I CAN USE A MAN LIKE YOU.
We have no idea if Willie Lyles is going to get Chip Kelly fired. We know next to nothing about how the Oregon Athletic Department works, but this is known: Phil Knight matters more than anyone else by checkbook, and if he's off Kelly's wagon then the whole thing's going in the river. God, it's got to be awesome being Phil Knight, just commanding people to bring you coaches, shoes riffing on the designs of shoes you made thirty years ago, wearing a perpetual half-scruff of beard, and pausing to dive nude into the Steve Prefontaine Memorial Cash Pool you keep at a pleasant 78 degrees year round. (Cold money causes paper cuts. It's a pity how few cash pool maintenance men know this.)
Anyway, Chip Kelly certainly lied to a columnist, but that's certainly not illegal, and is in fact encouraged in a lot of places. He could be toast if he lied to the NCAA, something no one can verify right now since the NCAA won't comment on an ongoing investigation.The greater question for everyone--and by "everyone," we mean Texas and LSU--is if Lyles took money for influence at other schools, and did indeed become the Heidi Fleiss of the recruiting world. (Fun fact! Heidi Fleiss's prostitutes had a nickname for Gary Busey, a client who often abused his call girls and terrified them with cocaine-induced rages. That nickname: "Scary Abusey.")
STILL MISSING. Sean Matti, Purdue running back. The search for Matti enters its third day after Matti disappeared while swimming in Lake Freeman Sunday evening around 5 p.m. There are some hints this morning from teammates on Twitter that Matti has been assumed dead, but a search involving planes, dogs, and boats on the water has turned up nothing conclusive. This is horrendous, and there's little else to offer but sympathies. There is one other horrendous story. It is next.
ARRESTED. The suspect who turned himself in in the murder of Auburn wideout Quan Bray's mother is Quan's father.
CLINGING TO LIFE AND POSSIBLY DOING BETTER, BUT SERIOUSLY TREES CAN'T TALK AND THAT'S REALLY MAKING THINGS HARD HERE. The oaks at Toomer's Corner are doing better, according to experts, and continue to serve as the perfect metaphor for Auburn football in that like their program they still enjoy robust growth despite the occasional near-fatal poisoning.
THE MACHINE CANNOT STOP BECAUSE MACHINES DO NOT NEED REST. Bill C's Miami preview quantifies much of what you knew already about the Hurricanes: they are talented, they are inconsistent, and a vaunted recruiting class (2008, to be specific) means as much on paper as a picture of a unicorn with an M-60 smoking a cigar with a monstrous erection (NSFW), la la lalalalala same as every Miami team since 2002.
ONE OUT OF THREE DATA POINTS AIN'T BAD. Les Miles explains why, of all people, he hired Steve Kragthorpe to run his offense.
"I had followed his career," LSU coach Les Miles said. "I watched his teams at Tulsa [2003-06] improve when I was head coach at Oklahoma State [2001-04]. He's the guy who got Tulsa turned. At Louisville, his pass offense was very good. I knew he would fit in well with our staff."
Steve Kragthorpe's pass offense was 4th in the nation in 2007, 63rd in the nation in 2008, and 71st in the nation in 2009, so as long as LSU wants to use their offensive coordinators for one year and one year only, everything should be fine! [LSU fans join us in vomiting blood for four months straight watching our offensive coordinators destroy our will to live one irrational call at a time.]
YOU ARE SPARTACUS, AREN'T YOU. Gone, but not forgotten in Ohio.
STYLE POINTS NET YOU AN OVERALL SCORE OF GODDAMN. The fake class is Harrick-esque, the timing of the player's sudden eligibility for a big game makes Urban Meyer and Tom Osborne applaud, and the institutional infighting and resulting lawsuits elevate this sub-D-1 scandal to a perfect seven on the Hamatachi Shitstorm Scale.