Today is Championship/Rivalry Saturday in college football.
Army played Navy today. Conference championship games today involve Oklahoma and Missouri, LSU and Tennessee, Boston College and Virginia Tech. Rivalry games (besides the storied Army-Navy battle) will be played between USC and UCLA, Oregon and Oregon State, Arizona and Arizona State, and Cal and Stanford.
It's had me musing on a few subjects.
My alma mater -- Arkansas -- isn't playing today. Last year, the Razorbacks made it to the SEC Championship game in Atlanta and played -- and lost to -- eventual national champion Florida at the start of December, but they didn't make it back to Atlanta and Houston Nutt is no longer the coach in Fayetteville.
Even though his team beat the previously top-ranked LSU Tigers the day after Thanksgiving, Nutt (as expected, frankly) resigned as head coach -- amid rumors that it was a mutual decision between Nutt and the school.
Anyway, whether Nutt jumped or was pushed, he landed at another SEC school -- one that plays Arkansas every year, the Ole Miss Rebels.
It will be interesting to see the response Nutt gets when his Ole Miss team takes the field in Fayetteville for the first time. After all, he coached at Arkansas for 10 years and led the team in some of its most memorable games.
Oddly enough, the word I'm hearing is that, after the Razorbacks' dramatic triple overtime victory over LSU, Arkansas will be playing in the Cotton Bowl. When I was growing up, Arkansas played in the old Southwest Conference -- and winning the conference championship meant going to the Cotton Bowl. A trip to Dallas on New Year's Day was the prize every SWC school sought.
So, on those occasions when I was growing up and Arkansas was wrapping up the conference title, you could hear the students chanting from the stands, "Hey hey, ho ho, Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl!"
It appears that Nutt led Arkansas back to a berth in the game that used to be the annual goal for the Razorbacks -- and he lost his job. He must be the first Arkansas coach to lose his job in the same season his team earned a spot in the Cotton Bowl.
My, how times change.
Can you go home again?
As LSU prepared to face Tennessee in this afternoon's SEC Championship game, it appears that coach Les Miles has decided to stay at LSU. Miles was the front-runner for the job at Michigan, where he played his college ball and served as an assistant coach.
Miles turned down his alma mater, but one of his assistants, Bo Pelini, apparently will be heading back to his. Pelini, who was defensive coordinator at Nebraska in 2003, will be named Nebraska's new coach sometime next week, reports the Lincoln Journal-Star.
Earlier this week, Texas A&M announced that two-time offensive line coach Mike Sherman will be coaching the Aggies for the next seven years.
Sherman said, at a news conference Monday, that he'd only wanted to coach in two places -- Texas A&M and the Green Bay Packers. He coached the Packers from 2000-2005.
Maybe dreams really can come true.
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3 comments:
It beggars belief how Nutt got chased out - but the divided fan base was the reason. Some of our fans have psycho expectations.
The rumor here is that Tommy Tuberville will be offered a 10-year/$37 million position as head coach of the Razorbacks, but that could be a negotiating ploy on his part to get a better deal with Auburn. Auburn has countered with a $200k annual raise and a two-year extension on his contract.
And here is an unusual situation - Nutt is hiring several of his Razorback coaching assistants at Ole Miss - but they will also be coaching Arkansas at the bowl game. They'll be working for the Arkansas and Ole Miss at the same time.
If you think Nutt's experience "beggars belief," you need to go back and read the press accounts of how Lou Holtz was run out of town after the 1983 season.
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