A little of this, a little of that to nosh on.
- Rivals looks at the top schools for producing receiver talent for the pros, shockingly leaves Georgia Tech off the list.
- Bill Connelly breaks down the Missouri spring game.
- I would think it’s a problem when a Florida beat writer ranks fullback as a greater position of strength for the Gators than quarterback.
- “We’re all trying to do what’s good for college football,” said Slive. Here’s what he means by that.
- Meanwhile, for some reason, Mr. Conventional Wisdom keeps trotting out Roy Kramer for his opinion on what the commissioners should do.
- If you didn’t know, Tennessee is ending its current structure of separate men’s and women’s athletic departments. The inevitable personnel carnage has started.
- Some cautious optimism about Georgia’s offensive line situation is expressed here.
- Allen Kenney parses stats to gain some insight into the age-old debate about whether it’s the Big 12 quarterbacks who are so good, or the Big 12 pass defenses which are so bad. (At least we’re likely to get a clue about that when Missouri and Texas A&M play in the SEC this year.)
- Matt Stafford talks about marijuana problems… on the Detroit Lions. I blame Bobo, of course.
Get The Picture 
Okay, so I have a procedural question. Having agreed to no longer blame Bobo, is that agreement exclusive to Georgia and Georgia football players while enrolled in Athens? Or is it acceptable for me to jump on the bandwagon and blame him for the fact that the Detroit Lions seem to like the ganja?
LikeLike
What’s to blame? I thought we all decided we liked Bobo AND ganja.
Pot stirred.
LikeLike
It would still be fun if I could blame him for SOMETHING. Illegal immigration? Surely that’s Bobo’s fault, right?
LikeLike
Could be. Chester didn’t come here.
LikeLike
The writer is certainly impressed with Missouri. His impressions of their spring game are glowing. He sees only wonderful things with the exception of defensive backs. The linebacking corps is so fine that the second string is better than the first. Same as QB. The offensive line is superb…..I was so disturbed after reading how good they are that I made myself go back and read Saban’s quote about spring games.
LikeLike
Our starting QB is hurt, our best RB is likely out for the season (both have been well-covered enough that I didn’t really feel the need to discuss it on a Missouri blog), and I announced that I was completely terrified of our safeties. Not really sure how this accounts for “glowing,” but to each their own.
LikeLike
How can you have a great running and passing O and a great D that defends running and passing? That was a “glowing “report of a Spring Game designed to give the public a look at a practice game. I still read between the lines that you have a weak D when compared to SEC Ds.
LikeLike
I used the word “great” exactly zero times.
I said the redshirt freshman quarterback did reasonably well while looking like a redshirt freshman.
I said a young center, who had no bad snaps and allowed no pressure, looked good and offered Mizzou more OL options.
I said the likely starting DT, who had a sack and some hurries (yes, against the second-team OL), looked pretty good.
I said the second-string linebackers, one of whom had a pick six, another of whom broke up a couple of passes, and another of whom had hard hits and forced a fumble, looked good.
I said the safeties, whose miscues accounted for two long touchdown passes and another long pass, looked horrid.
Seemed relatively even-handed to me. Missouri has been a Top 20-30 program for a while now, and as such, they are probably going to have more strengths than weaknesses. But the weaknesses are pretty clear and have been clear enough previously that they didn’t need constant mentions, again, on a Missouri blog that has covered the territory well.
LikeLike
Read all of that before, but the emphasis was different. It still looks like the D could be had. The good part is that we will meet , play the game and find out. Looking forward to a new kid on the block. Looking forward to seeing Columbia again. We visited my wife’s daughter who was on scholarship in your fine lady’s school there.
Weird. Heard we are obtaining game film from Troy. Whatever the hell does that mean?
LikeLike
Bill, this is coming from a cultural attitude that has been cultivated by men like Vince Dooley and Larry Munson…we always wring our hands, pointing out the weakness’ on out teams while building up the opposition. I admit to overhyping your hype! We’re glad you’re in the SEC and look forward to many years of banter followed by actual competition of the field by the only people who really dedcide these things…the players. I’m happy and not suprised that you read the Senator’s blog..I think I speak for everyone here when I say “please contribute often!”.
LikeLike
And please don’t judge all Georgians by my grammer and spelling. I never proof read before posting.
LikeLike
Heh…duly noted.
