“… you ask me what’s the difference in last year and this year? We blocked better.”

Say what you will about Jim Chaney, one thing he’s not is pretentious.

“Last year didn’t meet anyone’s expectations,” Chaney said. “It was a difficult year for everybody, particularly me, because I have a lot of pride in what I do, and I hate putting products out that don’t meet the expectations. But nobody does.”

Chaney said he only had one choice: Get his butt back to work (he didn’t say butt) and try to do a  better job. The result: Chaney was giving his annual bowl press conference at the Rose Bowl, as Georgia prepares for a national semifinal match-up against Oklahoma.

“I was lucky enough that the pieces I had to work with all just kind of fell into a beautiful puzzle this year,” Chaney said. “It’s been a pleasure to be a part of it.”

So, what’s made the difference?  Wizardry calling the plays?  A fancy new scheme?  Nah.

“People think: Let’s change, let’s put a wideout over here, a tight end over here. Hell I want to block better! I just want to block better,” Chaney said.

Okay, so what, then?  Turns out to be our old friend, the second year effect.

“They understand our plays, they understand our temperments. We all know who we are,” Chaney said. “We all know one another a lot better right now. We know the objectives. We know there’s no false pretense, we’re all after the same thing. …

“At the end of the day we believe in what we’re doing and we’re playing super hard. Are we the most talented offense out there in the history of the world. I would argue probably not. But I would argue we would turn on the tape and we’d play as hard as most people.”

Bottom line:  from here on out, this offense is gonna go as far as the offensive line — and Sam Pittman — will take it.

***************************************************************************

UPDATE:  This may be the best quote of all.

“You can’t look at our success and say, ‘Oh, Chaney went to the RPO. The dumbass didn’t do it a year ago, now he is,'” Chaney said, drawing laughs.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was reading the GTP comments section.

Advertisement

Name that caption, rare sighting in the wild edition

Here’s something you don’t see every day.

A rare Jim Chaney and Jake Fromm media availability. And Sony Michel. pic.twitter.com/i4uuayqRnY

— Marc Weiszer (@marcweiszer) December 28, 2017

Coincidentally, that kind of looks like what Sony Michel is thinking.  Have at it in the comments.

“I suppose we should start with the SEC, or as some call it, the $EC.”

This is, simply, a tour de force of tin foil hat theorizing.

It’s not that I don’t think there isn’t any cheating going on in the SEC (**cough**Ole Miss**cough**) or other college conferences. Of course there is, and probably will always be.

It’s that his research boils down to stream of consciousness rambling interspersed with a few timely tweets.  I mean, when you can jump to Nick Saban cheats because he owns a car dealership without batting an eye, you’re just a few steps away from offering some new and meaningful insights about the Moon landing or the Kennedy assassination.

I wonder if he knows that Corch used to recruit in the Southeastern Conference once upon a time.  Maybe that’s that’s a discussion for another day, too.

(h/t)

Rose Bowl W2W4

Earlier in the season, I linked to a couple of videos posted by Matt Wyatt, a former Mississippi State quarterback who likes to break down games.

Here’s his Rose Bowl preview, a quick five-minute job:

It’s certainly not an in-depth analysis, but one thing that comes through, even in its brevity, is how good both offenses are with their execution.

Talk, talk, talk. When do we leave?

If you can’t get enough of my seemingly endless bloviation at GTP, Derek at The DawgCast was gracious enough to invite me on for a 30-minute Rose Bowl-edition gab session last night.  I’m not gonna tell you we broke a lot of newly stunning insight about the game, but a good time was had by all.  Clicky to give us a listen.

“If people think this is the last time it’s going to be like this, they’re sadly mistaken.”

Here’s a nice “Georgia, the sleeping giant awakes” piece from Dan Wolken.

Kind of makes you wonder how this CFP appearance will play with the folks back in Montana, doesn’t it?

Badge of honor

The Oklahoman’s Berry Tramel looks us over and finds we’re not crazy.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Georgia football strike you as sort of normal? Not normal as in average. Normal as in not kooky. Normal as in Michigan or Penn State or Oklahoma or Nebraska or Notre Dame or Southern Cal. Normal as in passionate and dedicated and over the moon about the football team in Athens. But also normal as in not still fighting the Civil War.

