Hard to believe, but one day Arkansas fans may look back on the Houston Nutt era as a period of relative calm and stability.
With a little work, Jeff Long could be the new Mike Hamilton.
Daily Archives: December 3, 2014
Upon further review, the outsourced edition
I’ve started watching the replay of the Tech game (yes, gentle readers, sometimes a blogger’s gotta do what a blogger’s gotta do) to compose a review post, but in the meantime, I’ve come across Gentry Estes’ review. It’s a far more thorough job than I’d be likely to produce, so I suggest you take a look at it.
In particular, he has one comment that bears highlighting.
This is just my personal observation, and it may be standard procedure in that offense, but it looked like Georgia Tech at times read the splits in the Georgia front and adjusted before the snap. It didn’t always work, but you noticed when eyeing UGA’s front that if there was space at any portion, the Yellow Jackets often sent the ball-carrier into that area. There was one play in particular that went for 19 yards to start a third quarter possession where Thornton and Drew were each to the right of the center and Jordan Jenkins was outside of the tackle. The Yellow Jackets then ran a dive play directly into that open gap over the left guard.
It looked like Tech altered its o-line blocking schemes in the second half, but this was the other adjustment I noticed. Pruitt called for a lot of shifts in Georgia’s front just before the snap and it seemed like the Jackets’ offense would adjust to that by running the play towards the vacated gap. There’s a reason Herrera and Wilson were making so many tackles. What that also tells you is that Justin Thomas did a terrific job as an option quarterback, despite anemic passing stats (6-16, 64 yards), because he was making excellent decisions in the running game. He’s Saturday’s MVP.
Filed under Georgia Football, Georgia Tech Football
“But you say numbers? That’s what you come here to say, numbers?”
I admit to being struck by the juxtaposition between UAB cancelling its football program because of finances, per its president…
The president says this wasn’t the outcome anyone wanted but the numbers are the numbers. The athletic director who led the strategic study gets a new job title and is nowhere to be found. Reporters grill the president on what this really is all about and when the decision was made.
UAB said it already subsidizes $20 million of the roughly $30 million annual athletic department operating budget. The university cited continually spiraling athletic costs in college sports, including cost of attendance stipends to players. UAB’s strategic report by consultant Bill Carr listed UAB’s cost of attendance figure at about $5,442 per scholarship.
Carr’s report forecast UAB’s expenses with football increasing from $30.2 million in 2015 to $38.5 million in 2019 while generated revenue is expected to grow by less than $1 million. UAB is committed to providing institutional support of $14.5 million annually, along with student fee increases of 3 percent per year, the report said.
Carr calculated the cumulative net deficit at $25.3 million over the next five years. Without football, Carr predicted a five-year net revenue of $2 million and the difference in operating expenses would be $27.3 million over five years with football.
On top of that, UAB determined it needed an incremental capital investment of $22.2 million in football facilities (outdoor practice field, multisport indoor practice facility and a football administration building) to sustain competitiveness. In other words, UAB argued, it needed to invest about $49 million over the next five years to be competitive in Conference USA.
… and Auburn preparing itself to back up the Brink’s truck to pay Will Muschamp whatever it takes to become the next defensive coordinator, in spite of numbers.
And the trend didn’t stop when Malzahn hired his first staff at Auburn. The Tigers’ initial salary pool ranked fifth in the nation, a number that may rise after Auburn assistants received raises that added $900,000 to the pool following last season’s trip to the national title game.
Auburn’s ability to pay its assistants top-dollar hasn’t changed despite the $865,994 deficit the athletics department reported for the 2013 fiscal year, along with the buyouts still owed to four coaches.
Auburn is still paying former head coach Gene Chizik $209,457.84 per month, according to open financial records, through the 2015-2016 fiscal year, owes former basketball coach Tony Barbee $1.875 million in monthly installments that end in June of 2017, assistant coach Ryan Miller $15,833 per month through May of 2015 and now former defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson $850,000 per year through June of 2017, a figure that will go down if he gets another job.
Auburn owes all four coaches a total of roughly $7.1 million through June 2017, although the yearly total obviously drops as coaches come off the books at different times.
