How a Bulldog spends a bye-week Saturday.

Thought I’d lighten the mood.

(h/t The Agitator)

Driving Mudcat’s Car

It never ends, does it?

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UPDATE: Maybe Ealey should hire Spencer Hall as his attorney.

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UPDATE #2: The AJ-C has more details, if you care.

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UPDATE #3: Mark Bradley is disappointed.  Color me surprised.

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UPDATE #4: You’ll love this.

Report – source in Athens: UGA coaches knew of Ealey’s suspended license, specifically told him “Do Not Drive!”

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The best laid plans of mice and mid-majors

The Wiz alerts us to a helluva story in the Salt Lake Tribune about what the WAC and BYU were up to – and how it all fell apart.  This pretty much sums it all up:

… Documents and e-mail correspondence between the parties, obtained by The Tribune from USU through an open records request, show how close the plan came to being finalized; how MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson’s last-minute wheeling and dealing scuttled it; how television sports giant ESPN was involved from the beginning; and how desperately USU wanted instate rival BYU to declare its independence in football and join its conference in everything else.

I bet Utah State’s ongoing negotiations with the Mountain West about joining that conference will have a few awkward moments now.

Two deep shake out

Yesterday saw a flurry of announcements about the depth chart:

• Darryl Gamble gets the nod to start ahead of Cornelius Washington at the OLB slot opposite Justin Houston.
• Akeem Dent, despite missing all of fall practice due to a toe injury, is still in line to start the opener.
• Caleb King is likely to start ahead of Washaun Ealey (although overall playing time will be shared equally).
• For the opener, the starting three-receiver sets will consist of A.J. Green, Kris Durham and Marlon Brown.  (Tavarres King is suspended for the opener.)
• Bobo declared Hutson Mason to be the No. 2 quarterback behind Murray:  “If there’s an injury, he’d be in the game.”

There’s a lot to break down there.

First of all, on the receivers, it’s good to see that Brown has come on.  That’s a lot of height Georgia will put out on the field with that trio, as Green is the shortest at 6’4″.  Throw in the tight ends, and… well, let’s just hope that Aaron Murray has mastered the art of throwing the fade in the end zone.  He sure won’t lack for big targets.

The best thing about the defensive moves is the indication that there’s more depth in the linebacking corps that we originally feared there was.  There are at least six players the coaches feel good enough to rotate in and out of the ILB and OLB spots.

And I can’t let this pass without at least a couple of Grantham observations.  Here’s what he had to say about Gamble starting ahead of Cornelius Washington, something few of us would have predicted coming out of the spring:

“The guy’s playing well, he really is,” Grantham said of Gamble, who moved from inside to outside linebacker near the end of spring practice. “He’s making plays. He’s very relentless in his approach to the ball. … I’m expecting the guy to come on and really be a good player for us.”

Washington will also be used extensively in the outside linebacker rotation.

“To be fair to everybody, when guys make plays and produce you’ve got to reward them,” Grantham said. “I think it’s more of a sense of production rather than not doing what you’re supposed to do.”

Must… not… think… of… Martinez… Evans… Rambo…  argh!

And here’s what he said about the other two in the mix with Dent at inside linebacker:

“Christian Robinson has really been the quarterback since Dent has not been out there,” Grantham said. “He’s done a good job as far as getting guys lined up and making the call. He’s played his position well. I think Dowtin has continued to progress. He shows flashes of being a really good player. I think with those guys right there we’re still going to mix and match and keep those guys fresh.”

Sounds like a man who’s feeling better about having enough chess pieces to deploy on the board.

Bobo’s declaration about Mason makes sense, given Logan Gray’s status, but it’s also a sign of the job that Mason has done in fall camp to generate a degree of comfort with the coaches.  Along those lines, I don’t see how Richt can try to redshirt Mason.  On this, Buck Belue’s right:  get a good lead in the opener and get your backup some snaps.  Any real game experience Mason gets is valuable, even if there never is an emergency.

Seth Emerson’s gone to the trouble of assembling a list of those expected to play.  It’s still somewhat speculative, of course, but looks pretty accurate in most places, based on what we’ve all heard in the last week or so.

