What I did in Jacksonville last night.

The Georgia Bulldog Club meeting was a blast. Great turnout, and everyone there was gracious. I didn’t trip walking to or from the podium and the speech was well received.

Many thanks to Kevin Clark and the rest of the Club for extending me the invite. And if you’re ever in the neighborhood when there’s a meeting, drop in.

By the way, if you ever need somebody to fire up a Georgia crowd with a little Gator hate, Eric Zeier is your man. He killed it last night.

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Goin’ down the road, feelin’ good.

I’m heading out in less than an hour, so I thought I’d make my short-term farewell here.  Y’all behave while I’m gone, and if I’m in the mood, I’ll throw a couple of posts up for your viewing pleasure.

If the Dawgs keep doing what they’ve been doing – win the turnover and field position battles – they should win comfortably on Saturday.  If not, then it’s closer.  But I don’t see how that Florida offense can win a game by itself.

Enjoy the rest of the week.  I intend to do so.

Final thoughts on Gurleygate

Now that we know his fate, I’ve grown tired of the subject.  The Dawg fan in me hopes that Mark Richt is reading the situation correctly and  that Gurley intends to return for the Auburn game (think the crowd will be nuts if that happens?); the part of me that shakes his head over the NCAA’s hypocrisy wouldn’t blame him a bit for calling his college football career over and looking out for number one.  But here are a few last points I want to throw out.

• To the “Georgia should have done what FSU is doing” crowd:  Yeah, we all know that it’s highly unlikely Winston signed hundreds of autographs that are now up for sale out of the goodness of his heart.  But knowing and proving are two vastly different things.  As long as the FSU athletic administration can wrap itself in the cloak of plausible deniability, it has the luxury of doing so.  Once Bryan Allen showed up on Greg McGarity’s doorstep, Georgia lost that luxury.  I can’t say that Georgia handled the investigation and the subsequent report to the NCAA perfectly – although I’m sure the Open Records requests to find that out are being prepared as you read this – but to insist that McGarity should have sat on his hands and dared the NCAA to do something is ludicrous.
• To the “Georgia once again is the shining city on the hill” crowd:  You people really need to get over yourselves.  Bryan Allen cuts both ways here.  Once he threw his stones, Georgia had no choice but to suspend.  There was nothing noble or heroic about the decision.  Mark Richt is a stellar person, but this incident isn’t about him doling out justice to a kid who’s never been in trouble with his coaches.  If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe Mark Richt.

Richt: "When rules are broken, you don't have control over discipline." Said that's life.

— Marc Weiszer (@marcweiszer) October 29, 2014

• To the “Gurley will be forever stained by this incident” crowd:  AJ Green is amused.
• To the NCAA:  Forget O’Bannon.  Forget your defense of an obscene and anachronistic amateurism model that even you and your members don’t defend among yourselves when the doors are closed.  What really sucks here is that people like Mike Slive, Jim Delany and Mark Emmert solemnly vowed several years ago that players like Todd Gurley deserved to be compensated for the total cost of attendance and since then, nothing has been accomplished on that front.  Todd Gurley was found to have received three grand over a couple of years.  The extra money you promised would have been at least that much.  Had you been sincere about it, we wouldn’t be sitting here angry right now because Gurley wouldn’t have needed to resort to autograph sales to put a few bucks in his pocket.  Just on that basis, if you had any sense of shame right now, you’d reconsider the punishment that’s been meted out in your answer to Georgia’s appeal.  But the NCAA and a sense of shame… who am I kidding here?

Time to move on.  I am.  I hear this Nick Chubb is pretty good.  Think he can run on the Florida defense?

`You’re the only fumble we lost’

Whether it’s by luck or design doesn’t matter to me – it’s just weird to realize that seven games into the season, people are trying to make Michael Bennett feel guilty about having Georgia’s only fumble so far.

Let’s hope he’s still being as defensive after Saturday.

When someone says, “It’s really not all that insane an idea”, it probably means it is.

One Vegas sportsbook has Georgia as the favorite to win the national title.

The continuing saga of Bill Connelly’s SEC projections

From our selfish standpoints, the one big change in Bill’s picture is that he’s now showing Auburn with a 68% chance of winning in Athens.  Missouri projects to having less than a nine percent chance of going 7-1, so the odds of Georgia playing in the SECCG are still strong.

The West still looks like it’s up for grabs, and will probably stay that way until the end of the regular season.  Fun times for all…

Blame Gurley? Look in the mirror first.

