A Knoxville store owner is starting a drive to send Kiffin-themed “It’s Time” Tennessee gear to the devastated island.

Burks said Wednesday that any customer who brings in an “It’s Time” T-shirt can get 20 percent off the purchase of a new shirt. Burks said he’ll ship the old shirts to Haiti, which was devastated by an earthquake on Tuesday.

For those of us who were wise enough never to buy such things to begin with, there are plenty of other ways to donate to the relief effort. The easiest: text “HAITI” to 90999. $10 will be donated to the Red Cross for Haitian relief and billed to your cell phone.

Lane Kiffin, Norm Chow, and Ed Orgeron are all reuniting at Southern Cal. Will it turn out to be a pretty successful reunion along the lines of the Eagles or will it be more like David Lee Roth rejoining Van Halen?

Lane Kiffin and staff escape in the recruiting helicopter to avoid the rioting masses in Knoxville.

I’ll start with a more serious thought – instead of rioting or protesting, Tennessee fans and students should be partying. They’ll take a hit in the short term, but it pains me to say that they’ll be better off without Kiffin than they would have been with him. Put it this way – after everything shakes out I would wager that Southern Cal is looking for their next coach before Tennessee is. We know from boring stability here at Georgia, and – while it has its pitfalls – it’s not all bad considering.

• My first thoughts upon hearing the news went right to two people: JaWuan James and Lance Thompson. James is a standout offensive lineman at North Gwinnett who committed to Tennessee over Georgia. I have no idea if he’d reconsider, but he’ll have to make a decision soon: James is one of several early enrollees already on campus, and classes are set to begin. There are (unconfirmed) reports that those early enrollees would preserve their eligibility and be able to sign with another team if they don’t begin attending classes. Ed Orgeron is certainly working that angle as he tries on his way out the door to poach several of them. No doubt the door would still be open for James at Georgia; he’s one of the nation’s best prospects at a position of need for Georgia.
  As for Thompson, the Georgia native was Tennessee’s linebackers coach and has been a successful defensive coach for several area programs. Yes, he has a long relationship with Georgia Tech, and it will be interesting to see whether Paul Johnson puts Al Groh on hold to consider the availability of Thompson. I don’t think Thompson would be a candidate for the defensive coordinator position at Georgia, but he’d be a slam-dunk upgrade as linebackers coach. We don’t know whether he’s been offered a chance to head west with Kiffin, but his background, family, and recruiting contacts are all here in the southeast. He might not even leave Tennessee. There’s a timing issue also – Georgia has floated the idea that the new defensive coordinator will have input on the other defensive coaching vacancies, and Thompson might be off the market by the time Georgia settles their coordinator search (all the more reason to wrap that up ASAP).
• I was waiting for HeismanPundit to weigh in on this story, and he doesn’t disappoint. No one has sounded the alarm about Kiffin louder.
• One of my favorite observations last night came from Chris Brown of Smart Football. “Anyone else find it weird that thse all star USC coaches all are back, but now under Kiffin instead of Carroll?” Think that’s a pretty important detail?
• Then there’s the classic message board comment: “Like getting a divorce from a stripper.”
• Of all the names that are floated for the Tennessee job, David Cutcliffe strikes the most fear into the hearts of Georgia fans. We know why. I think we can relax though. First, I’m not so sure he gets the call, though he probably should. Other than it being unseemly to leave a program after one year (ahem), why didn’t they go after him when they had an opening last year? Is his health still a consideration? Also, Cutcliffe the coach seems to have slightly less juju over Georgia than Cutcliffe the coordinator.
• Along those lines, it’s not 2004 anymore. I understand why fans are excited to have Norm Chow back at Southern Cal, but his star seems to have faded somewhat from those glory days. You can blame the players and situations around him over the past five years, but then you’d also have to admit some pretty poor career decisions.
• And finally…as angry as people are in Knoxville, they’re not too thrilled in L.A. either.

