Kirby, if you’ve got a spare scholarship lying around…

… may I suggest you spend it here?  Seniors who are on the Lou Groza Award watch list and available don’t grow on trees.

Kicking out the kickoff?

They’re talking about it — fairly seriously, from what it sounds like.

However, rules changes typically bubble up to the committee from coaches and administrators. The AFCA acts in an advisory role to the NCAA rules committee. The oversight committee vets any changes by the rules committee before approving them.

“I’m excited we’re starting to have this discussion,” said Todd Berry, AFCA executive director. “It looks like the data is skewed where we have more injuries on that play. If that’s the case, we have to look at eliminating the play, modifying the play, change blocking schemes.”

Berry spent 14 years as a head coach. He replaced Grant Teaff this year as the top AFCA executive.

“It’s a very, very, very in-depth conversation of how it [kickoffs] affects the game,” said Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen, an AFCA trustee.

Don’t know what they would replace it with, but if they wind up with a straight out place-the-ball-on-the-30-and-go result, what impact would that have on walk-ons?  For that matter, what impact would it have on the 85-man scholarship limit?  Would you need the same roster size in a world without kickoffs?

Name that caption, how did we get here, anyway? edition

So much here.

Have at it in the comments.

Kirby Smart understands offseason angst.

He’s up in Bristol, doing the annual ESPN ass kiss all coaches have to do, and that meant he got some face-to-face time with Mike Greenberg, who laid into Smart a few months ago over his transfer restriction policy.

Things were a little mellower this time, mainly because Smart was gracious.

After about 10 minutes discussing other matters, Greenberg brought up his criticism of Smart, and offered him an open-ended chance to respond.

“I appreciate that, Mike, first of all,” Smart said. “And I think in the down time of college football, when there’s not a lot going on, it’s easy to reach and grab straws to yell and scream about something, and I certainly think that issue is a sensitive issue to a lot of people…”

Bloviators gotta bloviate, y’all.  Take it from one who knows.

That’s why he gets paid the big bucks.

Greetings from the Big 12.

Bob Bowlsby gets Baylor's week off to a nice start by welcoming "Al Grobe" to the conference.

— David Ubben (@davidubben) July 18, 2016

It’s the former Baylor head coach you’re not supposed to remember, Bob.

Mark Richt has lost control of BB guns.

Hey, if I didn’t say it, somebody else was bound to.

Catch the damned ball, Godwin.

Interesting post about SEC superlatives at Pro Football Focus based on analytics of conference players, with one Georgia player making the list:

Best hands: Terry Godwin, Georgia

Seven players in the SEC had a perfect drop rate last year, but none saw more targets than the 35 catchable passes thrown Godwin’s way in 2015. The Bulldogs will be hoping he can follow that up with another solid season in 2016.

A perfect drop rate?  Gotta admit I don’t remember Godwin being that accomplished last season.  But I bet Greyson Lambert does.

Never could win the big one.

Bill Connelly updates his look at how coaches did in actual wins versus expected wins…

Last offseason, I tinkered with a measure called second-order wins. It is basically my version of the Pythagorean Wins concept, where you look at a certain component (usually points or runs scored and allowed) and determine what a team’s record probably should be as opposed to what it actually is. If you’re losing a ton of close games but winning a bunch of blowouts, that’s probably a sign that, on average, you would be faring better than you are.

My second-order wins concept looks at the single-game win expectancy figures you see in the 2015 Schedule & Results chart below. The idea behind win expectancy is simple: It takes the key stats from a given game (success rates, explosiveness, field position factors, and other factors that end up going into the S&P+ ratings), mashes them together, and says, “With these stats, you probably could have expected to win this game X percent of the time.” Add those figures up over the course of a season, and you get a glimpse of what a given team probably could have expected its record to be.

… and finds that Mark Richt finished right about in the middle, along with the likes of Steve Spurrier.  Surprised, or not?

Sometimes, experience isn’t a compliment.

Check out Phil Steele’s ranking of experienced Conferences for 2016 based on the average rank of their teams in his Experience Chart:

1. ACC 46.2
2. Mountain West 55.1
3. CUSA 56.0
4. MAC 57.25
5. American 67.5
6. SEC 70.7
7. Pac 12 71.3
8. Big 12 73.2
9. Big 10 73.3
10. Sun Belt 73.8

The gap between the ACC and the rest of the P5 is eye-popping.  But not necessarily in a good way.

… The ACC had an average rank of 46.2 while the other four power five teams were in the 70’s. I took it a step further and did the group of five conferences. Their experience rankings were better by conference than the Power 5. I guess the reason for that is fewer players leave early for the draft so they have more seniors.

I suppose you can argue this both ways.  The loaded programs lose more players early because they’re loaded, which means they have to regroup, while programs with less highly rated talent keep their players together longer.  On the other hand, those loaded programs are more likely to have equally talented players who can step up and fill the openings, while the programs with more returning players are… well, still relying on players who weren’t seen as being as attractive to the NFL, talentwise.

It’s the old question:  would you rather play with Alabama’s level of experience or Vanderbilt’s?

“I guess I fit the stereotype…”

One downside to driving Mudcat’s car is that the cops draw conclusions from driving Mudcat’s car.