Monday, links, blah, blah, blah

Gotta get to work -- in the meantime, here's some stuff you guys should probably click.

-- Cecil Hurt takes on Lane Kiffin, drawing a disturbing parallel between Kiffin and the economy.

Kiffin got the Tennessee job in the same way that sub-prime borrowers got huge home loans a few years ago. It was all done with high hopes that everything would fall into place in the magic world of “it will work out.” As we all know now, that doesn’t always happen.
Kiffin, right now, is living on credit. His fans are fired up, just like a family might be fired up about moving into a big house with a pool. He’s not expected to start making any payments for a couple of years. No realistic observers expect UT to win in Gainesville or Tuscaloosa in the upcoming fall.
It’s fine, UT fans seem to be saying, if Florida and Alabama exact fierce interest payments on the checks that Kiffin’s mouth wrote this week.
In due time — and the hopes are all pinned on “great recruiters” — the theory is that things will be reversed. The notion that it might be better for Kiffin to spout off when he actually has something to spout off about is viewed as sort of “old-fashioned.”
Perhaps it will work. On the other hand, it might be that relying on the “magic” of recruiters Lance Thompson and Ed Orgeron and the rest is something like Wall Street’s reliance on derivatives and junk bonds instead of the real bedrocks of success — in this case, good coaching and hard work. Until then, Tennessee’s coach wants to live like a millionaire on about $10,000 worth of proven talent.

-- A few more recruiting aftermath links: RBR discusses the importance of retaining recruits; Dr. Saturday points out a curious discrepancy in Alabama's highly-rated recruiting classes. I'll give you a hint: we're missing the same thing we've been missing since ... well, since always.
-- Because I've officially quit as a fan on the Alabama basketball, I'll cede yesterday's loss to LSU to Bama Hoops. I did watch the first few minutes of the game, and I was struck by how poor this team is from a jump-shooting perspective. I can't remember following a basketball team on a daily basis that shot this poorly as a team on a night-in, night-out basis. Seriously, if my brother Whit walked on at Coleman this afternoon, he would by default be the the best shooter we had. That's not a joke.
Via Mr. SEC, Paul Gattis checks in with his midseason prediction review. Not surprisingly, we were all badly wrong.
-- BSR tells us about the new stadium expansion. Also, because I am a shameless thief, I'm uploading the image of the completed stadium below.



--Finally, Alex Rodriguez apparently tested positive for steroids. More proof you should never lie to Katie Couric.