Lane reacts to Chip Kelly's comments, more from Monte, Chow, and Harbaugh

Lane Kiffin reacts to Chip Kelly's comments that compared the number of 4 and 5-star recruits between USC and Oregon: "I really wish that I had good enough players and we were good enough coaches that we could spend enough time counting how many 4 and 5-star players we have on each other's roster.  I don't time for that, unfortunately."

In case you missed Chip Kelly's quote from yesterday: “We have zero five-star recruits in our top 44 and we have 11 four-star recruits.”

“I keep hearing that USC’s down. In their two-deep, out of their 44 players they have 12 five-star recruits and 26 four-star recruits. I don’t know if there’s anybody in the country that has that.”

SEC GUY: Please listen to SEC GUY who calls in to Oregon sports radio yesterday.  This is classic.  Listen here.

Here's part of SEC GUY'S rant:  "LaMichael James, that gets me to my point.  Can you guys just stick to Biblical names? I’m tired of the Michael, LaMichael, Jaquizz, and I’m tired of all this.  You know what we have in Bama? Trent and Mark.  #1 and #2.  That’s it.  Both of ‘em could win a Heisman Trophy if they was just single running backs like ya LaMichael has playing against little kids like you got in that conference, we’d do the same thing.  It just burns my hide to hear you guys talk about this, that, and the other scuzzle butt about being better than my squad or my conference.  I don’t even like Auburn and I’ll tell you right now they’d beat you (Oregon) by three touchdowns."

Monte Kiffin talks about the challenge of playing well against Oregon: “It’s not easy. I could use a couple more bye weeks. That would surely help. We have to really coach our players up and make sure they understand. And there are two things you’ve got to understand — the scheme you’re going against and also the players you’re going against.

“There are some pretty good players there now, believe me. You can have a good scheme, but it works better when you have good players. You put the combination together, good coaching and good players, and that’s kind of what you’re seeing right now.”

Norm Chow describes the UCLA offense: "Awful, we're at the bottom of the league. I told the kids today that we were averaging 2.7 turnovers a game. We can't do that. A good football team doesn't have a minus on the ledger. But that's not all on the fumbles or the interceptions, there's the pass protection, there's a lot of things involved. We need to get better."

Washington defensive coordinator Nick Holt preparing for physical Stanford offense: “They are a lot more physical than they used to be. (Stanford) is a committed running team and committed to using their tight ends and things like that. You know it’s a lot of runs and a lot of physical runs.”

Jim Harbaugh looks forward to Saturday’s game at Washington:

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One of the all-time great meltdowns from a college football color analyst

It's has to be one of the all-time great meltdowns from a color analyst in college football history.

You have to listen Florida Atlantic analyst Dave Lamont. Let’s just say that Lamont loses it when quarterback Jeff Van Zant take a hit to the head, but no flag is thrown by the officials.  The helmet-to-helmet collision occurred in last Saturday's game at Arkansas State.

We particularly liked, “WHERE'S THE COMMISSIONER?”

We also liked, “I don’t really care if you people look at my in the press box.  You know, I don’t care.  That’s a flag.  And I’ll fight anyone of you if you want it.”

Listen in.  This one is pretty darn good.

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LSU football marketing nailing it, Ole Miss' Lockett says "Yell O"

LSU football marketing “gets it”: Did you know LSU football has over 246,000 friends on Facebook and almost 5,000 followers on twitter?  That’s a bigger social media following that 13 NFL franchises.  See the list here.

UVA assistant Anthony Poindexter says London isn’t messing around, sat three players last week for missing classes: "I think everybody realizes now coach ain't playing about academics here. He's not playing about doing things the right way off the field. If you don't want to do it the right way, well, we'll take playing time away from you."

Former Minnesota offensive line coach (14 seasons) Gordy Shaw says Kevin Sumlin would be a great hire for Gophers: "He would be an outstanding candidate for that job. He's a great coach. He's young. He's energetic. He knows what he wants to do and understands the game. He made the natural progression from a position coach to a coordinator to a head coach and knows what kind of program he wants to run."

“He knows a lot about Minnesota. That makes him a great candidate, but he also knows a lot about the Big Ten."

Louisville player Josh Byrom talks describes Charlie Strong: "With Coach Strong coming in, we knew right away it was a whole different mentality. Guys on the team, you learn to trust and respect each other because, with Coach Strong, it's his way or the highway.

"When you have a coach like that, who's enforcing the rules, who, if he makes a threat to you, he follows through if you don't go to class, or if you're late to a meeting or miss a lift, you're going to get punished and that's how it is. Right off the bat, it starts with Coach Strong. When you start trusting your head coach, it follows to the team."

