of the Gamecocks drafted over the last 20 years have been tabbed in the last five Aprils.  That’s a testimony to the type of foundation Steve Spurrier has put down in Columbia.  Will the Gamecocks be able to unseat long-term one of the traditional “big six” programs in the SEC — Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU or Tennessee?  That’s a big task as most traditionally powerful programs eventually find their way back to the Promised Land after spending time in the desert.  That’s happened at Oklahoma, Southern Cal, Texas, Alabama, and Tennessee over time, just to name a few.  But there’s no question Spurrier has turned Carolina into a football program that the SEC and the nation must take seriously moving forward.  That’s a great achievement considering where the Cocks were for most of their first 17 seasons in the SEC.

3.  James Franklin has done a tremendous job at Vanderbilt.  He’s recruiting well and he’s building excitement around a program that’s lacked that since, basically, the 1920s.  But a look at the numbers reveals that Bobby Johnson deserves credit for improving Vandy’s talent level during his tenure.  For the most part, Johnson made the Commodores a more competitive program and he did lead them not only to their first bowl game since 1982, but also to their first bowl victory since Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House.  Credit Franklin for the works he’s doing now.  Credit the VU administration for supporting him as promised.  But don’t forget the work done by Johnson.  His decision to redshirt players left and right has allowed Franklin to walk in and inherit to veteran clubs in his first two seasons in Nashville.

4.  Rich Brooks and Houston Nutt — yes, Hog fans, Houston Nutt — and Bobby Petrino deserve some credit for boosting the talent levels at Kentucky and Arkansas respectively during their reigns at each school.

5.  LSU was an absolute sleeping giant when Nick Saban arrived.  From 2000 through the 2011 season, the Tigers have played in five BCS bowl games, including three BCS title tilts.  But between 1986 and 2000, LSU did not reach a single major bowl game.  Saban closed the state’s borders to outside recruiters and built a powerful program.  Les Miles has successfully kept the pipelines pumping from across the Pelican State right into Baton Rouge.

6.  In terms of drop-offs, Auburn, Florida, Texas A&M and Mississippi State have seen them.  Auburn, Florida and A&M are traditionally strong football programs based in fertile recruiting ground.  Therefore it’s a bit surprising that their numbers haven’t been better over the past five years — compared to where they have been over the last 20 drafts.  Coaching changes and the attrition attached to coaching changes can be blamed.  As for MSU, however, it will be interesting to see if Dan Mullen can finally get the Bulldogs’ program back to where it was talent-wise under Jackie Sherrill (and do so legally, for that matter).  State has had first-round draft picks in each of the last two years, something that hadn’t happened at MSU since the early-80s.  That’s a start.  As Mullen enters Year Four, we’ll now see just how many NFL scouts start beating a path to Starkville.

7.  Oh, sad, sad Tennessee.  The Volunteers produced 101 NFL picks between 1993 and 2012, but less than 13% of those selections have come in the last five drafts.  Unlike the other schools who’ve experienced a recent coaching change, UT has endured that upheaval twice.  The Vols have hemorrhaged players as a result of the Phillip Fulmer-to-Lane Kiffin-to-Derek Dooley roundabout.  But Tennessee’s problem traces to something greater.  In a four-year span from 2000 through 2003, UT saw 32 of its players drafted into the NFL.  That’s eight players per year for those of you who aren’t boned up on your ciphering.  But the number of players picked dropped to 27 from ’01 to ’04, then to 23 from ’02 to ’05, then to 20 from ’03 to ’06, and all the way down to 15 at the end of the Fulmer Era in the ’06 to ’09 draft cycle.  That’s a mighty precipitous drop.  What caused such a fall?  First, Tennessee isn’t a talent-rich state.  Second, Georgia and South Carolina — two states Fulmer had successfully mined during his heyday — saw their state schools make upgrades in their own coaches.  Borders were shut down, UT never recovered.  UT’s tradition suggests they will indeed rise again someday, just like those other powers we mentioned earlier in this piece.  But the key will be recruiting.  And having to fire Dooley if the 2012 season doesn’t go as planned could set that front back to square one.

Steve Spurrier is a helluva football coach.  He can be funny and entertaining to boot.

But he can also be a whiner.  And that’s exactly what he’s being when — like so many other South Carolina fans these days — he starts talking about changing the way the SEC handles its scheduling.

Yesterday, Andy Staples of SI.com quoted Spurrier regarding an idea the coach says he’ll present at this year’s SEC Meetings in Destin.  That idea is for only divisional games to count toward division championships.  Laughably, he tried to make his pitch without mentioning how his own school would have reached the title game under said plan last year.  Instead he tried to act as a benefactor for poor ol’ Florida and Tennessee:

“Your division champ should be decided on division games.  Last year, it wasn’t fair for Tennessee and Florida.  They both played LSU and Alabama.  Us and Georgia didn’t.  So, us or Georgia almost had to win the division simply because of schedule.”

