Initially, I was hurt by his words

Big Game Bob Stoops hasn't been too lucky in the Bowl games the past couple of years. This song doesn't help matters at all. I think that when they start singing Brittany Spears songs about how badly you suck in the big games, it's time to change your nickname from "Big Game Bob" to "I'll get my team to a certain level, and then I'm not so sure after that, Stoops." I think that might not sound as catchy, but in a situation like this, you're really just looking for accuracy.

News The Nudge Way

Robert Marve gives a Big "F-U" to Randy Shannon
The Nudge was watching the Emerald Bowl with his defensive guru and Miami alumni, Jimmy "The Greek" and we were both saying that the Hurricanes would have been better off if they had started The String Bean Jacorry Harris all season instead of platooning him with Robert Marve. Harris looked a lot better than a true freshman should look like in his first collegiate start. If it wasn't for the fumble in the fourth quarter, Miami would have won that game. We both thought that Marve would never leave the program, and that the platoon system would be in place for the next four years. Well, 2009 Christmas came early to the Hurricanes faithful when it was announced that Marve would be leaving the school. HC Randy Shannon let him of his scholie with a bunch of conditions that have to be met. Marve cannot transfer to a school in the ACC, the SEC or the state of Florida.

Marve told the AP "I had to get out, I just decided that I can't play for Coach Shannon." When asked about the platoon between him and StringBean he said "I just felt like it wasn't fair to either of us, honestly."

Marve's stats for the year were 1,293 yards passing, with nine touchdowns and 13 interceptions. While The String Bean had 1,195 yards with 12 touchdowns and 7 INT's.


Randy Shannon, un-like RICHROD, said "I have respect for Robert and wish him nothing but success in the future." If the kid was transferring from Michigan, RICHROD would have said that the kid suffers from Bubonic Plague and that his mother has head lice.

The Real Story: Look, it's pretty simple what happened here. Marve saw Jacorry play and knew that he was never, never going to touch the field again. A blind man could have watched that game and came to the same conclusion. Marve will probably transfer over to a D-1AA school, and his name will come up in three years as a draft prospect. But I assure you that you will never hear from him again. more here if you want it



My Beloved Aggies of New Mexico State fire Hal Mumme for this guy, what?
Everyone knows the love affair The Nudge has had with Head Coach Hal Mumme, I haven't kept it a secret. New Mexico State fires the guy, why? Just cause he doesn't win your stupid football games, where's the excitement fellas? The Aggies went 3-9 this year and actually lost to the Spuds of Idaho. And who does the all-knowing NMSU Athletic Director hire to replace him, UCLA Defensive Coordinator DeWayne Walker. The move doesn't make any sense. Gone are the days of New Mexico State going for it on 4th and twenty from their own fifteen yard line. Walker would probably punt in that situation, UN-FUN.

In 2008, Walker pushed a bad UCLA defense into being the 11th rated passing defense in the country. Good right?..no. Teams had big leads on UCLA and ran the ball to kill off the clock. This is the case of another guy getting a job off of a misleading stat. Walker worked as a secondary coach in the NFL for Joe Gibbs and The New York Gints. He was also a coach at USC under Pete Carroll. All of Pete Carroll's coaches that leave USC fail, bottom line. And Walker will be no different. You won't catch The Nudge watching New Mexico State football anymore, ...well, you probably will. But I'll definitely be rooting against them, so there, take that. more here, but don't go there.

The Real Story New Mexico State succumbed to pressure that they were facing to WIN games and they thought that if they hired Walker, they would at least get some National Attention. Well we know what happens to attention whores don't we. They wind up with crabs. Where is that Paris Hilton anyway?




Best left tackle Prospect in the last ten years says screw it, I'm not getting hurt in that Bowl Game


Alabama Junior Offensive tackle, and just possible number 1 overall NFL Draft pick Andre Smith has been suspended from playing in the Sugar Bowl when Alabama meets the undefeated Utes, "What's a UTE"? Uber-HC Nick Saban told reporters that the Outland Trophy winner would not participate with the team because he had improper dealings with an agent. It has been noted that an Alabama State Attorney is looking into the case to see if any criminality is afoot. Saban sent Smith home where he was overheard as he was leaving the campus saying "I'm rich bey-atch, rich, rich, rich rich. Go *&*% all ya'all."

