They took over scandal-scarred programs and preached commitment. Togetherness would get them through probation. Buying in would ease the pain of a postseason ban.

Give, they told recruits who wavered and returning players who considered a transfer. Sacrifice for the greater good of the football program and the overall betterment of dear old State U. Unite to help rebuild the place.

It was a nice recruiting pitch. Too bad Dennis Franchione and Guy Morriss didn't live their words.

The latest ripple from the tawdry recruiting scandal in Memphis that involved Alabama and Kentucky is this lesson: probation-as-a-bonding-experience is obviously more enjoyable in theory than it is in practice.

	Around The SEC
	Alabama Crimson Tide
	Arkansas Razorbacks
	Auburn Tigers
	Florida Gators
	Georgia Bulldogs
	Kentucky Wildcats
	LSU Tiger
	Mississippi Rebels
	Mississippi State Bulldogs
	South Carolina Gamecocks
	Tennessee Volunteers
	Vanderbilt Commodores

Thus the Southeastern Conference pays one more price for its cheating ways. It lost two talented coaches who grabbed the cash being waved their way by Big 12 schools -- Franchione leaving Bama for Texas A&M, Morriss jilting Kentucky for Baylor. They traded scholarship reductions for salary expansions.

That would be understandable -- if it hadn't been for the B.S. about riding out the tough times together. Franchione and Morriss had both done excellent work after inheriting difficult circumstances, Alabama going 10-3 last year and Kentucky 7-5, both without hope of bowl payoff. Then they quit on their players at the first lucrative opportunity.

"It's been hard, but things happen in life," said Kentucky defensive end Vincent "Sweet Pea" Burns. "That's something the last coaching staff always told us: Things happen in life and you just have to move on."

Wonder if the last staff mentioned that as it was moving on to Baylor. (Though at least Morriss broke the news to his players himself, some of whom angrily fired back in an emotional meeting. Franchione cravenly had someone else do the initial dirty work for him.)

An odd couple of coaches from opposite ends of the professional spectrum have been hired to finish what Franchione and Morriss started. Mike Shula is the rookie head coach at Alabama, at 38 the second-youngest head man in Division I-A. Rich Brooks is the rediscovered relic at Kentucky, nearly a decade removed from college coaching and just a few days shy of his 62nd birthday.

Both have similar challenges: convincing their turmoil-scarred players to buy in one more time.

Alabama must sit out once more from postseason play, while Kentucky is now eligible for a bowl. How well the players make one more major adjustment will be vital for both.

"I've been amazed and awed at the resiliency of this football team, all they've been through," Shula said of the Crimson Tide. "They've accepted me and this staff from the beginning.

"Some of these seniors are on their fourth head coach, the third this year. They didn't want to hear any two- or three-year plan. I told them I'll come to work every day, show up and be in their corner."

"The senior class has had three head coaches and sometimes four position coaches," Brooks said of his Wildcats. "That's what what they went to Kentucky and bought into. They've had difficult transitions, different philosophies, different offensive and defensive systems.

"I told the team I did not expect them to automatically embrace and respect me. I felt I had to earn that. Things went fairly well in that regard."

Of course, it wasn't supposed to work out this way, either. The new-coach theme in the league was going to be the two old war horses from out west relocating to the south: Brooks, the former Oregon boss, and Mike Price from Washington State. But then Price was implicated in the most infamous room-service order in SEC history and fired before he'd coached anything more meaningful at Alabama than the spring game. He'll spend his fall pursuing a pair of eight-figure law suits against Alabama and Sports Illustrated.

Meanwhile, Shula arrived in May to pick up the pieces. He had only two real strengths on his résumé: his last name and his degree from Alabama. After a flustered, stammering introductory news conference, he largely cloistered himself with his staff to play catch-up on installing his system and building offensive and defensive playbooks. When he re-emerged for SEC Media Days in late July, interest was so high in hearing Shula that one veteran SEC writer said it might have been the largest media gathering in league Media Days history.

Welcome to the Alabama football job. Part throne, part griddle, all-important.

On the opposite end of things is the Kentucky job, which is so secondary to basketball that the Media Days headline in the Lexington Herald-Leader said, "Smith finds SEC hooked on football."

Except that the story was about Rich Brooks, not Tubby Smith. Who is, of course, the basketball coach.

Just as Shula was a stopgap hire in Tuscaloosa, Whatshisname Brooks came to Lexington as, ahem, something less than the first choice. After whiffing on a home-run swing at Bill Parcells, athletic director Mitch Barnhart talked to Jeff Tedford, Rich Rodriguez, Jim Donnan, Norm Chow, David Cutcliffe, Mike Kruczek and perhaps Ara Parseghian before bringing Brooks out of a two-year semi-retirement.

"I had some doubts for a while," Brooks said of his time away from the game. "I spent a lot of time watching football the last few years on satellite, did a little fishing, did a little golfing, recharged whatever batteries I have left."

Alabama is not expected to beat out Auburn and LSU in the SEC West. Kentucky is not expected to threaten Georgia and Tennessee and Florida in the SEC East. And in reality, the job will likely only get harder for Shula and Brooks in the next year or two as scholarship cuts are fully felt.

But at the very least, these two unlikely head coaches can provide some stability and continuity at schools desperately in need of both. They could give real meaning to the hollow words of their predecessors by actually riding out the tough times and seeing it through to the other side of painful probation.

The athletes, who always seem to be on the losing side of the lopsided player-coach relationship, deserve as much.

Game of the Year
Auburn at Georgia, Nov. 15. Last year the Bulldogs clinched their first SEC title in 20 years in thrilling fashion on the Plain, coming from behind in the closing seconds to beat Auburn 24-21. And if you thought the stakes were high last year, they could be higher this year. Both teams start the season in the Top 10 in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll, and many prognosticators say the Tigers are a trendy national-title contender. Amazing stat in this series: the road team is 9-1-1 since 1991.

Offensive Player of the Year
Eli Manning, Ole Miss. Manning's interceptions rose and his completion percentage dipped last year, both puzzling developments. That explains him ranking just fifth in the league in passing efficiency. But a cushy schedule could be the springboard Manning needs to again post monster numbers -- and perhaps make a run at the Heisman Trophy that eluded dad and big brother. (But if Auburn tailback Carnell Williams stays healthy for a full season, he might be the best offensive player in the league.)

Defensive Player of the Year
David Pollack, Georgia. Nobody knew the Georgia defensive end at this time last year. But after a school-record-tying 14 sacks and 102 tackles, Pollack was the first defensive player chosen SEC Player of the Year since Auburn's Tracy Rocker in 1988. He won't be working off radar this year, but it's hard to imagine Pollack not having another high-impact season.

Pat Forde covers college football for the Louisville Courier-Journal.