The buffet table is cranked up and ready to go.
- Ouchy ouch: “Let’s just say Brian VanGorder worked out better as Georgia’s defensive coordinator than he did at Auburn.”
- Chris Brown breaks down Nick Saban’s breakdown of three plays during his stint at ESPN yesterday.
- Randy Edsall may not like players transferring, but he’s down with them getting paid.
- Georgia Tech’s top two receivers have eight career catches between them. Their backups are redshirt freshmen. That’s how the genius defines quality depth, I guess.
- Brace yourselves – Tennessee is coming out with new uniforms this season.
- According to Steele, if a team had 32 or more starts lost to injury the prior season, they improved or had the same record the next year on 80 out of 102 occasions for an 78.4% success rate. Georgia lost 33 starts last season.
- Here’s an attempt to rate coaches factoring in a program’s financial resources.
Get The Picture 
Brian must have felt like he was back at Georgia Southern.
LikeLike
He probably had more talent at GSU than he did on that defense at Auburn last year.
LikeLike
Not so fast my friend. “The Tigers returned nine defensive starters from their 2011 team that capped an eight-win season with a rout of Virginia in the Chick-fil-A Bowl.”
Georgia Southern was mostly known for its Offense and the triple option. Brian came in and scrapped the triple O and promptly lead the Eagles to their worst season of the modern era. And then left town.
He changed the Auburn D up to such a degree that most of them didn’t know where to line up. It was fun to watch.
LikeLike
That’s fair, but Auburn’s defense the last two years didn’t play like they had an ounce of talent against SEC competition.
LikeLike
I know it’s an off-season fluff piece and any time a new coach comes in you’re going to read about the old system “not working” BUT…… I think players aren’t stupid and they knew Chizik, et al were done at the end of the season. Those last few games had a lot of players with short-timers disease, not an inability to grasp playing defense.
LikeLike
Oh goody, something ELSE to make fun of the Vowels for!
LikeLike
“But there are some things that I think are important, and one of the things is that ‘I Will Give My All ForTennessee Today,’ so to be able to add a patch of the state of Tennessee above the individual’s name is, I think, very big for us.”
This promises to be a latitudinal change so big that it may make some* forget that ‘ Opportunity is Nowhere,’ and jerseys without names or maps. Butch came up with the 2 for 1 idea at 4:20
*http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4105/5042788511_d13d7437f0.jpg
LikeLike
Especially since most of their players come from out of state
LikeLike
Excellent point, a reminder of how a not in the arena Bickel felt when Flat Top Edsall took command:
“The first thing that kind of annoyed me was de-emphasizing the Terrapin logo and Terps nickname and making Maryland the primary focus of the program. I admit, this is a petty little thing. But I never particularly identified myself with the state of Maryland when I was a student there. I was a proud Terp. I don’t care about Turtles either. But for some reason I felt like being a student in College Park meant being a Terrapin and not as much about representing every backwards town in Maryland. Nevertheless, I will stipulate that this is minor and probably just a pet peeve of mine. Regardless it did bug me.”
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2011/10/26/bickels-blog-shut-up-and-win/
LikeLike
Someone should remind him that a terrapin isn’t a turtle.
LikeLike
When it comes to reptilian tetrapods, no one can remind a Bickel of anything . They take it as a pet peeve.
LikeLike
Is Van Gorder coaching anyone this year?
LikeLike
LB coach for the Jets.
LikeLike
Thanks.
LikeLike
Uh oh, the hiring of Dirk could be a sign that Rex needs to polish up his resume and hire Bob LaMonte
LikeLike
With Rico being ineligible and a walk-on withdrawing from the team, does that mean that we have two more recruiting slots added this year?
LikeLike