Kids these days – where’s their sense of priorities?

I mean, what can you do?

Saturday’s expected team flip-flopping has even removed the traditional reward to the winning team and punishment to the losing team — a steak and lobster dinner for the victors and Beanee Weenees to the losers.

Not that any Bulldogs will apparently shed any tears over the game’s decreased stakes.

“We’re just going to play ball for the love of the game and for the love of playing between the hedges in front of family and friends and the fans and TV,” Richt said. “We’re not doing steak and lobster.

“The problem with that is half the kids like the Beanee Weenees better than the steak and lobster, so it just doesn’t seem to be a good motivator.”

Somewhere in this great land of ours – probably behind bars – Willie Williams hears this and shakes his head.

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Oh, what might have been.

Let’s just say this is easily the most disappointing headline of the week.

The spread spreads: Missouri serves notice.

The Tigers like their offense and they ain’t backing down.

… While the Tigers have been asked if they can adapt, Yost wonders if the SEC can adapt. Not a lot of spread has been used in this league, and even Urban Meyer’s spread at Florida showed a lot of power plays with physical QB Tim Tebow. Auburn was much more spread out, but Yost said this will be different.

“We will be a spread team and we will try to give people fits in different ways than how other people do it,” Yost said.

“There’s not a lot of what we do happening in that league right now. It’s a change for us going against new people, but it’s also a change for them for what they’re going to see because we’re different and we’re different in how we do it.”

I like the bravado.  And it may not be false, at least not based on last year’s split stats, which are remarkably consistent.  More interestingly, Texas, which had a former SEC defensive coordinator in Manny Diaz running the show, did slow Missouri down somewhat, holding it about 140 yards under its season average, but the Tigers still averaged almost five yards per play.

That being said, it was just one game against the eleventh ranked defense in the country.  The second best defense Missouri saw was 49th ranked North Carolina.  This season, the Tigers will square off against three teams in their own division with higher ranked defenses than Texas had and a fourth in Vanderbilt that finished eighteenth nationally.  That’s not exactly a walk in the park.

And that’s the thing.  It’s the week after week grind that the Tigers haven’t experienced.  We’ll see how confident a bunch they remain as they slog through the schedule.

This week, inside great nicknames in the SEC…

Meet Alabama’s 6-1, 246-pound running back, Jalston Fowler.  You can call him “Nudie”.  He’s used to it.

“When I was a baby, my dad said he used to walk around and say, ‘This my Nudie baby. Can’t nobody have him. This my Nudie baby,’” Fowler said. “He’d say that all the time. Everybody asks me about that and I tell them the same story.”

It’s better than having your dad call you “Sue”, I suppose.

I wonder if Saban ever calls him Nudie baby.

To protect and serve… and fist bump

Did you know?

Around the Southeastern Conference, providing sideline security for SEC programs is considered coveted duty. Some officers travel to away games, a cost paid for mostly by the schools. It can range from volunteer duty to part of the officer’s regular schedule.

Makes complete sense to me.  Of course, it’s serious stuff.

“We consider it an honor because college football is such a public part of life in the south,” said Mississippi Highway Patrol Maj. Billy Mayes, a 31-year veteran of the MHP who graduated from Ole Miss in 1981. “But from my point of view, the relationship is strictly business…”

Yep.  Strictly.

I don’t know about you, but I’d have paid good money to be inside either of those two’s shoes.

“Well, I like what he does or he wouldn’t be there.”

Now this is some first-grade fish bait, Chip Towers.

Mike Gottfried says Georgia fans should be careful what they wish for with regard to offensive coordinator Mike Bobo. The long time college football analyst predicts Bobo likely will be leaving the Bulldogs sooner than they think  — and it won’t be under the circumstances they might expect.

“They won’t have him long,” said Gottfried, a sportscaster and former head coach at Pittsburgh and three other college programs. “He will be a head coach real soon. Coach Bobo is a great human being and a great coach and he’s going to be a great head coach some day, without any doubt.”

Mike Gottfried?  I guess Bob Davie wasn’t available for comment.

It’s fair to say there’s some disconnect between Bobo’s production and his public perception.  It’s also fair to say that Bobo bears some responsibility for that.  But his agent is prepared to do something about it.

… But, salary talk aside, Campbell doesn’t believe his client gets enough respect.

“That’s something my partner and I have observed; the perception isn’t there on him that should be,” Campbell said. “If you look at the production, clearly he’s been very productive, very good for the offense. He’s a young coach and we really believe in him. But there’s a disjoint in perception and I find that curious. I think that’s one of the challenges we have, to try to change that a little bit.”

Campbell’s got some spare time freed up for that now, seeing as he’s also Bobby Petrino’s agent.