Mike Hamilton should embrace his inner Braine.

I didn’t realize things had gotten so grim in Knoxville, but it looks like UT is resorting to packaging tickets to the Florida game in a mini-pack with two others.

One nagging aftereffect of all the Kiffin business and lagging on-field performance: ticket sales. One major impetus for the Kiffining in the first place was lagging ticket sales, something Dooley can’t be expected to pick up in year one. (Given the low-wattage, fourth option hire, it seems extremely unfair to saddle him with this.) But when your biggest home game in 2010 is going in a three pack for $150 while LSU/Florida tickets alone are going for $224 at base on Stubhub…yeah, it’s anemia, doctor, and the red meat of victory is the only thing that’s going to help that ailment.

True ‘dat, Mr. Hall.  But in the meantime, if Mike Hamilton feels the need to dig deeply into the Dave Braine bag of ticket marketing tricks, might I suggest he go the full monty?

Four tickets, four cokes, four hot dogs.  Just sayin’.

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¡Ay, caramba!

More hot seat silliness…  It’s not just that the Orlando Sentinel goes there, it’s that they boldly go where no man has gone before with this:

It seems almost every season, Richt’s name comes up as being on the hot seat.

How do you get to be the dean of SEC coaches when you’re on the hot seat that often?

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UPDATE: Chris Low dismisses the meme.

I’ll drink to that.

Finally, a House resolution I can fully support.

It’s being read today.  (And who knew there’s a House Small Brewers Caucus?)

Making the case for a better year in 2010…

My post yesterday in response to David Hale’s question about whether an 8-5 mark in 201o would be acceptable got me to thinking about what factors I’m basing my expectations for this season on.  I’ve probably touched on most of them here over the past few months, but it’s worth trying to organize them into a list of pluses and minuses.

POSITIVES

• Schedule. Georgia doesn’t play three non-conference BCS-level foes this season, it doesn’t play two of those on the road and it doesn’t open with one.  The Dawgs drop LSU for Mississippi State.  Alabama isn’t on the slate.  Idaho State may be the worst team Georgia has ever played.  Even with the early road game stretch, this is still a less difficult schedule than the team played through last season.
• Regression to the mean. Georgia won’t finish minus-16 in turnover margin this season.
• Special teams. I did a recent comparison between Georgia’s and Florida’s special teams, but neglected to mention that there’s a sizeable gap between those two schools and the rest of the conference.
• Health. I hesitate to bring this up for fear of the jinx factor, but Richt has said that this is the first time in Athens that he’s looking at having no serious injury issues going into fall practice.  That’s huge.
• SEC East. It’s looking a little down this season, right?
• Returning starters on offense. Nobody in the conference returns more starters on that side of the ball than Georgia.  That suggests good things may be in store for the running game.
• Established offensive identity. One of my complaints early last season was that Bobo wasn’t certain about what he wanted his offense to do.  By the end of the season, he had a clue.  The experience on offense should reinforce that this year.  Having the best play maker in the conference can’t hurt, either.

NEGATIVES

• Aaron Murray. Hey, look, he’s talented, he’s been in the system for two spring practices now and he’s surrounded by a boat load of experienced talent.  He’s also an unproven redshirt freshman quarterback who’s about to get thrown into the SEC wars for the first time.  It’s a crapshoot, at least to start with.
• Change of defensive scheme. Some of this will (I hope) be ameliorated by better fundamentals than what we’ve seen for the past two seasons and by (again, I hope) a commitment to put the best players on the field, regardless of seniority.  But if nothing else, there are going to be inherent personnel issues that Grantham will try to coach around.  The thing is, Xs and Os can only take you so far.
• Lack of experienced depth at quarterback and outside linebacker. If you’re a little nervous today, imagine what things would be like if some combination of Murray, Houston and Washington went down for part or all of the season.  Gulp.
• 3-17. My gut tells me that 6-2 will be good enough to win the East this year.  Georgia has a leg up on Florida in that the Gators get both LSU and Alabama on the schedule (back-to-back, to boot!) and the Dawgs miss both.  But I don’t see Georgia rolling up a two game lead in the East on Florida, which means that the winner of the WLOCP should be in the driver’s seat in the East.  That, um, isn’t good if you’re a Georgia fan.

I haven’t weighed these factors against each other yet.  (That’s what July is for.)  But I will say at this early vantage point for me, the good outweighs the bad, mainly due to the first two positives I’ve listed.

So what do you guys think?

Tuesday morning buffet

Grab a plate and get in line.

• Yeah, I think you can say Boise State has dominated its conference.
• Chris Low has this right:  “Georgia’s own David Greene passed for 2,789 yards with 17 touchdowns and nine interceptions as a redshirt freshman in 2001. The Bulldogs would take those kind of numbers from Murray next season in a second.”
• Hell hath no fury like a Vol fan scorned.  Not that Junior cares, though.
• Meanwhile at Coaches Hot Seat Blog, Joe excoriates everyone in Knoxville involved in the hiring/enabling of the Laner, yet goes on to say that he has a lot of respect for Mike Hamilton and the job he does.  That does not compute.
• Dennis Dodd says that Notre Dame isn’t acting like an expansion partner.
• DeLoss Dodds sounds like he’s developing a bit of an independent streak himself.  I wonder what David Boren has to say about that.
• Brian Cook takes a look at the O’Bannon suit now that an Oregon tight end has joined in and asks some good questions.