Welcome to Phase 3 of Georgia’s football preseason.
Spring practice is over, but the preparation for the 2017 football campaign is only just beginning.
“The key for preseason camp is how we manage our Phase 3, which is Maymester, final exams, workouts this summer, that’s the next step for us,” head coach Kirby Smart said. “Can we get bigger, stronger, faster? Can we outwork the teams we’re going to play from now until fall camp?”
Not hearing a lot of free time in there.
Off-season? Not really.
NCAA rules now allow a maximum of eight hours of mandatory workouts for players for eight weeks of the summer. Coaches are allowed to watch conditioning sessions and meet with players for up to two hours each week, although any on-the-field work with footballs remains prohibited.
But Smart wants his players to strive for much more than just what is simply required.
“There’s so much you can do without coaches out there,” Smart said. “Go out there, do it, get better, and that’s what we’re challenging those guys to do. Go out there and take the leadership role. Jacob (Eason), Jake (Fromm), let’s keep getting better and let’s keep moving forward because I do think we got better this spring.”
Good thing it’s not a job. I’d hate to think these guys were being forced to do things instead of enjoying themselves after the regular school year ends just like their fellow students can.
Get The Picture 
I’ve heard people say that part of the “benefits” they get is personal training and development. So just look at it as a raise or bonus. Be sure to note it in your taxes, boys.
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Internships? Study abroad? Spending the summer with your family and earning some extra spending money? That’s overrated, but you’re a student like everyone else. Right …
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It’s Division 1 football!!! — Dan Hawkins
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Perfecting your skill set and having fun are not necessarily mutually exclusive if done with the right oversight and leadership.
I’ll be watching the Fulmer Cup race this off season to see if we can continue to show some improvement somewhere in the program.
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So all those players who’ve been complaining to the NCAA about how their time is spent are just victims of bad oversight? Right.
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How could you miss my point that badly? If coaches are grinding their players well beyond the limits, then by definition that is poor management and leadership. Saban and Meyer win ruthlessly, but that doesn’t make them great leaders. I was just stating that it’s possible to treat the players better and still win. Sadly, I’m sure, in today’s professional college football too few coaches seek that balance and the administrators are looking the other way.
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From the coaches’ standpoint, the problem isn’t poor management.
It’s not enough management.
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Tough being a slave on the plantation these days. While the “privileged students” get to spend hours doing research and preparing to succeed in their chosen professions while many are working PT jobs to help pay their own way, or for spending money, the poorly treated football players are actually expected to work out in a gym or spend time throwing/kicking a football around. Incredible that the body can continue to survive under such harsh circumstances.
Twenty year olds around the world are truly grateful they aren’t expected to endure this rigorous existence in return for mere spartan dormitory rooms, 3+ meals a day, education opportunities, access to tutors, computers, smart phones, free health care and just a $1000 a month spending money. We are, rightly, in awe, and justifiably speak often of their sacrifices.
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I agree. I was a musician in college and let me tell you, playing my trumpet every day and finding ways to play music wherever I could was a terrible burden….I didn’t mind it. Preparing for the future like everyone else.
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….and the opportunity – however small – to become an instant millionaire by playing a game. I’m still waiting for the first recruit to refuse an offer because it’s not fair that they’re forced to live on the plantation.
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Where did I use the P-word, Mac?
Just quit giving us the romantic bullshit about amateurs doing this purely for the love of the game. It’s a job for which they receive compensation, and all your faux sympathy and straw man arguments don’t change that.
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Actually, it your long running narrative about how unfair life is if you aren’t the top guy or making the most money that is bullshit, imo. You see hypocrisy and cynicism in virtually every circumstance whether you admit it, or state it directly or not. Step back from any one quote, or post, and you will see how negative your view is. Yes, that is my opinion of how you see life and its myriad ways people are oppressed. My “sympathy” isn’t fake, and I have as much of it as anyone here, you included, but I choose to not be a idealistic naive dreamer who feels you can solve every perceived wrong by throwing money at it, or give people total right to choose what they wish to do.
I believe in structure and discipline whether it be in a family, society, institution, or team environment. It isn’t to say an opinion of where that line should be drawn isn’t fair game for discussion, but don’t question a difference as “romantic bullshit” while doling out your own form from your perspective. It is your blog, but I don’t think denigrating differing opinions is what you have been about, so why start now? These are subjective positions, neither of us will get total approval from others. I don’t care if you disagree with any opinion of mine on subjective issues, but don’t characterize me as insincere, or without a rational reason for taking particular stances. I may find you naive, or mistaken, on positions you have taken but I have never put you in that light.
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Well, at least you’re getting closer.
The issue is fairness. The difference between us is that you define what is fair from a purely personal aesthetic. I define it as what the free market allows, which is what every other American has the benefit of.
