Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy has become the latest petty dictator coach to excercise complete and total power and restrict where a player can transfer.

This time it's quarterback Wes Lunt, a former four star recruit who started several games as a freshman at Oklahoma State, before deciding he wanted to transfer this spring. So what was Gundy's response when Lunt told him he wanted to transfer? Gundy told Lunt that would be fine, but that he wasn't allowed to transfer to any Big 12 school or any school that was presently on future schedules. That's a pretty standard restriction. If that's where Gundy's transfer restrictions ended, this wouldn't be a story. 

But those restrictions weren't enough for Gundy, no, he had to exercise complete and total dictatorial powers. 

He had to punish a player with the temerity to leave his program. 

Gundy also restricted Lunt from transferring to any SEC or Pac 12 school. Southern Miss too, where offfensive coordinator Todd Monken has recently taken over the head coaching job.

Talk about petty.

Last night ESPN demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt why it desperately needs real competition. Because if you had to give a letter grade to ESPN's live coverage from State College, Pennsylvania you'd need a grade worse than F. To say that ESPN dropped the ball does injustice to the cliche. Last night ESPN was to live news television what sex with a blow-up doll is to sex, a pale imitation that is completely humiliating to anyone who considers it as an option.

But maybe I'm being unkind, if your goal was hearing non-ESPN reporters call-in from the scene of rioting last night then you were well on your way to great coverage. Nobody turns television into radio better than the worldwide leader.

How bad was it for ESPN? Gregg Doyel of CBS's live Twitter feed was more compelling content than anything ESPN could muster.

His. Twitter. Feed.

This was, perhaps, the biggest live story in college sports history and ESPN was utterly incapable of providing any semblance of decent coverage. ESPN was bad that anyone with a brain flipped over to CNN and watched a British woman with no clue about American sports completely dominate the "worldwide leader in sports." We haven't seen a sports upset like this since Chaminade took down Ralph Sampson's Virginia.  

I don't hate ESPN, and I don't have a vendetta against the network. In fact, as you'll see in a Kirk Herbstreit profile piece going up later today, I like a lot of their guys and gals, but this was pathetic. Every time I come to expect more, ESPN shows me why I should actually expect much less.  

Like most of you I watched the Board of Trustees press conference this evening. It was riveting television. For about twenty minutes homer Penn State media peppered the Board of Trustees spokesperson John Surma with a barrage of insulting questions. It was insane. You halfway expected for someone to throw a shoe at Surma, who acquitted himself admirably.

Truly, it was amazing television.

We'll have more on this tomorrow on OKTC, but in the meantime, here is the full press conference for those who missed it.

Enjoy.

And thanks to @andtinez for sending me this link on Twitter. You can follow him here.

Where are the adults at Penn State?

Where are the leaders who are willing to take a prominent stand and say that anyone who knew about Jerry Sandusky's acts and didn't pass that information along to the authorities needs to be fired? Why is justice, so long deferred in Happy Valley, still taking so long? If Joe Paterno had given a car to a recruit, he'd be fired immediately. Yet he helps to cover up a child molester for decades and he gets to go out on his own terms? What kind of strange, through the looking glass world, have we really entered in college athletics?

One of the major issues with college sports is that NCAA violations are often treated as immoral acts. We use terms like guilt or innocence when discussing whether or not a rules violation has occurred. When A.J. Green, or Jim Tressel, or Dez Bryant or Bruce Pearl commit one of these violations, the sanctimony that ensues is akin to that of a major crime being committed. Justice, many argue, must be done. But NCAA violations aren't major crimes at all and NCAA sanctions aren't really justice. They're just rules that were broken. Rules that, in the NCAA's case, are often arbitrary, capricious, and designed to ensure that the poorest among us remain, throughout their entire college careers, the poorest among us.

Any reasonable fan should have a real issue with crimes against the state or country being penalized less than NCAA violations. And right now Joe Paterno and Penn State are guilty of such a high level of lack of institutional control that a child molester was using their locker room as the scene of his own crime spree. It makes you long for the good ole days of SMU.  

And yet nothing is happening to send a message that this can't be allowed.   

Jeff Anderson, a plaintiff's attorney who has represented thousands of sexual abuse plaintiffs over the past 28 years, told OKTC this afternoon that he'd already been in contact with some of the alleged victims of Jerry Sandusky. "Right now we are working on this," Anderson said, "that much I can tell you. We're receiving calls from family members of the victims and consulting with them." Asked whether a civil complaint against Penn State, coaches and administrators was forthcoming, Anderson declined to comment further.

But he did discuss in great detail the unfurling scandal at Penn State and the potential fallout of any civil lawsuit. "This situation is perfectly analogous to all the Catholic church cases I've litigated," Anderson said. "People at the top protected the institution at the peril of children. Here the coaches and administrators of Penn State were acting just like the bishops, cardinals, and archbishops of these dioceses. The same moral and legal quagmire exists. Penn State protected the football program's reputation instead of the children."

He said that Sandusky's alleged acts, just like the Catholic priests, were both "cunning and careful."

As a result, Anderson said, "They (Penn State) clearly face severe legal exposure for institutional failure. They are liable for these incidents."

