“Thanks for a great 11 years.”

The offseason head coaching market is gonna be something.

**************************************************************

UPDATE:  Then again, maybe it doesn’t mean what it sounds like.

Two sources who spoke directly to Les Miles say he in no way indicated today that this would be his last game. "Heck no," Miles said #LSU

— Ross Dellenger (@DellengerAdv) November 27, 2015

After all, this is Les Miles we’re talking about.

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One way or the other, it shouldn’t be that hard.

Mark Bradley, of all people, gets McGarity’s choice right.

Once very nearly a great coach, Richt has descended to the ranks of the pretty good. Cold numbers tell us so. If you’re a decision-maker at Georgia, you have to ask: Is pretty good good enough for our proud and prosperous program? If it’s not, are you confident in Richt’s ability to lead the Bulldogs back to prominence? And if you aren’t, isn’t your choice clear?

Notice it’s got nothing to do with the Georgia Tech game.  If somebody like Bradley can frame the decision properly, why is it so hard for the people in Butts-Mehre to do the same?

“It’s time to go.”

At least that’s what this guy thought about Tom Osborne in 1990.

Student body doubts Tom Osborne's ability to build up the football program, 1990. #DNDaily pic.twitter.com/iJzT1JgplJ

— UNL Archives (@UNLarchives) November 27, 2015

No, it’s not meant to be commentary on Richt’s fate.  But hindsight sure is funny sometimes.  And maybe we fans don’t always know as much as we think we do.

“I like the preparation, but I don’t like the cut blocking at all.”

Interesting perspective on how much playing Georgia Southern and Georgia Tech back-to-back might help Georgia’s defense prepare here:

“Somewhat it will help them just because of the assignment,” said Georgia Southern coach Willie Fritz, whose team lost to Georgia Tech last season 42-38. “Someone on the dive, quarterback, pitch. Really, I don’t know all the background in scheduling. I’ve only been here a couple of years. I think originally it was intended for an under-center, triple-option like Georgia Tech runs and what we used to run before I got here. In that regard, there’s quite a bit of difference between the two teams.”

And Paul Johnson adds something to that.

“They really played three option teams in a row if you want to count,” he said. “That’s what Auburn is really. …You know, they’ve played against us. We’ve played against them. I don’t think there will be a whole lot of change. They played three fronts against us last year, that’s what they play against everybody. Nobody is going to reinvent the wheel in three days.”

Tactically, I think Johnson has the better argument.  Sure there are differences resulting from how the quarterback takes the ball, but in the end, Pruitt’s gonna do what Pruitt’s gonna do playing a run-oriented offense.  And Tech is likely to probe Georgia’s defense the same way Southern did.

“They stretch you from sideline to sideline and guys got to play off blocks on the perimeter and make some plays, so it’s got to help hopefully,” Georgia defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt said. “There are some things we can take away from it. We have to do a better job on the perimeter, we let some balls out on us. We were fortunate on a couple of others that were close to getting out on us.”

But I do think Fritz’ point about getting the repetitions from playing assignment football is the more important.  So maybe when Leonard Floyd says,

“It definitely gets us used to it,” said outside linebacker Leonard Floyd, who had a career-high 12 tackles and 3 1/2 for loss last Saturday. “As a defense, everybody has to do their job. You can’t do somebody else’s job. That’s how a lane opens up when you play those Wing-T type teams.”

… he and his teammates will be able to draw on their experience from their last two games to play like they talk.

“We eat what we kill.”

You know, I’ve never advocated governmental action as a remedy for the NCAA’s excesses – that whole “cure being worse than the disease” thing’s in the back of my head – but I’m not going to tell you I find Sally Jenkins’ post on the subject unconvincing.

How can you not share in a bit of her righteous indignation when she makes points like this?

At Florida State, salaries for non-coaching administrators rose from $7.7 million to $15 million. That’s the raise the Seminoles athletic staff gave itself for running up a deficit of $2 million while presiding over an academic fraud scandal involving 10 teams and mishandling criminal allegations against football players. This is a state school and a recipient of federal funds.

Or this?

Example: Rutgers is $36.3 million in the red. In 2006, it pled necessity in cutting a half-dozen sports. Yet at the same time, Rutgers was spending $175,000 on hotel rooms for six home football games — more than the entire budget of the eliminated men’s tennis team.

This, too?

You think Auburn administrators are going to eliminate the 15 athletic department jobs they created in the past decade that pay more than $100,000 each annually? You think Tennessee Athletic Director Dave Hart is going to cut away the extra $150,000 a year he makes for “media appearances” (When is the last time anyone asked to see an athletic director on TV?) to save a non-revenue team?

These folks are already behaving like government officials.  They just get to operate without any real oversight.

Throw in a standard dose of institutional arrogance, and while I can’t quite bring myself to cross the bridge she’s taken…

For too long, college athletic directors and their pipe-tamping bosses in the chancellors’ offices have pretended that NCAA reform is difficult, if not impossible. It isn’t. Reform is simple. Athletic departments should be subjected to the same budgetary constraints as any other university department — by law. All Congress has to do is threaten their federal funding and tax-exempt status, and you will see plenty of reform, presto. The chair of an engineering department is not permitted to spend indiscriminately, so why should athletic directors be able to — especially when they siphon university money away from other departments to cover their overdrafts?

… I can’t bring myself to criticize her for going there, either.  Who knows, maybe all it will take is the threat of regulation to make schools and the NCAA see the light… eh, who am I kidding here?  If there’s one thing you can say about those people, they won’t do anything until they absolutely have to.

And even when they do, it’ll be the bare minimum.

“I don’t think any rivalry I’ve been a part of is bigger than this.”

Jake Ganus has the best summary/reaction from last year’s loss to Tech you’ll ever see.

“I feel sick from that game, and I wasn’t even here.”

I was.

GATA, boys.

“His special ingredient is love.”

You gotta love a football player who’s also an accomplished grill master.

That top-secret recipe helped Barnes, a 3-star offensive lineman from Lee County High School (Leesburg, Ga.), win $500 in the second annual Modern Gas Ribs Showdown, which was held in Leesburg, last year. Barnes’ “Big Daddy’s” ribs won first place in a 2014 competition that had approximately 30 other grill masters. He purchased a deer rifle with the prize money.

That’s right. Barnes, a 6-foot-5, 270-pounder who will play for the Bulldogs next year, is an award-winning chef.

Hope that’s not considered an NCAA violation.