OFFENSE
QB: Aaron Murray …….. Hutson Mason, Logan Gray
TB: Caleb King ………… Washaun Ealey, Carlton Thomas
FB: Shaun Chappas …… Fred Munzenmaier
Starting WR (in three-set): A.J. Green, Marlon Brown, Kris Durham, Tavarres King (suspended)
Backup WRs: Rantavious Wooten, Logan Gray, Israel Troupe
TE: Orson Charles …… Aron White, Bruce Figgins, Arthur Lynch
LT: Clint Boling …….. Trinton Sturdivant
LG: Cordy Glenn …….. Dallas Lee
C: Ben Jones ………….. Chris Burnette
RG: Chris Davis ………. Tanner Strickland
RT: Josh Davis ……….. A.J. Harmon

DEFENSE
DE: Demarcus Dobbs … T.J. Stripling
NT: Justin Anderson …. Kwame Geathers … (DeAngelo Tyson)
DE: DeAngelo Tyson … Brandon Wood, Abry Jones
OLB: Justin Houston
ILB: Akeem Dent ……. Mike Gilliard, Akeem Hebron
ILB: Christian Robinson .. Marcus Dowtin
OLB: Darryl Gamble …. Cornelius Washington
CB: Brandon Boykin …. Sanders Commings, Jordan Love
CB: Vance Cuff ……….. Branden Smith, Derek Owens
FS: Bacarri Rambo ……. Jakar Hamilton
SS: Nick Williams ……. Shawn Williams, Alec Ogletree

SPECIAL TEAMS
K: Blair Walsh
P: Drew Butler
KR: Brandon Boykin
PR: Branden Smith, Brandon Boykin, A.J. Green, Logan Gray

Biggest surprise I see there is the true freshman Stripling ahead of Kiante Tripp.  If that’s how things play out, I feel bad for Tripp, who’s gotten lost in a shuffle of his coaches’ making.

Friday morning buffet

It’s hard to believe, but real college football is less than a week away.

• PH™, Yellow Jacket style:  Sure, 90% of what appears on Bleacher Report is the lowest of low hanging fruit, but, still, it’s hard to pass up the keen insight and grammatical sharpness on display in this piece comparing the quarterback situations at Georgia and Georgia Tech.
• Good post by Groo on the other side of oversigning.
• Here’s another good strategery piece on the 3-4, this time in the context of what Ohio State runs.
• Can the North rise again?
• Things are getting pretty messy at North Carolina.  And that’s not good for Butch Davis, contractually speaking.
• Is this the first hint of the McGarity-ization of Georgia football scheduling?
• His work is done:  Texas Tech’s athletic director announces his retirement.
• This is just too bizarre for words, on so many levels.
• This just in on Hotelgate:  “We haven’t really been distracted.” The man sounds like a broken record.

Reality sucks.

Presented without further comment:

Q: South Carolina football sucks? You suck. Why can’t you see that we have been good over the last few years and why don’t you keep on kissing Alabama and Florida butt all the time. How dare you write something like that. I’m never visiting this site again. You suck. – HT

A: Yes, I do suck, and so does South Carolina football compared to most BCS-level programs.

Go back to what I wrote and explain, exactly, why South Carolina football doesn’t suck.

“ … the last ten-win season was in 1984, which accounts for the only ten-win season in the program’s history. In fact, there have only been two seasons in school history of more than eight wins (1984 and 2001) … the same number as Vanderbilt. The Steve Spurrier era has been considered a disappointment, yet the 35 wins from the Ball Coach represents the best five-year run in the history of South Carolina football. Meanwhile, Florida has won 35 games in the last three seasons.”

The fans are some of the most loyal in all of college football, sitting through thick and, well, thick to watch a mediocre product year after year after year. I’m not dogging the people around South Carolina football, I’m not ripping on Spurrier (one of the coaches I like), and I’m certainly not firing on the fan base. But the wins aren’t there, and while the program has been decent, it hasn’t done enough. Yeah, saying South Carolina football sucks is too strong, but it certainly could stand to be a whole bunch better.

Now, if you want to explain why I’m wrong, I’m all ears.