Calvin Johnson announces that he will declare for the NFL draft.

Though Johnson will be a top draft pick and will be remembered as one of the best receivers to ever play at Georgia Tech, his career numbers against Georgia will always be the most bitter part of the Johnson-Ball-Gailey era:

9 receptions, 71 yards, 1 TD

It took Nick Saban about 17 seconds to come face-to-face with that unique animal known as the Alabama football fan. He was mobbed at the little Tuscaloosa airport and required a police escort to get through the crowd. Have you ever seen someone so uncomfortable as he looks around these people? Watch these two videos:

• Video #1
• Video #2

Of course this is Alabama football, and a school that has given us the Mike DuBose and Mike Price soap operas can’t just end a story like this without introducing alcohol and the law. Follow this link to read the tale of Ms. Alana Colette Connell, seen here giving the new coach a smooch and apparently a good whiff of a 9-martini lunch.

Remember, Nick…you chose this.

It already includes two powerhouse recruiters. FSU linebackers coach Kevin Steele will be the defensive coordinator. BamaOnline is also reporting that UCF’s Lance Thompson will join the staff.

You know, the one thing really missing from the Alabama coaching search story was unnecessary drama.

Thank goodness ESPN.com’s Pat Forde came through to fill this void. In a world of baseball steroid scandals and NBA brawls, Forde steps up as whistleblower on the lies, misinformation, and secrecy that surround football coaching moves, and Saban is the tipping point. That’s not all, though. It’s such an egregious fault that Saban, by association, taints the entire coaching profession.

So it’s time to rename the American Football Coaches Association the Liar’s Club. I understand that I’m tarring a lot of good men — and even a few honest ones — with a broad brush, but that’s Saban’s gift to his profession.

I’m not particularly impressed by Saban’s choices, but I’m also not going to take them as a personal affront. I’m also certainly no fawning admirer of Saban. If Forde is set off by a bit of hypocrisy and misinformation when it comes to a coaching search, then perhaps covering sports isn’t for him. Politics might be a more sanitary subject.

It’s amusing how quickly the big story became how Saban didn’t do things the "right way" throughout this process. He dared to contradict his earlier claim that he wouldn’t coach at Alabama. He didn’t appear in person to break the news to his staff or players. Forget about Saban the coach or the challenges facing him at Alabama – the narcissistic media had to make the story about themselves and how Saban wasn’t honest with them. You can just see the indignation dripping from Forde’s column. "He lied to us. US!!!" Even the Banner-Herald’s Andy Johnston gets into the act. As if every coaching search until now were conducted with forthrightness and transparency. These guys have been covering sports for years and still manage to write about this with the disillusionment of kids who just found out about Santa Claus.

Am I just numb to it? You’d think from this venom and hysteria that Saban had shot both Mike and Don Shula while looting the Dolphins’ locker room on his way out of town.

And as for those young innocents these coaches will be shaping? If Forde has lost faith in the once-hallowed profession of mercenary football coach, it’s a good thing he hasn’t turned his attention to the world of college recruiting and how 18-year-olds have come up with a unique interpretation of the word "commitment". He might never watch a game again.

As Alabama fans continue the Saban vigil, I have to wonder when he became the end-all of coaching candidates. Two SEC titles and share of a national title are impressive. On the other side of the ledger is a record of losing at least three games per season at LSU except in 2003. Fine coach, certainly, but I’m not sure if he’d even be the best coach in the state of Alabama. Maybe I’m just bracing for it, but you and I know that if Saban returns to the SEC he will immediately be fawned over on a scale that will make the Urban Meyer worship seem muted.

It hasn’t been Reggie Ball’s month. A month ago, he was the senior quarterback of the team on top of the ACC standings. His team was expected to end the losing streak to Georgia and win the ACC title.

In that month since, Ball has:

• Turned in a 6-for-22, 2 INT performance against Georgia to finish with an 0-4 career record against the Dawgs.
• Followed that up with a 9-29, 2 INT performance in the ACC title game loss to Wake Forest.
• Become academically ineligible for Tech’s Gator Bowl appearance against West Virginia.

