Return to greatness

Forget about everything else, there’s only one thing you need to know about South Carolina:  Stephen Garcia has grown his hair out longer.

Hurling haberdashery.

Steve Spurrier’s visor tossing may have met its match.

Georgia offensive line coach Stacy Searels throws his hat at a player during the Bulldogs’ first preseason practice on Monday. (photo via Richard Hamm/AB-H)

The SEC East gets tougher every year.

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Mike Bobo’s lesson learned

I have to admit that this Mike Bobo interview with Dean Legge is a bit of a head scratcher.  Right from the get-go:

Players.

A year of Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno followed by a season without them will make you realize things.

“I think I have learned, too, you have to have good players,” he said. “I think good players help you win football games.”

As Legge points out immediately afterwards, Bobo ain’t dumb and he’s been one of the better recruiters on the staff over the past few years.  So I have a hard time taking that statement literally in the sense that the light bulb about having good players just went off for him.

Besides that – and I guess here’s where I disagree with the words Legge tries to put in Bobo’s mouth – I don’t think the problem with Georgia football over the past two seasons has been one of inadequate talent.  It’s been about preparing and deploying that talent on the field.  And it’s been about getting that talent to believe that it’s being prepared and deployed in the best possible way.  I presume that’s why Mark Richt made the offseason changes on the coaching staff that he did.

This is pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if what we’re hearing from Bobo is more about coaching humility.  Stafford, Moreno and Massaquoi could make a competent offensive coordinator look (and feel) awfully good.  Perhaps the reality of 2009, particularly the middle part of the season, snapped Bobo back into focus.  It’s not as if he’s the only SEC offensive coordinator who’s been expected to regroup after watching a bunch of early round draft talent exit for the pros.  Remember Al Borges, who went from genius to canned in a few short seasons?  The good news for Bobo is that he has much better talent to coach this year than Borges did at the end of his run in Auburn.  The question we wait to see answered is if he knows what to do with it.

Wednesday morning buffet

What’s the story with this Brett Favre dude?  Never mind – on to the buffet:

• Chris Low has a nice piece about Aaron Murray.
• Amazingly, Derek Dooley really is closing the door on the brawl at the Knoxville bar.
• And from the same article, the man who doesn’t “ever believe in making players move positions” is making two players… move positions.
• It sounds like it’s up to Aaron Murray as to whether Mike Bobo moves back up to the box to call plays this season.
• From the Department of Unfortunate Names:  the likely starter at quarterback for Kansas this season is named Kale Pick.  The headlines from a bad day just write themselves, don’t they?
• When it comes to the BCS, the MAC commissioner sounds like a pretty easy-going fellow.
• I posted the other day that I wasn’t aware of any Georgia bloggers calling for Mark Richt’s head, à la Finebaum.  In the interest of full and fair disclosure, I should acknowledge that I was wrong.  (And, yes, that guy is serious.)
• This is why the NCAA gets the kind of crap thrown its way about the rule book that it does – deservedly so.  (h/t The Wiz of Odds)
• Somebody in Rebel Land went to the trouble of interviewing Stewart Mandel about his “dirty” column on Houston Nutt.  Evidently Mandel considers himself to be on a noble mission to reclaim the meaning of the world “dirty” from the unwashed masses:  “Mandel wanted to make it clear that he thought the word dirty is used to lightly by fans when describing a coach who they believe does anything and everything to win games. He said that word gets tossed around too often and that is misdirected at coaches and programs over incidents that they have no control over.” [UPDATE: Don’t miss Michael Elkon’s takedown/rant of Mandel’s piece.]