Shoot the messenger. Rich Rodriguez told his players of his resignation before he told school officials–benefit of doubt given, as coach/player/bond/teary-manful things dictate that you might want to do this before talking to the checkwriting types who manage the unemotional, accounting side of the sport. Getting a grad assistant to hand in your letter of resignation? Personal foul, 15 yards, Coach DickRod.

Sources confirmed that finally, later in the day, when Mountaineer athletic director Ed Pastilong went to meet with the assistant coaches, a graduate assistant, Mike Parrish, walked up to the AD. And presented him with Rodriguez’s short letter of resignation.

A grad assistant.

Rodriguez also told Robb Report item and luxury recruit extreme Terelle Pryor of his departure before he told officials.

If you wonder why someone might do that, please gawk at the video below of Terelle Pryor, who has worn out the “next Vince Young” tag already with recruitniks. The soundtrack, too, may prove to be ironic given what just happened over the weekend.

Put your O’s in the air…um, we mean Ms! Revise! Pryor was one of the early leaks for the Rodriguez story on Rivals.com.

Trooper Taylor, largely regarded as the spark on the Tennessee coaching staff and revered as a recruiter by Vol fans, has been offered the offensive coordinator job at Baylor, meaning that Phil Fulmer can promote him to offensive coordinator, or hire him back in three years when Art Briles is fired and Baylor is looking for another coach, because this is Baylor, Jake. Let it go.

Yes, that describes it perfectly, we think. Alabama is prepping for the PetroChemInternationalTetrahedronCorp Independence Bowl and continuing their conditioning program, which Wallace Gilberry describes in gory fashion:

“Gruesome” is how defensive end Wallace Gilberry described it. “It was the total package. We’d go out and do some simulated training. We bench hard, squat hard, power-clean hard, we grunt hard. Throw up hard, when it’s over.”

Throw up hard describes the last two years of Alabama football with great accuracy, Wallace. We’re working on the t-shirt as we type.

Norm Chow interviewed for the UCLA job on Saturday, meaning that our source may have been premature or merely psychic in saying Chow had been outright offered the job. Either way, we can’t understand not wanting the best offensive mind in college football and architect of something like seven of the top ten scoring offenses of all time working in tandem with, say, someone like Dewayne Walker. Chow’s been around Carroll, Fisher, and Edwards, and even had the good sense to leave the management of Chuck Amato, further testament to his intelligence as a man.