Ole Miss player Kentrell Lockett asks Rebel fans to make it hard on Cam Newton: "Yell O"

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No Friday night hotel for 6 teams, Coaches address struggles

6 of 120 programs choose not to stay in a hotel on Friday nights of home games: According to a recent Des Moines Register article, only six of the 120 FCS programs do not seek such lodging. In addition to Tulane, Boise State, Arkansas State, Fresno State, Louisiana-Monroe and Western Kentucky don't.

Miami (OH) head coach Mike Haywood says team completely lost focus before 34-13 loss to Ohio: “Our team went into the game believing the hype and listening to everything going on and not realizing it’s just another game. It’s the Battle of the Bricks, it’s homecoming, it’s the MAC championship, it’s the Cradle of Coaches.”

“We really lost our sense of focus because we started playing an emotional game instead of playing with our minds. There were things done in that game that guys have never done in practice.”

“We had guys in the locker room talking about 9-3. Why are you talking about 9-3? You should just talk about beating Ohio.”

Turner Gill tells fans that Kansas will be OK: “I want our fans to know that we’re going through some ups and downs in our football program here. And part of that is the transition with a new staff, and our players are getting to know us in a better way.”

“We are very, very confident that we will come through here and have a winning program here on a consistent basis. That’s why we all chose to come here on this staff.”

Central Michigan coach Dan Enos talks about struggles: "Our system is not very good, obviously, when you're 2-6. We haven't been able to make plays at critical times in games and our opponents have been able to do that. We've been turning the ball over too much at the quarterback position. And, basically we've played well defensively for the first couple of weeks and since then haven't played very well on defense. We're giving up a lot of big plays and we're not tackling well so it's pretty much a collective thing from top to bottom."

David Cutcliffe says loss to VA Tech was emotionally devastating, Navy is next for Blue Devils: “We’re coming off a pretty emotionally devastating loss. We certainly physically got whipped in most areas. Resilient is not even a strong enough word for what people have displayed, in the midst of this losing streak. What we have to do is re-gather and we’re going to play a really fine Navy team.”

"I think we’re good in the area of pass protection. We have a somewhat less mobile quarterback now than we had a year ago in Thad (Lewis). So that changes things a little bit for them from a pocket standpoint.”

Akron head coach Rob Ianello's weekly press conference: "The way we practice is unique because we don’t do scout teams, particularly lineman to do scout teams.  We don’t have enough players to use scout teams.  We service each other like an NFL team does. Our second defense, per se, will be Temple’s defense going against our first offense." 

"There been some challenges with that component because you don’t as much time on the opponent as you would with scout teams."

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Chip Kelly: We have zero 5-star recruits in our top 44, plus latest from Harbaugh, Wulff

Oregon head coach Chip Kelly compares Ducks and Trojans: “We have zero five-star recruits in our top 44 and we have 11 four-star recruits.”

“I keep hearing that USC’s down. In their two-deep, out of their 44 players they have 12 five-star recruits and 26 four-star recruits. I don’t know if there’s anybody in the country that has that.”

Lane Kiffin points out Arizona State forced Oregon to punt 11 times: "I think that game in general, if you study it will surprise a lot of people. Oregon punted 11 times in that game. (Arizona State) forced 11 punts (but) they turned the ball over seven times. They had to go out there seven times with turnovers. If there is a blueprint for how to play them, they did it."  

Chris Petersen knows Boise State could have played better in 49-20 win over LA Tech: “It was a good win, but it wasn’t a great win, just in terms of our side of things and playing as cleanly as we wanted.”

Jim Harbaugh explains how he wants his Stanford team to improve: “What we are focused on is improving every day. Daily improvement. Better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today. This improvement would not only include performance but also relationship with our teammates, family, friends, school, making today the most important day on the calendar, making the next game the most important schedule, making the next meeting most important you’ll have, the next drill is the most   productive of the season. We believe what will follow is significant team improvement. Improvement leads to wins, wins lead to championship. Improvement daily equals team success. That’s what we are striving for.”

Wazzu head coach Paul Wulff says Cougars are getting there: "We're just at the tip of the iceberg with this. We're nowhere near where we know we can be or where we're going to be. We've got great young players coming along as we continue to groom them and they develop. I think we're going to be back at the top of the Pac-10 in total offense in the next few years without question."

"All the coaches I've talked to and that we deal with are very complimentary and surprised, to some degree, on how much we've improved. I think that's been really positive. It's nice to have people see that and also their view of where we're at as a program right now is a lot different than it was." 

Steve Sarkisian talks about loss to Arizona: “They got out to a lead and forced us into a more of a real drop-back passing situation. In turn, their (defensive) ends played the factor in the ballgame we were fearful of. The game went south quickly.”