Exaggeration or not, I believe this will be the one thing I remember about this story:

Multiple outlets in Alabama are quoting Nick Saban announcing today that defensive coordinator Kirby Smart will remain at Alabama, turning down an offer from Georgia.

Back to the drawing board…

Lady Dogs freshman Jasmine James has been named the SEC Freshman of the Week for the fourth time this season. This was the first time the weekly honors coincided with conference play, and James is a big part of the reason why the Lady Dogs are off to a 3-0 SEC start and a perfect 16-0 overall record. She poured in 17 points in Sunday’s win over Florida, and her three-pointer in the final minute of overtime proved to be the game-winner against Kentucky last Thursday.

Despite what seems like a pretty solid consensus to the contrary, something tells me to go with Texas.

Bonus MVP: Jordan Shipley

The Lady Dogs will attempt to establish the program’s best start ever tonight in the SEC home opener against Kentucky. Georgia is off to a 14-0 start and won their first conference game at Alabama on Sunday.

It’s fair to say that the program’s biggest challenges lay ahead with most of a competitive SEC schedule remaining. In-season winning streaks don’t mean much if they don’t turn into successful seasons. But the perfect start to this season is noteworthy because it comes on the heels of a disappointing 2008-2009 season which saw the program lose more than three consecutive games for the first time. That team made the NCAA Tournament by the slimmest of margins, but the state of the program didn’t sit well with anyone.

The offseason wasn’t kind to the Lady Dogs. A starting guard transferred. Senior Christy Marshall was lost for the year during the preseason due to a knee injury. That left the team with only five returning players with any kind of experience.

Hopes were lifted by one of the strongest recruiting classes of the decade. The story of the season so far has been those newcomers meshing well with a quality group of veterans. Fans know all about the stars – Houts, Phillips, and Robinson. The improvement of sophomore Meredith Mitchell has been key in replacing the production and athleticism lost when Marshall went down. The freshmen have stepped right in – Jasmine James has already won SEC Freshman of the Week honors several times and leads the team in scoring. Georgia’s top prep prospect, Anne Marie Armstrong, continues to gain confidence and has hit some big shots in big situations. Jasmine Hassell has been a very important player off the bench providing depth on the frontcourt behind Phillips and Robinson. Ebony Jones and Tamika Willis give Landers still more options at the forward spot.

Make no mistake – the team hasn’t been dominant. They’ve had to come from behind several times to win close, low-scoring games. The difference and key of course is that they won. They’ve come up with the defensive stop or clutch shot to preserve their record. What’s impressive is that many of those big plays have come from the newcomers who have shown the steadiness and effort you might not expect from freshmen. That tough and competitive nonconference slate that led to so many close games has prepared Georgia for the grind of SEC play where they’ll face that kind of test every night.

Unfortunately the possibility of frozen precipitation in north Georgia this evening will likely reduce the crowd for this potentially historic game. Kentucky’s a tough opponent and has improved in recent years under Matthew Mitchell. They beat Georgia twice just two seasons ago and pushed the Lady Dogs to the buzzer last year in Lexington. They’ve been off to a good start themselves this year with only one loss against them. They’re led by forward Victoria Dunlap, a dominating presence inside who averages nearly 20 points and 10 rebounds per game.

Key for Georgia will be applying defensive pressure. Kentucky turned the ball over 29 times in their only loss of the year, and Georgia has been very effective in creating turnovers to spark their offense this year. Georgia has struggled scoring at times, shooting under 40% for the season, so points created by defense could make a big difference tonight. Georgia’s inside duo of Porsha Phillips and Angel Robinson will have their hands full with Dunlap, but they’ll also have to avoid foul trouble and find ways to counter her on the offensive end.

It’s a great night to be a Georgia Bulldog. The evening started off with Mark Fox’s hoop Dawgs defending their home court. Outside shots fell, McPhee hit the shot of his life, and Thompkins took over as the Dawgs (again) sent a ranked and more talented Tech team home. More on that later.

