He speaks for me.

Hutson Mason says what I’ve thought.

Mason was asked to sum up Georgia’s season in one word. He thought for awhile, then offered a somewhat downbeat answer.

“For me personally I think it’s disappointing, because we had two games that we shoulda and coulda easily won,” he said. “Just my opinion, there’s one game where we showed up and just flat-out got beat, and that was down there in Jacksonville. But when you look back at the (other) two losses that we had it’s frustrating, because you saw the opportunities that we had where we could have won the game. So you look back at the season and think, Man, we could have been very, very special.”

Second straight year, at that.  But where I could excuse the falloff from the promise of September, 2013, by the unraveling of the offense due to a rash of injuries, this year’s got nothing more to point at than a lack of team focus at the worst times.  I don’t know how you fix that, but I could do with a little less “we could have been” going forward.

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Name that caption, smiling SOB edition

Boy, this is some grin.

(TODD SUMLIN — tsumlin@charlotteobserver.com)

Maybe Petrino just spotted a cool looking motorcycle in the NASCAR garage. Your thoughts?

Alabama can relax.

Jim Harbaugh’s contract turns out to be a 7-year, $5 million per year deal.  No need to rush out and give Nick Saban a raise tomorrow.

The Republic is saved.

Some Belk Bowl thoughts

Usually, it’s a sad day for me when another Georgia football season wraps up… and that’s the case for today, except that my sadness is tempered by a bit of fatigue from all the drama and whining we’ve been subjected to, especially after the Tech loss.  (Not that I expect any of that to fade away afterwards.)

Anyway, on to a little pregame discussion, minus the personalities.  Here’s what the key advanced stats from Bill and Brian tell us about Georgia and Louisville:

Advanced Stats	Georgia	Louisville
F+ Overall	7th (27.6%)	16th (19.9%)
F+ Offense	8th (14.4%)	42nd (4.2%)
F+ Defense	22nd (10%)	5th (16.1%)
F+ Special Teams	11 (3.2%)	88th (-0.9%)

Damned shame Isaiah McKenzie’s suspended, no?

Team Speed Kills lists five key things to watch:  (1) Louisville’s quarterback situation; (2) Georgia’s offense vs. Louisville’s defense; (3) turnovers; (4) special teams; and (5) Louisville’s offensive line.  That’s a good list.  Let me go into number two a little bit more.

Take a look at Louisville’s run defense game log.  Then take a look at Georgia’s running game log.  I don’t think you have to be a genius to see that something’s gotta give there.  The Louisville defense only allowed one opponent to rush for more than five yards a carry; Georgia cleared that hurdle in all but three games this season.  If Georgia can’t run the ball, that’s going to force the offense into a place it would prefer not to go, given Louisville’s penchant for snatching interceptions at a ridiculous rate.

As far as Georgia’s pass rush goes, Louisville was pretty awful on the sacks allowed front.  Its 36 was next to last in the ACC.  (By comparison, Georgia only allowed 15 this season.)  True, Leonard Floyd is out, but Lorenzo Carter appears to be a more than capable replacement – and besides, Georgia figures to be in a 4-2-5 set up for much of the game, meaning that Pruitt would either be using Floyd in the Star position, or not having Floyd or Carter on the field all the time.

With that in mind, my most underrated aspect to the game is Damian Swann, who figures to go out playing at the position he’s best suited for.  Most overrated?  Intangibles.  Yes, the more motivated team generally wins games like the Belk Bowl.  But – 10 wins, Grantham, Bobo gone, Petrino, erasing the bad taste of the Tech loss, pissing matches with athletic directors – who the hell knows what’s going to motivate the two teams today?

Just relax, have fun today and play your game, fellas.  Give us something to enjoy until G-Day.

Spend like a champion.

I just thought I’d throw out some numbers for you to absorb and react to.

First, Jon Solomon put together this handy chart showing what the four schools in the CFP spend on athletics.

