Plenty of random stuff to look at, now that the season’s underway.
- From a week with its share of crappy losses, ESPN.com’s Bottom 10 selects Texas A&M’s stinker with Arkansas State for its prestigious #5 slot. Good pick. Welcome to the Mike Sherman era, Aggie fans. Can you say Chan Gailey?
- USA Today has the final calculations on how much the new clock rules affected game times and number of plays run. Bottom line? Slight drop in both; need more seasonal data before confirming any trends. Although Jim Tressel, who saw his game wrap up in a mere 2:51, provides an early epitaph: “It didn’t feel that much different. I just think, realistically, we’re going to have fewer plays.” Great.
- The Week 2 version of the LVSC Oddsmaker Top 30 Poll is out, and the top nine are unchanged from week 1. Clemson at #17 and Alabama at #22 is a bit of a head scratcher. Not much love for Arizona State, either.
- Here’s a helluva stat: at one point on Saturday, the top five schools in the polls led their opening opponents by a combined score of 208-0. (h/t Dr. Saturday)
- Tim Stephens, over at the Orlando Sentinel blog, throws some cold water on the “the non-BCS is catching up with the BCS” train of thought.
- Commenter NM tipped me to this tribute to the sport we love, written by a Scot. My favorite quote is this: “Despite commercial pressure to change, college football has by and large remembered that scarcity increases value. A 12 game season leaves precious little margin for error when a single defeat can ruin national championship or conference title aspirations. Each week offers the prospect of disaster or, for smaller programs or those who’ve already been knocked out of contention, the joy of ruining someone else’s season. These are powerful emotions.” Exactly.
- A couple of Dawg links for you: David Hale’s practice notes don’t hold many surprises, although Richt sounds a little coy about who the offensive line starters may be, and CFN expects the Central Michigan game to look a lot like the Georgia Southern game.
Get The Picture 
Again Senator, there is absolutely no way to prove college football’s popularity is due to the 12 game, one and possibly done, season.
There is no other sport currently that decides it’s champion like college football. Now if another sport did and grew in popularity, that would make sense.
Again, the NFL is also very popular, actually more popular if you want to look at TV ratings.
The biggest reason in my mind and the one no one mentions, is that you only play once a week. And that one time comes on the weekend when the pressures of work are gone. You can totally on the game that day, and you haven’t missed anything while you worked during the week. If you are a raving lunatic fan, who eats every morsel of it up, you can get your fix on the internet through mess. boards and blogs like this.
If you aren’t that into it, no worries cause you have a damn bit of the meat that takes place on Saturdays. It’s perfect for almost any fan to follow.
NBA and MLB, requires too much of a committment for the casual fan to be absorbed.
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About the OL, sorta strange considering one of Richt’s biggest reason for doubt was the fact the ones hadn’t been together as a unit for very long. Now evidently it may be one week longer.
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NBA and MLB, requires too much of a committment for the casual fan to be absorbed.
That hardly explains why baseball was by far the most popular sport in America for a century.
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I thought last week that we would beat CMU worse than GSU. And I still think that happens. Especially after being dropped to #2 in the polls. Richt is being reminded that this IS a beauty contest and that while it was prudent for him to pull starters ASAP against GSU and rotate a lot of players, the fact is that every game we play is being judged. Voters have in their minds how much they think we should win by and I’m sure that seeing 21 pts scored by GSU alarmed them. Especially once they heard Jeff Owens went down early in the game.
Richt is no dummy – he’s paying attention to these polls. And he knows that CMU is viewed as a respectable opponent (Tebow-light at QB, coming off a MAC title in 2007, etc.). Trounce these guys and we’ll get more votes and good pub nationally.
Big key for UGA this weekend – turnovers. Typically in these early season non-conference tilts in which we throw up a surprising blowout, we win the turnover margin by 3+. We didn’t do that against GSU. If we can get some turnovers and take care of the ball ourselves, we’ll win this one going away . . . winning by something close to 40 pts.
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“That hardly explains why baseball was by far the most popular sport in America for a century.”
And until the 1960s, baseball decided its champion with a two-team playoff. Now let’s see, when did baseball start to drop from being the #1 sport…
Just sayin’…
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Yeah Senator, it hardly explains, cause Lord knows things like attention spans and business in the day to day lives of folks hasn’t change in a century or so. Folks are exactly like they were way back then. GEEEZE.
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Doesn’t the average person have more leisure time available to him or her today than, say, five decades ago?
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alright then, why is the NFL so popular?
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It’s not the only reason, but the primary reason is because Pete Rozelle was the greatest marketing mind ever to run a sport.
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Well I’m look from all aspects. In general, game per game, more people go to HS football in most places than any other sport. Once again, it’s something that’s not gonna take up a lot of your time during the week. Your work week is over, go watch the game on a Friday night.
Now folks will follow the other HS sports if their own kid is involved, but outside basketball, in general no one seems to care unless they have ties that go beyond just the community link or family.
So again, outside being football, what do these three have in common that the others don’t? One game a week, easy to keep up with, and more often than not, your own personal time when they play.
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