College football coaches dealing with spring ban

The man is trying to keep Ron Zook down. And Nick Saban. And Urban Meyer.

Not to mention every other head football coach who crisscrosses the country to the point of exhaustion during April and May in order to gain a recruiting edge.

What the heck are we talking about?

When the American Football Coaches Association held its convention in California last month, the membership voted to ban head coaches from going on the road in late spring.

In years past, head coaches and their assistants have been able to pick four weeks out of a seven-week period -- this year's stretch is from April 15 to May 31 -- to visit schools for evaluation purposes.

Doesn't sound like a big deal, but here's the thing about these visits:

Coaches are allowed to talk to a recruit's high school coach, counselor, lunch lady … everybody except the recruit himself.

Per the NCAA rulebook: "No in-person, off-campus recruiting contacts with a prospect are permitted."

If a recruit happens to "bump" into the coach in the hallway between classes, the coach is supposed to say, "Hi," and then turn away to avoid contact.

But because certain coaches were turning these bumps into de facto visits with the recruit -- there must be some reason there are people in the profession calling this "The SEC rule" -- they're legislating the head coaches off the road.

Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said Friday that's only part of the reason. He explained why recruiting machines like he and Zook might be brought back to the pack by the spring ban.

"One thought process was there were a few head coaches that were on the road all the time," Weis said, "and (the ones who weren't) were getting pressured by their ADs and presidents to get on the road to compete with those people."

NU-Vandy series: Did you ever wonder why nobody else thought Northwestern and Vanderbilt were a natural match on the football field? Well, wonder no more.

Two of the Football Bowl Subdivision's most prestigious academic institutions announced a four-game series Monday.

The Wildcats kick it off by going to Nashville on Sept. 4, 2010.

Northwestern also announced a one-game shot for Illinois State (the 2010 home opener) and a two-game set with Army that starts in 2011 and concludes in 2015.

Virtual headache: The virtual postman got a decent workout delivering all of the e-mails sent in following my Eric Gordon/Jamar Smith column that appeared in Saturday's paper.

The majority of my new keyboard pals, unsurprisingly, didn't seem to appreciate my stance or my logic.

While that's fine and fair, one of the exchanges left me shaking my head at the lengths some people will go to support their team and its players.

I won't reveal the e-mailer's name, but he wrote that Smith's and Gordon's situations should not be regarded equally and concluded with, "Most importantly, Smith is a member of the Illini family who made a mistake and is taking the consequences. Gordon is not a family member, only a simple liar and traitor."

Here was my response:

"Do you honestly think Gordon's decision-making process (i.e., switching colleges at the last minute) was somehow worse than Jamar's decision-making process (i.e., driving drunk and severely injuring his teammate)?

The reader's response:

"Absolutely, Gordon had lots of time and lots of adult advice for this decision."

Your honor, I rest my aching head.