The VanGorder is strong with this one.

I’m not the only one feeling it.  From Seth’s ongoing live chat today:

Do you think Schottenheimer/Richt have purposely been showing a vanilla offensive scheme, or do you think the offense is just vanilla this year?

A little of both. They are going to ride this running game all year. People need to get used to that. They believe they have a defense they can win with, as they did in the VanGorder days, and don’t believe they need an air-it-out passing game to win it. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to pass the ball; they realize they need to pass it better than they have the first two games. But the coaches also don’t care about style points as much as fans do.

Ah… so much fodder for the comments section here.  I’ll hang up and listen to your answers now.

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“Eleven in the morning? I’m not even done throwing up by then.”

An Alabama state legislator, bless his heart, offered a state Senate resolution to encourage college football teams to stop scheduling games with kickoffs before noon.

“I think going forward it’s important that the managers of the universities across this state start to consider the fans,” Pittman said from the Senate podium. “The reason for this could be two fold. For one, Auburn doesn’t play well before noon.”

He’s a Republican, so you can see there are limits on freedom! even for those folks.

Really, it’s amazing how much time they’ve got on their hands.  Must be paradise over there.

Don’t think. You can only hurt the ball club.

Easily my favorite thing from Jake Rowe’s excellent analysis of a couple of plays from last Saturday is this:

This is where you see Chubb’s instincts and greatness at work. I asked him specifically about this play on Tuesday and he told me that he couldn’t remember what he was thinking at the time that he made this cut, so that just confirms what we already know. He has tremendous instincts for the position.

True ‘dat.

“Nobody on the team felt we were thugs.”

Shit, no wonder Corch bailed out at Gainesville.

And this is just precious:

Fortunately for many players, Gainesville lawyer Huntley Johnson helped them successfully navigate the legal system. They knew to go to Johnson. One player remembers walking into Johnson’s office for counsel and seeing a teammate who was already there.

Talk about your bonding exercise.  (See what I did there?)

We may need to let up on Agent Muschamp a little.

“One of those days”, or something else?

Also from Seth Emerson’s piece about Lambert is this curious reason Schottenheimer gives for why the coaches like Greyson:

An unheralded, but important, part of Georgia’s offense is “checking” the play at the line of scrimmage. That could mean changing the direction of a run play based on the defense, or changing from a run to a pass or vice versa.

That’s something Lambert does well. For instance, Schottenheimer, who’s used to getting photocopies of previous plays as they do in the NFL, remarked that when Lambert comes off the field he’s able to immediately tell Schottenheimer what he saw on the defense, and thus why he made the check at the line.

“He sees things really well, has a good understanding of defenses,” Schottenheimer said. “Again, picked up the system fast. But a lot of it is he’s played quite a bit of football so he can see rotation things that might take him off. ‘Hey this is a bad look, this guy’s getting ready to come, I don’t want to run the ball over there.’ I think that certainly was part of it.”

I’m not doubting what he sees there.  But it sure is hard to reconcile with some of the boneheaded stuff we got from Lambert during the Vandy game.  Does his mind click off once the ball is snapped, or was Mason that good switching up his defensive looks?  Color me puzzled.

“We didn’t get off to a good start throwing the ball.”

I don’t think you have to go too far out on a limb to suggest that when your offensive coordinator has to defend his starting quarterback’s performance after a mere two games with a declaration that “We’re not panicking”, things are probably not progressing the way you envisioned before the season’s start.

Still, by all appearances, Greyson Lambert remains Georgia’s starting quarterback.  And I get that.  Georgia is 2-0.  Lambert – okay, with a little luck involved – hasn’t turned the ball over yet.  You’ve invested time, effort and energy into him and recognize correctly that he’s something of a project.

But it’s hard to look at this Saturday’s game and not think it’s time for Lambert to show he belongs in the slot.  For one thing, he’s got a lot of talent in the skill positions to work with.  For another, he’s working behind an experienced offensive line that’s done a pretty good job protecting him.

And finally, it sounds like he’s got an inviting opportunity Saturday night.

If they stack the box to thwart the Bulldogs’ run game, how capable to you believe the South Carolina secondary to be at defending Georgia’s passing game, such as it is?

