Missing in action

Sanders Commings gets slapped with a two-game suspension to start the 2012 season.  Should be fun in Missouri for the rest of his cohorts.

“I think life is too short.”

SOD will be shocked to learn this:

… UGA’s Mark Richt is certain to have the most liberal transfer policy in college football. In his 11 years as coach of the Bulldogs, Richt has never put any stipulation when granting a player release.

That means his former players could’ve gone to rivals Georgia Tech, Auburn, Florida, wherever. Some have come back and played against the Bulldogs, including Philadelphia Eagles LB Jamar Chaney (Mississippi State) and Michael Grant (Arkansas).

It’s not even been hands off.  In many cases, like Chaney’s, Richt actually stepped in to help the kid with the transfer.  Why so, in this age of controlling jerks?  Because the man is an adult about it.

“I think if a kid doesn’t want to be in your program, then I really don’t want him in the program. If he wants to go somewhere else where he thinks is in his best interests and his family thinks is in his best interests, I’m fine with that.

“I’m not going to say that there will never be a situation where I wouldn’t want to put some type of condition on a release. But in the last 11 years I haven’t found one yet where I felt I should.”

I’ll say it again – Mark Richt is the kind of guy who makes it really hard to root against him.

Advertisement

Coup de grâce

Craig James is gonna love the “Friday Night Lights” movie if things go according to plan.  Per producer Peter Berg:

“[Katims] has come up with a really great storyline that parallels what happened to Mike Leach, one of my heroes, a coach at Texas Tech who was unjustly fired and unjustly accused of mistreating a player with a concussion, which was proven to not have been the case. He’s now at Washington State getting ready for what I think will be a great redemption story,” Berg explained.

I wonder exactly how close that parallel will be.  I bet ESPN will be wondering, too.

Reader poll: SEC schedule debate, 8 or 9 games?

I’ve gotten a few e-mails in response to my posts about the SEC’s scheduling dilemma.  Some have agreed with my position (expand the conference schedule to nine games to accommodate long-standing rivalries).  Others have not.  I thought it might be interesting to gauge everyone’s temperature publicly.

While you’re at it, share your thoughts in the comments.

Returning starters in the SEC, 2012 edition

Take a minute to filter Phil Steele’s chart…

Phil Steele’s SEC Returning Starters List

SEC Rank Natl. Rank School Offense Defense Special Teams Total 1 2 (tie) Tennessee 10* 8 2 20 2 (tie) 8 (tie) Auburn 7* 9 2 18 2 (tie) 8 (tie) Florida 7 10 1 18 2 (tie) 8 (tie) Vanderbilt 9* 7 2 18 5 20 (tie) Mississippi 8* 7 2 17 6 29 (tie) Texas A&M 9 6 1 16 7 (tie) 44 (tie) Arkansas 7* 6 2 15 7 (tie) 44 (tie) Georgia 6* 9 0 15 9 (tie) 64 (tie) LSU 7 5 2 14 9 (tie) 64 (tie) S. Carolina 7* 6 1 14 11 (tie) 81 (tie) Alabama 7* 4 2 13 11 (tie) 81 (tie) Kentucky 6* 6 1 13 11 (tie) 81 (tie) Miss. State 5 7 1 13 11 (tie) 81 (tie) Missouri 5* 6 2 13 * designates offenses with a returning quarterback

… though this one from Bill Connelly.

Here’s the translation:

Basically, what this says is the following: a team returning fewer than eight starters can probably expect to be about a touchdown worse (in terms of the opponent-adjusted Adj. Points measure) in September than they were last season. They improve by a little over three points in October and November. Meanwhile, teams returning more than 17 starters can expect to improve by between about three and five points the following September, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly, they continue to improve as the year progresses.

That suggests Tennessee, with 20 returning starters, can expect about a touchdown per game improvement over its 2011 numbers.  The Vols ran minus-2.25 points per game last year, so that kind of improvement moves them to a +4 ppg.  That doesn’t translate into a staggering amount of success, but it would likely get them back into bowl eligibility territory and give SOD some momentum.

I’m more curious about Florida.  Bill’s numbers suggest that the Gators should show steady improvement throughout the season.  It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in their later games with Georgia and South Carolina, which both show a pretty flat line over last year’s numbers (in both cases, still better than Florida’s, even with the projected improvement).

Take that, StubHub.

Five’ll get you ten that Georgia adopts some version of this ticket pricing strategy before the end of the decade.

Look at it as just another thing the fans want.

A DGD takes his first step on the coaching ladder.

Thomas Brown is leaving to become the new running backs coach at UT-Chattanooga.

This has a certain “dogs and cats living together” flavor to it:

… After getting strong recommendations from the likes of Georgia coach Mark Richt and Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart, who was Georgia’s running backs coach in 2005, Brown interviewed at UTC on Tuesday.

Seriously, best of luck, Thomas.