Will the last defensive back leaving Athens turn out the lights, please?

J.J. Green wants back on offense, says aloha to Georgia.

There’s a reason Georgia can never be like Alabama.

And, no, this isn’t about Mark Richt versus Nick Saban.

But for something like this to happen to, say, Georgia Southern, GSU’s board of trustees would have to be populated by the likes of one of Vince Dooley’s sons and Don Leeburn.  And that’s not something you’re likely to see anywhere else.

That should tell you how much things are politically rigged in favor of ‘Bama and its football program.

A very expensive squib kick

Chip Towers raises an interesting point:

Saturday’s loss to Georgia Tech was not costly just to Georgia. It was also costly — literally — to the SEC.

Had the Bulldogs beaten the Yellow Jackets, they would have been in line for an “access,” or major bowl (formerly known as BCS bowl. A lot of projections had Georgia going to either Chick-fil-A Peach or Orange Bowls, which are part of the College Football Playoff rotation. That would have come with a $4 million guarantee.

Mississippi State’s loss to Ole Miss also will cost the conference some bucks, as will a loss by Missouri to Alabama in Saturday’s SEC Championship game.

According to a report on FoxSports.com, each team in the playoff receives $6 million for the conference and each team in an “access bowl” earns $4 million for the conference, so the SEC could have been looking at a $16 million payday. Now Alabama is the SEC’s only hope for the $6 million playoff spot.

Mississippi State likely will still receive an access bowl bid and a $4 million payday. Georgia’s hopes of an access bowl were effectively extinguished with its loss to Georgia Tech, so no $4 million payday there.

Now that’s the kind of on-the-field decision making by a head coach that’ll get B-M’s attention.  And not in a good way.

“Because I never wanted to screw over Gurley.”

Pardon my French, but fuck you, Bryan Allen.  Because if you’re really trying to convince people that you didn’t mean to hurt anyone when you went running around looking for somebody in the media to leak your signing story or that your “intentions were not financially motivated”, you’re a damned liar.

On the other hand, I’m glad you’ve got regrets about how it’s gone down.  And that Todd Gurley in a year’s time will have more money in the bank than you’ll ever deposit.

Feel free to disappear now.

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UPDATE:  This is what denial sounds like.  Or bullshit smells like.  Take your pick.

Mumme Poll, Week 14

Well, aren’t we feeling sorry for ourselves.  Not only is Georgia out of the MP this week, but Georgia Tech and Clemson each received a vote.

Rank	Team	Votes
1	Alabama	32
1	Oregon	32
3	Florida State	31
3	TCU	31
3	Baylor	31
6	Ohio State	26
7	Arizona	23
8	Mississippi State	15
9	Michigan State	11
10	Mississippi	9
11	Wisconsin	6
12	Kansas State	4
13	Missouri	3
14	Clemson	1
14	Georgia Tech	1

Nice.

I’m still getting a kick out of how we keep solving the TCU/Baylor debate, but the selection committee won’t likely have that luxury.  Expect the first serious screams about needing an eight-team field to arise from that issue.

Greg McGarity’s increasingly lonely stance

To follow up on the Hugh Freeze news, Jeremy Foley has made it abundantly clear that, while he may not have settled on a new head coaching candidate yet, he’s prepared to pay the next man more than he paid Will Muschamp.

Extension talks between Freeze and Ole Miss began earlier in the season, then intensified. The Gators’ interest — an offer in the neighborhood of $4.2 to $4.3 million annually fielded by Freeze’s representatives, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the talks — helped drive Ole Miss to the $4 million mark.

As for Florida’s next move, New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is consideration, according to one source, confirming a report by Football Scoop, although there is concern regarding McDaniels’ availability to join Florida immediately upon his hire. The Ohio native and longtime Bill Belichick assistant has not coached in college since a stint as a graduate assistant at Nick Saban’s Michigan State, and his only head coaching experience came in 2009 and 2010 with the Denver Broncos.

Yahoo! Sports’ Pat Forde reports Colorado State’s Jim McElwain is a “leading candidate,” and the Gainesville Sun’s Pat Dooley says TCU’s Gary Patterson shouldn’t be ruled out.

NFL coaches don’t come cheap.  Neither will Gary Patterson.  And McElwain reportedly has a significant, as in multi-million dollar, buyout that Foley would have to cover.

Muschamp and Freeze both made less than Mark Richt this season.  Neither Freeze nor the new Gator head coach will be in that position in the next one.  And that leaves the management of Georgia’s athletic department in an interesting position.

