Clearing the decks… dig in.
- “We felt like our tight end position was really a little scary with the depth there,” coach Mark Richt said.
- To me, the most interesting aspect of the Michael Sam coming out story is whether the NFL will be able to deal with Sam’s sexual orientation as maturely as Missouri did.
- Rodney Garner complains of overcoming negative recruiting in his success in getting Dontavius Russell to flip from Georgia to Auburn.
- Good story from the Chattanooga paper on how their college football careers played out for 50 area recruits. (h/t Scorpio Jones, III)
- Bill Connelly has his first S&P+ projections for 2014. Georgia is eighth.
- I’m not sure Bret Bielema understands how recruiting rankings work. Either that, or he’s convinced he’s really, really good at finding diamonds in the rough.
- Chalk up another head coach who sees the role technology plays in recruiting these days. Mark Stoops: “I think it’s easier in some ways because of all the social media that you have,” he said.
- Junior, a look back.
Get The Picture 
Al and SC in the championship game? That’ll go over big.
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Love the Sam story and think it is awesome that his teammates handled it in the best possible way.
Of course Crumpler on 790 managed to stick his foot in his mouth several times and I imagine he wont be the last.
His comment was “It’s the ones that dont tell you that I would worry about”
What exactly is he worried about?
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Kinda sad that so many people out there are so quick to demonstrate that they’re less mature than a bunch of college kids, huh? I mean, if Sam’s teammates could handle this news…
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Kids these days….are actually pretty great.
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Seconded. They get a bad rap for all the wrong reasons…
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If you need a third count me in. My sons are 23 and 21. I have come home and found a crowd of kids in the basement playing pool or grilling on the deck. There are torn jeans, green hair and a few piercings with frat kids and sorority girls mixed. A little bit of everything. Bright kids that carry themselves well. Future doctors, lawyers, indian chiefs, and moms and dads. Our nations future is in good hands.
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A little good news.
http://www.businessinsider.com/former-player-says-nfl-already-has-openly-gay-players-that-are-accepted-by-teammates-2013-1
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Ivan Maisel put it very well: “But really, we’ve read this story before. Gays will foment problems in the locker room, as African-Americans would before them, as Jews would in country clubs, as Catholics would if elected to office. The “facts” that back up such assertions wilt when exposed to sunlight.”
It is so nice to have a generation of kids growing up that have been exposed to even more sunlight, as Maisel puts it, than all of us have.
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Rodney Garner sounds like a petulant child…
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How long before Garner quits on Auburn but hangs around drawing a check thinking he still works for Richt?
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You could see Bielema struggling back when he whined about Urban Meyer breaking unspoken B1G rules on recruiting. I still think he’s a horrible culture fit as an SEC coach.
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Michael Sam…brave young man, probably not the smartest business decision, but brave. Be glad, Mike, you don’t play basketball against Texas Tech.
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Why would it be a bad business decision? And why do you feel the need to make that dig?
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Because if he announced after the draft instead of before, he doesn’t fall down a couple rounds because of this.
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I think he and his rep decided to “get out in front of the rumor” as scouts were asking indirectly if he was gay.
Better to say it and get it over with than have scouts or GM’s asking inane things.
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It stands to reason; if he told his team in August (what is that 85-90 guys, not counting coaches?) it was always going to come out…
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I did not say it was a BAD decision. Time and the NFL draft will tell if was smart. Whatever happens Sam is a brave kid.
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I don’t think it was a bad decision at all. Coming out may have even helped him. The rumors were there. And the NFL does a pretty thorough job of vetting the players. Just a different perspective about that. Besides Sam was largely flying under the NFL radar until the 2013 season. By mid season his stats were better than Clowney and no one expected that. By the time Mizzou made it into the SECC there was talk of him as a potential first rounder. At 6’2″/240 he is probably better suited as a linebacker in the NFL. He is about the same size as Pollack. Pollack was a first team All American for 3 years. Georgia’s second one. Number 34 was our first. So he doesn’t have as impressive a resume as Pollack. He was a player that helped Missouri in a big way in their second season in the SEC. It will be interesting to see when he goes. If he does fall to a mid round I don’t know if it would be solely because of his coming out.
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Kiffin at Alabama…bout the strangest news in a long, strange season. For all Pete Carroll’s feely good stuff at USC, he must have been able to yank a knot in Junior’s ass.
I don’t think I have ever seen a more blatant example of a guy who is not ready to be a head coach, become a head coach.
It was just a quick look, but seems like all those fellers in the picture from UT are now gone.
Junior’s time at the re-education camp on the Black Warrior River must have been productive.
I just hope he remembered to set his watch back one second.
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If UGA was short on TEs, then why did we tell Hershel’s nephew there was no room?
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Perhaps we expected Flournoy Smith to return at that point, and it changed later in the process after Richards had committed to Clemson.
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At the time, Georgia felt it only had room for one. Blazevich committed first.
The slot for Atkinson didn’t open up until the very last minute.
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I was suprised and delighted to see Tennessee so far down Bill Connely’s list.
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I got all teary eyed when I read Saban’s questions to the kid. It makes me feel so warm and fuzzy knowing that Nick wasn’t just concerned with talent, but also with his personal development. What a guy, that Saint Nick!
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Garner: “They took a kid who always wanted to be at Auburn and made him question that.”
Well, except for that time where he was verbally committed to UGA.
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Bill must be the only person in America picking Auburn #12 preseason, which proves his system is stupid.
5 year averages? Football is far more fluid than 5 year spans.
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I don’t see them that high myself.
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Why is that so stupid? At this point everything is guess work, and his projections at least have some foundation in fact. Auburn has both UGA and Bama on the road, and I think they have LSU and SC at home. This is a team that had two miracle finishes for Ws and long shot drive against Miss State this year to avoid having 5 losses this year. Are you anointing them already? I think they will be good but 12 is a reasonable guess. Now SC, who lost Shaw, is too high, imo, and UGA may be as well given our offensive question marks. But is all opinion as we look at it in February, I can see putting Bama and FSU in the Top group though.
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Concensus on Auburn right now seems to be a top 5 team preseason, many have them top 3.
have no idea how Bill ranks them 12th preseason. Very few experts agree with him on that one.
Spurrier’s done pretty well without top recruiting classes, so there’s another flaw.
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The public may not have known (and the media certainly would’ve covered it), but I have been told that guys that played with Sky (RIP) knew he was gay back in the 70’s.
And nobody f’ed with a 6′ 7″ offensive lineman, gay straight or otherwise.
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Dunno about Sky, but I heard whispers about another Dawg or 2 back in the day; being a libertarian about such things, didn’t much GAS one way or the other. Re: Sam, he had already demonstrated he’s a helluva football player, and now he’s demonstrated guts and leadership as well. In a sane world, that’d move him up in the draft-o-meter, not down.
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We did the up-fit for Georgia Real Estate Foundation when they moved their office to the Commerce Building for a while. That’s back when it was called the Commerce Building. It’s called Fred’s now. The third name for that building. I hate that name. That is where I first met Sky. Spent a little time at his place talking football. Even used his office a time or two. He invited me to his last birthday party at his bar managers house over on McDuffie/East Athens. None of my business but never knew he was gay. Man had a ton of friends. I’m glad I met him. I always felt like a kid standing next to him.
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Why are Sam’s teammates in the NFL supposed to be so comfortable with this? How is it different than a man being allowed to be in an all women’s locker room or vice versa? Tolerance is one thing. But the load of crap that we are being sold on these types of issues is unbelievable.
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Good grief, you think all NFL players are straight? You think all gay guys want to hit on you?
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