Les Miles wants you to help him get to 110,000 Twitter followers. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

By Zac Ellis

A coach’s success on social media doesn’t always translate to success on the field, but some coaches are definitely winning the popularity contest on Twitter.

TulsaWorld.com ranked college football’s most followed coaches as of this morning, and the list might not look exactly as you’d expect. You can check out the complete rankings by clicking on the link above, but we’ve corralled some of the best tweets from the top-five most-followed coaches. As you can see, these guys are definitely worth a follow:

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He already has red and black stuff from Tampa Bay and Oakland! SO MANY THINGS MAKE SENSE RIGHT NOW. (AP)

Incontrovertible evidence that Mark Richt is on the hot seat, via none other than the Georgia athletic department:

Former Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Oakland Raiders head coach and current ESPN and ABC NFL analyst Jon Gruden will be the featured speaker at the 2013 University of Georgia Spring Football coaches’ clinic scheduled for Thursday, March 28 and Friday, March 29.

Bringing next offseason’s storylines to you a year ahead of time is just one of the many services we offer here at Campus Union. Have a great day.

Internet, you’ve got both feet down in the end zones of our hearts. Happy Valentine’s Day.

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Derek Dooley has posted an 11-14 record in two seasons as Tennessee’s head coach. (AP)

Gentle readers,

You are intelligent, good-looking people who do not need to be told that some college football coaches may lose their jobs this season. They will lose their jobs eventually because they did not win enough football games. They are in danger of losing their jobs right now because they did not win enough football games in the past. None of this is rocket surgery.

But between all the drive-time radio rants and FIRECOACH_____DOTCOM blogs, are there elements setting the temperature of coaches’ posteriors that we have not considered? To find out, we recruited a half-dozen fans and bloggers surrounding some of the most hotly debated coaching positions. Some of them wanted to defend their skippers. Some of them are Boston College fans. Read on to find out which is which:

Derek Dooley, Tennessee

• Campus Union: The point we keep coming back to regarding Dooley’s reign at Tennessee is that so many things seem to happen to the team that it’s hard to get a clear read on where the Vols really are at any given time. That said, a losing record for two straight years does not bode well for the lifespan of any coach in God’s Own Football Conference. And that’s before getting to the part where Dooley now has to live with being the guy who snapped the Kentucky win streak. So what are we missing in our rush to condemn the tenure of the SEC’s greatest active hairdo? Will Shelton of Rocky Top Talk has one answer:

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Mark Richt’s giant likeness smiles beatifically at Mark Richt during the final round of interviews at SEC Media Days.

Mark Richt lamented the possibility of a playoff taking away from college football’s regular season. (AP)

HOOVER, Ala. — Tomorrow’s headlines today! Has Mark Richt lost control of Aaron Murray? Spoiler alert: He has not. Richt’s star quarterback won’t be appearing at SEC Media Days this year, owing to a prior commitment to help out at an Elite 11 camp. (Just putting this right up top in case any falsely inflated scooter-related arrest stories pop up later.)

Other highlights from Richt’s Q&A session, which was the final interview at Media Days (sometimes the snow comes down in June, y’all):

• Richt went on to basically call Murray a nerd, at least in terms of football: ”I think he loves preparing as much as he loves playing.”

• On the emerging playoff system and the value of the regular season: “I just hate to see a day where we might play Florida, and whether you win or lose, you still go to the playoffs, no one thinks it’s that big of a deal.  It is a big deal every game we play.  I don’t want college football to lose that.”

• On UGA’s strict-for-football drug infractions policy and whether he’s lobbied for stricter punishment standards within the league: “I think every university has the right to decide what’s in the best interest of their students. [...] When a guy makes a mistake, you want to stick him.  You want to hopefully have a discipline that would teach a lesson and be painful enough to where they wouldn’t want to do it in the future.”

• On the possibility of Malcolm Mitchell playing both ways: They’re trying to make it work, but he’s staying in all the defensive meetings so as not to disrupt Todd Grantham’s schemes. Yes: even Mark Richt fears angering Todd Grantham.

