Something’s Askew in Tampa

 

I should be anywhere in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater right now but my hotel out by the Tampa airport. The weather’s nice, my work is done until the start of tomorrow’s Outback Bowl.

But I have no car.

So I’m watching the Iowa-Ohio State men’s basketball game in the hotel bar with three other Iowa media mopes. And it’s not good basketball.

I might as well be home. Of course, if I were home I’d be doing something else. Maybe even driving. My car.

OK, the second half was surprisingly good. Instead of getting their brains beat in, as it appeared they would when they trailed 30-15, Iowa made a game of it. But lost.

Darkness has descended on Tampa. It’s time for a sportswriter covering the game to have a light meal and spend the rest of the evening in quiet contemplation over what is to come tomorrow at Raymond James Stadium.

New Year’s Eve? That’s for other people.

University of Florida: Championship Central

Gainesville, Fla. — So I ran up here today from Tampa with Gazette photographer Jim Slosiarek to do stories for Gazetteonline.com and Wednesday’s Gazette on Dan McCarney.

The former Iowa State head football coach is in a happy place for a coach, namely the staff of the University of Florida. Iowa State, which showed McCarney the door two Decembers ago after he put in 12 years there, tries to spin straw into gold.

Florida takes gold and tries to turn it into … gold to the nth degree, I guess.

Urban Meyer’s football team practiced just a half-block away from the O’Connell Center, where the Gators men’s basketball team had a rare mid-week day game against the Stetson Hatters.

A banner attached to the gym reminds anyone who didn’t know around here that the Gators were 2006 and 2007 national champions. The arena seemed pretty modest to me, and the gathering for Florida’s 78-57 win over Stetson, of DeLand, Fla., just north of Orlando, was announced at 10,007.

There weren’t that many people there.

You walk just another hundred yards or so over to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, a.k.a. “The Swamp,” and you see banners reminding you Florida won the national football championship in 2006, as well as in 1996.

The Swamp

They’re kind of greedy here.

Oh, the football complex attached to the stadium got a $28 million renovation this year. McCarney was generous enough to give us a quick tour of the complex, and let’s just say Iowa State and Iowa can’t quite compare – with the best of their football facilities put together.

The weight room has more video screens than a Best Buy. Most college weight rooms have motivational phrases posted on walls. The phrases are on the video screens here. Kids relate better.

McCarney showed us a strip of artificial turf in the weight room where players are videotaped practicing their starts off the line of scrimmage. They see what they did and didn’t do immediately after the fact.

They have a big meeting room where the team eats together after home games and watches a big-big-big screen replays of the wins they have just collected.

Florida is in another national-title game on Jan. 8. Gee, I wonder how the Gators keep getting such good recruits. Winning tradition, fantastic facilities, ideal weather, a state with fields full of primo football players.

Yep, the Gators are due for another national-championship. They haven’t had one in two years.

South Carolina Players Know Iowa – Most of Them, Anyway

Drew Tate, an old favorite of South Carolina linebacker Eric Norwood

TAMPA, Fla. — When two teams get thrown together in a bowl game, they often don’t know a lot about each other or where they’re from.

Monday, I asked several South Carolina Gamecocks what they knew about Iowa Hawkeyes football and the state of Iowa in particular. The first answer I got gave me pause, but others saved the day.

“Iowa potatoes, that’s about it,” said USC defensive tackle Nathan Pepper.

But Pepper didn’t know the reference when I asked him if he was related to Sgt. Pepper of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club fame, either.

Most of what I got from Gamecock players was respect for their peers from a time zone to the west.

“I used to watch Iowa games when I was in high school,” said Carolina linebacker Eric Norwood. “Drew Tate, all those guys.

“I actually liked Drew Tate. He was from Texas and I moved from Dallas, Texas. So I was a big fan of Drew Tate. And they used to have Matt Roth, (Jonathan) Babineaux and those guys. I’m very familiar with them.”

Carolina wide receiver Moe Brown said “When I was in high school I used to watch Iowa a little bit. I used to play Iowa on my game system. Just because they had good ratings. They had a pretty good receiver and quarterback — I can’t recall their names right now.”

USC center Garrett Anderson said “There’s a lot of history there.”

“I’ve always known them to be very hard-nosed on defense. Big linebackers that just love to hit, big defensive linemen that are very physical.

