Chan Gailey has the Yellow Jackets in the ACC title game -- and it's going to get some Georgia Tech fans free hot dogs. AP
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You may have rushed to judgment taking Chan Gailey off your worst coaches list. Against Georgia, Reggie Ball showed again that he has not improved measurably in four years of being a full-time starter. Maybe it's his own limitations or lethargy, maybe Gailey's incompetence, but one way or another, his potential (and more importantly Calvin Johnson's) have been wasted.
--Bradley Thompson, Atlanta

That's a topic for another time. This week the Mailbag is all about celebrating Gailey's glorious accomplishment of leading the Yellow Jackets to an ACC divisional title. So if you're a Georgia Tech fan who lives in Atlanta, or if you happen to be passing through town en route to Jacksonville, or if you just like hot dogs, you might want to stop by The Varsity on Friday.

Hey genius ... just wanted to point out that you ranked Wake Forest ahead of Virginia Tech in your Power Rankings. Virginia Tech beat Wake by 17 points, in Winston-Salem, 10 days before these rankings. Come on man, tighten up.
--Ryan, Herndon, Va.

Texas A&M is six spots better than Nebraska? The same Nebraska team that beat the Aggies in College Station? Huh? Somebody needs a new batch of monkeys ...
--Adam, Spokane, Wash.

Yep, I'll admit it -- I laid a Ball-caliber egg with my AP ballot this week. It was getting late, I hurried and I made some decisions I'd like to have back. It will definitely make me think twice before criticizing one of my fellow pollsters again, because I now understand how these things happen.

What role do agents play in all of these coaching rumors? I'm sick of Jimmy Sexton's SEC clients (Nick Saban, Tommy Tuberville, Steve Spurrier and Houston Nutt) being mentioned as "potential candidates" for every major opening on the planet. Why does the media allow this guy to manipulate them just so that his clients can get leverage in negotiating with their current schools?
--Jeff, Columbia, Mo.

They play a bigger role than you can possibly imagine. Ballpark estimate: 70 percent of the stories you read about some seemingly random coach being linked to a coaching opening are probably a result of the coach's agent -- or the agent of another candidate in the running for that job -- floating it to a reporter. Houston Nutt, in particular, has "turned down" more jobs he was never in the running for than any coach I know.

Why do the reporters go for it? Because eventually the agent will return the favor and feed him the "scoop" when one of his candidates actually accepts a job (or if he finds out someone else's candidate has been offered the job).

Taking you seriously as a writer is becoming more and more difficult. In your defense as to why you don't hate the Irish you say, "sportswriters don't have the same kind of emotional attachment toward certain teams as fans do and therefore have no logical reason to 'love' or 'hate' anyone." You say this yet I have many times seen you proclaim your love for USC and openly defend it when people bring it up. So which are you lying about, your love for USC or your non-hate for Notre Dame?
--Wes, Shreveport, La.

The problem here, Wes, is that you took me seriously in the first place. But so did a whole lot of other people, so I want to go ahead and clear this up: I am not a USC fan. It was a running joke that dated back to the exchange at the end of this Mailbag awhile back in which I was accused of both loving and hating the Trojans -- both of which I played along with. Unfortunately that got lost over time, and a disturbingly large amount of readers thought I was being serious.

I apologize for any misunderstanding.

I went into work Sunday morning following USC's 44-24 pasting of Notre Dame and went on the Internet expecting to see your article about how overrated Notre Dame was. I was surprised to see that your article was mainly praising USC instead of criticizing Notre Dame. You could've easily wrote an "I told you so" column about how you were right all along about ND and how the ND fans were stupid for criticizing you, etc. That's probably what I would've done. I'm writing this to thank you for taking it easy on them.
--Derek Schultz, Indianapolis

I'm not a gloater, Derek. I may have predicted the exact sequence of events two months ahead of time and came within three points of nailing the final score -- but I would never go out of my way to point that out publicly.

Hey, I haven't gotten much else right this year. Allow me this little satisfaction.