UTEP introduces Sean Kugler as new head coach

By John TaylorDec 10, 2012, 4:54 PM EDT
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Exactly three weeks after Mike Price decided to retire from the coaching game, UTEP has found a replacement.

At a press conference Monday, UTEP introduced Sean Kugler as the Miners new head football coach.  Kugler heads to El Paso after coaching the Pittsburgh Steelers offensive line the past three seasons.

“We’re so pleased to get Sean back at UTEP,” athletics director Bob Stull said.  “I’ve known him since he was a player here, including as a member of our 10-win team in 1988.  He has gone on to become a terrific coach, from working with our WAC championship squad in 2000 to being a part of the Boise State team that was undefeated in 2006 and coaching in the Super Bowl with the Pittsburgh Steelers.  He brings a lot of enthusiasm and experience and, most importantly, has a great love for UTEP and the city of El Paso.”

Kugler has spent 11 of the past 12 seasons at the NFL level, with stops in Detroit and Buffalo along the way.  He last coached at the collegiate level at Boise State in 2006.

Kugler’s hiring also marks a homecoming as the 46-year-old spent four seasons at the school as a player and eight seasons as an assistant (1993-2000), beginning as a grad assistant before moving on to tight ends and ultimately the line.

“I am extremely excited to have the opportunity to be the next head coach at UTEP,” Kugler said.  “I’m very grateful to Dr. Natalicio and coach Stull.  I’m hoping to build on the tremendous job that was done by coach [Mike] Price and his staff.  I have been the Miners’ biggest supporter from afar, and the job coach Price and his staff did was outstanding.  I can’t wait to work with the players in the near future.  I spent 13 years as a player and coach at UTEP and loved every minute of it.  I’m excited about starting a new chapter in my coaching career at a place that has so many fond memories.”

Urban Meyer’s wife apologizes after taking Twitter shot at Colin Kaepernick’s choices

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By John TaylorOct 17, 2017, 9:09 AM EDT
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The wife of one of the top head coaches in college football dipped her toes into an ongoing national controversy — and not long after attempted to un-dip them.

In reaction to news that Colin Kaepernick, who kick-started the anthem kneeling controversy last season, had filed a grievance claiming that NFL owners colluded to keep him out of the league, Shelley Meyer tweeted “What-ever, he made his choices.”  The tweet from the personal Twitter account of the wife of Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer was quickly deleted.

She also tweeted, in response to one of her followers stating that “I would take Tim Tebow over him any day,” “A million times. No comparison.”

The original tweet gained enough traction pre-deletion, however, that Kaepernick’s mother used the same social media website to chide Mrs. Meyer.

Less than 24 hours after the mini social media maelstrom erupted, Mrs. Meyer offered up somewhat of an apology/further explanation for her original tweet.

Arkansas starting QB Austin Allen could miss another couple weeks

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By John TaylorOct 17, 2017, 7:33 AM EDT
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It appears Arkansas will be without its starting quarterback for a while longer than just one week.

An injury to his right (throwing) shoulder in the Week 6 loss to South Carolina knocked Austin Allen out of the game.  After some initial uncertainty in the week leading up to the Week 7 game against top-ranked Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Allen was indeed ruled out for what turned into a 41-9 loss.

With No. 21 Auburn up next, Bret Bielema all but ruled the senior out of the Week 7 matchup.  Additionally, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has reported that Allen could miss up to three more weeks after being sidelined last weekend.

“If it came to a point later in the week where he could practice Thursday, I think there’s merit to (Allen returning this week),” Bielema said. “Where he’s at right now, I’d say we’re still a couple of weeks away, but Austin is a guy who surprises a lot of people and if he can go and do things, it’s a positive for us.”

Should the three-week timeline come into play, he would miss the AU game as well as contests against Ole Miss and Coastal Carolina before returning for the road trip to LSU Nov. 11.

If Allen is indeed sidelined, Cole Kelley (pictured) would again take his place.  Making his first career start, the redshirt freshman completed 23-of-42 passes for 200 yards, one touchdown and one interception on the road against the vaunted Crimson Tide.

Butch Jones says the most Butch Jones quote of all time

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By Zach BarnettOct 16, 2017, 6:49 PM EDT
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It’s become a theory among some in the media that Butch Jones is conducting a social experiment or participating some sort of performance art. While that’s the more charitable and fun interpretation, I tend to think the Tennessee head coach is just frighteningly insecure and, thus, fighting for every inch of public approval he can in a likely doomed attempt to keep his job.

That approach has backed him into some verbal corners that, in the long run, make his job more difficult on himself.

I’m talking about the “Champions of Life” quote of last season or, in February, actually stating that he didn’t want 5-star players, he wanted 5-star hearts.

This season has seen Jones go on an odd rant blaming the media for negative recruiting and saying Tennessee had one of the best bye weeks ever last week.

It wasn’t one of the best bye weeks ever, because Tennessee lost at home to South Carolina, 15-9. And you’re not going to believe Jones’s explanation for why Tennessee loss. Scratch that. You will believe his explanation, and that’s the problem here, isn’t it?

Here’s the full quote.

Jones is 33-24 in his four-plus seasons in Knoxville, and 14-21 in the SEC. Those numbers will likely fall to 33-25 and 14-22 after Saturday, when the Vols face No. 1 Alabama. The end is likely near.

And here’s the grand irony of Jones’s everything’s-sunny-here p.r. strategy: his attempt to keep his job by stating blatantly cliche quotes in the state of the obvious will live on much longer than Jones’s actual tenure. Two and three years from now, when Jones is working on someone else’s staff or sitting on his buyout money, the next time an on-the-hot-seat coach says his team won the game everywhere except the scoreboard, we’ll see he Pulled a Butch.

Houston Nutt settles lawsuit with Ole Miss

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By Zach BarnettOct 16, 2017, 5:37 PM EDT
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Houston Nutt wanted money and an apology from Ole Miss. He’ll have to settle for the second of the two — and a largely different future for the program he used to lead.

It was Nutt’s lawsuit, remember, which exposed the documents that led to a Mississippi State fan finding Hugh Freeze‘s call to a Tampa escort service, which led to Freeze’s resignation, which led to… we have no idea what it will lead to, but, whatever that future is, it will be wildly different than if Freeze was still the Rebels’ coach.

Nutt amended his lawsuit in August to seek simply an apology from Ole Miss, and that apology finally came on Monday.

Each side released their own bitter, short statements.

Nutt will go on, with his apology but without any monetary compensation, while Ole Miss will play out the string of this season, hire a new coach, and move into a future that will be immeasurably different that the one it would have lived had it apologized to Nutt in the first place.