Friday afternoon buffet

Here are a few things I couldn’t get to earlier in the week.

• AJ McCarron claims he knew the losses were coming because some of the younger players didn’t “buy in”.  I’m not sure what that has to do with letting Auburn run back a missed field goal for the game winner, but whatever.  Maybe they won’t buy in this season either.
• Texas had $165.7 million in operating revenue and $146.8 million in operating expenses for 2012-13.  Good Lord.
• Barrett Sallee has an interesting look at a recruiting visit to Georgia.  Best thing in there is Aron White talking about his official visit being the first time he saw people eating oysters.
• “Meanwhile, the Teflon Tide keeps rolling through what’s considered a wide-ranging list of clichéd violations alleged against them.”
• Kentucky is considering plans for a brand-new, privately funded $45 million football training facility.
• Chip Towers asks the musical question “Did Georgia’s defense get better as result of Grantham’s departure?”
• Jimmy Williamson, take notes.

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You can’t put a price tag on working for Mark Richt.

Given what Auburn is paying Rodney Garner, Tracy Rocker’s contract looks like a good deal for Georgia.

Tommy Tuberville’s wet dream

Auburn is contemplating claiming a national title for its 2004 team.

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UPDATE:  Bruce Feldman has a point.

What next? Does Utah also get to claim a national title in 2004 since the Utes won a BCS Bowl in a blowout, were undefeated that year and didn’t have players who went on HBO RealSports and said they received extra benefits as some Tiger players from that team later did?

Corch couldn’t have said that any better himself.

Moar coaching staff

It sounds like Richt and Pruitt are zeroing in on their last candidate for the defensive staff.

Mike Ekeler, who coached Southern California’s linebackers this past season, has emerged as a serious candidate to join Georgia’s staff. In fact, two sources at UGA said Ekeler was on his way to meet with head coach Mark Richt on Thursday.

Attempts to reach Ekeler for comment were unsuccessful. A source cautioned that it was not yet a done deal, and that Ekeler had also been speaking with UCLA. But the fact he was heading to meet Richt points to an advanced candidacy.

There is no firm connection between Ekeler and UGA, although he did work at Oklahoma with Chris Wilson, who spent last season as Georgia’s defensive line coach. Wilson, coincidentally, left for the same job at Southern California.

Ekeler, 42, was Indiana’s defensive coordinator from 2010-12, and one of his assistants was Jon Fabris, the former Georgia assistant. Prior to that Ekeler was an assistant at Nebraska for three years under Bo Pelini. Ekeler also worked at LSU from 2005-07, serving as an intern and graduate assistant, when Pelini was the defensive coordinator there. The Tigers won the national title while Ekeler was there.

If Ekeler is hired, that would mean three of the four members of the defensive staff would have coordinator experience.

Ekeler also has some other experience that I’m guessing is attractive to Richt.

A source said Ekelar, if hired at UGA, would help coach linebackers and also have a role coaching special teams. Ekeler was a special teams standout at Kansas State, where he played from 1991-94.

In fact Ekeler was named the national special teams player of the year as a senior by the George Michael Sports Machine, the now-defunct national sports show.

The George Michael Sports Machine?  Way to dig, Seth.

Seriously, it can’t hurt.  Although that Fabris relationship makes me a little nervous.  If Ekeler comes out in his presser admitting he likes a challenge, good luck to Marshall Morgan.

(Also, note the end of Emerson’s piece – it looks like Kelin Johnson is coming home as a graduate assistant.)

Easier said than done.

Ivan Maisel neatly summarizes how we got to pondering the possibility of a college players union:

Regardless of which side you come down upon in the debate over whether student-athletes should be allowed to unionize, there’s no question that the NCAA and its member schools brought this upon themselves. They have dismissed the student-athletes’ concerns, if they ever listened. The industry needs to find an answer beyond “Shut up and look how much we’re spending on you.” That isn’t working.

Sadly, they think it is.

But then I attended the NCAA convention earlier this month, where Duke lacrosse player Maddie Salamone — representing the organization’s largely ceremonial Student-Athlete Advisory Committee — got up in front of 800 Division I administrators and lamented, “The student-athlete voice is not as meaningful as we have been led to believe in the past.”

You would think at some point that somebody with a modicum of common sense would urge his or her peers to pull their collective heads out of their asses.  But this is the NCAA we’re talking about, so that’s still something of a pipe dream.

You snooze, you lose.

Some of you will probably want to see this as some sort of metaphor.

Taking off on plane. Left coach friend in FBO. Coach Friend chasing plane down runway like Bruce Willis on die hard

— Mike Bobo (@CoachBoboUGA) January 31, 2014

I just wish Bobo had the presence of mind to capture the moment with some cell phone video.