“I think of home-grown guys. Guys who grew up on the farm, big men, physical guys. That builds a different football team.

“We look forward to playing these guys because where we come from there’s not a lot of teams like that.”

USC cornerback Stoney Woodson made an official visit to Iowa State before signing with South Carolina. His memories of the Iowa trip:

“It’s a lot of fields, really, stuff like that. I know a lot of good names come from Iowa, like Bob Sanders.

“Big people, you know? Big and physical. Big Ten, right?”

Brown has never been to Iowa. His mental image of the state is “A bunch of open fields. Country. Cold.

“I hate the cold. I despise the cold. One of their players was saying it was negative-2 when they were leaving Iowa. I can only imagine that.”

Gamecocks offensive tackle Justin Sorensen made no bones about it. He didn’t know anything about Iowa. He said something about it being on the “flip side of North Dakota,” or something like that.

“I’m from Canada, anyway,” Sorensen said. “I don’t really know a whole lot about Iowa. It’s Midwest, right?”

Vancouver Island, B.C.: Home of one SEC football player

Sorensen is from Vancouver Island, B.C., a fabulous place. He is one of only three non-Southerners on South Carolina’s roster.

“I wanted to play in the SEC and this was my only scholarship offer from there,” he said. “When I was in high school I thought the SEC was the best conference in the country, and I still do.”

Hlas Column: Gamecocks Coach Spurrier Not Too Cocky These Days

All our Outback Bowl stuff can be found at http://www.hawkeyebowlgame.com.  But I’m offering this for those who bookmark straight to the Hlog. Those people, if I haven’t said so already, are the best people on the planet.

Steve Spurrier: The Man

TAMPA, Fla. – It’s funny. Steve Spurrier has been called brash throughout his coaching career, but he sounds positively sedate compared to some of his South Carolina players.

A coach comes off a 7-5 regular-season and two severe whippings from Florida and Clemson, and he knows better to flap his gums.

But his players have come to Tampa for the Outback Bowl talking like they’re somebody. The 56-6 thrashing they suffered on Nov. 15 at Spurrier’s old school, Florida? It’s old news. The 31-14 beating they took at state-rival Clemson two weeks later? It’s washed away.

“I thank the fans who’ve been with us through the good and the bad,” said USC senior wide receiver Kenny McKinley. “Just know that better days are coming. It’s going to start when we play Iowa.”

Maybe. But you won’t hear a similar pledge from the Ol’ Ball Coach, as he’s known down here.

Spurrier was the master of the universe when he coached the Florida Gators from 1990 through 2001. Oh, the days and nights were sweet in Gainesville.

His record was 122-27-1. There were seven Southeastern Conference titles, six appearances in the Top Five of the Associated Press’ final rankings. And, there was a national championship in 1996.

Seeking a new frontier, Spurrier spent two undistinguished seasons with the NFL’s Washington Redskins, then took a year off. He is now in his fourth year at South Carolina, and guess what? Winning is harder at some places than it is at Florida.

Spurrier relates to Iowa’s situation.

“In the Big Ten,” he said, “Ohio State’s always going to be there. Michigan should always be there. Then there’s a lot of schools in the middle.

“Yeah, we’re probably one of the schools in the middle.”

None of the other 11 SEC fan bases are feeling sorry for South Carolina only being ordinary the last four seasons, 28-21 overall and 15-17 in the league.

Ten of those fan groups remember how Spurrier used to trample them. The other is Florida’s, which is looking forward at a second national championship game under Urban Meyer instead of backward at the monster Spurrier created there.

Spurrier rankled Tennessee and Florida State ruthlessly when he was the Gators’ boss. He famously said you can’t spell “Citrus” without the “UT,” meaning Tennessee mostly went to Florida Citrus Bowls and the such while he was piloting Florida to five Sugar Bowls and two Orange Bowls.

But four years in at USC, and this Outback Bowl is the most prestigious of the three postseason games South Carolina has attended under Spurrier. And the 7-5 Gamecocks are here only because Tampa had no one more desirable from the SEC to pick.

“Last year we lost our last five,” Spurrier said Saturday after his team’s practice at Jefferson High School in Tampa. “We’ve only lost two in a row right now. So we’re a lot better off than we were a year ago.”

He said his goal is South Carolina’s first SEC title. They dreamed bigger at Florida.

“It always comes down to a bunch of good players and so forth,” Spurrier said.

