“That’s the world that we’re in.”

Sure, we’ve all heard the story of Kentucky basketball coach Billy Gillispie offering a scholly to a ninth grader, but did you know that there’s an SEC football coach who’s done the same thing?

Raise your hand if you’re surprised.

… Tennessee football coach Phillip Fulmer said most coaches agree it doesn’t look ethical to recruit someone 14 or 15 years old, but he won’t shy away from it.

“It’s almost like everybody else is, so you have to,” Fulmer said. “That’s the world we live in. Ninth-grader is a stretch, but recruiting sophomores is real. That’s where we are.”

Fulmer said he once offered a scholarship to a ninth-grader, offensive lineman Jeff Smith, who became an All-SEC standout en route to a standout NFL career.

“I kidded Jeff that he came to our summer camp so many years that we owed him a scholarship,” Fulmer said. “When he was in the ninth grade, he was 6-3, 280 pounds. He could run, move his feet and was a good person. So I offered him…”

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Georgia’s ten most memorable plays of 2007, #3

Georgia vs. Florida, October 27:

Georgia at 11:41			GA	FLA
1st and 10 at GA 28		Knowshon Moreno rush for 4 yards to the Geo 47 for a 1ST down, Florida penalty 15 yard face mask on Wondy Pierre-Louis accepted.	28	24
1st and 10 at GA 47		Matthew Stafford pass complete to Mikey Henderson for 53 yards for a TOUCHDOWN.	34	24

On the first play after stopping Florida on downs, Georgia handed the ball off to Knowshon for a small gain, at which point one of my friends sniffed, “that’s not what Spurrier would have done if we’d have turned the ball over there.”

Nope, he’d have called something like this.

Mike Bobo, I think I love you.

The SEC rakes it in. Again.

Not too shabby:

The Southeastern Conference will split $127 million among the 12 member schools in the revenue sharing plan for the current fiscal year.

The figure announced by the league Friday is the highest in SEC history and is $5 million more than last year. The fiscal year ends Aug. 31.

When you look at the specifics, football generated more than twice as much revenue for the conference than did basketball.  It’s not just the regular season revenue that explains that, either.  The SEC took in more money from bowl games than it did from March Madness.

Phil Steele’s 2008 Toughest Schedule

Say no more. The Preview is coming out and Mr. Diet Mountain Dew is dribbling out a few tasty bits on the website for us.

Here’s how he does the accounting:

… my rankings for the nation’s toughest schedules this year. These rankings take two major factors into account. The first is my 8 sets of Power Ratings. This ensures that a IAA team is rated much lower than South Carolina, which was 6-6 last year but will be an SEC bowl team this year.

The second factor is the amount of home and away games played. As an example, this year some teams will have as many as 8 home games, while others play as many as 8 on the road.

According to Steele, Georgia comes in with the third toughest schedule this season, behind Washington and Arkansas. What’s interesting is that all of the teams mentioned in the preseason mix to make a run at the BCS title game show up well in Steele’s rankings – none are outside the toughest 35.

And I see why he ranks Clemmins in his preseason top 10.

Phil’s got some good news and some bad news for us Dawg fans. First, the bad…

If you go to my website (www.philsteele.com) you will find out that teams that play a top 20 schedule normally do not fare well. I mentioned earlier about the poor records for teams that took on a top 6 schedule last year but of teams that took on a top 20 slate, ELEVEN were not bowl eligible and ZERO were in the Top 10 at the end of the year. Only two of the 20 even managed to be ranked in the Top 20!

But we can take some solace in this:

… Here are this year’s teams in which one or more sets of my Power Ratings forecast a perfect season as a possibility. This year the teams are Florida, Ohio State, USC, Oklahoma, Georgia, Missouri, West Virginia, USF, Clemson, Utah, BYU, Virginia Tech, Tulsa and Ball St. Keep in mind that good health, a positive turnover ratio and a little luck are needed to go unbeaten. I hope your favorite team has a favorable schedule.

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together…

The things coaches will do to support the troops…

In the category of strange bedfellows, politics has nothing on lifting the morale of the U.S. military.

I have seen Charlie Weis perform the UCLA Eight-Clap with an Air Force Bruin.

I have seen Tommy Tuberville sign a Georgia shirt, and Randy Shannon sign a Notre Dame shirt.

I have seen Mark Richt sing Rocky Top with a faraway Vol and sign “Go Gators!” on a poster for a Florida fan.

Tuberville disses the Buckeyes.

Not a lot of respect here:

In advocating a playoff, Tuberville pointed to Ohio State losing by a wide margin in consecutive national championship games by SEC teams.

“Ohio State would have finished fifth in our league and they’re ranked No. 1 in the preseason poll,” Tuberville said.

Of course, as you read this, keep in mind it’s uttered by a coach who had Hawai’i ranked ahead of Georgia in his final 2007 coaches’ poll ballot.

Nooooooooooooo!

Best of luck to you in the future, David. Your blog will be sorely missed.

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UPDATE: Looks like Ching jumped the gun a bit.

Cry me a river.

We’ve got the Celebration… they’ve got the Excuse.

… Meyer said Tebow never was the same after bruising his right (non-throwing) shoulder prior to the Georgia game this past season. He also played with a broken right hand against Michigan in the Capital One Bowl.

For the record, both were Florida losses.

“He was beat up, more so than anybody will ever know because he won’t tell you,” Meyer said. “If you watch that [Georgia] game, he didn’t play like Tim.”

Georgia’s ten most memorable plays of 2007, #4

Georgia vs. Vanderbilt, October 13:

Vanderbilt at 5:55			GA	VAN
1st and 10 at VAN 25		Mackenzi Adams pass complete to George Smith for 39 yards to the Geo 36 for a 1ST down.	17	17
1st and 10 at GA 36		Jeff Jennings rush for 3 yards to the Geo 33.
2nd and 7 at GA 33		Mackenzi Adams rush for 9 yards to the Geo 24 for a 1ST down.
1st and 10 at GA 24		Mackenzi Adams rush for a loss of 3 yards to the Geo 27.
2nd and 13 at GA 27		Georgia penalty 5 yard substitution infraction accepted.
2nd and 8 at GA 22		Alex Washington rush for 4 yards to the Geo 18.
3rd and 4 at GA 18		Jackson Garrison rush for 11 yards, fumbled at the Geo 7, forced by Roderick Battle, recovered by Dannell Ellerbe at the Geo 7.

First off, yes, the ESPN play-by-play is not accurate. As you watch the replay (start at the 5:55 mark),

… you’ll see that the back first gets popped by Rashad Jones on the arm carrying the ball, Darryl Gamble sticks his hand in, knocks the ball free and Battle brings the back down as he loses the ball.

That being aside, what I remember most is letting a huge breath escape from my chest when the defense made this play. The thought of experiencing back to back losses to Vandy is not something I wanted to contemplate.

And you wonder what we in the Dawgnation would be thinking of Richt and the program today if this play had never happened and the Commodores had gone on to score. On that level, you could say this was the biggest play of the season.

Envy and jealousy, Evil Genius edition

Sure, it’s just another rank the SEC coaches piece (by the way, Richt comes out #1), but there’s a gem lurking in there.

Spurrier ranks third. Why not higher? Glad you asked.

… His biggest problem is that the this USC program can only go so far. I took away points for him staying there even after realizing that.

Bam!