“So targeting didn’t ruin the game.”

C’mon, man.

“We got a lot of people saying, Oh you’re ruining the game, this is killing the game. … Y’all probably can figure it out, but there weren’t many years more exciting in college football,” Shaw said.

If it worked so well, why did they change the rule five minutes after the season ended?

Musical palate cleanser, 63 days edition

In honor of the news that preseason camp opens July 31, here’s the Fab Four with “It Won’t Be Long”:

There’s a reason to have Huntley Johnson on retainer.

If a spilled drink was a sufficient motive for Aaron Hernandez to kill two men in Boston, what in the hell did Corch have to cover up in Gainesville?  It’s not like you become less mature after college, right?

Then again, maybe having Tebow out of his life drove Hernandez to a life of crime.

You know my name (look up the number)

Bill Battle is having a devil of a time finding a twelfth opponent for Alabama’s 2015 football schedule.

Can somebody help Battle out and play Alabama? Sounds like the Tide would even take a home-and-home at this point, but Battle said he’s not sure that’s feasible because “everybody’s scheduled for ’15.”

Alabama has Wisconsin and Louisiana-Monroe on the non-conference schedule, and though Battle doesn’t remember the third game offhand, Alabama is expected to play an FCS opponent in mid-November, according to a source.

That means Battle probably can’t schedule another FCS for strength-of-schedule purposes, though he sounds desperate enough to do just that.

[Insert snarky comment about nine-game conference schedule here.]

Gossip of the day

Seth Emerson, you’re such a tease.

On Wednesday, as coaches left their own meeting to come upstairs to meet with A.D.s, you couldn’t help but notice that Nick Saban, Will Muschamp and Richt were walking close together. Richt and Saban don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of stuff, though they’ve kept that largely under the radar. Walking together to a meeting doesn’t mean they shared a beach towel earlier in the day, but hey, it’s something.

Well, it’s not exactly Mean Girls.  But I can guess Seth will be dodging a few questions in his next Mailbag.

Welcome to Georgia State!

Boy, if SEC coaches are upset about James Franklin’s summer camp incursion, this is really going to send them over the deep end.

I’m guessing Georgia State is one Sun Belt opponent Georgia won’t be in any hurry to schedule.

Beer is coming, a continuing series.

Greg McGarity put his prudent hat on, I see.

Why would UGA be opposed? McGarity cited logistical as well as other problems, including exposure to liability insurance.

“While it may be a huge revenue generator, what happens if someone has an accident going home and they’ve consumed too much beer in your stadium? It’s hard of a liability (concern). We have enough liability as it is. I’m not so sure we want to undertake another stream of liability,” McGarity said.

Quite sensible.  Except I wonder how he rationalizes the drinking that goes on in the suites.  Suite Dude doesn’t have a superior metabolism to those sitting in the North Stands.  What he likely does have is good insurance.  So if the day comes when you take the time to train your beer vendors to card folks, observe their level of inebriation and do all the other things that public venues across America do to limit their exposure, why not go ahead and require your customers to furnish proof of liability insurance?

Yeah, I’m being a little facetious.  But it’s hard to take McGarity’s concern about liability that seriously.  The truth is that right now, Georgia doesn’t want stadium beer sales.  “I just think it’s different cultures, and at West Virginia they obviously feel that’s the best way to handle alcohol consumption. And we just have a different opinion.”  At some point, you wonder if the money becomes too attractive to pass up.  If that ever happens, you can chalk it up to improving the fans’ experience, right?

Read more here: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2014/05/28/3124947/alcohol-not-on-tap-for-georgia.html#storylink=cpy

Thursday morning buffet

The shipment from Destin has arrived.  Dig in.