If seeing Tech lose once wasn’t enough, Iowa came through with a nice win in the Orange Bowl. The Jackets couldn’t muster but a single scoring drive on offense, and Iowa was able to break open a close game with a late score. On behalf of the Bulldog Nation, we thank the Hawkeyes for giving us the chance to enjoy two Tech losses in a single evening.

If even that isn’t enough for you and you’re still up, Rudy is on CMT right now. Tech has lost on the court, the gridiron, and even in the movies tonight. Sleep well.

Image: Anti-Orange Page

Great news for a real Bulldog fan favorite. After tearing it up in the NBA Development League, Sundiata Gaines will reportedly sign with the Utah Jazz.

Utah Jazz general manager Kevin O’Connor announced today that the team will sign former Bulldog Sundiata Gaines, who now plays for the NBA Development League’s Idaho Stampede, to a 10-day contract pending the outcome of a successful physical on Wednesday.

Hopefully the 10-day contract will be extended and he’ll stick in the league. I can’t think of anyone who put in more effort during some dismal years in Athens, and he deserves this break.

New Georgia basketball coach Mark Fox has been pushing most of the right buttons when it comes to the fans, and the “Wreck Tech” ticket campaign shows he gets this too. There won’t be a more important game in his inaugural campaign than Tuesday night’s game against Georgia Tech.

Since the series returned to campus sites in 1995, Georgia hasn’t lost a game in Athens to their rival. Bulldog teams that made the NCAA Tournament or finished dead last in the SEC have found a way to win this one game. They’ve beaten pedestrian Tech teams as well as the eventual national runner-up that came in as #3 in 2004.

I know it’s not a conference game, and the series doesn’t have quite the same history on the basketball court as it does on the football field. But not much is expected in conference play from the Bulldogs this year, and a win over Tech is an opportunity for Fox to establish legitimacy in front of fans and the all-important local recruiting base. Georgia’s football and women’s basketball teams have already righted the rivalry in their respective sports. With football season behind us, the Tech game will be many casual fans’ first look at Fox’s team. Can they pull it off?

I didn’t intend to spend the better part of the holidays and bowl season away, but life had other plans. It’s about time to put the football season to bed and move on to the winter sports.

Football
So, right, there was the bowl. We spent so much of the year talking about how much more difficult the job was for our defense because of turnovers and disadvantageous field position. How nice to finally get a taste of what several Georgia opponents experienced this year. You wouldn’t know it from the final score, but Georgia’s offense wasn’t terribly impressive. Georgia’s 14 first half points required about 2 yards of offense. Credit the running game for putting it away and Cox for a nice touchdown pass to White that opened things up, but it was a nice change to see how things went with a little help from the opponent and no Kentucky-like meltdown.

Doug’s right – there’s not much long-term to take from the bowl. It was a lame duck game, and we know that much about the team will be different the next time they take the field. In a general sense, we can be excited about proven players at almost every position on offense except quarterback, and we can be skeptical about the unknown identity of the defense (especially if two key juniors move on).

Speaking of juniors moving on, I surely wasn’t alone in reading Rennie Curran blowing off a disciplinary running session (and his subsequent quarter-long suspension) as a sign that he will be declaring for the NFL draft. It took him a while to get going in the bowl game, but his third down stop on a quarterback scramble in the third quarter with A&M driving might have been the play of the game. The Aggies scored out of the gate in the second half, but after Curran’s stop and the disrupted fourth down attempt that followed, we didn’t hear much from the A&M offense the rest of the way.

So now we have three big storylines over the next month: 1) the new defensive coordinator and position coaches, 2) the draft-related decisions of Curran and Jones (and any other attrition), and 3) the final month of recruiting. How much each of those stories affects the others could be interesting – will the naming of the defensive staff affect recruiting (likely) or the decisions of the juniors (less likely)? In a month we’ll also be talking about mat drills and offseason conditioning, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that get extra attention this year.

