Now, wait a minute.

Steve Spurrier: "You can have great players and still not win. You LSU fans know about that."

— Jimmy Watson (@JimmyWatson6) August 9, 2017

I thought he only talked like that about Georgia.

Honestly, this has to be some sort of record.

Texas Tech offensive lineman might seek approval from the NCAA for an eighth year of eligibility.

As you might suspect, he’s been a wee bit injury-prone.

The Tech lineman missed the 2011 season, his true freshman year, due to an injury sustained in summer camp. The same thing around the same time happened again in 2012. And again in 2013. And, unbelievably, again in 2014.  That’s right, Morales missed four straight complete seasons because of injury.

Morales’ myriad health issues have consisted of a torn labrum in his right shoulder (2011); a strained knee ligament (2012); a torn labrum in his left shoulder (2013); and another knee issue in 2014.

To give you some perspective, Morales was signed by Tommy Tuberville, which means his playing career has survived Tuberville’s coaching career.

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Today, in burning questions

Talk about your inquiring minds want to know…

Former LSU center T-Bob Hebert, now a radio personality in Baton Rouge, decided to get a little more personal with Etling.

“Lloyd Cushenberry and Will Clapp — whose ass feels better?” Hebert asked the quarterback of LSU’s two centers.

“I can just tell you what you’re looking for as far as that in a center,” Etling responded without hesitation. “What you want is a nice, plump bottom. A surface area to put your hands on. You want them to feel you.

“As much as I love Will, and as great a football player as he is, he doesn’t have the biggest bottom. But him and I have really worked toward it. We’ve found a nice surface area to put my hands on.

SEC football, baby.  Puts a whole new spin on it just means more, don’t it?

(h/t)

Party hearty

Kirby Smart is tired of all the mean girls shit being thrown Jacob Eason’s way.

Asked whether Eason was more interested in having fun than grinding through his playbook was fact or fiction, Smart bristled and offered a staunch defense of the sophomore quarterback: “I think Jacob is a great quarterback. I think he’s somebody who understands our system. He works really hard. Jacob comes in and meets extra every chance he gets. A lot of the things you have heard about Jacob may not be true. I don’t know who your sources are; you haven’t told me your sources…”

In other words, as we like to say in the biz, pictures or it didn’t happen.

ESPN is going streaming.

I figured this shoe was going to drop at some point.

The Walt Disney Company announced today that it has agreed to acquire majority ownership of BAMTech, LLC and will launch its ESPN-branded multi-sport video streaming service in early 2018, followed by a new Disney-branded direct-to-consumer streaming service in 2019…

The ESPN-branded multi-sport service will offer a robust array of sports programming, featuring approximately 10,000 live regional, national, and international games and events a year, including Major League Baseball, National Hockey League, Major League Soccer, Grand Slam tennis, and college sports. Individual sport packages will also be available for purchase, including MLB.TV, NHL.TV and MLS Live.

The new service will be accessed through an enhanced version of the current ESPN app. In addition to the multi-sport service, the ESPN app will include the news, highlights, and scores that fans enjoy today. Consumers who are pay TV subscribers will also be able to access the ESPN television networks in the same app on an authenticated basis. For many sports fans, this app will become the premier digital destination for all their sports content.

Just another reminder that while we live in an age when delivery is important, content matters even more, as it always has.  In that department, the WWL remains, and wants to remain, the 800-pound gorilla of college sports.

A legal matter, baby

Mike Bobo, gaining some valuable coaching experience that will help groom him for an eventual return to the SEC:

An off-field situation will likely prove very costly for Colorado State’s defensive secondary this coming season.

In mid-May, reports surfaced that Braylin Scott was arrested by university police on three felony counts — two charges related to burglary of a dwelling and one involving theft of property valued at $5,000-$20,000.  It was subsequently reported that the safety had been accused of stealing Rolex watches and diamond jewelry from the dorm room of teammate Hunter Donnelly, a redshirt freshman linebacker for the Rams.

This week, Scott’s attorney, Erik Fischer, told the Loveland Reporter-Herald that his client will likely miss all of the upcoming season because of the criminal case.  A pretrial conference is set for Dec. 11, with the jury trial slated to begin Dec. 19; the Rams close out the 2017 regular season against San Jose State Nov. 18.

