Yeah, but would they have done this for a playoff game?

PLANT CITY – The people’s business is important, but football is football, particularly when the Florida Gators are playing for a national championship.City fathers have moved their Jan. 8 meeting back an hour to 6:30 p.m. so everyone can clear City Hall in time for the kickoff at 8.

“We have our priorities,” Commissioner Rick Lott said.

This is the first time in memory the commissioners have moved their meeting to accommodate a football game.

(Courtesy The Tampa Tribune)

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“It was a very pleasant meeting. There was no confrontation whatsoever.”

The mess at Arkansas just gets better and better.

Evidently, the parents of Arkansas freshman football players Mitch Mustain, Damian Williams and Ben Cleveland met with Razorbacks Athletic Director Frank Broyles last week to discuss concerns about the direction of the football program.

Some of the quotes from the story are wonderful:

“Our boys are used to catching 60 passes a year,” Rick Cleveland said. “They want to go to a college where they get the same opportunity. Whether they’re good enough to do that or not is a whole different question. They have to earn that.

“ They are team players… but they’re saying, ‘Hey, I don’t know if I’ll be happy being in this offense, catching 10 balls a year or 15 and blocking 90 percent of the time.’”

The article notes that only five players in the entire conference had 60 or more catches this season.

It’s amazing to think that anyone in their right mind who has any basic knowledge about football – which I assume these parents believe they do – would believe it makes sense to take plays away from the two best players on the team (one of whom just finished second in the Heisman balloting) and give them to a group of untested true freshmen, one of whom was benched in mid-season.

“…To be honest with you, I don’t think any of the boys want to transfer. They love Arkansas,” Rick Cleveland said. “But as a ballplayer, you want to be used to the best of your abilities…”

Maybe Nutt needs to replace Malzahn with Mr. Cleveland.

Next year looks to be a lot of fun in Fayetteville.

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UPDATE: It looks like the fun has already started. Nutt’s given Damian Williams his release from the program.

But everyone else is “excited”. Sure.

Why we fight.

David Ching is the Georgia Bulldog beat writer for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. He started a blog this year that is required reading for any fan of the program; it’s crammed with lots of info and quotes that don’t make it into his regular column in the paper. He’s the reason I don’t spend time doing the “current recruiting news”, “injury status” or other similar posts here – he’s just better at that than I’ll ever be.

His post today is about the team schedule for the CFA Bowl. It’s actually a topic of interest to me because Richt said recently that one big reason for Georgia’s poor showing in the last Sugar Bowl was that he didn’t manage preparation leading up to that game well and learned from that experience.

Anyway, Ching’s published the entire schedule for our viewing pleasure. But the best thing about the post is the opening line:

I don’t know why anyone would want to know this, but I’ve found this year that someone’s always interested to find out the minute details about what the team’s doing…

That’s what blogging’s all about – someone’s irrelevance is somebody else’s passion.

“Best and worst” SEC articles

I’m a sucker for lists, so Tony Barnhart’s piece in today’s AJC ranking the SEC coaching positions from top to bottom caught my eye.

There aren’t really any big surprises with a list that ranks Florida and Georgia at the top and Vandy at the bottom, although I note the standard plug for the indoor practice facility in Athens makes another appearance (Tony, would that move the Dawgs to #1 on your list?).

It’s an OK read, but I enjoyed this “list” article – one that ranked SEC venues – that appeared recently in the Chattanooga Times Free Press more, mainly because I got a kick out of this bit:

…The last time I drove to Vandy, I was behind one car in line at the parking garage. Try getting that lucky at Chick-fil-A. To me, a burger at Rotiers and an SEC battle with 32,800 onlookers does not define a bad day at all…

It’s all about perspective, right? The only flaw in his article was the failure to mention what toilet access is like at each stadium. And, believe me, after tailgating with a few beers, that’s important.

Coach O

I hope Orgeron is a success at Mississippi, simply because the world needs a few characters in it to keep things spiced up.

I mean, I can appreciate the quiet competence of a Mark Richt, but I don’t think MR will ever inspire anything like this.