Georgia’s post-spring depth chart: rise of the walk-ons.

Weiszer has the details here.

Ken Malcome is currently sitting at fourth string, behind Brandon Harton.  Hugh Williams is your back-up left tackle, although per Weiszer, “Richt said that Kenarious Gates will be the first option at tackle if either Cordy Glenn or Justin Anderson goes out.”

You’ll find a few other less than familiar names sprinkled throughout.  Obviously, it’s a long way until September 3rd, but I think it’s pretty clear the welcome mat has been laid out for the Dream Team.

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Could the Mountain West be Jim Delany’s ulterior motive?

Tony Barnhart suggests that the 12-member BCS Presidential Oversight Committee could be facing a troubling decision after this season.

… This has a chance to create some really interesting political theater.

The Presidential Oversight Committee consists of one president from each of the 11 Division I-A conferences plus Rev. John Jenkins, the president of the University of Notre Dame. So the AQ conferences have six votes and the non-AQs have five.

Do the presidents take a hard line and deny the appeal?

The rationale for saying no: They would be giving an automatic bid to a conference that has lost the three teams (TCU, BYU, Utah) that put it in a position to earn the bid in the first place. In short, the Mountain West Conference that earned the automatic bid really won’t exist anymore.

Or will the presidents, who are risk-averse people by nature, decide they want to bypass the political and media firestorm that surely will follow if the Mountain West does not get AQ status? There will be a bunch of stories pointing out how the MWC has outperformed the ACC and the Big East but that the big boys want to keep all the money, etc., etc. It would be yet another big load of bad press for the BCS.

A full scholarship requirement sure would be a game changer, wouldn’t it?

In the short run, the Dawgs may have more than a few of the usual suspects in their corner come September 3rd.

… Now we won’t know about any of this until after the 2011 season and all the numbers are in. But knowing that this is on the line (a BCS AQ bid is worth $24.7 million), you’ll understand why Thompson will be a tad nervous on Sept. 3 when his newest member, Boise State, travels to Atlanta to open the season with Georgia.

“Huge game,” he said. “Monster game.”

Who wears the pants in the SEC football family?

Here’s something Jon Solomon wrote today about Mike Slive’s oversigning legislation:

… Would the SEC oversigning proposal make coaches think twice about signing under-qualified students? Could it impact a university’s special-admission policy? Might the SEC’s broader national appeal and enhanced revenue allow coaches to find more talented and academically-eligible players who live outside the SEC footprint? All questions to consider.

SEC athletics directors have been working since the fall on the oversigning proposal. Then again, this is the same group that wanted the signing cap two years ago to be 30, not 28.

SEC presidents and chancellors will have the final call. Given the high-profile outrage by Florida President Bernie Machen about grayshirting and non-renewing scholarships, the guess here is something gets passed in Destin.

There are a few presumptions packed into that prediction:  (1) that SEC presidents and chancellors care as passionately (or more passionately) about oversigning as their head coaches do; (2) that SEC presidents and chancellors are ready to override the wishes of their head coaches at four of the schools from a group which includes all the SEC West and South Carolina; (3) that Bernie Machen is that influential with his peers on a subject of reform which most likely benefits his school more than any other in the conference; and (4) that Mike Slive is an effective whip on oversigning reform.

In order, I have no idea about (1), (2) seems like a stretch and (3) would be something new.  As for (4), I suspect that Slive knows he doesn’t have the votes yet, but figures that putting out word about the proposed legislation as he has will put pressure on schools to make the media-approved choice of siding with Slive.  The downside to that approach is that it gives the parties who are vested in the status quo plenty of time to chop Slive’s proposal down to a size they can live with, even if they can’t eliminate it altogether.  That Slive won’t go into specifics tells me that he doesn’t want to look bad if he gets less than half a loaf.  If his whole pitch is made public before the conference meetings in Destin, that may be an indication he feels more confident about his chances.  It all should be interesting to watch.

Walk on, ctd.

You may recall the video of Vandy’s casting call for walk-on players from its student body.

Five of those kids made the team.  Here’s the follow-up.

A tale of three schedules

The vast majority of punditry I’ve read on the subject of the 2011 SEC East projects its winner coming from one of three (not necessarily in this order):  Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.  Each has its weaknesses and strengths; I don’t think you can call any one of the three’s chances a slam dunk.

It’s worth taking a look at their schedules and comparing them to see if they give a particular school a leg up in the race.  ESPN did a nice job of laying those out a few weeks ago.  Here they are:

FLORIDA

Nonconference opponents (2010 records)

Sept. 3: Florida Atlantic (4-8)
Sept. 10: UAB (4-8)
Nov. 19: Furman (5-6)
Nov. 26: Florida State (10-4)

SEC home games

Sept. 17: Tennessee
Oct. 1: Alabama
Nov. 5: Vanderbilt
Oct. 29: Georgia (in Jacksonville, Fla.)

