The idiocy of the Kiffin to Oregon content
Should Jeff Lebby coach the bowl game? Plus, a weird week in the Kiffin rumor world
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Hope everyone had a good week. We’ve got a new podcast out with Delta Sports Group founder and registered sports agent Michael Portner. We discussed the ins and outs of name, image and likeness, how to navigate varying state laws, gaining clients, working for the real life Jerry Maguire (Leigh Steinberg) and more. After, we had Matt Wilson on to take a brief look at Baylor. Check that out here or anywhere you get podcasts.
We had a weird interview schedule for pods this week, but there will be a Friday show out later tonight. I have a fantastic schematic breakdown of Baylor with Travis Roeder of SicEm365. He offered terrific insight and it will make you smarter. The pod will also have picks with LBs Greg. So be on the lookout for that.
We’ve got a random assortment of topics to get to today.
Should Lebby coach the bowl game?
Jeff Lebby is now the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma. The news became official since we last chatted. It’s a good career move for Lebby. He gets to return to his alma mater, control an offense at one of the eight best programs in college football and he potentially inherits a Heisman contender at quarterback depending on if Caleb Williams chooses to stay. There is some smoke regarding Williams wanting to leave now that he knows who the offensive coordinator is. We’ll see. That’s not the point. Lebby did a terrific job at Ole Miss and left the place much better than he found it. I am not sure how you can dispute that.
If the Rebel Grove message board is any indication (that can be a scary qualifier sometimes. I am kidding, sort of), there is some apprehension about Lebby sticking around to coach in the Sugar Bowl. He’s already out recruiting for Oklahoma and visited Flower Mound (TX) quarterback Nick Evers. The 4-star prospect was a Florida commit prior to Billy Napier being hired. He decommitted on Tuesday. I know next to nothing about Evers’ recruitment, but his decommitment from Florida seems like an obvious case of the new staff wanting to go in a different direction, which is not as nefarious as people sometimes make it out to be. It’s better for the kid in most cases, too.
A number of schools made a mad dash to jump back into the Evers sweepstakes — Ole Miss included. Some seemed flabbergasted at the idea of the current/soon-to-be-former Ole Miss offensive coordinator and current/future Oklahoma offensive coordinator recruiting a guy to his new school. How could Lebby possibly prepare to coach Ole Miss in a bowl game while trying to recruit players to Oklahoma? What if he’s pillaging Ole Miss’s current roster? What if he’s telling the Rebels’ starters that all of Lane Kiffin’s hoodies are actually kind of lame, visors became uncool in 2005 and that they should come play for a real coach in Norman?
I guess I could understand this line of thinking, but honestly, it’s really just not how that industry works. Guys change jobs all the time. There’s sometimes an overlap between finishing responsibilities at your last job while preparing for your new one. This happens in any industry. It’s a little more rare for a coordinator to stick around through a bowl game instead of just moving on and having someone else call the plays in a game that doesn’t really count for much (calm down, the Sugar Bowl is important. I’m not suggesting it isn’t. I just mean there isn’t an SEC West title at stake). But does this really matter that much? By all accounts, Lebby had a great experience in Oxford. His co-workers love him. The players love him. I get that everyone says that, but in all honesty, Lebby is one of two coaches I have covered in which ever other staffer I speak to, current and former, raves about the guy. The other is Jon Sumrall, who just landed the head coaching gig at Troy. I wasn’t around very long, but I do think it is telling. The idea that he’s ransacking the pantry and breaking stuff on his way out of the Manning Center is silly.
Is it unconventional? Sure. But the dead period for recruiting starts this weekend ahead of signing day on Wednesday. So, in reality, you’re talking about like six days at best in which he’s in this weird limbo. Is it completely imperative he coaches in the Sugar Bowl? No. But it seems like the guy wants to finish what he started with regard to the 2021 campaign, and that his quarterback wants Lebby there for his final college game. That should be good enough reason for any of you. He’s not a stupid man. What does he gain by burning bridges on the way out? He’s not a scorned head coach. Hell, he may be a future Ole Miss head coach. Intentions are rarely pure in this corrupt sport, but I think Lebby’s are pure in this instance. Ole Miss isn’t going to lose out on Evers or anyone else because Jeff Lebby recruited for Oklahoma for six days and Lebby isn’t going to use these final two weeks to sabotage the football program. It happens. It’s weird and unconventional, but it happens.
