Amid the madness, there are other young men sweating in practice. Spring practice.

This annual rite of 15 days of offseason drills has taken on a life of its own. What used to be a sleepy time for position battles is now if there are any left. Fans in lawn chairs with coolers have been replaced by networks televising those spring games.

Think the game hasn’t grown? Check out these 25 things to watch this spring …

1. Leave of confusion: A coach driven to exhaustion by his job is back … showing some evidence he is still driven to exhaustion by his job. Urban Meyer’s outburst against an reporter this week was out of character and, frankly, a little frightening.

All the reporter did was quote receiver Deonte Thompson, who compared new quarterback John Brantley to the old Tim Tebow.

“You never know with Tim,” Thompson said. “You can bolt, you think he’s running but he’ll come up and pass it to you. You just have to be ready at all times. With Brantley, everything’s with rhythm, time. You know what I mean, a real quarterback.”

?

that Thompson was throwing Tebow under the bus or that Brantley was a more conventional quarterback. We all know what Thompson was trying to say, he just didn’t articulate it very well.

But don’t blame the messenger. Meyer’s outburst makes this a national story especially with his shot at the reporter: “If that was my son we’d be going at it right now.” If Meyer had an issue, it should have been handled in private.

It’s only spring and it almost makes you pine for the Steve Addazio era.

2. Risk Rod: There’s not a lot positive going on a now. The defense was dreadful last season. The quarterback position has to get better. Six players are out or limited for the spring.

Oh yeah, and the NCAA is bearing down, too.

Rich Rod’s crucial third season begins now in Ann Arbor. (AP) If there were ever a coach to root for, it’s Rich Rod. He’s a good guy, but a good guy who might be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

3. Cutting back? New Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher will visit 17 cities in 30 days this spring on his Seminole Booster tour. And that’s cutting back on the rubber chicken circuit compared to Bobby Bowden.

4. Coming back? FSU is set on offense. The defense has to get a lot better. Mickey Andrews gives way to Mark Stoops as d-coordinator, and the Stoops franchise once again is back on the clock. Mike is in the process of turning around Arizona, Bob has those six Big 12 titles (but only one national championship). Now it’s Mark’s chance to get back on the larger national stage for the first time since he was defensive backs coach with Miami from 2001-03.

5. Party Gras: If you can attend only one spring game, make it April 17 in Tuscaloosa. Bryant-Denny will be hosting a combination sellout/celebration/preseason opener. The Tide begin defense of their 2009 title with a Heisman winner at tailback, a returning quarterback, three starters on the offensive line and a likely preseason No. 1 ranking.

The spring will be spent trying to find nine new starters for the defense. In Nick we trust.

6. Talking football at Oregon: It’s about time isn’t it? With Jeremiah Masoli out to contemplate how he traded a season of football for a laptop, there is urgency for Chip Kelly to find a new quarterback.

The candidates are redshirt sophomore Darron Thomas (33 career passes) and senior Nate Costa (38). In a weird way, this whole thing started in August 2008, when Costa suffered his second major knee injury, allowing Masoli to get a chance. One Pac-10 title, a Rose Bowl and one long rap sheet into Kelly’s head coaching career, Oregon starts over at the game’s most important position.

7. No. 1 early enrollee to watch this spring: Kyle Prater, WR, USC. Everybody wanted him. Lane Kiffin got him, first recruiting Prater at Tennessee before signing him at USC. It’s way early, but the 6-foot-5 Prater at least gives hope that the Trojans can develop another Mike Williams or Dwayne Jarrett.

Lord knows they could use another tall receiver who can go up it has been awhile since there was a consistent threat like that at Troy.

8. Texas quarterbacks: They rule the game. There were 22 quarterback starters from the state of Texas scattered around college football last season. They aren’t going away. Texas’ Garrett Gilbert (Austin) and Oregon’s Thomas (Houston) are two of the possible new starters.

9. Expansion: It will be as much a subject of the spring as depth charts. New information seems to leak out each day on which teams will be going where. The Big Ten is looking. The Big East is scared. Notre Dame might be forced into playing for the Rose Bowl (oh, the horror!). By the end of summer, we might know where the dominoes are going to fall.

10. BCS meetings: These annual, usually laidback, affairs will have some urgency to them April 20-22 in Phoenix. Expansion looms, Notre Dame may finally join a conference, Orrin Hatch is threatening a BCS takedown.

