You know, I’d really like to lay off the playoff talk, but teh stupid, it burns.
It’s the perfect storm – Urban Meyer responding to Barack Obama’s call for an eight team college football playoff:
… Said Meyer: “[Obama] needs to meet with [Florida athletic director] Jeremy Foley. I’m glad to see he’s interested. Any time a President-elect or people place the value on athletics like we all do, that’s good. That’s good for our country.”
How patriotic. Makes you wonder how Meyer would feel if college football went to Washington and horse traded a playoff for an antitrust exemption so that it could rein in head coaching salaries. Now there would be some change!
Don't worry - he's just about to point. (photo courtesy AP)
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UPDATE: And please don’t get me started with this self-serving clown.
Get The Picture 
FWIW, David Hale has a quote from Mark Richt in favor of Obama’s support of playoffs.
http://ugadogsblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/wednesday-practice-notes-1119.html
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Yes, God knows that there’s no way we couldn’t figure out a playoff without the input of geniuses like Barrack Obama and Jeremy Foley. Just one more thing Urban wants to coattail to maintain his position as “the ambassador of college football”(as the elegant Kirk Herbsteit calls him). What an f’ing joke. I hate this guy more than I ever could have imagined hating Spurrier.
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Could someone duct tape Michael Adams’ mouth shut?
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the tri guy: “What an f’ing joke. I hate this guy more than I ever could have imagined hating Spurrier.”
Senator, who is in whose head now?
AG
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No Ace, I’ve hated Mr. Self-Promoting 1% of 1% from the very beginning. I’ve been pretty clear on that.
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> And please don’t get me started with
> this self-serving clown.
Who does this refer to? Mike Adams? If so… Wow.
As a UGA alum, I am a huge fan of Mike Adams. Not only did he resurrect UGA’s football program, he more than doubled the endowment in his first ~8-10 years.
He also happens to be dead on regarding the playoffs – particularly the idea that it is the only college sport where control over the process and the system is in the hands of an amorphous entity + a bunch of journalists and random pollsters.
Now, I don’t like his stance on the WLOCP name, but he’s been very right on most other issues when it comes to UGA.
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Muck, I don’t care how much good you can point to with regard to Adams. His role in the Harrick fiasco – which was as much an academic scandal as it was a sport related one – towers over anything else he’s done.
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“As a UGA alum, I am a huge fan of Mike Adams.”
I’m also a UGA alum and I’ve NEVER encountered a fellow alum to utter that phrase, especially one that earned their degree during his tenure.
Wow.
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And just to be clear Mike Admas has not EVER had anything to do with any “resurrection” of the UGA football program. But thanks for that, it actually made me laugh out loud!
Holy crap, you are seriously misinformed.
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How can you not give Adams any credit for Richt, when he was the impetus behind the Donnan firing. Dooley wanted to keep Donnan.
The #1 job of a University President is to grow the endowment. The overwhelming majority of other decisions are divided up throughout the bureaucracy. Mike Adams more than doubled the endowment already. Next time you get your literature about donating, check it out for yourself.
I totally agree that the Harrick thing was a titanic fubar. When Harrick was hired, I immediately called a friend of mine (who is a long time UK basketball season ticket holder) and told him I was extremely unhappy that we’d hire someone like Harrick. I predicted it would blow up in our faces. Sadly, I was right.
But you can’t put all the blame there on Adams. Dooley was AD, and I certainly don’t recall him making a huge effort to go a different way. Even with Harrick’s past, I don’t think you could predict he’d do something so horrendously bad. And regardless, nobody is perfect. I imagine Adams learned from that mistake big time.
If you want to give Adams the blame for certain hires, then you can’t take away the credit for the Richt hire. Especially when Adams was the one who wanted to make a change from Donnan. Dooley fought him on that and lost.
Dooley was a horrible AD. God knows how much longer he would have held onto Donnan, and GATech might have broken their Eight in a Row by now. Heck, look how long he forced Goff on us.
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> And just to be clear Mike Admas has
> not EVER had anything to do with
> any “resurrection” of the UGA
> football program.
Yeah… other than firing Donnan and hiring Richt. Also known as the decision that returned UGA football to national prominence.
Its great to love and respect Vince Dooley. He deserves it. He earned it. But he was a poor AD, and it is at least partially his own fault that Adams had to force him out.
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To be clear, I attended UGA during the reign of Adams. I hated him. And now, as one who actually studies university governance at the graduate level, there are some things that you can say he’s done well for the university. However, the way he throws his muscle around, and the symbolic nature upon which his actions take, especially in athletics, are despicable to anyone who has been a Dawg for more than 10 years. That includes the Harrick problems, and don’t I remember something about a secret, under-the-table deal for Donnan as well?
If we chide Obama for getting involved in athletics when he’s got better things to worry about, we must do the same for Adams. Him and athletics have not mixed well, and mostly because of the way its been perceived. To me, the Dooley letting-go was one thing — there might have been too much good-ol-boy-isms — but it’s the way he handled it. He made Dooley look like the victor being ushered into glory, and himself look like a jackass. That’s bad for you, and for your entire university, especially if you’re in charge of it.
As far as endowment, I have to say that he has some, but not as much as you think to do with that. In my estimation — I’m actually at another institution doing some research on this — the academic and research achievements during the time of Adams can be more attributed to HOPE than anything else. He couldn’t have come to UGA at a better time — HOPE was increasing the academic selectivity, which creates better students, which, effectively and eventually, will create better opportunities for research and publication, thereby increasing overall prestige and national awareness. Over time, both when alumni 1) see the growth their school is creating and 2) have become wealthy enough because their diploma is regarded more highly (and thus are hired for more higher-paying jobs), the endowment goes up. Adams still goes around and asks for money, but he is much less a factor than people want to make him.
(steps off soapbox) Sorry. I had to get it out. Plus, I still haven’t forgiven him for renovating Myers, stealing my tie, and moving the RVs to the intramural fields. (I don’t care if its not his fault.) That used to be my favorite thing — walking home from Friday (or late Thurs) class and see the RVs already pulling in to the lot at the bottom of Lumpkin. That marks the beginning of a football weekend in Athens. I miss it.
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I totally agree that the Harrick thing was a titanic fubar.
Sadly, that’s an understatement.
And you’re still missing the point. The Harricks weren’t merely an athletic department scandal. They were allowed to operate virtually unchecked on the academic side, as well. That you seek to cast aspersions on Dooley (whom I’m not huge fan of as AD, either, by the way) equally for what happened tells me you really don’t get how bad this was for the university.
Adams should have had the decency to resign in the wake of what happened. That he didn’t – and that the players who didn’t do anything wrong were the people that paid the biggest price for the sins of others – told me all I need to know about what kind of person Adams is.
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