Déjà vu for Coach Searels

It looks like things are getting a little challenging on the offensive line for the Georgia Southern game.

Georgia offensive linemen Trinton Sturdivant and Justin Anderson were arrested and jailed Monday night on charges of simple battery, according to the Clarke County Jail booking report.

Sturdivant, 19, a starting tackle from Wadesboro, N.C., was booked at 9:56 p.m. and released at 10:46 p.m. on a $1,500 bond. Anderson, 20, a guard from Ocilla, Ga., was booked at 9:49 p.m and released at 11:07 p.m., also on a $1,500 bond.

The arrests could leave Georgia thin on the offensive line at least for its season opener against Georgia Southern on Aug. 30 if they bring suspensions from Coach Mark Richt.

Starting offensive guard Clint Boling is already facing the possibility of a suspension of at least one game for a DUI arrest in Alpharetta in May.

Same song, different verse.  Sigh.  At least Searels is used to it.

***************************************************************

UPDATE: If this report is true, there doesn’t seem to be much to this.

Advertisement

So maybe the BCS hasn’t been a total disaster…

I’ve always wanted to start a post out with this:

N B,Y = a+d1C B,Y+d2One B,Y+b1Average B,Y+ b2Difference B,Y+ b3Best*UR B,Y+ …
d3UR B,Y+b4RSN Y+b5SBN Y+d4Rose B,Y+ d5Orange B,Y+ d6Fiesta B,Y+ e B,Y

That’s a formula that comes from a paper entitled “Unraveling yields inefficient matchings: evidence from post-season college football bowls”.

You can stop rolling your eyes now.

The gist of the article is that since 1992, D-1 football has been engaged in a series of moves that have made the postseason more efficient in the sense that the matchups are better and the TV revenue has increased.

… Efficient matching, it turns out, is especially sensitive to the presence of a “championship” game matching the two teams that are highest ranked at the end of the regular season.

The present paper provides, as far as we know, the first direct evidence and measurement of the inefficiency due to early transaction times in a naturally occurring market. When the bowl games have matched later, the quality of the teams matched to bowls has improved, the likelihood of a championship game has increased, and the total viewership of all the bowls in the latematching consortia has increased.

You knew that, right?

In essence, the later in the season bowl participants are selected, the more likely things turn out better for the fans.  And the more revenue created for the schools.

The authors conclude thusly:

The evidence suggests that further changes in market organization, if they increase the likelihood of producing a “national champion,” might achieve further gains…

What further changes, exactly?  “Plus-One”?  Sixteen team playoff with conference champs automatically eligible?  March Madness?  They don’t say.

Now just a darn minute there…

Nobody does a better job of trashing Stewart Mandel’s Mailbag than Michael Elkon.  So I always pay attention when he does his “Duel of the Jews” thing like this week’s.

In discussing Georgia’s MNC chances versus Florida’s and arguing that it’s not an unreasonable proposition to make that Florida’s are better, Elkon offers this comment:

The Gators’ expected improvement on defense is greater than Georgia’s expected improvement in any area.

In any area?  Georgia in 2007 was 83rd in D-1 passing offense, 74th in total offense and 61st in passing efficiency – hardly the stuff of legends.  That was with an essentially new offensive coordinator, a new offensive line coach, three starters on the offensive line that had never taken a snap in a D-1 game prior to last season, a sophomore quarterback who was still figuring out how to play the college game – oh yeah, and Knowshon Moreno starting out the season as the third string tailback.

Now granted, Florida starts out in a deeper statistical hole in passing defense (#98 last season), but the Gators finished a respectable 41st nationally in total defense.  So let’s just say that if Elkon is correct about this, Georgia will be eating the Gators’ dust in ’08.

I’m not sure I buy that, though.  To me, in looking at the two schools, the biggest potential upside in any area has to be Stafford’s game.  If he steps up to elite status, that’s going to have an enormous impact – far more than Will Hill or Omar Hunter, the potential freshman saviors of the Gator defense, will.  That’s not a prediction that it’s going to happen, of course, but it’s something that shouldn’t be ignored, either.  Especially given that Georgia’s offense should be far better positioned to achieve from the get-go this season than at the start of 2007.