“I believe that every now and then you can have that special year that win a conference championship. Now y’all – (former Iowa quarterback) Brad Banks, did he win (the Big Ten title) that year? They won the Big Ten that year?

“OK, that was a special year. We’re trying to have one of those special years where it all comes together.”

But to hear a couple of his Gamecock players say it, the special stuff starts Thursday in Raymond James Stadium at the expense of the Hawkeyes.

Friday night, both teams gathered in a Tampa convention center ballroom to fill themselves with Outback Steakhouse food. The size of Iowa’s offensive linemen impressed McKinley.

“I’m like ‘Golly! … NFL. A lot of guys were 6-7 and just big.”

From left to right, Iowa’s starting O-linemen stand 6-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-5 and 6-7. Their average weight is 302 pounds.

South Carolina defensive end Jordin Lindsey (Getty Images)

McKinley may have been wowed by those tall slabs of beef before he enjoyed his steak, but Lindsey claimed to be indifferent.

“You think my head was turning after playing Florida and all those guys?” he said. “No, man, I’m not worried about it.

“We’ve been going up against good offensive lines all year. We’re not worried about them. They’ve got a good team, and we’ve got a good plan for them.”

Iowa All-America Shonn Greene is “a good back,” Lindsey conceded. But “We’ve been facing good backs all year. We’re not stressing about it.

“As long as we can keep him behind that line, we’ll be fine.”

If you’d heard some bravado from Spurrier, you might be swayed South Carolina is poised for an upset. But when players who lost a game by 50 points last month talk boldly, we still need more proof the Gamecocks have game.

Lightning Shares No Glory with Gamecocks, Hawkeyes

Just about everywhere the Iowa Hawkeyes football team goes, it gets some love.

That includes all its road games. At least some Hawkeye fans are there to offer encouragement before, during and after the games.

But Saturday night at a Tampa arena named for a St. Petersburg newspaper, the Hawks and their Outback Bowl foes, the South Carolina Gamecocks, got cold shoulders from National Hockey League fans.

Midway through the second period, the two teams were announced as being present at the Florida Panthers-Tampa Bay Lightning game. The only noticeable cheers from the crowd of 18,226 came from the teams’ own small pockets of players and support staff. Some in the crowd booed. Most just yawned.

Every year, the Outback Bowl has a “team night” at a Lightning game. Every year, a handful of players show up. Linebacker Pat Angerer was one of the few recognizable Hawkeyes.

Iowa got a big block of upper deck seats, views that would be lousy for basketball, but were quite good for hockey. A few of the players seemed captivated by the game, but most were more interested in overpriced food items from concession stands.

Iowa defensive coordinator Norm Parker stayed for the entire game. Two rows in front of him was a young man who wore a hockey helmet for much of the game. I asked a Hawkeye player if that man was a member of their team. He assured me it wasn’t. It was a relief.

Vincent Lecavalier, more popular in Tampa than any Hawkeye

More excitement came in the second period. A woman in the crowd was to win $1 million if a Lightning player scored with exactly 15 minutes left in the second period. Vincent Lecavalier, an NHL All-Star, scored for Tampa Bay seven seconds after the 15-minute mark passed.

The game was pretty darn entertaining. The Lightning won, 6-4. Everyone in the arena seemed quite excited about it, with the exception of the football players in the building.

The Iowa players will, presumably, be more enthused for their trip to Busch Gardens Sunday afternoon. Maybe someone there will cheer them.

Sunday is All Bucs, All Day Long in Tampa

Before I saw any Iowa Hawkeye fans here in Tampa for Outback Bowl week, I encountered a pair of Oakland Raider fans Saturday afternoon.

Neither were as divine-looking as the gentleman in the photo above. One wore the No. 24 jersey of Raiders defensive back Michael Huff. That was as far as the costume party went.

But make no mistake about it, some Raider loonies will be in Raymond James Stadium Sunday when 4-11 Oakland tries to spoil the playoff hopes of the 9-6 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. As horrible as their team has been for several years, some Raider fans seem to make it to all the road games to leave their indelible impressions.

Meanwhile, a shuttle driver told me that for the first time in the history of the NFL in Tampa, local fans will be rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Eagles eliminated Tampa Bay from the playoffs in January of 2000 and 2002, only to lose the NFC title game to the Bucs in January of ‘03. Tampa Bay went on to win the Super Bowl that year, a feat the Eagles have never accomplished.