Men’s Hoops
Mark Fox’s first year is going about as expected. The Dawgs haven’t been able to lean on newcomers very much expect for situational minutes, so the cast is pretty familiar. Struggles on offense are unfortunately no surprise, but it is encouraging to see the system in action only a couple of years removed from the Sundiata Gaines-and-pray scheme. Shots are there, and hopefully there will soon be players in place to knock them down.

There have been bright spots. Travis Leslie’s development has been fun to watch. McPhee has done more than could be expected of him. Thompkins has come on strong late in December, and he’s starting to embrace his role. But spotty shooting and turnovers continue to plague the Dawgs and likely will all season.

The highlight of the season was definitely the win over Illinois in Gwinnett. That showcased everything good about this team – physical play inside, a big game from Thompkins, and timely plays by the guards. We were brought back to earth this past weekend at Missouri as the combination of early Thompkins foul trouble and relentless Missouri pressure turned the game into an alarming rout.

There was discussion whether Georgia’s win over Illinois was Mark Richt’s “Hobnail Boot” moment. In the sense that it was the new coach’s first high-profile win, OK. But Illinois was unranked. They’re a good, but not great, team. Dennis Felton managed to knock off #3 Georgia Tech (not to mention Florida) in his first season. If we’re looking for a signature win to get the Fox program off and running, I hope we can do better this year than Illinois. A win this week over a ranked Tech team would go a long way.

Women’s Hoops
Georgia overcame a 10-point halftime deficit by holding Alabama to only 14 second half points and escaped Tuscaloosa with a win in the SEC opener. The Lady Dogs are off to an undefeated 14-0 start and are ranked in the top 10. The perfect record hasn’t been built entirely on easy wins – they’ve beaten teams like Oklahoma, Rutgers, Virginia, and Georgia Tech who are all bound for the NCAA Tournament and have been ranked this year.

A good core of seniors has been augmented by an exciting group of freshmen. The development of sophomore win Meredith Mitchell has been a great shot in the arm. Freshman guard Jasmine James is one of the most entertaining and capable shooting guards the team has had in years.

The one caution with the women’s team is on offense. The team is shooting under 40% for the year, and it got them in a hole against Alabama. They’ve needed late rallies to win several games. To their credit the defense has held tough and made it possible to overcome poor shooting nights. They’re winning games that would be losses over the past couple of seasons. The shooting is going to have to come around against better SEC competition though.

The team hosts Kentucky and Florida over the next week, and it’s a bit like playing South Carolina in football. Neither will win the SEC, but they’re respectable teams that will provide serious challenges and should serve as early measurements of Georgia’s SEC prospects. If they can beat Kentucky it would mark the best start in the program’s storied history. UK is much improved in recent years though, and they only have one blemish so far this season themselves.

We guessed yesterday that we’d see Urban Meyer back on a college football sideline, but we didn’t see it coming this quickly:  instead of going through with his planned resignation, Meyer will accept an offer to stay on as head coach and take an indefinite leave of absence.

It’s going to take a lot of work to keep this from becoming a messy situation.  As it was phrased in the press conference, the head coach is now also the coach-in-waiting.  To what extent will he have oversight of the program during his leave?

A question about Meyer’s role in hiring Florida’s next defensive coordinator seemed to catch Meyer off-guard.  To be fair, this is a decision that was made in a day’s time, and Meyer was quick to point out that the details still have to be sorted out. 

It was a good question, though.  By changing his resignation to a leave of absence, Meyer will still have some presence around the program.  He admitted that the tough part of this process will be figuring out how to “fix” the things that have led him to this point.  That involves stepping away from the program to get well, but was this morning’s change of heart a sign that he’s going to have trouble distancing himself enough to get well?