The latter is the feeling you get every time you’re around the likes of LSU or Auburn or Alabama or Tennessee. That’s the impression you get listening to the Paul Finebaum Show, which whether it means to or not is a daily dose of making fun of the South.

We don’t yell PAWWWLLL!!!  So we’ve got that going for us.  Hey, you gotta start somewhere.

Alabama doesn’t have time for this shit.

This is kind of what Ivan Maisel was warning us about in his post about embracing the freshness of this year’s experience.

The Crimson Tide flew to New Orleans on Wednesday hoping for a better showing compared to the inaugural playoff after the 2014 regular season, when they entered No. 1 but dropped the Sugar Bowl semifinal to No. 4 Ohio State, 42-35.

“When we came to this game a few years ago, we were trying to balance the bowl experience with the whole playoff experience, not having done that before,” Saban said in a news conference moments after his team arrived. “Our players make the decision about curfew, what they do and how they do it, because I give the leadership of the team the opportunity to do that.

“Each year, they have been more and more serious about the game and less and less interested in the bowl experience.”

Alabama’s loss to the Buckeyes marked its only one-and-done playoff performance. The Crimson Tide have played Clemson in the past two national championship games, winning 45-40 in the title contest of the 2015 season and losing 35-31 in last season’s rematch.

Since the inception of the playoff, the Crimson Tide have ventured to New Orleans, the Dallas suburb of Arlington, the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, Atlanta and Tampa, Fla.

“They’ve experienced consequences in these games, both good consequences and bad consequences,” Saban said. “They understand that after going through those experiences, the fun of it all is the success. The fun of it all is winning the game.

“You don’t always remember what you do, but you always remember whether you won or lost the game, and that’s what has changed a little bit with our players, which doesn’t disappoint me at all.”

I’m sure that’s satisfying for Saban, but it strikes me as a little grim.  When you’re a man in his sixties making millions, sure, it’s a business trip first and foremost.  But a youngster deserves to savor a little of the experience after a season of busting and grinding to get there.

Find someone who will hold onto you like Roquan Smith holds onto Kirby Smart on the @guardians ride at #Disneyland #UGA2Rosebowl #GoDawgs https://t.co/kOM0bi8U8l pic.twitter.com/hnNlMyUlPG

— WSB-TV (@wsbtv) December 28, 2017

Not just Kirby, either.  The players have earned a little fun time, too.

Focus

The most impressive thing about this…

Mike Leach cooling off his hot coffee while Mark Dantonio answers a question during the Holiday Bowl press conference is the best Mike Leach moment ever. pic.twitter.com/jN6QyuUhDS

— Sam Adams (@SWXSamAdams) December 27, 2017

… is that nobody in the audience starts giggling.

Today, in it just means more

It appears that, after one season, Coach O is prepared to throw away a perfectly good, $1.5 million/year offensive coordinator.

LSU plans to split with Matt Canada after the Citrus Bowl.

Canada, the 45-year-old offensive coordinator the Tigers plucked from Pittsburgh last December, is not expected to remain on the LSU staff for the 2018 season, multiple sources told The Advocate.

Officials at LSU have been in discussion with Canada’s representatives on a potential settlement for a split with the coach, according to multiple sources. A possible replacement is longtime assistant Steve Ensminger, something Orgeron revealed himself during a news conference after the regular season finale against Texas A&M.

Deciding to can a guy you made the highest paid OC in the business after twelve games?  That’s one helluva vetting job, dude.  And you’ve left the school with a nice tab to pick up.

Canada signed a three-year contract last December paying him $1.5 million per year as the highest-paid offensive coordinator in college football. The school would owe him about $3 million to be paid in monthly installments over the life of the contract, through 2020. That amount is offset by any future compensation Canada earns at another job, according to a copy of his contract.

Man, I’d sure be tempted to offer my services to the next coach for a buck a year.

Amazing how much money these schools can waste.