This question comes from the always excellent Will Heath at DBH Dance Party.
Through a random sequence of events, you are now in charge of college football. By yourself, with carte blanche to make decisions that will be put into action (and the college presidents will sign up for whatever you’re selling). So what changes will you make? Will you pay players? Institute a playoff? Nuke the University of Tennessee? More…
No matter how much the Brown family is trying to continue stringing along this soap opera by keeping their son’s name in the media, it appears the Bryce Brown saga is nearly over — at least on Tennessee’s side.
ESPN.com’s Joe Schad reported tonight that UT coach Derek Dooley will not release Brown to another school, in part because Brown did not ask Dooley for a release face-to-face. Dooley wants to go to Kansas State, but it appears he’ll have to do that without UT’s blessing.
Earlier this afternoon 4-star LB Trey DePriest (6-foot-2, 231 lbs, Rivals.com #93 overall) from Springfield, OH made his decision to play his college football career at the University of Alabama. DePriest has been very on Alabama for quite some time and cites his relationship with current Tide assistant coach Sal Sunseri as the tipping point. Trey picked Alabama over the home-state Buckeyes, but had offers from virtually every major program in the country.
After a couple of recent visits to both Alabama and Ohio St., DePriest decided the time was right to get his decision out of the way. While OSU will likely not stop recruiting Trey, I’m pretty certain his recruitment is over. I personally think DePriest is one of the better linebackers in the 2011 class and he will add great depth to an already loaded linebacker unit at UA. In addition, it really speaks volumes to where UA is as a program nationally to pull one of the nation’s best linebackers from a prominent linebacker developing school like Ohio St. from their own backyard. This marks Alabama’s 16th commitment for the 2011 class.
Roll Tide, Trey. The Bama Nation looks forward to seeing you in Crimson and White.
Tennessee bolstered its 2011 recruiting class Friday, and the Vols didn’t have to go far outside of the city to do it. Tennessee High stars Mack Crowder – a 6-foot-4, 270-pound center — and Brendan Downs — a 6-6, 240-pound tight end — will be playing their college football less than two hours away from their Bristol home.
In what was one of the worst-kept secrets of this recruiting season, the pair made their selection official at a quiet high school conference Friday. Downs grew up a UT fan but wasn’t sure the Vols would express interest with all the coaching turnover, so he committed to David Cutcliffe and the Duke Blue Devils early in the process. Though he had numerous low-level offers, Downs has a lot of potential if he gets bigger and ultimately chose UT over Duke, Vanderbilt and Maryland.
As for “Mack Truck” Crowder, his recruitment has heated up as much as any prospect nationally in the past few weeks. The three-star center recently received an offer from Florida following Ryan Kelly’s commitment to Alabama, and he wound up choosing UT over the Gators, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Kansas, Maryland, South Carolina and others. In the past week, VT coaches tried to get Crowder to take another visit to Blacksburg in order to try to lure him up there. Given their limited scholarships this year, that tells me all I need to know about Crowder’s prospects.
On NFL draft day, there was some concern about Eric Berry being drafted where he belonged because of the salary structure associated with the first several picks. Taking a safety with that high of a pick basically ensured that by paying him the going rate for that pick, you’d be breaking the pay scale of NFL defensive backs across the board.
The Kansas City Chiefs didn’t care. They saw an elite talent, picked the former Tennessee All-American fifth overall and on Friday, signed EB14 [who is now EB29??] to a six year, potential $60 million contract with $34 million in guaranteed money. He is currently on his way to training camp, where he’ll start knocking heads for an SEC-loaded Chiefs team that became my favorite team with the addition of Berry. For all you other KC fans, they also drafted Javier Arenas and Dexter McCluster — both of which are impressing thus far.
Berry confirmed signing on Twitter by saying: “Bout to head to St. Joe. AKA, deal’s done!”
In case you don’t know much about Berry, the 2009 Jim Thorpe Award winner is the closest thing Vols fans have had to bragging rights in years.
USC recently unveiled their media guide cover for this season, but what they failed to mention is that just like Alabama, they created more than one. We happen to have a copy of the alternate version they didn’t release at Media Days. [H/T Ghost of Neyland]
Days.
Defensive back is a huge need in this year’s Tennessee recruiting class, and the Vols addressed that today with the addition of Brunswick (Ga.) cornerback Justin Coleman.
The 5-foot-11, 175-pound three-star corner is the second defensive back to commit to UT, joining Atlanta safety Brian Randolph, and he’s also the second commitment in the past two days for the Vols. That makes nine commits overall for the Vols, who expect to get #10 on Friday.
On this site, I previously wrote [no link as a result of technical difficulties and the general laziness of our technical staff here, which consists of : me] why I don’t believe the BCS or AP should name Auburn the national champions for 2004. The short of it is this: the AP at the time was part of the BCS formula and so naming a champion for them is no different than saying Team X won the ELO-Chess National Championship that season (and yes, I side with LSU on the matter of who won the 2003 championship); the BCS poll itself does not determine a winner, but merely the participants of a game and the winner of that game is named champion. If they declare the champion ineligible, then the two options are to not have a champion that season or to replay the game with eligible participants. As the latter is not possible, there is no winner. If the BCS were to revise it’s rules in a manner to satisfy Auburn fans — namely, to go by the poll — then Oklahoma is your champion because what most Auburn fans aren’t recognizing here is that the last BCS poll of a season comes out before the championship, not after it and Auburn finished third. More…
Vols fans were duped by BB
It was March 16, 2009, a day I hammered the “Refresh” button like a carpenter on crack, waiting, anticipating the impending decision of Bryce Brown. The No. 1 player in the nation according to Rivals.com was going to pick where he would supposedly spend the next four years of his life. A Tennessee hat was on that table, and we needed another top running back in the stable.
I’ll never forget Brown — the talented but tainted running back from Wichita, Kansas — putting on that orange cap, donning the Power T. It was recruiting glory in all its raw euphoria. It was calling my buddies and WOOOOO!ing like some fools do when they sing Rocky Top. It was puffing out our chest and putting in the rear view the frustrating past few years. It was smack-talking with everybody who dared say anything about Lane Kiffin that the man was doing work. It was a sign, that day at least, that the Big Orange was back.
It won’t become official until a Friday joint press conference with Bristol (Tennessee High) teammate Mack Crowder, but tight end Brendan Downs will switch his commitment from Duke to Tennessee.
The Vols were late in offering the 6-foot-6, 230-pound three-star player, but he grew up cheering for UT and, in the end, his allegiance was just too much to pass. Expect more good news tomorrow when Georgia defensive back Justin Coleman holds his announcement at 3 p.m. and some more on Friday with Crowder and Downs’ official announcement.
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