It’s kind of like the Pope excommunicating Henry VIII.

Heisman Pundit tosses Florida out of his “Gang of Six” for the heresy of ditching the spread option.

If at first you don’t succeed…

Jim Tressel recalibrates apology, incorporates the “I” word.

Letting my freak flag fly.

Stephen Garcia, this note’s for you.

How to make a stat useless.

Matt Hinton briefly mentioned this on his Twitter feed yesterday (that’s all you can do on a Twitter feed, isn’t it?), but I thought I’d take a more detailed look at a fairly obscure stat, quarterback hurries.  More particularly, how quarterback hurries are calculated in the SEC.

For some context, here’s the list of 2010 sack totals, by team.

• South Carolina, 41
• Arkansas, 35
• Auburn, 35
• LSU, 34
• Mississippi, 31
• Alabama, 27
• Tennessee, 26
• Mississippi State, 26
• Georgia, 24
• Florida, 21
• Vanderbilt, 20
• Kentucky, 19

No huge surprises there, based on what I watched last year.  But check out the quarterback hurry numbers (you have to dig for these team by team at cfbstats.com):

• Auburn, 99
• Alabama, 52
• Tennessee, 44
• Mississippi State, 43
• South Carolina, 43
• Arkansas, 26
• LSU, 24
• Vanderbilt, 20
• Kentucky, 19
• Mississippi, 17
• Florida, 13
• Georgia, 8

No, that’s not a typo you’re reading there.  We’re supposed to conclude from those stats that Auburn hurried opposing quarterbacks at a rate twelve times greater than Georgia.  (This is Georgia we’re talking about, the defense that’s made the skill of not quite getting to the quarterback into an art form.)

I’m guessing from this that this particular stat is tracked by the schools as opposed to the conference.

In case you’re interested, it’s a similar, although less pronounced, story on the other side of the ball.  You’ll find the conference sacks allowed totals here.  Compare that to quarterback hurries allowed:

• Florida, 18
• Mississippi, 19
• Mississippi State, 19
• Georgia, 21
• Kentucky, 23
• LSU, 23
• Alabama, 24
• Arkansas, 26
• Tennessee, 33
• Vanderbilt, 33
• Auburn, 50
• South Carolina, 50

Anybody who wants to believe that Tennessee’s sieve of an offensive line gave up more sacks than allowed quarterback hurries last season… well, that beachfront property in Hahira I’ve been offering is still available.

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Wednesday morning buffet

Today’s tastes like Gator, I guess.

• Here’s a pessimistic look at the quality of this year’s SEC quarterbacks.
• Here’s news about an interesting class action suit filed by junior college football players against the NCAA over its transfer rules.
• Meet Will Muschamp, micromanager:  “Muschamp said deciding whether his players should eat green beans or English peas at the training table even became an issue.”
• Somehow, you just knew somebody would eventually play the race card over the recruiting services controversy.
• Which makes Mike Riley sound even more grounded.  But let’s see if he feels the same way 10 years down the road if the 7 on 7 stuff has become to college football what AAU ball has become to college basketball.
• Is it a 4-3 or a 3-4 that Florida is installing on defense this year?  Only the Gators’ defensive coordinator knows for sure.  But it sure sounds complicated:  “To help incorporate both styles, Quinn said he will cross-train his linebackers and defensive ends and will have his defensive tackles cross-train at nose tackle.”
• And Spencer Hall sets a low bar for Florida’s other coordinator:  “Charlie Weis is not Steve Addazio. Remember this, even when it grows dark and circumstances grow stupid.” Hey, that can work.  I told myself something similar when Richt hired Todd Grantham.
• The academic side of Finebaum (I can’t believe I just typed that) isn’t very different from the radio side.