Now they crack jersey jokes.

Check out what was on the auction block last night.

… So when a No. 8 UGA jersey autographed by Green and coach Mark Richt was being auctioned off at the Lake Country Bulldog Club’s gathering Tuesday night, Richt did his best to get the price moving upwards.

“This thing is worth $1,000,” Richt told the crowd in Eatonton. “It’s documented.”

Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo earlier chimed in: “It would easily be about $1,500 on eBay.”

It turned out the jersey brought in $750 that will go to help pay the cost to send players to Richt’s summer camp.

Sometimes all you can do is laugh, but there’s still something wrong with a system that says anybody in the world can make money off a kid’s name except the kid.

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The SEC oversigning debate, in one paragraph

From today’s SEC teleconference:

… The former Florida coach and the current one have divergent views on over-signing. Will Muschamp said Florida had “no need” to do that. But Spurrier said that with the academics of the state of South Carolina, “it would be helpful to over-sign.”

New Year’s Day battle of the titans

As Paul Myerberg indicates, this won’t be a problem for me, as I could care less about the NFL, but the ratings should tell an interesting tale.

Question of the day

ESPN’s Edward Aschoff asks what current SEC athlete would I choose to build my program around?

His answer:  Aaron Murray.

What say you, readers?

A pirate tweets.

This has potential.

So I only get 140 characters on this thing?…That's it?! This is going to be tough. Hello Twitter world.

— Mike Leach (@Coach_Leach) April 19, 2011

Wednesday morning buffet

A few tasty morsels out there for your dining pleasure:

• Kristi Dosh breaks down the amounts contributed by boosters to SEC schools.  The weird story is Mississippi State, which took in no booster money during the 2009-10 school year because it didn’t need it.  Seriously.
• While we’re on the subject of money, here’s an exhaustive – and I do mean exhaustive – breakdown of the last few years’ operational budgets for ACC schools from the fine Clemson blog Shakin the Southland.  I mention it because they’re promising to give the same treatment to Georgia’s in the near future.
• Pete Fiutak’s taken it upon himself to write Mark Richt’s Georgia obituary:  “The Coaching Change Will Come … At the end of the year. This 2011 Bulldogs aren’t good enough to make the huge splash needed. Only 51, Richt will have his choice of mid-level head coaching jobs and can call his shot if he wants to be an assistant.”
• Conspiracy theory in Knoxville.
• It seems to me if officiating is as difficult as this article indicates, there’s even less reason to believe the new NCAA taunting rule is a good idea.
• Greg McGarity’s hiring spree.
• You can take the word “probably” out of this quote:  “Richt said if there’s another G-Day player draft next year, that he might ‘make it some kind of Internet event. Let the Bulldog Nation watch the guys pick. That probably would be fun.’”

Never had a chance.

Remember Georgia’s first blackout debacle – the 2008 ‘Bama game?  Most of us thought the rout in the first half occurred because Saban had his team well prepared and Richt’s team had its proverbial head somewhere else.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

It was the chips (h/t Team Speed Kills).  Not potato chips or poker chips, but “… tiny holographic patches worn on the skin at Chinese acupuncture points that, according to the company that supplied them to Etheridge, Sports With Alternatives To Steroids (S.W.A.T.S.), help the body maintain and replenish its energy supply.”

That may sound like bunk to you or me, but follow this.

… Both coaches were unsure of Ross and the technology. It took several months of texting before Ross would gain their trust. But it was an unexpected display on the college level that jolted S.W.A.T.S. into NFL locker rooms.

On September 27, 2008, No. 10 Alabama went on the road to take on No. 3 Georgia.

“Tonight Alabama is going to triple chip against Georgia and beat the ever living s— out of them,” Ross texted Lynn. “And the chips are going to be the reason why.”

A few months earlier, Ross says he passed along his chips to some University of Alabama student-athletes. One of those was star running back Glen Coffee, who says he did try them. According to Ross, some members of the Crimson Tide football team were wearing the chips the night they took on Georgia, which went into the season ranked No. 1. (Reached by phone, Alabama sports information director Jeff Purinton told ThePostGame.com, “Alabama has nothing to do with this guy.”)

By halftime, the Crimson Tide was rolling over Georgia, 31-0.

“Okay prophet,” Lynn texted back to Ross, “you have my attention.”

That’s what you have to love about America.  This, too.

… The University of Alabama sent a letter to Ross in 2009 ordering him to avoid contact with all of its student-athletes. So he decided to leave the college ranks and focus on the NFL.

Enter Christopher Key. He met Ross through the personal training business in Birmingham. Key has a degree in kinesiology and has owned gyms. Ross introduced him to the chips in 2008, but Key was skeptical. “I thought he was crazy like everyone else did,” Key says. But after researching and testing them, he got on board. Key, an Alabama grad, became the college arm of S.W.A.T.S. Key pitched the chips under a different name, “Mojo,” and says he tried to get his alma mater to consider officially using the chips as a team, but to no avail.

So Ross and Key decided to show Alabama the hard way that the technology worked by taking it to the Crimson Tide’s biggest rival.

Key says an Auburn booster introduced him to several team doctors. After hearing about the technology, they approved the use on several players, including Zac Etheridge. That was in July 2010 — and the players-only meeting soon followed. Many players began wearing the chips. Auburn kept winning.