Farewell, smurfs.

Carrollton DB Jonathan Jones has lots of offers from élite programs around the South, but not one from the in-state Dawgs.  Why not?

Because it’s not Willie’s world anymore.

What about UGA? Said Teague: “My understanding is that the defensive coordinator, being a pro guy, wants bigger corners, the 6-1 and 6-2 guys. Jonathan is too short for them at 5-10 1/2. They just don’t think he’s tall enough. That was their deal.”

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To boldly go where Georgia has gone before…

With all due respect to Kyle and MaconDawg, for me, it’s not so much that Georgia has to take a bunch of bold risks this year to get its mojo back.  (Its mojo being the competitive swagger the program displayed on its 2002-5 run,  a confidence that it would be in every game it played in, in one form or fashion.)

All I’m looking for is a team – coaches and players – that won’t play scared.  Will improved conditioning help build confidence?  Probably, and it’s something to watch for on opening night.

But what I really want to see is a change in philosophy, tactically speaking, in a couple of areas that I’ve bitched about constantly over the past couple of seasons.  First, regardless of field position, field a punt returner who’s a threat to return a kick.  That doesn’t mean you outlaw the fair catch, or refuse to let a punt inside the five-yard line go by.  But it does mean you signal to the other team that more than those two options are in play and will have to be accounted for.

Second, on offense, don’t ever take your foot off the gas as long as the outcome of the game is in doubt.  If your quarterback is absolutely shredding, say, the Auburn and Georgia Tech secondaries, no matter how hard the little Vince Dooley inside of you is pushing to call a few inside running plays for balance, keep taking what the other guy can’t stop until he proves to you otherwise.  If the Mississippi State defensive coordinator is crashing his linebackers to sell out and stop the run with nine-man fronts, don’t make running Carlton Thomas between the tackles your first option, particularly after you see how ineffective a response that is to that defensive set.

There’s no guarantee that any of this translates into an eleven-win season.  But if Georgia’s going to get better for the long run, it has to start believing again that it’s capable of it.  And for that to happen, it has to play with the faith that every player and every coach can out-execute the opponent on every snap of the ball – yes, even when that’s running Thomas inside.

‘Rules be damned, I’m doing what I want to do, I’m in it for me.’

To protect student-athletes’ eligibility, Georgia sends cease and desist letters to people selling autographs on eBay  – even though the players received no compensation for their signings.

Thursday morning buffet

Fill ‘er up:

• Buzz killer.
• According to the Colonial Athletic Association’s commissioner, NCAA studies indicate players who redshirt their first year don’t perform as well academically as when they’re playing.  Interesting.
• Is Texas about to be dragged into the Willie Lyles mess?
• Athletic department subsidies, the new PR problem.
• Of course, it would help if everyone would calculate those subsidies the same way.
• Marc Weiszer takes a look at how Georgia is playing the numbers game.
• Shorter Eleven Warriors:  we went to the Sugar Bowl, and all we got were these angry Arkansas fans.
• Phil Steele looks at win differential rates:  good news for some, not so good news for others.

Help wanted.

Perhaps you’ve heard that Utah AG Mark Shurtleff has begun the process of assembling a crack legal team to have a go at making an antitrust challenge to the BCS.  He’s taking the rather innovative step of soliciting information from attorneys at this website.

What you may not know is that Shurtleff already has a backup plan in place in the event that he’s unable to find qualified help in this manner.  In an exclusive, GTP has learned that Shurtleff’s next option involves hiring a creative marketing team which is ready to engage in a direct e-mail approach to lawyers across the country using this message:

Dear Friend,

I wish to approach you with a request that would be of immense benefit to
both of us. I am an attorney based in the state of Utah. I want you
and I to make some fortune out of a situation that I am obviously left
with no other better option. The issue that I am presenting to you is a
case of a group of wealthy, arrogant institutions of higher learning which have
conspired to prevent sharing a sizable sum of money they receive each year
with other such institutions which lack their clout. It is unfortunate that the
institutions I seek to represent have been unable to attract greater interest
in the marketplace.

I am now faced with a problem of getting a trusted person who I will make the
beneficiary of a share of an enormous legal fee in the event that we are able
to convince the courts that the institutions on which behalf I will assert a
claim are being cheated out of their rightful inheritance.

However, I personally don’t belong to such school of thought that proposes
that such fortune be given to the government because this is cheating and
is possible that the top government officials for their own selfish
interest could divert the fortune. Because of this I am contacting you to
seek your acting as the lead attorney of the antitrust claim. I am my client
attorney and I alone knew about this will. Upon indication of your interests, all I
will do is to amend the lawsuit by fitting in your name as the supposed
lead counsel and back it up with a sworn affidavit, which automatically
became valid. This amendment should be between us and must not leak out to
anyone. It is absolutely confidential.

I have complete information of a bank account details with an
outstanding balance of $17,000,000,000.00USD ($17 Billion USD). To make
you be sure of this, I can provide you with details of the bank to enable
you to log on to the account to confirm this balance. I know that you
would be apprehensive and feel that this is a big sum, but it does not
matter because this is a claim being passed on to new lead counsel and you
are the available lead counsel.

