The dumbest comment you’ll read today.

Words fail me.

“I’ve always felt like, to have a successful team, you gotta have a few bad citizens on the team,” Pinkett told the show. “I mean, that’s how Ohio State used to win all the time. They would have two or three guys that were criminals. That just adds to the chemistry of the team. I think Notre Dame is growing because maybe they have some guys that are doing something worthy of a suspension, which creates edge on the football team. You can’t have a football team full of choir boys. You get your butt kicked if you have a team full of choir boys. You gotta have a little bit of edge, but the coach has to be the dictator and ultimate ruler.”

Pinkett would then clarify what he meant by “criminals.”

“I don’t want any mass murders or rapists,” Pinkett said. “I want guys that maybe get caught drinking that are underage, or guys that maybe got arrested because they got in a fight at a bar, or guys that are willing to cuss in public and don’t mind the repercussions of it. That’s the type of criminal I’m talking about.”

Yeah, I can see how a mass murderer could adversely affect team chemistry.  Total downer, man.

This guy is actually a radio analyst for Notre Dame.  Any bets on how long he keeps that job?

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The myth of Zach Mettenberger’s Georgia career

Can we please stop with this stuff already?

If Mettenberger can live up to the promise he showed when he was neck-and-neck with Aaron Murray in spring practice as a freshman at Georgia…

I hate to pick on Year2 here, because he’s just repeating a line others have uttered before, but that’s not how things played out in Athens.

Mettenberger went through two spring practices at Georgia.  As a true freshman, he defined the term “raw”.  He looked better as a redshirt freshman, wowing the crowd at G-Day.  But some of that has to be colored by him throwing against a second-string defense that was just starting to learn the ropes under Grantham.

Looking back, it seems that this whole story was first tossed out on a national level by Stewart Mandel, who claimed he received his information from some well-placed sources:

What began as a quarterback derby in Athens has devolved into a quarterback panic. Redshirt freshman Murray, ranked only behind USC’s Barkley and Texas’ Garrett Gilbert in Rivals.com’s 2009 quarterback rankings, will take over the reins this fall just as Georgia fans always imagined. But the Tampa native didn’t exactly wow observers this spring. In fact, classmate Zach Mettenberger finished spring on even footing, if not slightly ahead of Murray.

Mandel wrote that on May 4th.  The problem is that Mark Richt told a very different story two weeks earlier.

After briefly hesitating, Richt answered the inevitable question of whether Murray would have been No. 1  even if a third quarterback, Zach Mettenberger, had not been kicked off the team on Sunday. The answer, Richt said, is yes.

“I’m not out to hurt anybody worse than they may have been hurt to this point,” Richt said, “but Aaron would have been the No. 1 quarterback.”

Maybe some of this is a quibble over semantics, but there are many who cling to a romantic picture of Mettenberger having moved ahead of Murray before being unceremoniously booted from the program by Richt.  It never happened, according to the head coach.  And nobody with any familiarity with the situation has ever stepped forward to contradict Richt’s account of things.

Things have worked out for Mettenberger.  He’s landed at a place where he’s seen as having a better shot at an SEC title and a run at a national title than Murray.  That’s fine.  There’s just no need to make him out to be more than he was.  (Not that I should expect Uncle Verne to pass on the story, right?)

Hey, it’s nothing personal.

Well, maybe it is a little.

“My mentality going into this game is that they’re trying to prevent me from doing something that I was born to do,” said Jenkins, a 6-foot-4, 350-pound senior. “I feel like they’re trying to keep me from feeding my family. I don’t really think less of Buffalo, but I think of them as the enemy. They’re going into the game thinking they’re going to run over us and they really can’t. We don’t take anybody for granted.”

If Big John feels that way about Buffalo, I can’t wait to find out what he thinks about South Carolina.

Is Bobo willing to take the blame for packaged plays?

Michael Elkon says straight out what I hinted at in a comment a week ago:

So, the question becomes “who in the SEC is going to take the first plunge into packaged plays?”…

From a local perspective, do any of us have faith that Mark Richt and Mike Bobo are going to start using packaged plays? The easy answer is to say “no” and then to break out laughing. However, there are a couple reasons why packaged plays would make sense for the Dawgs. First, Brown points out that the concept works best with a no-huddle approach:

The rise of “packaged plays” is important on its own, but it becomes essential when combined with the other trend in football – the up-tempo no-huddle. The no-huddle, especially when operated by quarterbacks like Rodgers or Tom Brady, is an invaluable weapon when combating modern defenses that rely on constant movement to maximize confusion. “In the no-huddle context, the advantage of packaged plays becomes particularly acute,” says Grabowski, adding, “An offense that can run these packaged plays at the fastest tempos can get a vanilla look that further simplifies the read on a key defender.” If you’re going to go fast-paced no-huddle to prevent defenses from substituting or setting up in something exotic, you have to do it, well, fast, and slow audibles with lots of words and gyrations at the line are not that.

Georgia is the best-equipped team in the conference to implement this part of the strategy. Second, Richt and Bobo have an experienced quarterback this year. If anyone in the league can be trusted to be a point guard on grass, it ought to be Aaron Murray. The logic will be even stronger next year when Georgia has the benefit of a four-year starter under center. Richt and Bobo managed to stick to their guns during the spread craze. Now, offensive innovation has come around in a form that jibes with their preferred style. Will they take advantage?

There is a lot to that, the only caveat being that Bobo tends to run the version of the no-huddle that Grabowski says is incompatible with a packaged plays concept.  But there’s a caveat to my caveat:

Well, Murray is entering his third year as a starter now, so we shall see. Richt has said that Murray will have the freedom to change plays on his own this year.

“Murray’s to the point in his career where he can change just about any play or protection if he wants to,” Richt said in June.

If Richt really means that – and if somebody should know when his quarterback is ready for the responsibility, it’s Richt – there’s no reason this couldn’t work.  I wouldn’t trot it out against Buffalo, though.  Save that surprise for our new conference brothers in Columbia.

(By the way, reading the first part of Michael’s piece will drive you crazy thinking back to the Outback Bowl.  Georgia had the perfect answer to Michigan State’s aggressive defense – deep passes out of a max-protect formation – and used it effectively to help build a 16-0 first half lead.  Then it was abandoned until late in regulation, when it worked again.  You know who I blame for that.)

Wednesday morning buffet

More nourishing items than you can shake a stick at:

• ESPN is high on Georgia prospects for the 2013 draft:  “No other team had more than three prospects on the list. Georgia had four off its defense alone, led by senior nose guard John Jenkins, the No. 5 overall prospect on the list.”
• This year’s Georgia motto – “Our team. Our time. No regrets.” – is team driven.
• Is there going to be a struggle naming selection committee members?  If so, I’d be glad to help.
• When you’re facing an NCAA investigation, the news that you’ve had to disassociate your program from a booster ain’t the kind of news you want to be making.
• Run Lindsay Run asks the musical question “Does UGA under-recruit or under-develop offensive linemen?”
• Win projections for every team at College Football by the Numbers.
• Georgia and Florida try not to look ahead to their second-week matchups.
• Brian Cook thinks the SEC is allowing in-stadium replays of controversial plays from the TV network feed “to prevent biased home-field folks from ramping up outrage by selectively picking favorable angles”.  No doubt Marc Curles agrees.
• Here’s the list of ESPN’s top 25 markets over the last decade or so.  I wonder if the guy who thought the ACC needed to break into the Boston TV market still has a job.

You were serious about that?

“In fact, I wouldn’t be shocked if Dooley were named SEC coach of the year at the end of the season.”

I swear to God, I kept waiting for the punchline to drop in this John Adams piece about SOD.  Only it never did.

Musical palate cleanser: Anticipation

John Lennon knows what you’re feelin’ today, peeps.

As a bonus, here’s some non-lip synched early Fab Four stuff that’s… well, fab.