Line of the day

“Louisville defensive coordinator Todd Grantham, who coordinated Georgia’s defense for four seasons, is serving as a landing strip for former Bulldogs defenders.”

Where’s Winston?

Honestly, this is beginning to sound like a bad joke:

Florida State University officials will hear from two witnesses and the accuser in the Jameis Winston rape case as part of a school disciplinary hearing.

Florida State defensive back Ronald Darby and defensive lineman Chris Casher, both expected to be in the rotation for the Seminoles defense in 2014, could face discipline for possible violations of the school’s code of conduct. Baine P. Kerr, an attorney for the accuser, indicated to ESPN.com that Winston was expected to attend the hearing.

Jameis Winston’s attorney, Tim Jansen, told WCTV that the Seminoles quarterback was never notified or asked to attend Tuesday’s hearing.

I guess they figure he’s missed enough time from the baseball team already.

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Why is Georgia Loved and Nebraska Dismissed?

I actually think there are some fair points made in this post, but there’s one thing…

Defensively, things look a bit brighter for Georgia as they replace just three starters to NU’s five.  But then, the Bulldogs also replace their defensive coordinator while the Huskers will at least have the benefit of continuity.

No offense, but most of us see that as a feature for Georgia, not a bug.

We’re all going to miss the hand waving.

Mark Richt, embracer of KISS.

Pruitt said this spring he didn’t intend to make a call that he didn’t think his defense could execute. Richt heard that comment and called it “music to my ears.” Speaking before a UGA Day event in Augusta on Monday, Richt elaborated.

“I think Jeremy’s wise enough to go at a pace where our guys are going to really know what we’re doing. When you have stability and carryover you have more ability to do more things because guys know what they’re doing. But if you’re starting from scratch and you’ve gotta play a little more basic fundamental football, there’s nothing wrong with that either.”

Hey, better late than never, right?

Read more here: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2014/05/19/3110761/richt-a-simple-defense-can-be.html?sp=/99/210/222/#storylink=cpy

Fun with numbers, ESPN-style

Before we get all wrapped up in that “Murray Deficit” ESPN’s stats department cooked up, it’s worth noting that any outfit coming up with a statistical model that ranks Georgia’s preseason defense higher than its offense and shows the Dawgs’ special teams as the 18th best in the country might want to go back and refine the model a little more.

The incredible shrinking fullback

I touched on this a little the other day in discussing Quayvon Hicks’ redesigned role, but there’s an underlying question we ought to look at:  why is Bobo de-emphasizing the role of the fullback?  After all, going back to P-44 Haynes, there’s a rich tradition under Richt of the fullback being a key cog in Georgia’s offense.  But Bobo acknowledged that last season saw Georgia line up in the I less than 30% of the time.  And that’s not a trend that’s expected to change.

I can’t say I know all the answers to that, but here’s one thought:  if part of your sales pitch on the recruiting trail is that you run a pro-style offense and the NFL has devalued the fullback position to virtual insignificance, wouldn’t you eventually follow suit?

And the reason that question is worth asking is because Chase Stuart makes a pretty good case that it’s not just the fullback position that’s lessened in value on the next level.  Will that have an impact on Georgia’s recruiting and deployment of personnel down the road?  I don’t know yet, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

“Dear President Emmert…”

Some more Congressmen have written to Mark Emmert asking for information about various and sundry items.  Here’s my favorite request:

The letter also requests, for each of the past five years, a description of all instances in which an NCAA member school has “withdrawn, terminated, or failed to renew a student-athlete’s scholarship for non-disciplinary reasons and by whom this decision was made.”

Nick Saban doesn’t have time for that shit.  Does Emmert?

BREAKING: In state recruiting is loaded.

Five of Rivals’ 23 five-star recruits for the class of 2015 reside in the state of Georgia.  That’s more than any state except Florida.

Two of those five are committed outside the state; one has pledged to UGA.  That leaves two more.  Go get ’em, fellas.

The “useful myth” of competitive balance

Regardless of whether you think paying college athletes is a good idea or a bad one, the argument you need to dismiss in its entirety is that paying players would be bad for competitive balance.  ‘Cause there ain’t any now.  (h/t MGoBlog)

Yeah, there’s a lot of math in that piece, but just skip to the conclusion and think about it for a minute.

But how would things look under a pay-for-play model? Would the imbalance actually get worse?

Maybe not. If anything, the economics of price competition argue that as you let schools use money directly as a tool in attracting talent, you may empower mid-level schools to splurge on a would-be starter who might otherwise accept an offer at a top-tier school and end up riding the bench. When stars and benchwarmers all get the same compensation package, there’s no way for a smaller school to show they really want a player much more than the big school, which is free to stockpile talent. Both schools can claim they want the player, both can send 700 letters in one day, etc. The best way to show you mean business and that the other school is just engaging in what economists call “cheap talk” is price competition.

So when you buy into the myth that price-fixing helps balance college football, you’re actually helping prevent that balance from emerging. Stop defending price fixing and you’ll let Bowling Green show that four-star nose tackle how much more valuable he is to the Falcons than he is to Alabama’s bench.

I keep saying it – what the people in charge in the power conferences fear the most isn’t spending money.  They’re doing that now anyway.  It’s losing the level of control they have over student-athletes.

Mark Richt isn’t happy he lost control of Laremy Tunsil.

Kendarius Webster is a defensive back from Stockbridge who signed with Ole Miss.  Michael Carvell asked him an interesting question about his recruitment and got an even more interesting answer in return:

Did Freeze ever counter the negative recruiting from other schools? “Not really, because I knew negative recruiting was just part of the business. At one point in time, though, Coach Freeze had a conversation with Coach Richt at the end of the recruiting process. I’m not going to say Coach Freeze got mad, but they had a conversation. I’m not sure exactly what they talked about it, but I heard it had to do more with Laremy Tunsil. He had switched from Georgia to Ole Miss (the year before).”

So Richt was still burning about Tunsil’s recruitment a year after the fact?  Hmmm…