As I am not very sure of getting your consent yet on the issue, I prefer
not to divulge my full identity so as not to risk being disbarred. Until I
am sure of your consent and full cooperation then I will not be afraid to
give you my full identity. In the meanwhile, I would prefer that we
maintain correspondence by email and fax. At this point I want to assure
you that your true consent, full cooperation and confidentiality are all
that are required to enable us to take full advantage of this golden
opportunity.

I shall make representation to the legal courts to facilitate the
amendment process within three working days. Since this is a transaction
of immense benefit to both of us, I would want that we shared all expenses
according to our agreed sharing ratio of the fortune. The sharing ratio
shall be 60% for me and 40% for you. This shall also be applicable to all
expenditures that would be incurred in the course of the transaction
because I wouldn?t want either of us to feel cheated. Please note that
this is a legal and risk free transaction that does not in anyway hamper
the monetary laws of your country. It is an antitrust award.

If you are interested to work with me, please provide me with your name,
address, nationality, age, and date of birth, height, and phone and fax
numbers as required for the amendment of the WILL. On completion of this,
I will send you a copy of the amended WILL which you will fax to the bank
with a back up letter written by your good self requesting for the release
of the fund to you. I will also write to the bank as the legal
representative of my client before his demise, ordering for the transfer
of the fund to you, as the beneficiary of his will.

I will appreciate your urgent response in this regard. Thanks for your
anticipated cooperation.You can as well reach me on antitrust@gmail.com.

Yours faithfully,
M. S.

There is no truth to the rumor that Shurtleff is prepared to turn to matchbook covers in the event that the above fails to generate sufficiently acceptable candidates.

Best “worst” list article ever

Jon Solomon is my new hero.

Rogers Redding has a dream.

Sure, he’s full of shit, but it’s a dream nevertheless.

And you have to like this line of defense if his officials don’t get the call right.

“It’s really up to the players,” Redding says. “If they do what they’re supposed to do, we won’t have a problem. If they make the choice they should make and that the coaches want to make, there won’t be an issue. But there will be somebody. They’re teenagers, for goodness sake.”

At least that’s an excuse for the kids.  What’s his when his refs completely blow a call?

Middle of the pack looks better dressed in orange.

Last year, as I’m sure you’ll recall, the Orlando Sentinel tagged Georgia as the 64th ranked program in its preseason rankings.  64 out of 120 is pretty much mediocre by definition.

So this year, here’s what the Sentinel has to say about Tennessee in conclusion:

Outlook: Although Tennessee is expected to improve in Dooley’s second season, a tough schedule that includes trips to Florida, Alabama and Arkansas could make it difficult for the Vols to better last year’s 6-7 mark.

Smells about the same to me.  The punchline?  That’s good enough for a ranking of 49 this year.  Has the overall state of college football declined that precipitously in one season?  Or is this just a case of grade inflation?

Cheating, pushing the envelope and competitive advantage

John Infante, in one of the more depressing posts I’ve read lately, explores the question of whether a coach needs to cheat to win.

There are a couple of reasons it’s a downer.  First, Infante’s main point is that it’s hard to measure a correlation between cheating and success because we lack adequate tools.  You can point to the edges…

We can start the long process of answering this question at the two extremes. Using the strictest definition of “cheating” we have, the vacating of a national title, the answer in the two revenue sports is promising. Not until USC’s 2004 BCS and AP national titles were vacated had a football or men’s basketball championship been vacated. By the NCAA’s own definition, all the other championships are clean.

On the other end of the spectrum, we can ask how many championships were won by programs that do not have even the hint of impropriety. Put another way, how many national championships in football and men’s basketball were won by programs with no major violations? As you might guess, the answer here is a bit less encouraging:

• Men’s Basketball: 8/73 titles – Georgetown, Holy Cross, Loyola (Chicago), Marquette, Oklahoma State (2), Stanford, Wyoming
• Football: 4/89 titles (Poll Era) – Penn State (2), BYU (2)

… but the points in between are hard to figure out.

And that’s one reason the NCAA struggles so much with rules violators.  As Infante puts it,

The trouble with the NCAA’s technical and intricate rule book is that you also lose some of the correlation between cheating and competitive success. If a coach makes a hundred or so impermissible phone calls to a couple dozen prospects over the course of two-four years, how much a competitive advantage was gained? Even more significant violations have questionable true competitive impact. USC argued, quite logically, that extra benefits received by a student-athlete after enrollment do not lead to a competitive advantage since they do not induce her to attend or stay at USC or make him play better.

Sometimes logic sucks.  But here’s the thing – if we’re having that much trouble investigating and responding to actions which clearly violate established rules, how much harder is it to resolve oversigning (or, if you prefer Slive’s euphemism, “roster management”) issues which don’t?

Stopped clock gets the time right.

Gregg Doyel may be a card-carrying member of the doucheoisie, but he sure nails this.

College football abides.  Which is one big reason I love it so.