A play so good, the NCAA retired it.

Per Paul Myerberg, here’s a little wrinkle in the new NCAA kickoff rules that hasn’t gotten much attention:

Coverage units cannot get more than a five-yard head start on kickoffs, but does the same rule apply to kickers?

No. A kicker is allowed to line up behind the 30-yard line, if he so chose. But the N.C.A.A. did say that the kicker must kick the ball — shocking, I know. But this eliminates the little-used onside kick where the kicker rushes towards the ball but pulls up short of the tee while a teammate kicks the ball towards the hands team on the other side of the field.

Like this one.

Bunch of spoilsports, I say.

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The comment that I can’t compare the two sports coming in three… two… one…

Michael Elkon has a post up this morning (more on that in a sec) which links to a Wall Street Journal story about the significant decline in attendance at ACC men’s basketball games.  The WSJ piece contains the most pathetic excuse I’ve ever seen given as an explanation for people not going to a sporting event:

Another broad problem: the younger the sports fan, the less they enjoy being in an arena where their smartphones can’t get a signal. “People don’t like to be out of touch,” said Doug Perlman, founder and CEO of consulting firm Sports Media Advisors and a Duke graduate. “They want to be sharing the experience with their friends.”

I didn’t go to Duke and it may be a case of my generational underwear showing, but I’m having a hard time buying that.  (If that is true, then organized sports might as well prepare themselves for the sweet embrace of death, because that’s your next generation of ticket buyers, folks.)  Anyway, as skeptical as I am about the article’s logic, I’m even more puzzled by an omission that Elkon jumps on.

… this is a pet theory of mine, but I am of the opinion that the NCAA Tournament has damaged college basketball because it has become all-consuming. It is so big and so hyped that there is little reason to pay attention to the regular season unless you have a particular rooting interest. What do I care about who wins a regular season conference title when all the teams are playing for are marginal seed differences in a neutral-site tournament? [Emphasis added.]  If college basketball went back to its roots with a smaller tournament that only had 1-2 teams from the major conferences,** then maybe the NCAA Tournament would be less of a cultural phenomenon (we wouldn’t have to deal with office twits who tout their successful picks that are little more than the result of successful tosses of a coin), but people would care more from the start. The Big Dance is affecting interest in college basketball generally, but the effect would be most pronounced for the ACC as it had the farthest to fall in terms of fan interest. Give people a narrative and ACC basketball will be more interesting.

Let me say as somebody who based his decision on which college to attend in part on ACC basketball that I think Michael’s dead on here.  One of the great sporting experiences of my life was watching Virginia win its only conference title in 1976; I don’t want to say it wasn’t exciting to see the ‘Hoos make the NCAA tournament as a result, but it sure didn’t seem more exciting at the time.  When’s the last time an ACC basketball fan felt like that?

This isn’t some fly-by-night conference we’re talking about here.  This is college basketball’s most storied, most passionate league, historically speaking.  It’s the roundball equivalent of SEC football.  If this bunch is taking a steady hit in fan enthusiasm, that’s something seriously noteworthy.  And, yeah, there’s a lesson to be learned there.  (The WSJ‘s point about the impact conference expansion has had is valid, too, but that’s a subject for another post.)

March Madness is fun as hell, but it’s like inflation in a sense.  As it’s grown, it’s debased the value of the basketball regular season.  So I’ll say it again:  if you’re a D-1 college football fan fully aware that the same greedheads are in charge of deciding its postseason fate, that’s a sobering thought.

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UPDATE:  Chris Brown thinks the WSJ’s point about the at-home TV experience has some validity.  (One more reason to worry about the BCS suits doing what they can to please the networks.)

Envy and jealousy: there’s all kinds of jerks out there.

Andy Staples relates a great Steve Spurrier story in his article about Randy Edsall’s hypocrisy:

… While coaching at Florida in 1999, Spurrier was asked about intra-conference transfers by Mike Bianchi, then a columnist at the Florida Times-Union, at SEC media days. At the time, a debate raged in the league as to whether SEC-to-SEC transfers should have to sit out two years. “It’s a free country, isn’t it?” Spurrier asked, rhetorically. Then he looked at Bianchi. “Hey, Bianchi,” Spurrier said, “you didn’t have to sit out two years when you switched newspapers, did you?”

Using Spurrier mocking Bianchi to make a point about Edsall – that’s like playing with the matryoshka dolls of dickishness.   Nicely done, Mr. Staples.

Friday morning buffet

Grab a plate and do your thing.

• SOD defends signing Deion Bonner.  Sure sounds noble, but I still wouldn’t want to be the guy with the locker next to Bonner.
• Mark Richt thinks the way to improve last year’s horrendous showing on special teams is with personnel.  We’ll find out, because he’s not making any changes in the coaching assignments.
• Matt Hayes’ piece on the plus-one is a perfect exercise in cynicism.  Well, almost perfect:  “The biggest problem I have with the Group of 12 — all good men trying to do the right thing — is they’re being pushed into a situation they want no part of.”  Yeah, right.
• There’s no way the WWL can bring back Craig James after his Texas Senate campaign goes up in smoke, is there?
• Rating 2011’s  college quarterbacks by QB score (“if you generate yards and avoid turnovers, you will be rewarded”) yields some different results than does the standard passer rating formula.
• “The biggest thing I took from working with Coach Meyer was that Xs and Os are about one percent of why we were successful (at Florida) and why we will be successful here.”
• List of projected SEC quarterback starters in order of career wins here.
• Georgia isn’t wasting any time filling the slots that opened up in the defensive backfield.

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UPDATE:  Promises, promises.

Asked ESPN PR following Q today: How would Craig James's political comments be weighed by ESPN/Disney regarding any attempt to get re-hired?

— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) February 24, 2012

Responded an ESPN spokesperson:"You are asking a hypothetical since we don’t intend to bring Craig [James] back." So it's on the record.

— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) February 24, 2012

ESPN, we’re holding your ass to this, understand?  (h/t Doug)

Dawgs be Trippin’.

Or, as Mark Richt put it, “All hands on deck.”

Richard Samuel to fullback.  Ray Drew to defensive end.  Malcolm Mitchell “experimenting” with some time at cornerback.  It’s all on the table.

G-Day will be fun to watch, that’s for sure.

I don’t have a problem with the moves, as long as they’re well thought out and justified, as opposed to the “see what happens if we stick him there” approach we’ve seen before.

“We have got to make sure that we take the entire talent base of our football team and get the best players out there in whatever situations that we need them in,” Richt said. “If that means a guy playing both ways or two positions on defense — whatever we’ve got to do to get the best players on the field. We’ve got to take advantage of everybody’s abilities.”

I think what we’re seeing is the Granthamization of Georgia’s approach to utilizing personnel.  We’d better hope that the strength and conditioning program can keep up.