Smack Zone — Football

Tom Brady joined Peyton Manning, Dan Marino and Bret Favre as the only QBs in NFL history with 400 or more TD passes. (Illustration: Steve Hill) Three games into what might have been a four-game suspension, were it not for a judge in New York, Tom Brady seems determined to make the league pay for the Deflategate fiasco. It's been eight years since Brady, at age 30, blasted through the NFL record book to become the first quarterback with 50 touchdown passes in a season. At age 38, coming off a spring and summer of court appearances and embarrassing -- and ultimately, still unproven -- accusations by Commissioner Roger Goodell, Brady is wrecking dudes. A 51-17 victory Sunday against the Jaguars was no surprise, actually. As long as tight end Rob Gronkowski is upright, and as long as Brady's right arm stays limber, New England will post big, big offensive numbers against lesser opponents like Jacksonville. What is mildly surprising is that Brady has not been merely good, or even very good. Or even great. He has been just about perfect. Through three games, he has nine touchdown passes, a 72.2 completion percentage and 1,112 passing yards. Oh, and ZERO interceptions. And by the way, even as he tears through yet another early season, he's smashing all-time milestones. How's 400 touchdown passes? Not bad, especially when you consider his elite company: Dan Marino, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning. Now, he and the Patriots take a little breather with an early bye week before heading out for back-to-back road games against the Romo-less Cowboys and scuffling Colts. Frankly, the game we're waiting for is Nov. 29, Pats at Broncos, Tom at Peyton. That looks to be the only potential loss on New England's schedule, except for one detail: Brady is 11-5 lifetime against Peyton. We're looking at history here, folks. The Tom Brady Revenge Tour rolls on, and there seems to be very little the league can do to stop it.    

[caption id="attachment_1091" align="aligncenter" width="474"] At UT's Neyland Stadium, there is orange. And there is white. It is arrayed in a checkerboard pattern. It does not seem to affect what happens on the field of play in any way. It's pretty, though.[/caption] Saturday afternoon at the Swamp will see a “blue out” for the Tennessee vs. Florida game. After beating Kentucky for the 29th straight time last week (you read that right), Florida looks to take down Tennessee for the 11th straight time. The SEC will have its eyes on this contest, as the winner has the upper hand in the race with Georgia to win the SEC East. Florida is trying to confuse Tennessee QB Joshua Dobbs by having the blue out. With so many blue shirts in the stadium, and blue uniforms on the field, how will Dobbs know where to throw the ball? The Swamp will be a no orange zone Saturday afternoon. Lots of teams utilize the crowd as an intimidation method. Or to try to rattle opposing players. Either way, not sure it is so effective. Penn State had a white-out last year against Ohio State, and ended up losing in OT. The white-out forgot to block for Hackenberg. Last week, Tennessee used their traditional checkerboard to rattle Oklahoma. They ended up blowing their largest lead ever (17 points) and wound up losing in double OT. At least it looked really cool. We will see how intimidated Tennessee is coming to an all blue stadium.  

Well, here we go again! Lane Kiffin just can’t stay out of the news. He had a pretty solid and drama-free year last season at Alabama. He probably thought to himself “I need to fix this.” But ... Along came the Internet on Thursday. Rumors swirled yesterday that Kiffin was fooling around with Nick Saban’s daughter, or the wife of a prominent Bama booster, and was about to be fired or resign. These are all rumors that haven’t been proven. And they came in the wake of a silly loss against Ole Miss. And Kiffin just seems to attract controversy wherever he goes. It's like some kind of freaky law of football nature. Got Lane? Got trouble. This just brought to mind some of Kiffin’s worst moments as a football coach. Namely, the end of the chapters at Oakland, Tennessee and Southern Cal:

1. His time as the Oakland Raiders head coach lasted just one season-plus. Oakland went 4-12 his first year, and Al Davis wanted to fire Kiffin on the spot. Things got ugly after that. He was fired four weeks into his second season and had a final record of 5-15. There was a war of words in the media between Davis and Kiffin. Davis referred to Kiffin as a “flat-out liar” who “brought disgrace to the organization.” *mic drop*

2. The University of Tennessee head coach ... who can forget his one year in Knoxville? He had a couple of shining moments during his year. He called out Urban Meyer for a potential recruiting violation, but while Meyer did nothing wrong, Kiffin actually made a mistake by naming the recruit by name, which is illegal. He also said that if Alshon Jeffrey went to South Carolina, he would “end up pumping gas for the rest of his life like all other players from that state who had gone to South Carolina.” Whoops! I guess Jeffrey, the NFL, the Chicago Bears and millions of fantasy players disagree with that. Oh, and he bolted to USC after one year, which caused Vols students to riot and set small fires on campus. Stay classy, Lane!

