My Mumme Poll ballot, Week 13

Please, please, somebody in the media ask Nick Saban this week if he thinks Alabama exhibited sufficient game control against Western Carolina.  Please.

My ballot:

• Alabama
• Baylor
• FSU
• Georgia
• Mississippi State
• Ohio State
• Oregon
• TCU

Also considered:  Kansas State, Michigan State, UCLA

Yes, I’ve finally given in to the dark side and moved Ohio State into my top eight. The last spot was really hard to settle on.  (And, no, it wasn’t Georgia.  Those wins over Arkansas and Missouri look better with every passing week.)

Observations from the 35, November cupcake edition

What really needs to be said about a game like yesterday?  The best way I can sum it up is that Georgia was up 14-0 with more than 11 minutes still on the clock in the first quarter, having gained something like 120 yards, and having a time of possession under a minute.

Now that’s game control.

• The weather was great.  It’s nice finally reaching the time of the year when sitting in the stands where the sun shines is an advantage.
• My sincerest kudos to whoever made the decision to dial down the volume on the PA system.  Much obliged… and don’t change it back, please.
• Much younger crowd than usual, as you could probably guess.  Cotton candy sales seemed to be booming.  And they sold out of fried Oreos.
• Mason looked good on the deep throws, which was no surprise as CSU’s secondary put up no resistance.  And while Ramsey is still feeling his way, it was encouraging to see that he’s learning how to put a touch on his throws.  The interception looked like it was the result of a miscommunication between him and Williams.
• I tell you, Jonathan Rumph is going to go down as one of the bigger mysteries of this program over the last five years.  He doesn’t play as much as we’d expect, but there are times when he’s in that he looks like a world beater.
• I wonder if the announcers made any comments about Chubb’s foot speed after he went untouched on that 83-yard jaunt.
• On defense, Pruitt elected to come out in that same base defense he sprung on Auburn, with Carter, Floyd and Jenkins all seeing the field together.  It worked well again, too.  The third stringers need to polish their containment skills, though.
• Special teams were marked by the second game this season without a Georgia punt.  Charleston Southern’s punter, though… I can’t figure out if he was merely bad, or just weird.  That being said, Georgia clearly couldn’t figure out what to do with him, so he was effective.  Kinda.
• Quayvon Hicks has polished his fair catch skills nicely.  And he may have shaken off the tackling attempts of every player on CSU’s defense on his way to the endzone on his touchdown run.
• Jack Loonam played, which was nice.  So did Kyle Karempelis, much to the pleasure of his cheering section.  And nobody was seriously hurt.

Now it’s on to Hate Week.

It’s Saturday in Athens!

Hell, even Charleston Southern deserves a game day post.

Feel free to say… something.

And then get ready to watch Missouri-Tennessee tonight along with everybody else.

Those of you going, have a fun day.  I’m out of here.

“I’m not sure that the Tech faithful quite understand it.”

Chantastic news!

Negotiations for an extension for Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson’s contract are underway, according to a representative for Johnson.

“We’re in discussions,” Atlanta-based attorney Jack Reale told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Friday. “We’ll see where they go.”

A major donor to the Tech athletics program and a friend of Johnson’s spoke with considerably more assurance about the likelihood of an extension.

“I’m confident that both sides are going to work together to get a deal in place that will keep Paul here well into the future, and he certainly deserves that,” Gregg Garrett said.

So does Georgia Tech.

And if the Tech faithful don’t understand it, trust me, that’s not a problem we in Dawgnation share.  We understand it just fine and couldn’t be happier for the genius.  Long may he run.

The spirit of Jim Boeheim lives on in college football.

To what should be to no one’s surprises, plenty of college football coaches think that a four-team playoff isn’t big enough.  As soon as the playoffs expand to eight, they’ll be lobbying hard for sixteen (20% are already there, but it’s early).

Can you say job security?  I thought you could.

The WWL, taking sides?

Two ESPN talking heads get into a Twitter debate about evolution, but only one gets a suspension.  It’s the guy who defends the theory, which maybe isn’t such a surprise from the network that’s employed the likes of Lou Holtz and Craig James.  But you’d think it would make more sense to play it even-handed, no?

Best measuring stick evah

Introducing the Massey-Peabody Football rankings:

Each week, Cade Massey, from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, and Rufus Peabody, a Las Vegas sports analyst, rank all 128 college-football teams based off a mathematical model that takes only on-field performance into account. In other words, the model is purely objective and is stripped of outcome bias such as wins and losses, which are often the product of mere chance.  [Emphasis added.]

The model looks at four statistics to evaluate offenses and defenses—rushing, passing, scoring and how effectively the ball is advanced relative to down and distance. The data is adjusted for home field and game situation, and weighted by predictive ability. (For more information on their methodology, visit massey-peabody.com.)

Like the College Football Playoff committee’s rankings, the Massey-Peabody model factors in strength of schedule. Unlike the committee, the Massey-Peabody rankings also include preseason expectation, which has proven to have value when predicting team performance, even late in the season.

You know what happens when you strip wins and losses out of the equation?  Funny thing – Georgia comes out as the second-best team in the country.

Georgia ranks as the nation’s second-best team, according to Massey-Peabody, not Florida State. The model expects the Bulldogs (8-2) to beat the CFB average team by 25.5 points on a neutral field, and the Seminoles by slightly more than a field goal. To show just how well Georgia is playing, consider that last week they defeated the No. 9 Auburn, 34-7.

These guys could grow on me.

Keeping up with the Sabans

Add Dan Mullen to the list of coaches who have discovered the joys of creative roster management.

In defense of the occasional cupcake game

Will Leitch writes a lovely piece about the benefits of playing a Charleston Southern on a Saturday in late November:

This weekend is when everything relaxes for a bit. When Georgia is hosting LSU, or Auburn, or Alabama (Oct. 3, 2015!), it is a massive, serious, all-encompassing endeavor: The crowd is jammed to the gills with bourbon, packed shoulder to shoulder and screaming for four straight hours. It’s wonderful — it’s the reason college football is so much better to watch in person than on television, the precise opposite of the NFL — but it’s certainly something you have to fortify yourself for. And it makes it impossible to soak in the beauty of sitting in Sanford Stadium and enjoying the little things, the view, the ambiance, the band, the camaraderie. You can’t hear yourself think; you can’t absorb it.

A game against Charleston Southern, coming in the middle of the closing sprint, gives you that second to absorb. It’s a game I can bring my three-year-old son to and not worry about us both getting trampled during a tight fourth-quarter back-and-forth. It’s a game it’s OK to miss a few plays while in line at concession, or just walking around the concourse and observing the stadium. It’s a game it’s OK to leave at halftime if your kid gets too cold. Sports are high-pressure for both players, and fans. Sometimes everybody needs a week off. This isn’t the best weekend for competitive college football. That doesn’t mean it can’t be the most fun, though. Everybody relax. Everybody take five.

In truth, there is something to be said for that.  I’d only add a couple of thoughts.  First, cupcake games, like almost everything else in life, are best enjoyed in moderation.  Second, if we’re serious about enjoying the relaxed pace of a game day like tomorrow’s, a nooner kickoff sure puts a real time squeeze on those trying to savor a mellow pre-game tailgate.

Not that anybody’s going to listen to me on either point any time soon.

On a related note, here’s hoping that Jack Loonam gets his wish.  I’ll be cheering for him when he hits the field.

I got ‘yer game control right here.

So, fess up:  are you sick of hearing or merely confused by the selection committee’s new buzz phrase?