Categories
College Football

12-year-old kid gets denied dream job as W.V. football coach


When Rich Rodriguez bolted from West Virginia in order to get his grubby little paws on his dream job at Michigan there was an obvious void left to be filled by the Mountaineers. It didn’t take long before coaches from around the country started sending in applications in an attempt to get their grubby little paws on the likes of Pat White. Well, they weren’t all coaches.

Joshua Irizarry is a 12-year-old who loves him some West Virginia football, so when he saw there was an opening; he slapped together a resume and fired it off to WV President Michael Garrison. Last month, Irizarry finally got a response saying: sorry, but the position has been filled by an “equally qualified candidate.”

Garrison said in an e-mail that Irizarry’s letter was one of the best he received, including details of his football experience, love of the game and an offer to coach under conditions determined by the university.

The letter also uses humor that university employees found entertaining: “I understand this would be a move more suited for a team like Temple, but I am just asking for your consideration.

Nice burn on Temple, kid. You know who probably would have snatched him up quicker than a hiccup is the Atlanta Falcons. After being stuck with backstabbing Bobby Petrino, the players would have loved the upgrade.

Links:

[MyRecordJournal.com]: Boy, 12, gets response to W. Va. Coaching inquiry

Categories
College Football

Bob Stoops set to earn $6 million, despite being Mr. Unclutch


Bob Stoops is in hog heaven right now. At the end of this year, Stoops will complete his 10th season of service for the Oklahoma Sooners which means he’s about to get paid – big time! Stoops is going to collect a one-time bonus of $3 million on New Year’s Eve for the decade of work, which combined with his $2.77 million salary for the year means Stoops will bring home close to $6 million this year (including performance bonuses). Good investment? Athletic director Joe Castiglione sure seems to think so.

People may question why we do certain things,” Castiglione said. “But we can measure his impact, not just with success on the field, but the way our team generates interest and excitement because of the leadership of the head coach. He positively affects so many elements of the athletic program, campus community and the state — you could talk about it from the infusion of excitement to the economic impact.”

“Bob Stoops is worth every penny and always has been and always will be.

We see where Castiglione is going with this and it makes complete sense. There’s no doubt that the guy generates tons of revenue for the university, but we’re football fans, all we care about is wins and losses, so we have a slightly different view on the coach. Stoops is an excellent coach, there is no questioning that, but let’s take a quick look at his track record. Sure, he only has 17 losses compared to 90 wins, but it’s not the number of losses but rather who the losses are to.

His first season at OU, he went 7-5. We’ll let that one completely slide by. In 2000, he won the National Championship, so bravo coach. Then in 2001, things start getting interesting.

2001 – #4 Sooners lose to unranked Oklahoma State at home in season finale
2002 – #1 Sooners lose to unranked Texas A&M on the road then #3 Sooners lose to Oklahoma State on the road
2003 – #1 Sooners lose to #13 Kansas State in Big 12 Championship, followed by #3 Sooners loss to #2 LSU in National Championship
2004 – #2 Sooners lose big, 55-19, to #1 USC in National Championship
2005 – #7 Sooners lose season opener to unranked TCU in Norman, #21 Sooners lose to unranked UCLA, unranked Sooners lose to rival Texas and then go on to lose to Texas Tech
2006 – #15 Sooners lose to #18 Oregon, #14 Sooners lose second straight to Texas, #7 Sooners get shocked by #9 Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl
2007 – #3 Sooners lose to unranked Colorado, #3 Sooners lose to unranked Texas Tech and #3 Sooners close the season by losing to West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl

All we’re saying is if someone is going to get a huge bonus, they can not lose even half the games listed above. Still, from a big-picture perspective, it was probably a smart investment by Oklahoma.

And let’s not forget the big man’s perks.

In addition, Stoops is also provided with
*2 automobiles with insurance

*35 hours annually of private airplane use

*Membership and monthly dues at a Norman-area golf course

*20 football tickets

As a side note, if you’re in the mood to make yourself feel like total crap today then just check out the Bob Stoops salary calculator.

Links:

[NewsOK.com]: Bob Stoops is the six million-dollar man…after bonuses, that is

Categories
College Football

Vince Young returns to Texas for his senior year


Beware Big 12; Vince Young is back at Texas. But this time, the Oklahoma State Cowboys don’t have to worry about VY once again torching them on the athletic field; instead, they have to worry about his performance in the academic field.

Young is back on the 40 Acres to finish his degree, which about the only thing he didn’t accomplish during his first tenure at Texas.

I’ve been making some good Bs right now. I’ve been making some high Bs. Hopefully the As are coming,” Young said Monday.

