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Making the morning rounds.
• Watch your back, Garcia. Quarterback Stephen Garcia started every game last year for South Carolina and seems entrenched for the next two, but the Orlando Sentinel caught up with Steve Spurrier last week and got the Ball Coach to admit he’d like to see a pair of freshmen push Garcia, who had no viable options behind him in ’09. (One of those freshmen, Dylan Thompson, is enrolled for the start of spring practice on Thursday.) Before Garcia, Spurrier had only had three entrenched QB starters in his head-coaching career — Shane Matthews, Danny Wuerffel and Rex Grossman, all strong Heisman contenders on top-ranked teams at Florida — and seems uncomfortable with the idea, generally: “Stephen should be able to hold his starting position, but I think last year was the only year I’ve ever coached where I had one quarterback and no matter what he did he stayed in the game. I still believe if a guy goes bad, you’d like to have someone else to put in.” [Orlando Sentinel]
• Mr. Suh goes to Indy. NFL Network analysts were noncommittal on the subject, doling out praise all around, but the Detroit Free Press declared Nebraska’s Ndamukong Suh the unequivocal winner of Monday’s combine showdown with fellow defensive tackle Gerald McCoy, who had been creeping up on and in some cases passing Suh as the No. 1 overall pick on mock draft boards. Suh clearly separated himself on the bench, pushing up 225 a whopping 32 times (sixth among all DTs) to McCoy’s pedestrian 23 reps, which drew the ire of NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock: “I was stunned that McCoy only did 23 reps. That tells me he hasn’t been in the weight room the way he should have been over the last three years.” At the end of the day, though, Mayock still rated McCoy as the better prospect. [Detroit Free Press]
• You could, I don’t know, give some of that extra cash to the actual players … The Conscience of the SEC, Paul Finebaum, uses his weekly column to decry rising salaries for assistant coaches, specifically the $750,000 in “ransom money” Alabama agreed to dole out to defensive coordinator Kirby Smart — a 108 percent raise over Smart’s 2009 salary — to keep him from bolting to Georgia or Tennessee. To Finebaum, this is “spiral[ing] out of control”; to the rest of America, it’s “market economics.” Take heart, Paul: Even as the highest-paid coordinator in the conference, Smart’s take is still well behind the record set last year by Monte Kiffin, who raked in $1 million to guide Tennessee’s defense to a slight regression from its excellent ’08 numbers under John Chavis. But that mark won’t stand for long. [Mobile Press-Register]
Speaking of Kiffin, another one has joined the staff at USC: Younger brother Chris Kiffin, 28, will leave his intern position at Nebraska to join father and brother as an administrative assistant in L.A. [Lincoln Journal-Star]
• Culling the field. Coveted Minnesota offensive lineman Seantrel Henderson continues to bide his time, but the other intensely sought, five-star prospect still waiting to put his name on a letter of intent, Ohio safety Latwan Anderson, has narrowed his finalists to West Virginia and Miami. Anderson cancelled an official visit to USC (he said his mom doesn’t want him that far from home) and instead scheduled a trip to Miami for this weekend. [Cleveland Plain Dealer]
Quickly … Now that he’s had a taste of playoffs at Division II North Alabama, Terry Bowden backs a postseason bracket for the big boys. … Georgia Tech quarterback Jaybo Shaw, who saw some playing time as a true freshman behind starter Josh Nesbitt, is transferring to Georgia Southern to play for new GSU coach Jeff Monken, a Tech assistant the last two years. … Stanford’s two-way fullback/linebacker, Owen Marecic, is likely to move to linebacker full-time in the Cardinal’s new 3-4 scheme, though he could still play on offense. … And Auburn’s annual event for junior prospects, “Big Cat Weekend,” is already making headlines after last year’s wild ride, this time just for appearing on the calendar again in May. Mmmm, that’s good branding.