By my count, once the Florida hire is made, there will be exactly one SEC head coach at a public school with an annual salary less than Richt’s, Tennessee’s Butch Jones.  (USA Today’s database currently lists two others making less, but Mark Stoops has already gotten a raise putting him ahead of Richt and I don’t think anyone doubts Dan Mullen is in line for a pay bump in the offseason.  Of course, we don’t know what Vanderbilt pays Derek Mason, but don’t forget James Franklin was supposed to be getting Richt-type money before he left for Penn State.)

This isn’t about lobbying for a raise for Mark Richt.  But what does it say about the perception of Georgia’s athletic program that Richt is paid less than his peers, despite in many cases sporting a superior resume?  I suspect it reinforces a message that Jeremy Pruitt was complaining of recently.

It’s a pretty consistent piece with this, too.

Georgia is eighth nationally in scoring offense and leads the SEC, and it still would if the defensive and special teams touchdowns were subtracted. All this after losing the star tailback in the middle of the season. Bobo’s offense has been prolific for awhile now, and he also happens to be one of the staff’s better recruiters. (He ran lead on Thompson.)

Bobo and his family are eating well at $550,000 a year, but he shouldn’t be earning $300,000 less than the defensive coordinator. He’s also had chances to leave or pursue the head jobs at Southern Mississippi and Georgia Southern, and he has passed because he likes Georgia and working for Richt. But at some point, money talks, too.

I think Bobo is at $585,000 now, but Seth’s point is a valid one.  Bobo is making a middle of the pack salary for an SEC coordinator, despite performing well above that level.  (Two defensive coordinators who were making more were just fired from their jobs, and LSU’s Cam Cameron earns a whopping $1.3 million this season to guide LSU into scoring two touchdowns a game less than Georgia has.)

It’s clear that the athletic department has done a nice job leveraging Mark Richt’s loyalty to the institution.  And maybe that will last forever.  But there are only so many ways you can tip the world that your preference is to operate on the cheap before everyone becomes convinced that’s all that matters to you.  And that has consequences, as Pruitt’s fretted publicly about.

And it might when it comes to finding new coaches one day.  Which is something the FIRE RICHT NOW! club probably needs to factor in to its fervent hopes.

Jimmy Sexton makes bank. So what else is new?

Hugh Freeze moves north of the four million dollar line, once again proving that Jimmy Sexton’s favorite season is the offseason.

And check out what the future holds in store, per Ole Miss’ AD:

“The new number became $3 million last year. We’re at $3 million. So what’s the new number (now)? Is it closer to 4? I don’t know that 5 is the new norm yet,” he said.

Who says you can’t put a price tag on Mark Richt’s loyalty?  Not Greg McGarity, that’s for sure.

If you have any doubts about the only tradition college football cares about…

… let ACC commissioner John Swofford explain the way today’s world works to you.

ACC commissioner John Swofford said the NCAA board will consider in April legislation from the ACC and Big 12 to give conferences autonomy on how they stage conference championship games. The legislation would eliminate the requirement that in order to stage a conference championship game a league must have 12 teams, round-robin divisional play and pair two division champions for the championship.

There appears to be considerable support for allowing conferences, not the NCAA, to decide how to stage league championship games.

“I think it would be in keeping with the decentralization of a lot of things in the NCAA,” Swofford said. “We’re supportive of this mainly out of principle, not because we know what we would do if we had that autonomy.”

The ACC has had mixed reviews internally about changing its championship game format. A positive is scrapping divisions would allow teams to play each other more frequently during the regular season.

“From a pure business standpoint, it could be helpful,” Swofford said, referring to more attractive regular-season matchups for TV and attendance. “But you give up some things too. You give up divisional races, for one.”

Minor detail.  What’s the need for a divisional race in a world of eight-team (or larger) national playoffs?  Think I’m exaggerating?

Baylor has hired a PR firm (Kevin Sullivan Communications) to advocate its case for a playoff spot. Firm says they were hired last week

— Jake Trotter (@Jake_Trotter) December 1, 2014

Just like with men’s basketball, making the playoff field is slowly becoming the be all and end all for college football.  And to get there, these guys are at a point where they’re willing to sell anything that isn’t nailed down.  And they’ll consider an offer for that stuff, too.

In case you missed it, we’re just wallets.  And the players are just amateurs.

One more day, one less defensive back

In a decision that has to rate as completely unsurprising, Brendan Langley has decided to transfer.

I honestly can’t blame him, as he had Tripp’d written all over him.  It’s a shame, too, because I think we all saw promise there after his excellent play (back) in the secondary against Missouri.  But then he got hurt and then he disappeared again.

I wish him well wherever he winds up.  And if you’re a promising high school defensive back who hasn’t sent his tape to Georgia, I’m not really sure what you’re waiting for.