Hello folks, and welcome to your Christmas Eve edition of the Skull Session.
With the world of sports settling down for the holiday season, I'd like to thank Good Santa (aka Mark Henry) for defeating Bad Santa (aka Damien Sandow) to keep Christmas from being canceled.
Now that Christmas is saved, please make good use of it. Please don't shoot your eye out or lick a flagpole or do anything else you'd regret on the 26th.
PERMANENT BEAST MODE. Quite a few things can warm a person's heart at this time of year; family, faith, charity, and so forth. Warmest of all is Carlos Hyde shredding the hell out of every defense in 2013:
Mmm. That warm feeling will last until the new year.
URINE TROUBLE. And now for a different kind of warmth entirely. Boise State sent QB Joe Southwick home from the Hawaii Bowl on Friday for violating team rules. Southwick protested, taking his story to KTVB in Boise and shedding light on the nature of his suspension: urinating off the balcony at the team's hotel.
Southwick tells KTVB that, in fact, it was another player who had done it. He said he had gone out Thursday evening and when he returned to the hotel, he witnessed a player urinate off the balcony. He went to bed that night and it wasn't until the next the morning when he found out about the accusation.
A short time later, he was informed that he was being sent home.
It gets stranger: frustrated that he couldn't contact any administrators at the airport, Southwick later took a polygraph to prove his innocence and brought the test results to the interview. Boise State responded with boilerplate denying any wrongdoing.
Taking a polygraph is a drastic measure that makes a person look desperate, but if Southwick is telling the truth and he was railroaded for a he said/she said event, he's understandably pissed.
Kyle Orton: the Big Ten's inexplicable supervillain. BASKETBALL HOLDS STEADY. After a narrow win against Notre Dame, Ohio State men's basketball is now third in both the AP and Coaches' polls.
Ohio State was overtaken by Syracuse in both polls after a few weeks of losing ground. However, Ohio State could make its way back to second if Villanova beats Syracuse this Saturday.
Also notable: Wisconsin and Michigan State are still fourth and fifth. The Big Ten's top schools are showing their festive spirit.
HANDS OFF OUR COACH. Yesterday's Skull Session fretted over the US Military Academy headhunting Ed Warinner to be Army's new head coach. Good news: Army is expected to hire Jeff Monken of Georgia Southern instead.
This isn't the end of the speculation by any means. According to anonymous sources, the deal has not been finalized and an announcement may not come until after Christmas. Still, the odds of Warinner staying on staff are much higher than 24 hours ago.
Now that Warinner has popped up on the national radar as a potential head coach, it'll be tough to keep him in Columbus much longer. As long as he's here, his talents are appreciated.
LONGHORN POLITICS. Mack Brown left Texas on a bad note. For many around the Texas program, Brown's resignation was inevitable after several years of decline. Through Yahoo's Pat Forde, Brown's point of view on his departure has come out, and his resignation is much more contentious than first thought.
Brown had been expecting to return in 2014 after a positive meeting with new athletic director Steve Patterson. Less than an hour later, that all changed:
The source told Yahoo Sports that Patterson arrived at the football building with a jarring change of heart for Brown: You need to resign. That was the decision of University of Texas president Bill Powers, and Patterson was the apologetic messenger. The source said Powers, a longtime friend and supporter of the football coach, abruptly yanked the rug out from beneath Brown after supporting his continued tenure the previous two days.
Thus the 16-year Mack Brown Era at Texas was terminated not by the coach himself, but at the insistence of an embattled school president. Although the school's official release and every public statement has said Brown decided on his own to step down, he was pushed – after being told the decision was his.
Whoever the source for the story is has access to specific details of Mack Brown's departure and discussions with Nebraska, which means it's Brown or a very knowledgeable person who is incredibly supportive of Brown. Hmmm. That's probably Mack Brown.
There's more there about Powers surviving a power struggle and how it may have affected his support of Brown. When Texas hires a new coach, he'll have to sign onto Texas's brand of cutthroat politics. That's the one thing that could drive people away from the most coveted position in college football.
BOBCAT TRICKERATION. Ohio fell to East Carolina in the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl, but it went down admirably with playcalls like a double reverse pass:
All the style points are yours, Bobcats. 'Tis a pity they don't convert to actual points.
LINKS AHOY. Wisconsin's Melvin Gordon will return for his junior year... Notre Dame plays no Big Ten teams in 2015 for the first time in a century... The Detroit Free Press interviews Mark Dantonio about the Rose Bowl... Cincinnati-Louisville is a tricky rivalry to summarize... Why country music was awful in 2013... Michigan State had an awesome dunk versus Texas... Poor Ohio player gets a football to the face... Auburn's Gus Malzahn is the AP Coach of the Year.. Illinois coaches should only wear orange blazers... The city politics of the Atlanta Braves' relocation... OSU men's volleyball is 3rd in preseason MIVA poll, 12th nationally... And oh, how the times have changed.
