VERSATILE, THAT MAN. The late Ernie Harwell, prior to calling baseball for an easier, more lucrative living, called college football in the 1940s. Unsurprising fact: he was good at it.
SUNRISE, SUNSET. Mandel is completely right about one thing here: North Carolina's offense will hamstring any chances they have of dominating the ACC with their defense thanks both to an overall lack of offensive TNT in their arsenal, and also because offensive coordinator John Shoop runs the Samuel Beckett play of offenses. Once during the VT/UNC game last year the announcer relayed the saddest story we've ever heard told by an offensive coordinator.
Announcer 1: We talked to him this week, and he said his proudest moment as an offensive coordinator was having head coach Dick Jauron tell him with a lead in a 1:00 p.m. game, "I want to be eating my dinner at 5:00 p.m." He said they did it, and Dick Jauron was thrilled.
Announcer 2: Ha! What a disgracefully unproductive approach to the game! Who'd want to actually score points, right?
Announcer 1: And I said "head coachDick Jauron!"
Announcer 2: Classic!
(They weep.)
Everything after the first clip is fictional, but not really. The Wikipedia entry on Shoop is also superb.
While with the Bears, Shoop became known and sometimes criticized for a conservative play-calling strategy that focused on running plays and safe, short passes, often even when long third-down conversions were necessary.
This only confirms our theory that once you are a coach in the NFL for one year, you can be a coach in the NFL for the rest of your life in one capacity or another, even after punching an underling in the face.
Mandel is wrong about one thing: Florida has no plans to switch to a 3-4. You may see a 3-3-5 look, but Teryl Austin's stated plans were not to mess around with the extant scheme too much, especially since Chuck Heater is still on staff. The 3-4 switch was associated with George Edwards, whose glorious month-long tenure ended with his departure to the Buffalo Bills and an easy, nap-filled tenure with Chan Gailey.
HOW DARE YOU RANK MY HYPOTHETICAL TEAM BELOW ANOTHER HYPOTHETICAL TEAM: In Barking Carnival's breakdown of Mark Schlabach's top ten, a truly valid point surfaces: if you like Oregon in the Pac-10, you'll love Arkansas in the SEC. In this grand game of Sid Meier's Civilization, they're both the motorized artillery advancing forward without so much as an archer to defend them.
AL GOLDEN DESERVES YOUR MONEY AND ADMIRATION. Temple pays the man who took them to a bowl game. If you've forgotten, that happened, even if it was the Eagle Bank Bowl.
THE LEADER HERE WILL SURPRISE NO ONE. It's Alabama and the rest in terms of spring game attendance, though Ohio State would have been right up there if they'd been handing out jobs and jerseys at the game. (And Ohio State would have certainly had some to hand out if their lieutenant governor weren't so busy being so damn sexy. <----NEW FAVORITE POLITICAL AD.) In accordance with EDSBS double fairness laws of satirical evenhandedness: Florida's attendance was dampened by the presence of Federal Marshals (bastards!), there's nothing else to do in Alabama, and someone told Florida State fans that a truck full of brand new EBT cards had overturned in the parking lot of Doak Campbell. WOO FANCY KETCHUP TONIGHT RANDY!
BEDAZZLING: NOW AVAILABLE IN CHRIST FLAVOR. Someone's already bought this for their wife. in other news, someone's not getting any this Mother's Day.