Lovingly curated light reading to speed you through your weekend:

• Please plan all holiday travel for January 5. The full 2012-13 bowl schedule has been released. Real football on New Year’s Day again! The entirety of December 30 off for napping before the New Year’s Eve binge! The TicketCity Bowl persists in existing! Will wonders never cease.

• They never promised you a Rose Bowl garden. The Pac-12/Big Ten scheduling snugglethon is scrapped.

• Wordy wordy words words words MAKE IT STOP don’t ever stop. Want 10,000 words on the evolution of the Airraid? WHO DOESN’T? Smart Football is all too happy to oblige. There are diagrams. There is video. It is glorious. Amen.

• Once upon a time, Mark Richt was Goofus AND Gallant. Ol’ Dirty Pastor, suspended by Schnelly?? Asks Blutarsky, “ What sort of depravity gets you suspended at The U in its prime?”

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Isaiah Crowell will play for Alabama State after his weapons arrest and Georgia dismissal. (AP)

For at least one season, former Georgia five-star recruit Isaiah Crowell will drop off the FBS radar (until his inevitable return as a “good kid who made bad choices” at some other major-conference program in 2013). He’ll reportedly be plying his trade in Montgomery at Alabama State, if he manages to keep from being locked up as a result of that felony weapons case that sent him packing from Athens.

In his attempt to remain a free man, however, Crowell shows he’s still a Dawg at heart, enlisting Steve Sadow as his defense attorney. The Athens Banner-Herald provides a succinct bio: “His list of previous clients includes several former Georgia athletes, a co-defendant in the 2000 double-murder case that involved NFL linebacker Ray Lewis and the rapper T.I., whose real name is Cifford Harris.” Touching move to keep it in the family, there.

*Internet bylaws prohibit us from making any MARK RICHT HAS LOST CONTROL OF _____ jokes here because it’s not as funny when it doesn’t involve a scooter. 

Jerry Sandusky was found guilty on 45 of 48 criminal charges. (US PRESSWIRE)

The last time we took a daylong car ride, Jim Tressel resigned. The time before that, USC’s NCAA sanctions came down. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that our spending four days in a car last week triggered a blockbuster breaking news moment: Craig James announcing that he won’t be returning to ESPN for the 2012 college football season. According to the Houston Chronicle, James “has been contacted by other networks to gauge his interest in returning to TV,” but the one with most of our football on it will be free of his vacuous presence. Glory be. Just keep a repatriated Darren Rovell off GameDay and we’ll all have a fine and jolly autumn.

In decidedly less funny and markedly more important news: Jerry Sandusky is going to jail for a very, very long time. We haven’t done much talking about this case here, because we find alternating between serious discussions of sexual abuse and photos of college athletes enjoying pedicures to be uncouth and weird. We subsist on jokes in the offseason, but not on these jokes. Some people disagree. That’s their absolute right, but we’re with this guy. We also have the utmost respect for those with the stomach to cover this story, and do it well, including SI’s Luke Winn.

Back to what we’re better at. Items of interest from our week off that we cannot let pass without comment:

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Urban Meyer’s player discipline problems seem to have followed him from Florida to Ohio State. Or did he invite them? (AP)

In accordance with 3,000 years of blog law, we must hand down on an irregular basis a set of POWER RANKINGS of important issues of the age. Ohio State is a really big football team that just suspended two projected starters arrested for public urination and flight, and also happens to be coached by Urban “Urbz” Meyer, creating what internet scientists call a Power Rankings moral imperative.

1. Urban Meyer jokes. He has yet to coach a down for the Buckeyes, but Urbz just reassured every brokedown college football fan saddened at the possibility of giving up his or her second favorite sport: making jokes about Urban Meyer’s ability to control his players. Everything’s gonna be OK, you guys! 

2. Mark Richt jokes. Just ask a certain segment of sports media types: Everything wrong with college athletics can be traced back to Georgia football allowing its athletes to pilot scooters around Athens. In letting Meyer first execute a sham retirement, then decamp to the Big Ten, has Mark Richt lost control of Ohio State football? The answer’s in your heart.

3. Jake Stoneburner’s social media strat. Arrestee and suspendee tight end Jake Stoneburner liked this tweet. (And we must agree, the resemblance is uncanny.)

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