“We will have no further comment on the matter.”

This has to be a little distracting four days before the biggest home opener in school history.

Oklahoma State sophomore tight end Jamal Mosley has quit the team for personal reasons, the school announced Tuesday.

On the Cowboys’ depth chart released earlier this week, Mosley had been listed as the starting tight end for Saturday’s season opener against Georgia.

According to court documents, Mosley is under a restraining order that was filed last week in Payne County Court by Kayla Elizabeth Starks. It is undetermined if that situation and Mosley’s abrupt departure are connected.

This comes comes on the heels of last week’s arrest of the starting cornerback for a minor traffic violation.  Mike Gundy may want to extend that media lock out a few more days.

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UPDATE: More bad news from the Cowboys’ camp – the starting middle linebacker is gone for the season with a torn ACL (h/t Georgia Sports Blog).  As a Georgia fan, I can’t help but notice that OSU’s preseason is starting to take on an eerie echo to what we suffered through in ’08.

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Hope in numbers

Bill Connelly, who writes at Football Outsiders and Rock M Nation, is one of the more intimidating bloggers I read.  I don’t mean that in a bad way – it’s just that when Chris Brown refers to Connelly as “brilliant”, it’s like the same way I took that smart kid who sat in the back of my advanced calc class in high school.  All of which is my long way of saying that Connelly knows what he’s talking about when he digs into the statistical side of college football.

Which leads me to this post of his over at Rock M Nation, where he factors Phil Steele’s turnover margin theory into his projected national rankings.  Why should you care?  Because he’s got Georgia at number seven.  And says this about the Dawgs:

I think Georgia could be in for a better-than-expected season. It will basically depend on five games: Oklahoma State (projected: lose by 0.7), Arkansas (win by 1.0), LSU (win by 1.9), Tennessee (win by 5.3) and Florida (lose by 10.0).  If they get through those games at 3-2, then ten wins should be in the cards.  If they beat OSU, however, then suddenly the Former World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party (what are they calling it now?) goes from huge to gigantic.

(If you’re wondering about what ” S&P+” is, dig in to the glossary at Football Outsiders for all of that.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Just as a reminder, Georgia finished -3 in turnover margin in 2008.

Tuesday morning buffet

We’re getting closer…

• The saga of Willie “Pass the Lobster, Will ‘Ya?” Williams takes on some local flavor.
• David Hale offers the best reason imaginable as to why we should expect the Georgia offensive line to succeed this year:  “… with all the hype surrounding them, I can’t fathom any of them want to explain to Stacy Searels why they didn’t turn out to be as good as everyone thought this season.”
• All your internets belong to Chris Brown.  He’s got one of the best football blogs out there.  He does a regular bit at Doc Saturday’s.  He’s got a weekly gig at The New York Times.  Now he’s guesting at EDSBS and podcasting, to boot.  I say we just subcontract the entire college football blogosphere out to the man and sit back and enjoy.
• On the other hand, Ed Gunther doesn’t post nearly enough.  Check out this thought provoking piece at his blog about the scenario that could do the BCS in.
• John Adams compares Jonathan Crompton to each of his likely QB opponents this season.  (He favors Joe Cox, in case you’re wondering.)
• If you need a quick list of this week’s SEC TV schedule, here you go.
• Mike Bobo thinks Richard Samuel is fast.  All I hope is that he’s fast enough.
• And for what it’s worth, Mel Kiper, in that breathless way that only Mel Kiper delivers, likes A. J. Green a little more than Julio Jones.

You’ve got your alternate version of reality, I’ve got mine.

One little meme that keeps popping up – I heard Fox’ Charles Davis repeat it on 680 The Fan yesterday – is that if Gene Chizik had remained at Texas as the defensive coordinator and not gone on to that 5-19 debacle at Iowa State, nobody would be questioning Auburn’s hire of Chizik today.

Aside from the fact that this whole train of thought is irrelevant, because, after all, the man was the head coach at Iowa State for two years and basically stunk on ice running the show there, does anybody making this argument pause to consider that if Chizik had never left Austin, he most likely wouldn’t be the head coach at Auburn today?  Why?  Because that would mean that Will Muschamp would never have the left the Plains to serve as Chizik’s successor at Texas.

So how long do you think Jay Jacobs’ hiring decision would have taken if Tubby resigned and Mr. Boom MF were sitting at home in Auburn, Alabama still wearing orange and blue?  Hell, Jacobs would have been run out of town on a rail if he hadn’t have offered Muschamp the job under those circumstances.

Gene who?

A brief thank you

By either counter I have available, last month was the most trafficked here at GTP in its brief history, and by a pretty significant margin.  I have no idea whether that’s due to the quality of the material (doubtful) or the pent up eagerness we have for this season to get underway (more likely), but in any event, I’m truly grateful for your attention.