Putting money where his mouth is.

Remember the dude in Macon who earned a sarcastic rebuke from Coach Richt last week for dissing Bryan McClendon?

My guess is that he won’t be thrilled with this news.

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UPDATE:  By the way, here’s something for the rest of you to ponder – the raises came in response to job offers from other schools.

225 million reasons against a playoff

That’s how much the Pac-12′s new TV deal is expected to generate annually.  And they won’t have to share it with anybody else.

That’s $17-18 million a year to Utah, Mark Shurtleff.  I’m sure you’ll be hearing from somebody soon about your crusade.

Banged for the buck

You could have knocked me over with a feather with this:  from 2004-2010, the ACC school which has had the highest budget for recruiting expenses is Georgia Tech.  Now there’s some money well spent.

The alarming thing, if you’re a Tech fan, is that the school cut recruiting expenses this past season by roughly a quarter.  Was the money needed for Paul Hewitt’s buyout, did Paul Johnson tell the school he was brilliant enough not to need the extra jack or did Radakovich figure he could spend less money and still finish in the upper forties in the recruiting rankings?

CFN’s Andrea Adelson moment?

I hope I’m not headed towards another true confession like this one from last year by posting this, but there’s no way I see Georgia’s 2011 season playing out like CFN predicts:

25. Georgia 8-4
The Spring Call: The Dawgs will bounce back to be respectable, and a 2-0 start against Boise State and South Carolina will get everyone talking, but back-to-back losses to Mississippi State and Tennessee, and a loss to Florida, will get the Mark Richt detractors screaming.

It’s not that I disagree with that last observation (or that Georgia could go 8-4 this year, for that matter), but losses to Tennessee and Mississippi State after beating Boise State and South Carolina to start out 2-0? Not gonna happen… at least not if Aaron Murray doesn’t sell any of his jerseys.

Russell Wilson’s potential dance partners

There are several SEC schools interested in Russell Wilson who is not ready to give up the football dream—
Joe Schad (@schadjoe) May 02, 2011

Look for this to be a hot speculative topic for the next few weeks.   Year2 ranks the prospective landing spots for Wilson.  Here’s what he says about his top four:

Auburn: The Tigers have a couple of quarterbacks vying for the starting role, but landing Wilson would provide a star to buoy a team that lost more than two dozen players off of its national title team. He’s no Cam Newton, but he would do well there.

LSU: A lot of people seem to think LSU is a prime landing spot for Wilson, but I’m not so sure. Jordan Jefferson did well enough in Spring to hold onto the starting job, and they already have a splashy transfer in Zach Mettenberger. However, LSU might be a top QB away from being the national title favorite, and Wilson could be that guy.

Ole Miss: Houston Nutt seemingly has never met a transfer quarterback he didn’t like, but again, this seems like an unlikely landing spot. Randall Mackey got a lot of praise in spring, and like LSU, the Rebels got a highly touted transfer this year in Barry Brunetti. Still, you never can count Nutt out in these things, can you?

South Carolina: The Gamecocks got to see Wilson up close in their game in 2009, and with Stephen Garcia in disciplinary limbo again, they could use a reliable quarterback. Steve Spurrier seems fairly high on Connor Shaw as a backup, but Wilson would be a better alternate option to Garcia than the young Shaw is.

Of that bunch, I don’t see Mississippi as a likely landing spot, Nutt’s proclivities aside.  And you wonder how much of a risk of rupturing team chemistry Les Miles is willing to take; LSU looks pretty solid right now, even with Jordan Jefferson as the starter.

But Auburn and South Carolina… yeah, I can see Wilson’s attraction at either school.  Auburn could make good use of someone with his skill set and experience and you have to think Malzahn is the kind of coach who could do a bang up job with that.  As for Spurrier, signing Wilson would be the kind of prickish move that’s second nature for the OBC.  What he has to weigh against giving Garcia the finger is whether he could get a new quarterback up to speed in a month’s worth of practice; on paper, South Carolina has a far stronger shot at a return trip to Atlanta this season than the Tigers do.

Dana Holgorsen wants you to know he isn’t wasting time.

West Virginia’s stats from its spring game:  total yardage for the scrimmage reached 838 yards, 683 in the passing game.

In a 40-minute scrimmage, the Mountaineers managed to run over 100 plays.  (Chris Brown has some of the video here, if you’re interested.)

Have fun, Big East.