Wednesday News and Notes

Lots of stuff happening that we could/should care about...

1) Bobby Johnson Resigns as VANDY HC
Apparently, he tired of "fighting the fight"...not exactly sure what this means, but I'll take a stab at it. VANDY is one of the few in the SEC that actually have academics and teachers and everything, so Bobby has been fighting to be competitive with all of these schools that recruit freakish beast athletes with no interest in academia at all. That's a tough battle, and I'm honestly surprised he could do this job for so long. In retrospect, their bowl season of 2 years ago might be one of the greatest accomplishments in College Football's recent history. They barely have the talent to compete in the MAC much less the best Football conference around.

As for the future, the usual suspects are being thrown out there as replacements...the most intriguing to me is Mike Leach. I'll give it a 1% chance, but damn it would be fun to see him annoying the big boys of the SEC like he did for TEX and OK for so many years. This season, I would expect an interim and I expect VANDY to be completely 100% terrible. They can only win with ball control and great D, both of which might not happen any more without their leader.

Greg - you are the VANDY expert after watching them practice a few years back...what can your 2nd favorite team do to get on the right track?

2) We Got Him
Luke Ridnour, 4 years $16M. Kahn strikes again! He's a veteran PG, most recently with MIL in their magical 1 series playoff run of 2009-2010. Career 9 pts and 5 asst guy, but he's always been on bad or very average teams. Not really sure if this is an upgrade from Sessions, but clearly he's gone now. Sounds like maybe Charlotte is the destination...let me guess, we'll get picks and $$$. I guess Luke will be competing with Flynn to see who will be Rubio's back up in 2011-2012.

3) Gophers Raiding ILLINOIS!
Over the weekend Brew's Crew made a nice signing in Matt LaCosse, who was a HS QB, but is expected to be a lethal TE in college. 6-6 220, had some interest from big-time teams...have to love this addition. A big time receiving TE is a major need on this club with the current brand of offense, so LaCosse could step in very early and be the man early in his career. The Gophers weren't done there, yesterday we locked up twin brothers from Illinois Luke and Kyle McAvoy. Kyle is pure beast material right now, and Luke is about 20 lbs lighter. 6'5" and around 290 is a perfect body type for what we want to do on the OL. Both had interest and/or offers from ARIZONA, KAN, IOWA, WIS, SPARTY...Brew was willing to take both on scholarship, which was a big factor. Team these 2 with Ed and Tommy Olson up front and we might have the makings of a nice little OL in a couple of years!

4) Twins
I'm still not bailing out on this team like many have, it's a 2nd half club...they'll be fine. I am selling on Blacky. His last chance comes this week against the Chi-Sox. My bet, he shows flashes of being better and Gardy sticks with him through July at least before finally admitting he's horrible and sending him down. You can only have so many soft tossing RHP's on one team before it catches up to you. Baker, Slowey, Blacky, Pavano are all honestly the same pitcher. We need a right handed power arm or another LHP to mix into this thing before we are done. Duensing is alright, but he's a nice bullpen arm because he really struggles against right handed hitters. Bottom line, make a move and add a starter. Give something up - make a run. Do we really have to plead for this every single season?!?!

5) Poll
Which day of the all-star game is the most boring?
1-HR Derby (Monday)
2-All-Star Game (Tuesday)
3-Nothing (Today)

Even though the game was extremely slow and boring last night (and I only watched about 4 innings), I am voting for HR Derby day as the worst of the 3 day all-star break. Honestly, I would rather have a day like today with no sports on at all than having to listen to Chris Berman and watch the pathetic fringe stars in the HR Derby. This event is truly for kids 12 and under, which is fine, but I couldn't watch much more than a few minutes of it. It's also painfully long! I kept thinking I tune back in to check on who made the finals but the first round took over 2 hours!! This should be a 60-90 minute event, let them all hit once and whoever hits the most wins. The drama is totally gone after that point, so why waste your time.

Finally, to totally shift gears once again, I'm starting to get a real positive feeling about this Gophers club in 2010. I'm not 100% sure why I am feeling this way at this point, but I am. I really think it's another bowl team in 2010 and I'm expecting some major offensive improvement. I can't quite put my finger on it yet, but this team is going to surprise a lot of people this season.