Saban was quoted as saying "The University of Alabama, the team and the football program are more important than any individual player. Everyone on our team depends on each other to be responsible, to make good choices and decisions relative to their actions."

He further stated, very much un-like RICHROD " Andre Smith has done an outstanding job in our program as a person, student and a player and we will do all we can as an institution to support him in all future endeavours..." more here

The Real Story: The Nudge has been following this kid since he was a junior in high school. Ever since he put on the houndstooth hat in his high school press conference, he has been a starter on Bama's offensive line. Some agent, somewhere, has been talking to this kid's family telling them that he will front them millions, and that Andre in no way shape or form should play in the bowl game. He's already, at worst, a top five pick. If he plays in the Sugar Bowl and blows out his knee, the family is poor, poor poor. But, if he takes the front money, their rich, rich, rich. Any of us in a similar situation would do the exact same thing, and if you wouldn't, Then your an idiot.

We can rebuild him, we have the technolgy he is Bionic FrontButt:

Notre Dame Head Coach, Charlie "The FrontButt" Weiss is now the new recipient of a bionic knee. Weiss hurt his leg when he was blind sided while standing on the sidelines at a game eating some barbecue ribs and not paying attention in September. The doctors said that the knee was deteriorating due to the high cholesterol and fat content in Weiss's diet. more here

The Real Story: Weiss is huge. If you didn't expect his knee to give way from all the years of lugging his gargantuan body around....then your an idiot.

Army Hired who?

Army Hires a New Victim,er.....Coach

Army Hires Rich Ellerson to run the Option Attack

It was announced today that West Point has hired Cal Poly Head Coach Rich Ellerson to fill the vacancy left after Stan Brock was fired from the program after posting a 6-18 record in only two seasons. Ellerson brings in the new/old offensive scheme for Army with the Triple Option attack. For years Army operated under the Triple Option/Wishbone attack. When the program was being bypassed by the other service academies, Army decided to drop the option and brought in former San Diego Chargers Head Coach Bobby Ross. When Ross woke up from his dementia and realized that he was way over his head in the cellar program, he quickly resigned and has yet to be heard from again.

Senorita Nudgette Paz Vega digs her some Black Knighteros

HC Rich Ellerson comes to West Point by way of running Cal Poly where he amassed a 56-34 record running the option. He took the team to the Playoffs(novel concept) four times. But much more important than this guy bringing back the option to the school, he was also responsible for developing the University of Arizona's awesome Desert Swarm defense in the mid-90's. He was the defensive coordinator at Arizona from 97 to 2000.

Look, let's face facts: Stan Brock was put in a horrible situation to begin with. He inherited a program that was sooo not right for Bobby Ross's style of play. Plus, he was recruiting at a service academy while a war was going on, for only two years.

One of the best experiences in all college football, The Flyover at Mikie

The Nudge watches a lot of Army football, I'm probably the only one. And let me tell you, despite the record and the pounding that the team took against a very much superior Navy team, Brock actually had this team competing and improving. These guys always play with a lot of heart, but they were a few plays away from turning some games in their favor. Irregardless, it's nice to see the wishbone attack making a comeback, and all in all, I think that this is a great hire.

CC Fontana, knocking on The NudgeBunker door "Who's that, go away. I didn't order any pizza, leave me alone."

Cal Bears to start Longshore over Riley in The Emerald Bowl

Super Head Coach Quarterback Guru Jeff Tedford has stated that he will start Nate Longshore, who's been at the program for at least twelve years now, over regular season starter Kevin Riley when his team faces off against The U on Saturday.

It's been announced that on other other side of Longshore will be True Freshman Stringbean Jacorry Harris, due to starting QB Robert Marve's academic suspension.

