No Pop Tarts on the menu, I’m afraid.
- The WAC as football conference, dead at 50.
- Seriously, why does anyone care about this?
- Weighing the options in light of the new kickoff rules.
- Weird stuff with Florida recruiting.
- Aaron Murray: “We need to play every game this season like we did during the winning streak.”
- “Of course, there are times when punting is a good idea,” Romer said in an e-mail message, “just not nearly as many as football coaches seem to think.”
- Not all penalties are created equal.
- Just when you think the NCAA can’t make a bigger ass out of itself, it proves you wrong. If I were a student-athlete and read that, my blood would be boiling.
Get The Picture 
The dress she wore to the draft ?? $^%$&#@W ??
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WACed off? (I’m sorry I felt I had to go there) 😉
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What a bunch of jerks for helping people in need. the audacity to think they could just buy a jacket for someone that was cold. Jerks.
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New kick-off rules. Kick it into the endzone and it goes to the 25 yard line. But because of kicking from the 35 it’s easier to kick it into the endzone. I say kick it into the endzone every time and go on D at the 25. Once in a while somebody will try to run one out and maybe we”ll tackle the guy at the 15. This is good for any team with a strong legged kicker.
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Put it up high to come down between the 10-5 yd lines and you have some on-field decision making by players; – fair catch or get plowed before the 15.
I think there will be many high kicks (more than were perceived as possible when the rule was first made) and they will add to the excitement of the game, no matter whether receiving or kicking.
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“We need to play every game this season like we did during the winning streak.”
If only the entire schedule were as easy as that 10 game stretch, we could have been undefeated.
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“We need to play every game this season like we did during the
winning streakfirst halves of the SECCG and the bowl game.”Fixed.
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Any professional writer who uses the phrase “extreme momentum” deserves to be fired.
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Poor punting decisions have been causing me to throw items around the man cave for years. Several scenarios have been a thorn in my arse.
Most aggravating of all is the decision to punt from the opponents 35 yd line, eschewing the risky 52 yd FG, only to punt the ball into the endzone on the fly, or on a one-hopper, for a net gain of 15 yds. Just grow a set and go for the first down. Barring that, kick a damn coffin-corner. I suspect the coffin-corner has become extinct due to the atrocious system that refs use to mark these (usually high trajectory) punts, running up the sideline like a blind man, usually marking anything crossing the sideline inside the 5 as a touchback and anything inside the 10 at about the 20. This can be overcome by kicking the coffin-corner with a very low line-drive trajectory crossing the sideline at a height that would be very hard to miss.
Next is the FG from inside your opponents 4 yd line. Absolutely nauseating. Go for it. Last time I checked, 2 FGs do not equal 1 TD. Assuming you do get stopped short of the first down or goal line, the opposing team begins their possession with their QB standing in the endzone. Assuming your D does not suck, you continue to be the aggressor, you should get the ball back in great shape, and a safety and possession of the ball is a possibility.
Finally, could we possibly learn something from Boise St and a few others and begin to use the line-drive rugby kick? Some would say it doesn’t give the coverage team time to get downfield. Not so. Time is gained as the punter rolls out to one side of the field before kicking. This, coupled with the fact that this type of ball is often hard to handle, and also gets a great deal of distance after touching the field, allows the coverage team to move downfield. Return men are often running sideways or backwards when fielding these punts. While these kicks sometimes look ugly, the distance can be outstanding. This type of punt also does not allow an opponents best return man time to move under the ball.
I apologize for the long post/rant. Please know it has been cathartic for me.
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I’m a big fan of the punt analysis, and wish punting were far less frequent, but the punter Kluwe makes a good point: the decision to punt may not maximize the expected difference in score between your team and the opponent, but it can absolutely reduce variance. Particularly when playing a significantly weaker opponent, the important thing is to minimize risk, because bad luck is the only way you are going to lose. When you go for it on 4th and 3 on your own 20, you are opening up the door to getting enough bad breaks to lose a game that you should never lose. If you play it conservative and only beat the weakling by a couple TDs, nobody cares.
Conversely, if you are playing a stronger team, you should maximize variance – that’s why I really liked the onside kick against LSU. Even if the teams are evenly matched, variance does not matter, only expectation, so go for it!
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When you were championing the opening of Pandora’s Box to give student-athletes(SAs) mo’ pocket money (at which time I drew your attention to the Student Assistance Fund (SAF) as a covering fund for those who had needs not covered by schollys), UGA’s fund had just grown having received monies from the SEC’s portion of the SAF distributed by the NCAA.
Why would any SA’s blood boil after reading about the fund helping in time of need? Because of the cost of a dress after lifting this gift from the millions in the fund? Get outta here. Knocking the SAF for the members of the NCAA not giving more pocket money to SAs is a stretch.
I wouldn’t mind if the NCAA gave a disproportionately larger second helping (similar to govt assistance during and following natural disasters) to benefit those SAs experiencing what would have been unseen future ramifications resulting from the chaos occurring in Tuscaloosa (as a rare example, a family bread winner rendered helpless and on life support). Picture Athens, our campus, life interruptions for victims and tell me we wouldn’t appreciate the SAF, with it’s fully audited accounts, benefiting SAs.
The dress (if that is what you are referring to) wasn’t decided by the NCAA. It was a school decision and if she was one of our athletes, I would have applauded the gift. By the way, where do all the athletes waiting on phone calls (and on TV) for the NFL Draft get their threads? I don’t want to know, but probably they were given by the Athletic Dept as part of their away game ensemble where we want them to represent us stylishly when they get off the bus. Go figure.
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“By the way, where do all the athletes…for the NFL Draft get their threads?”
T-Town Menswear? Maybe they’re servicing the entire fleet now
http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/not-again-current-bama-qb-linked-to-suit-store-29806
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But, no one told them they were signing jerseys!
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How do they determine if a S-A has enough money for the… dress, plane ticket, clothes, etc. ? What about the regular student at Alabama who works to pay his/her own way thru school and lived in that same apartment complex as the football players who just revamped their wardrobe? Most of which probably consisted of 25 hoodies and t-shirts from the athlectic dept anyway? Do they get anything since they aren’t athletic? I understand that athlectics (TV Revenue) was the genesis of the money for the fund, but talk about double standard. The draftee needed a dress for what….. to go to NJ and be drafted? Who paid for the trip? Does she not own a dress at all? Could she have refused the trip and still been drafted? Did she have an agent who can front the money? Money home for a funeral is one thing, but a mandatory dress in order to go make $$ playing a sport is something else entirely.
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If her circumstances were such that the school used the fund at their discretion, I’d think there would be good reason. But your last sentence is correct if taken that way. I didn’t read any deleterious facts and I don’t have to know the circumstances. That’s not a head-in-the-sand position, but rather that not enough facts were present in the article for me to make a judgement.
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