FanHouse June Jones

Look, I'm not the one saying Charlie Weis is underpaid. It's the fine folks over at Coaches Hot Seat who claim that the best-paid coach in college football isn't making enough. Notre Dame's head coach makes $4.2 million a year, but Coaches Hot Seat says he ought to be paid $5.25 million.

Where do they get off saying this stuff? They didn't just pull that number out of thin air. Coaches Hot Seat figures that a coach should be paid 7.5% of his school's football revenue. Why 7.5%? I don't know, but they claim that the average coach takes in 7.61% of the team's football revenue, so their numbers seem reasonable. Still, take all this with a grain of salt.

Weis is getting shafted by more than a million bucks a year, so is he the most underpaid coach in college football? Nope. Not even close. The school getting the biggest bargain, as measured in sheer dollars, is Georgia. Few can argue with Mark Richt's record as the head Bulldog and, at $2.2 million a year, he probably doesn't remember what ramen noodles taste like. CHS says he ought to be getting just under $5 million. Mack Brown? Underpaid. Jim Tressel? Ditto.

The list of underpaid coaches doesn't stop there.

And it only took 20 years to admit the problem! With an assist from a soapless Heisman Trophy finalist and the best coach in school history leaving them for SMU.

Check out this video documenting the school's decrepit athletic facilities ("In the locker room there are missing ceiling tiles, broken soap dispensers and inoperable fire alarms. In the weight room you'll find damaged Olympic weights, cracked upholstery on machines and broken equipment.")

The funny part is that even though the Warriors won the WAC this year, they've still got Boise State on the brain. Whatever, at least they're finally allocating some money to address the situation. I'm guessing that's the only reason cameras were allowed to show the mess in the first place, now that Hawaii can stand up and say "change is coming".

(H/T: The Wizard of Odds)

Notes on a trip to the NFL Scouting Combine.

Moments after I talked to the enormous Delaware quarterback Joe Flacco, I spoke with the tiny Hawaii wide receiver Ryan Grice-Mullen, who says he's 5-foot-10 and 187 pounds but has me wondering whether he's padding his resume by an inch or two.

But what Grice-Mullen lacks in size, he makes up for in intelligence. He talked about the way the offense run by former Hawaii coach June Jones prepared him for the NFL because it has such a great emphasis on the receivers' ability to read defenses.

"From Day 1 in this offense, you don't see the field unless you can read defenses," Grice-Mullen said.

That Hawaii passing game has four players here at the Combine: Grice-Mullen, fellow receivers Davone Bess and Jason Rivers and quarterback Colt Brennan. I think Grice-Mullen is the best prospect of the bunch, and I think Brennan's stock is tumbling, but Grice-Mullen has Brennan's back.

"He's been criticized since he got to Hawaii," Grice-Mullen said of Brennan, "I definitely think he will succeed because of his heart and his love for the game."

A look at the 2007 junior class as players decide whether to enter the 2008 NFL draft.

If you're a wide receiver, you need to view the Hawaii football program as a sinking ship right now. With the departure of coach June Jones and quarterback Colt Brennan, there's really no way to know what kind of team, and especially what kind of offense, Hawaii is going to have next year.

So it's no surprise that two Hawaii junior receivers have declared for the 2008 NFL draft. First it was Davone Bess, and now it's Ryan Grice-Mullen, who made his announcement today.

I don't see either one as a great NFL player, but I think Grice-Mullen is a better prospect than Bess. Grice-Mullen has better speed and can probably make a better transition from the Jones attack to a standard NFL offense.

If the situation at Hawaii were different -- if he knew who his quarterback and coach would be -- I might feel differently. But as it stands, Grice-Mullen is making the right decision by turning pro.

See the full list of 2008 NFL draft early entries.

Only two days after leaving paradise, former Hawaii head coach June Jones wrote a letter to his friends listing several potential replacements.

However, in a letter to friends, Jones has mentioned several possible successors with local ties. They include New York Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride, Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Norm Chow, San Jose State coach Dick Tomey, Texas assistant coach Duane Akina and Hawaii linebackers coach Cal Lee.

If you're a fan of the New York football Giants, you're probably doing some sort of ritualistic prayer dance, hoping beyond hope that Gilbride gets his name called.

While the Giants offense was good enough to get them to the playoffs, the playcalling was consistently inconsistent and a major Achilles heel of the team all year. And although there were a few glimmers of hope, it's become blatantly obvious that Gilbride is not the right man for the job.

Could he be a good college head coach? I wouldn't bank on it, but I doubt any Giants fans would feel remorse for Hawaii if they took him off their hands.

And with that said, here's the Gilbride landing a coaching job in the Aloha State.