Mumme Poll 2010: We’re back, baby!

Get the Picture and 3rd Saturday in Blogtober are pleased to announce the return of everyone’s favorite fan poll/approval voting experiment for the 2010 season.

(If you need a refresher course on the Mumme Poll, check the page at the top here.)

Whether or not you participated last year, you will need to register to vote.  To do so, go to the site and click on the Not Registered? link there.

If you participated last year, take note of Tidefan’s message at the site.  Hopefully, we’ve come up with a useful way of tracking people who try to manipulate the voting through omission.  We’ll see how that works.

Just as in the first two seasons, the ballots cast after Week Five are purely for test purposes, so that we can make sure everything is running right.  There aren’t any Sunday games this weekend, so the balloting will open Sunday morning at nine.  Assuming all goes well, the official start will be with the games of Week Six.  You’ll be able to register to vote until Friday night, October 8th.

If you’ve got any questions or comments, let us know.  We’re looking forward to having another blast with this, and hope you guys will too.

Moving to Montana

Okay, fess up – who’s been talking to Stewart Mandel?

… If Georgia runs off Richt this year, it will be textbook Clemson/Ole Miss Syndrome. (Note the example cited in that link: Minnesota. How’s that working out?) Historically, Georgia is more prestigious than either of those teams — but not as much as Dawgs fans like to think. In all my travels, I’m not sure I’ve ever come across a fan base whose self-perception is so far from reality. Georgia fashions itself a national power in the vein of Ohio State, USC, et. al., based primarily off one glorious three-year run 30 years ago with Herschel Walker (and some kick-butt years in the 1940s)…

For the record, I’ve never even been to Montana.

Comments that make you go, “hmmm…”, ctd.

Not all the public talk we’re getting this week centers around the players.  Take, for example, this quote of Richt’s from his Tuesday news conference:

… I thought it was interesting that in his news conference Tuesday, Richt talked about Georgia still wanting to run the ball and keep the play-action passing game that hasn’t had much success so far this season, but he also said, “We do have ways to get the ball to our receivers quickly on quick screens. We have screens to our backs. We have ways of throwing quick game if we feel like they have outnumbered the run and we want to get some one-on-one situations. We are still very multiple in what we do.”

Bill King wants to believe there’s a message to Mike Bobo in there.  I hope he’s right; otherwise, all it comes off sounding like is a lame defense of the playbook.  It does no good to have the plays there if you’re not gonna use them.

“That’s what you look for.’’

Call it being a victim of its own success, but there’s an inevitability to the long-term fate of the Mountain West Conference, based on the new rumor that the Big East has cast its eye on TCU as a potential expansion target.

It’s gotta suck, if you’re the MWC:  you watch your upper-tier programs create national reputations, establish market share and garner increased media attention as you slowly and steadily build the conference’s case to obtain a coveted AQ-slot in the BCS, only to watch conferences which already have that card to play snatch away the Utahs and (potentially) TCUs and see BYU build a better TV contract for itself.

It’s enough to make you scream for Orrin Hatch.

Comments that make you go, “hmmm…”

Pretty common theme running through these:

“Any time you play a team, they’re going to do something new, and whatever is new, they’re going to give it to you in the first series of the game,” Richt said Tuesday. “You can prepare for everything that you’ve seen on film, but the bottom line is that you’re probably going to see something that you haven’t seen that needs to be adjusted to. When you see something new that first series, you hope you adjust well to it, and we just haven’t been able to.”

“I feel like we just need to execute,” senior receiver Kris Durham said. “We’ve moved the ball up and down the field, but we’re not able to execute in the red zone. That has nothing to do with play-calling. That’s about players needing to take a look at themselves, dig down deep and focus on that.”

“I feel like with us that it’s not just one issue,” inside linebacker Christian Robinson said. “It’s a theme, and I think the theme is execution and discipline. I’m practically quoting Coach Grantham.”

Speaking of whom, here’s one straight from the horse’s mouth.

“They’re going to have plays they’re going to run on you,” defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said. “Sometimes maybe if it’s a new play or something different and it’s not exactly as you practiced it, you’ve still got to apply your concepts to get through the down. If you do that, you’re fine. If you don’t, you can give up an explosive play like it’s been happening.”

If I’m getting this, it sounds like we’ve swung back from a period where the coaching was the primary roadblock to one in which the players are being shown what they need to succeed, but aren’t following through when they hit the field.  You can certainly hear the frustration.  And the source for the lack of progress – well, that’s hard to put a finger on.  Hangover from three+ years of bad habits?  Little concern for accountability?  Miasmic funk from the Green suspension?  Who knows why, but to continue the animal metaphor, we all know that you can lead them to water.  It’s convincing them to take that drink that’s the hard part.

Maybe the Ealey demotion turns a few heads.  Green’s return to the field can’t hurt.  But for some reason the coaches aren’t getting enough of their guys to buy in right now.  That’s part of how you get off to 1-3 starts.

This message of inspiration brought to you by…

Steven Orr Spurrier, speaking about his offensive linemen:

“They’re either not smart enough to play or losing doesn’t hurt.”

And yet those guys pushed Georgia’s front seven around all afternoon long.  Sigh.

Wednesday morning buffet

Grab a plate and settle down.

• One door closes and another one opens:  Washaun Ealey’s fumbles lead to a demotion and Carlton Thomas may get the start on Saturday.
• If Thomas does, let’s hope that Green’s return opens the field up for him, as Colorado currently ranks seventh in the country in run defense.
• I read an article like this and wonder why no vintner has thought to package its product in six packs for the Alabama market.
• Of course, some Alabama fans are just high on life right now anyway.  (big h/t to Elkon, particularly for his observation that “if the rest of the SEC is so mediocre, then why should Alabama go to the national title game over an unbeaten Ohio State and an unbeaten Boise State?”)
• If there’s anything amusing about the Green suspension story, it’s his mention that the NCAA glommed onto him in the first place from reading rumors in TMZ.  Seth Emerson does the logical follow-up and gets the expected response (which is pretty much an admission of Green’s veracity).
• As usual, Shakin’ the Southland’s DrB does a terrific job telling you everything you need to know about the 4-3 over defense, first made famous by Jimmy Johnson’s Miami teams in the 80′s.  (For more overall context, you might want to go back and read this piece again.)
• Why Diddy Bowden was shown the door – the sad tale of FSU’s steady decline in attendance.