COACHES HOT SEAT BLOG

Thank Goodness for college football, because as Coaches Hot Seat members move around the country we are finding a lot of apprehension in the land, but as we move from the larger cities to college towns and college football stadiums the Happiness among our people grows and that says a lot about the great game of college football. 

 

Our country is facing a whole set of various serious problems, and if truth be told our leaders in Washington D.C. of both parties have been both asleep at the switch and feeding at the trough of the taxpayers money in very dangerous way going on 16 years now.  The last two Administrations of Clinton and Bush II has been nothing less than unmitigated disasters for our country, and the latest crisis of the moment, the “bailout” of Wall Street to the tune of up to $1 TRILLION DOLLARS is just another example of the incredible greed and stupidity of our supposed leaders. 

 

Before we get to college football, we must say that we believe that this “bailout” that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is proposing is nothing less than a way for him to bail out his buddies on Wall Street.  Before taking over at Treasury, Henry Paulson spent almost his entire working career at Goldman Sachsand when it looked like Goldman might be going the way of Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy last week, Paulson and his gang at Treasury suddenly started talking about bailing out everyone Wall Street. 

 

This bailout plan concocted by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve is nothing less than a $1 TRILLLION DOLLAR GIVEAWAY to the Wall Street Boys that have been running what is an unregulated and incredibly leveraged casino, all on borrowed money.  The Wall Street Boys got themselves into a tough spot when the US real estate market started going down and with the prospect of all the rich Wall Street Boys losing a lot of their money, multiple houses all over the world, and more cars at one time in their garage than most of us will own in our entire lives, they of course ring up their buddy Henry Paulson and “WA LA” they have access to upwards to $1 TRILLION DOLARS of US taxpayers money.  Just absolutely outrageous, but there are so few people in Washington D.C. today that can even add 2 + 2, forget about understanding the true nature of what is nothing less than a Las Vegas casino on Wall Street, that it is very easy to see how we are setting up for what is at it best the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the world and is at worst the theft of $1 TRILLION DOLLARS of the American people’s money to bailout millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street. 

 

If you do care about this “bailout” issue, and if you care about the future of our country, or if you have children and grandchildren then you damn well sure should care about it, call your Senators and Congressman on Monday and tell them that Congress should drive a very hard deal with Wall Street and make sure that we are appropriately compensated for bailing these irresponsible Wall Street Boys out for their incredibly stupid mistakes.  The best way that the American people could insure that we are compensated for handing up to $1 TRILLION DOLARS to Wall Street in exchange for what are basically worthless mortgage securities, is that our government must receive “warrants” so that we have the right to buy stock at very low prices in the future in the banks and financial institutions that we are giving this money to, so that when the stock prices of these banks do recover, the US taxpayer will get a portion of those future stock recovery dollars.  After all, it is the American people that are taking all the risks with this incredibly bogus “bailout.” 

 

You better believe that we here at Coaches Hot Seat have already been calling this weekend and that will be calling numerous times in the coming week to our friends and old employers on Capitol Hill to demand that Treasury Secretary Paulson not be given the unfettered authority to do whatever he damn pleases, because putting Paulson in charge of monitoring the people on Wall Street is not just putting the fox in the hen house, but much, much worse, it is like putting the fox in the hen house with a bazooka with $1 TRILLION DOLLARS in his pocket to spend however he wishes.  JUST ABSOLUTELY OUTRAGEOUS, and just par for the course for the Washington D.C. folks that when they are not lying to you about everything under the sun, they have their hands in your back pockets trying to get a hold of your wallet.  Mark Twain is always appropriate when dealing with the folks in Washington, and too bad Twain didn’t refer to both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue when launching the following two beauts!

 

Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)

 

“Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

 

“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.”

 

Mark Twain has been dead for almost 100 years, but he still has Congress and the folks in Washington D.C. pegged!

 

With that rant on the record, and since we all have kids and worry about their futures, we are not going to shut-up anytime soon about the major issues of the day, whether it be the BCS or a bogus “bailout,” let’s get to the 5 Questions that we posed this morning for Week 4 in College Football:

 

Can Ohio State bounce back? – After watching the Troy – Ohio State game the question on whether if Ohio State could bounce back from the USC debacle, will have to be left open for another week.  After playing an uninspired first half, the Buckeyes played pretty well in the second half and overall Terrelle Pryor looked very good considering that he is a true freshman.  Pryor has the same “looks like he is slow motion,” but he is moving very fast that Vince Young had at Texas, and if we were making the call on the starting QB at Ohio State, it would be no questionwho we would start: Terrelle Pryor.  Ohio State has Minnesota up next and that should be a very interesting game on both sides, and it will also be a good preparation for the match-up with the Wisconsin Badgers in Madison on October 4.  If Ohio State can beat Minnesota and Wisconsin, they will be back.

