SIX BITS: Cooper, Strong, Dorsey, Rivers & more

By Adam Silverstein
January 6, 2010

1 » Following up on a story OGGOA posted on Monday, the Texas Rangers have told MLB.com that they are still expecting Florida Gators wide receiver Riley Cooper to attend spring training in Arizona. “Yes, we do,” Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said on Tuesday. Though Cooper has said that the Rangers have not been in contact with him – “I must not mean that much to them.” – Daniels begs to differ. “We’ve been in touch with his agents,” Daniels said. “We intentionally gave him space and time while he was preparing for the SEC Championship game and the Sugar Bowl. Everything is still on track for him to report to Arizona. He has a decision to make but the lack of contact was out of respect, not from a lack of disrespect.”

2 » Though Louisville Cardinals head coach Charlie Strong cited the fact that he is African-American and married to a Caucasian woman as one of the reasons it was so difficult to break into the head coaching ranks, he does not want the onus of being a minority coach. “What you want to do is never put pressure on yourself to be like, ‘Hey, you have to be a pioneer,” Strong said last Tuesday.

3 » With an outstanding showing at the Under Armour All-American Game last weekend, Florida four-star defensive back commitment Demar Dorsey (Lauderdale Lakes, FL) took the opportunity to reaffirm his commitment to the Gators. Always being honest and holding that he was 60-80 percent committed to UF throughout the year, Dorsey upped that percentage to 90 after the game. Because of his honesty, Dorsey was previously considered one of the most likely Florida recruits to decommit, but he appears to be as much of a Gator as ever. Even so, he has chosen to visit the Tennessee Volunteers and is considering taking a trip to one of four other schools in order to make sure he covers all of his bases.

Check out the three remaining BITS after the jump…

4 » Alabama Crimson Tide wide receiver Marquis Maze said that in order for the Texas Longhorns to attempt and stop his team, they must cover the Alabama playmakers differently than Florida did. “If they are as cocky as Florida…yep, I think we’ll see the same thing,” Maze said. “Florida just tried to man-up, one-on-one. I guess they figured they had pretty good corners.” Maze had a career day against the Gators, catching five passes for 96 yards and five first downs.

5 » Florida five-star shooting guard commit Austin Rivers (Winter Park, FL) has begun writing a “hoops diary” for HighSchoolHoop.com, discussing his senior season, personal life college recruitment. Here is a short excerpt from his first entry: “Basically right now I’m still committed to Florida,” Rivers writes, “but I’m letting Duke recruit me because I like them a lot. […] I do keep in touch with the coaches. I just talk to them when I feel like I need a coach to talk to. I talked to coach [Billy] Donovan when Chandler Parsons hit that full-court shot on N.C. State. Man, that shot was just ridiculous! I called Chandler and congratulated him after that. Then I talked to Coach K after their big win over Connecticut.” Read the rest of Rivers’ entry here.

6 » Walk-on Joey Sorrentino may have earned the respect of his teammates and coaches when he was named a senior captain for the 2009 Gators football team, but he still didn’t get many opportunities to make an impact on the field. That continued Friday in the 2010 Sugar Bowl, where Sorrentino didn’t record a statistic in the game; however, the FOX viewing audience was treated to a montage about the special teams contributor, giving him a “dream ending” to his career.

3 Comments

  1. Mr2Bits says:

    With the whole race thing about Strong, the one thing I find to be funny is that he has poached all African American coaches from UF. He may not feel like he has to be a pioneer but his coaching staff is shaping up to be one.

  2. Well, his offensive coordinator is Mike Sanford – and that was his first major hire. Also, these are guys that he has worked closely with and are the least related to Meyer. Most of the other guys on staff have strong ties to him in one way or another. In the same respect, look at what Bill Parcells did when he took over the Miami Dolphins (just an example) – hired Tony Sparano, Paul Pasqualoni, Dan Henning, David Lee, etc. – all white guys. It is about who you are close with and who you are comfortable having work with you. I doubt Strong hired them simply because they were African-American, but that could be one of the reasons they were drawn closer while on the staff.

  3. Aligator says:

    you are right, we should have hired mike sanford, so maybe CS will be a good head heach after all, i am eating crow now …

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