3. Head coach at USC --  We guess Lane learned a couple lessons, because his time at USC was fairly quiet even for him, and the longest tenured job he had. USC was entangled in the whole Reggie Bush scandal when Kiffin took over, so the team wasn’t bowl eligible in any of his years there. In 2011, his second season, the Trojans went 10-2, but it was all downhill after that. In 2012, Kiffin became the first coach to take the preseason No. 1 team to unranked at the end of the season. We're no experts, but that’s not very good. The next year, after a blowout loss to Arizona State, Kiffin was fired at the airport after the game. USC couldn’t wait to fire this guy!

The life and times of Lane Kiffin. Never a dull moment. He even got the harshest Tosh.0 treatment we can remember for an SEC offensive coordinator. This video is bleeped, for the most part, but it is NOT SAFE FOR WORK because there are other, un-bleeped words that generally are uttered by Lane Kiffin's employers after a month or two. But first, Daniel Tosh's official statement on the ongoing controversy, courtesy of the miracle of Twitter:

for the record, i have never slept with a booster’s wife, a coach’s wife, or saban’s daughter. i only have eyes for lane kiffin’s wife.

— daniel tosh (@danieltosh) September 24, 2015

Without further ado, the Tosh.0 Lane Kiffin epic (again NSFW, people!): [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TvJy2Ot48M]

Florida hosts the University of Tennessee Saturday. Once upon a time, that meant Steve Spurrier would be in his element. The undisputed king of college football smack cut his teeth at UF on former UT coach Phillip Fulmer's backside: "You can't spell Citrus [Bowl] without U-T." He made mincemeat of Peyton Manning. "I know why Peyton came back for his senior year. He wanted to be a three-time star of the Citrus Bowl." Spurrier's swagger at Florida always seemed calculated to give the Vols an inferiority complex. It worked, you know: Prior to coming to South Carolina, he was 9-4 against Tennessee -- including five in a row in 1993-97. The Ole Ball Coach even turned the non-existent rivalry between South Carolina and the Vols into something. Since taking over the Gamecocks, Spurrier is 5-5 against UT; before he came to Columbia, South Carolina was 2-19-2 all-time against the Vols. But no one outside of Knoxville and Central South Carolina cares about Gamecocks-Volunteers. This is about the Gators and the Vols, and about Spurrier's delicious habit of smacking down his old rivals. Which brings us to this week. Florida-UT no longer carries the luster it once did. The national title is not on the line this weekend. The Gators will turn the Swamp blue tomorrow, but so what? It's just not the same as when Spurrier prowled the sideline, scowling and chucking his visor and generally wearing his arrogance like a comfortable old pair of boots. Let's revisit some of the all-time great moments in Spurrier history, shall we? It'll probably be more entertaining that tomorrow's UF-UT game -- unless you're really into blue. WATERMELON [caption id="attachment_1095" align="aligncenter" width="400"] That is a MIGHTY good watermelon.[/caption] NEARLY THREW IT [caption id="attachment_1096" align="aligncenter" width="443"] He wanted to throw it. See? He does have self-control.[/caption] DEAL WITH IT [wpvideo qGkhPqsX] SO ... YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE? [caption id="attachment_1100" align="aligncenter" width="360"] Yes. YES![/caption] CAPTION THIS [caption id="attachment_1101" align="aligncenter" width="267"] I betcha I could win a Super Bowl in Washington ...[/caption] STILL GOT IT [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkOIAD2eI0A]

Meet 7-foot, 440-pound John Krahn, perhaps the biggest football player of all-time http://t.co/5goEgQcaIv pic.twitter.com/fP9gLURUUT

— MaxPreps (@MaxPreps) September 24, 2015

Aaron Gibson might have met his match. America, meet John Krahn, a 7-foot, 440 pound (!!) lineman. Oh, just in case you were wondering, he is a senior in high school. He is one of the largest human beings on earth and still has to ask permission to use the restroom at school. Gibson is widely considered the largest NFL player of all time, at 6-foot-9, 410 pounds. Krahn only started playing football in high school, so he’s a long way from that NFL dream. If that doesn’t work out, he could be the next superstar for the WWE. He is bigger than the Paul “the Big Show” Wight, and we’re sure with a last name of Krahn, he can come up with a good wrestling name. Just off the top of our heads, King Krahn would fit the bill. We don’t envy any of the high schoolers that have to go against him. As soon as the ball is hiked, he can probably just reach and tackle the QB without breaking a sweat. California high school football players beware the NEXT BIG THING! King Krahn has been crowned (hat size: we’d guess about a 9, give or take a ¼). [caption id="attachment_1086" align="aligncenter" width="197"] Gilbert Brown had a burger named after him in Green Bay. Another professional aspiration for King Krahn.[/caption]