Looks like the Tramel Terry move is longer term than I first thought.
What does that say about Richt’s position on depth at receiver and in the secondary?
Daily Archives: December 18, 2013
Well, there’s one kid who won’t be playing quarterback at another SEC school.
After weeks of chatter, former Alabama defensive lineman D.J. Pettway says he’s coming back to Tuscaloosa.
He was dismissed from the Crimson Tide in February after his arrest for second degree robbery, but after a season at East Mississippi Community College, Pettway tweeted about signing with Alabama again…
Pettway was accused of physically attacking a fellow student along with teammates Eddie Williams and Tyler Hayes. All were dismissed from the team. Pettway’s lawyer released a lengthy statement following the dismissal to express his disappointment in the decision. Pettway was granted youthful offender status to end the legal process.
At least they know he can hit.
Filed under Nick Saban Rules
Shucks, it’s an honor just to be included with those folks.
So who would you pick and why?
Filed under Georgia Football
‘All right, this guy can play.’
I can’t guarantee a win over Nebraska in Jacksonville on New Year’s Day – in a game featuring the 97th and 120th ranked teams in turnover margin, it’s prudent to hedge your bets – but one thing I feel pretty certain about is that Hutson Mason will make sure Georgia doesn’t suffer from complacency.
Filed under Georgia Football
It’s so easy, hiring a new head coach edition.
For those of you who believe that hiring a replacement for Mark Richt one day would be a breeze because Georgia!, I give you the University of Texas coaching search.
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UPDATE: Thanks, Bleacher Report!
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UPDATE #2:
They’re following the manual on how to screw up a coaching search to the letter.
Filed under Georgia Football, It's Just Bidness
Hard times at Butts-Mehre
According to Forbes, Georgia is fourth in the SEC in football revenue, and has shockingly slid to fourth in net profitability. I know whom they can’t blame that on.
Last year the Bulldogs collected $22.5 million from ticket sales and another $28 million from contributions, highlighting how important a loyal alumni base can be to a team’s financial success.
It’s those damned expenses.
Though the top SEC teams have taken a more dominant position this year, with LSU close behind Alabama at No. 4, the conference as a whole no longer controls the front half of the list. Last year, the SEC commanded seven of the top ten spots; this year, the conference has just four teams in the top ten. Part of that has to do with how much SEC teams spend on football each year – the typical conference team spent a staggering $27 million…
This, too: “The athletic department contributed $4 million back to academic programming.” Watch that number grow over the next few years.
Filed under Georgia Football, It's Just Bidness
Marshall Morgan gets buttah.
I think we can all agree that Marshall Morgan is the big special teams success story of the season.
Morgan had his share of struggles as a freshman, making 8 of 14 field goals, and then was forced to miss the first two games of this season after a boating under the influence arrest. But Morgan has been about as rock solid as anybody on the team during this turbulent season filled with injuries and close games.
Morgan made 18 of 20 field goals, good for 90 percent, tops in the SEC and sixth nationally among those with 20 or more attempts.
He was named first-team All-SEC by both The Associated Press media vote and the coaches.
Morgan will head to the New Year’s Day Gator Bowl against Nebraska having made his last 13 field goal tries since missing off the left upright on a 39-yard attempt against at Tennessee on Oct. 5. He followed that up by booting the game-winning 42-yard field goal in overtime in the 34-31 Bulldogs win.
It’s not the first time Georgia’s had a kicker whose game dramatically improved from one season to the next, but it’s interesting to me what Morgan’s worked on to improve himself.
Morgan said on the field he worked more on angled kicks, which “made the area to make it a lot smaller and then when you go to kick a regular field goal, it’s like nothing.”
This is even more interesting.
The one area of his game that Richt wants him to improve on in the offseason is kickoffs as 17 of Morgan’s 67 kickoffs (25.3 percent) went for touchbacks. As a team, Georgia ranked 12th out of 14 teams in touchbacks and 13th in kickoff coverage.
Richt didn’t want to mess with Morgan’s kickoffs while his field goals and extra points were going so well.
“I’ve been working on driving it more,” Morgan said. “You see a lot of kickers just driving it really low just to get the touchback every time. That would be nice, but we’re also getting them down before the 25 with the hang time and stuff so that’s good, too.”
I’m not really sure why working on kickoffs would affect Morgan’s placekicking (or, for that matter, why it would during the season, but not in the offseason), but I’m glad to hear that it’s on his and Richt’s radar. Georgia’s opponents are averaging 21.71 yards per return, which means that if the ball is being fielded inside the five, it’s likely that the results aren’t worse than a touchback, but, as we saw in the North Texas game, likely isn’t the same as never. Who needs the added drama?
Filed under Georgia Football
“Every time I call it a game, you call it a business. And every time I call it a business, you call it a game.”
Let me see if I’ve got this straight. College football has survived, even flourished, in an era when sheer greed has driven it to blow up longstanding rivalries, remake conference alignments at a dizzying rate, explode the amounts paid to head coaches (the average salary for head coaches in the SEC West next season will be $4 million), create conference networks that require us to pay extra money for games we were already getting, enlarge the postseason to squeeze even more money out of fans…
But it’s player compensation that’s gonna drive a stake in our hearts. Right. Got it.
The idea that college athletes “play for the love of the game” is the core notion of college sports, Pilson said. “To the extent that the viewing public believes in this ideal, paying student-athletes would undermine the cornerstone of the viewing public’s belief that student-athletes play for the love of the game,” Pilson wrote.
It’s sure killed the Olympics.
Oh, but this wouldn’t be complete without a disclaimer.
In a deposition, Pilson said he has not run an economic model on model [sic] on his prediction of a 15- to 20-percent ratings decline.
And one of the greatest example of logic chopping you’ll ever see.
What the O’Bannon plaintiffs “call the ‘commercialization’ of college sports is nothing more than schools’ decisions not to refuse revenues available to them,” Pilson wrote.
Yeah, not refusing money must be exactly how it works when Mike Slive sits down with ESPN. Too bad the players don’t get the same opportunity. But at least they’ve got the love of the game to keep them going when they don’t have enough money at the end of the month to do anything. It’s a win-win: the players stay pure of heart and the schools don’t get their revenue streams cut.
All of this puts me in mind of a (definitely NSFW) clip from North Dallas Forty:
You can’t put a price tag on love of the game. Well, at least the players can’t.
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UPDATE: Can’t believe I missed this.
In court papers filed last Thursday, the NCAA argued that college athletes are not entitled to revenue from live broadcasts of their games. The NCAA’s theory rests on the First Amendment, which generally allows broadcast companies to televise live news events (such as political events or press conferences) without compensating persons shown in those events. The underlying logic is that the public has a stake in knowing about live events and broadcast companies should not be deterred from covering news out of concern they may be sued if they don’t pay. The NCAA contends this same principle applies to live broadcasts of college games.
That begs for a rebuttal so obvious, even a caveman could do it.
O’Bannon will likely ask why does the NCAA and its members demand payment from broadcast companies to televise games if those games are free news?
Love of the game, beyotch.
Filed under Blowing Smoke, The NCAA
Get The Picture 