Here’s something you don’t see too often: LSU is making its offensive coordinator take a $300,000 haircut this season.
Daily Archives: March 18, 2016
From the Butts-Mehre Department of “That Was Then, This Is Now”…
Up until recently, Georgia never put restrictions on where an athlete could transfer, even if it was to a rival school. Now that stance has been “adjusted,” athletics director Greg McGarity confirmed.
The adjustment came after a meeting with Kirby Smart, the new football head coach, who was dealing with a player who wanted to transfer.
“Kirby brought me up to date on this when we were discussing our stance, and so that stance has been adjusted,” McGarity said on Friday.
It’s nice Kirby’s keeping Greg in the loop, doncha think?
More weasel words.
McGarity cautioned that was a “stance,” not a policy, one that will be reviewed on an individual basis.
“We are not totally restricting transfer opportunities for our student-athletes. We will take each request on its own merit to determine if any restrictions should be placed on the release due to any extenuating circumstances,” McGarity said. “Student-athletes are afforded the opportunity to appeal the decision through the institution.”
That’s much different from what McGarity said two years ago, after Georgia Tech denied basketball player Robert Carter a release to speak to Georgia about a transfer.
“The University of Georgia doesn’t restrict a student-athlete from any school that is seeking a transfer,” McGarity said at the time. “The student-athlete’s best interest is at the forefront of our program. If they’re not happy here we’re not going to dictate where they can and can’t go.”
Whatever Kirby says, Greg.
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UPDATE: Chip Towers raises an interesting point. Remember the last time McGarity made that noble comment?
Until now, Georgia had made it clear that if one of its student-athletes was not happy here, they were free to go anywhere else they wanted. Even Georgia Tech.
They let running back J.J. Green — certainly a more productive back than Turman — transfer there just last year. Afterward, UGA Athletic Director Greg McGarity spoke of striking an accord with the Yellow Jackets, who a year earlier had refused to let the Bulldogs communicate with basketball player Robert Carter about a possible transfer.
“We’re in agreement there should not be any reasons to not grant the wishes of any student-athlete who might want to transfer between our institutions as long as there has been no tampering,” McGarity said in December of 2014. “As long there’s been nothing done to recruit a current student-athlete, as long as it’s on the up-and-up – which is the case as I understand it with J.J. he only downside is that student-athlete may come back and have a great game against you. But if they’re not happy at the University of Georgia, they should be happy somewhere else.”
Does that mean the cold peace with Georgia Tech is now off?
Filed under Georgia Football
A license plate bleg
Friends, in these benighted times, every so often it becomes necessary to come to the aid of our less fortunate brethren. This is one of those occasions. You see, David Mowery is a proud Georgia Bulldog, a ’99 graduate of our fine institution, who has a problem.
He lives in Alabama.
No, that’s not the problem. The problem is that he wants to display the pride he feels for his alma mater on the rear of his car in the form of a University of Georgia-themed license plate, a freedom we Georgians take for granted every day. But according to the laws of David’s state, a UGA-branded license plate issued by the state of Alabama cannot come into existence without there first being a thousand presales of the plate.
David’s group has been working at it, but is short of that target. So I’m putting out the call here for a few hundred good people in Alabama to step up and put your money where your school loyalty is. It would be a crying shame for something like this never to see the light of day:
If you’re an Alabama resident who would like to lend a hand, click here. You’ll be doing your part to beautify Alabama. What could be a more noble cause than that?
Filed under Georgia Football
Another quarterback rebuild
The premise of this Ed Aschoff piece, that the SEC quarterback battles this offseason can somehow be ranked, is the kind of thing you find in a typically dopey ESPN think piece – Alabama is ranked first, even though Aschoff admits the Tide’s quarterback battle hasn’t been that compelling a thing the last two seasons, because… well, because it’s Alabama, damn it – and shouldn’t be taken too seriously on its merits.
What it is useful for, though, is pointing out how few teams in the conference are free from preseason quarterback issues. On top of that, when you consider that three of the teams missing from his list are Kentucky, Missouri and Vanderbilt, which happen to have generated the three worst passer ratings in the conference last season, it’s likely that we’re in for another season of mediocre aerial shows.
Sure, there is quite the infusion of quarterback talent in this year’s recruiting class, but it’s obviously green. We may marvel at the conference’s Year of the Quarterback one day, however, I doubt it’ll be in a year that ends in sixteen.
The good news, if you want to call it that, is Georgia won’t be found too wanting in this context, as it’ll be part of a bigger party. The bad news is that it manages to have both SEC teams with good returning starters at quarterback on the schedule. (Vandy is the other, which hardly helps.) All we can hope is that the good outweighs the bad.
Filed under SEC Football
“The beach is a really bad place.”
When you’re Les Miles, the beach is merely a state of mind.
Honestly, if LSU had canned him last year, I would have mourned his passing.
Filed under Wit And Wisdom From The Hat
PAWWWLLL, why does Bill Connelly hate Tommy Tuberville?
There’s not much I can add to Bill’s header here (“Revisiting the 2004 college football season: Picking Oklahoma over Auburn was justifiable”), even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.
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