LikeLike
RE: Mizzou
If the offense had such a brilliant day (the QB’s threw for 400 yards, RB’s had ~150), how did the defense impress at all? Mizzou has a ton of offense. But, I think they are as misguided about SEC offenses (and their ability to stop them from scoring) as SEC teams are about SEC defenses (and Mizzou’s inability to score against them). I’m not deluded enough to think Missouri won’t score points in the SEC, but they have to be able to stop somebody, too. Losing 41-38 is still a loss.
LikeLike
The only way I can see them rationalizing it is by assuming they can make SEC games just as much of a shootout as the Big 12.
Their defense has never been a strength, so they don’t benefit from running around yelling “the sky is falling” based on something they’ve known and long-held. It also fits with human nature to take their past performance and project it to a new situation, erroneously.
They basically wallpaper over the Secondary analysis by focusing on the safety play… if the 2nd string QB was able to torch the D even with “staring down” options and prematurely closing his eyes, imagine what the stats might have been had the Second Coming (James Franklin) been playing.
I don’t think Missouri will end up being as close as Larry Munson would’ve thought at this point of the offseason
LikeLike
Your “rationalizing” is my “talking about the players who did well and the players who did poorly.”
Realize, also, that the first-team offense went up against the second-team defense, and vice versa. So it is theoretically possible for offensive and defensive players to look good (or, in case of the safeties, bad).
LikeLike
Oh. Well that makes more sense.
LikeLike
Sorry Bill. I appreciate the content.
I was trying to get more at the point of the post not stressing the known weaknesses (like UGA wasn’t beating itself terribly over the unknown quantities for ST, for instance; we all know we’ll likely be in for a few parades of horrors in the Fall in punting/FGs), because they’re, well, known.
It’s spring football, it’s meant to be fun. It’s hard to take a lot of meaningful insights out of a intra-squad scrimmage for the public.
We’re all just hungry for the fall main course and ready to welcome Mizzou to some SEC football
LikeLike
Tennesee is the new Vanderbilt… except without all of the academic ̶t̶r̶a̶p̶p̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ mumbo jumbo.
LikeLike
Why is it a problem for Florida to be better at fullback at quarterback? Just put the fullback at quarterback, boom. National title. Adoration of the masses.
LikeLike
That’s so 2008.
LikeLike
Nobody boos the fullback, it’s just that the statue would cost a fortune. They are B-i-i-i-g!
LikeLike
Interesting:
‘… pick the three highest-rated conference champions. The fourth spot would be a “wild card” that would go to the highest-rated non-conference champion.
Had that plan been in place last season, LSU (SEC), Oklahoma State (Big 12), and Oregon (Pac-12) would have qualified as the highest-ranked conference champions.
LikeLike
The 4 would still lend itself to bracket creep… imagine if Georgia had beaten LSU in the conference championship game.
Would Georgia have gone? Would LSU, as a non-conference winner, gone even if the Georgia team it lost to the week before didn’t make it? If you move in this direction, it cuts off the number of Championship-caliber spots (from BCS’ 8, to 4), potentially cutting the size of the pie in the process. And this does not even get into the available spots for non-major conferences, which would be reduced. Leave the BCS as-is, and leave the hand wringing to CFB blogs
LikeLike
Plus One. Teams are the top 4 straight out of the BCS Rankings. That’s the ticket. Identifies the true best team in the country 99% of the time.
LikeLike
How about we roll it all up into a round-robin/jamboree/battle-royal/Texas strap match? Last team standing takes home the belt!
LikeLike
What’s wrong with an 8-team playoff featuring the winners in a bowl playoff for starters? I thought Kramer hinted big in that direction. It could help solve the RB game as well. Why would Big10 and Pac12 want to get knocked out of contention in the first game? I think that would be a sufficient wedge to separate that crud from the start.
Conference Champions of SEC, ACC, Pac12, Big12, Big10 plus one other conference selected by natl rank would be representative. Last two teams could be chosen from “lesser” Bowl games featuring nonconf champs(in natl rankings) like Outback, Cotton, Capital One, Gator- all played earlier.
Venue for the 8 champions could easily be mixture of a major bowl nearest the teams and a couple of campus venues. I think it would encourage attendance at the initial bowls when each team is vying to be in the playoff. Better attractant than a trophy to be hoisted in the air. Gives more bling to teams, like Natl Playoff Team, 20– or Final Four, 20–. Win-win in trophies, honors, nonconf champ inclusion, solves the RB red herring , gives more meaning to bowl games plus some bowls may host two games, rotation of bowls to host plus leaves a little room to exploit the campus venues and the local monies realized to those chosen. And, oh yeah, mo’ money.
Don’t see anything that would decrease the meaning of the regular season football games.
LikeLike