Yeah, I can see how trial prep might get in the way of game prep.  But a good coach prepares for life’s adversities, amirite?

Oh, and by the way, nice bling, Hunter.  I was lucky to have a beat-up quartz watch when I was in college.

“There’s a lot of guys moving around.”

If you’ve been reading practice reports — you have, haven’t you? — you may have noticed there’s plenty of shuffling going on with regard to the offensive line.  That shouldn’t come as any great surprise, given last year’s results and this year’s stellar recruiting class.

The situation has led to an interesting analogy from Smart.

Head coach Kirby Smart, when asked about the upcoming decisions, acknowledged it could be “very similar to Jacob and Greyson last year.” Greyson Lambrt, the fifth-year senior, started the opener but gave way to freshman Jacob Eason the second week.

So this year with the offensive line, you could see a scenario where one of the rookies either starts or plays early over a veteran, with the thinking that experience will make them better.

“It’s a critical decision,” Smart said. “We’ve always said we want to play the guys who give us the best opportunity to win. Well in game one that may not be the same as game 2,3, 4, 5. So when we make those decisions we make them based on own the road, who’s going to be the best guy down the road. That doesn’t mean that that guy might start. …

“Very similar to Jacob and Greyson last year. We’re trying to decide who’s going to be the best guy down the road. It doesn’t mean that guy’s going to start right away. It just means that guy’s going to be ready to play and going to be developed.”

I wouldn’t call that throwaway season thinking, but it seems pretty clear that Smart expects to be playing different linemen by the time, say, the Cocktail Party rolls around than the ones he sends out to block Appalachian State.

Just another issue for Coach Pittman to deal with on the fly.  And Jacob Eason.

‘Well, we’re getting a lot of pressure from LSU.’

There’s closing the borders and then there’s Coach O doing what it takes to keep the out-of-state coaching hordes out of Louisiana.

Two sources with knowledge of the discussions told ESPN.com that LSU threatened to never again schedule Southeastern Louisiana for a nonconference game in the future if the Lions conducted the camp with those out-of-state schools present. That constitutes a massive financial hit for schools that need the money; LSU is paying Southeastern Louisiana $500,000 to play in Death Valley in 2018. (By comparison, the Tigers are paying Nicholls State $575,000, McNeese State $600,000 and Louisiana Tech $1.15 million for future nonconference games.)

There was also pressure put on Southeastern Louisiana officials from state legislators, the sources said.

Perhaps this is another good reason for Georgia agreeing to schedule cupcake games against in-state programs, as it certainly ups the leverage.  If you’re Kirby Smart, you’d think that might lead to a better use of state legislators’ power than a 90-day Open Records period.

When informing the disinvited schools of the change in plans, Southeastern coach Ron Roberts explained that “somebody else told him ‘If you do [camps with out-of-state schools], you’re going to get us all f—ing fired,” the source said.

Yeah, that might do it.

May want to dial those sack numbers back a bit

Not sure if this is an attempt at shaming, or simply making the best of a disappointing situation, but it sounds like Lorenzo Carter is bidding to be this year’s Mr. Versatility.

Georgia’s secondary is perhaps the most experienced position group on its defense, but it’s not all positive the way coach Kirby Smart sees it.

Smart said Tuesday that he likes the veterans the Bulldogs have at the position, but that he has concern about they have after them on the depth chart.

“It’s concerning that we don’t have the depth needed,” Smart said. “We have a void in our secondary. We have old and we have young. We have nothing in the middle. So it’s really concerning. We’re having to move guys around. Like, we’re having to play Zo (outside linebacker Lorenzo Carter) in different places. We’re having to play AD (defensive back Aaron Davis) at some corner and nickel for some practices. Because who don’t know if that one spot may (lose someone) to an injury and we don’t know where your depth is going to be.

“These freshmen have not shown up in the secondary to make themselves ready to play, like maybe a running back, wide receiver or an o-lineman. That’s the deficiency and where we have to improve it.”

… Carter worked in coverage during Tuesday’s practice against receivers lined up in the slot.

Leonard Floyd played some coverage, so it’s not exactly something we’re unaccustomed to seeing, but I think Carter’s more valuable going in the other direction.  Besides, for the first time in a while, Georgia actually has inside linebackers who aren’t a liability in pass coverage.  Roquan Smith can’t cover a running back coming out in the flat all of a sudden?