The new introduction to Urban Meyer’s book

My friends, the head coach of the Florida Gators is pissed off.  And not in a cold, refer-to-yourself-in-the third-person way, either.  Just royally PO’ed at Junior.

Sentinel: Not sure if you’ve publicly commented about the Lane Kiffin controversy – does that maybe seem a little silly or humorous now in hindsight:
Meyer: “I didn’t find it humorous.”

Sentinel: Not then, I’m sure, but perhaps now?
Meyer: “It’s not humorous. I can think of a few other words that I’m not going to say, but certainly not humorous.”

Sentinel: Have you talked to Kiffin, or has he reached out and apologized:
(Meyer shakes head no).

I’m not sure why Jeremy Fowler finds Meyer “a little evasive” on the subject.  The man sounded like he got his point across just fine, thank you.

As someone who doesn’t have a dog in this fight, this sure is fun.  When are SEC Media Days, again?

(h/t EDSBS)

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Truth.

Mike Bobo acknowledges the obvious.

“Yeah, we had some productive numbers and all that, some good stats, but that really doesn’t mean anything,” said Bobo, who recently received a $57,500 raise to take his salary to $325,000 annually. “We lost three games, got blown out in two of them and basically disappeared in stretches of those games and then lost to our archrival, Georgia Tech, in our last game.

“I’m excited about getting out again and getting going. I’m glad we came back in the last game and beat Michigan State in the bowl game and ended on a positive note, but there’s still a bad taste in our mouths around here.”

That’s all I wanted – to hear a coach say what most of us have been grousing about for months.  Nothing about the schedule.  Or the injuries.  Or how unbelievable some of Georgia’s opponents were.  Just that the staff and the players didn’t get the job done as most of us would have liked.

That’s a good start.  Maybe that ship’s getting tightened after all.

You were serious about that? – Follow up thoughts on the MWC proposal

After reading the comments here in response to my post and the posts from Dennis Dodd and Matt Hayes, who attended the Mountain West’s teleconference on its playoff proposal, I’ve got some more observations to add:

• When you’ve got guys like Dodd and Hayes dismissing your plan before the teleconference is even over, it’s fair to say that you need to fine tune your sales pitch.
• The whole proposal really is nothing more than an elaborate contraption to get the Mountain West a seat at the big boys’ table.  You want proof of how jiggered up this is?  Check out this point Hayes makes:  “Under the proposal, the Pac-10 and Big Ten wouldn’t automatically qualify for the playoff because they played only 19 games against automatic qualifying conferences the last two years. Of course, at the bottom of the proposal, in small print, is an addendum that would give the two leagues a free pass in just such an instance.” What a joke.
• The nightmare scenario this proposal would generate isn’t very far fetched.  Consider this train wreck:  the final committee seedings show Boise State at #5, Notre Dame at #8 and the MWC champ at #16.  Who gets left out of the playoffs?  Not the MWC champ, partner.
• That the Mountain West thinks it will be able to sell the game between #9 and #10 as a BCS game to the networks, the bowl that pays for it and the fans that will be asked to buy tickets is nothing short of delusional.  The game will be the college football equivalent of finishing second on Jeopardy, as in “tell them about the lovely parting gifts we have for them today…”, while the winner pockets fifty grand.

The Mountain West tries to couch the distribution of money to the BCS conferences from the postseason in terms of equability, but the reality is that it would expect equality.  And that’s probably the biggest joke of all here.  The conference has tried to justify its inclusion in the group by coming up with a metric about having a threshold winning percentage over a certain time period against automatically qualifying conference members that conveniently adds only the MWC to the BCS conference group, but how does it fare under some other yardsticks?

• The MWC only had one school finish in the top fifty in Division I in attendance last season, BYU.  Here’s the breakdown in the other BCS conferences:  Big Ten, 8; SEC, 10; Big XII, 11; Pac-10, 7; ACC, 9; Big East 3.  Oh, and Notre Dame finished eleven spots ahead of BYU.
• TV revenue tells a similar story.  It’s hard to dig up exact numbers, but let’s put it this way:  The MWC as a conference roughly split as much money in 2007 as each SEC school will begin receiving in 2009.
• Sagarin’s lowest rated D-1 team in 2008 was North Texas at 171.  Counting up 100 slots from there, here’s how the weakest teams in the BCS conferences broke down:  Pac-10, 3; Big East, 2; Big Ten, 3; SEC, 1; Big XII, 3; ACC, 0.  The nine-member MWC had five.
• Per Sagarin, the strongest strength of schedule in the MWC belonged to New Mexico, at #54.  Here’s the number of BCS conference schools that had better numbers than that, by conference:  SEC, 11; Pac-10, 9; Big XII, 11; Big Ten, 5; ACC, 12; Big East, 4.  That’s right – every ACC team boasted a better SOS number than any team in the MWC.

Not too hot, in other words.

The best thing that could happen out of this proposal would be if the idiots in Congress jumped on it and used it as a vehicle to pressure the BCS conferences, which in turn would use that as justification to reorganize along the lines of a group of super conferences (say, eight ten-team conferences) and in so doing scoop up the cream of the MWC to add to the mix.  I wonder what the president of effing San Diego State University (Sagarin #136, 83rd in attendance) would have to say about that.

A few pre-G-Day game thoughts

— Overworked metaphor of the day:  “tighter ship”.  As in,

Since offseason workouts started, Georgia’s players have frequently commented on how their coaches seem intent on running a tighter ship this year.

Georgia coach Mark Richt confirmed as much on his pre-spring teleconference on Wednesday.

Sounds great.  At least until you read Richt’s next comment.

“I think that every year we try to tighten the ship,” Richt said. “I think that every year you evaluate what you’ve done — what you’ve done well, what you maybe feel like you didn’t do so well. And anything that you feel like you need to tighten up, you’re gonna do it.”

Every year?  Somebody needs to explain to me how the 2008 ship was tighter than the previous year’s.

— I tell you what, for a guy who’s lost two NFL first rounders from his team, Richt sounds remarkably confident about his team’s prospects.

Despite the losses of key players like quarterback Matthew Stafford and running back Knowshon Moreno, Richt said he does not see many holes in his lineup as spring approaches. “I don’t know if we have anything that’s glaring,” he said. Among the interesting position battles, he said, are running back, tight end, cornerback and “probably the biggest question” on the team is who will handle kickoff duties.

If the biggest worry Georgia has is who kicks off, this should be one helluva year.

— Herbie comes to Athens.

Georgia’s G-Day spring game on April 11 will air live on ESPN at 1 p.m. Brad Nessler, Kirk Herbstreit and Wendy Nix will call the game for the network. Richt said admission to the game will be free to encourage fans to attend and provide an inviting gameday environment for the televised event. …

Be prepared to hear Herbstreit gush about that program in Gainesville constantly.  ESPN couldn’t send us Uncle Ron?  At least we won’t be subjected to Pam Ward.

It’s a nice gesture to waive the admission fee, especially during an economic downturn, and it may increase student turnout, but for the rest of us, not having to pay five bucks to get in won’t have as much of an effect on our decision to attend as will the Masters or the weather.  There isn’t much Richt can do about the former, but he could add the latter to his prayer list.  Or better yet, call in Sonny Purdue.  He’s got experience in such matters.