• Nick Saban thinks Boom is gonna be just fine, thanks.
• The White House convenes a summit today on the potential long-term effects of concussions in children engaged in sports activities.  This issue ain’t going away any time soon.
• Adjusting to the new recruiting rules won’t be easy.
• Two interesting facts from CFN‘s South Carolina preview:  One, the last time the Gamecocks lost a game when they were on the plus side of the turnover margin was against Georgia in 2009, being in the negative in 15 of the 16 losses since then, finishing even in the 2011 loss to Auburn.  Two, Steve Spurrier never won eleven games three times in a row at Florida.  (Yes, the season is longer now, but, still… South Carolina.)
• The SEC is revisiting its tiebreaker rules, ‘yo.
• Year2 clues us in to the real reason Florida is dropping FCS opponents from its future scheduling.
• Georgia director of on-campus recruiting Daryl Jones is leaving the program.  According to McGarity, the next move is Richt’s.
• If Nick Saban doesn’t understand how the selection committee is going to pick the teams for the semi-finals, how should we?

Euphemism of the day

You know how we like to say around here if they tell you it’s not about the money, it’s about the money?  Well, see if you can catch the common theme here…

Not everybody is for the early signing period, but SEC coaches voted 14-0 to have it the first Monday after Thanksgiving if such a day is established.

“I think it’s a great idea,” LSU coach Les Miles told reporters in Destin, Fla. “It’s all based on trying to serve the student-athlete. If he’s grown up, wants to go to LSU or Missouri or wherever, his father and mother have gone to school there and he’s been unofficially on your campus a bunch of times, then let’s give him an opportunity to sign early.

“Let’s not change the recruiting calendar, and let’s not create a bunch of difficulty based on that. We’re really only trying to serve those young men who want to come to your school.”

The early signing period would apply to recruits who don’t take visits to other schools.

… and here.

To Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen, it clearly makes sense for the league.

“It’s one that keeps our calendar pretty consistent. It allows the guys that have been committed to their school to sign with that school,” Mullen said. “It also protects the student-athlete as best as possible.”

At least Mullen had the sheepish decency to cover that with an “as best as possible” qualifier.

Look, this has almost nothing to do with student-athlete welfare and everything to do with making life easier for head coaches.  A kid who wants to sign with dear ol’ State U and nowhere else is gonna be there at Thanksgiving and he’s gonna be there in February.  The only positive an early date brings for him is that he won’t get screwed out of a scholarship if he gets hurt over the holidays.

How good is this for the SEC coaches, though?  Let me count the ways.

1. It cuts down on in season recruiting trips.  (“We want to coach our players in season,” Richt said.)
   Read more here: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2014/05/28/3125420/sec-coaches-vote-on-early-signing.html?sp=/99/210/#storylink=cpy
2. It’s a money saver.  Coaches wouldn’t have to invest in recruiting trips to re-recruit already committed prospects.
3. “Mullen also said that the SEC’s proposal would protect the schools that don’t want to lose those recruits with months remaining before they sign their national letters of intent.”  You may say you trust the word of that gifted athlete you really want in your program, but if you have any doubts – or simply don’t want to tempt your competitors – why take a chance?
4. It undercuts the ACC’s early signing proposal and keeps a handle on summer recruiting.  (“Some of us would like to have a little sanity in our lives,” Richt said.)

The reality is that if you’re a power school in a power conference, an early signing period makes little sense.  You’ve got the resources at hand to scratch and claw over every five-star stud you’re interested in.  So whatever new signing day wrinkle you’re going to sign on to is going to have one very important feature to it – serving the student-athlete conveniencing the head coach.

And… a pony.

SEC coaches don’t want everything.  They just want a lot.

The coaches voted unanimously that the NCAA should expand the limit on full-time assistant football coaches from nine to 10. It’s basically just a symbolic vote, but with autonomy coming to the five major conferences, it could end up being a precursor to it actually happening.

“It’s just in the discussion phase right now, it’ll be awhile before that’ll be considered as new legislation. But I think it’ll have some traction,” South Carolina athletics director Ray Tanner said. “And it’ll have some traction because there will be an opportunity to maybe regulate the size of staffs outside of coaches.”

But the amount of additional staffers – quality control coaches, interns, and others – was not discussed, according to Georgia head coach Mark Richt.

Ah, autonomy.  I wonder what happens if the size of coaching staffs becomes a matter left up to each power conference.