Nine Days

HOLY SWEET FANCY MOTHER OF MOSES.  Today, in the words of Rob Ezell imitating Nick Saban, was AWFUL (insert exaggerated arm wave here).  A lesson for all you unemployed and/or college students out there:  DON'T GET A JOB.  I suggest winning the lottery instead.  Even now as I sit at home, I fully expect to get an email reminding me of something I didn't do or the client has said is crap and needs to be done again (by the way, that last sentence crushed whatever glimmer of youth still remained inside of me).  Anyway, STOP WASTING OUR TIME, GRAY, AND GET TO SOMETHING WE CARE ABOUT.  Point taken.  Moving on.

Seeing as I'm pushing up against day eight right now, we'll have to make this one short and void of meaty content goodness, which is not all that different from any other day.  The number nine bring us...wait, what's that?


IT'S EUROPE DESTROYING THE GOOD NAME OF MUSIC.  And by destroying, I mean improving 8,000%.

As I was saying, the number nine brings us the nine coaches in the league who have a finite number of lives left at their respective schools.  By that I mean these coaches could (and will) be fired when things fall apart.  The three not on the list, Nick Saban, Urban Meyer and Steve Spurrier, will never face the axe.  Saban and Meyer are all-powerful and indestructible.  Spurrier has gotten South Carolina to a hair above mediocre on a consistent basis.  And if you've ever examined the history of South Carolina football (one 10-win season and one 9-win season since 1892), that qualifies him as a god in Columbia. 

In order of most lives left to least lives left, the remaining nine coaches of the SEC:

9 lives,  Dan Mullen, Mississippi State
Short of rampaging through an Oktibbeha County assisted living facility and stealing nickels and dimes from its residents, Mullen can do want he wants in the Starkville area.  And, let's be honest, he could probably rampage through said facility and no one would care.  Why?  BECAUSE HE WHOOPED OLE MISS' ASS.  But mainly because he has given State fans hope that they might actually have legitimate bowl hopes, and he resembles the exact opposite of the coaching abilities of Sylvester Croom.  Well, except the Tyson Lee option call on the one-inch line against LSU when Anthony Dixon had 615 yards rushing in the fourth quarter of that game.  Anyway, Dan Mullen should feel warm and comfortable in his bed.

8 lives, Houston Nutt, Ole Miss
Just short of Mullen-assisted-living-rampage status, Nutt still has a great deal of freedom in Oxford.  He brought Ole Miss out of the burning-your-soul-awful Ed Orgeron era and into back-to-back Cotton Bowl seasons.  Also, he laughs like Boss Hogg:



7 lives, Derek Dooley, Tennessee
Dooley would have been higher, but Tennessee fans seem to be a little irritated with life right now.  Their coach abandoned them, their team enjoys fighting them and their team is also probably going to lose seven games this season.  So their fuse is probably a little short right now.  Whatever honeymoon Dooley has left will come to an abrupt end when Oregon and Florida stomp the sugar-coated shit out of the Vols to start the season.

6 lives, Gene Chizik, Auburn
Universally loved when news of his hire broke



Chizik did manage to right the ship and win three games more in 2009 than he won in two years at Iowa State.  But Auburn people are a little fidgety (a great Houston Nutt word).  Remember the secret plane trip to talk to Bobby Petrino when Tommy Tuberville was in the middle of beating Alabama six straight times?  These people can't be trusted.

5 lives, Joker Phillips, Kentucky






4 lives, Bobby Petrino, Arkansas
Petrino, a renowned asshole, and Arkansas fans, completely batshit crazy, are presently on good terms.  But all this powder keg of egotism and megalomania needs is one thing to go wrong and this relationship will blow Fayetteville off the Arkansas map and into Oklahoma.  Something like, say, a seven-win season in 2010.  Which is only a bad Ryan Mallett wheel away from happening.  FEEL THE PARANOIA.

3 lives, Robbie Caldwell, Vanderbilt
I'm not sure how often turkey insemination lectures can save one's job, but I get the feeling Caldwell will find out.

2 lives, Mark Richt, Georgia
I spent something like 82,000 words making the case for Richt being the most mediocre coach in the SEC, so I can understand Georgia's fans placing of Richt on the hot seat (note:  the Georgia fans who actually care about football, which is a much smaller number than you'd expect).  It's hard to believe that a coach who's WORST record in nine seasons is 8-4 is in danger of getting canned, but this is the SEC.  Ration need not apply.  But it's also hard to believe that a coach with the resources unmatched by 90% of college football hasn't won the games against the other giants.

1 life, Les Miles
Miles is actually at negative 30, but for the purposes of this post we'll put him at one.  Hell, I'm impressed he made it through media days after the nonsense that poured out of his mouth.  The only way Les Miles is still in Baton Rouge in 2011 is if he has to be at home when the moving company shows up.