Countdown to Kickoff – Week 5

UT looking to pick up pieces after Kiffin

With the team having its third head coach in as many seasons, Tennessee might seem like a program in shambles.

But new coach Derek Dooley believes he has the talent in place to prove his doubters wrong and return the Volunteers among the SEC’s elite – success he predicts could happen as early as this season.

“There are going to be bumps along the way; there always are,” he said at his introductory press conference. “But I can assure you we are going to forge ahead, we’ll always be growing and developing as a program, and I’m excited about what the future holds at Tennessee.”

Dooley landed the Tennessee coaching post after the team’s 2009 coach, Lane Kiffin, went to USC.

Where Kiffin was flamboyant and sometimes had a knack for putting his foot in his mouth, Dooley is far more conventional and close to the vest – lessons he learned from his father, former longtime Georgia coach Vince Dooley.

“I’m not going to sell this program and what we’re about to do in a sound bite; it’s impossible,” Dooley said. “I can tell you this — everything we’re going to do is going to be with a foundation of integrity in every aspect of the program … We’re going to be a fun team to watch — by how we compete, the effort that we give, the togetherness and spirit that we play with.”

Aside from his father’s 20-plus year stint in Georgia, the younger Dooley does have SEC experience of his own.

He served as an assistant to Nick Saban when he was at LSU from 2000-2004.

When hired by Tennessee, Saban applauded the Volunteers’ decision and said Dooley will immediately make the Volunteers and the SEC better.

“Derek is a very articulate, bright guy. He’s a great coach and a hard-working guy,” Saban said. “He was always a very good recruiter in college, which I think is paramount if you’re going to have success as a college coach.”

In his first season at the helm, Dooley takes over a Volunteers’ team that went 7-6 last season with the Kiffin regime.

For the team to find a winning record again in 2010, quarterback play will likely be paramount.

The Volunteers lost last year’s starter Jonathan Crompton to graduation, which left unheralded junior college transfer Matt Simms to battle true freshman Tyler Bray in spring drills for the No. 1 job.

Bray, who graduated high school a semester early in order to participate in the spring, has initially outshined Simms and pulled into the lead, thanks to an 18-for-40 outing with 200 yards and a touchdown in the team’s spring game.

Simms was 12-for-26 with 125 yards, a touchdown and three interceptions.

But despite the wide discrepancy in the two’s stats, Dooley isn’t ready to name a starter just yet.

“This game is always kind of tough because, especially in our situation, Matt and Tyler are kind of different in the things they do well,” Dooley said. “It’s hard to really shape a game plan to fit their strengths. That’s why you don’t want to put too much on this game.”

No matter who the team has at quarterback, the Volunteers will return a large portion of a defense last season that ranked in the Top 25 in the country.

But the team lost all-world safety Eric Berry to the NFL Draft, and also lost their defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin to USC.

But the Volunteers’ returning standouts like linebacker Austin Johnson and safety Darren Myles believe the team will rally together in the face of the team’s offseason adversity.

“We had to adjust to a new coaches and different schemes,” Myles said. “Through all the adversity we stuck together and we got through it and motivate each other … We still have some work to do, though.”

University of Tennessee

2009 Record: 7-6

Starters Returning: 14

Key Returners: Safety Janzen Jackson, linebacker Austin Johnson and safety Darren Myles

2009 STATS

Scoring Offense: 29.3points per game

Scoring Defense: 21.7 points allowed per game

Total Offense: 383.4 yards per game

Total Defense: 336.5 yards allowed per game

Cardinals starting new chapter without Warner

Kurt Warner to Anquan Boldin.

It was a connection that hooked up an average of 86 times a season from 2005-09.

The one-two punch also netted the Cardinals more than 1,000 yards of offense in four of the past five seasons.

But Warner has retired and Boldin was traded to the Baltimore Ravens this offseason, leaving many to wonder if the once explosive Cardinals offense will pack any punch in the 2010 season.

But according to incumbent starter quarterback Matt Leinart, the Arizona faithful should have no worries heading into the new season.

“We’ve been building every day, and we’ve gotten better every day,” Leinart recently told the team’s website. “I’m real happy with the way the team has progressed.”

In theory, Leinart was originally scheduled to be the team’s starter by now.

The team used the No. 10 pick in the 2006 NFL Draft to select the former USC standout. But a combination of a lack of progression from Leinart and Warner’s seemingly ageless right arm kept the Super Bowl champion under center.

But Warner has hung up his cleats, and it’s Leinart’s time to shine – for better or for worse.

The former first round pick has made 17 starts in his career but has thrown more interceptions than touchdowns in those games – a stat the quarterback is anxious to fix.

“I can’t wait,” Leinart said. “I kind of want to just jump-start to the season and play. I just know that it’s coming to me a lot easier than it ever has.”

Cardinals’ coach Ken Whisenhunt agreed and said the entire team has looked sharp in offseason workouts.

“I’m very pleased with our attitude and our attention to detail,” he said following a recent practice.

