Richt tried to tell us.

Saban: "People forget about Georgia Southern. They went through us like shit through a tin horn."

— Cecil Hurt (@CecilHurt) November 19, 2015

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Has the SEC media declared war on SEC coaches?

From the boys at Al.com:

The Tigers take on Idaho Saturday as a 32-point favorite, needing a win to gain bowl-eligibility. Should things go South for Auburn against the Vandals, Gus Malzahn might be headed out the door after the season.

“Let’s say they lose to Idaho, and then they go out the next week and get blown off the field in the Iron Bowl, a 42-0 type of game, there’s going to be people calling for Gus Malzahn’s head,” Stephenson said. “Now will the people that matter make that decision, I’m not sure. The last time they went through this, you could tell that team quit.”

When did this become the Year of Make Shit Up Out Of Thin Air?  Is everyone in the media that bored?

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“We all understand there is an issue with the field right now…”

Wow, Tennessee.  Just wow.

(h/t)

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UPDATE:  In light of the above, don’t miss this read.

Is there an echo in Baton Rouge?

Somehow, in a mere two weeks, Les Miles has gone from coaching the number two team in the CFP rankings to fighting for his job the rest of this season.  It sounds like things have been building for a while, which has a familiar ring to ears in our neck of the woods.

Although I’m not sure I’m ready to buy this:

“If Miles is terminated without cause before January 1, he would be owed $15 million, payable over eight years… his assistants would have to be paid roughly an additional $2 million for six months’ salary…

It’s a staggering sum, but apparently not a deal breaker.”

And some say Louisiana is an impoverished state.

If Miles gets canned, how insane is the coaching market going to be this winter?  Could Jimmy Sexton’s smile possibly get any wider?

Run the damned ball, Eagles.

There pretty much isn’t a down and distance when Georgia Southern won’t run the football.

Tendencies

1st Down: GSU has run the football on over 85 percent of first downs this season. But both of The Eagles’ touchdown passes on the year have come on first down.

2nd Down: No matter the distance, second down is a run-heavy down across the board for Georgia Southern. Second and long (seven or more yards) is actually a heavier run down than second and medium (four to six yards).

3rd Down: GSU even runs the football more than it passes it on third and long. All downs and distances are run-heavy.

Sagarin has GSU ranked as the 65th best team in the country.  For context, that’s about on par with South Carolina and better than Kentucky and Vanderbilt.  (Quick:  what’s the common element between Georgia and those three teams?)  The Eagles’ strength of schedule, ranked 121st, is about what you’d expect from a Sun Belt team playing in its tenth game of the season, and both of its losses came against teams ranked higher by Sagarin.

All in all, no surprises there.

The biggest problem with poor roster management…

… is that it doesn’t leave you with much room for error in the years when you get your recruiting classes right.

“It was cool to be labeled that, and have such a great class,” Georgia offensive lineman Hunter Long said. “But as you know some of those guys fell off along the way. But the guys that have stuck around it’s been a great ride.”

Some of those guys:

The latter two are part of the star-crossed nature of the class: Neither lasted more than a year at Georgia, with Crowell (the SEC freshman of the year in 2011) gone after a gun-possession arrest (later dismissed) the summer of 2012. Marshall, Chris Sanders and Sanford Seay were dismissed following a theft from a teammate’s room in February of 2012. Marshall ended up back at Auburn, where he played quarterback twice against his old team…

… The Dream Team had some misses: The only quarterback in that class, four-star Christian LeMay, transferred because of playing time and is now the backup at Jacksonville State, an FCS school.

Other players were hit by injury: Receiver Justin Scott-Wesley stopped playing this team because of chronic knee problems.

Again, it wasn’t a bad class, as things turned out.  But given the lackadaisical way the surrounding classes were filled out, it needed to show less fall out than it ultimately did.

Combine that with the crater that remains from the 2013 group – boy, I can hardly wait to read that piece in a couple of years – and you can see why the coaches are scrambling like crazy to play youngsters this season.  And why the 2016 class, regardless of whom those kids come to play for (just thought I’d get that in there before some of you start up), is going to be big for Georgia in the near term, as well.

Is there such a thing as reverse concern trolling?

Because if there is, this ESPN piece on Dan Mullen’s future nails it.

As Mullen prepares for his eighth offseason in Starkville, there might be no better time to go than right now.

If there was ever a year to look around at other jobs, this is it. We’re on pace for the largest pool of job openings in recent memory. Miami, USC, Virginia Tech, Missouri, South Carolina, and Maryland are already open. That’s not to mention rumored potential openings at Georgia and West Virginia.

Gee, thanks for your concern over the rumored potential opening in Athens, fellas.  Although I am a little surprised you didn’t ask Greg McGarity for a quote about Mullen.

“There’s no doubt that safety is maybe the issue of the day.”

Before you get all misty-eyed at the thought that the NCAA might finally be on its way to making sure that its amateur student-athletes have health-care coverage after they have finished their college careers, let’s remember that schools have to be prudent.  Or at least give lip service to being prudent.

Ohio State president Michael Drake joined Pastides in this view, saying: “It’s a complicated issue … but it’s certainly something that I’d like for us to be able to discuss and would think upon very favorably.”

Complicated = “before we do this, we’ve got to make sure we can still afford to keep spending money on shitty coaching contracts, bloated administrative staffs and unnecessary facilities”.

Maybe they’ll be able to pay for it with the next round of playoff expansion.  Sounds like the perfect opportunity to create a study group that’ll get back with recommendations in a few years…

Lalalalala… he can’t hear you.

Mark Richt has a warning for us about Saturday’s game.

“I don’t know what the fan base thinks about this game, but I can promise you we’ll get tested in this game as much as any.”

“I don’t know what the fan base thinks about this game…”?  Really?  Either that’s so cute, or the man sure knows how to block out the noise.