I’ve said many times before that I don’t have a problem with others’ romanticism about this. What I do have a specific problem with in your case is your disingenuous use of the word plantation here. Nobody’s talking about slavery, except for you. If you want to call that something other than bullshit, be my guest. That, too, comes from a purely personal aesthetic.
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It wasn’t me that used that characterization first, I simply picked it up because it demonstrates how ridiculous I feel the argument can be taken. Credit someone else for that if it wasn’t you. I feel it is the most enviable/desirable athletic scholarship available, next to golf, when all things are considered.
But that is just my opinion, and I see a pretty deep divide on the issue amongst commenters. That difference is fine, until it is used to imply it isn’t genuine. As far off as I feel your position is, I never doubted you meant what you have posted; I only ask the same in return.
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Use the word when it’s appropriate, and I won’t feel the need to unload on you about it. It was out of line in this situation.
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I don’t feel unloaded on at all. It was your last paragraph that brought up the comparison of the poor, over burdened, taken advantage of, football player versus the common student. I happen to think they come out of that very damn well, regardless of how it is analyzed. That may be slightly off the bulls-eye of the subject, but it is well within the target area to me. If not, I shouldn’t have used the connection, but I re-read it and still see some pain being felt for what, I think, is a privileged existence. Lot of hours involved? You bet, but it is pretty much understood if that is the road you choose. Hard to go in and out of shape every few months (put on 30 pounds in two months, take it off in two weeks. That takes a toll on performance, and the body.)
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The fact that you went towards the plantation narrative makes it hard to take your comment seriously.
I went to UGA for four years….paid my own tuition….but the life of a UGA football player who is making the college millions…is very different and involves a commitment that students do not have.
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I think you missed the point totally, or perhaps are just too far behind. Don’t care what you think, but for the record, I am the one against that narrative ever being applied to a CFB player…it isn’t my line.
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You can be right all day, but you won’t change anyone’s opinion.
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And the high school school kids are expected to do the exact same thing. Only the pros get time off, everybody else is year round.
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I never thought about the HS kids, that is a valid point. I guess if you feel that HS kids don’t deserve to be paid and college kids should then you are a hypocrite. I don’t care one way or the other.
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not trying to insinuate that you are Bright
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High school kids don’t play football as a condition for attending school. It’s an extracurricular activity as opposed to college football or basketball where a large number of the participants are only on campus because of their athletic talent. If you want to have college athletes be accepted for attendance like any other student, your argument holds water, but in this case, it doesn’t. Does the scholarship and the development have value? Yes. Is it a market-based mechanism? Not by a long shot.
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You must not be familiar with some of the top private HS football programs. They recruit and provide scholarships (plus “extras”) just like the colleges.
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Yes, I’m familiar. I’m speaking in generalities. By the way, the kid’s parents can turn down the scholarship and keep their kid in the public school of their choice. Hell, the public schools provide incentives for a kid to transfer to their school.
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If Google or Apple offered to house and feed unpaid interns and train them – free of charge – for a 1 in a 100 spot that was worth a 7 figure income to the best that emerged from the program….people would line up around the block for the opportunity and nobody would think it was a plantation.
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If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle. What’s your point?
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How has Uncle Beth been lately?
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Having a spot of trouble with public bathrooms, unfortunately.
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I don’t think anyone who advocates for a market-based compensation mechanism believes the current system is a plantation. That’s a red herring. In your situation, the other 99 would develop a skill in technology that would enable them to build their own Google or Apple. In college athletics, a lot of the 99 students are in majors designed to keep them eligible to participate in sports rather than to prepare them for the real world.
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They just need to make Football a legit degree. Participating in college football CAN help you for the real world, if you want to stay in that field. (Coaching, training, media, etc)
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No they don’t. That cheapens the value of everyone else’s degree.
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It’s what they signed up for.
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Because it’s basically the only path to a professional career. It’s not exactly voluntary if you only have one real choice. Call it a contract, but it’s a very one-sided one.
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People said the same thing about Curt Flood.
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So no coaches o the field but I’m assuming that’s another reason why there are plenty of “analysts” and “grad assistants”?
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How much does an undergraduate degree cost at UGA?
How much time will they have to spend on their own keeping up and improving their skills and techniques?
All they have to do it put in the work and the time. Great opportunity with a lot of upside.
Get an undergraduate degree. Leave UGA with no student loan debt like many today. Read that WSJ recent article. Student debt is a major issue for young people today. Impacts borrowing for transportation, housing, and other personal or real property.
And the Chubb types a potential big dollar contract.
Hell yes, no coach would have to supervise my ass. Does not get better than what they have.
Plus would you not like to beat the Gators ass before you leave!!
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