I would never pull for Ball on the football field, but this complete fizzle to the end of his career just makes you cringe. Four years of eligibility was just too much to ask for Mr. 4th Down.

The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics has proposed a ban on the use of male practice players for women’s teams. You might or might not know that it’s a common practice to augment the practice squads of women’s teams (mostly basketball, but others do it also) with men, usually volunteers, in order to improve the level of competition in practice.

That’s apparently an abomination.

The thing about this recommendation is that the committee seems so rabid about the gender issues involved that they completely missed how these practice squads are used. Coaches and players from across the country have chimed in over the past week setting the record straight. The opposition is nearly unanimous. Did the CWA even research the issue?

I’ve seen Georgia practices where there were only eight or so scholarship players, and the managers and coaches – male and female – had to be pressed into service while the starters and reserves rotated in and out. Even when there are enough players for two squads, you want your starters and reserves running your plays while a practice squad simulates the opponent. You also have to consider that you often won’t have a full squad able to go full-speed in every practice because of injury or fatigue. This isn’t football where you have entire practice squads of freshmen and walk-ons. Either the reserves must take time away from their development to be the practice dummies, or you can get outside help. Why not use women volunteers? Quick – find a female on campus to simulate Candace Parker. You won’t find many men who can do what Parker does, but at least you might find a few 6’4" guys with decent basketball skills. Any female who fits that bill is probably already on the team.

Don’t take my testosterone-clouded word for it. How about two women who have been advocates of the game for decades? Ask All-American Ivory Latta. "Love ’em. That’s how they make us better. They give us attitude. They give us the killer instinct." Even the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, hardly timid when it comes to sticking up for the women’s game, is opposed to the proposal. "It’s mind boggling that this is what’s getting all the focus,” said WBCA president Beth Bass. But of course they’d oppose the proposal. The WBCA represents the coaches – the people who understand how these practice squads are actually used.

The CWA’s response to the criticism is hilarious. "There are many ways (training, nutrition, etc.) that female student-athletes can work on getting faster and stronger," they replied. Sure. You can also build strength by chopping wood, but most student-athletes prefer the weight room. Coaches and players in the women’s game have found a technique which they feel best trains them. The CWA continues, "Athletes at every level have continued to evolve through drills and practice without including bigger, stronger and faster opponents in these drills." Right again. But when those "bigger, stronger and faster opponents" are available, you’d be a fool not to make use of them.

For the sake of gender purity and not equity this committee would retard the growth and development of female athletes and women’s sports. This is what happens when you have academics and social scientists making uninformed policy decisions for athletics. They’re willing to deny a proven and valuable training tool in order to address a problem that doesn’t exist – as if there were scores of female student-athletes sitting wistfully a few rows up in the gym every day wondering if this might be the day that Coach lets them practice. Of all of the issues facing women’s sports, they’ve chosen to attack a positive force helping the development of those sports. Michigan State coach Joanne McCallie is exactly right: "It’s absolutely absurd. It’s short-sighted. It’s got nothing to do with equity and everything to do with politics." It makes you wonder what kind of research and thought went into some of the other regulations that govern college sports.

Anyone familiar with – scratch that – anyone who has heard of Arkansas football knew four things were true about the Razorbacks entering this season:
1) They were absolutely loaded in the backfield with Darren McFadden – the SEC freshman of the year – and Felix Jones.
2) Arkansas ran the football because they could.
3) Their returning quarterbacks weren’t very inspiring. The job might be handed to a true freshman right out of the gate.
4) When they did throw the ball, there was a very capable (and very tall) guy named Marcus Monk already established as the go-to guy.

Now armed with that information, any drooling ward of the state could figure that Arkansas would probably still run the ball a bit this year. Yes, they had a nice haul of receivers and a QB in the most recent recruiting class. Usually, it’s understood that it takes a year or two for most newcomers, even potential stars, to make an impact. Not so with three Arkansas freshmen. Now all three played as true freshmen which says a lot in itself. And it’s not like they didn’t contribute. Mitch Mustain started more games than any other Arkansas quarterback. Damian Williams was second on the team in receiving…as a true freshman. But that wasn’t good enough. The players grumbled because Arkansas won with their strengths in the backfield and not on recruiting promises. Williams will transfer, and the parents of the players have embarassingly inserted themselves into the story.