Athletic director Jeremy Foley made it clear at the press conference that Meyer is still Florida’s head coach, and he just happens to be taking an indefinite leave of absence.  His role in the hiring of the defensive coordinator is just one detail to be worked out.  Recruiting is heading into the home stretch, and Meyer deflected a question about whether he was now off the recruiting trail. 

Meyer talked about being back in time for the start of the 2010 season.  He’s going to coach in the bowl game.  He’s not likely to drop recruiting cold turkey.  Other than spring practice, exactly what is he stepping away from?

The answer – it doesn’t matter.  It’s not our concern.  As everyone wrote up their resignation stories, the consensus was that the SEC was better with Meyer in it.  That’s still true.  We’re going to snipe at the minutiae of the story, but Meyer’s the one to know his limits and has to face his family with the decision.  I’ve already seen the “guess it couldn’t have been that serious” comments, but Meyer’s under no obligation to justify that.

Speaking of medical conditions though, I hope no one gagged or got diabetes from the conversation on the podium.  Meyer spoke of the amazing place that is Florida, and Jeremy Foley swooned along, but I doubt they would have made this arrangement for someone who hadn’t won two national titles in the past three seasons.  Not many of us get the opportunity Meyer is getting, but he’s earned it.

No other way to do this than to go down the random thoughts that have been bouncing around all evening.  It’s a massive and sudden announcement that has stopped the college football world in its tracks.

• First, our thoughts have to be with Meyer and his family.  The issue doesn’t seem to be life-threatening (in the immediate sense, at least), but it was obviously serious enough to force a man who lived the game of football to readjust his priorities and step away.  Hopefully it’s a hiccup in a long life.
• It’s so unusual to see someone at the top of their game – coaches come and go all the time, but this has to be as big of a shock as it was when Spurrier took to the podium at the start of the decade.  The biggest difference is the health issue.  We’re not saying goodbye to Meyer, so it’s not quite a Lou Gehrig moment.  Ara Parseghian and Bo Schembechler will be mentioned as analogues, but were either really the dominant personalities in the sport when they stepped down? 
• Georgia fans may never know how close Mark Richt came to a similar decision a few years ago during his wife’s battle with cancer. Facing one’s mortality, especially with financial concerns all but moot, has to make even the most driven professional place work far down the list of priorities.
• As much as we hate to admit it, the SEC was better off for having Meyer around.  He’s a big part of the reason why the conference is going for its fourth consecutive national title.  The coverage that will nauseate most of us leading up to the Sugar Bowl is a reminder that this is a national sports story that will dwarf almost every other college football story up to and including the national title game.
• One has to wonder when and where he’ll resurface.  Again, he’s not dying.  He’ll have time to step away and spend time with his family while addressing his health.  It’s not hard to imagine a bright and effective communicator stepping into broadcast media at some point.  Will we ever see him on a sideline again?  He’s only 45.
• The SEC East was already pretty wide open heading into 2010, and this news only adds to the unpredictability.  The top three teams in the division – Florida, Tennessee, and Georgia – all face big turnover and will be starting a new quarterback.  Is South Carolina, with an experienced quarterback returning, a dark horse among a chaotic field?
• Bulldog fans shouldn’t be too giddy just yet – Georgia’s problems with Florida go far beyond the coach on the other sideline.  Even Ron Zook had a winning record in Jax.
• Some might think it crass that Georgia and others began contacting Florida commitments less than an hour after the announcement.  But back to Gehrig – we’re not hovering over Meyer’s death bed waiting to see if he’ll emerge from a coma.  He’s made the decision to step away from coaching, and that decision – not to mention the departure of the offensive and defensive coordinators within a year of each other – has immediate implications in recruiting. 
• Not going to get too wrapped up in the Florida coaching search except to say that it will introduce some new dynamics into the ongoing Georgia searches. Will Florida be replacing more than a new coordinator on defense as a new head coach takes over?
• Notre Dame might have inadvertently avoided a repeat of the 2005 battle with Florida over the next big head coach.  Or is Brian Kelly re-examining that five-year Notre Dame contract tonight for a buyout clause? 
• Charlie Strong is an interesting case.  Meyer didn’t wake up this morning and decided to step down.  All accounts are that he’s been considering it since “recent developments” (including a hospitalization following the SEC Championship game).  Strong took the Louisville job in the meantime, but we have to think he would have been a candidate to replace Meyer.  Meyer didn’t reach a decision until the past few days, but did Strong have a chance to see it coming?
• Will Meyer take on the “emeritus” role and hang around the program?  I hope for his sake he’ll retreat into the privacy he’ll need to focus on health and family, but it will be tempting to remain around a Gator community that wants him around. That scenario wouldn’t bode well for the next coach though; Meyer’s shadow will loom large enough without the former coach popping up everywhere. 
• As with Zook, I don’t envy the next Florida coach.