Also, a completely irrelevant side note: I saw Evers play this year for Flower Mound and didn’t even make the connection until this week. When I moved to Texas, I started freelancing high school games for the Dallas Morning News. I wanted some extra spending money, but I mostly just wanted to see what the high school football hype out here is all about. It has lived up to the billing and then some. I can’t properly articulate how insane the facilities are, how lively the crowds are and how great the talent is. You sort of just have to come see it for yourself. The realization that I had seen Evers play was probably the 30th or 40th time I saw a recruit in the news cycle, looked at where they went to high school and realized I had seen them play too. The talent in Texas high school football is just nuts.
Anyway, subscribe to Rebel Grove for recruiting coverage throughout this signing period. There is no better time to become a member. It’s the best Ole Miss information you can possibly get and it isn’t really close. (I have no idea why Neal’s tweet is pulling his header photo in here. To my knowledge, he is not serial muscle flexer).
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Lane Kiffin to Oregon? Lane Kiffin to Jackson Academy?
I don’t even think the JA job is open, and Ole Miss fans better hope it doesn’t come open because Kiffin is as good as gone if it does. The Rebels are a middling SEC program that cannot compete with the budget, facilities and resources of that football factory at the corner of Ridgewood Road.
Did I do that right?
In all seriousness, the Lane Kiffin to Oregon thing this week perfectly underscores both the absurdity and the power of the internet. If you are not on social media, you likely didn’t know Lane Kiffin to Oregon was even a conversation, and for that I envy you.
On Tuesday morning, I was sitting at my desk in my apartment preparing to go into the office at my day job when I received a text from a number I didn’t recognize. It was a producer from 1080 THE FAN in Portland, Oregon. He asked me to come on and discuss the “Lane Kiffin to Oregon rumors.” Once I realized it wasn’t a scammer telling me my car’s limited warranty had expired, I thought I might have missed something major. I logged onto Rebel Grove to see if Neal or Chase had anything. Nothing. I went The Athletic and ESPN. Nothing. I checked every national reporter’s Twitter feed. Nothing. I remained very confused. I don’t ever turn down requests to go on radio shows. I think it is great fun. It’s talking sports in front of an audience who has no idea who you are. And for someone who once worked in radio and now has a podcast that often has me scrambling for guests, I like to help other places out whenever I can, because I know that filling out a show roster can be tough. So, I said yes, sure. I’ll come on.
I had a few minutes to try to figure out why the hell I was going on a Portland radio show to talk about Lane Kiffin, and I quickly learned that it was yet another case of the internet manufacturing a completely absurd storyline that didn’t actually exist. This entire ‘rumor’ began when professional takesman and noted SEC expert Danny Kanell suggested on a podcast that Lane Kiffin should leave Ole Miss now while his stock is high and that Oregon — which we all know is just a puddle jump away from the lovely weather, beaches and water of Boca Raton — would be a terrific fit. Some 247Sports guy that was also on the podcast agreed, and CBS writer Tom Fornelli later said something to the effect of “yeah, I see how that makes sense.” That was literally substance of the ‘rumor’. There was no sourcing, no agent seed-planting. There wasn’t even as much of a hot board mention of Kiffin having interest in moving to Eugene.
That didn’t stop an Army of Ducks fans from tweeting incessantly about it. I’ll give them this: the #LaneTrainToLaneCounty hashtag was creative. Apparently that is the name of the county in which the University of Oregon resides. But forgive me for being skeptical of IndoorMaskDuck69’s and AutzenZooDuck420’s relentless tweets being enough to lure a sitting SEC head coach to the Pacific Northwest. A well-sourced Oregonian columnist later poured water on this internet groundswell in what was the only responsible piece of reporting in this entire Idiocy Olympics, but I suppose it was entertaining nonetheless.
Now, to be clear: none of this is directed at the radio show I went on. The two gentleman hosting that morning show were great. They were both rational and the segment was funny. It was halfway poking fun at the manufactured Kiffin mania, and then a quick discussion on how realistic his hypothetical interest might be and what it’s like having his name pop up for every job opening in America. That’s part of what talk radio is for — to provide interesting discussion and project toward the future. I cherished my six minutes of relevance in the Portland sports market and would gladly go back on anytime, though I have no clue what would have to happen for my services to be needed there again. But then again, I never imagined spending six minutes of my Tuesday morning talking on Portland radio.
Let this be a lesson on the power and stupidity of the internet. It’s also a lesson on the rapidly increasing inability of content consumers to distinguish between real reporters and talking heads. Trust journalists and reporters for information. Turn to radio hosts, podcasters and full-time grease salesmen with newsletters for entertainment. You’ll perpetually be misinformed if you take a different approach.
