The Quad visits the Plains.

You can read the whole preview here, but for me it boils down to two things, a great one-liner and an interesting factoid.

The one-liner is a recap of the ’08 season.

High point: There was no high point.

As for the factual bit, let’s just say there’s a pretty good goal every defensive coordinator ought to have in mind when facing the Tigers.

Auburn has won a staggering 51 consecutive games when scoring at least 30 points.

Cradle of coaches

If you want to be an SEC head football coach, it helps to have NFL experience.

The happy news is that you don’t have to be particularly good at your pro job.

Friday morning buffet

Line up and grab a plate.

• I doubt Urban Meyer’s leaving Florida to go to Notre Dame.  I have no doubt he’d ever go back to Utah, though.
• I understand there can be gray areas when it comes to injuries and illness.  Still, this comes off as shabby treatment on the part of some schools.
• Along those lines, there’s a former Auburn offensive lineman suing over injuries he suffered that ended his career.  The twist is that he’s not suing the school.  He’s suing his position coach and the trainer.
• Doc Saturday points out that that WAC is some conference:  “The Broncos own the best conference record in the country since joining in 2001, have seven conference titles in eight years and still haven’t lost a WAC game at home…”
• Here’s a nice story on David Greene’s post-football life.
• In case you don’t think the SEC is pulling in enough money after signing those new TV deals, MrSEC.com has a few suggestions.
• Signs of a long offseason:  speculation about which coach didn’t vote the GPOOE™ first team preseason all-SEC (h/t Team Speed Kills).

Georgia Tech, land of passing opportunity

Here’s something I don’t understand.  Follow me through this:

• Henry County wide receiver Chris Jackson commits to Chan Gailey.
• Gailey gets axed and is replaced with Paul Johnson.
• Johnson is honest with the recruit and Jackson, realizing that the new offense being deployed at Tech isn’t receiver-friendly, retracts his commitment.
• Jackson commits to Alabama.
• Jackson plays as a freshman, largely as a special teamer.
• Distressed about his lack of playing time, Jackson decides to transfer, and is given permission to do so by Saban.

So far, I get the logic to all that.  Except now, he’s considering a transfer to… Georgia Tech.  I dunno, maybe the kid feels like he needs to polish his blocking skills.

But you’ve got to love the spin the AJ-C puts on the decision.

… Tech ran 79 percent of the time in Year 1 of Johnson’s option-based offense. It didn’t stop wideout Demaryius Thomas from catching 39 balls for 627 yards. And the Jackets surprised everyone by going 9-4 and winning a share of the ACC Coastal Division.

Tech aims to expand its passing game in Year 2.

Uh huh.  Tech’s second leading receiver last year was Jonathan Dwyer.  He caught eight passes.

Kiffin watch: whither thou goest, and all that.

It’s not any big secret that the big gap in Junior’s master plan to conquer the great unwashed of the SEC is the situation at quarterback.  You’d have to assume that whatever he had in mind in the course of running off Fulmer’s two recruits at the position as well as B. J. Coleman hasn’t played out.  Right now, he’s left with Crompton, Stephens, a washed up former minor league baseball player and whatever kid playing intramural football at UT he can talk into suiting up in an emergency.

What is a little surprising, given the black hole at QB and the greatest bunch of recruiters EVAH, is the complete lack of success UT has had so far signing a quarterback in the 2010 class.

Which is why the reported verbal from an obscure 6’2″, 200-pound juco kid named Nick Lamaison was greeted with, if not outright rejoicing, at least sighs of relief in Urnge Country.  Except it turns out there’s a catch.  Lamaison hasn’t exactly committed.

Now you can think this is a bit of a setback, if you’re a dispassionate observer of the UT program.  Or you can presume a scenario that plugs right back into that master plan mindset, if you’re something more than a dispassionate observer.  Even if hooper’s right about what’s going on, that’s an awful lot of effort the Laner’s expending on talking a B-lister and C-lister (and I’m not even sure a kid who wasn’t recruited by a D-1 program out of high school deserves that high a grade) into playing in Knoxville.

Of course, that’s due to the hand Junior’s dealt himself.  Which, sadly, pokes a hole in the Junior-knows-what-he’s-doing, he’s-a-great-recruiter balloon.

Even sadder, what does it say about where the program is right now?  If all that’s true, isn’t the message we’re getting about Scroggins is that duking it out with all that talent at Southern Cal may be a more attractive option for him than having to compete with a juco transfer at Tennessee?  Otherwise, why even bother to hide the Lamaison commitment in the first place?