But while the loss of Warner makes the Cardinals a little uneasy, Boldin’s departure isn’t quite as cumbersome, according to Whisenhunt.

For the past several seasons, the wide receiver has battled injuries and a contract dispute with the organization, which made the team finally decide this offseason that it was time to part ways with the receiver.

In Boldin’s absence, the Cardinals will rely more heavily on their two-headed rushing attack of Beanie Wells and Tim Hightower, as well as receivers Steve Breaston and Early Doucet.

That’s without mentioning the team’s No. 1 receiver Larry Fitzgerald, who has caught 293 passes in the past three seasons for 35 touchdowns.

“We have some very good players that we can do a lot of things with,” Whisenhunt said. “To me, that’s very exciting.”

Despite the offensive question marks, it might be the Cardinals’ defense that needs a little fixing.

The team ranked No. 20 in the league in total defense in 2009 and allowed more than 20 points per game.

To beef up their defensive interior, the Cardinals drafted highly touted defensive tackle Dan Williams with the No. 26 pick in the NFL Draft.

Williams, who is expected to immediately start on the Cardinals’ front four, said he is looking forward to boosting the team’s defensive numbers, which will in turn hand back the ball to Leinart and the team’s playmakers.

Many ranked the defensive tackle as one of the top 15 players in the draft, so it was a surprise he was still on the board for the Cardinals at pick No. 26.

“I think it was a blessing in disguise,” he said. “I’m now going to be able to come to a good, playoff team with great players around me … That can help me have a successful career here.”

Arizona Cardinals

2009 Record: 10-6

Starters Returning: 18

Key Returners: Wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, halfback Tim Hightower, cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie

2009 STATS

Scoring Offense: 23.4 ppg

Scoring Defense: 20.3 papg

Total Offense: 344.4 ypg

Total Defense: 346.4 yapg

Sam Houston goes for five in a row against the Colonels

When Sam Houston State heads to the Bayou to play Nicholls State Oct. 9, the Bearkats will attempt to drive for five.

Five straight wins over the Colonels, that is.

Despite Sam Houston’s success against Nicholls, the Bearkats have finished with losing records and in the bottom half of the Southland Conference Standings in consecutive years.

And with only 11 starters returning (4 on offense, 7 on defense), Nicholls may have their best shot to break through against the Bearkats at home in 2010.

The Colonels will be pleased to see the departure of last year’s starting quarterback Blake Joseph and running back James Aston who each scored three touchdowns in last year’s 44-21 thrashing of the Colonels in Huntsville, Texas.

The battle between seniors Bryan Randolph and Greg Sprowls to replace Joseph under center continues to ensue past spring football as Randolph went 9-for-15 for 86 yards and Sprowls went 8-of-12 for 57 yards in a lackluster spring game heavily dominated by defense.

“We’re still putting in a new offense, so of course the defense is going to be ahead,” said sophomore tight end T.J. Jones to gobearkats.com. “We’re still getting it down day by day, but slowly, we’re getting better and better.”

Couple the new players with the new system, and first year head coach Willie Fritz told gobearkats.com he was very disappointed with the display of football in Sam Houston’s spring game.

“I tell these guys all the time that every day is an interview, every day’s an evaluation. The best way we can evaluate them is what they do on the football field,” said Fritz. “Some guys took advantage of it and did a very nice job and some guys didn’t.”

Sam Houston’s 2010 offense may be in the same boat its defense was in last year.

Under first year defensive coordinator Scott Stoker in 2009, the Bearkats instituted a blitz-oriented defense and struggled to stop anybody last season.

“Last year, we started off bad because we had a lot of new people like me and the other freshmen and new coaches and new plays,” said sophomore defensive back Kenneth Jenkins to gobearkats.com. “Since we already knew the plays coming into this spring, it is easier. We are making plays. If we would have been at this point last season, we would have won more games.”

Even though Sam Houston’s defense dominated its offense with four sacks and 15 tackles for loss in the spring game, the Bearkats averaged giving up 33.7 points per game and 423.6 yards per game last season.

With 10 fumble recoveries and 11 interceptions, takeaways were Sam Houston’s only saving grace last year for a defense that allowed 6.6 yards per play.

But the Bearkats’ sophomore tight end is optimistic this year’s offense won’t need as much time to adjust to the new system as the defense did last year.

“From the first day of the spring until now, we’ve gotten tremendously better,” Jones said after the spring game. “We’ve just got to get the chemistry down and we’ll be fine by the fall. We’ve just got to hit the offseason hard every day and start getting more mentally tough.”

The Bearkats will open the season with Big 12 foe Baylor followed by three non-conference tune up games before they begin league-play against the Colonels.

Sam Houston State

2009 Record: 5-6

Starters Returning: 11

Key Returners: Defensive backs Kenneth Jenkins, Jarvis Pippins and Victor Carmichael

Coach: Willie Fritz (136-25-1; first year at Sam Houston State)

2009 STATS

Scoring Offense: 27.1 ppg

Scoring Defense: 33.7 papg

Total Offense: 368.4 ypg

Total Defense: 423.4 yapg