And lastly, to the angry Oregon fan that tweeted me and called me just some uninformed “guy with Bieber bangs that spent his glory days in a frat at Ole Miss,” — have we met before? Your scouting report is dead on.
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Demaryius Thomas dies at age 33
News broke last night that former Denver Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas passed away in his home at the age of 33. Some details are still unclear, but his family members reportedly believe he might have died of a seizure while in the shower. It’s just gut-wrenching news to hear of someone dying that young.
You might remember Thomas from his famous overtime touchdown reception from Tim Tebow in the 2011 wildcard round.
He was a trusted target for Peyton Manning and won a Super Bowl with Denver in Manning’s final year. Thomas was a tremendous football talent. But his life story of what he overcame is even more remarkable. The news last night reminded me of two of the most gripping profile stories I have ever read. I went back and read both this morning. They were written by Eli Saslow. The first one chronicles Thomas’ tumultuous childhood growing up in a trailer in rural Georgia. His mother and grandmother ran a crack-cocaine operation that was busted by law enforcement. Thomas’ was nine years old when a SWAT team barged into his house and his life changed forever. The grandmother had two prior drug offenses and faced life in prison. Everyone else involved took a plea deal for a reduced sentence in exchange for testifying against the grandmother. Thomas’ mother refused to take the deal because she believed testifying against her own mother — despite the grandmother being dead to rights already, making one more testimony largely irrelevant AND the grandmother herself telling her daughter to take the deal — was an act of betrayal. Because of this, she was handed a 24-year sentence instead of the four years the plea offered. It’s a story of Thomas trying to reunite his broken family.
The second piece was published in 2016, the morning of Broncos-Panthers Super Bowl. Thomas’ mother had since been pardoned by President Obama and had been free for a few weeks. It documents her struggle to reacclimate to society and how going to watch her son play in the biggest football game on earth was an excruciatingly stressful decision rather than a purely joyous occasion.
It’s an incredible story and tremendous writing. Knowing what Thomas overcame makes his passing even more heartbreaking.
Corral not named Heisman finalist
We can’t end on a sad note, so why not send you off into the weekend madder than a hornet?
Earlier this week, the Heisman finalists were announced. Matt Corral was not among them. This made people very mad. I suppose I understand why. All of you watched Matt Corral every single Saturday for three months. You watched him will a largely average roster to a 10-2 season and a Sugar Bowl berth. You watched him be the single most significant factor between victory and defeat in the Tennessee and Arkansas games. Guess who didn’t see that? A bunch of sportswriters across the country covering their own team’s games every week. They have the votes and their consensus had Corral at a 7th place finish in the voting. The voting system is moronic.
On paper, Corral’s stats don’t really add up to a typical Heisman finalist QB in this modern, pass-heavy version of college football. That’s hardly his fault. A thin receiving corps got injured and Corral dealt with a bum ankle himself. It slowed his production in the second half of the season. It happens. Is Corral one of the best four players in college football? I certainly think so. Would Kenny Pickett or Bryce Young — the two quarterbacks invited to the ceremony in New York — have led this Ole Miss team to a 10-2 record? I seriously doubt it. But it’s not worth fans getting upset over. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to argue against Corral.
But, to me, this is more so an indication of college football awards being much like newspaper journalism awards — completely outdated, useless and not indicative of talent. A quick hint: if you see a reporter listing the awards they’ve won in their Twitter bio, they likely either take themselves way too seriously and are actually insecure about their own talent level, or they are Dan Wolken’s long lost sibling.
The Heisman is awarded to the “the most outstanding player in college football.” What the hell does that actually mean? The most important to their team? The most talented? The one with the best stats? Who knows. Also, who cares? The Heisman has become the award for the quarterback with the best numbers on a good team or with a blue blood logo on the side of his helmet. Are there exceptions? Sure, Lamar Jackson was by far better than any other player the year he won. Same with Johnny Manziel. Aside from that, this award has largely become what all the other most famous awards in other sports have become — a hype-induced, narrative-based award. It is what it is. I wouldn’t put a ton of stock into it. Plus, are you going to watch the ceremony anyway? Me neither.
On the horizon
Recruiting primer pod ahead of the early signing period with Weldon
Friday podcast out later today with a terrific breakdown of Baylor’s scheme
Week of newsletters with football, basketball, recruiting and whatever else I find interesting.
That’s all from me today. Thanks for being a loyal subscriber. Send to your friends and tell them to join in on the fun by hitting the subscribe button below. It is free.
Could u make it bit longer