Tag: Dennis Dodd

College football in the fall couldn’t be any more bleak

Two Power Five athletic directors spoke with Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports. It appears it is only a matter of time before football is cancelled.

The thought of college football has become more bleak with every passing moment as of late. No one wants actually consider the possibility of it not happening. Those of us in the state of Texas especially love our football. Often times we consume it every week from Thursday night until Monday night. However, the game we love is in serious jeopardy.

Following the MAC being the first to cancel their season, two athletic directors from Power Five conferences spoke with CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd. The two anonymous ADs gave a less than thrilling answer to the question we all are asking. Will there be college football in the fall of 2020?

“It’s not fair what we’re doing to our coaches and student-athletes,” one long-time Power Five AD said. “The sooner we can come to a finality, the better.”

“I think it’s inevitable [the season will not be played in the fall],” said another veteran Power Five AD. – according to CBS Sports report

According to multiple reports, the Big Ten Conference met to discuss multiple options for their upcoming season. The idea of pushing the season to the spring of 2021 once again became an option.

Big Ten presidents met on Saturday, though a league source told CBS Sports not to expect an immediate announcement to cancel its season — the feeling being that the league wouldn’t alter its practice schedule and announce a cancellation on the same day.

The Big Ten on Saturday announced it was “indefinitely” delaying a move to Phase 3 of practice that would have allowed players to use pads. The Detroit Free Press reported that Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren is believed to prefer attempting to play a season in spring 2021.

Longhorns Wire explored the idea of a spring season recently, and it isn’t so farfetched of an idea. The cancellation of the MAC conference seems to have sent plans in motion for other conferences to question pushing for football to kick off in time.

The Longhorns bitter rivals to the north have already put their practice schedule to a halt. It wasn’t necessarily alarming since they were originally ramping up for kickoff on August 29th. The alarming part is that Oklahoma is allowing players to return home for a few days. That part raised an eyebrow.

Schools are putting in place guidelines and safety measures to ensure the health and well being of their players. Sending them home gives you the idea that maybe college football isn’t in the plans for the fall at this point. Could be pure speculation but doesn’t appear to be a positive sign. We will continue to monitor the situation as we all await answers.

The NCAA Division I Council is set to meet on Wednesday and that might be when we get some sort of closure. Like the anonymous athletic director stated, we need to come to some finality.

How strong is Florida football head coach Dan Mullen’s job security?

Mullen has started strong in his UF head coach tenure but he may need to win the SEC this season in order to jump to “untouchable” status.

Job security is a fickle thing. Coaches can go from comfortable to the hot seat and back within the course of a single season (see Auburn’s Gus Malzahn). Coaches can go from winning back-to-back division titles to getting fired midseason (isn’t that neat?).

So, after two successful seasons in Gainesville which resulted in New Year’s Six Bowl titles, how safe is coach Dan Mullen’s job?

According to CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd, he’s among the safest in the country. Dodd rated every coach’s security on a five-point scale ranging from “0” or “untouchable” to “5” or “win or be fired.”

Mullen was labeled a “1” meaning his job is safe and secure, one of 43 FBS coaches in that category. He hasn’t proven enough to Dodd to be considered “untouchable” by Dodd like conference contemporaries Nick Saban and Kirby Smart. Nearly all of the 24 “untouchable” coaches are coaches that either just got hired this past offseason or are long-tenured coaches who have won conference titles.

Though Mullen has had a strong start to his UF head coaching career, he may need to win the SEC (or at least the SEC East) this season in order to make the jump from “safe and secure” to “untouchable.”

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Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly Named Voice of Reason

CBS Sports Dennis Dodd has high praise after Brian Kelly met with the media yesterday.

The Notre Dame football leader, Brian Kelly, met with the media yesterday via Zoom, touched on a variety of topics, but something caught the eye of CBS Sports Dennis Dodd. After Kelly finished, Dodd’s headline read like this: Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly emerges as voice of reason in sea of tone-deaf college football coaches.

What caught Dodd’s attention was the way Kelly handled himself when asked to speak to the community regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Kelly seemed very statesmanlike when he said “We have not won yet. We’re just getting to halftime. We have a second half to play here. Really good job in the first couple of quarters, but we’re just getting into the locker room. Let’s look toward having a better second half. If we have a better second half, we’re going to win the game.”

This is certainly high praise for Kelly as Dodd explains that while “Updating the status of the Fighting Irish as a whole, Kelly seemed to warm to the topic of inspiration.” This is a clear contrast from what other coaches have recently said, such as Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy. Gundy wants football to start up by May 1st, citing an influx of money to go through the Sooner state. It was a bad look for the Cowboys.

Kelly has shown that he has a firm grasp on the situation, as this is the new norm and he has accepted it and adapted to it as well. Praise like this is fantastic for the Irish’s head coach, after Gundy makes a fool of himself, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney’s reports of taking vacations, and Mississippi State’s Mike Leach posting a extremely racial photo on his Twitter feed that has since been deleted and at least one player will transfer due to it.

Dodd’s headline was spot on, as Kelly has handled this situation extremely well, making positive headlines instead of negative ones. This can only help the university and it’s easy to say Notre Dame faithful are extremely proud of their head coach.