Coach Nutt wonders if he can be in charge for a while.

Two of the parents opened their mouths and showed us the real source of the problem here.

• Rick Cleveland. He’s the father of tight end Ben Cleveland. His greatest contribution to this story? This line: “Our boys are used to catching 60 passes a year.” Do you know how many SEC receivers caught 60 passes this season? Five. Total. Marcus Monk, the junior already established as Arkansas’ leading receiver, caught 49 passes this year in 13 games. Rick Cleveland believes that these incoming players were sold “a bill of goods” as a result. Yes, Mr. Cleveland…Arkansas will shelve the Heisman runner-up to have a true freshman throw the ball 60+ times to your son and some other true freshman.
• Finally, we have Beck Campbell, Mitch Mustain’s mom. She makes a very profound statement that will surely affect the coach-parent relationship everywhere. “It was agreed by all parties involved that the head coach has the valid right to determine the direction of the program and the manner in which the team would develop.” I’m glad the parents had that meeting to iron out what every other coach, player, and parent has accepted throughout the history of organized football. In the words of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, ” Well thank you very much! Can I be in charge for a while?”

With parents like that, is it any accident that their children are throwing tantrums?

I’ve only been marginally paying attention to the offseason coaching carousel. It’s reason enough to stop and appreciate Mark Richt. Wasn’t he a sure thing to run off when Miami came calling? Oh, nevermind.

• Arizona State will retread Dennis Erickson. He’s had success at other schools, and we’ll see if he can sort through the mess in Tempe. The Dawgs will face Erickson’s Sun Devils in his second year, so we’ll keep an eye on his rebuilding job next year.
• How often do we see a coaching search where the main criteria seems to be "the exact opposite of the last guy?" The last coach was too dull, so let’s get a personality in here. The last guy was married to the option, so let’s open up the passing game. That seems to be the case at NC State. Chuck Amato was quirky, eccentric, flashy, erratic, and his teams were known for their undisciplined play. Tom O’Brien might or might not be the right coach for the Wolfpack, but the former Marine major projects an image that’s everything Amato wasn’t. Will that matter when it comes to bringing a higher level of consistency to Raleigh?
• Count me among those unimpressed with Miami’s hire. Shannon’s biggest job will be to convince the local goldmine of talent to believe that a coach from the former failed staff can restore the image and attitude of "the U".
• So Alabama is still without a coach. When Georgia was looking for a coach after the 2000 season, I wrote that firing the existing coach was the easy part. The decision to replace the coach can’t be evaluated until we see how the replacement does. Everyone now looks back on the decision to replace Jim Donnan as a no-brainer, but that’s only because we hit a home run with Mark Richt. The Dawgs could have likely ended up with Ray Sherman or even, yes, Chan Gailey. Every coaching change is a big risk from replacing a guy leaving on his own terms to getting rid of someone not performing to expectations. The saving grace for Bama is that as messed up as things appear now, the next coach won’t be judged based on how smooth the selection process went. If he succeeds, no one will care about the public process. If he fails, it wouldn’t matter if Bama ran the model coaching search.

Former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler is dead at age 77. We know this will hit the Michigan family hard, so our thoughts are with them.

It’s anyone’s guess how this will affect the game. Will Michigan be stunned, or will they ride the emotion? I think that something like this means a lot more to the fans and coaches than the players – Bo hadn’t had much of an official position at Michigan since the early 1990s. We saw this ourselves earlier this year when Erk Russell passed away. Fans still talk about it, but other than a helmet sticker it hasn’t had a tremendous impact on the team. But surely Michigan will get caught up in what the fans and media are going through, so they will have plenty of emotions to handle.

Before Schembechler’s death, I had a slight edge to Michigan in this game. I think they have the better defense and a more well-rounded offense (given the running game behind Hart). But Ohio State had the homefield and the ridiculously good WR corps and QB. Now…who knows?

I’m a guest on this week’s UGASportsLIVE (Episode 39), talking about the Lady Dogs and their outlook for the season. My segment comes right before a nice interview with coach Andy Landers with his take on the early season.