Those numbers likely won’t deter Auburn from its pursuit of Muschamp.
Sure, Auburn has greater resources to pull from than UAB could ever dream of. But that didn’t stop the Tigers from losing money last year. It’s really a story of if there’s a will, there’s a way. And it seems there’s no will in Birmingham.
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UPDATE: How can you not love this quote? “Auburn apparently is prepared to spend at least $1.2 million per year for Muschamp’s services, though it’s unclear how comfortably the athletic department can foot the bill.”
Man over machine
Boy, this is some first-rate arrogance on display:
“Nuanced mathematical formulas ignore some teams who ‘deserve’ to be selected”? So, you’re saying deserves got something to do with it? What’s the difference between deserving and best? (That’s a rhetorical question – I think we all know what they have in mind when it comes to deserving.)
And, of course, things wouldn’t be complete without a punchline. Come here, punchline.
Filed under BCS/Playoffs
Taking stock, and a reader poll
I’ve got a couple of well-reasoned summaries of what’s been an up-and-down season worth a look.
From David Ching…
There was a time not so long ago where Mark Richt was arguably having one of his better coaching seasons as Georgia’s head Bulldog in charge. Today, you won’t find anyone who would make that argument.
Not after Richt’s decision to squib kick with 18 seconds left in regulation against Georgia Tech – a call that he later ranked among his dumbest decisions as Georgia’s coach – gave the Yellow Jackets time to tie the game with a last-second field goal and then win in overtime.
Or after a consistently terrible Florida offense suddenly looked like the mid-90s Nebraska Cornhuskers by running all over Georgia’s defense in an enormous upset, following two road wins where the Bulldogs seemingly could do no wrong.
Such has been the peaks-and-valleys nature of this season for the Bulldogs — and that’s saying something at UGA, which frequently ranks among the nation’s most schizophrenic programs.
… and Seth Emerson:
For this team, it has been a year of great highs: Clemson, Auburn, Missouri two days after Gurley’s sudden suspension, and Arkansas the next week.
But the lows have been just as great: South Carolina and the first-and-goal fiasco; Georgia Tech and the squib kick decision; and worst of all, the egg-laying against a Florida team so bad it fired its head coach two weeks later.
It’s also a season that isn’t over. A good way for this Georgia program to feel better about itself would be to win a bowl game and have a 10-win season, the ninth in Mark Richt’s 14-year tenure.
I don’t think there’s even a slight possibility Mark Richt will be canned, even if the bowl game generates another loss, but after reading several days of comments here and elsewhere, there’s little doubt that the way the 2014 regular season ended has left a sour taste in plenty of Georgia fans’ mouths. And there is a segment of folks out there who clearly want the program to move on, coachingwise.
Which leads to today’s reader poll. It’s not just a simple should-he-stay-or-should-he-go temperature taking. A couple of your comments have made me wonder how much of my experience as someone who’s followed the program for the better part of four decades has factored into my attitude about the program. So this poll is constructed with a twist, as you’ll see.
As always, comments are appreciated. I think this is a subject that deserves thoughtful response. (Meaning it wouldn’t kill some of you to be a little bit more respectful of others as you express your opinions.) So have at it.
Filed under Georgia Football
Wednesday morning buffet
Comfort food.
- Jeremy Foley finds his man? “McElwain reportedly has $7.5 million buyout in his contract, but money shouldn’t be a problem at Florida.”
- Helluva resume, Karl Dorrell.
- Tim Tebow is even deader to me now.
- At least Georgia nerds come up with stuff that’s football-related.
- I know one says all kinds of stupid when you’re in a presser announcing the dismissal of a coach, but I’m still having a hard time reconciling calling Brady Hoke a “hero” with this.
- It sounds like Will Muschamp’s on a lot of fan bases’ minds.
- Lost in the disappointment of Saturday: “7 Consecutive 100-yard rushing games for Georgia RB Nick Chubb after he ran for 129 yards against Georgia Tech on Saturday. That’s the longest 100-yard streak since Herschel Walker ripped off 11 in a row in 1982 on his way to the Heisman Trophy.”
Get The Picture 