Don’t know whether the commissioners are going to love or fight, but it will fun watching.

11. The other Kelly: While Chip tries to find a quarterback on the West Coast, Brian is doing the same in his first year at Notre Dame.

Dayne Crist and his recovering ACL are joined in the spring by three walk-ons and early enrollee Tommy Rees. Crist is progressing nicely but won’t be taking contact. Still, the spring will be spent creating competition at the position and weeding out of the team what Kelly in January called a sense of “entitlement.”

Boise State QB Kellen Moore is looking to lead his Broncos into the BCS … title game. (US Presswire) 12. The non-BCS breakthrough: TCU and Boise State come into spring as top 10 candidates in August. This means a lot because both have played in BCS bowls but not in BCS bowl.

Each will have the ranking, the schedule and presumably the respect of the voters to make it to the BCS title game. Hey, what about Boise State-TCU for the third consecutive year in the postseason, this time for the championship?

13. Terrelle Pryor’s knee: It affected him last season. It buckled in late January. Ohio State’s franchise quarterback finally had arthroscopic surgery to repair a partially torn PCL ligament in his left knee in February. Pryor himself then said “there were a lot of things wrong,” when an Ohio State doctor went in.

The Bucks’ franchise quarterback expects to be ready for the beginning of spring practice on April 1. Don’t know if Bucknuts can hold their breath from now until the Sept. 2 opener against Marshall.

14. Healing: Kansas, South Florida and Texas Tech need to heal some emotional wounds after alleged horrific conduct by former coaches. In the case of all three, the administration went the exact opposite personality of the former guy.

Turner Gill is calmer than the gruff Mark Mangino and brings an air of renewal to a program. KU was bad when Mangino got there and mediocre when he left. In between, the Jayhawks went to the Orange Bowl and went on NCAA probation.

Robin Williams would have been calmer than Jim Leavitt at South Florida, but the Bulls got lucky. Even without his famous last name, Skip Holtz is a perfect match. An accomplished coach at Connecticut and East Carolina, Holtz has a chance to go to a BCS bowl quickly in the wide open Big East. It’s not a bad thing that daddy Lou lives nearby either.

Meanwhile …

15. Tommy goes West: There is no place that needs more healing than Texas Tech. The former coach, Mike Leach, is suing the university. The centerpiece of the controversy still resides on the roster (receiver Adam James). After a year off, Tommy Tuberville takes his act to Lubbock, where the new coach is going to change the culture, at least a little bit.

The Red Raiders will keep throwing it, but they’ll also play a little defense too.

“I want to continue to throw it 45-50 times, maybe run it 20-25. We’ll be a little bit more balanced,” Tuberville told me last month. “Mike [Leach] got a little bit overboard sometimes. Sometimes he’d throw it 75-80 times. He’d like working on those stats. I’m not a stat guy …

“An offensive coach wants to score, a defensive coach wants to shut everybody out. It’s just a different philosophy. We’re going to throw it and hopefully score the same amount of points but play better defense and have a chance to get to the championship game.”

16. Celebrating 10 years of Sun Belt football: Don’t snicker. Division I-A’s youngest conference is thriving this spring with programs that 10 years ago either didn’t exist (Florida International, Florida Atlantic) or were transitioning to I-A (Troy, Middle Tennessee).

Remember these Sun Belt upsets over the past 10 years?

2009: Louisiana-Lafayette over Kansas State, Middle Tennessee over Maryland2008: Arkansas State over Texas A&M, Middle Tennessee over Maryland2007: Louisiana-Monroe over Alabama, Troy over Oklahoma State2004: Troy over Missouri

Don’t sleep on Middle Tennessee’s Dwight Dasher, one of the most exciting players in the country. The last time we saw the Blue Raiders quarterback, he was setting the NCAA bowl record for rushing yards (201) against Southern Miss in the New Orleans Bowl.

17. Mitch Mustain: Kiffin has declared the quarterback job is open at USC. Matt Barkley had a so-so first year as a freshman. Could it be that fifth-year senior Mustain wins the job? After two schools, eight career starts (at Arkansas) and much suffering, Mustain deserves some sort of reward, doesn’t he? The former No. 1 prep recruit hasn’t thrown a game pass since 2008.