The line movement in this one has gone up two points since it first came out and after the announcement that Marve would not play. It started at 6 and now is 8. The Nudge thinks this line would be better off at around 12-13.

Nudgette Denise Milani preppin for the Emerald Bowl

This game is going to come down to three things, irregardless of who's playing QB for who (and that's saying a lot).

1) Cal has the 4th best defense in the all important Pass Defense Efficiency Ranking. They rank 25 in Rush D allowing 122 rush yards per game.

2) Miami has speed, specifically on special teams with Super Frosh WR Travis Benjamin. Can Cal hang with the young speedsters.

3) Most importantly. Since he went down in the Maryland game, Cal RB Jahvid Best has only come into his own the past four games. He has posted ridiculous numbers, rushing for 628 yards in four games.

The Nudge thinks that Longshore just has to handoff to Best for about 74% of the plays and burn the defense on play action a couple of times to cover. I'm all over the Cal pick and it's definitely my play of the day.

Now let's get down to business. Since The Nudge got reeeeaaaallll cocky on Christmas Eve, the Gods of Football have been punishing me like all Hell. Since starting out going a perfect 6-0, The Nudge picks have washed up posting a ridiculously horrible 0-4. The Notre Dame turnaround pick really killed me, lesson learned. And tackling machine Florida Atlantic LB Frantz Joseph shut Central Michigan down. The past four losses have come from TCU not covering, Notre Dame and the under, and Central Michigan. Lady Luck will once again smile on The Nudge in the very near future. Enjoy Pat White, and from now on, the season record stays at the bottom (I'll never make that mistake again).

Overall Bowl Record 6-4, 1* 3-2, 2* 1-0, 3* 1-0, 4* 1-2

See ya Sports Fans!

I got cold feet- &%it happens

The Nudge Seriously Downgrades The Notre Dame Pick

The recent hiring by Miami of Ohio of Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Haywood for Head Coach has gotten The Nudge to seriously reconsider his FIVE STAR pick of Notre Dame winning in the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve.

The Nudge has a rule in the wisdom of Nudgedom; if there is even the slightest of doubt about a pick, it can be in no way shape or form a FIVE STAR play. And I am starting to have serious doubts about this game. Mike Haywood is a former Notre Dame player, he's worked at Texas and LSU and finally got his dream job of coaching at Notre Dame. In the beginning of the year, The FrontButt told Mike he would be calling the plays for the offense all season long. As the season started to crumble and The FrontButt got nervous about his firing being right around the corner, The FrontButt took over the playcalling. And we all saw how good that went, they lost to Syracuse and got walloped by USC.

Now with Haywood with one foot out the door, I have to question just how much effort he's been able to put into the offensive scheme for the Bowl game. He was interviewing for jobs and structuring a contract with Miami, OH., and it must have taken time away from game planning.

For some reason, I have visions of Jimmy Clausen surfboarding and hitting on Hawaiian girls right now without a care in the world about what the game is going to be like.

So The Nudge started looking at Hawaii defensive stats for home games alone. The team doesn't travel well this year. I took the BearClaws game out of the equation, due to the fact that B-Kell's boys were a far superior team than Notre Dame or the Warriors and that game was a little off anyway cause the BearClaws had already locked down a BCS Bowl and conference championship.

For the year, Hawaii's defense is ranked 71 overall averaging giving up 27 points per game. But at home, with a 5-1 (No Cincy) record, they are averaging giving up only 18 points per game. In the Nevada win, they held Colin Kaepernick to 173 yards passing. In the New Mexico (there's a new mexico) they did allow Chase Holbrook to throw for almost 400 yards.

Since Hawaii QB Greg Alexander became the starter 6 games ago, the Warriors have gone 4-2, counting the Cincy loss. So effectively, they've gone 4-1 in their last 5 games without the Cincy loss. He's thrown for 1550 yards with 12 TD's.