 

Can Auburn’s offense get off the dime? – With Auburn OC Tony Franklin coaching from the press box the Tigers’ offense looked better against LSU, but it is still the Auburn defense that is the strength of this team.  Auburn QB Todd looked much better against LSU than he did against Mississippi State and he played with much more confidence, and that has to be a big positive for Auburn as they reflect back upon a tough loss to LSU.  Auburn can also wake-up this morning and know that they played LSU right up until the final seconds again, and that means they should be able to play with any team in SEC.  Tennessee is up next for Auburn at home, and the Tigers will need to get their offense going if they want to make sure they get a win over the Vols.  Note:  Georgia Tech with their second-string QB put up 38 points on Mississippi State on Saturday, so that really makes those 3 points that Auburn scored on the Bulldogs last Saturday look really inept.

 

What is really going on at Tennessee?– After getting whipped by Florida (30-6) at home in Neyland Stadium, we know less about this Tennessee team than we ever have.  Maybe they are just not good football team, but with a first year offensive coordinator in Clawson, they really look to us like last year’s Tennessee team that is just a lot less effective on offense.  The word from our Coaches Hot Seatteam on the ground at Neyland Stadium is that Phil Fulmer is in deep trouble and that Fulmer and the Vols are going to need to find 6 wins out of the remaining 9 games to assure that Fulmer and AD Hamilton return for 2009.  There are a lot of Tennessee fans, and a lot of big UT boosters that are livid that Fulmer was just given a new contract, and they believe that if the ’08 season implodes a cleaning of the entire Vols’ house will be necessary.  With a trip to Auburn up next, Fulmer is going to have to figure out a way to rally his team while not alienating them, and that is always a very tough task for a head coach.  In the end, it will not be Phil Fulmer that will turn this Tennessee team around, but the Vols’ players, and it will be up to them to decide that they are not going to tolerate their football team getting whipped on their home field, or on the road.  One very troubling thing about watching the Tennessee – Florida game is that the Gators looked a step or two quicker than the Vols, and that means either one or two things, and both of them are troubling for Tennessee and Fulmer’s future.  If Florida looks much quicker than Tennessee that means:

 

1.  The Tennessee players are not playing as hard as the Gators, which is a huge problem for Fulmer and his staff.

 

2.  Tennessee is no longer recruiting at the same level as Florida, which is a “firing” type of problem for Fulmer and his staff.

 

There is only one team left on the Tennessee schedule that has more talent that the Vols, Georgia in Athens on October 11.  Every other team on Tennessee’s schedule has equal or less talent than the Vols, and that means that the head coach at the University of Tennessee should ALWAYS win most of those games.  If that doesn’t happen, Phil Fulmer is going to wake up in early December and find that he is suddenly “retired,” and we seriously doubt if the 58 year old Phil Fulmer is ready to “retire!”  Play hard Vols!

 

Are the Irish for real?– After two wins to open the season, Charlie Weis and Notre Dame ran up against a very good Michigan State team and got beat pretty well, even though the final score 23-7 did not really reflect the big differences between the two teams.  One major positive for Weis is that his team is playing very hard, and even though they are making too many mistakes, there is just a whole different vibe to the ’08 Notre Dame team from last season’s debacle.  As Weis and Notre Dame look forward they should be thinking that they have a very good chance to win every game left of their schedule, save the USC Trojans, which gives them a reasonable shot at a 10-2 record, which would be an incredible comeback from 2007.  Weis and the Irish need to keep getting better if they hope to have a big season, and Weis needs a good season after Charlie Weis finds himself at a very dubious spot in his fifth season with the Irish.  Charlie Weis has now coached 40 games at Notre Dame and his overall record is 24-16 (.600), and Weis surely knows that type of record will not keep him employed at Notre Dame for very long.  Purdue is up next for the Irish, and that game with the Boilermakers will be very important for both teams.  Play hard Irish!

 

Is Florida State back or are they just a pretender? – Pretty much the same story, but different day for FSU:  Good defense, mediocre offense.  The Seminoles sure look like they have a lot of talent on offense, but they are either shooting themselves in the foot with penalties or turnovers, or they are not executing very well, and we have to go ahead and say it that we are putting FSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher on the Hot Seat.  The FSU offense is just way too out of sorts, and that cannot continue when the guy designated to be the next head coach at FSU is responsible for the offense.  If Ole Miss can roll up 30 points on Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, then FSU should be able to score 40 points on the Deacons in Tallahassee.  Yes, the problem at FSU is the offense, and it must get better or the Seminoles are going to wake-up at the end of the season and find that they will have put up another 6 or 7 win season.  That is just not acceptable at FSU anymore, even though the guy that set those high standards, Bobby Bowden, is still the head coach.  Bobby and Jimbo need to get together and get this problem with the offense fixed, and soon!  FSU has a critical game in Jacksonville next week vs. Colorado, and going to 0-2 against the first 2 legitimate teams they have played in’08 would mean that there would be lots of trouble ahead for the rest of the season.

Play hard Seminoles (and get that offense going!)!

 

Well, there are our answers to the 5 Questions for Week 4 that we proposed on Saturday morning.  The ballots are out for the Post Week 4 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings, and there is sure to be a lot of shake-up in the Rankings after a very interesting few days of college football.

 

Have a great Sunday!

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