You wanna know why South Carolina under Spurrier went in the toilet?
We knew he didn’t care much about recruiting even in the good times, but, sheesh, that’s Paul Johnson-level sad.
Daily Archives: July 26, 2016
Clear as mud.
Georgia’s starting quarterback situation, that is.
“That can change after day. That can change before day one,” Smart said. “We’re not putting anything in stone so there’s no set or exact number of reps each guy gets. It’s going to be about how each guy is progressing, what they need, what the receivers need, where the quarterbacks need to rotate to. It’s not something that’s going to determine the outcome. That’s going to be determined by how they perform in a scrimmage-like situation.”
Smart said that he got good reports on all three quarterbacks over the summer months, when the players organized most of the on-field workouts without the presence of the coaching staff. Being able to see them in practice next week will be a good gauge in their offseason development, Smart noted.
“We’re going to be able to go out there now and work with them as far as the actual on-the-field workouts,” Smart said. “Hopefully, they’re establishing more mobility by stamina, quickness – all three of them can work on that. We’ve challenged all three of them to be more mobile. That’s the only thing we can tell right now.”
A lot can happen from now through the next few weeks, which will once again make this quarterback competition an interesting one to watch. Lambert will hope to stay the starter, while Ramsey and Eason look to unseat him.
“Obviously, when we get to the week of the first game, we would like to know who that is and we would like the reps to be balanced that way,” Smart said. “But to say that is unjust because I don’t know what’s going to happen until then.”
Jeez. It’s déjà vu all over again.
Just promise me you won’t give one of them his first start against Florida, okay, Kirby?
Filed under Georgia Football
Now he tells us.
Mark Richt has an eye for talent.
Mark Richt on recruiting Deshaun Watson to UGA: “I told (OC) Mike Bobo, this guy is going to take someone to a national championship.” Richt said he was convinced as soon as Clemson signed Watson, they’d be great. His take on Watson’s TD pass vs Georgia in his first career game: “I was glad they took him out after that.”
Hey, at least they talked about it!
Filed under Georgia Football
A little more on the McIllece Sports data
I don’t know if you spent any time looking at the data from McIllece Sports I linked to yesterday, but if not, there’s something I wanted to follow up with. The site calculates a power ranking for each program, based on the following:
Power, Offense, and Defense Ratings
These are the three primary ratings that measure the quality (or predicted quality) of a team, in terms of points scored and points allowed. They are all schedule-adjusted, meaning that the quality of opposition faced is factored into the calculations.
- Offense = The points scored value of a team’s offense (high is good)
- Defense = The points allowed value of a team’s defense (low is good)
- Power = Offense – Defense. Conceptually, this is the expected margin of victory (or defeat, if negative) versus an average FBS opponent on a neutral field. An average FBS team has a power rating of zero.
Therefore, for a simple estimate of how many points Team1 would score against Team2, add the Offense rating of Team1 to the Defense rating of Team2. This would be equal to the expected Points Scored (PS) for Team1. Analogously, to estimate how many points Team2 would score in that same game against Team1, add Team2’s Offense to Team1’s Defense.
Based on that, here’s what the numbers for Georgia over the last ten seasons look like.
YEAR POWER OFFENSE DEFENSE 2006 12.8 17 4.2 2007 19.9 22.2 2.3 2008 14.5 24.3 9.8 2009 11.6 20.8 9.3 2010 14 20.7 6.7 2011 15.9 22.1 6.2 2012 24.8 27.8 3.1 2013 18.1 29.2 11.1 2014 29.7 32.5 2.7 2015 12.3 16.1 3.8
(If you want a little context for those numbers, consider that since 2010, besides Georgia, there have been a total of five seasons when SEC East teams had power ratings in the twenties: Florida in 2012, Missouri in 2013, South Carolina in 2012-3 and Tennessee in 2015.)
Look at what Georgia’s numbers track. You can see the fall of Willie Martinez from 2007-9 and the immediate improvement Grantham brought. Then you can see what a disaster Grantham was in 2013 and how good Pruitt was as his replacement.
There’s also the Bobo to Schottenheimer transition, the less said about which, the better. Also, Bobo detractors need to check out that 2013 offensive power number that came despite all the key injuries.
As for Richt, he deserves credit for taking a mediocre 2011 squad to the SECCG and deserves an equal amount of blame for failing to do the same with his best team over the decade in 2014.
All in all, it paints a pretty good numbers picture of what I subjectively feel about the last ten years of Richt’s work. Given that, it’s probably worth noting that not much improvement is projected for Smart’s first season, with a 16.8 offensive value and a 4.1 defensive value netting a 12.7 power rating. Kirby would seem to have his work cut out for him. At least he’s got a friendly schedule.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
“Where’s the stats?”
There seems to be some resistance in the coaching ranks to eliminating kickoffs. I almost hate to say it, but Bobby Petrino has a point.
“They always come out and say it would help with concussions but nobody shows you the statistics,” Louisville coach Bobby Petrino said. “Does it really help? One year we didn’t like that the ball was being kicked out of the end zone so we moved it back so we’d get more returns. It’s kind of who’s the special interest on it. It’s always been a big part of the football game, but if it is causing injuries and it’s something that we need to take away to improve that, we could get away with it. But is it really?”
We know why the chatter’s there. The NCAA is finally waking up, not out of some idealistic concern about players’ well being, but because the lawsuit threat is gaining serious traction. Petrino’s right to insist that a knee-jerk reaction to that isn’t the best way to address the problem. It’s just that it’s all the NCAA’s got right now to show the world — okay, plaintiffs’ lawyers — that it cares.
I hate to drag the NFL into the discussion, but if the schools want to show they’re truly getting serious, maybe the conferences ought to take a page out of this book and start fining the crap out of programs that don’t adhere to strict concussion policies. Money seems to be the one language that every school understands these days.
Filed under The Body Is A Temple
You want proof that Jim McElwain can coach a little?
How many programs can lose seven quarterbacks in four seasons and be the defending SEC East champs?
Filed under Gators, Gators...
Get The Picture 