Never the Twain Shall Meet

My first thought upon reading this re-jigger the SEC’s two divisions piece was simply wouldn’t it be easier to go to a nine-game conference schedule?

Besides, I can’t think of a more effective way to destabilize a conference over the long term than by establishing a precedent of shifting teams around every time the East and West appear imbalanced.

YMMV, obviously.

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Some guys have all the luck.

David Wunderlich looks at the 2015 version of turnover luck.  And, yes, there is some.

Ball security is a skill. So is forcing fumbles. But recovering fumbles? It’s basically all luck. The football has a funny shape and bounces in ways that people can’t predict in real time. Besides that, it’s not possible to control what mix of players from the two teams will be near the ball when it comes loose.

Here’s the picture for the SEC:

Fumble recovery percentages:

National Rank	Name	Total Fumbles	Total Recovered	Recovered Pct.
1	Arkansas	29	19	65.5%
9	South Carolina	38	23	60.5%
25	Missouri	36	20	55.6%
27	Tennessee	36	20	55.6%
40	LSU	36	19	52.8%
49	Georgia	46	24	52.2%
54	Vanderbilt	43	22	51.2%
61	Florida	44	22	50.0%
65	Kentucky	32	16	50.0%
72	Ole Miss	49	24	49.0%
74	Auburn	39	19	48.7%
117	Texas A&M	42	17	40.5%
123	Alabama	37	13	35.1%
127	Mississippi State	36	11	30.6%

Interception percentages:

National Rank	Name	Int.	Passes Defended	INT Pct.
13	South Carolina	12	42	28.6%
21	Georgia	12	45	26.7%
62	Auburn	14	67	20.9%
67	Florida	14	68	20.6%
69	Arkansas	11	54	20.4%
77	Alabama	19	99	19.2%
78	Mississippi State	13	68	19.1%
80	Texas A&M	11	58	19.0%
83	Kentucky	11	59	18.6%
84	Tennessee	12	65	18.5%
91	LSU	10	57	17.5%
94	Ole Miss	15	88	17.0%
96	Missouri	9	53	17.0%
123	Vanderbilt	6	60	10.0%

National ranks in both:

Team	Fumble Rank	INT Rank	Average Rank
South Carolina	9	13	11
Georgia	49	21	35
Arkansas	1	69	35
Tennessee	27	84	56
Missouri	25	96	61
Florida	61	67	64
LSU	40	91	66
Auburn	74	62	68
Kentucky	65	83	74
Mississippi	72	94	83
Vanderbilt	54	123	89
Texas A&M	117	80	99
Alabama	123	77	100
Mississippi State	127	78	103

There isn’t that much correlation between turnover luck and having a great defense. Just ask Alabama.

Very pretty, Coordinator. Very pretty. But, can they win?

Al.com gets all number-y about Jeremy Pruitt’s career in this clip.  See if you can catch the hole in his resume.

Forget it, Jeremy.  It’s Athens.

 

The death of college football

Check’s in the mail, so that’s it for some of you, right?

Did Nick Saban just take his first subtle shot across Kirby Smart’s bow?

Sure sounds like he did to me:

Alabama’s A-Day spring game has produced three crowds in excess of 90,000 since Saban’s arrival in 2007, and every recent A-Day crowd had surpassed 70,000 until last year’s game had 65,175.

Saban said Wednesday that the spring game remains important to players and urged fans to turn out.

“It’s something that we’ve been special at,” Saban said, “and I think other people are trying to sort of copycat to make their game a big thing so they can say they had the most people at the spring game and all that…”

Unless you think that’s a shot at Greg McGarity, I suppose…  Personally speaking, I’ll wait to take any shots until I see how well prepared the athletic department is to handle an enormous crowd on G-Day.  The best answer to a charge of social climbing is to act like you’ve been there before.

Musical palate cleanser, you don’t have to call me Merle Haggard…

… any more.

Merle Haggard, one of the most successful singers in the history of country music, a contrarian populist whose songs about his scuffling early life and his time in prison made him the closest thing that the genre had to a real-life outlaw hero, died at his ranch in Northern California on Wednesday, his 79th birthday.

His death was confirmed by his agent, Lance Roberts. Mr. Haggard had recently canceled several concerts, saying he had double pneumonia.

Few country artists have been as popular and widely admired as Mr. Haggard, a ruggedly handsome performer who strode onto a stage, guitar in hand, as a poet of the common man.

Pretty much your basic American icon there.

As the Times notes, Haggard’s got a ridiculous legacy of songs and hits, something he makes a little fun of in this clip of one of my favorite songs of his…

If you’re not that familiar with his body of work, and you figure there’s a little more to the man than “Okie From Muskogee”, you can start here.  But be warned – you’ll just be scratching the surface.  You might also want to take the time to read this interview in Garden and Gun, which is the last piece I saw with Haggard.

************************************************************************* UPDATE:  Just saw this and had to share.

@edsbs I know I'm late to the party, but if this isn't country, man I don't know what is… pic.twitter.com/MdhQx1zXKn

— Alex Eklund (@eklund2032) April 7, 2016