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Never thought I'd have Stefan Logan or Marc Mariani on my fantasy team. I'm becoming a Logan fan because of it.

I agree. I have made that same mistake myself. Anyway, I would have to say that the difference between Dan Uggla and Blake DeWitt at second base is probably going to be worth $11 million per year for the next five years. Depending on what the Marlins are asking in trade, the Cobs should probably look into it. I'm not necessarily against it, but I'm not a fan of giving out 5/58 deals to 30 year old guys. That said, it'd be a great deal if Uggla doesn't fall off a cliff. I'd look into it, but I seem to recall the Marlins asking for quite a bit recently for Uggla.

Yeah, not all colleges will be comparable to NFL teams, but I think the marquee ones probably are. Alabama, OSU, Penn State, Florida, Tennessee, LSU, USC, FSU, Miami, etc. would likely pretty easily be just as time consuming as an NFL job - just for different reasons.

Money isn't the issue, I don't think. Tennessee reportedly (that word being the key) had some level of interest in Gruden and Lovie Smith during their coaching search. I didn't think either were in any way realistic, but not because UT wouldn't pony up the money to get them - some booster definitely would. My skepticism there - and here - is whether the coaches would have interest in going the college route. It's very different from the NFL and, whether you believe it's more or less time consuming, takes up a ton of time.

Take my word for it...you are not impartial. The closer a conference is located to Alabama, the more highly they rate for you. Tim, your assertion that I rank football teams based upon geographic proximity to my home pisses me off a little, certainly the way you phrased it. Admittedly, the pac-10 has been better than I expected...i thought they would probably be the third or fourth best conference coming into the season. I'm just not seeing much to be impressed with in the SEC – and I'm a Tennessee fan. UT is bad, Georgia is bad, UK is mediocre, Vandy is awful, Florida is pretty average (offensively, at least), LSU is unbelievably lucky, Ole Miss is pretty bad. Even our top teams have real questions. Bama has no passing game, Auburn's defense is shaky, South Carolina is South Carolina and has Stephen Garcia at QB, Ryan Mallett likes to throw the ball to the other team and Mississippi State is improving but shouldn't be in the SEC top half. None of the conferences are great, but I don't see the SEC as better than the Pac-10.

Miles has been extremely lucky but look at the stats behind the LSU-Florida game. LSU is becoming a good team. They have one of the best defenses, if the not the best, in the country. They are a legitimate QB away from being a championship contending team. They should bench Jefferson and go with Lee for the remainder of the year....although Lee clearly isn't the answer. I don't like teams that have terrible QBs and less than stellar running games. Especially when that team needs to have Tennessee commit a penalty in order to beat UT, in Death Valley. The slightest bit less luck (and I mean really, really slight) for Les Miles and LSU is 4-2 with 2 SEC losses.

Is UNC all that good without many of their starters? The only wins they've gotten have been against really awful teams (North Texas and Presbyterian, an 0-5 Big South team). I think they're more talented than their record and it helps that they've lost all three games close, but losing to UNC's backups is bad.

And the margin of victory is very important at this point as well. I just really question a 6-0 team being behind a 4-2 team without a pretty significant SOS difference.

I didn't realize just how bad Clemson has been, so I'll give you that one for sure. Kentucky I'm not as sure about. I also don't really know how to take the Houston win since they lost 2 QBs in that game (though it was UCLA that put them out).

I'm not that familiar with UC-Davis, so that may well be true. Wouldn't surprise me much, to be honest – those are two bad teams (Ark St and ULM). I'll give you Clemson as well, I didn't realize quite how miserable they were. I don't know that CU or UCLA are that much better than Kentucky, though. UCLA has the best win (Texas) but otherwise they've been beating up on bad/mediocre teams and losing to teams they should lose to. To me, though, to rank a 4-2 team ahead of a 6-0 team, the 4-2 team should have a significantly tougher schedule and I'm just not seeing that from Cal. Better, probably. Much better? I don't see it. I will say the Pac-10 as a whole is probably better than the SEC this year. Unless Florida and Georgia get things on track, the only really good teams in the SEC are Alabama and maybe South Carolina and Auburn. LSU I don't count because of Les Miles' insane luck.

To do it 23 times in 32 years is impressive. Most of the coaches you mentioned had built up a huge amount of good will with their fan base and school, and yet were still forced out rather quickly after hitting their first patch of struggles – with the exception of JoPa. Like I said, Fulmer made the SEC Championship and was fired a year later. He did have 2 losing seasons in 5 years at the same time, but Jeff Fisher had 2 losing seasons in five years from 2004 to 2008 and is still the head coach. I just haven't seen the stability be that much better for college coaches than NFL coaches in recent years. If you're relying on your head coach to simply ride in at the end of a recruiting process to seal the deal and he does very little else, your recruiting probably isn't very good. Like I said, Kiffin, Chizik and Dooley (just to name three) have been out on the road as much as the assistants when they're allowed. Maybe other coaches aren't doing as much, but those programs probably aren't pulling in top classes either. The assistants do more, but the head coaches do a lot.

