Beyond coachspeak

There comes a point when words simply fail me.

Hugh Freeze: "It's costing kids opportunities, but what if they have TOO MANY opportunities?? #ThinkOfTheChildren" pic.twitter.com/mjjiT9cOXe

— Patrick Barron (@BlueBarronPhoto) April 11, 2016

Yep, I’m there.

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Casey Cagle’s dream is now a reality.

You can almost see those championship trophies lining the wall in Butts-Mehre now, can’t you?

Georgia’s public college athletic associations now have far more time to respond to open records requests under legislation signed into law Monday by Gov. Nathan Deal despite an uproar from First Amendment advocates.

The legislation, Senate Bill 323, allows the athletic departments at UGA, Georgia Tech and other state colleges to wait 90 days before responding to Open Records Act requests. Athletic associations, like all state agencies, previously had three days to acknowledge the requests.

Deal’s office did not immediately comment on his decision to sign the legislation.

Thereby proving that Deal is the only smart one in the bunch on this.

Now, on to the next NCAA ban

Jim Harbaugh’s coming up with new tests faster than they can outlaw the old ones.

It’s like whack-a-mole with a recruiting budget.

The rule that would be kryptonite to Penn Wagers

Now this strikes me as an excellent idea.

The Canadian Football League has taken a step to use technology in order to limit the number of officiating mistakes in its games, and they won’t be the last. The CFL announced last week it has added a video official to each of its crews to address “obvious mistakes” missed by the officials on the field and not covered by replay challenges.

The change makes the CFL the first North American sports league to do so. The video official will be located in the CFL’s central command center in Toronto, much like how the NBA handles its replay system.

A real-time example, as cited by CBC Sports:

The CFL will add a video official to address obvious errors not covered by replay challenges, such as when both the offense and defense enter the neutral zone before the snap. In that case, the replay official could examine the play and tell the referee which team jumped first.

“Expanding what can be reviewed will not result in a slower game because coaches are not being provided with additional reviews per game,” CFL senior vice president of football Glen Johnson, the CFL’s senior vice president of football said in a statement. “In fact, we’re looking to reduce the number of delays and the number of penalties, while improving the quality of the game and protecting the health of our players.”

Unfortunately, I don’t see the SEC taking up the CFL’s banner here, because it would cost money.  Or because its officials don’t ever make obvious mistakes.  Take your pick.

Here we are now, entertain us.

I dunno, for some reason I find this a little unflattering.

Smart said the G-Day for coaches represents nothing more than another opportunity to evaluate personnel in a competitive atmosphere. And, he has emphasized, he does not view it at all as a “show” for the fans.

So basically, they’re pushing hard for 93,000 of us to show up Saturday as little more than props for player evaluation and recruiting?  Thanks, guys.  I’m glad we can help.

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UPDATE:  More on that.

“There’s a lot of kids I talk to each night that are talking about that day and saying, ‘Coach we want to see that stadium full and it’s going to help in recruiting,’” Smart said. “Other kids are talking to each other so they’re talking about it, which is what you want to generate. It makes it easy to go recruit when you’re an assistant coach and you walk in a school and you just finished spring ball and you had 93,000 people at your game. I think that speaks volumes.”

“People would pay $5 to see us play somebody.”

For a “real” spring football game?  Shoot, Hugh, I’d be willing to pony up more than five bucks for that.

There’s probably a drawback to this, but Freeze has yet to figure it out. Scheduling regional schools would help to keep costs low, and there’s enough around that you could make sure the team is not one on your schedule for the next three to four years.

You’d have to figure out how much of an actual game it would be (Could quarterbacks be hit? How much of your playbook would you run?) but put a bunch of coaches in a room and they’d come out with answer. That process could start in Destin, Florida at the spring meetings, where Freeze first brought up his idea a year ago.

He said the coaches were receptive, but it did not progress beyond discussion. Freeze said he plans to do so again this year, and hopefully try to gain some traction. The coaches would have to convince the Southeastern Conference to sponsor it, and then it would go to a NCAA committee and eventually a vote of the membership.

That tends to work out well for the SEC.

With G-Day coming up, this seems like a timely topic for a reader poll.

 

 

No bowl for you!

I guess the NCAA’s had enough of 5-7 teams having a place to go in December.

NCAA approves 3-year moratorium on new bowls, sources told @ESPN. Austin, Charleston & Myrtle Beach were in process of adding bowls in 2016

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) April 11, 2016

Although one wonders if the WWL shares the same enlightened outlook.

When you’ve got three quarterbacks…

Gus Malzahn is so pleased with Auburn’s quarterback competition that he’s invited a fourth kid to transfer for a shot at immediate playing time.

Come on down!

Just curious – how many of you are planning on joining the throngs attending Saturday’s G-Day game?

For what it’s worth, the weather that afternoon is basically perfect.

“Kent State doesn’t have a camp.”

I realize that I’m coming dangerously close to treading into deceased equine territory, but for those of you who’ve found it easy to dismiss the possibility that closing satellite camps could have any negative consequences for high school players looking for an opportunity, let me introduce you to the Sound Mind Sound Body (SMSB) Football Academy, which, by the way, got its start in 2004.