I know I’ve said this before, and it’s not just because I’m on there from time to time, but this weekly podcast seems right up the alley for most every die-hard Dawg fan. Give it a listen – it’s free.

Think of it as the 60 Minutes of Bulldog sports. It’s professionally produced, and they get the news makers – coaches, players, media experts, and prospects. For everyone outside of Athens who has wished for a Bulldog-focused talk show, give this a try.

We’re cynical and hardened here in SEC country. Where college football has become big business, every play and decision is scrutinized like a performance metric. Wins aren’t impressive enough, losses aren’t acceptable, and the CEO coach goes from hero to bum from week to week and season to season. It’s not an entirely irrational reaction – the investment put behind these programs is serious stuff, and the passion behind it all is second to very little. When a program with the capital and human resources, talent base, and expectations that Georgia has loses to a program with much less in all of those areas, it leads to questions about how well those resources are being used. Business metrics again, and every fan is a McKinsey consultant with an answer.

Every so often though we’re reminded that all of this overhead is about a game played by college students. Complex thought behind schemes, state-of-the-art training methods, millions of dollars in investment, and huge national audiences all come down to how well 85 college students execute. That unpredictability is a lot of what makes college sports so maddening and also so enjoyable and superior to anything else.

We saw the kind of innocence and pure joy that just comes from winning that those of us who treat each game as an exam forget about. The fans had fun, not giving up on their team after a 15-point deficit. They unashamedly sang "We Will Rock You" as if hearing it for the first time. The players swelled with pride and emotion.

We see that kind of environment a lot in "traditional power" land, perhaps enough to dull us. Georgia might be down this year, but the environment for the Tennessee game earlier this year was as good as it gets in college football. The West Virginia game last year was just another game, but to the Mountaineers, it was everything – and they played like it. The hustle and passion shown by Rutgers last night is what impresses people more than a complicated scheme or true superstars.

We see this kind of story a lot in sports when fans get treated to a rare taste of winning. Atlanta went nuts over the Braves in the early 90s. Now they yawn and barely notice when they don’t make the playoffs. Kentucky beat a 6-4 Georgia team, but they tore down the goalposts in jubilation as if they had beaten Ohio State. Georgia baseball fans made Kudzu Hill a household name in 2001. That kind of pure enjoyment in the new experience of winning is what we saw last night, and it looks great every time we see it because we remember when we’ve had times like that. It’s what it felt like to be at Auburn in 2002 or in Jacksonville in 1997. Over time, we become used to or harden to those experiences and lose just how much it meant to have that innocent and even naive moment of pure joy after a win. It will be interesting to see how Rutgers fans go through this process in the coming games and seasons.

But what few are talking about while enjoying the Rutgers movie-script season is the complete collapse and bed-wetting by Louisville. Their 25-14 halftime lead wasn’t insurmountable, but any team worth a spot in the national discussion can’t let that get away. Louisville’s most frequently-used play in the second half was "QB scramble for his life left". They had a double-digit lead and one half separating themselves from a good chance at a spot in the national title game.

How fleeting it all is. Lousiville has a staff full of Certified Offensive Sooper-Geniuses™, but their unit looked lost and impotent in the second half. Even Jeff Bowden was chuckling. This week, he Again, full credit to Rutgers and their coaches and players. They had to make the plays and, most importantly, not fold early when they got embarrassed a bit in front of the home crowd. Once they settled down and were able to channel the evening’s emotion, they were fine. Now Schiano is the "it" guy…enjoy.

How would this be – say home field holds and West Virginia beats Rutgers in the last week of the season. Who wins the Big East and goes to the BCS?

Last night’s events certainly gave new life to many teams and threw open endless national title scenarios. Florida especially has to perk up at the prospects of moving up to #3. But Mark May’s caution is very apt here – there’s a ton of football to play yet. Call it the Virginia Tech rule – how many times in recent years have we seen them start out undefeated and then swoon in November? Or name it after Tommy Tuberville whose Auburn team got drubbed the week after complaining about the BCS. Play the games. There’s likely to be controversy this year, and that’s a topic for another post, but the cast of characters will surely change and be thinned between now and then.