I don't see Cal's schedule being much, if any, harder than Auburn's. UC Davis is a good 1-AA, while Colorado and UCLA are bad teams (sorry Raisin). Nevada was a blowout loss and Arizona was a "good" loss, if you will. At the same time, Auburn has beaten South Carolina – as good or better than anybody on Cal's schedule. Miss State, Kentucky, Clemson aren't world beaters, however, and Auburn didn't blow them out, though I'd say all three are better than CU and UCLA. Arkansas State and UL-Monroe are little better than UC-Davis probably.

Wow, that Forbes article was way off – or else a lot of people got a lot of money since May of last year.

None. In May, 2009 Forbes had Fisher and Lovie Smith as the highest paid NFL coaches ($5.5 mil). I think Saban is close to the highest paid college coach at $4+ mil a year. Lovie was near the top a couple years ago, but I believe he was surpassed by a few guys since then. Shanahan is at the top at 7.5M according to forbes Didn't think about Shanahan. The article from Forbes I found was from early 2009 and I figured it'd be outdated. It was the latest I could find quickly, though.

In 32 years at Florida State, Bowden had 9 seasons of less than 9 wins and none of those were back to back until 2006 and 2007. He also had a streak of 14 straight seasons with 10+ wins. You'll coach for years with the same team in the NFL too if you're that good. JoPa has had 14 seasons with less than 9 wins in 44 years as the head coach. Five of those came in the past 20 years as scrutiny has increased and pressure got worse in the college game. Scrutiny of college coaches has increased 10-fold or more since it became as big money as it is and since the internet got going strong. There's no possibility of a coach at a major national program (South Carolina and Iowa don't really count as that to me) lasting 32 or 44 years anymore. Since 1990, Bowden had nothing but 10+ win seasons until 2001 and his seat got hot. The same for JoPa, the same for Fulmer, etc. Heck, Fulmer took the Vols to the SEC Championship game in 2007 and was fired after the 2008 season. I just don't think there's that big a difference in pressure at the major institutions anymore. The head coach isn't involved in recruiting trips? Lane Kiffin was out all the time visiting kids and as soon as Dooley was hired he hit the road. Gene Chizik has been all over the place recruiting players and visiting schools. College head coaches may do less work than the assistants, but they still do a whole lot of work year round (with the exception of dead periods). As for vacations after the bowl games, I'm not sure about that. As soon as the bowl games end (early January for the BCS teams, which Dungy and Cowher would assumedly be a part of) recruiting really heats up because national signing day is the next month. There's really no vacation time available.

According to fangraphs, DeWitt is a 2.4 WAR guy in his career. It would help if I could read. I looked at his last two lines of WAR and didn't look closely enough to whether it was 2009 and 2010 numbers or 2010 and career numbers. That's one thing I'd like to see improved aesthetically on Fangraphs – a line or something to delineate each year from career totals.

One of the top 2 pitching coaches in the game – behind Dave Duncan. Is there anybody else better?

None. In May, 2009 Forbes had Fisher and Lovie Smith as the highest paid NFL coaches ($5.5 mil). I think Saban is close to the highest paid college coach at $4+ mil a year.

Is it really more stability and less pressure at a major school? If you win at a very high level, the pressure and stability issues aren't there at either level. But if a coach at Penn State, Tennessee, USC, Florida, etc. struggles for a year, he'll be villified just as much as if he struggles with the Titans, Jets, Colts, etc.

Doesn't college football keep you away from home more? You'll have really late nights in both, but it seems like college would keep you on the road more due to recruiting visits. Am I wrong here? It seems like Dungy would prefer the level that kept him closer to home more of the time – though I think Dungy is genuinely done coaching.

I'm not so sure that is true of Gruden. First or second line? I'm almost positive he's not going to a college football team, but I could see where he'd be much less in demand than Dungy or Cowher.

The team is worse if you cut him tomorrow because there's no replacement. We'd have to spend money to find someone to replace him and that affects what upgrades we could make elsewhere.

Dungy, Gruden and Cowher are almost certainly not going to coach at the collegiate level – no matter the prestige of the school. Especially not since almost any NFL team would hire any of the three in a heartbeat.

Just a note, I didn't pick the stat, I was simply responding to the chosen stat. That said, if you look at WAR, Uggla has been anywhere from 2.4 (2007, his worst year offensively as well) to 5.1 (this year). DeWitt was a .8 WAR guy last year and a 2.4 WAR guy this year. Obviously you have PA issues there, though.

That was my point. Uggla is a much better player, but I'm not sure I want to pay him $10+ mil a year for five years.