In search of: Meyer's marbles

    Urban Meyer is in serious jeopardy of passing Lane Kiffin.
    Florida's head football coach went off on a sportswriter - it's heresy, I tell ya - for a remarkably innocuous comment made by a player.
    Meyer all but threatened the Orlando Sentinel's Jeremy Fowler, denigrated him, and pretty much made Kiffin look like a statesman.

    And here are the paragraphs "in question" with the comment from wideout Deonte Thompson on the difference between Florida's former quarterback and the new starting quarterback:
   "For all Tim Tebow's accomplishments, he didn't exactly spread the ball around during his final year in Gainesville. Senior wide receiver Riley Cooper and tight end Aaron Hernandez accounted for almost 50 percent of the passing offense.
    "You never know with Tim," Thompson said. "You can bolt, you think he's running but he'll come up and pass it to you. You just have to be ready at all times. With (John) Brantley, everything's with rhythm, time. You know what I mean, a real quarterback."/    That was it. In fact, it wasn't as story, it was a notebook. Two paragraphs out of seven.
    And it's the truth, though Thompson obviously could have used a better word: normal, typical, etc.
    Nobody has ever accused one of the greatest players in college football history of being a real quarterback, or normal quarterback, or just another player.   
    Nobody has ever accused Tebow of being a typical QB, one for whom a team barely tweaks its defensive scouting report.
    Anybody in the 22 percent with passable reading comprehension and 19 percent with passable football comprehension knew exactly what Thompson meant:
    "Instead of having the most run-happy quarterback in history, we have a normal quarterback."
    And this is Meyer's fight? A simple statement, albeit incorrectly worded, that Tebow likely spent not a second worrying about?
    Well, he did spend more than a second on it. He addressed it, and did so like, you know, an adult.
    "I don’t think Deonte meant anything by that. He was just stating facts. Brantley is a guy who throws on timing. You know when the ball is coming and when it’s not.”
    Tebow said it before speaking to a Boy Scouts of America function in Palm Beach, Fla., which led to more gutless flaming on the boards.
    Still, Meyer threatens the guy? "If that was my son, we'd be going at it right now."
    Great. The head coach of the University of Florida has the patience of a Little League parent? And we know that Little League parents need a timeout on a regular basis.
    "I told you five years ago: Don’t mess with our players. Don’t do it. You did it. You do it one more time and the Orlando Sentinel’s not welcome here ever again. Is that clear?”
    This was messing with his players? Gee, how pissed off must he have gotten for coverage of sexual restraining orders and burglary and using the credit card of a dead person and assorted battery incidents?
    Meyer goes off on this?
    Naturally, the anonymous morons of the message board went back and forth.
    One CBSsports.com nincompoop blathered about he'd want his kid to play for Meyer because of how he stood up for his players.
    Dude, all coaches stand up publicly for their players, especially when, ya know, standing up for is called for. Find one who hasn't. This was bad judgment and embarrassingly handled.
    Another went down the simpleton's road, that the media was making something out of it. Nooo, it was two friggin lines in a story, and they weren't taken out of context. It wasn't an entire story based on one quote, it wasn't blown up. Well, by anybody except Meyer, because nobody heard of the story until his meltdown.
    "I'm from New England, but I've gotten to see a bit of this coach on TV. He is a genuine class act." Yeah, because sound bites are accurate portrayals of people. Brilliant.
    When the aliens take over this planet - and they will - one reason will be because message boards and comment sections showed a level of idiocy that made us an easy target. 
    If our species could read the lines remotely as well as it tends to read between the lines, it'd be unbelievable.
    That Tebow's NFL career as a quarterback is clearly debatable - and I'm a Tebow backer -  backs up Thompson's view. And when Tebow went down in the middle of the season, there was plenty of raving that Brantley was actually as highly touted and that the Gators would be fine.
    Brantley, in fact, went 27-1 as a high school starter and, uh, broke the state touchdown pass record Tebow shared with ex-FSU quarterback Xavier Lee.
    To be sure, Tebow and Meyer made for one of the oddest couples in sports in a long time.
    And this little tantrum is a sign that yes, Meyer should have stayed in that timeout.

THIS IS MUCH BETTER?
    Usually, the NFL inspires some faith that it's possible to get it right more often than not.
    And then comes the new overtime rule for the playoffs, where it's hoped that the coin flip is less of a determining factor.
    Say we have Atlanta and Carolina tied. Atlanta wins the toss, takes the ball, kicks a field goal, and kicks off.
    If Carolina gets six, it wins. Three and they keep playing under normal sudden-death rules.
    If Atlanta gets the first possession and scores a touchdown, game's over. Carolina gets nothing.
    That's stupid.
    Points are points, and why can you win by six and not by three? Why give the second team a chance after a field goal? Why change the flow and strategy so drastically?
    I keep reading and reading, and I don't get it.
    How did they blow it so badly?
    Simple: both teams get the ball at least once, no matter whether one gets three - hey, nobody mentioned a safety! - or six, and if it's tied, next points win.
    Of course, nothing is simple.
   
LOUGHDMOUTHINGS    Wonder if the soon-to-be-ex Mr. Sandra Bullock has gotten any texts yet from the possibly-soon-to-be-ex Mr. Elin Nordegren. ...
    Paul Hewitt decides to stay at Tech and calls a 9:30 p.m. press conference Thursday?
    Really? 9:30?
    Judgment like that is why Techies want him out. ...
    Sadly, Cornell couldn't pull off the upset Thursday night in the NCAA Tournament, and fans of underdogs aren't the only one disappointed.
    "We've got eight seniors on this team," Cornell's Louis Dale said during the week, "and we want to take this ride as long as we can, because after this it's just nothing but babies and memories." ...
    There's the great coin-flip debate about overtimes and the tremendous impact on the flip-winner's success, yet again, nobody has a better idea.
    Do like baseball and give the visitor's the ball first? Find a statistical equation?
    If they'd have done the tiebreaker right in the first place, the coin flip wouldn't be so huge. ...
    Wonder if the soon-to-be-ex Mr. Sandra Bullock has gotten any Masters tickets yet from the possibly-soon-to-be-ex Mr. Elin Nordegren. ...
    Wow: North Carolina had to play its NIT game last week in old Carmichael Arena, which now seats 6,822, because the Dean Dome was getting fixed.
    And Bob Molinaro of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot has an idea why:
    "Evidently, they were removing the lids from the baskets."