Category	Alabama	Ohio State	Oregon	Florida State
Total Revenue	$143,776,550	$139,639,307	$115,271,040	$91,382,441
Athletic Revenue Increase (2005-13)*	$81,489,358	$49,938,328	$75,264,435	$34,805,508
Sports/Number of Athletes	21 sports/563 athletes	36 sports/1,003 athletes	19 sports/454 athletes	20 sports/515 athletes
Annual Debt Service for Athletic Facilities (pct of university’s total annual debt service used for athletics)	$15,980,449 (30%)	$15,882,000 (5%)	$19,243,594 (34%)	$0 (0%)
Potential Cost of Attendance Stipend to Players	$4,332 (in-state) $5,662 (out)	$4,691 (in-state) $5,411 (out)	$2,430 (in-state and out-of-state)	$4,124 (in-state) $5,720 (out)
Football Ticket Sales	$36,199,233	$46,317,719	$21,604,651	$17,611,185
Donations to Athletic Department	$34,233,035	$22,204,606	$46,627,597	$18,894,097
Direct Institutional Support	$5,791,200	$0	$0	$0
Student Fee Revenue	$0	$0	$1,524,045	$7,859,734
NCAA/Conference Payouts	$23,855,929	$23,635,519	$19,123,125	$19,814,702
Broadcast, TV, Radio, Internet Rights	$10,926,979	$1,962,000	$120,000	$355,000
Royalties, Licensing, Advertising and Sponsorships	$11,203,182	$12,714,758	$7,139,035	$11,859,646
Football Camp Revenue	$584,616	$574,771	$248,312	$0
Nike 2014-15 Contract Value	$3,570,000	$4,164,014	$2,985,000	$4,400,000
Football Scholarship Costs	$3,632,607	$3,243,001	$3,057,727	$3,120,676
Football Coach Pay* (From 2014)	Nick Saban $7,160,187	Urban Meyer $4,536,640	Mark Helfrich $2,000,000	Jimbo Fisher $3,591,667
Football Coach CFP Bonuses	$200,000 (semifinal appearance) or $300,000 (championship appearance) or $400,000 (championship win)	$200,000 (semifinal appearance) or $250,000 (championship appearance)	$175,000 (semifinal appearance) or $200,000 (championship appearance)	$75,000 (semifinal appearance) $200,000 (championship game appearance) $200,000 (championship win)
Football Assistant Coaches Pay* (2014)	$5,213,400	$3,592,025	$3,277,584	$3,386,000
Football Support Staff Pay	$2,896,666	$2,587,481	$1,481,515	$1,141,275
Football Recruiting Expenses	$983,721	$564,152	$674,755	$425,796
Athletic Department Medical Expenses/Insurance	$2,346,604	$1,787,936	$1,216,954	$1,483,445
Athletic Department Money Transferred to University	$5,934,130	$8,279,172	$0	$3,706,921

The figures are from the 2012-3 fiscal year, but you get the gist.

The first point to take from this is that even in the new era of a four-team playoff, it takes money to make money.  It’s all well and good to talk about a Moneyball approach to building a football program, but that’s a lot easier said that done, especially because it’s hard to build a sufficient reputation to crack a top four pool if you aren’t a member of a P5 conference.  Would that change much with playoff expansion?  If the postseason were opened to all conference champs regardless of ranking, sure.  But in the meantime, you’d better be raking in the dough if you want to go to the show.

And how does Georgia compare?  Not too badly, if you go by the numbers submitted to the NCAA.  Total revenues are bigger than FSU’s.  (Note that football turned an almost $50 million dollar profit, which means the rest of Georgia’s athletic programs combined to lose something like $16 million.)  Outside of Alabama’s excess, coaching salaries don’t seem too out of line.  Georgia’s football recruiting budget is about $600,000, which also seems to fit.

You can find details on items like debt service, revenues from ticket sales/contributions and student fees, along with money transferred to the university here.  Again, nothing particularly egregious jumps out in the comparison.

Just for yuks, there’s this, too.

Looking at all this, it seems fair to say that money isn’t Georgia’s problem.  Agree?  Disagree?  Let me know in the comments.

“How can you not root for a guy like that?”

I’m not a fan of the Tennessee Volunteers, but I’d definitely sympathize if any of them told Matt Hayes to take this column and stick it straight up his ass.

