Daily Archives: June 24, 2015

“I never wanted to let the guy down.”

Hutson Mason ❤ Mark Richt.  And Georgia.

29 Comments

Filed under Georgia Football

Amateurism: the end is near?

“This is a positive development for student-athletes exploring their professional dreams,” said Dan Gavitt, NCAA vice president of men’s basketball. “This would give prospects and their families more appropriate time and unbiased info from the NBA to make important decisions. And it would probably lead some to go back to school.”

“This” being a proposal under consideration by the NCAA men’s basketball oversight committee to allow college underclassmen to return to school even after declaring for the NBA draft,

Yeah, me neither.  Makes way too much sense.

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UPDATE:  I figured the SEC would be all over this for football.

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13 Comments

Filed under The NCAA

“At this point in the summer, it’s clear the SEC East is not recruiting near as well as the SEC West except for Georgia. “

With the caveat that it’s a long way until February, read this post about SEC East recruiting prospects and ask yourself how the East is going to draw even with the West from a competitive standpoint.

17 Comments

Filed under Recruiting, SEC Football

And I will strike down with great vengeance…

I don’t know if the football gods are trying to send a message with this, but I were, say, Steve Patterson, I might want to make sure my insurance premiums are paid in full.

Just sayin’.

16 Comments

Filed under College Football

My kind of woman

I know it’s non-Dawg – hell, it’s non-football – but when somebody’s really got it together, I gotta share.

You go, girl!  Have one on me.

29 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Making bank at ‘Bama

Now we know that Nick values Kirby Smart at least twice as much as Junior.

12 Comments

Filed under It's Just Bidness, Whoa oh Alabama

There are only so many games to go around.

David Wonderlich surveys the field and concludes that we may be on the verge of seeing the guarantees paid for cupcake games stalling, or even coming down.  They’ve got a pretty tall perch to fall from, that’s for sure.

The site broke the news last week that Alabama lined up Fresno for a game in 2017. Bama will pay out $1.4 million for the game, which is about the going rate for MWC teams these days. Alabama payed $1.5 million to Colorado State in 2013, while Auburn’s 2014 and 2015 games against San Jose State cost $1.5 million and $1.6 million, respectively. Other leagues can still cost a lot too. Southern Miss got $1.4 million from Alabama last year, while Florida paid $1 million to ULL and $1.25 million to Bowling Green in 2012. These games are getting expensive.

As he points out, it’s just as easy for a P5 school to beat a FCS opponent as it is a mid-major, and a heckuva lot cheaper.  The problem with that approach these days, as Baylor can attest, is that a school runs the risk of a scheduling downgrade by the selection committee come playoff time.  So that’s helping to drive up the cost of mid-majors’ guarantee fees in the current market.

But as he goes on to note, there are trends going the other way now, as conferences, again with the national playoffs in mind, are beginning to dictate that their member schools play at least one OOC game against a P5 team.  Add to that conferences that are going to nine-game conference schedules and you begin to see how the market is slowly moving from a seller’s one to a buyer’s one.

David writes, “With a noticeable drop in demand, simple economics would predict a fall in prices.”  We all know that college football and simple economics don’t always fit together, but I think there’s something to this.  Especially if you believe, as I do, that two more things will come:  (1) playoff expansion and (2) conference expansion.  The one benefit, if you want to call it that, to diluting the importance of the regular season with an enlarged postseason is that there’s less risk involved in beefing up the schedule.  And when the P5s add their sixteenth members (or the Big 12 matches up with its name), conference schedules will have to grow to accommodate that.

Long term, the math may not be too daunting in terms of how much schools  are willing to shell out for a game.  There’s so much money now, they can afford it.  But it’s the total number of cupcake games they buy that will likely really drop.

1 Comment

Filed under College Football

SEC one-possession games records

Thought this compilation of team records in one-possession games over the past five years was interesting, although I can’t say for sure how meaningful it is.

Here’s how the SEC breaks down over that period:

  • Alabama 7-7
  • Arkansas 8-12
  • Auburn 20-6
  • Florida 10-13
  • Georgia 12-13
  • Kentucky 4-10
  • LSU 18-10
  • Ole Miss 6-13
  • Mississippi State 13-6
  • Missouri 11-10
  • South Carolina 14-9
  • Tennessee 7-12
  • Texas A&M 13-14
  • Vanderbilt 9-9

What I do find meaningful…

  • Alabama played the fewest number of those type games, along with Kentucky, which is an indication of how good one is and, um, how not good the other has been.
  • Yeah, that Auburn number is amazing.  And before you chalk it all up to Gus’ rabbit’s foot, it goes back to the Chizik era.
  • LSU has a good record, but with Les Miles, that’s only half the story.
  • Dan Mullen knows how to manage a football game.

Y’all have any thoughts to add?

19 Comments

Filed under SEC Football, Stats Geek!