Remember Kawika Mitchell? He was part of that great 1998 recruiting class of linebackers at Georgia. He transferred to USF after his freshman season (reportedly to be closer to his girlfriend), and he’s become a solid pro. He’s currently with Buffalo on injured reserve.

The Bills picked up lineman Richie Incognito this week, and Mitchell used his Twitter account to make sure everyone know what he thinks of the addition.

Since it’s a slow time before the bowls and it might be January before we get any concrete news about the new coaches, I’ll throw out a topic that has been getting a lot of play, of all places, in the legal blogosphere: should replay officials review plays de novo?

de novo, in the legal context, means to review a case fresh; that is, without considering the original outcome. Applied to football replays, de novo review would mean that replay officials would review the play and make a ruling based on the video without consideration for the ruling on the field. That’s contrary to most replay systems currently in use which defer to the field officials and require “indisputable video evidence” in order to overturn a call.

Why remove the burden of indisputable video evidence and instead ignore the original call? It centers around this one assumption: a replay official, with multiple angles and time to study the call, almost always has the advantage over a field official making the call in real time.

What about instances where the video replay is inconclusive? It could still be argued that the judgment of the replay official is the right way to go. If several moments and multiple camera angles aren’t enough to establish a conclusive ruling, why would the original call made in the heat of the moment be any more accurate?

Go back to calls like the LSU interception against Alabama. With the ruling on the field of a catch out of bounds, the burden under the current standard is to prove conclusively that the defender’s foot was in bounds. Based on the outcome of the review (the call was upheld), we conclude that the standard wasn’t met. But under a de novo review, the booth would be free to consider the play and the number of angles without being constrained by the ruling on the field.

Since there are a lot of educated minds kicking this topic around, some good points have been raised. Overuse of replay and its effect on the game’s pace are vaild concerns. There are also disagreements over whether multiple video angles really can provide a better look at a call than an official who is in great position to see the play. That’s especially valid considering the non-standardized equipment and video quality in the booth that’s often poorer than what home viewers see.

PS…regardless of the standards used for review, I’ll beat my drum here again for unmanned cameras positioned at goal lines.

PPS…I do like Josh Patashnik’s point about the arbitrariness of calls, especially when it comes to spotting the ball. It’s always amused me that the officials can eyeball the placement of the spot for every play – including the one that sets the chains to begin with – and yet the decision to award a first down depends on a (relatively) precise measurement.

Rivals has information this morning about which conferences will be assigned to referee the 2009 bowl games. Officials from the Mountain West conference will work Georgia’s Independence Bowl matchup with Texas A&M. The piece also looks at how conferences go about assigning their various crews to work the bowls – it’s as much a reward and merit-based system for the officials as it is for the teams.

After grading each official’s work during the regular season, each conference sends its top officials at each position to NCAA national coordinator David Parry, who assembles bowl crews by conference. Parry then assigns each bowl game a crew of neutral conference officials.

We offer our condolences to the teams playing in the Alamo, Champs Sports, Orange, and St. Petersburg Bowls. They’ll be getting SEC refs, and it will be interesting to see who the conference sends as its best officials.