SEC road games

Sept. 24: at Kentucky
Oct. 8: at LSU
Oct. 15: at Auburn
Nov. 12: at South Carolina

GEORGIA

Nonconference opponents (with 2010 records)

Sept 3: Boise State (12-1) (in Atlanta, Ga.)
Sept 17: Coastal Carolina (6-6)
Nov. 5: New Mexico State (2-10)
Nov. 26: Georgia Tech (6-7)

SEC home games

Sept. 10: South Carolina
Oct. 1: Mississippi State
Nov. 12: Auburn
Nov. 19: Kentucky

SEC road games

Sept. 24: at Ole Miss
Oct. 8: at Tennessee
Oct. 15: at Vanderbilt
Oct. 29: at Florida (in Jacksonville, Fla.)

SOUTH CAROLINA

Nonconference opponents (2010 records)

Sept. 3: East Carolina (6-7)
Sept. 17: Navy (9-4)
Nov. 19: The Citadel (3-8)
Nov. 26: Clemson (6-7)

SEC home games

Sept. 24: Vanderbilt
Oct. 1: Auburn
Oct. 8: Kentucky
Nov. 12: Florida

SEC road games

Sept. 10: at Georgia
Oct. 15: at Mississippi State
Oct. 29: at Tennessee
Nov. 5: at Arkansas

************************************************************************

Here are a few thoughts on comparisons:

1. Nonconference schedules.  Obviously, these don’t have any direct impact on which school wins the East, but they still have an effect in terms of preparation and breathing space over the course of the season.  Florida has the easiest go of the three here, both in terms of (lack of) quality opponents and timing, as its only tough OOC game comes after the SEC regular season has played out.  South Carolina doesn’t face a ranked non-conference opponent, but if you’re a Georgia fan, you have to like the variation of offensive styles the Gamecocks have to prepare for in their first three games.  Spurrier may not be able to spend as much summer prep time on Georgia as he is rumored to allocate because of that.  Georgia has the marquee OOC foe in Boise State and you’d have to rate the Dawgs’ non-conference schedule as the toughest because of that.
2. SEC West schedules.  If you believe as most that the three top teams in the West are Alabama, Arkansas and LSU and that all three are valid top-ten programs this season, then Georgia gets an enormous break avoiding all three.  South Carolina does almost as well, though, only facing Arkansas as a road opponent in its penultimate conference game of the season.  Florida has to play Alabama and LSU on back to back Saturdays (and follow that up with a road trip to Auburn).  It’s clear that the Gators have the hardest draw here.
3. Road game schedules.  All of the road games are conference matchups, as you might expect.  All three schools have one back to back arrangement.  Florida’s looks to be the toughest of the three.  Note that Georgia only has one October game in Athens, though.  South Carolina also has a three game stretch away from its home field with a bye week in the middle.
4. Ebb and flow.  This is the most interesting part of the scheduling.  Florida has a mellow September ahead of it, with two cupcakes and Tennessee at home and Kentucky on the road.  But its October is just brutal; it’s not hard to see the Gators going 1-3 that month.  And if they’re the wrong three, that’ll pretty much end their chances to win the East.  Georgia, on the other hand, comes out of the gate against two schools which should be ranked in the top fifteen at least (although the Dawgs won’t leave the state to play either).  But from there, Georgia has a great chance to build some real momentum going into the Cocktail Party, and November sets up as well as a red and black partisan could hope, as the Dawgs won’t leave the state to play a game.  South Carolina’s is a mixed bag.  Five of its first six games are in Columbia and so are its last three, but that stretch of its final four conference games, all in a row with the first three on the road, looks formidable.

I’ve said that Georgia’s 2011 schedule lays out nicely.  It certainly looks better than the other two contenders at this point in time, although an 0-2 start could derail the Dawgs faster than either of the others.  Will Muschamp has to deal with scheme changes on both sides of the ball.  Florida’s October schedule doesn’t do him any favors.  Like Georgia, South Carolina has a great chance to build some momentum if it can win in Athens; the question will be what kind of shape are the ‘Cocks in when they hit that long road stretch beginning in mid-October.

The Georgia-South Carolina and Georgia-Florida games look enormous, as the loser of the first will be in immediate scramble mode to get back in the East race, while the loser of the latter is likely eliminated for good.  If the stakes remain high when Florida travels to Columbia, then Muschamp will have proven himself to be a damned good head coach quickly.  Either that, or the East will be in even worse shape than most of us thought.

Envy and jealousy, antitrust fun and games edition

This is the best variation of “doesn’t the Justice Department have better things to do with its time than go after the BCS?” I’ve seen, bar none.

The Justice Department has had little to say over a series of impending mergers that will limit competition and drive up prices for cable television and cell phone services. AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile and Comcast’s acquisition of NBC/Universal haven’t raised too many concerns among federal anti-trust watchdogs.

Those investigators are hot on the trail of another entity that, while an anti-competitive monopoly, poses little threat to the average consumer.

DOJ investigators last week asked the NCAA to explain why major college football is the only NCAA sport that does not have a playoff…

And that’s the lede from an anti-BCS editorial.  Well played, indeed, folks.