Wednesday morning buffet

Lots of specials from Destin today…

• Mr. Conventional Wisdom’s Q&A with Mike Slive is every bit the exercise in first-rate, hard-nosed journalism you’d expect it to be.
• With all the focus on having to replace both lines, it’s easy to overlook how dire the quarterback situation at Tennessee is.
• Mike Slive is looking for a few good agent rules.  Why do amateurs need agents?
• They still wound up debating scheduling yesterday.
• Meet Dyshon Sims, incoming offensive line candidate.
• According to this list, we may be seeing a lot of the Dawgs on CBS this season.
• College football playoff tickets as a form of IPO.  As you might expect, the “model also captures revenue for the College Football Playoff that might otherwise go to ticket brokers and resellers.”
• Here’s a little legal discussion about the likelihood of a college football player strike.
• Les Miles claimed it was “unanimous” that the SEC coaches want an early signing date on the first Monday after Thanksgiving.  Somebody should have told Steve Spurrier:  “I like what we’re doing now…” Slive wasn’t impressed, either.
• Marc Weiszer checked around the ACC and the SEC and found that Georgia’s transfer policy was the most liberal.
  Read more here: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2014/05/27/3124369/sec-coaches-debate-an-early-signing.html?sp=/99/210/222/#storylink=cp
  Read more here: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2014/05/27/3124369/sec-coaches-debate-an-early-signing.html?sp=/99/210/222/#storylink=cpy

The surest sign of bracket creep

Ladies and gentlemen, how do you know when Bill Hancock is talking out of his ass?

Bill Hancock: "It is going to be 4 (teams) for 12 years. There is no talk in our group about (increasing playoff field)"

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) May 27, 2014

Why, when his lips are moving.

Inching closer to the Irish

I’mnotgonnabelieveitI’mnotgonnabelieveitI’mnotgonnabelieveitI’mnotgonnabelieveitI’mnotgonnabelieveitI’mnotgonnabelieveitI’mnotgonnabelieveitI’mnotgonnabelieveitI’mnotgonnabelieveit:

Georgia and Notre Dame are moving closer to a football series “later this decade,” Georgia athletics director Greg McGarity said Tuesday. And while no deal is done, and McGarity cautioned that there could be snags, he made clear that he would be eager for it to happen.

“I think it’s an opponent we’ve played, what, one time? 1980? For our fans to be able to go up to South Bend, and for our fans to see Notre Dame play between the hedges, I think from a national perspective it’d be off the charts, as far as interest, as far as intrigue,” McGarity said. “That would be something out of the ordinary that our fans would be very, very excited about.”

The two schools haven’t nailed down which years it would be, but McGarity said it would be in the range of 2017-20. Notre Dame would visit Sanford Stadium, and Georgia would visit Notre Dame Stadium.

If they actually pull this off, what are the odds VanGorder will still be there when they play?

Ah, hell. Thanks for reminding me.

File this under “Stuff I Don’t Need To Hear Right Now”.

Saban: "Everyone wants to see best 4 teams play” but worries a team that loses conference title game won’t get in playoff (UGa in 12)

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) May 27, 2014

Nick Saban: "When we played Georgia in the championship game a couple years ago, that was the toughest game we had (that seasson.)"

— Seth Emerson (@SethEmerson) May 27, 2014

Argh.  Sigh.

Bert sez: “SEC! SEC!! SEC!!!”

Think you’re going a little overboard here, Coach.

Bret Bielema why he made move from Wisconsin to Arkansas "SEC will get minimum of 2 teams in 4-team playoff"

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) May 27, 2014

“Minimum”?  Hoo, boy.

Name that caption, a penny for your thoughts, Boom edition

Seth Emerson captures a guarded moment with Agent Muschamp.

I wonder how many times he’ll be asked about Georgia Southern today.  Let fly in the comments.

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UPDATE:  That didn’t take long.

Will Muschamp said Florida would "move forward" w/out playing any more FCS opponents

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) May 27, 2014

Will Muschamp on not scheduling any more FCS teams: “The fan base wants to see better opponents"

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) May 27, 2014

Or at least not see Florida lose to worse opponents.

Public shaming as a policy setter

Stupid is as stupid does, boys.

Kansas State announces it has granted release of Leticia Romero under school's new policy. She can't transfer to a Big 12 school.

— Blair Kerkhoff (@BlairKerkhoff) May 27, 2014

So Kansas State went through this entire rigmarole, was ridiculed nationally… all to wind up letting Romero go anyway.  But there’s a new policy, so, hey!

These are the people some of you think are capable of managing the business of college athletics.  The truth is, they couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag if you gave ’em a flashlight and pointed them in the right direction.

Meet your 2014 Clemson Tigers.

You can find tons of info on the Tigers’ summer depth chart here.  Basically, they are experienced and loaded all along the defensive line.

Clemson is deepest at the defensive line where all nine players listed on the two-deep are lettermen who have played at least 200 snaps in their careers. The group has played in a combined 266 games with 91 starts. They combined for 69 tackles for loss last year helping Clemson to a number-one ranking nationally in that category. The nine players have averaged 760 plays of experience entering the 2014 season. Six of the nine have already played at least 30 games.

Offensive line?  Not so much.

While the players returning to Clemson’s defensive line have 91 career starts combined, Clemson’s offensive linemen has 49.  The leader is David Beasley with 19 starts in 30 games played.

Beasley, by the way, is one of four players suspended for the opener in Athens.  All four appear in the current two-deep.

(h/t)

Say hello to Uncle Verne and Gary.

CBS grabs the South Carolina and Florida games.

A 3:30 start in mid-September in Columbia should be comfortable, right?

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UPDATE:  More details about the CBS schedule here.

SEC spring meetings: bidness is bidness.

With the scheduling hatchet being buried, at least for the time being, it sounds like Destin is going to be pretty boring this year.  Mike Slive is ready to run a victory lap.  Yawn.

Miles and Alleva will probably be good for a couple of whiny quotes about unfairness, but really, what is there other than that to follow?  I don’t know about you, but back patting over the SEC Network doesn’t exactly get the heart racing.  Maybe Spurrier can liven things up.