I suppose while good for all the college teams out there sweating out the last three weeks of summer, it made for a terribly boring weekend and the first real down time in July (which is pretty unbelievable the entertainment lasted this long into the month). But, given that we're dealing with 18 to 22-year olds, I feel confident we'll have another few flares of stupidity before practice starts in August.
Raymond Cotton of Get to Know Your SEC Football Players fame will take his talents to South Bea..(sorry, bad habit)..South Alabama
The one-time quarterback of the future for Ole Miss elected to leave Rebels' program and move on to other opportunities in Mobile. Reasons for his departure have included:
1. Not being sent to the Manning Passing Academy with fellow Ole Miss QB Nathan Stanley (number one on the depth chart)
2. Feeling that he should have been the starter
3. HOUSTON NUTT IS A QUARTERBACK KILLER
4. His discussion with Bradley Sowell about video games (Call of Duty series is SO much better than the Grand Theft Auto series)
5. Mobile is awesome
It's possible that I made up the last three (although there is an argument that most Arkansas fans will readily have over number three). According to Nutt, Cotton was not sent to the Manning Passing Academy because he did not want Cotton throwing that much while rehabbing a partially torn labrum. I also remember Nutt being irritated with Cotton when the tear was discovered in the spring, implying that Cotton did not do enough off-season throwing work to strengthen his arm. I know nothing about how shoulders work, and have no idea if Cotton had worked hard in the off-season whether his injury could have been avoided, but it seems to me the real reason Cotton fell behind Stanley was the aforementioned lack of dedication in the off-season. If he showed the coaches how serious he was about winning the starting job, then perhaps there would have been more of a battle in the spring for said starting job. Alas, Cotton assumed he could coast by Stanley (and I will say it was not a bad assumption) and cost himself a shot at being the starter.
With Cotton's departure, Ole Miss has two quarterbacks on scholarship, Stanley and Randall Mackey. After those two, it's a collection of guys from places like Delta Academy, which is NOT GOOD. With an offensive line that could best be described as "not sure we even have five guys," an injury or two is not out of the question. So I implore you, 2010 version of Seth Adams, whatever your name is, make sure your ass is ready to play. Unless...
Jeremiah Masoli could become the first person of Samoan descent to ever play football
Masoli, booted from the Oregon team for silly things like drug possession and burglary (I do not judge and welcome him with open arms), has sent his release papers from Oregon to Ole Miss (and potentially a few other teams). Last week, Houston Nutt said that Ole Miss had no interested in acquiring the services of Masoli, but now that Raymond Cotton is gone, there appears to be some interest. If Nutt is able to convince the Ole Miss administration (and by that I mean AD Pete Boone) to allow Masoli to become a member of the Ole Miss football team, I'm not sure how effective Masoli can be this year. He'd have almost no time to learn much of the offense (no matter how simple it really is) and I don't know how willing the coaches would be to trust a guy they don't know.
Certainly, there are many questions that surround just how he would fit in to the offense (and the team), but my brain tells me that whenever you can add a Heisman Trophy candidate to an offense that features Nathan Stanley, YOU ABSOLUTELY DO IT. Is it worth the national heat we might take for letting him into school? Yes. Is it worth a the risk of an embarrassing arrest outside The Library? Yes. Is it worth the risk of shattering of young Nathan Stanley's confidence? YOU KNOW IT. Masoli has proven he can play and play well at the Division I level. Looking at what the 2010 Ole Miss offense has to offer, there's no one that can say that (Brandon Bolden has shown flashes). Get him into the Southern Studies graduate program and let's run the Wildcat formation every damn play.
Out of the NFL, Lane Kiffin still manages to annoy people in the NFL
Put Titans coach Jeff Fisher on the board as yet another person Kiffin has managed to piss off. Kiffin hired Titans running backs coach Kennedy Pola as his offensive coordinator, but didn't mention to Fisher that he was interested in talking to Pola until after Pola had accepted the offer.
"I am very disappointed in Lane Kiffin's approach to this," Fisher told The Tennessean on Saturday. "Typically speaking, when coaches are interested in hiring or discussing potential employment from coaches on respective staffs there is a courtesy call made from the head coach or athletic director indicating there is an interest in talking to the assistant.Add another layer to the legend.
"So I am very disappointed in the lack of professionalism on behalf of Lane, to call me and leave me a voicemail after Kennedy had informed me he had taken the job. It is just a lack of professionalism."
I picked up the clarion ledger sports page today. Do you know what was on page B6? Guess...I'll end the suspense. It is the Business report. There are a couple of things I see wrong with this. First, how is it that the main paper for the State of Mississippi, a state with three division I colleges and like a thousand smaller colleges only have 5 pages of sports to report? There is not one article on State, not one on USM and only one article on Ole Miss (which is really about Masoli). Second, is business in the great state of Mississippi really that bad to be relegated to pages B6 and B7 after the sports section? Just an observation.
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