Taking chippiness to the next level

Whoever says bowl games are meaningless hasn’t met Texas A&M staff member Michael Richardson.

Although perhaps he will soon be called “former” Texas A&M staff member Michael Richardson.  Woody Hayes might approve, but I doubt anyone else will.

***************************************************************************

UPDATE:  Now it’s “former”.

“We’re gonna continue to do what we do offensively.”

When it comes to the coming offensive coordinator hire, Mark Richt expects the new OC to be true to his (new) school.

“As far as we’re gonna be very serious about running the football, we’re gonna be very serious about play-action pass, we’re gonna be very serious about being able to drop back and throw the ball as good as anybody. We’ll still have the ability to use fast tempo. All those things will be in place.

“The skill sets that we’ve recruited for, they have nothing to worry about, because we’re gonna use them to their fullest.”

And why shouldn’t he?  Georgia’s offense has been the best in school history the past couple of seasons.  A radical restructuring shouldn’t be in the cards, at least not for some of the flimsy reasons I’ve seen expounded by Internet experts.  Georgia uses a system that built on what Richt brought with him, that he’s comfortable with and that’s taken in a few wrinkles to adapt to changes in the way the game’s being played now.  And as Richt points out, Georgia’s offensive recruiting is based on what’s working.

If you’re looking for a cautionary tale about the consequences of shaking things up and then not buying into the results, look no further than our friends on the Plains.  Two of Auburn’s last three head coaches lost their jobs in large part because of changes at the offensive coordinator position that either the rest of the staff couldn’t accept or because the new man couldn’t work effectively with the personnel already in place.

I’m a big believer in the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” theory of play calling.  Seems to be an equally effective approach for choosing a coordinator to run your offense.

Is winning ten games this season that big a deal?

“Winning 10 games is important to everyone,” McGarity said.

Question for you:  has any Georgia football coach lost his job for failing to win a mid-level bowl game for his tenth victory in a season?  Nope.

Another question for you:  how much of a change in your attitude about Mark Richt and the football program will there be based on whether Georgia wins or loses today?  Honestly would compel me to admit there would be very little impact, barring some incredible, freakish occurrence.  Haters gonna hate; worshipers gonna worship.

And yet, here we are today with plenty of suggestions in the media that winning the Belk Bowl is a pretty crucial matter for Richt and Georgia.

“The man’s dealt with a lot over the last couple weeks,” Mason said. “It doesn’t help that we didn’t beat Tech.”

That loss has magnified, you could also say exaggerated, a lot of the program’s supposed flaws and issues. There’s heat from fans. There’s also what appears to be a strained relationship between coaches and the administration.

It all makes this one of the most important bowl games Georgia has had in recent memory: Lose to Louisville, and the perception of a struggling program only intensifies. But win, and Georgia is a 10-win team that could finish ranked in the top 10.

“Were those the primary goals when the season began, no,” Richt admitted. “But where we’re at, there’s still some very positive things that could happen to finish the season well.”

Let’s face it.  Georgia football is in a very weird place right now.  Emerson hints at the rumors swirling around about a rocky relationship between the athletic department and the football staff.  While I’ve seen those and am skeptical about much of them, there’s no denying, simply based on the public comments of Jeremy Pruitt and Greg McGarity, that there’s a level of tension between the two that isn’t healthy for the program.  Everyone’s oars need to be rowing in the same direction.

So how much does winning today alleviate that tension?  Honestly, I don’t know.  The best I can think is that at least a win would give Mark Richt a happy note on which to close out the season.  But I have the feeling that the only practical result a win today would achieve would be to take one more reason off the table for folks to grumble about the state of Georgia football.  That’s not exactly uplifting, but I guess it beats the alternative.

My personal feeling is that developments this offseason are a helluva lot more critical for Mark Richt’s future than the Belk Bowl result will be.  But I also think Richt can read the immediate-term tea leaves and that’s why he’s so focused on Louisville right now.  I hope he wins, because he needs the distraction of a loss over the next month like a hole in the head.  We need the distraction like a hole in the head.

0 – 3.

I could be wrong, but somehow I doubt Big Game Bob will be directing much smack talk in the SEC’s direction this offseason.