Ching spoke with some defensive players about the adversity the unit has seen over the past month. Some very interesting comments in there – very good job as always.

I thought Ramarcus Brown made an extremely mature and insightful comment. He said, "Everything’s not gonna go right, so we’re all men here. College is about growing up. You’ve got to be able to handle that." When I read that, I see someone worth keeping an eye on in the next year or two. That kind of perspective is what I’d expect from the program’s leaders.

Some fans will probably focus in on and get bent out of shape about his statement that "we can’t play for the fans. We’ve got to have each other’s back." Brown isn’t denying the importance of fans or not being grateful for the support they do get. All he’s saying is that you can’t rely on that. Fan support is fickle. All you had to do was look around the parking lots and the stadium at the Mississippi State game to know that. I’m not getting into the endless "what defines a good fan" argument here; it’s just a fact that fan support ebbs and flows. We all know that. The players know that if they really need someone to lean on during tough times, they’re going to look to each other first. And I hope that’s how it will be. Brown and the other young players will have to be the core of the program’s resurgence. They are getting forged in fire right now, and they need to come through it together.

Ching also asked the players about "how much they pay attention to Internet message boards and how much criticism they hear and pay attention to." I hope that’s not for this year’s version of the tired "Internet BAD!" article that was played out around 1999. I expect not though since he seems to understand this medium well. We’ll see what comes of that.

Two things stand out in the ongoing saga of last weekend’s Miami – FIU brawl (be sure to watch through the 1′ 45" point).

1 – The surprising part of the story wasn’t the fight itself but the fact that none of the players from either south Florida school seems to have been armed with anything more dangerous than a helmet.

2 – Did Miami president Donna Shalala actually use the worn-out sports cliche "throw…under the bus" in an official statement about the incident earlier this week? Epic. Rack her. She’s now qualified to work on a Sunday morning NFL pregame show.

Chip Towers in today’s AJC reports an accusation by former Georgia basketball center Robb Dryden.

Former University of Georgia basketball coach Ron Jirsa benched a player after he refused to change his major when his class schedule conflicted with practice, former UGA center Robb Dryden said this week.

Dryden claims that after refusing to change his major, Jirsa retaliated by dismissing him from the team and then by benching him after Dryden was reinstated by associate athletic director Dick Bestwick. I recall at the time a lot of people wondering why Dryden wasn’t used much at all after showing some early promise, and I guess this explains it. Jirsa doesn’t deny the incident.

Sometimes coaches are able to work around schedules. Andy Landers moved his practices last year to early mornings in order to accomodate the afternoon class schedules which conflicted with his usual practice time. No one was thrilled with the crack-of-dawn practices, but the team was able to balance the need to practice with the academic schedules of the student-athletes. Several players had to learn the discipline to be ready and alert for early practices, but that’s part of the trade-off of priorities.

It seems from the article as if Jirsa had that option in this case, and it’s wrong that he tried to force a different set of priorities on Dryden instead of adjust the practice schedule.

Life as a college student-athlete is a constant balance of priorities. You must be dedicated to your sport, because that’s the reason why you’re on scholarship. You have academic priorities. You have social and even financial priorities. Many have spiritual priorities. Sometimes you have to choose some over others. I do fault Jirsa for trying to force Dryden to change his major to one more convenient for Jirsa, and I don’t at all like the retaliatory response of kicking Dryden off the team after Robb refused to drop his major. That’s a ham-handed response by a new coach who wasn’t ready for those nuances of the job.

This isn’t always as cut-and-dried as it seems. It might happen that a must-have class is only offered when the team practices, and the coach has already found the optimal time to balance practice with the course load of most of his players. If a player can’t practice, his performance and value to the team is diminished. Should a player who can’t practice expect to play?

"That was the backbone reason why I came to Georgia — to go the engineering school, and I wasn’t going to change my major," Dryden said.

That’s great, and I’m glad he finally graduated, but he also had to remember the means by which he was able to come to Georgia and major in engineering. There was a commitment to basketball. It doesn’t seem though that this situation was completely either-or. Jirsa had the ability to be flexible and chose not to, so it’s quite right that he should have the egg on his face.