Uh-huh.

Let’s look around the country and see who else might use Spurrier’s plan?  The NFL?  Nope, games outside the division and even conference still count.  Ditto the NBA.  Baseball?  Yep, they count non-division games, too.  So does the NHL.  Throw in the other college conferences, too.

Schedules are never fair.  That’s the first rule that every sports fan must accept (not to mention coaches).  Over time you hope things all come out in the wash, so to speak.  That they even out.

But in a given year, one team might have an easier home schedule than another.  One might play a tougher road schedule.  One might have tougher teams from the other division on their docket.  One might just enjoy the cupcakes from the league’s other side.  One team might face Squad X with their Heisman candidate in good health.  Another might face the same team after its star player has been injured or dismissed from the team.

Them’s the breaks.

What’s so disappointing is not just the self-serving nature of Spurrier’s take.  Coaches and fans will always find a way to explain away losses.  If it ain’t the schedule, it’s the refs.  Or the sun got in their eyes.  Heck, in January one USC trustee suggested the SEC actually start awarding points for victories — one point for a division-win, half-a-point for a non-division-win.  “Let’s come up with anything that would have gotten Carolina past Georgia into last year’s SEC title game!”

No, what’s so disappointing is the shortsightedness of this proposal.  Let’s say Spurrier’s plan were put into place.  Now let’s say that in the year 2015, for example, Carolina went 4-2 inside its division but 2-0 outside it (against the best two teams in the West, no less).  Now let’s say that Georgia went 5-1 in division play — including a loss to Carolina — but finished 0-2 against the West.

Carolina would be 6-2 overall and would have beaten Georgia head-to-head.  Georgia would be 5-3 overall and would have lost to Carolina.

Ah, but Georgia would be East Division champs based on its 5-1 division record as compared to South Carolina’s 4-2 division mark.

You know what would happen then, right?  Spurrier and the USC board of the trustees and everyone else from Beaufort to Ninety Six would be screaming that the team with the better overall record should go to the SEC Championship Game.

As Staples correctly points out, if Carolina had just beaten an 8-5 Auburn squad on its own home turf last fall the Cocks would have reached Atlanta as East champs.  But they didn’t… so they didn’t.

Spurrier joked that his proposal “probably won’t pass because I made it.”

No, it won’t pass because it’s a bad idea, a shortsighted idea, and an idea that no other major sports league uses.

That’s why it won’t pass.

Spurrier needs to stick to football and leave the scheduling to the league office and the whining to babies.  He’s turned Carolina into a winner not by making excuses and rigging schedules but via hard work and smarts.  He needs to stick to that plan.

1.  Here’s what one reporter learned from Florida’s spring practice.

2.  And, hey, Bama fans, you’re not the first school to have your crystal football busted.

3.  Mark Richt has met with Malcolm Mitchell and planned out a two-way strategy for the wideout/corner.

4.  Tailback Ken “Boo” Malcome is on track for success this fall.

5.  John Calipari will have to mold a new bunch of all-starts into a team-first unit next season.

6.  Derek Dooley has put together a bigger defense at Tennessee this spring, but what about the unit’s speed?

7.  A year of redshirts has added depth to the Vol offensive line.

8.  Steve Spurrier has adjusted the way he does business since arriving at South Carolina.

9.  The folks at AthlonSports.com are debating whether Vanderbilt or cross-state rival Tennessee will win more games this fall.

10.  Gary Pinkel and Missouri are out to earn the respect of their new conference mates.

11.  This season’s Chick-fil-A Bowl will kickoff at 7:30pm ET on New Year’s Eve… as usual.

12.  Former Tennessee assistant basketball coach and current juco coach Steve Forbes says a new NCAA policy is “outlandish” because it makes it look like “they don’t want junior college kids anymore.”

1. LSU has a new basketball coach.  Johnny Jones will be introduced on Monday – expected to get a five-year contract.

2. Can Jones – a former LSU player - bring back the magic? The “Bullet” is back in his home chamber.

3. Connecticut transfer Alex Oriakhi is headed to Missouri.  Was scheduled to visit Kentucky next weekend. UK fans react on Twitter.

4. Florida forward Will Yegeute is making progress coming off surgery for a broken foot.

5. The Bobby Petrino aftermath: Arkansas  players and coaches - including his brother Paul – speak out about the firing.

6. Razorback quarterback Tyler Wilson is having a great spring.

7. Were coaches actually afraid of certain players at Florida?  More fallout from the Urban Meyer era as Chris Rainey talks.

8. Expect Florida’s Ronald Powell to have ACL surgery next week.

9. Alabama’s annual A-Day today – winners get steak, losers eat beans. Expect more than 90,000 fans to attend. It’s becoming a tradition under Nick Saban.

