Glass Joe

This should tell you where Kiffin‘s priorities are right now, as he’s more worried about assembling his LSU staff and locking down the current LSU recruiting class by NAD1 (Wednesday, Dec 3) than he is about prepping Ole Miss for their playoff game in two weeks. And Kiffin’s threat to his assistant coaches is an empty one. They are under contract to Ole Miss (not to Lane Kiffin). if Kiffin threatens to not hire his current assistants at LSU if “they’re not on the plane today”, what’s he going to do? Hire a whole new staff of assistants instead? How exactly does that help Kiffin & LSU for next season? Kiffin wants to introduce his entire staff at LSU this afternoon for recruiting purposes…so that recruits who’ll be signing on NSD1 this Wednesday will at least know who their position coach will be at LSU. Ole Miss is right to tell Kiffin to pound sand and hold these assistant coaches through the end of their contracts, which likely coincides with the end of Ole Miss’ playoff run (whenever that may be). And it’s very likely these assistants’ contracts have clauses that forbid them from recruiting for another school while employed by Ole Miss (so there’s a legal risk for these assistants).

Arkansas is far from the worst in P4. Let’s be serious. Regarding recruiting footprint, the state of Arkansas produces a small handful of 4-star caliber players each year (5-6), which is modest but also far more than the states of Kansas, Iowa, or Nebraska…or Oregon. Further, the state Arkansas borders Mississippi, Louisiana, east Texas, and Memphis. That’s plenty of regional talent to tap into, even if Arkansas is the 4th or 5th choice of prospects in these areas. Arkansas is also part of the SEC, easily the marquee conference in college football, which itself is a premium recruiting factor relative to the other three P4 conferences. University of Arkansas is also located in a fast growing, relatively modern area of the south (Northwest Arkansas MSA is > 600,000 population), making it larger than places like East Lansing, Lexington, Lincoln, Lawrence, Eugene, Auburn, Oxford, Lubbock, Waco, etc). Arkansas also puts 70,000 fans in the stadium (on average) every Saturday, which is a lot more than every single Big 12 school, and more than all ACC schools (other than Clemson). Lastly, as mentioned in previous posts, there is no shortage of extremely wealthy donors in the Arkansas ecosystem (Walton heirs, JB Hunt, Tyson family, Stephens family, Jerry Jones, etc), which isn’t the case for many other P4 programs, including most of the lower half of the Big Ten who need a private equity payday loan just to pay their athletes the $20m revenue share. There’s no question that Arkansas is a very difficult job within the SEC, but not relative to other P4 programs per se. If Arkansas moved to the Big 12, they’d be a perennial top 3 program in the conference. Ditto if they moved to the ACC.

The only reason the committee announces the decision to delay making an actual decision is because they know a change in format is needed and forthcoming. The extra time allows for the additional info from this season’s playoff results, and use that as a basis to support the changes they’ll announce on January 23rd. Maybe Disney wants to see the viewership revenue numbers from this playoff season before deciding to go beyond 12-14 teams? ( Disney is locked into under the current contract at fixed economic terms. If the playoffs expand beyond 14 teams, Disney has to increase the payout). Do they go to a 14-team format, or a 16-team format, or all the way to a 24-team format (as favored by the Big Ten)? We’ll know on January 23rd.

I think the entire point of Kiffin making an announcement immediately after the Egg Bowl is orchestrated to produce an amicable win-win for Ole Miss, LSU, and Kiffin. Ole Miss win, finishes their season, goes 11-1, and awaits their Playoff invitation. Ole Miss then plays their playoff game with an interim coach. Kiffin leaves for LSU, and has four days to keep the LSU recruiting class in tact prior to NSD on Dec 3rd. He also gets to put “led Ole Miss to first ever playoff” on his resume / ego. Win-win for all parties.

@Gerry Hamilton If we assume Lane Kiffin is announced as the new LSU HC next Saturday, how does this impact LSU’s recruiting class with NSD just four days later on December 3rd? Will the Kiffin hire be enough to keep all the LSU current commits in their class? And specifically, how do you think Kiffin’s hire will impact Martinez and R.Anderson? Thanks for your insights!

If he were planning to stay at Ole Miss, he would’ve already said so.

Sark has a tremendous shoe game.

Somewhat agree. This trade never happens without Dumont (and family) approving. So why did the family (Dumont) approve? Once the gaming / betting legislation failed to pass in Texas, the family focused on cutting costs of a franchise they no longer are interested in owning (in Dallas). What better way to cut costs than to avoid paying a SuperMax contract to an oft-injured, frequently conditioning challenged superstar player? The NBA then steps in and tells the family that if they don’t try to relocate the franchise to Vegas, they can replace Doncic with the #1 pick (Flagg) on a nice, cheap rookie contract. Everybody wins, except the Dallas fans (unless Flagg becomes a Luka-level superstar). At least that’s how I understand the conspiracy 😂.

