The Wiz of Odds

Reporters Notebooks

Pat Dooley, Gainesville Sun: Florida's Urban Meyer and his wife, vacationing in Hawaii, were evacuated from their hotel Saturday morning because of the tsunami caused by the earthquake in Chile.

Joseph Person, Columbia State: South Carolina broke even on its trip to the Papajohns.com Bowl. The biggest single-line expenditure was the $329,866 doled out for security and coaches' bonuses. Associate athletics director Charles Waddell said of the $270,000 in bonus money, $50,000 went to coach Steve Spurrier.

Brad Rock, Deseret News: In the early 1990s, Brigham Young made a "quiet run" at joining the Pacific 10 Conference. How close were the Cougars to getting into the Pac-10? Depending on whom you ask, it was either somewhat plausible or razor close.

Brad Biggs, Chicago Tribune: Ron Turner, who was Stanford offensive coordinator all of four weeks, is leaving to join the staff of the Indianapolis Colts.

Jimmy Burch, Fort Worth Star-Telegram: A team-by-team look at Big 12 spring football.

Gregory Hardy, Columbia State: If one Southeastern Conference team wants an obscure Star Wars' character as its mascot, all of them will want one. Here are a few possibilities.

Reporters Notebooks

John Walters, FanHouse: The NCAA, simply by protecting the accused (USC) with closed hearings, demonstrates that it is less concerned with policing big-time athletics than it is with negotiating big-time television contracts.

Ray Melick, Birmingham News: The NCAA's case against USC could determine just how far the governing body is willing to go to define how far a coaches' responsibility for compliance extends.

Michael Lev, Orange County Register: A two-part interview with USC recruiting coordinator Ed Orgeron, who was asked if he was concerned about the Trojans' NCAA issues. "No, not whatsoever. Having been at USC for seven years, I know the way we operate. There was never, ever a concern about the NCAA because I know that USC does it right." In part two, he declines to comment when asked if he was tampering with Tennessee recruits. "I don’t want to comment on that. Everything’s good."

Cliff Kirkpatrick, Corvallis Gazette-Times: Starting middle linebacker David Pa'aluhi left the Oregon State team to join the military. Pa'aluhi started all 13 games last season as a third-year sophomore. He was second on the team in tackles with 77 and was honorable mention All-Pacific-10 Conference.

Legal Schnauzer: The site reports that Paul W. Bryant Jr., the most prominent financial booster of Alabama's program, has connections to a massive insurance-fraud case that resulted in a 15-year prison sentence for a Pennsylvania man. Thanks to Losers With Socks.

Michael DiRocco, Florida Times-Union: If you want Tim Tebow's autograph, it's going to cost $160.

Chadd Cripe, Idaho Statesman: Three Boise State coaches have traveled to Austin to meet with Texas coaches. "I've not been happy with our trick plays," Longhorn coach Mack Brown said. "I want to have more fun. Of course, it's hard to have trick plays with the spread offense. Chris Petersen and Boise have done the best job with it. I want us to have more innovations."

FanBlogs: The top 25 teams of the last decade. No. 1 is USC.

Big Ten Commish Delany Talks Expansion

Jim Delany, the commissioner of the Big Ten, appeared on ESPN's "First Take" and talked expansion with host Jay Crawford. He said no school has been approached (yeah, right) and that Big Ten presidents should have an idea on how they want the conference to proceed by June.

Vote for the Most Classless Act of the 2009 Season

The Wiz is back with the most classless acts of the 2009 season. What is a classless act, you ask? It's any attempt to degrade an opponent, player or the game. It's the stuff that isn't in the summary but often gets mentioned years later after somebody extracts retribution. As they say, what goes around comes around.

At the bottom of the post, readers can vote to select the most classless act. One vote per IP address, so give it careful consideration.

Let's get to the finalists:

Kiffin Kind of Tries to Tell Tennessee He Might Be Sorry

Lane Kiffin says he regrets how his departure from Tennessee came down, and if he had to do it over again, there would be a farewell news conference that would last longer than one minute.

"I really tried to do the right thing with the media there," Kiffin told the Knoxville News-Sentinel. "When you look around the nation, when coaches leave places, they don't address the media at the places they're leaving. They usually talk to their team and they get out of there.

"That kind of backfired on me. I guess I would have done that different and do what everybody else does, and just takeoff."

Kiffin said he planned for the news conference to go longer, but a disagreement between Tennessee's sports information department and a local TV station ended any chance of an extended conversation.

According to reports, live cameras were barred from the news conference and Kiffin wanted to allow only 30 seconds of video from the event. WBIR and WATE refused to abide by that restriction.

A Sneak Peak at Oregon's 2010 Media Guide

Chip Kelly was making the media rounds Tuesday. After appearing on ESPN, he did a radio segment with Oregonian columnist John Canzano, who wrote a piece critical of Kelly earlier in the week.

The conversation becomes heated at times, and you can listen to the segment by clicking here.

Canzano challenges Kelly on inconsistencies of punishment. Reserve linebacker Kiko Alonso was suspended for the season after he was charged with driving under the influence, but standout running back LaMichael James, facing domestic abuse charges stemming from a fight with his girlfriend, has yet to be disciplined.

Kelly, as he did in the ESPN interview, seems to suggest that James is innocent, telling Canzano, "Do me a favor, get your facts straight before making accusations."