There has also been major line movement in the spread in this game. Hawaii started out as the favorite giving 1 and a nudge. Now their the dog getting 1 and a nudge. That means that most of the plays in this one are heading towards ND to win outright. This ordinarily would be a good sign for The Nudge, this is what you look for. But I still can't get over the very low confidence I now have in Weiss. I'm officially calling this a stay away play. Don't go either way. But I have to make a pick so here it goes. My new pick in this one is now Hawaii 1* and may God have mercy on us all. For the record, The Nudge has never done an about face of this magnitude in the history of Nudgery.

The over/under in this one is 48, I would go under. 1*

Now since you suffered through the photo of The FrontButt enjoying his summer vacation doing some yard work, I'll leave you off with the destined to be Nudgette of the week, Azzurri Nudgette Elisabetta Gregoraci, enjoy. Ciao sportza fanza!

SSHH, don't tell anyone The Nudge changed his pick

Nice hire by MSU

Mississippi State Athletic Director doesn't smoke Crack

This just in, Mississippi State Athletic Director Greg Byrne is not a crack addicted idiot as is evidenced by his hiring of University of Florida Offensive Coordinator Dan Mullin. What separates this hire from all of the other AD's that hired Head Coaches so far this month is that this is the only action that actually made any sense and is a move designed to actually improve the program. Every other hire, with the possible, possible exception of San Diego State stealing Brady Hoke away from Muncie, just doesn't make any sense. Let's take a look at the new hires and list them in terms of disasters waiting to happen.

#1 disaster waiting to happen: Tennessee hiring Lane Kiffin. By firing the Legend of Knoxville Phil Fulmer, the UT AD went out and found a man who wasn't even solely responsible for calling plays at USC, he called them along with Sarkisian. Okay, he's bringing his father along and we all know that his father has the bug time credentials, even The Nudge can't disagree with that. But outside of that, the only thing that this guy has done is take Norm Chow's playbook and Ed Orgeron's recruits and tried not to fail to badly. Overall, my biggest criticism of this guy is that he has been anointed as this "Hot New Commodity" without ever having to prove himself on his own. Mark my words, he will fail and fail badly. UT needs a gregarious character like Fulmer in order to succeed

#2 disaster waiting to happen: Kansas State hiring (again) 69 year old Bill Snyder after being away from the program for the past three years. Is the AD smoking crack. What the Hell? This move makes no sense whatsoever. Sure Snyder put the program on the map, no one will argue with that. Sure the guy was one of the most successful coaches, win percentage wise, for the decade of the nineties. But has the K-State AD looked at a calender lately. This could possibly go down as the worst hire in the history of college football. This will destroy the K-State program for years to come. I know Prince didn't have the crazy wins while he was there for three years, but I actually thought he had the program headed in the right direction.

Nudgette Spencer Scott

#3 Disaster waiting to happen: Syracuse hiring Doug Marrone, Offensive Coordinator from the New Orleans Saints, so basically did what Sean Payton told him to do. Look, The Nudge does not know Marrone personally, he might piss champagne and give 95% of his salary to orphans in Indonesia. But what The Nudge does know is that if you want to repair the disaster that was brought to your program because you hired an NFL coordinator who had no head coaching experience in the pro's or college, the best way to do that is by not hiring another guy who has no head coaching experience in college or the pros. Look, flat out no one wanted this job. I don't even think Turner Gill wanted this job, supposedly, he really blew off the interview, ruining his chances of ever being offered the position by the school. Real simple, at Syracuse, you cannot recruit. No one is coming to play there over another program, even programs in the MAC. NY High School football is a mess and at most has two kids that could actually start on Division 1 programs each and every year. When coaching at Cuse, your best best is to try and get the kids from PA that haven't been offered a spot at any other school. This is a horrible hire, and Syracuse football will not be back for at least a decade.