Kendall: South Carolina’s secondary is nothing to be scared of at the moment, but neither is Georgia’s passing game. I would say if the Bulldogs can’t make any plays downfield through the air against the Gamecocks it’s a big red flag for them. I say that for a couple reasons. No. 1, South Carolina is going to stop Chubb first, second and third and that means there will be opportunities in the passing game. No. 2, the Gamecocks are without starting cornerback Chris Lammons (knee) and clearly not very happy with what they have seen from backup cornerback Chaz Elder, who has barely played this year. Safety Jordan Diggs is coming off a tough first half against Kentucky.

So, yeah, I’d say if we get anything close to a repeat of what we saw in the first half against Vanderbilt… well, it may not be panic time, but it’ll sure as hell be time to start asking some serious questions about how things are panning out.

Thursday morning buffet

I got ‘yer buffet right here.

• “Georgia fans suffer from a bad case of fan PTSD.”
• Bill Connelly points out one strange thing from last Saturday:  “There were 80 rushes, and it still lasted nearly four hours.”
• I’m not gonna argue with Jeff Schultz’ premise that Georgia Tech, for once, is in a better place with its starting quarterback than Georgia is.  But color me amused with his conclusion that Georgia’s early schedule has been a “luxury” for Richt, while Tech’s Murderer’s Row of Alcorn State and Tulane isn’t even worthy of mention.
• More of SEC coaches talking shit behind each others’ backs here.
• Vegas is all over the place on Georgia right now.
• If you’re interested, here are some observations from yesterday’s practice.
• It doesn’t look like Georgia will see Kurt Maggitt when it travels to Knoxville later this season.
• Jonathan Taylor’s found his Third Chance U.

Riding around in cars

The Laremy Tunsil saga continues, with no end in sight.

Tunsil, a 6-foot-5, 305-pound junior, did not play in the Rebels’ first two games. Sources told ESPN.com that the sticking point is a loaner vehicle Tunsil received from Cannon Motors in Oxford, Mississippi, while his car was in the repair shop. Tunsil allegedly kept that loaner vehicle for an extended period of time before returning it to the dealership, and the NCAA has deemed it an extra benefit.

Ole Miss athletic director Ross Bjork declined to comment Wednesday other than to emphasize the joint statement he and Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze released last week.

Bjork won’t even speculate if Tunsil will be back this season.

Also note that in the article, the cases of In re:  Green and In re: Gurley are cited.  That’s not a good thing, Ole Miss.

“I have a lot of communication with teachers.”

The next time somebody mentions the sacred role of academics in collegiate football, make sure you bring up Rutgers, where a head football coach can do this…

• Flood met with the professor off-campus, and contacted the professor through subsequent emails, after he was told by a member of the academic support staff “that he is not to have contact with any faculty member regarding a student’s academic standing.”

• When the faculty member agreed to “review an additional paper” to possibly help Barnwell’s standing in the class, Flood helped Barnwell by providing “grammatical and minor editorial suggestions to the submitted paper.”

… and walk away with a three-game suspension.

Then again, after seeing this,

“Coach Flood exemplifies our university’s standards and values both on and off the field,” Rutgers President Robert Barchi said last September after executing the extension. “He has put together a strong coaching staff that supports our mission to compete well both in the classroom and on the field.”

… maybe we should wonder why the school is being so tough on him.  Maybe it’s simply that with everything else that’s gone on at Rutgers lately, he’s just gotten lost in the weeds.

“But in this building, he’s just Nick.”

Ho hum… another day, another great Nick Chubb story.

Swoon part:

That responsibility doesn’t seem to faze Chubb, who is quickly becoming familiar with how bright the spotlight can be for a 19-year-old in America’s most vaunted conference. But he remains driven by two things: a shot at a national title and a chance to bring pride to his neighbors back home. Successes are glorified in a small town, and failures magnified. The latter isn’t an option for Chubb. “It’s kind of like being a hometown hero,” Chubb says. “I’m back here at Georgia doing it for my state.”

He’d make a nice SECCG MVP, I believe.