Les Miles grilled on passing game, Dooley loses it after practice

Les Miles on if the coaching has been good enough after four years with one (Lee), three with the other (Jefferson)?" :  "I don't know. You know, that's a tough question. The only thing I can tell you is that they've been coached and coached and coached, and drilled. The passing attack has not changed so significantly that it's not comfortable for all. I, uh, yeah, I think they've been coached."

(on the 4^th down circus coming out of a timeout) "There must have been two calls. There was only one call that really was made, and, but, I, you know, there was great interference. It was unbelievably loud, and whether, it was all communicated I certainly don't know. I don't understand why Shepard came off."

Dooley furious after practice, says some people in organization called in sick on Monday: "Are you kidding me? You shouldn't be sick on a Monday. Nobody gets sick on a Monday. You're not sick.”

"If I gave you a million dollars, would you go to work today if you're sick? 'Oh yeah, I would have gone.' Then why didn't you go? What do you need a million dollars for? If you can go, go. That's your obligation to the organization. That's how it works."

"There is no other option. It doesn't matter if you're hurtin', 'I'm sick, I got the flu, I got the swine flu.' It doesn't matter. You work. And you go to work and you put it all in every day."

Mississippi State OC Les Koenning admits Chris Relf has some small bumps and bruises: "This isn't volleyball, this isn't tennis. This is football. You got to play with some aches and pains. You've got to play with some bruises and get out there and play. He's done that - he just needs to keep progressing and keep coming on."

Only in the SEC:

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He'll be a head coach next year

With Nick Saban’s “one voice” policy, Alabama assistant coaches rarely speak with the media.  Usually, it happens about three times a year.

With the Crimson Tide having an OPEN week, offensive coordinator Jim McElwain spoke at the 1^st & 10 Club in Mobile, AL on Monday night.  Afterwards, McElwain said to himself, “The hell with Nick.  I’m going to start doing my own thing,” then spoke with reporters.  (Just kidding)

In his third year as Alabama offensive coordinator, McElwain said, “I’ve never looked at a statistic, and so when somebody mentioned to me that he had a whole bunch of yards and catches, I don’t ever look at that, other than the win and loss part.  But I do know this, when we needed something to happen and it’s been since we’ve been here, Julio has come up big.”

“You know, actually I don’t (look at rankings).  I mean obviously I do know that Oklahoma loss last week, so I don’t know if you really want to be that guy.  That isn’t what it’s about.  To a lot of people, maybe it is.  But to have your guys go out and perform, to have them go play with an attitude representing the University of Alabama, that’s really what it’s all about.”

“We’ve always tried to be balanced.  When you look at us over the time I’ve been here, we’ve had probably through the third quarter, we’ve been 50/50.” 

Hey Minnesota, if you need his number, give us a call and we'll connect you.

Spurrier talks play-calling, Tressel talks special teams, Stewart backs QB

Spurrier again delegates play-calling, sort of: “We had a bit of a community system working a little bit. I called a lot of them. I didn't call all of them, but we have a system there where we're all on the headset. It was a little different, but not a whole lot different. When we look for a run, Coach Elliott usually looks at what he thinks has the best chance and so forth. I think the coach who spends most of the time with the quarterback probably should be the play caller. G.A. (Mangus) was sort of the main guy there than the rest of us, which was a little different than we've been doing, but I like that because he talks to Stephen (Garcia) in between series.”

Jim Tressel explains the importance of special teams on the road: “Special teams, we always say, is the key when we go on the road and I think if anyone has an interest in Big Ten football and doesn't think that the special teams had maybe the biggest impact on last weekend, Wisconsin's fake punt was probably the turning point in that game. Michigan State's fake punt was probably the turning point in that game. I think Iowa missed a field goal, which was big, and an extra point, perhaps. The Cleveland Browns, I didn't see it, but the little reverse pass or whatever they did was huge in their game, and on and on and on. Missouri, I think, didn't they bring the opening kickoff back?”

“So special teams is something that we'll never stop talking about and you'll never be able to convince me of its relative impact on the emotion of the game, and football is an emotional game. And so we've got to make sure that despite the fact that we've had to go with a lot of different lineups due to injuries in the linebacker and DB areas, we've got to get better at special teams, especially on the road. It's a huge impact. Purdue found that. Go full circle, Purdue found that out, coming over here, you can't make two big special teams mistakes and think you're going to win in someone else's stadium.”

Brian Kelly on if fans should have expected growing pains on defense: "There's alot of ways to look at it.  It's not like we were in the top 20 on defense last year.  I think if we had a national caliber defense last year, we would be concerned.  I think we've made great stride defensively, even with putting in a new 3-4 scheme.  I think we've made great progress and I think we'll continue to make that as we move forward."

Late to press conference, Purdue coach Danny Hope jokes: "We were having some QB tryouts.  Just kidding. Might not be a bad idea."

West Virginia head coach Bill Stewart backs his quarterback: