Your scheduling talk won’t save you now.

Phil Steele breaks down the SEC schedules for this season here.  His South Carolina analysis tells us something we already knew.

South Carolina-Head coach Steve Spurrier has been quick to note that the Gamecocks have the best record against their SEC East competitors over the past 2 years but have failed to make it to Atlanta due to the uneven crossover division schedules. This year that all changes as the Gamecocks avoid all 3 of the best teams in the SEC West, but they do open up with B2B games against North Carolina and a road trip to Georgia. They do get an all-important bye prior to a home game against Florida and then also get in-state rival Clemson at home in the finale.

Hopefully, Spurrier will be honest enough to admit things broke his way this year when the scheduling questions come flying at SEC Media Days.

Miles will probably still be grumbling, because LSU pulls Florida and Georgia, while Alabama manages to dodge the big three in the East again while drawing Tennessee and Kentucky.  But the folks who really have grounds to complain are at Arkansas.

The Hogs play Florida and South Carolina from the SEC East in back-to-back weeks and those two games are sandwiched between Texas A&M and Alabama, which gives them arguably the toughest 4-game stretch of any team in the country for 2013.

Arguably?  I’d hate to see who’s got it worse than that.

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They’re only in it for the money.

I don’t think Chip Towers’ post on Georgia’s reaction to the new NCAA recruiting rules is unreasonable in its logic, but that doesn’t mean it’s unquestionable.  For one thing, he makes an assumption that hasn’t played out yet.

Bylaw 11.7.1.1.1.1 on “non-coaching staff members” expressly forbids people in positions such as Steele from analyzing video of prospects or interacting with prospects or current players in any on-field coaching capacity. Yes, the new proposals allow them to communicate with prospects by mail, email, text or phone call. But all indications are those proposals are going to be overturned by schools by the end of the override period, which is March 20^th. Then what are these new hires going to do?

I haven’t seen anything yet that suggests all the proposals are going to be overturned in their entirety.  I do think the most expensive stuff – the unlimited mailings, for example – isn’t likely to survive.  But the non-coaching staff issue?  I’m far from sure about that, because there are already a lot of schools invested in that area.  Including, as Towers points out in his very next paragraph, Georgia:

Besides, a closer look reveals that Georgia is pretty well-stocked as it is when it comes to “non-coaching personnel” in the athletic department. A quick check of the Bulldogs’ administrative directory shows that UGA already has a director of football operations (Brad Hutcherson), a director of player development (John Eason), a director of player welfare (Dave Van Halanger), a director of on-campus recruiting (Darryl Jones), a recruiting program coordinator (Connie Connelly), a program coordinator (Bryant Gantt) and a recruiting assistant (Ben Bradenburg). That doesn’t count Josh Brooks, whose responsibilities as assistant AD for internal operations have mostly to do with football; Mike Cavan, a former major college head football coach who primarily works as an athletics fundraiser but is also a de facto football consultant for Athletic Director Greg McGarity; and several graduate assistant coaches and video coordinators.

As these are people already there, there’s no expense issue in adapting to the new rules.  It’s more a matter of how much additional on-campus recruiting responsibilities are placed on those folks as part of their job descriptions.

Towers concludes by asking a question that infers there’s little to be achieved from this – I mean, how many people do you need to oversee 100 players and sign 25 prospects a year to scholarships? – but here’s what I wonder.  If there’s nothing to be gained from it, why did Nick Saban hire Kevin Steele in the first place?  And why is Greg McGarity fighting so hard to overturn the change?

Musical palate cleanser, cable bills blues edition

With the news that a cable company is suing Viacom over bundling a bunch of crappy channels nobody wants with the stuff that does get watched, here’s The Boss weighing in:

Now I know this is largely bs…

The manner in which Viacom sells its programming is illegal, anti-consumer, and wrong. Viacom effectively forces Cablevision’s customers to pay for and receive little-watched channels in order to get the channels they actually want. Viacom’s abuse of its market power is not only illegal, but also prevents Cablevision from delivering the programming that its customers want and that competes with Viacom’s less popular channels.

… because, let’s face it, if Cablevision were to succeed, it would pocket most of the savings as opposed to passing them on – this is a cable company we’re talking about here, right? – but you’ve got to start somewhere.  If nothing else, the rhetoric promises to be fun to watch.