But if the Bucs beat Oakland as expected, they’ll need Philadelphia to win at home against Dallas to put Tampa Bay in the playoffs.

If you say this doesn’t matter, you are anywhere but Tampa. The Outback Bowl was page 10 sports news in Saturday’s Tampa Tribune.

Television commercials are airing trying to drum up interest in Outback Bowl tickets. It’s pretty much a given that the South Carolina fans who do come down to Tampa are mostly going to be ones who stay just one night.

This game has had better matchups than two unranked teams, Iowa and South Carolina, with a combined nine losses. It’s had many better matchups.

But you know what? The Hawkeyes and Gamecocks should surely put on a more competitive game Thursday in Raymond James than what the Raiders give the hometown Buccaneers Sunday.

If that’s not the case, either one of the two Outback teams will have laid a big egg, or the Bucs will have stumbled around in their regular-season finale.

I’ll be at the Raiders-Bucs game to provide Gazetteonline.com and The Gazette a piece on former East Buchanan High/University of Iowa standout Robert Gallery, who will be finishing his fifth season — all losing seasons.

In fact, Oakland is 19-60 since it took offensive lineman Gallery with the second pick of the NFL draft, ahead of Phillip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger, to name a few.

Not to lay blame on Gallery. Everyone who follows a little NFL football knows the Raiders’ franchise has been fouled up for a long time.

A Spartan Practice Facility for the Hawkeyes

 

This is Pepin/Rood Stadium, the home of the University of Tampa Spartans and the Outback Bowl practice site for the Iowa Hawkeyes.

It’s not really spartan. The field’s nice enough and the facilities seem adequate. Although, it was a little unusual to see Iowa players wearing nothing but towels in the most appropriate of places as they walked from their dressing room to the shower area.

To get from Point A to Point B, they had to go outside. Luckily, it was about 80 degrees out.

“It’s Florida. I guess you can run around,” said U of I assistant sports information director Steve Roe. “Why the shower’s not connected to the locker room, I don’t know.”

While the towel act was unusual, it was same old Iowa otherwise. Media members were kept across the street from the practice field. I like to get chased away from a Hawkeye practice once per decade, and this decade is running out. So I walked up to the fence and stared straight at the field where Iowa players were, I don’t know, working on plays or something.

Ron Stewart, the retired deputy sheriff who has been the Hawkeye football team chief of security since early in the Hayden Fry era, got up to the fence in his motorized cart in about 3.2 seconds.

I’ve been on friendly terms with Ron for a long time. He seems like a good guy to me. But security is security.

I said “Ron, I just wanted to get away from that pack of sportswriters.” A reasonable point, to be sure.

But Ron replied “You made that bed, you’ve got to sleep in it.”

He had me there.

If any of you are on your way to Tampa for a few days of fun and a certain bowl game named after a certain steakhouse franchise, I encourage you to visit a certain Irish pub in downtown Tampa and tell Ron he’s doing a great job keeping riff-raff from spying on the Hawks.

That would be Four Green Fields. As you can see if you go to the link below, Ron and his wife Cara are said to be the temporary hosts at the pub. The second photo at this site has a photo of the couple, but I see no proof they’re doing actual hosting. Ron doesn’t leave his post long enough on these bowl trips for that sort of thing. The guess here is he was a good guest and left a favorable impression on the pub’s staff.

http://sportsfanengy.blogspot.com/2008/12/night-out-on-town_26.html

There is an 8-story residence hall next to the stadium Iowa is using, David A. Straz Jr. Hall, to be precise.

Now, I wouldn’t suggest South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier would stoop to such shenanigans, but shouldn’t the Hawkeyes have all those rooms searched for video equipment all the same?

Speaking of South Carolina … the Hawkeyes have four team buses for the entire week to take them to practices, bowl functions, and wherever they need to go. The bus company isn’t from Florida, but from none other than South Carolina. Greenville, to be exact.

I talked to a couple of the drivers — very nice men — and they assured me they are not Gamecock fans. One said he was a follower of the Georgia Bulldogs, and the other said he had no favorite team.

But he liked Clemson better than South Carolina.

If you’re into omens, the bus company is called Champion Coach.

http://www.championcoach.com/uploads/Default.asp?Category=265

Christmas in Transit – A Holiday I’ll Happily Forget

The above is the back of a 747. Where’s the rest of the plane? What am I, an air traffic controller?

