Mark Richt has lost control of pessimists.

He’s not going to Miami.  He hasn’t even been contacted.

And as for his trusty sidekick…

Richt says Schottenheimer is a "great coach." Says he is in the QB room most of the time and he "has full faith and confidence" in him.

— Marc Weiszer (@marcweiszer) October 27, 2015

DAMMIT, PAWWWLLL, WHY DOES MARK RICHT HATE GEORGIA????

The NCAA’s fantasy about fantasy sports

Hey, here’s a real surprise.

A lawyer for FanDuel told a top NCAA official on Monday that the daily fantasy company would not stop offering NCAA games.

The letter, emailed by the company’s chief legal counsel, Christian Genetski, to NCAA executive vice president Mark Lewis on Monday, and obtained by ESPN.com, noted that the site does “not plan to make changes to our games at this time, and certainly not without further conversations with you.” Genetski also maintained that the NCAA has no legal basis for forcing FanDuel to stop its college games because names when tied to statistics aren’t subject to the approval of the athletes and “cannot implicate their amateur status.”

Five bucks say as soon as he read that, Mark Emmert ran down the hall to ask Donald Remy if the NCAA could take the position that amateurism bans the use of statistics in revenue producing sports.

And another five bucks say in a decade the NCAA will be sponsoring its own version of daily fantasy games.

A “fevered, high-pitched, no holds-barred attitude”

Honestly, after showing up last year feeling like the Gators wouldn’t even bother to play hard and being pantsed as a result, if this year’s Georgia squad has a problem with focus and motivation on Saturday, it’ll be time to throw in the towel on the excuses and explanations for another disappointing season.

There’s no way the intangibles should favor Florida this year.  Which, sadly, isn’t the same thing as saying they won’t.

On the edge

I said it yesterday – if Georgia can’t set the edge, if the defense is constantly losing contain, Saturday is going to be one ugly, ugly day.

Last year, that’s why Florida was able to gash the defense with the run.

Georgia can’t afford to give up 418 rushing yards to Florida twice in a row. Last season, that led to a 38-20 beatdown in Jacksonville as the unranked Gators ran through No. 11 Georgia’s defense.

That loss can’t be far from the Bulldogs’ minds, although they don’t like to discuss it much. Understandable. In last year’s win, two of Florida’s tailbacks, Kelvin Taylor and Matt Jones, broke free for runs over 40 yards long.

“We all know that you have to set the edge in the SEC, and setting the edge is a big point in that,” outside linebacker Davin Bellamy said. “Because you never want the guy with the ball to keep running sideways like that, so we just know for us to win games we have to set the edge.”

And they know it.

“Stopping the run is definitely one of our biggest emphasis’s of the week,” Mauger said. “Just gotta stay locked in.”

Easier said than done, of course.  And don’t focus so much on the run that you lose sight of the damage Treon Harris can cause throwing out of the pocket.  Overcompensation can be a bitch.

The best thing about the bye week

Gettin’ healthy.

Coach Mark Richt said on his radio show Monday night that he thinks Jenkins, wide receiver Isaiah McKenzie (hamstring) and defensive lineman Chris Mayes (knee) and John Atkins (foot) “will be able to come back and play for us,” Saturday against Florida.

“That’s a good sign,” Richt said.

Jenkins leads the team with seven and a half tackles for loss and is tied for the team lead with three sacks.

The off week for Georgia also allowed starting center Brandon Kublanow time to get better after playing through a sprained ankle.

“I think I’m 100 percent,” Kublanow said. “I got a chance to get some rest, which helped a lot. Feeling good.”

Shoring up the defensive and offensive lines?  Couldn’t hurt.

Going out like he came in

Confession time:  I’ve never had much use for George O’Leary.  He was an asshole at Georgia Tech.  He literally bullshitted his way into the Notre Dame job until his fictitious resume caught up with him.  He fled to the Central Florida job, where he managed to keep the bullshit flowing, even in tragic (and expensive) circumstances.

So it should come as no surprise that his departure would exude the stench of bovine excrement.

