I’m sure there are more than a few of you who don’t really care right now, but Idaho State isn’t your ordinary, bad 1-AA team. No, they’ve managed to make themselves into something extra special.
… The Football Championship Subdivision team that comes to Georgia for Saturday’s game has scholarship and practice time limitations due to restrictions from its Academic Progress Rate scores, which grade teams on players’ eligibility, retention and graduation.
Idaho State has 56.7 scholarships this season, according to Idaho State assistant athletic director Steve Schaack. FCS (formerly I-AA) schools are allowed 63 scholarships by the NCAA. FBS programs like Georgia are permitted 85.
The Bengals, who won only once in each of the past two seasons, also lost four hours of practice time per week, limiting them to 16 hours of countable time and five days of activity per week.
The scary part – if you’re Georgia, that is – is that for a win to count towards bowl eligibility, the NCAA requires that an opponent maintain a roster with a minimum number of scholarship athletes. Fortunately, “(t)he 56.7 scholarships are still at the number needed for Georgia to count the win toward bowl eligibility – 90 percent of the total permitted.” If Idaho State had fallen short on numbers, wouldn’t that have been a helluva topper to the season…
Get The Picture 
It is sad that we need a win over Idaho State to get bowl eligibility. Now our new AD wants even more of these cupcakes on the schedule.
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Cupcakes give us wins. BCS teams give us losses. Wins are better than losses. Our new AD is not an idiot.
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+1.
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But I thought the College Football Regular Season was so special? You mean games like this are not special? Do they count in the Great Playoff in the Sky, i.e., our Grandiferous Imaginary Immaculation of Regular Season Ultra High Competitiveness?
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So you’re saying that, since BCS teams play one or two games a year where a win is virtually assured, we should scrap that system to move to a system where multiple regular season losses don’t matter?
Has the basketball regular season moved in that direction? If you look at this season’s schedule, we play 16 SEC games, 4 games against high quality competition (Colorado, Notre Dame, GA Tech, and Xavier), and 9 games against cupcakes.
The current football OOC schedule has 2 cupcakes (LaLa & Idaho St) and 2 BCS opponents (Colorado & GA Tech). That’s a better percentage of meaningful OOC games than basketball, where the regular season means nothing.
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Well, we can sure use the break.
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So on one hand they all say Boise State should be in the BCS Championship game regardless of who they play because “they can only beat who they play,” “it’s not their fault their conference is weak” or “no one will play them home and home” etc. and yet could even possibly penalize a UGA for a school on their schedule’s transgressions! Talk about something we would have NO control over, Jeez.
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It would have been a hell of a topper, indeed … but given the way this year has played out, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.
I realize that by observing that this is such an unlucky team that I am saying that that we are not in charge of our fate, and we can’t do anything to change it – that there is an external locus of control – which I don’t necessarily believe.
But, damn it, we’ve had a lot of things break against us this season.
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Well, if you are saying that we lost close games, that isn’t luck. That it failing to do the things necessary to win the close game, particularly at the end. That is DBs not going aggressively for the interception. That is players trying to pick up a fumble in traffic and run with it and booting the ball, instead of falling on the ball. That is whiffing a block on the most critical play of the game and allowing your QB to get creamed.That is fumbling at the absolutely most critical time. That is bad play-calling on O and bad decision making by the HC like going for 2 at inopportune times….and on and on. These things are not luck. These things are stupid football and it gets back to coaching. I am willing to give a pass to CTG because he hasn’t had enough time yet to get the Willie out of everyone on D (and some he may never be able to do that). But the other stuff? No way any of that should be happening. CVD made a career out of winning close games. It is an art. CMR doesn’t have that. We need someone who does.
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I disagree…the last couple of seasons we haven’t won the close games however we won plenty under Coach Richt to include the 2002 AU game. He has it, sure he could have made better decisions wrt to staff however, I DO know that a lot of his decisions wrt the football program were not his…the old AD is the culprit. CMR wanted a lot of things changed but was vetoed by the old AD. No this isn’t THE reason we have had issues this season but it is a large part of the equation. Greg McGartiy will rectify much of this. Now if CMR teams doesn’t respond after the support of GM, then yes he should go.
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Wtf is “wrt”?
I don’t think that’s an accepted, common abbreviation like you think it is.
It looks like Wirt of Wirt’s Leg fame from the computer game Diablo and Diablo 2.
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with regard to?
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“wrt” = “with regards to,” usually seen written as “w/r/t” and predates teh intarwebs.
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FWIW I agree that DE caused a lot of the problem with bad scheduling, etc. Certainly the Okie State debacle is on him. Without changing anything else about the ’09 season except that game (playing a walkover in Athens instead of Okie State there) the ’09 record becomes 9-4 I also think losing that game caused a loss of confidence that impacted other games. His “branding” strategy was something DE read in a business magazine someplace and it was ludicrous. There probably were some other football related FUs by DE that we will never know about that have had a lingering negative impact, too.
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I agree with you that plays not being made have contributed to our lack of success. I was referring to fumbles that magically bounce away from us, for example.
Because we break down on fundamentals at critical times, we are not good enough to overcome those oddities.
By the way, we used to be the team that was accused of having the golden horseshoe up our ass. “Regression to the mean?”
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For about a million reasons it appears, we have flat forgot how to win.
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+1. But the bottom line is coaching.
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I see more bitching than analyzing here..it brings back yesteryear’s “win some, lose some, and some are ties”…it’s a touch game, guys, and while you might say “and only tough guys win” you’d still be simplifying it. CMR will..I assure you..sit down and go over each staff member’s responsibilities and plans for the future, and, if necessary, make the necessary changes. Good managers (coaches) do that to survive. Patience, it will happen next season. Of course you may counter and say why hasn’t it happened already. I fade away..like an A.J. into the far corner!
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While Evans couched it as “branding,” wasn’t the scheduling of home & homes against out-of-conference BCS competition largely in response to Auburn going undefeafed in 2004 but missing the NCG because of a weak OOC slate? I agreed with Evans’ moves at the time, but it turned out that UF, LSU, and Bama’s performances in NCGs have made it so nobody cares anymore about the SEC champion’s OOC opponents. Therefore, it was very smart for McGarity to cancel the Oregon series. It gives us the best chance to win championships, which is McGarity’s stated priority. I’m on board with that. I just wish they would discount season tickets in proportion to how they cheapen the opponents.
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