Amelia Island’s much beloved and much missed Down Under restaurant is scheduled to reopen this year. (And, lo, there was much rejoicing.)
I just hope the gumbo is still on the menu.
Daily Archives: April 21, 2017
Signs you shouldn’t take G-Day too seriously
Nothing says for real like “The ESPN officiating crew”.
The amusing thing would be if they did a better job than the regular striped bunch.
Filed under ESPN Is The Devil, Georgia Football
The NFL wonders why college football isn’t more sensitive to its needs.
Sure, it’s free, but there’s always a downside to outsourcing your player development.
Filed under The NFL Is Your Friend.
“Every head coach I talk to talks about how you can’t practice those enough.”
Judging from the continuing comments about increased situational work in spring practice, it’s area of major emphasis for Smart now.
Georgia begins every team meeting this spring with a different situation. Smart talked to NFL coaches this offseason, which he says deal with tight games even more than Georgia did.
“Every single day, except the first practice, we had end-of-game situation at practice.,” Smart said. “I think it makes Jacob (Eason) a lot better. It makes Jake Fromm a lot better. And defensively, it’s been great. We even had a situation the other day where we were gonna clock the ball, We had a first down and we went to spike the ball and the guy jumped offsides. At the end of game, we had a 10-second runoff.”
This, quite frankly, is what you want to hear from someone coming off his first year as a head coach with a few rough game management moments. Repetition and familiarity lead to improvement, hopefully.
It’s no different than what we wanted to see out of Richt early on in his career, too. The problem there was that he’d seem to fix one problem, only to let another one develop. The trick isn’t just learning from your mistakes; it’s making sure that you avoid a one step forward, one step back management style. Kirby is big on focus, so maybe he can dodge the trap that eventually brought down his predecessor.
Filed under Georgia Football, Strategery And Mechanics
If mama ain’t happy, then Kirby ain’t happy.
Georgia’s head coach ain’t backing down on the new media policy regarding injuries.
The new policy states that all injuries cannot be reported until Smart is asked and addresses them publicly. It also states that reporters are prohibited from “releasing information and/or photo/video of players who are working out separately with the sports medicine staff and players (other than quarterbacks) wearing black practice jerseys.” Injuries that occur when reporters are at practice were also banned.
On Thursday, Smart was given the chance to explain his new injury policy with the media. First, he said he would like to inform an injured player’s parents first before the media reports an injury if it happens in front of reporters. This occurred last Thursday, when freshman defensive back Deangelo Gibbs went down with a shoulder injury in front of reporters. Gibbs’ mother found about it through a published story before Georgia could relay the information, which upset Smart.
Is Ms. Gibbs a subject for empathy or merely a convenient excuse? Put me down for the latter. For one thing, as Chip Towers writes,
… Gibbs’ situation, which occurred during a 10-minute media viewing period, is actually very rare. If you ask me, the policy on a situation like that should be internal for Georgia.
As in, “you know, media were there when Johnny got hurt. Can someone from the training staff or one of the 50 analysts on the football staff please call his mom?”
Really. It shouldn’t be that hard when you’ve got a support staff the size of a small army at your beck and call.
For another, Kirby shows his hole card.
But Smart then mentioned what he considers a bigger picture for the new policy. That has to do with preventing other teams, during the football season, from accessing injury information.
“It would be a big disadvantage in the season for us, for our opponents to know every kid that’s injured, every kid that’s out, every kid that’s not practicing,” Smart said. “When that information gets out to our opponent it can be a detriment to our team. I’m trying to protect the team with that information.”
Gosh, that has a familiar ring to it. Where have I heard… oh, yeah.
“At that recruiting time of year they get absolutely inundated with people wanting to have that recruiting information and it’s not a level playing field because Georgia, our athletic associations, are private in and of themselves and they don’t have that capacity, so this just allows that type of level playing field,” Ehrhart said.
I’d love to see some stats that demonstrate a correlation between heightened secrecy and improved winning percentage. Maybe Bill Connelly can factor that into his next S&P+ rankings.
Anyway, I think Butt gets this exactly right when he says,
Injuries are a part of football, given the violent nature of the sport. Reporting those injuries, indicating which players will be available or not for games, is a major part of covering a football beat.
Why so? Because, believe it or not, it’s something we fans are interested in. Remember us, the G-Day recruiting props?
Now Kirby acknowledges there’s a possible solution for everyone that he’s on board with. Well, kinda, sorta, maybe…
Smart would be OK with an SEC injury report of some sort but stopped short of saying he supports such a measure.
“I think if everybody did it that would be great,” Smart said. “To say I’m in favor of it or against it, I’m not either way. I just think that obviously puts everyone in the same position. I’m going to know the same thing about whoever we’re playing, just like they know about us. That’s why they do it in the NFL. They do it that way because it makes a little more parity, a little more even across the league.
“I think it makes things fair. But I’m not sitting here saying I want it by any means.”
Fair, schmair. In other words, don’t expect him to lead that crusade. It’s all he can handle right now keeping things on the lowdown.
Filed under Georgia Football
Flingin’ the bling
Give Tom Herman credit — if you’re gonna blow ridiculous money on football lockers, don’t be coy about it.
Pictures of the new Longhorn football lockers went viral Friday not long after they hit social media. Many on Twitter lamented that despite the high-end perk, college athletes still don’t get paid. Or that last year Texas lost to lowly Kansas for the first time in 78 years. Or that this was a new high – or low – to the college football arms race. Such snark didn’t matter to Herman. He got exactly the response he was hoping for.
“The only reaction I care about to be honest is our players and our recruits,” Herman told FOX Sports on Tuesday. “I don’t care about Twitter’s reaction or whatever social media’s reaction is. Our players and the recruits absolutely loved it. The recruits, especially those that have been a lot of places around the country, have said, ‘Coach, there’s nothing even close to it around the country.’
“So, mission accomplished on that one.”
You’re the richest athletic program in America. People already think you’re arrogant, so what do you have to lose by acting that way?
Texas’ facilities, which were among the best in college football back when Herman was a graduate assistant, had been surpassed in the past decade as TV money flooded into Power 5 programs. Barbershop rooms in the football facility along with virtual reality rooms, waterfalls and jumbotrons for the indoor complex aren’t uncommon anymore.
“Texas is one of the most prestigious schools, and we’re kinda out of date right now,” said safety P.J. Locke, a one-time Oregon commit. “This facility was one of the greatest back then but then everyone upgraded and we stayed here. Herman is this new-school guy and he has to get facilities back on top.”
Senior defensive tackle Poona Ford was wowed by the new locker and is convinced it matters in recruiting today. “At my high school, every male sports team shared a locker room in that one field house, and if I see that coming out of high school, I’m thinking, ‘Dang, that’s pretty sweet.’ That could be the reason why they commit here,” Ford said.
But could that really be a reason why one player would pick Texas over A&M or OU?
“Yeah,” Ford said. “Everything matters.”
Hell, it might even work.
Filed under Texas Is Just Better Than You Are.
We Tripp’n, mane.
“Right now Mecole is playing offense more than he’s playing defense,” Smart said, with a slight grin.
Hey, at least he can smile about it.
Filed under Georgia Football
“I didn’t have that wisdom, man. I blew some cash.”
As cautionary tales go, the story of former Michigan State great Charles Rogers is epic.
Filed under Life After Football
Get The Picture 