Monday, January 22, 2018

NFL coaching changes 2017-2018

2/11/18 - Indianapolis hires Frank Reich as head coach
2/6/18 - Josh McDaniel spurns Colts and will remain with New England
2/5/18 - Detroit hires Matt Patricia as head coach
1/22/18 - Giants hire Pat Shurmur as new head coach
1/22/18 - Cardinals hire Steve Wilks as new head coach
1/20/18 - Tennessee hires Mike Vrable as new head coach
1/15/18 - Tennessee parts ways with Mike Malarkey
1/8/18 - Bears hire Mike Nagy as new head coach
1/6/18 - Gruden to return to Raiders
1/2/18 - Bruce Arians retires as Arizona head coach
1/1/18 - Bears fire John Fox as head coach
12/31/17 - Colts fire Chuck Pagano after six seasons
12/31/17 - Jack Del Rio out as Raiders head coach
12/4/17 - Giants fire Ben McAdoo as head coach

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Keith Jackson

Keith Jackson, the folksy voice of college football who for decades weaved backwoods wit through Saturday afternoon ABC broadcasts, has died. He was 89.

Jackson died Friday night, according to ESPN and other media outlets.

In a 52-year broadcasting career, Jackson covered a wide-ranging array of sports for radio and TV, including a rowing competition in the former Soviet Union, but he was best known as ABC’s voice of NCAA football — and for the homespun phrases he used in reporting it.

To Jackson, linemen were not guards and tackles, they were “the big uglies.” Running backs didn’t drop the ball, there was a “fuumm-bull!” Of an undersized player, he might say, “He’s a little-bitty thing, a bantam rooster. But he’s young. If he keeps eatin’ his cornbread, he’ll be man-sized some day.”

And, of course, there was “Whoa, Nellie!,” his signature phrase.

Or was it?

Strangers in restaurants, airports, stadium parking lots and downtown streets would sidle up to Jackson and bellow, “Whoa, Nellie!” Jackson, however, always maintained that he might have — might have, mind you — used the phrase a time or two early in his career but that mostly it was the work of impersonators, primarily Roy Firestone, who were responsible for the spread of the phrase.
“This ‘Whoa, Nellie!’ thing is overrated,” he said frequently. “There were all kinds of stories going around. People said I had a mule in Georgia named Nellie. Well, we had a mule in Georgia, but her name was Pearl.”

Despite his protests, however, Jackson enthusiastically proclaimed, “Whoa, Nellie!” in a beer commercial late in his career.


So entrenched in college football was he, though, that ABC wouldn’t let him retire the first time he tried. He announced before the 1998 season that it would be his last, that, at 70, he was tired of getting on airplanes. But he was back in the booth in the fall of ’99, the network having lured him with a promise of keeping him close to his Sherman Oaks home by restricting his assignments to the Pacific time zone. He finally called it a career after describing the Texas-USC national championship game at the Rose Bowl in early 2006.

Monday, January 08, 2018

2017 NCAA College Football

1/8/18 - Tagovailoa leads Alabama over Georgia to win national championship
12/3/17 - College Football Playoff committee picks Alabama over Ohio State
12/2/17 - UCF 62, Memphis 55 in OT /  Scott Frost leaves for Nebraska for 7 years, $35 million
12/1/17 - Jimbo Fisher leaves Florida State for Texas A&M (for 10 years, $75 million)
11/26/17 - Texas A&M fires Kevin Sumlin after six seasons
11/26/17 - Florida hires Dan Mullen away from Mississippi State
11/25/17 - UCLA hires Chip Kelly after firing Jim Mora
11/25/17 - Nebraska fires Mike Riley
11/25/17 - no. 6 Auburn upsets no. 1 Alabama
11/25/17 - UCF escapes USF 49-42 to remain undefeated

Saturday, January 06, 2018

Jon Gruden to return to Raiders

for $100 million.

The Oakland Raiders will sign Jon Gruden to one of the longest coaching deals in NFL history -- a 10-year contract likely approaching $100 million -- when it is made official Tuesday, sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter on Friday.

The length of Gruden's contract is not unprecedented. The Dallas Cowboys gave Jimmy Johnson (in 1989) and Tom Landry (in 1964) 10-year deals as well.

The Raiders have called a significant news conference for Tuesday, at which time they will introduce Gruden as the team's next coach, a league source confirmed to ESPN.

Gruden, who coached Oakland from 1998 to 2001 and has been working as an ESPN analyst, is returning to the Raiders to replace Jack Del Rio, who was fired after the regular-season finale Sunday.

Gruden will work under general manager Reggie McKenzie, who has turned down a request to interview for the Green Bay Packers' GM opening and is expected to remain with the Raiders, sources told ESPN.

Gruden will become the 12th head coach since 1960 to have multiple stints with one team, and the 16-year gap between jobs with the Raiders is the largest in NFL history for a head coach with the same team.

He had a regular-season record of 38-26 during his first stop with the Raiders and went 2-2 in two postseason appearances prior to being traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for two first-round picks, two second-round picks and $8 million in 2012.

He won Super Bowl XXXVII in his first season with Tampa Bay, and he has a career 95-81 record in the regular season while going 5-4 in the postseason.