Nudgette Spencer Scott is now becoming a Miss. State groupie

Disaster waiting to happen #4: Auburn hiring Gene Chizik. Chizik was rewarded for putting together great defensive units at Auburn, when they went undefeated, and Texas, very, very respectable. Chizik then took the Iowa State job and was able to bang out a 5-19 record in the past two years. This isn't a particularly horrible hire, it's just not the best hire that was possible. And with all the Turner Gill controversy going on surrounding this move, it is without a doubt a disaster waiting to happen. Chizik will never get a chance at Auburn. I realize that this is a dream job for him, but he would have been much better off staying at Iowa State. In two years, after Chizik is fired, he'll probably land a defensive coordinator job somewhere, but it won't be anywhere near as good a school as Texas. The Nudge thinks that the three best hires for the Auburn position would be 1) Jim Leavitt, USF, the guy built the program from scratch and can recruit in Florida with the smallest recruiting budget in major college football. Auburn has got to come to the conclusion that they are not going to out recruit Saban in Alabama and that their only hope is to recruit in the Sunshine State. 2) Todd Graham, Tulsa, anyone who watched Tulsa play this year or followed Rice while he was there knows that this guy could flat out coach. And finally 3) Charlie Strong, DC UF. This guy has shown that he can recruit the best defensive high school recruits from that state of Florida year in and year out.

British Nudgette and ex-Cristiano Ronaldo arm candy Gemma Atkinson, The Nudge rolls with Chelsea

Disaster waiting to happen #5: Washington hiring Steve Sarkisian away from USC. So far, USC coordinators or coaches that have left the program to move onto greener pastures have not done all that well. Nick Holt left to become the HC at Idaho, he got smacked, Norm Chow left to be the OC at NFL Titans, he leaves and they lead the AFC, and Ed Orgeron left to be the HC at Ole Miss. The guy recruited well down there, but couldn't win. Houston Nutt takes over with Orgerons kids and they wind up beating the eventual National Champs at The Swamp (I guess you know who I'm picking in that game now). So what is missing from the equation. Why while those guys are at USC are they so successful and when they leave to go out on their own are they exposed. Just like the criticism for Mike Leach Quarterbacks, their system guys, the same could be said for Pete Carrolls assistants. Ken Norton knows it. He's turned down every job that's been offered to him, from head coach to defensive coordinator, just to stay at USC and crank out All-Americans at the linebacker position. See, at USC all the credit really needs to go to Carroll and he will never be duplicated or leave that place. Until we see one of his coordinators being successful without the number 1 recruiting class six years in a row, then maybe I'll change my mind. But until then, I just don't think it makes sense to get rid of Tyrone. Give him one more year. The Lushkies had a lot of injuries, and with Locker coming back next year, Tyrone would definitely have a better year.

Seasons Greetings to you and yours, from The Nudge

Disaster waiting to happen #6: Clemson hiring WR coach Dabo Sweeney as their Head Coach. Look, they got rid of Tommy Bowden this year after who knows how many years the guy has been there. The knock on Bowden was that he put together a good team but couldn't push the Tigers up into the upper echelons of the college football world. And apparently Dabo Sweeney is the guy that they think is going to do it. Are they smoking crack? You have a great program at Clemson, you could recruit there, you have great support in the state and student body. The head coaching position is a helluva attractive position. Interview a couple of guys that you think you might have no shot at bringing into the school. Interview a Mike Leach or a Brian Kelly. The worst they can tell you is no. But instead you tap Sweeney right out of the box, unbelievable. Let's see if Sweeney can win some games with Wily Korn running his offense next year, the kid looks like a future Nudge Hall of Famer.

Cristiano Ronaldo's beard, er....Nudgette Gemma Atkinson

Kiffin will have more wins than Mullen next year, there's no doubt in my mind. And I'm not really sure that Mullen will ever have success in Miss. St. The only time I ever saw that team really compete was way back when Jackie Sherrill was coaching them. You can't really recruit to well to Starkville. And I'm absolutely sure that Mullen will not have the luxary of either a Chris Leak or a Tebow while he's there. He might be fired before any of the other guys up top there, that's for sure. The only thing is that this is the only hiring that makes any sense at all.