Barney Farrar tries to drag Dan Mullen under the bus with him.

Ole Miss, hit with an FOIA request, released a number of individual responses to the NCAA’s Notice of Allegations.

Hugh Freeze’s 91-page (!) filing is exactly what you might expect — a combination of self-praise and shocked, shocked ignorance about what his once-trusted assistant Farrar was up to.  (Remember, though, that Farrar is only linked directly to three of the NCAA charges.)

It’s Farrar’s answer that provides the real comic relief.  Check this out:

Barney Farrar’s response also has this language. Doesn’t take a decoder ring to see he’s referencing MSU, Leo Lewis & Dan Mullen. #OleMiss pic.twitter.com/OqVVB7TNHg

— Chase Parham (@RivalsChase) June 9, 2017

Dan Mullen, sumbitch.  If that guy is so good at conniving, how come he hasn’t won a division title yet?  (Compare that with what Ferrar said about Freeze.)

The Egg Bowl is shaping up to be a blast this year.

The early coach catches the recruit.

There’s some fascinating stuff in this statistical analysis of recruiting tempo among SEC schools over the past ten classes.  You can read it all, or, if you want the tl;dr version, it’s this:

Teams that get the majority of their final signing class committed before Sept. 1 have a better chance of pulling in a more impressive class in the SEC.

Don’t know when that means it’s panic time in Athens over the state of the 2018 class, but it’s at least food for thought.

“When you talk about it, it’s like a Republican-Democrat thing.”

Don’t blame me, blame Steve Shaw for the clickbait header.  “It” is the way coaches want officials to enforce rule that linemen can’t run three yards past the line of scrimmage at the moment the quarterback releases the ball.  With the rise of the run-pass option play, the whole thing is tough for officials.

Sometimes, however, a lineman runs past the 3-yard threshold. And with the existing commotion looking like a run play, it’s difficult for umpires and line judges to simultaneously monitor whether an offensive lineman is beyond three yards when the quarterback throws the ball.

A mess it may be, but leave it to Will Muschamp to propose an even bigger mess to fix the first mess.

South Carolina head coach Will Muschamp said an easy solution to this would be to make these plays reviewable.

“I do think that would be a good replay topic,” Muschamp said. “It’s real simple. The guy’s 10 yards down the field and the ball’s thrown. I coach the safeties. What do you tell those guys to do? You’ve got a guard running at you and a receiver.”

Do that, and you’ll add another ten minutes of dead time to a game.  Thanks, Boom, but I’ll pass.

Shaw mentions a rule change that might be of some help.

Shaw acknowledged the difficulty of recognizing when a lineman is in violation during an RPO. To create a better visual from an officiating standpoint, Shaw said there will be discussions about a potential rule change prior to the 2018 season.

As it stands now, linemen can’t run past 3 yards at the moment the quarterback releases the ball. The potential rule change would be that linemen can’t be beyond the 3-yard barrier when the football passes the line of scrimmage following a throw.

That would mean linemen would have to hold back even more on RPOs since extra time will elapse. It will also allow for a line judges to focus on the line of scrimmage instead of numerous spots.

“Where we’re seeing the difficulty is that run-pass option play — it’s not the fake and pop. It’s a fake, on the corner, then a throw,” Shaw said. “Then you got linemen drifting all over the places.”

Arguably, easier focus on the line of scrimmage should make for better enforcement.

(By the way, don’t miss the part where Smart says every opponent of Georgia’s last season ran RPO plays, except one.  Honestly, I’m a little surprised by the lone exception.)

Vanquished

Nick Saban is only SEC head coach still with same job after 10 years.

After his retirement, I wonder if we’ll ever see that again.

Location, location, location: a modest proposal

Yeah, I get East is East, West is West and never the SEC twain shall meet and all that… but maybe another way to address Auburn’s dilemma is simply to rename the divisions, removing the geographic references.  After all, it’s not like anybody bitches and moans over where all the ACC schools fall on a map.

Besides, think of all the money they could raise selling the naming rights.  The SEC Nike Division has quite the ring to it, don’t ‘ya think?