The upside to losing

This is either an exercise in clueless irrelevancy, or the most subtly sarcastic snark I’ve read in some time.  Since the author describes herself as a Georgia grad, I hope it’s the latter.

(h/t 94Dawg @ DawgRun.com)

Possibly relevant factoid of the day

This isn’t pretty.

… Vanderbilt hasn’t participated in college football’s postseason since losing to Air Force 36-28 in Birmingham’s Hall of Fame Classic on Dec. 31, 1982. That left Vanderbilt with an 8-4 record — the most recent winning season for the Commodores.

Since that bowl, Vanderbilt has had 14 opportunities to reach the bowl-eligibility standard of six victories in a season. All 14 times they have lost.

Splits and spreads

I don’t know how many of you caught this note in Chris Low’s blog about a successful adjustment Florida made on offense against LSU:

… The Florida offensive linemen also widened their splits by about two feet to try and spread out the LSU defense a little more Saturday night. Obviously, it worked and is something Meyer said the Gators would continue to toy with the rest of the season.

“Demps and Rainey are kind of small,” said Harvin, stating the obvious. “Linebackers sometimes can’t see them, and they come shooting out of there. If you give those guys any steps, it’s lights out.”

I bring this up now because Chris over at Smart Football has a post up that’s your basic introduction to offensive linemen splits.  As always, it’s worth your time to read.

The NFL: bringing worth to worthlessness

Hey, it looks like it’s not just a few crazed fans that are watching college football spring games.  The NFL has been watching, too.  Watching the watchers, that is:

… Spring games, normally an intrasquad contest, have become commonplace in college football. Some top programs have capacity crowds for the game.

”It was raised by a few clubs,” Goodell said. ”More in the context of what the colleges do.”

The NFL spring games could be in the form of a scrimmage or matchup between two teams.

Leave it to the NFL to find something even more meaningless than the first fall preseason game – and then squeeze a buck from it.  At least the colleges only have at most a nominal charge for their spring games.  I can’t wait to see pro fans being charged a regular season ticket price for this.

Clock talk

The latest from The Wizard of Odds:

Ninety-nine of the 119 Division I-A teams have lost plays compared to last year, according to data compiled by Marty Couvillion of cfbstats.com.

The 40/25 clock rules instituted for 2008 have helped cut 13 minutes off the average game from 2007, but the average number of plays lost is 8.8 through seven weeks of play…

No conclusion is drawn as to what common thread there may be for the teams that have increased their number of plays from last season to this one, but I’d be curious to find out how the offenses that typically come up to the line, review the defensive set and then step back to receive final instructions from the sidelines/coaches box have fared.

Leash the hounds.

Those AJ-C columnists are truly fixated on Georgia’s penalty numbers.  First we had Barnhart’s post about how the Dawgs are languishing in the polls because of penalties, a proposition that isn’t borne out in reality.  Now we have Terence Moore weighing in on the subject, in only the way that someone with Moore’s ego and cluelessness can do so.

For Terence, it’s all about – you guessed it – the most cataclysmic event in college football last year, The Celebration.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but probably not. Ever since Georgia’s silliness in the end zone last season against Florida, the Bulldogs have gone from ranking as one of the most disciplined teams in the country to whatever they are now.

Moore thinks this is something worth confronting Mark Richt over, if only to remind one and all that Moore saw this coming.  Richt, who clearly has the patience of a saint, manages to drag the discourse back to the only salient point.

“I don’t think [the Florida game] had anything to do with this, but I guess it’s up for people to debate,” said Georgia coach Mark Richt on Wednesday, despite the overwhelming numbers that show there isn’t a debate. We’ll share those numbers in a moment, but Richt wished to add, “I do know that since the Florida game, we’ve won, what, 12 out of 13 or 13 out of 14 [actually it’s 10 out of 11]? I don’t know what that record is, but you might want to throw that in there.”

Well, yeah, there is all that winning.  Moore even goes on to acknowledge that the last two national champions were both heavily penalized SEC teams.  But it doesn’t matter now.  Why?  Because so sayeth the sooth.

None of this should be surprising. A guy predicted such sloppiness for Georgia a year ago in Jacksonville.

I was that guy, and I wrote during the short-sighted joy after Georgia whipped Florida for just the third time in 18 tries: “So much for discipline, poise and class. They could return as staples of Georgia’s football program under Mark Richt, but it’ll take a while. They vanished on Saturday at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, where the Bulldogs kept making fools of themselves early and often. They were fools by choice. That’s the scary thing.”

Moore predicts that Georgia won’t win a national title because of penalties, which is less a brave prediction than an effective way to stir the pot.  And it works.  He gets 97 comments in less than four hours followed up with this administrative note:  Commenting has been turned off.

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

UPDATE: Doc Saturday neatly filets Barnhart and Moore with this post.