I was just thinking it’s a funny world we live in where Kevin Butler is ready to drop the financial hammer on any player who has the audacity to skip an exhibition game in pursuit of a professional career…
… while Georgia dishes out incentives to the coaching staff for appearing in an exhibition game.
Although, to be fair, I’ve been told I have a strange sense of humor.
Filed under Georgia Football, It's Just Bidness
Jim Delany’s decision to enlarge the Big Ten Network’s viewership footprint invite Rutgers into the Big Ten looks buttah and buttah with each passing day.
Filed under Big Ten Football
What’s the old line in politics? When you’re having to explain yourself, you’re losing.
Seth Emerson provides the transcript.
A day after Toneil Carter’s very public de-commitment, which his family said was the result of Georgia pulling the scholarship offer, head coach Kirby Smart was given a chance to respond.
There are limits to what Smart could say, as NCAA rules prevent coaches from commenting about recruits until they’ve signed. Still, Smart was asked to respond to the Houston tailback’s family saying that UGA pulled the offer, and the Smart didn’t tell them that himself.
Smart did not address the second point. He implied that the first one was incorrect.
“First of all, I’m not allowed to talk about that situation at all. But I will say that my philosophy, our philosophy has always been we’re not going to drop kids in recruiting. OK?” Smart said. “We may defer enrollment. We may say that you may enroll at a later date. But we are not going to drop kids in recruiting. OK? That’s not what – again, I can’t comment on this situation, I can comment on philosophically how we feel and how conversations happen. But I can’t comment on his specific situation.”
Smart was asked if deferring enrollment could entail grayshirting – when a player sits out the season and then enrolls in January. Smart said he meant deferring from early enrolling to coming in the summer…
Now, as Seth goes on to remind us, Carter was willing to abandon his decision to enroll early. [ed. note: see comments; I may be misinterpreting the meaning of “midyear’.] Since he’s not at Georgia, either what Carter’s brother said was untrue, or Smart isn’t telling the whole story. “He said, he said” isn’t the kind of recruiting narrative you want circulating now.
As to who is telling the more complete tale here, I have no idea. But I will say this: nothing stopped Kirby Smart from personally relaying his philosophy to Carter and Carter’s family — or making at least an oblique reference today to having made that sort of personal effort to do so.
Somebody had a complete change of heart on Toneil Carter enrolling at Georgia in a very short time. I leave it to you and Occam’s Razor to decide which of the two sides was more motivated to switch.
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UPDATE: More from Carter’s high school coach.
After graduating from Langham Creek High School in Houston Friday, Carter was notified Saturday that his standing with Georgia might be in trouble. By Sunday, Georgia made it known to Carter there wouldn’t be room in this year’s recruiting class for him. He announced his decommitment Monday, stating there were issues with numbers and the fact there were problems with enrolling early.
But Carter’s high school head coach at Langham Creek, Todd Thompson, said Georgia made it known the four-star running back wasn’t welcome anymore in this year’s class.
Um… that’s an awkward timetable there. Graduation on Friday and no room at the inn on Sunday. I can understand why the family didn’t want to take any chances, assuming there were even chances to take at that point.
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting
How come none of you genius amateur psychiatrists who just knew Richt deliberately threw the Florida game so he could engineer a multi-million dollar buyout on his way to the sunny shores of Florida have offered up similar insights about Charlie Strong’s embarrassing loss to Kansas?
Filed under Blowing Smoke
It’s not “Just win, baby” anymore. It’s become “Just win now, baby.”
Alabama entered the season with the SEC’s least experienced roster. Ohio State did the same in the Big Ten. Ditto for Clemson: bottom of the ACC. But it was actually much starker than that. Phil Steele, the king of preseason mags, uses a five-part formula to determine experience, and he ranked the Tide roster 116th out of 128 FBS teams. Clemson was ranked 101st. Ohio State was dead last at 128th.
So if you’re scoring at home — and recruits are — then three of this year’s best four teams were also among its youngest, somehow surviving one of the most unpredictable regular seasons in recent memory. The holdout is Washington.
Patience ain’t the virtue it once was, at least for the elite.
… But experience still matters for nearly all the rest of college football. Washington, which has hovered from 19th to 45th in recruiting, needs its players to stick around. Colorado went worst to first in the Pac-12 South with its experience-heavy roster (ninth in the nation), and Michigan State did the complete opposite in the Big Ten as it hit the bottom of its cycle as an annual fifth-year-player factory. According to Steele, the Spartans were ranked 117th in the nation in experience and 13th in the Big Ten. They finished 3-9.
That’s fine for the peons, I suppose. I suspect Kirby Smart aspires for more, which is why this is hardly a coincidence.
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting, Strategery And Mechanics
USA Today’s ALL-USA Football Coach of the Year is the high school coach in Arkansas who doesn’t like to punt the ball.
Innovative coach, using an offense that doesn’t punt and has frequent rugby-style laterals, won his third consecutive 5A state title and posted a 13-1 record. His overall record is 165-25-1 in 14 years as Pulaski’s head coach. His teams have made it to the state semifinals in 12 of those seasons and have won six state titles in eight attempts.
Looks like he’s doing okay with that. I bet his peers hate coaching against him, too.
Filed under Strategery And Mechanics
All it took to get him to stay at a place he was never leaving in the first place was a $44,400,000 guarantee.
Jimmy Sexton’s still got it.
The freshman shackles are off, baby.
Eason described the “little things” he wants to work on between now and the bowl: Footwork, looking at progressions, and reading coverages. The biggest adjustment from high school to the SEC, Eason said, was the “speed of the game,” as in the speed of the defensive backs and linebackers, how quickly everyone is moving.
He appeared much more comfortable in the shotgun than under center, and basically confirmed that.
“Now I’m really comfortable,” Eason said. “Coming into this season it took a lot of work and a lot of reps to get comfortable, because I never did that in high school. So that was a big thing for me, learning a pro-style offense, and getting to where I am now, really comfortable under center.”
Levelheaded, cool. And, according to him, it came fairly early on this season.
Eason said the first thing he had to adjust to as a freshman was the “speed of the game.” As the season progressed, he became comfortable with how fast the college game is played. A turning point was Georgia’s Sept. 17 game at Missouri.
“I noticed, I think it was Missouri, I noticed the SEC is a huge difference from high school,” Eason said. “Being there, actually playing in it and seeing the speed of the game, getting hit by the linebackers and d-line, it was a big eye-opener for me. Glad it happened.”
Missouri? This Missouri?
Evidently.
The game against Missouri instilled confidence in Eason in multiple ways though. With 1:36 left and Georgia trailing, he threw a 20-yard touchdown on fourth-and-10 to wide receiver Isaiah McKenzie.
“That was awesome to get something like that under my belt,” Eason said. “I saw what I could do in this league.”
Next year’s got some potential.
Filed under Georgia Football
Man, how can you not love Chubb and Michel?
Senior Day next season is November 18th. Mark it on your calendars. Those two deserve it.
Filed under Georgia Football
It’s kind of funny that Georgia had to bus to the Falcons’ complex in Flowery Branch yesterday to have a regular practice indoors.
At least the team did get to walk through the shiny new IPF on Sunday.
“We were able with the help of a lot of people—the construction team, the university, the fire marshal—to go in there and go through some non-actual football ball drills to where we can simulate what we may be seeing against TCU and making through a dry run,” McGarity said on the “Bulldog Live” radio show on WSB radio.
“Non-actual football ball drills”? I assume that’s supposed to mean something other than walking around saying, “nice place you got here”.
Filed under Georgia Football
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