Auburn’s larded up its starting offensive roster.
Daily Archives: August 30, 2016
Back to schooldays.
This appears to be a real inside baseball kind of note, or just some teasing between old teammates, but it’s interesting.
I don’t know if Stinchcomb is joking, or if Kevin Butler is a student again, but if he’s really working with the place kickers, it’s a move that can’t hurt.
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UPDATE: So, it’s a thing. Weiszer has the deets.
Filed under Georgia Football
Why Georgia? Because Tennessee.
Michael Elkon makes the case for Georgia winning the SEC East this season:
The Dawgs have the best player in the division (Nick Chubb), the biggest coaching upgrade at offensive coordinator and no road games against top contenders Tennessee and Florida.
Smart may not prove to be an upgrade over Richt, but his first season in Athens sets up nicely.
I have to give him major credit for one thing — he was off the Schottenheimer bandwagon last year before it even got started, so I give a lot of weight to his criticism of Tennessee offensive coordinator Mike DeBord (folks who’ve had crappy stints at Michigan usually give Michael a little extra schwinngg!, but his points about DeBord certainly have merit) — but I think he ignores something that’s a huge factor in Tennessee’s favor, the offseason hiring of Bob Shoop as its new defensive coordinator.
Chaney may very well turn out to be a significant upgrade over Schottenheimer, but I believe Shoop represents an even bigger step up from John Jancek. If that turns out to be as key a move as I believe it is, then DeBord’s margin of error grows exponentially. As Elkon notes, “When Michigan had great defenses (1997 and 2006), DeBord was passable.” Passable may be all Booch needs out of his offense.
That may be especially true when you consider that Tennessee appears to have a significant advantage over Florida and Georgia in the area of special teams. Bill Connelly’s revised S&P+ rankings for special teams have the Vols coming off a 28th finish last season, compared to Florida’s 95th and Georgia’s 103rd. That may not seem like much, but when your analysis takes in Tennessee having to travel to Athens as a factor in picking who wins the division, every little bit counts.
Greg McGarity, looking into the abyss
It may have been a moot point at the time, given that, in retrospect, Greg McGarity relied heavily on the guidance of the the search firm he retained to find a replacement for Mark Richt the fix was in, but I, like others, wondered why 2015’s hot coaching name, Houston’s Tom Herman, seemed to receive little more than a cursory glance from Georgia’s direction. Sure, there were some bullshit rumors floating around about Herman, but given that his name is floating around as a possible replacement after the 2016 season if things go south at places like LSU, Texas or Texas A&M, it’s hard to take any of that seriously.
On the other hand, I can see how this might have stopped things dead in their tracks in Athens.
According to an interoffice memo sent from Houston athletic director Hunter Yurachek to Herman on Nov. 30, Herman would receive a $5 million bonus—payable over two years—if Houston joins “a conference with television of $20 million or more per member.” The Big 12 fits that description. Should none of those super premium jobs open and Houston win a golden ticket into the Power 5, that extra $2.5 million a year combined with his $3 million salary would pay Herman what many of the best Power 5 coaches make. The memo also promises that upon entry to such a conference, the school would immediately renegotiate a contract that would put Herman’s compensation among the top half of the league’s head coaches.
That’s just what Herman had on the table from a mid-major program. Can you imagine what his agent was looking for from a potential SEC employer, particularly one who had just canned a ten-game winner? I can only imagine McGarity’s response to having the terms of that memo read to him and then being asked, “and you?”.
At least he’s paying Kirby less than he was paying Richt.
Filed under Georgia Football, It's Just Bidness
Occam wasn’t a quarterbacks coach.
It turns out that Smart and Chaney decided to scuttle a few butts yesterday.
Over the weekend, it looked like Jacob Eason was the favorite to win Georgia’s starting quarterback job. But head coach Kirby Smart declined to name a starter on Monday, and the picture was muddled even further a few hours later.
Greyson Lambert appeared to be first in the pecking order at Monday’s practice, at least during the media viewing period.
During a passing drill, where quarterbacks threw to receivers, Lambert was clearly first, followed by Eason. Brice Ramsey was interspersed for a few throws, but it was mostly Lambert and Eason, in that order.
The feeling from those around the team lately has been that Eason was the clear leader. He received the majority of the first-team snaps in Saturday’s scrimmage in the Georgia Dome, according to someone who was there. But neither Eason or Lambert have been told anything, multiple people close to the program said. The team hasn’t been told anything officially either.
So much for last week’s whispers about Eason winning the job.
Honestly, isn’t it logical at this point to expect Lambert to hit the field Saturday in the Dome? After all, what coach in his right mind would let a quarterback start his first collegiate game against a D-1 opponent without getting all the first team reps in the practices leading up to the game… oh, wait.
Then again, considering the state of Georgia’s offensive depth chart, who’s to say Eason wasn’t getting reps with the eventual starters? (I keed, I keed… I think.)
With the shuffling going on, I think I’m more intrigued as to how the quarterbacks will look against North Carolina than who winds up taking that initial snap. I just hope the coaches aren’t being too clever for their own good with this.
Filed under Georgia Football
Get The Picture 