“Nothing suggested that could happen.”

If you’re wondering how Disney’s stock price could decline in the face of record breaking numbers from the new Star Wars flick, look no further than genius calls like the Longhorn Network.

That’s not to say ESPN’s future is doomed.  But it is an indication that viewers’ wallets aren’t as bottomless as school presidents and athletic directors assume them to be… not that any of them are likely to be paying attention to this.  Yet, anyway.

“OK, it’s time to get serious.”

The only thing missing from this Jason Butt “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” tale of expectations for Kirby’s first season as Georgia head coach, is a QBR reference for the G-Day game.  Otherwise, as a word of caution, it’s worth a read.

Once again, the Georgia Way is under attack.

You wonder how long everyone in Butts-Mehre can stick to Michael Adams’ legacy drug policy when current trends are turning against it.

At least one-third of the Power Five conference schools are not punishing athletes as harshly as they were 10 years ago for testing positive for marijuana and other so-called recreational drugs, according to an investigation by The Associated Press.

The NCAA last year cut in half the penalty for athletes who fail screenings for substances like marijuana at its championship events…

The AP found that some of the nation’s biggest universities, from Oregon to Auburn, have already eased their punishments as society’s views on marijuana use have changed. Marijuana use among U.S. adults has doubled over a decade, according to government surveys, and recreational use is now legal in four states.

How fast is this running away from the crusaders in Athens?  This fast:

The NCAA has been randomly testing athletes at its championship events and football bowl games for performance enhancing and recreational drugs since 1986. In 2014, the penalty for testing positive at either of those events for a recreational drug such as marijuana was reduced from a suspension of one year to six months.

Now NCAA chief medical officer Dr. Brian Hainline wants to end NCAA testing for recreational drugs.

Hainline said the NCAA should focus on catching cheaters who gain a competitive advantage by using performance-enhancing drugs…

Man, if you’ve lost the NCAA on being vindictive, you’re really out there on a limb.

Of course, you’ve still got that smug feeling of moral superiority to keep you warm at night, don’t you?  Um, well…

“If we’re going to test at championship events for things that are illegal, then we shouldn’t just test for pot,” Hainline said. “If there are any kids under the age of 18 smoking cigarettes, we should test for that. We certainly should be testing for alcohol for everyone under the age of 21. Then we ask ourselves, `Where does the moral authority stop?’ I’m all for moral authority as long as there is a philosophical consistency to it.”

Philosophical consistency in college athletics?  BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  Oh wait… you were serious about that?

If Georgia announces its annual intention to make an issue out of a uniform drug policy for the conference when the SEC has its spring meeting next year, I hope somebody invites Dr. Hainline to speak there.

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UPDATE:  You can find a school-by-school breakdown of drug policies here.

Today, in well-played snark

This made me laugh out loud this morning.

The only thing I can add is this matching t-shirt celebrating South Carolina Heisman Trophy winners.

It’s perfect for stenciling in the name of whatever ‘Cock you predict greatness for in August.

A few bowl game thoughts

The big question for this Saturday, of course, is how much the coaches and players will care about the game.  As Seth Emerson notes, things are a little weird right now.

John Lilly, one of the symbols of the weird transition going on with the Georgia football team, walked through a hotel lobby here on Sunday night still wearing a Georgia hat. He will serve as the team’s offensive coordinator in the bowl, but he has already cleaned out his office back home in Athens.

Other players and staffers began streaming in on Sunday. It officially was reporting day for Georgia’s final week, but more than a few coaches and players on this year’s team will be no-shows.

The former head coach is in Miami. The new head coach is still with his former team. The interim head coach is only with the Bulldogs one more week until he joins South Carolina. The former defensive coordinator is also back at Alabama, already in his new job. The former offensive coordinator will not be here, nor will one other defensive assistant. The quarterback who started this year’s previous game in Jacksonville has already transferred and found a new school.

All that served as the backdrop Monday as the Bulldogs return to practice, preparing for a match-up with Penn State in the TaxSlayer Bowl that many have deemed irrelevant.

Yeah, just a little.

I don’t think the coaches will mail it in, if only for reasons of professional pride.  But I can see how the players might struggle with motivation.  If only Penn State had a coach capable of pissing off Georgia folks… oh, wait.