I’m not sure why it’s important to play the blame game with Todd Gurley, but since there are plenty besides Jeff Schultz who want to do so, is it worth my time to point out that the reason Todd Gurley was in a position to violate NCAA rules for making money selling his autograph is because we – fans, athletic directors, media members alike – have made his name and likeness valuable?

As Andy Staples puts it in this excellent piece,

The players didn’t turn college football into a multibillion-dollar business. The conference commissioners and athletic directors did. Now, those administrators must deal with the consequences, and one is people are more willing than ever to pay for the autographs of the players they see on television every Saturday. The players are going to sign. The money is too easy and the likelihood of negative consequences too small to stop them.

No doubt the situation sucks.  Gurley broke a rule he was well aware of.  Indignation is something I can understand coming from everyone.  It’s the righteous part that isn’t justified.  At least not if you don’t blame yourself along with Gurley.

And so it goes.

Gurley sits until November 15th.  At least.

Todd Gurley, University of Georgia football student-athlete, must sit a total of four games, or 30 percent of the season, for accepting more than $3,000 in cash from multiple individuals for autographed memorabilia and other items over two years. Gurley, who acknowledged violating NCAA rules, must repay a portion of the money received to a charity of his choice and complete 40 hours of community service as additional conditions for his reinstatement. Gurley will be eligible to play on Nov. 15.

In determining the appropriate reinstatement conditions, a 30 percent withholding condition is consistent with precedent in similar cases.

Makes you wonder why Georgia thinks there are grounds for an appeal.  Unless the school simply wants the virtue of saying it did everything it could.  Going through the motions like that should give us a ton of comfort as we debate the merits of full disclosure to the NCAA.  Again.

Chopped off at the knees by an organization for violating a rule even the NCAA’s president admits needs to be reassessed. Honestly, were I him, I’d seriously question the point of returning this season.

Nick Chubb – strap it up, brother.

Wednesday morning buffet

I’m leaving tomorrow, so enjoy the buffet while you can get it.

• Georgia is a 13-point favorite Saturday.  Matt Melton reminds us that the Dawgs are 4-7-1 ATS over the past two seasons as a favorite against a fellow SEC team.
• This Jeff Schultz column about Richt is so gracious that I’m not going to resort to any snark about it.
• “The question is, if Georgia eventually makes the playoffs and faces Florida State, what will they call that game?”
• Good nuts and bolts piece on the comeback of the fullback in modern offenses.
• Conference USA has hired a public relations firm to help promote the conference and make Marshall’s case with respect to the first College Football Playoff.  Oy.
• It’s not been a fun year for Steve Spurrier.
• In case you couldn’t tell last night, the selection committee is pretty full of itself.
• Tommy Bowden, self-proclaimed “Christian Conservative”, thinks Condoleezza Rice would make a good president, but isn’t qualified to sit on the selection committee.
• I’m not sure Dave Brandon gets this whole athletic director thing.  Or at least the part about dealing with the fan base.

Gary Danielson’s key to the game isn’t that key.

Does Florida have a chance Saturday?  According to Danielson, the Gators do, if…

Danielson: They have a shot because defensively they can stop run. The last eight years the teams that have run for the most yards has won the game. Somebody asked me: What would be the weakness of Georgia. At first I thought was their secondary, because so many players turned over. But I think they’ve done a nice job of turning that around. That matches up with their outstanding pass rush. They have a lot of veteran linebacker who make a lot of plays.

I would say if Georgia has a weakness it is quarterback. You probably wouldn’t believe this, but its Georgia that is ranked 112th in passing. Florida is ranked 94th. The reason for that is that they run it pretty darn good.

So the matchup has to be: can Florida force Georgia into a passing game and take advantage of that. If not they have no chance.

The problem with that analysis is that he’s looking at passing yardage.  When you compare passer rating it’s Georgia 27th, Florida 116th.

Georgia hasn’t had to go chase yards in the passing game this season because it’s run the ball so well, true.  But that doesn’t automatically mean the passing game isn’t good enough to get those yards if they’re needed.  Besides that, it’s the same facile analysis we’ve seen about Georgia’s offense all season.  At 6-1, it’s hard to see where any opponent has been able to make that a go.

Danielson is right in that Florida possesses the best rushing defense Georgia will see this season.  But the Gators didn’t exactly slow down either of the two stout running offenses they’ve already faced.

By the way, Georgia’s rushing defense ain’t too shabby, either.  In fact, it’s ranked higher in average yards per rush than Florida’s.  So what’s the Gator offense going to do if Georgia forces it into a passing game?

I know I sound like a broken record, but Georgia’s chances are going to come down to turnover margin and field position.  That’s what the Dawgs are built around and that’s what you have to control if you want to beat them.