Unverified Voracity: Vrooooom Edition

First... Yuck: "NASCAR Night Slated for Feb. 21 Contest vs. Illinois." Double yuck:

The RCMB finds this too easy to mock.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh...... Mike Davis certainly sounds like a man on his way out of Indiana:

Indiana head coach Mike Davis said Monday that a segment of Hoosiers fans want someone with closer ties to the school to be the program's coach.

"Indiana needs to have one of their own," Davis said during a Big Ten weekly media conference call. "They need to have somebody that's played here so they can embrace him. They need that.

"I'm not upset about it, not disappointed about it," said Davis, who graduated from Alabama and replaced Bob Knight in 2000. "I think they need that. I really do, because these players deserve better."

Leaving Indiana is always a good decision, but damn that's straightforward. Wonk points out Oracular Illini Observer Mark Tupper's latest in which he deduces that

there's a 99.9 percent certainty the Hoosiers will soon be looking for a new head coach.

This is doubly relevant for Michigan as Indiana is one of Michigan's most logical contenders for 2006 SG Patrick Beverly, who has stated he wants to remain close to home and expressed a preference for the Big Ten. Beverly's final four: Virginia, Indiana, Michigan, and St. John's. Davis's highly uncertain situation--unlikely to be resolved until the season's end--probably removes the Hoosiers from the running.

I ain't talking about Purdue... I FFed the second half. This makes me a bad fan, I know, but sometimes you just have to think of the blood vessels. Dear God, won't someone think of the blood vessels? Anyway: Jim Carty does his usual Drew Sharp impression; more highly recommended is Johnny's take.

Wise, that's the ticket. Michigan has to hire two coaches to replace Terry Malone and Jim Herrmann. Speculation on the boards is that Herrmann's replacement is going to be Steve Szabo, who was dumped by the Bills after a year coaching their DBs. Before that he was a volunteer assistant with the Patriots and spent nine years in Jacksonville coaching linebackers. The previous 25(!) years he was busy coaching various colleges. Of note:

• He's old: 63. Probably not going to interact much with recruits since he doesn't understand their hippin' and their hoppin' and would just like to relax with some jello pudding and berate his son THEEOOOOOO. Also a sign that perhaps he's a short-term hire and a coaching change is on the horizon.
• He's got vast experience--part of the old thing--coaching both linebackers and defensive backs. I'd expect he'd do some of both.
• Hey, he's got an instructional video: "Man Coverage Schemes." Much better than "Six Deep Zone Techniques."

What little I could find on Szabo on the Internets was positive for a team that went in the tank last year:

He's done a good job with Bills youngsters Terrence McGee, Eric King, Jabari Greer and Rashad Baker. Nate Clements, Troy Vincent and Lawyer Milloy have all struggled this year but I wouldn't blame that on Szabo. Clements is a "me" player who has underachieved, Vincent has gotten old, and Milloy's age has caught up with him as well. I'd like to see what Szabo can do with a better group of defensive backs in the future. Final verdict: Szabo should stay next season.

There's also an extensive article here with confirmation of the old:

ronically, the rigors of playing for Mendel Catholic were tougher than playing for the U.S. Naval Academy (one of his teammates was quarterback Roger Staubach), from which Szabo graduated in 1965.

An interesting hire that sounds like a good one on the surface.

Etc.: Weird: a fairly huge article from ESPN.com on Michigan... hockey? Yup.