Doing a complete 160

Year2 has some good stuff about passing efficiency in this post.

An outstanding season passing efficiency score is 160 or above. Some years don’t even have a single player reach that level. The majority of players who do hit 160 or above are either seniors or upperclassmen who leave for the pros early. Since 2000, when the NCAA stats archive begins, only 24 players have hit 160 passing efficiency and returned the following year.

It gets lost in the shuffle sometimes, but don’t forget that Aaron Murray was closing in on a 160+ rating for the season in his freshman year (his passer rating before the disastrous bowl game was 162.725).  Last season his rating declined to 146.41 due to drops in his completion percentage and yards per attempt and the increase in interceptions.  If you compare the game logs between the two years, his 2010 numbers are much more consistent.  His second worst rating that year (130.25 against Florida) would have only been his fifth worst effort in 2011.

Advertisement

Those that can, coach. Those that can’t…

… wind up as analysts on CBS Sports Network.

CBS Sports Network announces Houston Nutt will serve as studio analyst this year. He'll be joined by Ron Zook.

— Brandon Marcello (@bmarcello) August 14, 2012

Fulmer’s there, too.  Quite the collection.

I can win that division in 69 players…

I think we all know the question we wish Ivan Maisel had asked Spurrier here:

Two decades ago, when the NCAA cut back from 95 scholarships to 85, Florida coach Steve Spurrier opined that he believed the limit could fall to 75. Now that No. 1 USC is limited to 75 by an NCAA sanction, I asked Spurrier, now at South Carolina, if he still felt the same. “If you’ve got 75 really good players,” Spurrier said, “and you’re at a state university where you can get a walk-on scout team, you could easily do that.”

If Georgia manages to waltz out of Columbia with a win this year, there’s such an obvious opportunity for Richt to jab in the OBC’s direction at the post-game presser.  I hope he takes a minute to indulge himself so.  Or that at least somebody in the media throws him the fastball down the middle to give him the chance for the quip.

The hackery is strong with this one.

You knew somebody was going to go there.  It turned out to be Mr. Conventional Wisdom.

To some extent we’re all guilty for the fall of Tyrann Mathieu.

• When we offer a 14-year old kid a scholarship, we’re guilty.

• When we put four or five stars by a kid’s name and hang on his every word until he signs on the dotted line, we’re guilty.

• When we hold press conferences in high schools for kids to VERBALLY announce where they are going to school, we’re guilty.

• When we hold press conferences on national signing day where kids play with hats, signs, dogs and the media turns out in full force and gives the process legitimacy, we’re guilty.

• When college coaches tell teenage children anything and everything they (and their parents) want to hear in order to get them to sign because careers and millions of dollars hang in the balance, we’re guilty.

• When the sense of entitlement created in high school is allowed to continue in college because winning (and making money) is all that matters, we’re guilty.

• When we allow the primary (and sometimes only) goal of these kids to become holding up a jersey with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on a Thursday night in New York City, we’re guilty.

• When we in the media go along with the process because we’re trying to satisfy the public’s insatiable appetite for college football, we’re guilty.

Ugh.

I guess this would mean more if Barnhart had taken the occasion to announce from his soap box that he was no longer going to cover college football out of a sense of shame and responsibility.  After all, if “at the end of the day each individual is responsible for his or her own actions” and the media is enabling the bad behavior of a few kids, every little bit helps, right?

Mark Emmert’s “Pandora’s Box”

Matt Hayes pretty much nails the NCAA’s new problem:

But there’s no avoiding academic fraud; no escape from what it exposes and how it jeopardizes the lifeblood of a multi-billion dollar, tax-exempt industry. There’s no denying the reality that if this unthinkable case of academic fraud is happening at North Carolina, where else is it hiding?

It’s easy to get emotional about a pedophile, and make snap decisions in the name of children. It resonates with everyone and produces instant credibility—no matter how skewed the process.

What happens when Emmert has to make a real decision? What happens when the very existence of college sports comes into play and the general public isn’t as engaged as Joe Sixpack was with Penn State?

Hayes is right about the reaction to child rape being an easy one, but there’s another reason that’s the case.  It’s rare, relatively speaking.  There aren’t a bunch of Jerry Sanduskys running around with schools casting blind eyes to that.

Academic scandals, however?  That cuts a lot closer to home in a lot more places.  My bet is Emmert cuts back on the self-righteousness big time, assuming he’s even moved to do something about North Carolina in the first place.

Your morning Dawg porn

A little practice drill work, starring the offensive and defensive lines (via):

Speaking of the lines, it sounds like they’ve all but settled on the o-line starters.

Freshman John Theus is all but the certain starter right tackle. Richt said they’ve used the lineup with Theus at right tackle “for the majority of our practices, and I think it’s been good.”

“We aren’t flipping guys a bunch. Guys are staying put, and I think it’s helping us,” Richt said.

And Gates is happy at left tackle, even though there’s room for improvement.

“I feel very comfortable because I feel that’s my natural position, that’s where I need to be,” Gates said after Monday’s practice. “This has been my best camp. I’ve worked hard and become a leader for the team and am just holding down left tackle.”

The 6-foot-5, 318-pound Gates, who started nine games at left guard last season, admits he can improve his technique.

“He’s getting better,” coach Mark Richt said. “He’s really practiced well the last few days especially. I think he’s become more comfortable there. He’s being a little bit more patient in his pass protection. …You’ve got to time your punch.”