A Twitter storm erupted this morning when South Carolina president Harris Pastides said that the SEC would be moving to nine conference games in 2012. The SEC immediately shot down Pastides' comments, stating that there had been no discussion about moving to nine conference games. But Pastides didn't make one errant comment. He also said the league had promised to reimburse schools for the loss of one non-conference game and even went so far as to say that one of South Carolina's four scheduled non-conference games in 2012 wouldn't be played. "Pastides only guaranteed USC would keep Clemson on the schedule but will break its contract with another nonconference team. In 2012, that means USC either won’t play Wofford, East Carolina or UAB as originally planned."

Based on the detail of these comments, it seems unlikely that Pastides simply made all of this up. There has to at least be a discussion taking place about nine conference games. What's more likely than a complete absence of discussion on nine conference games is that the SEC office is trying to keep word of a potential nine game conference slate from leaking publicly due to the universal opposition of coaches and ADs to the additional SEC game.  

Hell, in some seasons this could mean that the Florida Gators, for example, might play seven road/neutral SEC games (five road games, the Cocktail Party, and a potential SEC title game). It also calls into question the scheduling strategies of teams like Kentucky. The Wildcats have advanced to bowl games each of the past five years by buying three guaranteed wins and then beating Louisville. Then all Kentucky needs to do is get to 2-6 in conference and it's bowl eligible.

The second-tier SEC teams are completely opposed to an additional conference game because it makes advancing to a bowl game nearly impossible for them.  

Joe Paterno's career at Penn State needs to end before this season does. And everyone else who helped to cover up serial child abuser Jerry Sandusky needs to be fired too. This evening the athletic director and former vice president stepped down. But this disturbing child serial rape case is far from over. It's the Catholic church abuse case meets college football. Before we go any further you need to read the Attorney General's report for yourself. You cannot have any opinion about what needs to happen at Penn State until you read this report. Most media, with the exception of Yahoo's Dan Wetzel who got me to read it, are completely ignoring the details. As a preliminary, it's graphic, grotesque, and will make you sick to your stomach. But you need to read it to see what a real moral issue in college athletics looks like.

All too often NCAA violations are trumped up as true moral failings. Jim Tressel, Bruce Pearl, Butch Davis, you name any fired coach in the past twenty years and what they did all pales in comparison to what Joe Paterno did.

In reality, they aren't moral failings at all, they're just broken NCAA rules. Which many of us, including me, feel like are already immoral anyway.

What Joe Paterno did was a moral failing of the highest order.

Yesterday I spent several hours on Alabama's quad and didn't see a single violent incident. Alabama and LSU fans all seemed to be getting along well. But if you put enough people in close proximity and everyone gets really drunk, the recipe for a brawl is there.

And judging from this, there were lots of people involved. Whether any of these guys ended up being the 400 or 500 fans Tuscaloosa police predicted to be arrested, I'm not sure.

Somebody can Zapruder film this brawl better than me. But it appears some enterprising guys took advantage of the confusion to snag a few free beers.

But it looks to me like several of these guys have stronger legs than Alabama's kicker. (Or Jordan Jefferson for that matter).

Tuscaloosa, AL

Last year Les Miles exorcised the Nick Saban demons with an upset win in Baton Rouge. This year he proved something that once would have seemed impossible: he's a better coach than Nick Saban. What other conclusion can you draw from Miles' 3-2 record against Nick Saban and Alabama? Two consecutive seasons Las Vegas and the college football experts have told us that Nick Saban's Alabama team was superior to Les Miles's LSU team. And two consecutive seasons Les Miles's team has outplayed Alabama's team down the stretch to snag victories. 

Only this year there wasn't a damn bit of luck or Milacles -- Les Miles miracles -- involved.

We don't know if Les Miles ate any grass at Bryant-Denny Stadium, but we know this, his team sure kicked some ass.

The Mad Hatter coached against Nick Saban straight up, call for call, play for play, quarter by quarter, minute by minute and they were all square through sixty minutes. Then came overtime and then Miles and LSU emerged the victors on the road in front of a defense that many were calling the greatest in college football history.

Remember when LSU fans were furious at Nick Saban for leaving them for the Miami Dolphins and then taking over at Alabama two years later? Now they're just happy as hell that Les didn't leave for Michigan back in 2007.

by Zach Bingham aka, the guy manning the @theoktc Twitter account.

This Saturday will once again solidify why the south dominates the world of college football. LSU – Alabama is no doubt the most anticipated game of the year and with CBS getting their wish of moving this epic battle to primetime, ESPN will sadly weep in the corner with one eye open.

Amazingly, lots of you who read OKTC hate the SEC. Earlier this year our man JT gave you a reason to hate every school in the SEC.  His article was wildly popular. Yet, if anything, the SEC hate has only grown since then. That happens when the two best teams in the country are still in the SEC even after five consecutive national titles. Come Saturday millions of people who would just as soon the entire South drift away from the rest of the country -- a modern day Mason Dixon line would be somewhere South of Cuba -- will tune in to CBS to watch the two best college football teams in the country decide who the 2011 national champion will be. 

Update: Now the country has even more reason to hate LSU and Alabama, they're playing twice.

Lots of these haters -- we've ommitted the z for now -- will find it difficult to choose a side to root for or against. 

So OKTC has simplified things for you by creating a handy hater's guide for LSU and Alabama. Once you decide on a side to hate, go ahead and print off our drinking game guide for LSU-Bama as well. You'll be all set to be an angry drunk.

Now, as a preliminary, we don't hate either of these schools -  in fact, I personally like them both -- but we do know that many of you pick a side by first choosing who to hate.

 So without further ado, here's a hater's guide to the biggest college football game in SEC history.