By the way, as a side note, did you know Marshall Morgan has a chance to set a conference career scoring mark?  Or that, if Georgia wins, Greyson Lambert would tie D.J. Shockley for the highest win percentage (.833) among starting quarterbacks in the Richt era?

Like I said, things are a little weird right now.

Musical palate cleanser, take me down to your dance floor edition

I hadn’t heard this song for a while, but it popped up on my player and I can’t get it out of my head now – Gram Parsons’ “A Song For You”.

He may know what the song is about, but for me those lyrics have always been more about a general sense of longing and loss than anything more specific.  What really kills me about the song, though, is the poignancy of his vocals.  Parsons’ life was like something out of a Southern Gothic novel, and you can feel the pain and his inability to deal with life leaking out of every line he delivers.

When Emmylou Harris joins in, it sounds like how I imagine the angels harmonize.  Sadness has never been delivered more beautifully.

“Jacksonville’s our second home it seems like.”

With five trips there in the last fourteen twenty-six months, I can see why the Dawgs might feel that way.

There’s an Afroman lyric in this somewhere.

I know it happened in a minor bowl game, so in the vast scheme of things it doesn’t mean much other than to the participants, but there’s something quintessentially college football about the decision not to review a missed field goal call on the basis that the kick was too high.

“I just see the potential in what Kirby wants to bring in and what he wants to build with the program.”

So, while you were sitting around unwrapping presents and eating your Christmas meal, this happened:

Kirby Smart’s first Christmas as the head coach at UGA won’t have an empty stocking. Peachtree Ridge 4-star linebacker Breon Dixon chose the day to make his commitment to UGA.

Dixon tweeted out the news to wrap up a quick commitment. He only received a UGA offer from the new staff less than two weeks ago. The 6-foot, 215-pounder didn’t have an offer from the previous staff at UGA, but Smart made sure that situation was quickly rectified.

“He said ‘If I offered you at Alabama why wouldn’t I offer you here? You know you have a scholarship to the University of Georgia’ in so many words,” Dixon said. “That was what I wanted to hear from Kirby.”

That can only mean one thing.  Kirby Smart is such an awesome recruiting machine that he can get kids to commit to Georgia while he’s 100% focused on being Nick Saban’s lackey.  Imagine what he’ll be able to do upon going full time in Athens!

Okay, enough with the facetious stuff.  Evidently Smart and his staff are able to spend some current time on recruiting, even as he chases a national title for Alabama.

Look, I’ll be the first to concede there are plenty of unanswered questions about Georgia’s new head coach. Who knows how the new staff will wind up looking, whether Smart is ready to make the jump from solid assistant to head man or, most importantly, proves to have a better grasp of details than what did his predecessor in?  All are big concerns at this point.

But what I don’t worry about with Smart is the effort he’ll put into recruiting.  As well as anyone, he knows it’s the lifeblood of any successful program.  More importantly, he’s got a far better framework in place than Richt did coming in to the program back in 2001.  If you’ll recall, Richt assembled a staff with zero ties to the state, other than the one holdover on the staff in Rodney Garner.  Somehow, that class managed a few success stories.

Smart’s got resources now that Richt could only dream of back then, starting with an enlarged support group for recruiting.  On top of that, he’s retained two good recruiters in Rocker and Sherrer and added the best recruiting o-line coach we’ve seen at Georgia in decades.  Not to mention that Smart’s ties to the state, along with the recruiting efforts he’s made here for years, are far stronger than what Richt brought to the table when he arrived.

Take it easy, Chicken Littles.  It’s not the bringing in of talent that should have you anxious in the short run.  It’s what the staff will do with the talent after it gets here that’s the question.

‘Self-contained’ profit

It’s a good thing Clemson doesn’t have to pay Deshaun Watson a piece of what he’s helped the school generate this year (“As a Heisman Trophy candidate and with Clemson having the year that they’re having, (Watson’s) value is probably well beyond $2 million,” Brown said.), since it’ll need every penny of it to erase the operating deficit of $3 million it ran in 2014.

Thank Gawd for amateurism, I say.