George O’Leary, who retired as Central Florida’s football coach on Sunday, will be paid at least $200,000 a year through 2020, according to a school spokesman and documents from 2014 and earlier this year that the school did not release until Monday.

The documents also show that in April 2014, UCF and O’Leary agreed to reduce his coaching term by two years — to Jan. 4, 2016, from Jan. 4, 2018 — but extend his employment with the athletics department through March 15, 2020.

UCF’s athletics department is organized under a Florida statute that allows it to claim exemption from the state’s open-records law.

If you think you missed the time when O’Leary and the school told recruits that a departure date had been set, that’s because you didn’t.

Oh, and that future gig is pretty sweet.

It included a provision under which the parties agreed that O’Leary would be employed as the head football coach through Jan. 4, 2016, then become “Special Liaison to the Director of Athletics on Football Operations” from Jan. 5, 2016, through March 15, 2020. Under the arrangement, O’Leary was to be paid $200,000 a year in the new role, under which he would not be required to render more than 12 hours of service to the athletics department in any one year.

In addition, if the athletics department were to determine that “termination … is in its best interests,” it would continue to pay O’Leary the $200,000 a year through March 15, 2020.

Don’t worry – even though he’s not staying ’til the end of the season, George has magnanimously agreed to pitch in with every one of those 12 hours a year.

And why not, when the guys writing the checks think so highly of him?

“Following the Fiesta Bowl victory, UCF agreed to this provision in recognition of the accomplishments of the football program throughout Coach O’Leary’s career, both on the field and in the classroom,” Grant J. Heston, UCF’s vice president for communications and marketing, said in a statement.

They deserve each other.

Tuesday morning buffet

A rich menu at today’s buffet bar…

• “Georgia not looking back at last year’s loss to Florida“?  I call bullshit on that.  In fact, they’d better be looking back, to make sure they don’t make the same mistakes twice.
• Man, Texas is undoing the rebranding.
• Iowa State’s Paul Rhoades announced the firing of his offensive coordinator to the media before telling his team, because “I wanted to get to this point in the day and address you folks, then see them and look them in the eye at 1:30 when I get that opportunity…”  Yes, that makes no fucking sense.
• Somebody in Vegas still likes Georgia:  “Georgia has been the favorite in this game for the entire year until now,” Kornegay said in an e-mail on Monday. “There are three reasons why the line has moved; Florida has been playing good football all year, Georgia lost their top running back, and the public has warmed up to the Gators. In our eyes, Georgia is still a better team and should be a short favorite. It wouldn’t surprise us to see the Bulldogs the favorite once again on game day.”
• There’s the second chance at Auburn, and then there’s the second chance in Athens.
• Before you get too upset at Jeremy Pruitt for whatever faults you find in this year’s defense, at least Georgia’s never looked this bad on a play.
• Yeah, that’s been a problem.
• Don’t forget that Georgia will be without Dominick Sanders for the first half against Florida.

Mumme Poll results, Week 8

Another week in the books, and a new number one.

Rank	Team	Votes
1	LSU	34
2	Ohio State	32
2	Clemson	32
4	Baylor	29
4	Alabama	29
4	TCU	29
7	Michigan State	19
8	Stanford	17
9	Memphis	13
10	Oklahoma State	11
10	Iowa	11
12	Notre Dame	7
13	Florida	3
13	Houston	3
13	Utah	3
13	Oklahoma	3
17	Temple	2
17	Duke	2
17	Toledo	2
20	Appalachian State	1
20	Pittsburgh	1
20	Mississippi State	1
20	Mississippi	1
20	Navy	1
20	Florida State	1
20	Southern Cal	1

• Plenty of ties this week, which I suspect is due to the relatively few number of ballots cast.  Get on the stick, peeps!
• One of the ties is at the number four spot.  That would be a lot of fun for the selection committee to unravel.
• Is Baylor’s drop due to the injury at quarterback?
• And check out the love Memphis is getting.  (Especially in comparison to Florida, which hammered Ole Miss worse than the Tigers did.)