I might have been happy to ride on the wing if I could have hitched a ride on the 747 that the Iowa football team and a cast of FOPs (Friends of the Program) directly from The Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids to Tampa, Fla., Wednesday for the Hawkeyes’ Outback Bowl experience.

Not too shabby, huh?

Well, if only a charter jumbo jet and a direct flight had awaited yours truly, Gazette sportswriter Marc Morehouse and Gazette photojournalist Jim Slosiarek on Christmas Day.

It was about 12 hours from The Eastern Iowa Airport to Tampa International, on three planes, three airlines, two delays including one in Chicago because the air conditioning (yes, the flipping air conditioning!) didn’t work in our American Airlines plane, and luggage that didn’t make it this far.

Christmas cheer isn’t going to bed on the first night of an eight-night odyssey wondering if I’ll ever see many of my earthly possessions again.

 

I think it might have been easier to fly to the Australian Outback than the Outback Bowl. My luggage is probably on its way to Australia as this is written, come to think of it.

There’s a lesson here involving sadistic travel agents and gullible newspaper folk, but I’m too tired to learn it.

The bowl coverage starts Friday. The Hawkeyes will meet the press at the University of Tampa following practice. Check back here and all over Gazetteonline.com for stories, blog entries, photos and video.

It’s nice to be in Tampa. It would be nicer with some clean clothes.

South Carolina Video – With New Added Commentary

Over the top? This? By about 500 feet.

But, Iowa fans, there are a few clips of Hawkeye highlights you’ll enjoy seeing again before the final ominous warning from the filmmaker.

Someone didn’t think much of the work of the Gamecock fan:

http://aneyeandaneer.blogspot.com/2008/12/video-off-base-at-south-carolina.html

South Carolina Loses Yet Another Player to Grades

Steve Spurrier has had his share of headaches lately

The following was cut-and-pasted directly from The State, the daily newspaper of Columbia, S.C.:

USC fifth-year linebacker Dustin Lindsey became the third Gamecocks’ player ruled ineligible for the Outback Bowl when the NCAA denied Lindsey’s appeal, sources told The State on Monday.

Lindsey, an Alabama native who failed out of school following the 2005 Independence Bowl before returning the following year, joins strong safety Emanuel Cook and offensive lineman Kyle Nunn. All failed to pass the mandatory six credit hours this semester required by the NCAA to be eligible for a bowl game.

Punter Spencer Lanning is awaiting word on his appeal.

http://www.thestate.com/gogamecocks/story/629534.html

Lanning, by the way, is the Gamecocks’ starting punter.

On this subject, a South Carolina faculty member isn’t thrilled with how Gamecocks athletes are being monitored as far as classroom progress. The link:

http://www.thestate.com/gogamecocks/story/629742.html

We told you about new Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin’s in-your-face attitude toward South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier.

Kiffin has swiped Spurrier’s quarterbacks coach John Reaves and strength coach Mark Smith, and is talking with bravado in response to Spurrier questioning whether Kiffin had taken the NCAA certification test to recruit before he began wooing players.

Kiffin said he got 39 out of 40 on the test and “I’d like to see what (Spurrier) got.”

Spurrier had his chance to return the fire Sunday and opted for tongue-in-cheek humility.

“I have always passed it,” said Spurrier. “Nah, I know he’s smarter than me. There’s no question about that. I barely graduated from college. I know I’m not the smartest guy out there. No big deal.”

Elsewhere in the Charleston Post and Courier story from which the above quote was borrowed, Spurrier says starting quarterback Stephen Garcia needs “to have that Tim Tebow attitude.”

Spurrier mentioned twice Sunday he’d like to hear Stephen Garcia sound a little more like Florida’s Tim Tebow.

“That ‘nobody’s going to work as hard as I am,’ Spurrier explained. “If Stephen Garcia says that, tap me on the shoulder. He’s got to learn how to work at it himself.”

The Gamecocks’ Outback Bowl game against Iowa will be played in Garcia’s hometown of Tampa. The Gamecocks will practice at Jefferson High, where Garcia starred.

“Really, he should be up to start the bowl game as a redshirt freshman. Not many quarterbacks get to do that,” Spurrier said. “I’m just trying to get him to learn his plays better.”

http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/dec/22/kinder_gentler_ball_coach65802/