Air Raid 1.0, just another boring SEC offense

Once upon a time, Heisman Pundit gave Michael Elkon a history lesson about the SEC.

Your claim that Spurrier changed offenses more than Meyer did in the league is absurd. The proof is in the offensive numbers, the titles and the Heisman winners. For instance, the Heisman is only won with superb offensive numbers. That’s a truism. So, it’s no shock that the only SEC Heisman winner between 1986 and 2007 came from Florida, the only SEC school that had outstanding offensive production. Of course, since 2007, there have been three SEC Heismans, which coincides with the league’s offensive explosion (as I demonstrated by the numbers in my post). Do you think it’s all just a cosmic coincidence?

8. I grant you that Spurrier did introduce the forward pass to the SEC. But those offenses that started passing were nowhere near as innovative as Spurrier’s and they did not keep up with some of the other leagues and that is reflected in the national offensive numbers during that time…

I always think of that when I see a piece on what Hal Mumme and Mike Leach did at Kentucky.

In 1996, as the Bill Curry era limped to a close, a ground-hugging Kentucky offense scored a combined 27 points in its first five games. In ’97, Mumme’s first UK attack scored 28 points in the season’s first three quarters.

Having inherited a team whose offense averaged 12.6 points and 217.8 yards a game, Mumme’s first fancy passing unit put up 31.6 points and 474 yards a game, broke 51 school and 15 Southeastern Conference records and featured the nation’s leading passer.

Other than that, it was just like three yards and a cloud of dust.

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How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm once they’ve seen the Flats?

Georgia Tech’s latest recruiting pitch looks like something that was beta tested at Dragon*Con.

I can’t wait to hear from the first recruit who says he was swayed by that.

Get that ball and go.

Going back to something Grantham said the other night…

“We actually created six turnovers and we were plus-3 for the game,” Grantham said. “In this league, when you turn the ball over you’re going to have a hard time winning. The last two years we’ve had 62 (takeaways), which is second only to LSU. If we’re plus-1 since I’ve been here we’re right around 92 percent win. It’s a critical point, we emphasize it and we work it every day. It’s a part of the game. You have to protect the football.”  [Emphasis added.]

… you might find this analysis about SEC turnover margin at MrSEC.com of interest.  Over the last six seasons, here’s what a team’s chances of winning a conference game look like if it wins the turnover battle:

Turnover Margin	Wins	Losses	Winning %
Plus 1	74	29	71.8
Plus 2	52	13	80.0
Plus 3 or more	55	7	88.7

Grantham’s percentage, you may note, is considerably higher than that, which makes sense if you think about it.  Positive territory for turnovers is an equalizer for the weaker teams, and an added boost for stronger ones.  (Of course, there will always be some teams for which you just have to toss the stats out the window.  But I digress.)

Georgia’s been second, third and fifth in the conference in turnover margin during Grantham’s time.  It’s been anywhere from plus-seven to plus-eleven in that period.  Given our expectations for the offense and defense in 2013, maintaining that consistency is likely to be a big deal.  Two keys to that:  on the offensive side, Aaron Murray needs to cut down on the picks, and on the defensive side, somebody needs to step up and assume the mantle from Justin Houston and Jarvis Jones of putting pressure on opposing quarterbacks/backfields.

Gee, a ninth conference game sure would be nice…

I don’t follow tennis all that much, so I just learned that CBS will not retain the broadcast rights to the U.S. Open after 2014.  However, as a fan of SEC football, I’m very much aware of the consequences of that.

ESPN’s new ownership of the U.S. Open tennis tournament could mean CBS televises early-season SEC football games starting in 2015.

CBS has carried the U.S. Open every year since 1968, meaning CBS doesn’t begin airing SEC games until the third or fourth week of September. With the U.S. Open leaving for ESPN after 2014, CBS would have to decide whether it wants to use some of its allotted games in earlier weeks, SEC Executive Associate Commissioner Mark Womack said today.

From a viewership standpoint, I don’t think CBS haz a sad over this.  Due to last year’s mediocre slate of games, ratings for SEC on CBS dropped to their lowest level in four years.  But that was still better than twice as much as what the Open pulled.

Here’s the thing – that “some of the allotted games” is kind of a big deal.

In years when college football’s regular season has a typical 13-week calendar, CBS owns 14 regular-season games plus the SEC Championship Game. The regular-season games include one primetime game, an early 11 a.m. doubleheader game prior to its usual 2:30 p.m. time slot, and a game on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

That’s a tight squeeze in ordinary years.  But in years when there’s an extra week to the season, CBS, with the Open gone, wouldn’t have enough product to broadcast every week if it so desired.  Seems like there’s a pretty obvious way to solve that problem, no?

The dumbest thing you’ll read all day.

If anybody really thinks that no bowl game on Earth would take a Notre Dame squad with a winning record… well, I’m still sitting on some very attractive oceanfront property in Hahira.  We need to talk.