Mumme Poll PSA

All right, peeps, four hours to go and I’m missing over a dozen ballots.

I know last Saturday was a downer, but pull yourselves together and turn those ballots in…

A couple of SEC coaching notes

Two things I saw on the internets today:

• It sounds like Tuberville expects to keep his job.  It also sounds as if he’s prepared to throw a few assistant coaches under the bus with the new OC hire.  Does anyone doubt those two matters are related?
• Man, talk about your unlikely source, but this post sure gives me some measure of consolation about UT’s hire of Lane Kiffin.  Thanks, HP!

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UPDATE: Will Collier has some thoughts of his own on those Auburn assistant coaches and they aren’t complimentary.

Okay, maybe not on the blue field. But somewhere.

With the likelihood that Utah is in the BCS and that Ohio State is going to get the other at-large berth over Boise State, I think the idea of matching up unbeaten Boise State against unbeaten Ball State is pretty cool.  You’d think the fan bases for both schools would be fired up for it.  You’d also think it would make for some entertaining televised viewing.

It seems like this kind of pairing comes up more frequently than it used to.  I remember a Louisville-Boise State game from ’04 that was terrific.  Maybe the bowls ought to find some way of permanently accounting for this kind of situation with some extra glitz (and more money, too) in a particular bowl set aside for it.  The pool of attractive midmajors seems to have grown enough over the past few seasons that it wouldn’t be too much of a risk.

I’d rather see these schools playing each other than the fifth best team out of the Big East, that’s for sure.

Revisiting a minor moment in a lost cause

For what it’s worth, and it’s probably nitpicking on my part to bring it up, but did anyone else find the decision in the first quarter to go for it on fourth and seven on the Tech 33 a bit questionable in light of Richt’s comments during the season about how the defense has been hampered by other teams being given short fields due to shortcomings by the offense and special teams?

It’s fair to note that after the change on downs the defense, after giving up one first down, did get a stop and force a punt, but the decision allowed Tech to flip the field.  Morgan Burnett then scored on a pick six on the following offensive series for Georgia.

I just have this feeling that four years ago in a similar situation, playing with a much better defense, Richt wouldn’t have hesitated to take a delay a game penalty and then punt with the hope of pinning Tech deep in its own territory.

Like I said, maybe it’s just me, but I thought it was a strange decision at the time.

They’ll always have Central Michigan.

We’re all aware at this point of the fact that the ’08 defense is the only one in Georgia’s history to yield 35+ points in five regular season games.  The Dawgs rank 65th nationally in points allowed per game, at 25.6.  The only SEC teams with worse showings are Arkansas and LSU.

I thought I’d take a look at how each opponent’s point total against Georgia ranked against that team’s slate for the season.  Here’s how it all stacked up.

• Georgia Southern (21). The eighth best score the Eagles posted this year.  Elon, Furman and Samford held them to less points than did Georgia.
• Central Michigan (17). The only team on the schedule that Georgia held to its lowest score on the season.
• South Carolina (7). Only Florida held the ‘Cocks to a lower score.
• Arizona State (10). Southern Cal was the only team to allow ASU to score less this season.
• Alabama (41). This was the second highest amount of points ‘Bama scored this year.  Only Arkansas yielded more.
• Tennessee (14). This was the seventh best showing in terms of points scored for the Vols in ’08.
• Vanderbilt (14). There were three games when Vandy scored more than this and three more games besides Georgia’s when Vandy scored fourteen.
• LSU (38). This was LSU’s third highest point total this year.
• Florida (49). Believe it or not, this was only Florida’s sixth best point total of the season.
• Kentucky (38). Kentucky only topped this amount one time this year, against Western Kentucky.
• Auburn (13). Sadly, this was Auburn’s seventh best number of 2008.
• Georgia Tech (45). The Jackets scored their greatest number of points in their last game of the season.

So basically, the Dawgs were on a pretty good defensive run through the first four games of the year, fell apart against Alabama, put in an average showing against two mediocre/bad offenses and then essentially collapsed down the stretch.

Of course the big question is what happened – did injuries take their toll, did the team lose focus in the wake of the ‘Bama debacle, did offensive coordinators figure out how to outscheme Martinez, did the team have personnel weaknesses that were exploited.  Those are all things Richt will have to evaluate in the offseason.

My Mumme Poll ballot, Week 14

Top five were easy; bottom two were, eh… not so easy.

TOP FIVE

• Alabama
• Florida
• Oklahoma
• Southern California
• Texas

BEST OF THE REST

• Boise State
• Boston College
• Ohio State
• Penn State
• TCU
• Texas Tech
• Utah

COMMENTS:

• I really could have broken this week’s ballot down into three parts:  the top five (easy); the middle five (Boise State, Ohio State, Penn State, Texas Tech and Utah – also easy); and the bottom two (ugh).
• In the end, I went with TCU and Boston College over Missouri, Oklahoma State and Cincinnati.  I can’t put my finger on why, exactly.  At least BC and Missouri have it in their hands to justify the call.
• I was impressed with Boise State’s play against a respectable Fresno State team.  The Broncos are a well coached bunch and Chris Petersen knows how to assemble his talent.  I’m surprised his name isn’t being bandied about more seriously for one of the numerous head coaching openings.  Plus, that Oregon win has regained a little of its luster.
• It sure was nice not to have to weigh the relative merits of Oklahoma-Texas-Texas Tech.  For the record, with the win over Okie State, I would have given the nod narrowly to Oklahoma.