Richt talks spring practice.

Coaches still learning players’ names… gonna be a fun spring.

Old hat

No worries, mon.

CB Damian Swann said UGA will miss dismissed S Josh Harvey-Clemons, but "it's not our first rodeo with guys being released."

— Marc Weiszer (@marcweiszer) March 5, 2014

Spurrier couldn’t have said it any better himself.

l’defense, c’est moi.

Hey, assholes, you think Nick Saban’s got selfishly ulterior motives pushing that 10-second substitution rule?  Well, screw you – he’s got proof he doesn’t.  His proof is Nick Saban.

“For all of you out there that know what I’m thinking and the fact that I’m trying to create an advantage for the defense, I’m not trying to create an advantage for the defense,” Saban said Wednesday in a meeting with local reporters. “I don’t even think we need an advantage. Why do we need an advantage? If you look at the statistics, we’ve been playing better than most.”

For a guy coming off two losses to teams running HUNH where his defense gave up an average of 40 points per game, that’s pretty damned awesome.

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Tabled: one player safety proposal

Bert haz a sad.

All you did was weaken a sport today, Rules Committee. That’s all you did. You put players’ lives in danger. Sweet dreams, son.

“The process was a bit surprising.”

I made a joke about it before in the context of SEC Media Days, but it’s hard to ignore the personal aspect of the debate over the 10-second substitution rule.  Some of that’s probably the result of the high-handed way the vote was perceived to have been conducted.  Some hackles were raised over the implication that coaches like Bielema and Saban are more concerned about player safety than no-huddle gurus are.

But there’s something else happening here, something that I’m surprised hasn’t gotten more attention paid to it.  Especially because it’s what makes the college football world go ’round.

“Gus (Malzahn) and I were talking (Tuesday); it’s actually taken our time,” Freeze said. “It’s our livelihood…” [Emphasis added.]

You’re screwing with these coaches’ checkbooks.  Hells, yes, they’re going to push back.  And they have – hard.

“… We care about what happens with our sport. Our sport’s at one of the highest peaks of interest from the public opinion that it’s ever been. People are enjoying the games. We’ve kind of structured a nationwide attack of how we’ll go about voices heard before this is final. From our conference, coach (Kevin) Sumlin, Gus, myself and coach (Butch) Jones have led the way the most and coach (Steve) Spurrier. We divided up names that we were going to call that we felt like had an interest in this. It’s kind of been nationwide. It has taken time. We’ve tried to find if there was any documentation out there. We have routinely had a group of us calling the rules committee pretty regularly to continue to stress our opinion of where this is headed.”

I don’t think this unpleasantness is going to settle down any time soon, if for no other reason than that I expect the rules committee to punt the proposal for 2014, but decide to invite further consideration of it for next season.  All kidding aside, this year’s edition of SEC Media Days will be awkward.  Maybe as a peace gesture Slive could suggest realigning the divisions with the HUNH programs on one side and Bielema’s “normal American football” schools in the other.

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UPDATE:  Um… it’s possible that Freeze is misreading the level of Spurrier’s enthusiasm on the subject.

Spurrier said he “left a voicemail” with someone on the NCAA rules committee regarding the proposed 10-second rule, which would forbid teams from snapping the football in the first 10 seconds of the play clock. Spurrier is against the rule. Where does it stand with the committee? “I don’t know. I’ve heard they’ve hopefully tabled it, but I’m not sure.”

There’s probably a great Spurrier voicemail parody out there just dying to meet us.

With parents like these…

Malik McDowell still hasn’t signed with Michigan State, even though he wants to go there and his father now consents to his school choice.  His mother, however, won’t sign the MSU letter-of-intent for her 18-year old son.

If you think there’s an obvious solution to the kid’s problem, guess again.

According to the source, the elder McDowell has since changed his mind and now supports his son’s decision to attend Michigan State. He won’t sign a letter of intent, however, as he fears it could jeopardize his relationship with another child he has with Crowe.

Jesus, what a world.

Wednesday brunch buffet

More tasty morsels for your reading pleasure:

• Lots of early contenders for the Fulmer Cup lead, including Ole Miss.
• For everyone advocating the SEC ending divisional play as a means of straightening out football scheduling, it hasn’t done much for basketball.
• Good news!  To accommodate DISH, the SEC Network is moving its launch date up a couple of weeks. That means we can have more PAWWWLLL.
• “Mike McQueary confided to a dozen Nittany Lions players that he could relate to the helplessness of the young boy he had seen with Sandusky in a campus shower a decade earlier because he was abused as a boy…”  Too bad his experience didn’t motivate him to respond in a better way.
• Georgia is the only SEC team facing two BCS conference opponents this season.
• “South Carolina defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward and his staff were in Austin last Friday, Saturday and Sunday to talk strategy with new Texas coach Charlie Strong and his defensive staff.”  While we’re passing rule changes, you know one I’d like?  A rule prohibiting defensive coordinators of teams on Georgia’s schedule from consulting with Charlie Strong.
• And don’t forget the NCAA’s football rules committee has its review of the 10-second substitution proposal scheduled today.

A perverse form of job security

If Mike Slive is planning to stay in his post as SEC commissioner until he solves the conference’s football scheduling problem, he’ll be there for a while.

Name that caption, separated at birth edition

When I saw this photo from last night’s Alabama-Kentucky stinker…

… another special moment came to mind.

Am I wrong?

Clemson picks up the pieces.

If you can get past her standard ACC puffery, Heather Dinich gives you some ideas about how well the Tigers will be able to fill in the gaps resulting from the four-player suspension for the Georgia game.

The bad news for us is that while Corey Crawford is the biggest name on the will-not-play list, Clemson returns every starter on its defensive line and has six returning lettermen at defensive end and six at defensive tackle.

The good thing is that Clemson’s offensive line was in no great shakes experience-wise before the news broke.

With all the questions facing Clemson this offseason — including finding a new starting quarterback and replacing its leading rusher and top two receivers from 2013 — coach Dabo Swinney said his biggest concern heading into the start of spring practices on Wednesday is offensive tackle, where Shaq Anthony, one of the four suspended players, had three starts last season and was a candidate to be a full-time starter this fall.

“That’s the biggest concern on offense,” Swinney said. “… That’s the area of need. That’s the biggest need in our recruiting class for next year is tackle. We’re going to go out and sign at least three legit, great tackles because that’s where we need to get better. We’ve got to find some answers at tackle.”

Instead, they just lost one for the opener.

Let’s hope Pruitt can use that as a stepping stone to repeat the success he had last year defending Clemson’s offense.