Who is this “Tebow” you speak of?

Methinks this isn’t going to help the NCAA’s side of the O’Bannon case.

 

Mad scientist time

Wrap your brain around this puppy for a second:

Coach Richt says team has a set to get both Gurley and Marshall in the backfield, but said he'd have a fullback in as the lead blocker

— Anthony Dasher (@AnthonyDasher1) May 22, 2013

Whoa.

Now I doubt they’re talking about running the wishbone because of the risk of subjecting Aaron Murray to an unnecessary pounding – although the thought of pulling that against Georgia Tech even for one play is amusing as hell – but there are still plenty of alternatives, from the Wildcat (note Richt said nothing there about leaving the QB in such a set) to some of the crazy stuff Dana Holgorsen’s known for that would be tantalizing.

If nothing else, that just gave Clemson’s defensive coordinator something else to think about.

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Envy and jealousy: it’s about the players edition

Now I realize that “check out the hypocrisy of college athletics!” articles are a dime a dozen these days, but damn, this one’s really well written.  This line in particular just about made me swoon:

In 2011, Slive — a man whose joy-evoking athletic talent has never inspired a single jersey purchase, let alone a lucrative television rights bidding war — reportedly received nearly $1.6 million in compensation from a conference that is considered a non-profit organization by the Internal Revenue Service.

I only wish there’d been some way to fit a Michael Adams reference in there somewhere.

If you’re jonesing for a heavy dose of sarcasm this morning, go no further.

Sounds familiar.

Hey, remember those dark days of 2009 and 2010 when a considerable part of the fan base wanted Mark Richt’s head on a platter?  Yeah, me, too.  One of the names we saw bandied about quite often as a replacement was Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen.  Check out Bill Connelly’s ringing endorsement of Mullen:

It happens to every successful coach at some point. Hell, it probably happened to Nick Saban when Alabama was only going 10-3 in 2010. You raise the bar for a given program higher than it has been for a while, but people get a little bit impatient when you fail to continue raising it. You could be a couple of 7-6 seasons away from full-fledged Glen Mason Territory.

Back in my blogger infancy, i coined a term called Glen Mason Territory to describe when a coach achieves at a higher-than-normal level at a given school (probably a second-tier BCS program that hadn’t won in a while before he showed up) but cannot ever break through to the next level; he keeps making bowl games and winning, say, 6-8 games a year, but fans begin to get impatient. The crazies begin to start yelling things like “settling for mediocrity!” on talk radio and message boards, season ticket sales begin to fade, and even the rational fans in the base (the SB Nation readers, naturally) begin to start wondering if a change is needed.

Now, Dan Mullen is not there yet, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Well, that’s a relief.  But it sure doesn’t sound like it would have been much of an upgrade, either.

Just another be careful what you wish for reminder, folks.

Nice system you got there.

Here’s a neat look at what Art Briles’ offense is up to at Baylor.

Now that’s what I call a spread formation.

“Indoor practice, I get it.”

McGarity sure does.

“The indoor practice facility is used for I think the best case scenario is when you have lightning. We do have an area where we can go and as we know it’s a summer, early fall instance here. So we have a place to go, but we can go right back out on those two full practice fields of turf and not miss a beat. If we didn’t have those fields down there, yes, I can see where practicing on the grass, you would tear grass up, but in the last three years, yeah, we’ve had some days where you can go inside, but those you can count them on two hands. That’s an investment that’s probably in the neighborhood of 20 million dollars. I’m not so sure that’s something is a wise expense at this time. It’s something that was not a priority several years ago and it’s really not a priority right now.”

I’ve never been convinced an indoor facility is as big a deal as some make it out to be.  Florida doesn’t have one either, and the Gators don’t seem to have been worse off for the experience.  But I get why Richt and Murray would like one.  It’s just that the topic has been beaten to death and nobody’s rushing to tap the precious… er, capital reserve funds.  Not gonna happen.

In related news, water is still wet.