10. Auburn’s new offensive coordinator message to fans today?  Expect disappointment. As for the defense – eight Tigers are not expected to play.

11. Former Auburn receiver Antonio Goodwin convicted of first-degree robbery.

12. Five story lines for Georgia’s G-Day game – including those unproven defensive backs. Keep your eye on the tailbacks as well.

13. South Carolina tight end Kelvin Rainey and his “Blind Side” type story.

14. Jon Solomon on South Carolina’s coach: “Spurrier turns 67 years old next week. He sounds friskier than ever.”

15. Mississippi State cornerback Darius Slay and the best scrimmage of his life.

16. A healthy competition at offensive line for Tennessee as the Vols scrimmage this afternoon. Freshman QB Nathan Peterman has a dislocated finger.

17. Tennessee defensive back Prentiss Waggner and wide receiver Justin Hunter are on the comeback trail while recovering from surgeries.

18. Expect linebacker Curt Maggitt to have an impact at linebacker for Tennessee this fall.

19. Kentucky running back Coshik Williams has gone from walk-on to starter.

20. All but two of Vanderbilt’s 2012 spring signing class will be on hand tonight in Nashville to watch the Commodores spring game.

21. Boosters got a sneak peak Friday night – everyone else at Mizzou gets to see the new uniforms at today’s Black and Gold game. Trey Barrow is no longer the Tigers No. 1 kicker.

22. Expect a faster offensive tempo at Texas A&M this fall. Running back Christine Michael: “It kind of reminds me of an Oregon or Arkansas offense.”

23. A total of 43 spring games in college football today.

Extras

24. Athletes and painkillers.

25. Wall Street Journal – Tornado Recovery: How Joplin is beating Tuscaloosa.

1. The Bobby Petrino investigation: 911 call released.  What did state trooper Lance King know about the crash?

2. The couple that transported Petrino and Jessica Dorrell go into hiding?

3. Is this a  problem for Arkansas or just for the coach?

4. Former NFL safety Lawyer Milloy: “Just because he knows X’s and O’s doesn’t mean he’s a nice person.”

5. Has acting head coach Taver Johnson spoken to Petrino since the revelation: “I really haven’t had much contact with Coach.”

6. Instant impact on the gridiron?  Keep your eye on these early enrolling freshmen on SEC campuses.

7. Why is today’s Florida spring game a must-see scrimmage?  The battle at quarterback. Some other storylines to watch.

8. Will Muschamp wants a power running game.

9. Running backs impress during Friday’s scrimmage at Tennessee.

10. Linebacker Herman Lathers wants to be in the middle of the Tennessee 3-4 defense this fall.

11. Vol offensive lineman Antonio Richardson is 6’6″ and 325 lbs.  ”An NFL team would be tempted to draft Richardson on looks alone.”

12. One week from their spring game – more questions than answers at Georgia.

13. Georgia’s assistant strength and secondary coach is leaving to train special forces for the U.S. military.

14. With the spring game over at LSU, what have we learned about the Tigers?

15. Expect to see South Carolina defensive lineman Jadeveon Clowney move between tackle and end this fall.

16. Mississippi State defense looks to be deep and talented or is this the offense just bad?

17. Auburn defensive end LaDarius Owens going from clogging mode to attack mode. Full steam ahead for quarterback Clint Moseley.

18. Nick Saban on spring practice at Alabama: ”We’re not disappointed in where we’re at, but we’re certainly not satisfied, either.”

19. Offense sets the pace. A few minor injuries after the latest scrimmage. Depth a concern.

20. Kick-return candidates at Alabama.

21. Trent Johnson could be named the new basketball coach at TCU on Monday.

22. If the Johnson to TCU rumors are true – that could turn out to be a good thing for both the coach and LSU.

23. South Carolina forward Anthony Gill may transfer.

24. Mark Bradley: “Has one-and-done cheapened the college game? Absolutely.” 

Extra

25. How do you evaluate top high school football talent across the country? If you’re Tom Lemming, you drive between 55,000 and 60,000 miles in a four-month span.

26. Tiger Woods blows up at Augusta: ”I think we can safely say Tiger has lost his game … and his mind,” CBS analyst Nick Faldo said on air.

27. Former NFL lineman Warren Sapp files for bankruptcy – but he does have 240 pairs of Air Jordan shoes.

Linebacker Kight Dallas from Arabia Mountain High School in Lithonia, Ga., has committed to South Carolina, according to ESPN.com.

Dallas gave his commitment to the Gamecocks after receiving a scholarship offer earlier this week. South Carolina was the first school to offer Dallas, who has also received interest from such schools as Auburn, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Clemson, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest.

Dallas is the fourth 2013 prospect to commit to South Carolina, which added defensive end Alfy Hill and linebacker Gerald Turner to its list of commitments last weekend.