That’s not correct. The 5 highest ranked conference champions get the guaranteed spots. And this year, there is a plausible path for the ACC Champion to be left out. USF (#24) wins the American Athletic while James Madison (AP #24) wins Sunbelt. Both teams have a pretty clear path to moving up in the rankings if they keep winning. By contrast, the ACC leader is #16 Ga Tech who will likely lose to UGA and not even make the ACC Championship game. The next two highest ranked ACC teams are Louisville (20) and UVA (19), both of whom may lose another game before the season ends. If JMU and USF win their conferences and end up ranked ahead of the ACC champion, then the ACC is left out. It may a remote possibility today, but it’ll be more plausible by Dec 7th.

Correct, but I would clarify that two loss Regular season teams will get left out for a 9-3 Texas team. I’m not as confident that an 11-1 regular season team that Loses in their conference championship game will fall below a 9-3 Texas. This mainly applies to a possible 11-1 BYU making the B12 CG and losing to a top 5-6 Tech team again.

No, aggy and Bama would play in the SEC CG if Texas, Ole Miss, and Bama win out. Texas loses a 3-way tie at a 7-1 record with Aggy and Ole Miss, due to common opponent records (our loss to Florida while both Aggy and assuming Ole Miss beats Florida). Texas’ best chance is to win out and hope Ole Miss loses to UF or MSU, while Bama also wins out. That would out Bama at 8-0, and both Texas and Aggy at 7-1, and we win the head to head tiebreaker. Ole Miss would be 6-2 and not part of any second place tie breakers. Winning out does solidify Texas in the Playoffs but not the SEC CG.

It was 6 years, but congrats for being able to purge one of those seasons from your memory 😂

Texas wins, 24-23

Kanu will require a major retention package to return to Texas next season. He’ll have an NFL option after this year.

Arch made 3-5 NFL throws in the last 1.5 quarters of that game against Miss State. He showed some elite, elite arm talent.

The most impressive throw I’ve seen this season was the Livingstons TD on the rollout right…elite! There aren’t 10 QBs in the NFL who can make that throw. Only the throw to Livingstone against OU (rolling right for a key first down when we were backed up) may compete with the one above. Or, the dime he dropped to Endries against tOSU between the corner and Safety over the top for 30+ yards. The throw above reminds me of the throw against Florida where he sidestepped an oncoming defender while rolling left, and dropped a TD dime to Wingo. For all the criticism Arch has received (some deserved), he has made some of the most elite throws in college football as well. Some jaw dropping arm talent.

It’s worth noting the precise words of the reporters tweet (article) - she was told THAT representatives of Sark reached out to NFL teams. The reporter was not told this BY representatives of Sark. This implies the info came for NFL exec circles, NOT directly from the representatives of Sark. If her words are accurate, the leak wasn’t from Sexton or other college sources, instead the leak came from the NFL gossip circle sources. So all the angst toward Sark, Sexton, et al regarding the timing of the leak is likely misplaced (hence, putting out a press release denial within hours). Obviously, this doesn’t change the substance or veracity of the report, it just means the source of the leak wasn’t Sexton nor a Sark-approved leak. I mention this because IF this leak was from a Sark-approved source, the timing would have me furious as a Texas fan, booster, or administrator. Furious enough to pack Sark’s bags for him.

Florida has 3 national championships in the last 29 years, and the larger point is Florida’s wealth of resources relative to Ole Miss’ dearth of resources. That Texas hasn’t done much with all our resources over the past 55 years really isn’t relevant to a discussion of Kiffin choosing Florida over Ole Miss. And Kiffin all but clinched a Playoff spot with his win over OU today (look at Ole Miss’ remaining schedule…11-1 is very likely), so you can check that box on Kiffin’s resume. And a 7-1 SEC record (very likely) will put Ole Miss in their first ever SEC Championship game. Another box checked.

27-17 Miss State

Kiffin will be wildly successful at Florida. What he’s done at Ole Miss with a fraction of the talent and resources he would have at Florida is already historical (by Ole Miss standards). Kiffin has an offensive system that scales. His current QB is a D2 transfer that arrived at Ole Miss in June to back-up Austin Simmons…and Ole Miss’ offense doesn’t skip a beat. I don’t think Kiffin enjoys recruiting much, but he knows to hire assistants who do. In the state of Florida, he’ll have an in-state advantage in the most talent-rich recruiting state in the country. As long as Florida competes in the NIL space, Kiffin’s rosters will be as talented as any in the country. And if you’re an offensive player, you’ve already got proof of concept that Kiffin’s system scores big points against the top teams in the SEC. This is as close to a no-brainer for success as Florida can possibly have. Now, let’s hope they can screw it up 😂

Can he play Left Guard?

If Sarks the HC continues to employ Sark the OC, then Sark the HC will be writing his own pink slip in 2 years. It’s his call.

Wait until you see my Miss State score prediction….(hint: we lose by 10+). 😀

I never made it passed Bald Bull or Mr.Sandman.

Heck, I couldn’t even beat Pizza Pasta.