The Week In News: Trees, Tide and Signing Day

Our Stanford sister site here on SBN put together an interesting look at the Jim Harbaugh coaching tree. You can obviously look back at various coaching staffs at a certain snapshot in time and see a lot of talent that went on to do more. But how much credit should certain head coaches get in these situations? Did Harbaugh make these guys great? Did he just have an eye for good assistants and up and comers? Willingham and Chuck Weis had a couple of flyers on staff at Notre Dame. Wait, a couple of these guys look familiar!

After reading this story Eddie Lacy's ability to run through Notre Dame tacklers in the BCS Championship game makes a lot more sense. He was hopped up on hologram pyramid chips, and deer pills!

On the two nights before the Jan. 9, 2012, BCS national championship game, a handful of Alabama players in crimson and gray sweats made their way to room 612 in the New Orleans Marriott. A few brought family members, but most arrived in clusters with teammates. They came in search of an edge. he room belonged to Christopher Key, who was in town to demonstrate the wares of S.W.A.T.S. -- Sports with Alternatives to Steroids.

Who knows how to track down some of these deer-antler pills? I've been looking for something to help me bounce back a little quicker after my workouts. Kidding. Sort of.

If nothing else this goes to show that even if you are a control freak like Saban it is very difficult to shield your players from the ills of the outside world in the days leading up to the title game. Speaking of Saban, Vanderbilt Coach James Franklin referred to him as "Nicky Satan" while speaking at a high school sports banquet this week. Franklin later apologized.

While addressing a full room, Franklin said: "There's this guy in Alabama. I think his name is Nicky Satan. You guys have probably heard of him before. I'm going to outwork him. I'm going to outwork him. And that's kind of our plan every single day."

That was a lot of Crimson Tide wasn't it? Sorry about that. Don't worry the guys over at Corn Nation are saying that the mid 90's Nebraska dynasty was better.

Have you all been keeping up with the Class Action lawsuit filed by Ed O'Bannon against the NCAA? The full spectrum of what this could mean is difficult to follow but this piece clears it up a bit. What do you resident lawyers and lawyers in training think about this? Is NCAA Football going to turn into teams full of randoms anytime soon? It already takes too much fat fingering to fix the mistakes on those rosters! This other article from tWWL makes it sound like a piece of the TV money might be at stake here. Interesting.

National Signing Day is next Wednesday and recruitniks across the country are sweating as high school seniors head into this final weekend weighing their options. The Tampa Bay Times sat down with shutdown corner and Florida Commit Vernon Hargreaves III to talk about recruiting. Hargreaves had several interesting things to say about a number of the teams that recruited him.

Notre Dame: "I think they graduated something like 98 percent of their athletes and 95 percent of their African-American athletes. ... And I liked their tradition there. ... I liked (head coach) Brian Kelly. He's funny. ... But you have to be different to go to Notre Dame. It just wasn't for me. I couldn't see myself there."

On the signing day note SBN's Bud Elliott put together this piece predicting the schools that the Top 60 uncommitted, or less than solid, recruits will end up signing with. He has a lot of prospects pointing towards UCLA to include the coveted Eddie Vanderdoes.

Over at Inside the Irish Keith Arnold has been all over things with his usual level of awesome. Brian Kelly spoke with the media a little bit on Tuesday morning where he talked a little bit about the 2012 Fighting Irish and gave us a peek at some personnel management numbers that we have been wondering about.

"Tate Nichols on the other hand is not as confident that he'll be able to return to action," Kelly said. "We're in conversation about that being a medical situation with Tate."

Hmmmm. There has been a fair amount of speculation that Tater might end up on a medical. Is that a done deal? Is that what made room for Durham Smythe? The staff also took punter Andrew Antognoli as a preferred walk-on Thursday. For the time being I'm thinking that Foxabrese will return. I suppose we will have to wait and see if ND picks up Vanderdoes and anyone else on signing day.

I will fully admit that I am beyond ready to move on from this Te'o hoax story. I'm officially over it. That said I would feel like a slacker if I didn't include this link to Eric Hansen's recap of Part I of Ronaiah Tuiasasopo's sit down with Dr. Phil. He is a better man than I for sitting down and watching that. I really can't do it at this point. I hit the wall. I'm still a huge Manti fan and feel terrible for the kid. As far as RT goes he has some serious, serious issues.

What else?

Oh yeah, the bros over at SBN put together this mashup video of the BCS Championship Game and Apollo 13. Watching it might make you a little sad, but it is pretty solid work. If the shoe were on the other foot we would likely find this to be quite glorious.

The Comment of the Week is brought to you by Three And Eight-Elevenths Men who ran away with it. 12 recs.

I HAVE FOUND LIGHTSKIN

This was a comment on an article by Matt Fortuna on the ND ESPN blog:

I like FOLSTON and what he brings to the table but him and this flip flopping is pissing me off. Either you are with my IRISH or you’re not. The coaches have made several in home visits and showed this kid that he will have a role with this team. It’s starting to sound like he is scared of a little comp.

I slept on EG, now my dreams are filled with Hammond

by Three and Eight-Elevenths Men on Jan 30, 2013 8:59 PM PST reply actions 12 recs

Have a great weekend and enjoy the game on Sunday!