Seth Emerson catches a position change on Georgia’s official online roster.
Among other things, I guess that’s an indication they’re pretty happy with the depth at cornerback, or at least happier there than they are at receiver.
Daily Archives: June 14, 2017
Number 15, with a bullet
Georgia track and field teams pull McGarity’s nuts out of the proverbial fire.
As Georgia waited anxiously for the final race Saturday night that could have given it the NCAA women’s track and field championship, Greg McGarity was back in Athens pacing at his home and getting updates via text like he had during the meet.
The Bulldogs athletic director didn’t make the trip to Eugene, Ore., because sixth-ranked Georgia wasn’t expected to be in the position to make a run at the national title.
It didn’t happen because favorite Oregon won the final race, the 4×400-meter relay, but the Bulldogs’ best-ever runner-up finish in the meet along with a sixth-place finish from men’s track helped Georgia move up in the Directors’ Cup Standings to its current spot of No. 13.
Georgia has crunched the numbers and believes it will finish No. 15 in the final all-sports standings because Texas A&M and Florida State would move past it after baseball’s College World Series is completed.
That’s in the same ballpark Georgia has been the past four years: No. 15 in 2016, No. 14 in 2015 and No. 16 in 2014. Georgia was No. 10 in 2013, nailing the top-10 finish it shoots for annually.
“I think the narrative early on was we were not going to have a very good year,” McGarity said. “You never make that assumption until all the sports have concluded.”
That the AD was anxious about how things turned out and the athletic department has already done the math on the Directors’ Cup race ought to give you some indication of B-M’s awareness of the criticism it’s facing about the overall recent performance of its programs.
It’s nice to know that a fifteenth-place finish constitutes “a very good year” in Athens these days. That should make for a congratulatory next edition of “The First Word”.
Filed under Georgia Football
Pat Dye says Auburn will never be man enough for Alabama.
Quite the vote of confidence here.
“We could play football for another 500 years and we couldn’t catch up with the tradition Alabama has got, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a good football program and a strong football program. It doesn’t mean we can’t have football teams that recruit good enough to beat Alabama on occasion.”
“On occasion”? Geez. No wonder he wants to see the Tigers move to the East.
Filed under Auburn's Cast of Thousands
Remains to be seen
You look at CFN’s SEC quarterback rankings and wonder if Pete Fiutak is being a little kind when he writes, “There isn’t a whole lot of quarterbacking star power in the SEC compared to the Pac-12 or Big 12, but there are plenty of very good ones.” Potentially, sure, but that’s as far as it goes right now.
By the way, in so doing, he raises an interesting rhetorical question when he comes to the matter of who starts for Georgia.
Here’s the thing – if it’s not Jacob Eason, then was his freshman season of seasoning a waste of an investment?
Filed under SEC Football
Not in our place, you don’t.
Man, the effort that’s gone into stuffing Texas’ attempt to participate in a satellite camp in the state of Louisiana is something to behold.
You think Kirby’s a little jealous?
Filed under Recruiting
Another preseason list
Here’s the link to AL.com’s annual preseason All-SEC team, as voted on by the conference’s sports information directors.
While seeing Trent Thompson’s and Roquan Smith’s names included in the first team selections was expected, it’s a little surprising to me that not a single member of Georgia’s secondary appeared anywhere.
Kentucky wound up with more names there than did Georgia. Hope that’s not an omen.
Filed under Georgia Football, SEC Football
“That could be part of that; I don’t know what the full cause is.”
Poor Tim Cearley. Between rising ticket prices, a mediocre home schedule and a lackluster attempt to meet fan complaints about Sanford Stadium facilities, Georgia’s associate athletic director for tickets can’t for the life of him figure out exactly what led to a late scramble to sell out the season tickets allotment.
Fortunately, UGA was able to get the barn door locked with the horses bedded for the night.
“But, yes, we were thankfully able to meet all the Hartman Fund demand anyway. We didn’t turn any donors away. (And) the bigger takeaway is we have sold out. That’s encouraging.”
Nothing like managing for the extreme short term. They’ll worry about next year when it comes.
Filed under Georgia Football
You lose as a team.
If you’re a real masochist, do yourself a favor and check out William McFadden’s Twitter feed from yesterday, where he painstakingly breaks down film from last year’s Ole Miss game. It’s brutal. (It was so bad, I actually forgot that Georgia was ranked twelfth going into the game, higher than Ole Miss.)
There isn’t an area on the team that didn’t have its share of breakdowns, although in terms of consistency, it’s hard to say which of the secondary or the offensive line were worse.
Eason did not play well, but when you’re getting as little support from the line as this,
it’s not hard to understand why his mechanics were iffy and his ability to read the field suffered. Even when he got it right, his receivers often didn’t.
That being said, the two most sickening moments on the day were both on the defensive side of the ball, this,
and this.
Smith got caught with his hand in the cookie jar on that one play. Briscoe was toasted all day.
All in all, it’s about as poorly prepared as I’ve seen the Dawgs look. They earned every bit of that 45-0 deficit.
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UPDATE: Tyler Dawgden answers a question.
Filed under Georgia Football
A dollar here, a dollar there, and pretty soon that bakery gets expensive.
Georgia hosts three cupcakes in 2018, Middle Tennessee, Austin Peay and UMass. Total cost: $3.7 million.
That’s just part of the equation.
Georgia’s financial guarantees to its eight non-Power Five non-conference opponents over the next three seasons comes out to $7.55 million. That doesn’t include the annual series with Georgia Tech or a two-game home-and-home set with Notre Dame.
Seven and a half million? No wonder they raised ticket prices.
Filed under Georgia Football, It's Just Bidness
Get The Picture 