Bobby Bowden’s writing on the navel

This may go down as Diddy’s epitaph.

“Bobby Bowden refusin 2 step down is like when ur grandparents refuse 2 give up their car keys,” FSU superfan and former SI.com contributor Jenn Sterger tweeted Monday. “We luv u, just tired of u crashing into [stuff]!”

My friends, when you’ve lost Jenn Sterger, you’ve lost America.

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The secret to life is timing.

You wonder when this contact occurred:

Dez Bryant has been ruled ineligible for a violation of NCAA bylaw 10.1(d).

Oklahoma State University has already begun the process of applying to the NCAA on his behalf for reinstatement.

This incident does not involve anyone associated with the OSU football or athletic department staffs, any employee of the university, alumni, donors, or any third-party affiliated with OSU.

OSU is taking this step because Bryant failed to openly disclose to the NCAA the full details of his interaction with a former NFL player not affiliated with OSU.

The University issued the following statement from Bryant: “I made a mistake by not being entirely truthful when meeting with the NCAA. I sincerely regret my mistake and apologize to my teammates, coaches, OSU fans and the NCAA.”

Sure might have made a difference in that opener…

Mumme Poll update

With the dry run out of the way, I’ve got a few housekeeping issues to share with everyone:

• We’ve got 727 registered voters, which is borderline crazy for me.  Of those, 504 disclosed a loyalty to an SEC school.  But we did get interest from voters affiliated with every D-1 conference (plus independents) except the Sun Belt.
• Because we’ve got such a huge cushion in the numbers over the 120 voters we were looking for, we’ve made an executive decision to relax one rule from last season that was enforced on a hard and fast basis.  We’re implementing a “one strike” rule:  you can miss one weekly ballot without having your voting privileges revoked.  So if you didn’t vote in the dry run, or you still want to register, there’s still time to get in. And for those of you who did register and vote last week, you can miss one regular season vote without consequences.
• As those of you who voted may have noticed, there are two means of commenting – with your ballot and in the general comments section at the site.  You can comment in both places, as they have different purposes.  The ballot comments are meant to be read only by our blogger commenters and should be more in the nature of revealing something about your thought process in constructing your ballot.  The comments section is for general give and take and is open to anyone at the site.
• I’ve seen a few comments questioning why we use a ballot of twelve teams with a top five.  Remember that the goal of the Mumme Poll is to find a better way to conduct the Coaches Poll.  The question is, with approval voting, how many schools do 120 head coaches need to cast ballots for in order to generate a top 25 list?  I felt that number would be in the range of 10-15 schools.  Twelve was the number I elected to use.  I wouldn’t be surprised to find with the number of participants we have this year that we’ll have more than 25 schools with our results.  As for the top five, it’s strictly utilized for tie breaking purposes.  Last year, with a voting pool of 30-60, it came into play fairly often; this year, I expect that it won’t so much (and in fact we didn’t have a tie in the dry run results until #17).
• We’ve added one latecomer to our distinguished pool of blogger commenters – Dan Shanoff.
• And I’m posting this reminder to calm those of you who worried that some people didn’t take the dry run vote seriously.  Nobody had to – it was, after all, just a test to make sure we were all on the same page, mechanically speaking.  It’s week six now, and in the immortal words of Southside Johnny, this time it’s for real.

If you’ve got questions, feel free to let us know here or at the MP site.

Just so you know it’s not only us rabid red and black partisans…

take a minute to read this terrific post at Black Shoe Diaries.

Note that it’s from last season.  Did it give the NCAA any pause for thought?  Not if you recall this little tidbit that got tossed out a couple of months ago:

… The NCAA’s football rules committee, meanwhile, is weighing its own sportsmanship-related measure. Taunts or showboating by players in mid-play — for instance, as a ball carrier is five or 10 yards from crossing the goal line — could be treated as live-ball rather than dead-ball fouls, potentially wiping out scores in the same way holding and clipping do.

The panel considered the change for the coming season and passed, but will look at the issue again next year, say its secretary and rules editor, Rogers Redding.

Could you imagine the uproar if something like Green’s TD were reversed over a call like that?

These guys are threatening to cross over from the realm of the merely stubborn to that of the truly insane.

There’s something lacking on the other sideline, too.

The orange and white (or orange creamsicle, if they’re wearing those home jerseys) analogue to Georgia’s anemic running game is Jonathan Crompton.  If you take out his epic performance against Western Kentucky (currently #151 in Sagarin’s ratings, with a bullet), here’s what the rest of his seasonal stats look like:  61-122, 667 yards, 5.47 ypa, 4 TDs, 6 INTs.

That adds up to a 96.91 passer rating.  For some perspective, the 100th ranked QB nationally has a passer rating of 107.81 (and even with the WKU stats, Crompton ranks an anemic 91st).

Here are the passer ratings for the other quarterbacks Georgia has faced this year:

• Mallett, 159.13
• Robinson, 155.33
• Jefferson, 137.80
• Garcia, 126.28
• Sullivan, 103.71

Joe Cox currently sports a 146.43 passer rating, in case you were wondering.

In short, Crompton is someone whom Georgia should be able to defend with success.  Get it done, guys.

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UPDATE: Year2 has some more data on this year’s Tennessee offense.

Oh running game, oh running game… wherefor art thou, oh running game?

I don’t think it takes an astute observer of the game to recognize that Georgia isn’t going to go very far with the production it’s getting out of its rushing attack.

How bad is it?  Currently the Dawgs rank dead last in the SEC in rushing offense.  Georgia is the only team in the conference averaging less than 100 yards per game on the ground.

And that’s not the whole story.

Believe it or not, in terms of percentage of team carries and percentage of team rushing yardage, the second-most relied upon running back in the SEC is… Richard Samuel.  He’s been, as the post calls it, a workhorse back, at least in terms of opportunity.  Unfortunately, not so much in terms of production, as he doesn’t rank in the top ten in the conference in rushing yardage.

All of which culminated in a dismal performance against LSU.

… Richard Samuel was trying, and he has been the team’s leading rusher, but the coaching staff basically ignored him and the run last week with the team carrying the ball just 24 times for 45 yards with Washaun Ealey running for 33 of them. This isn’t running back by committee; this is using a slew of backs to try to find someone who can produce on a regular basis…

It’s hard to argue with that assessment.

What’s tough this week is that Caleb King’s injury leaves Georgia with Samuel, who hasn’t been consistently effective to date, and Ealey, who provided a spark against LSU, but obviously isn’t up to speed on all of the requirements of the position.  Mike Bobo’s got his work cut out for him this week.

And so, I might add, does Stacy Searels.  I am baffled by the inability of the offensive line to run block; if anything, the group seems to have regressed from last year’s inconsistent showing.  Even with Sturdivant’s absence, they’ve underperformed.  I have no idea what the problem is (although I continue to wonder if Ben Jones’ high ankle sprain that he suffered earlier is still affecting him), but things have got to get better there very soon, as this team cannot function with half an offense.  And that’s not an exaggeration – Vanderbilt currently ranks higher in the conference in total offense than does Georgia.

ERIC BEHRAY… Eric Berry.

It’s Tennessee week, and I’ve been a little slack in the mockery department, so let me share this work of art with you:

I can totally see packs of Heisman voters influenced by that to change their votes.  Totally.