Young has been away from Austin for two years, since leading the Longhorns to the 2005 national championship. In January 2006 he gave up his final year of eligibility and declared for the NFL draft, where he was the third pick overall.

He then agreed to a six-year contract worth $58 million, with a guaranteed signing bonus of nearly $26 million.

It’s the largest signing bonus paid to a UT athlete. And now Young becomes one of the first former Longhorns to come back to school while he’s still active in the NFL.

When he left, Young made a promise to himself and to his family that he’d finish school.

“I just wanted to come back and finish up because I wanted to show not only myself and my family, but all the people that have respect for me, that school is the key,” he said. “It’s not all about the money. It’s not all about the fame. It’s about helping people out.

Young is currently taking 12 hours, strategically scheduled so he can be in Nashville over the weekends for mini camp and rehab on a pulled quad. But like always, Vince is calm, cool and collected about his situation. About the only thing rattling the campus hero is the possibility of embarrassing himself at graduation.

I hope I don’t fall or trip over myself crossing the stage,” Young said. “That would be funny.

Links:

[Statesman.com]: Vince Young goes from NFL star to student

Categories
College Football

New angle on an old play, but Trinity still pulls off the miracle

You remember the lateral-laden, game-ending touchdown from last season, right? We know it’s been a while and there was a whole lot of great action in college football since then, but there’s no way you could forget. Well, no matter how many times you’ve viewed the fantastic finish between Division III’s Trinity and Millsaps, you probably haven’t seen it from this angle. And if you have, are you really going to complain about seeing 87 laterals on one play one more time?

Categories
College Football

"Rowdy" Razorback Darren McFadden gets cuffed outside a bar


Now that the college football season is over and done, the next date to circle on the calendar is NFL Draft day. And between now and then, you’re going to hear a lot about the Arkansas Razorbacks Mr. All-Purpose Darren McFadden. Well, the McFadden jabber has begun, but it’s not regarding his on-field prowess.

Razorback Darren McFadden was involved in a fight at a local bar and was placed in handcuffs. Around 12:15 Thursday morning, D-Mac got into an argument at a bar in downtown Little Rock.

The fight involved one of the bar bouncers. Authorities say that one of McFadden’s relatives was being escorted out of Ernie Biggs when McFadden and the people he was with got involved in a fight with Brant Hankins, the bouncer.

The argument went into the streets of the Rivermarket where the Little Rock Police Department put D-Mac in handcuffs for “agitated and provoking aggressive behavior.” Once he calmed down the handcuffs were removed.

So far, he has not been charged, but this could be a battery 3rd degree charge if Hankins presses charges.

According to SportingNews.com, Hankins was punched in the face as he escorted the group from the bar. It’s unclear if McFadden was the culprit in the punching, but cops say the two-time Heisman runner up was being pretty “rowdy.”.

There was a whole bunch of people there,” [police Lt. Terry] Hastings said. “They were inside and it spilled out into the street.”

Outside, McFadden was handcuffed by a police officer “because he was agitated and was provoking aggressive behavior inciting the incident,” according to the police report.

“We handcuffed him for a few minutes because he was rowdy,” Hastings said.

McFadden, who was the only person handcuffed, was released after he calmed down. Hastings said it was routine procedure to handcuff a person to gain control of a situation.

We know this is McFadden’s second bar fight in recent history, but we really hope this was just a random incident and not the beginning of a self-destructive pattern of behavior. This guy is way too talented to be on the wrong side of the law. Needless to say, the only time McFadden should ever be handcuffed is when NFL fantasy owners pickup his backup at next season’s draft.

Links:

[Fox16.com]: Darren McFadden in Fight at Little Rock Bar
[SportingNews.com]: McFadden handcuffed briefly in bar fight

Categories
College Football

Nothing tops a sports-loving granny

We don’t know about you guys, but we had a Grandma who became addicted to NBA basketball late in life and we gotta admit, she kept us in stitches with her over enthusiasm and lack of knowledge. She’d scream things at the television like “Don’t let `em score” when the game was about 20 seconds in or “Run, run, run!” every time her team touched the ball. And if her squad didn’t come up on the winning side of things then it was obviously because “Those other fellars cheated.” Aww, we miss Maw-Maw. Luckily, we’ve got this old lady to remind us of the good ol’ days.

Thanks lady, you have no idea how much your comments like “C’mon defense. Do you know what defense is?,” and “If you blow a 31-14 lead at the half then you are not doing your job. No way,” mean to us.

Categories
College Football

Mountaineers fans could learn a thing or two about tact from Raiders fans


We understand that football is a game of passion, even for the fans. However, sometimes, that passion can get out of hand. A prime example of this involves the hillbillies in West Virginia who are harassing and threatening family members of former Mountaineers coach turned Michigan man Rich Rodriguez.

