Craig James sues Fox.

Boy, he’s got this right:

James, who was a star running back at SMU in the 1980s, claimed that what he said during a debate as a political candidate should have had no bearing on his ability to be a football analyst.

True, because he sucked at that long before he took a stab at politics.

Evidently riding in a gay parade is evidence of a decline in moral fiber, but taking money under the table at SMU isn’t.  Or something like that.

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UPDATE:  Another way to put it…

Craig James is not content with his life. Despite being part of one of the biggest scandals in college sports history at SMU, being a borderline coherent college football analyst for more than a decade and receiving 3.6 percent of the vote in the 2012 Texas Republican Senate primary, James wants to get paid, too, so he’s filed a lawsuit against the Fox television network in Dallas County district court.

All that’s missing from that is a five dead hookers reference… oops, pardon me, five alleged dead hookers reference.

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Advanced stats ❤ the Bulldogs.

Georgia shows up third in Bill Connelly’s initial S&P+ projections for 2015.

Er, that’s third nationally.  (Second in the conference, behind Alabama.)

Something else worth fretting about

From Wes Rucker’s Georgia preview:

Another major problem for Georgia was red-zone defense. It initially seems odd to mention red-zone defense being a problem when the Dawgs were technically 29th nationally in overall red-zone defense, but that didn’t tell the full story. Georgia, like defense, was awful in preventing touchdowns in the red zone. The Dawgs were 109th nationally in that area, allowing opponents to reach the end zone 67.5 percent of the time they got inside the 20-yard line. That’s a woeful statistic, and it’s hard to compete for SEC and national titles without having a stiffer backbone in those situations…

True ‘dat.

Now that can be tempered a tiny bit by noting that in 2014, Georgia allowed a total of 27 red zone TDs, which was a more modest 55th nationally.  That’s actually four fewer than Ohio State’s defense – about which Rucker notes “they didn’t allow nearly as many trips to the red zone”, and which isn’t correct, either – gave up.  But Georgia is definitely in the bottom part of the pack in the SEC, and that’s not a good place for a team expecting to travel to Atlanta for starters to be.

It’s what’s not on the back of the jersey that doesn’t count.

An astute reader sent me an email last week noting the absence of #27 jerseys on the official Georgia website and wondered if the school made a deliberate choice to do so in the wake of O’Bannon.  Good question, and one that prompted a little digging on my part.

I can’t say for sure if that’s motivated Georgia, but it looks like other schools have decided to do just that.

The Nebraska athletic department is joining lots of other schools in limiting the numbers on the jerseys fans can buy. For this year, only No. 1 and No. 15 — as in 2015 — will be sold at the Huskers Authentic team store. Next year, it’ll be 1 and 16.

Licensees selling jerseys are limited to the same numbers, and nobody gets a grandfather clause.

And the change isn’t just for football, but for all sports that have jersey replicas for sale.

The new policy was announced in the last paragraph of a news release for Football Fan Day, which this year takes place on Aug. 5.

The rationale?

“Basically, we do not want to attribute any number to any specific student-athlete,” said David Witty, senior associate athletic director for marketing and communications.

The University of Miami announced a similar policy two weeks ago.

And Witty, interviewed by phone, said it was apparent from Big Ten Media Days in Chicago that other Big Ten teams are doing the same thing.

“It’s pretty consistent,” he said. “This is becoming the norm.”

I’ll say this – it certainly lowers the hypocrisy level, which is a refreshing change.  Though I’ll be interested to see what happens to sales when fans can’t buy jerseys with their favorite players’ numbers on them.

Get ‘yer Grizzard on.

I don’t think it’s any secret that we’re big fans of Lewis Grizzard here at GTP.  So when FOTB Jason Payne alerted me to this fine addition at the ClassicGeorgia.com site, I thought it would be nice to share.  Wear it, and be wonderful.  (I am, in tasteful red, of course.)

You can also check them out on Instagram, at @ClassicGeorgia.

When you’re rebranding, you have to sweat the small stuff, too.

Evidently the brain trust at the University of Texas’ athletic department has forced an eight-year old fan message board to drop “Bevo” from its website name.

Steve Patterson is something else, ain’t he?

You think you’ve got issues with the quarterback battle.

Just imagine what the co-defensive coordinators at Louisiana-Monroe are going through now.

Three SEC questions

I’ve been asked to take part in another roundtable discussion over at The Student Section – three questions on the upcoming SEC season.

I thought I’d post them here and get your reaction:

#1 Which coach in the SEC has the toughest job this season (and why)?

#2 What one game are you most looking forward to (more than any other) in the SEC this season (and why)?

#3 Who wins the SEC in 2015 (and will they go on to win the National Championship)?

Give me your answers.  I’ll provide a link to mine once the roundtable is published.

At ESPN, it’s a short distance between analyst and troll.

This looks innocuous enough…

One analyst says Florida State has “no business” being ranked in college football’s top 10. Here’s why: http://t.co/oJRNe0v9HW

— ESPN (@espn) August 1, 2015

… until you click on the link and discover that the “analyst” is Paul Finebaum.

Must be a really slow offseason.