Harvey Updyke goes to Columbia.

I don’t know what I like better about this story — that South Carolina’s punter was arrested for malicious injury to tree, or that Boom isn’t suspending him for a game.

“This isn’t to say a true freshman can’t succeed in the SEC.”

But it ain’t exactly a walk in the park, either.

Over the past 20 years, 15 SEC quarterbacks have started at least half of their team’s games as a true freshman. Only five of those quarterbacks saw their teams finish with a winning SEC record: Georgia’s Quincy Carter (1998), Tennessee’s Casey Clausen (2000), Florida’s Chris Leak (2003), Tennessee’s Erik Ainge (2004) and Arkansas’Mitch Mustain (2006).

Ainge is the only true freshman quarterback over the past 20 years to win an SEC division title. When Arkansas won the SEC West in 2006, Mustain began the year as the starter and later got benched.

Carter holds the SEC record for passing yards by a true freshman quarterback (2,484). He was 21 years old at the time because he had been playing minor league baseball.

When Quincy Carter is your gold standard, I’d say there’s every reason for Kirby Smart to proceed with caution.

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The power of Chubb

It seems that Paul Myerberg’s no longer doing his team-by-team preseason previews, which is a shame, so it’s in this conference preview that we find he’s got Georgia ranked 17th going into the season.

What’s interesting about his ranking is that it comes in the face of a very undistinguished evaluation of Georgia’s players — only one is listed on his All-conference team (guess who) and nobody makes his national awards candidate list.  Also, none of Georgia’s position units makes his top list.

Juxtaposed against that backdrop is the news that Kirby is moving this year’s class into the two-deep.

The beginning of the season brings new names to the football roster, and those names belong to athletes who are challenging the more experienced players for starting positions.

“We’re sitting out there, I’m going, ‘On every two-deep there’s a [freshman] guy here, and he’s surpassing guys that are sophomores and juniors quickly,’” Smart said.

Youth is being served, which means there’s plenty of room to be nervous about Georgia’s 2016 prospects.  But there’s also this:

We won’t know until we see him against North Carolina, but indications are that Nick Chubb will be Nick Chubb this year, or something very close to it. He was incredible for the Dawgs when healthy, and more importantly, he hid a lot of weaknesses.

Even with iffy quarterback play (not to mention smaller, unproven receivers) and a Schottenheimer at offensive coordinator, Georgia averaged 8.3 yards per play over the first month of last season. If Chubb is 100%, QB might not be much of an issue.

You think Kirby’s crossing his fingers as much as we are?

C’mon, Kirby.

How are we supposed to take a scrimmage without stats seriously, especially when Seth Emerson drops this on us?

1. QUARTERBACK: When Smart said he wasn’t ready to cut this down to a two-man battle, we take him at his word, especially based on what those at the scrimmage saw. Brice Ramsey, widely thought to be third in the pecking order, had the best day. Not spectacular, we’re told, but good. Jacob Eason, on the other hand, didn’t have as good a day. At least a couple interceptions. If he had played like that on G-Day, there wouldn’t be the wide clamor for him to start the opener. Greyson Lambert didn’t get as many reps, from what we heard, but that may be because the coaches know what they have in him and want to see what Ramsey and Eason can do. So far, it seems, Ramsey is giving Smart and Jim Chaney something to think about, while Eason shows flashes of greatness, but also reminds you occasionally that he’s a freshman. Lambert continues to be the one who knows and runs the offense the best.

Dude, without QBR, it didn’t happen.

Sunday morning buffet

Relax.  Have a few.

• Nick Robinson’s path will take him from this year’s G-Day to the University of Pennsylvania.
• “That’s why I believe Georgia is the biggest sleeping giant of them all.”
• Nick Chubb was tackled in yesterday’s scrimmage.  He also broke some tackles. Sounds like he’s coming right along.
• “I would call the commissioner and say, ‘The kid wants to go. Wherever he wants to go, let him go.’”
• The great thing about this article on cheap places to eat in Athens is how many of those spots have withstood the test of time.
• Bill Curry on his  alma mater:  “We major in moaning and complaining…”  That’s gotta sting a little.
• The conclusion to Bill Connelly’s Georgia preview at Rock M Nation:  “S&P+ says Georgia by 7.5, but it’s not hard to see a wide range of outcomes in this one, from “far easier UGA win” to “Mizzou upset.”.
• Adventures in amateurism, Olympics edition.

“A lot of students complained to us.”

As you read this story about what a bang-up job the athletic department continues to do handling the disbursement of student football tickets, remember that Georgia’s mandatory student athletic fee is one of the biggest in the conference.

Way to build that future alumni base, guys.

Tl;dr

An alert reader brought this one to my attention:  over at From The Rumble Seat, a blogger decided it would be an enlightening exercise to devote more than 2,500 words to the idea there’s something amiss with Georgia Tech’s recruiting that doesn’t involve the coaches.

I’ll leave you to guess what that is, if you’re so inclined.