His mother, Arleen Rodriguez, told the Charleston Daily Mail her teenage grandson received a death threat and found other harassing notes taped to his locker at East Fairmont High. She said her 12-year-old granddaughter had to be escorted to classes.

Mountaineers fans furious about Rodriguez’s Dec. 16 decision to bolt for Ann Arbor also vandalized his home near Morgantown, hanging signs on a fence and tossing a mailbox in the yard.

Nothing says class like delivering death threats to a kid. While the select mullet-wearing West Virginia `fans’ get the nod for most unappealing display of hostility, the dumbest duo award goes to this pair of pool sharks who apparently need put their fat wrists on a diet.

Two Czech men stuck in a billiard table while searching for a ball had to call the fire department and were freed only when rescuers took the table apart, a newspaper reported yesterday.

At first, the two pool players in the city of Karlovy Vary thought it was funny when both of their hands became trapped inside the table. But panic struck when they could not free themselves, Lidove Noviny reported.

“Their trapped hands hurt them quite a bit,” a fire brigade spokesman said. “We have no clue at all how they could become stuck in there. In the end we had no other option but to dismantle the entire table.

Links:

[SignOnSanDiego.com]: Hey, poor Mountaineers: burn couch, not coach

Categories
College Football

Call us crazy, but we’re guessing the people in purple and yellow are picking LSU

In case you didn’t know, the BCS National Championship game between LSU and THE Ohio State University goes down tonight and with the biggest prize in college football on the line, there should be a whole lot of head banging going in Louisiana. So, who’s going to win the big game? If you really want to know the answer to that question, don’t listen to the knuckleheads on TV or the monkeys pounding away at their keyboards. You gotta turn to the passionate rabble patiently waiting in the streets for kickoff to come around. Just don’t expect any hard-hitting analysis from people wearing tiger-striped purple pimp suits.

Categories
College Football

Ryan Mallett’s mom says don’t believe the hype


Now that Lloyd Carr is retired and the excitement surrounding his final bowl game has died, the Michigan football program can finally return to normal. Well, maybe not. After all, now it’s time to talk transition, as in transitioning into the Rich Rodriguez era; an era Ryan Mallett probably wishes wouldn’t have started.

Mallett is now at the center of a quarterback controversy nine months before the 2008 season gets underway. Rodriguez is expected to bring his mobile QB system that helped make Pat White a Heisman hopeful to the blue and maize and is reportedly actively recruiting Terrelle Pryor, who many consider to be the next Vince Young. The uncertainty has many speculating that Mallet is contemplating jumping ship, heading for greener pastures where he can be the undisputed starter. Of course, if you really want to know what is going on in Mallett’s head then you can’t trust a stinkin’ newspaper or website. You gotta ask Mallett himself, or at least his mom.

No decision has been made,” Debbie Mallett said Thursday night of her son, the freshman quarterback — currently — at Michigan.

“Everybody thinks they know what Ryan’s doing. But Ryan has not made a decision yet. All these sources? They never came from anyone here.”

“He could be at UCLA, he could be somewhere else, he could be at Michigan,” she said. “But when I talked to him (Wednesday) night, he hadn’t made any decisions.”

While she continues to field phone calls from every interested party — her daughter even called Thursday — she’s amazed at the interest.

“He’s not a cure for cancer,” she said of the thousands of fans across the country discussing her son.

Debbie also expects she’ll hear before a reporter or a message board poster — at least she hopes.

“Ryan is my baby,” she said. “I can’t believe he’d call all those people before he tells me. If he does …

We gotta give it to Mark Snyder for having the nuts to write a story about a quarterback and his mom. After all, we all remember what happened the last time someone wrote about a mother and her son, right? Does “Come after me, I’m a man!” ring a bell with anyone?

Links:

[Freep.com]: INDECISION ’08: Ryan Mallett’s mom nixes reports about son’s transfer to UCLA

Categories
College Football

Ball boy blunder at bowl game befuddles billions

After watching the wildest college football season in history unfold over the previous months, nobody wanted the wackiness to end with the regular season. Well, one person might be wishing for a more mundane postseason contest.

Mack Brown’s stepson got really, really lucky on that one because if Arizona State rallied back to beat the Horns, Chris Jessee might be tarred and feathered on Sixth Street in downtown Austin minutes after the team charter lands. Luckily for Brown, Jessee and the Longhorn faithful, all ended well in Pacific Life Holiday Bowl for Texas and the tar and feathers will be packed away for now, patiently waiting for the next loss to Oklahoma or Texas A&M. At least we all learned something from this unbelievable brain fart: Kirk Herbstreit has eyes like a hawk!