18. Waiting for The Big Haircut: If the NCAA stays on schedule, USC could find out its penalties (if any) in late April or early May. The post-infractions committee hearing signs were not good. The -day hearing concluded with loads of files being wheeled out of the conference room.

Anything less than a postseason ban and/or crippling scholarship cuts has to be perceived as a net win for USC, which has slogged through the Reggie Bush case for four years.

19. The sexiest woman alive: On a lighter note at USC, Kiffin is in the hunt for that title in an NCAA-style tournamentmagazine is conducting online. The Trojans’ coach is listed as a No. 16 seed vs. No. 1 seed, golfer Natalie Gulbis in the sports division. As of Wednesday, he had a solid lead over Gulbis.

You can vote here or wait for Kiffin to meet the second-round winner between Joe Paterno and Pamela Anderson.

(Calm down, Joe is not really in the bracket. Yet.)

Mark Ingram and ‘Bama have competition again in their home state. (US Presswire) 20. The battle for Alabama: Who knew it could be this good, this fast? At Auburn. Mark Ingram sure didn’t clinch the Heisman against the Tigers. When Alabama scored the winning touchdown in the Iron Bowl with 84 seconds left, Ingram was on the bench (sore hip).

Ingram wasn’t stopped by anybody else last season, which is another way of saying Auburn is not going to cede state bragging rights easily. Gene Chizik has proved himself more than capable. In his second season he landed a top five recruiting class that soon will be battling ‘Bama’s goal of conquering college football. Forever.

College football’s most intense rivalry is getting better in the Saban-Chizik era.

21. Brown-out: Reason No. 3,267 not to believe anything any recruiting service tells you.

Two years ago, linebacker Arthur Brown was the No. 1 prep player in the country. Last year, his brother Bryce was bestowed with the same honor. Arthur went to Miami. Bryce went to Tennessee. As spring practice begins in 2010, Arthur has transferred to Kansas State. Bryce left the team before spring practice began last week because of “a lot of personal and family problems,” according to coach Derek Dooley.

22. A sense of calm comes over Knoxville: Yes, Dooley was an emergency, desperate hire. Yes, he may get overwhelmed by making the jump from middle-of-the-league WAC program to SEC pressure-cooker spectacularly. He has done everything right from recruiting to media to coaching. In another words, he knows what he’s doing. Tennessee still has to get back to scoring six points instead of explaining six secondary violations.

23. Russell Shepard settles: Or whatever you want to call it. LSU’s celebrated quarterback recruit from 2009 is a slot receiver in 2010. Shepard decided to move after he couldn’t get on the field during a 13-3 loss to Florida. After cameos in the Wildcat and turnover problems, Shepard is in a better place.

The question is whether quarterback Jordan Jefferson can improve enough to get the ball to him consistently.

24. HDTV in the SEC: It’s doubtful that LSU cornerback Patrick Peterson an interception that didn’t count. With 5:54 left in LSU’s 24-15 loss Nov. 7 at Alabama, officials ruled that replays were inconclusive on whether Peterson had come down inbounds with the ball.

It’s not a question of whether an HD monitor would have helped replay officials (it would have), it’s a question of why weren’t HD monitors there in the first place? The game’s richest conference announced recently it’s going to HD monitors for its replays. It’s about time. Clearer is better. Meanwhile, Peterson begins his spring wondering what might have been.

25. Watch for … Former Miami quarterback Robert Marve at Purdue. He has fought through a car crash, knee surgery and an ugly departure from Miami. Something good has to happen. … The next great tailback at Cal, Shane Vereen. … Nico Johnson becoming the next Rolando McClain at Alabama. … Jared Crick becoming the next Nebraska defensive line star after the departure of Ndamukong Suh. … Baylor’s Robert Griffin, who was knocked out last season with a blown-out knee. … Zach Collaros to chase a Heisman at Cincinnati. … Pitt’s Dion Lewis to chase a rushing title. … Central Florida defensive end Bruce Miller. The school has come up with this impressive stat: In the BCS era (1998-2009), Miller is tied for ninth in career sacks (27) among players at schools in the state of Florida. According to UCF, seven of the other nine guys on the list were drafted in the second round or higher. One was drafted in the seventh round. The other, South Florida’s George Selvie, is projected to go in the first two rounds.

Posted on March 26th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: NCAA football news