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Daily Archives: January 12, 2018
One less five-star quarterback on the roster now
Jacob Eason makes it official.
Eason’s been nothing but a class act this year — no whining, no public pouting. A model teammate, in other words, who capped off this season with this:
He’s got the talent and the physique to play at the next level. Hope he gets the direction at wherever he’s headed to make it.
Best wishes, Jacob. You’ve been a damned good Dawg.
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UPDATE: While we’re on the subject of departures, Trent Thompson just announced he’s leaving early for the NFL Draft.
Filed under Georgia Football
It just means more… except for scheduling.
Man, what bang for the buck your average SEC paying ticket buyer can expect this season!
Sixteen? Sixteen? Wait a minute… there are only fourteen SEC teams, so…
Jeez, that’s embarrassing.
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UPDATE: If you’re looking for the full schedules, Mr. Steele has them broken down by team here.
Filed under SEC Football
Another good day for Jimmy Sexton
If Boom is worth north of $4 million a year, escalating beyond $5 million, what’s Kirby Smart worth now?
Look out reserve fund… or Hartman Fund contributions.
That guy
Jeez. All night long.
Insane is right. I though Payne was the single best player Georgia faced all season.
Filed under Alabama
Looking smarter by dumbing it down
From mgoblog, here’s a Michigan-centric take on how Georgia’s offense took off this season behind a true freshman QB after a mediocre 2016 campaign:
Summary and Conclusions
- Georgia did NOT make offensive staff changes, and still went from a five-loss, incompetent offense to one of the best in college football
- Georgia did NOT change offensive philosophy–they are still a pro-style outfit focused on a power running game.
- Georgia did NOT change much of their skill position personnel.
- Georgia had a true freshman QB and two new OL.
- Georgia did change to a more simplified, shotgun-oriented offense, increasing their efficiency in both the running and passing game.
- The biggest difference in the success of the offense was improvement and emphasis in blocking.
Simplification, a clear identity, and repetition of base concepts…sounds like a recipe for a successful college offense…
The post ends with a hope that Michigan, which has former Arkansas OC Dan Enos coming in, can emulate Georgia’s formula. Hmmm… maybe there was more to that whole crayon thing than the Sports and Grits guys realized.
Filed under Georgia Football
Just say it’s about the money and STFU.
When it comes to playoff expansion, here’s a nice example of throwing enough shit rationalizing against the wall until something sticks:
The 2017 season provided an interesting case for the College Football Playoff committee. In years past, the committee’s final rankings were mildly controversial but ultimately understandable. That wasn’t so much the case in December, when three squads were shoo-ins and the fourth spot was completely up for grabs. Alabama had a case (a very, very good one, as it turns out), as did Ohio State, as did USC, as did UCF (although it was largely ignored until after the fact).
With the eventual No. 4 seed Crimson Tide winning it all for the second time—and beating the No. 3 seed Georgia, to boot—there’s a case to be made that these rankings set the cut line for college football’s elite tier too early, and that perhaps those teams left hanging deserve a chance to compete with the best for the title. This year’s postseason, in its aftermath, will only add to the argument for the eight-team field, but after just four seasons of a playoff format that was years in the making, change won’t come too swiftly.
In other words, because number four won the whole enchilada, that’s her case for having an eight-team playoff. Jesus, I can’t wait to see the excuses these people come up with for expanding to sixteen.
By the way, all these people advocating for UCF — how many of them would have bet on the Knights had they faced off against Alabama? Yeah, that’s about what I thought.
Filed under BCS/Playoffs, Media Punditry/Foibles
We get what they pay for.
Again, I’m not going to stoop to blaming Georgia’s loss on the officiating or try to pretend there was anything sinister to why the Dawgs appeared to wind up on the short side of the stick so often in the second half, but I do find it interesting how we got stuck with a crew that was at best spectacularly inept for college football’s crown jewel. Chip Towers explains.
For that it’s worth, I followed up on all that with the CFP folks and with the Big Ten. I was told by the CFP the NCAA selects from what conference the officiating crew is chosen for the championship game and the conference itself chooses those officials.
I was told to contact the Big Ten’s supervisor of officials, Adam Augustine, for comment on any specifics calls that took place in the game or any other details I might be interested in. I did that via phone call and email and haven’t heard back. And probably won’t.
So Jim Delany handpicked a crew headed by this guy:
Closed in the mind of Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany perhaps, as he buries his head in the sand and refuses to answer some important questions. Starting with:
Why was Dan Capron, the lead official on a crew disciplined by the Big Ten in 2002 after a game between Purdue and Wake Forest, working as the referee during the Ohio State-Michigan game?
We get a guy Joe Tiller described as “not a bad official, not a top-rated official” because college football doesn’t care enough to put its best foot forward in a national title game by handpicking a crew of the conferences’ top refs. If there’s a conspiracy, it’s a conspiracy of dunces.
Filed under BCS/Playoffs, Big Ten Football, General Idiocy
SEC Power Poll, final edition
All good things must come to an end, and so it is the case for one of the most satisfying seasons in my memory. Well… except for one minor detail. Then again, there are about 126 or so programs that would love to change places with Georgia, and that includes 12 in the SEC.
- Alabama. The Sabanator abides.
- Georgia. Per Brian Fremeau, Georgia’s excellence stemmed from a remarkable consistency: “The Bulldogs had eight single-game opponent-adjusted victories that ranked in the 90th percentile or better this year, including five of the top-50 single game performances in college football.”
- Auburn. From beating the top two teams in the conference back-to-back to watching those same two teams duke it out for the national title… what a special year for you, Tigers. Hey, at least you won the SEC West!
- Mississippi State. A nice year that got Dan Mullen a shiny new job at Florida.
- LSU. Really, it’s hard to figure out where this program goes. Too much talent to be entirely irrelevant, not enough coaching to be consistently excellent seems to be a safe take for now.
- South Carolina. Say what you will, Boom is a decent coach who is capable of squeezing as much as he can out of a program to make it competitive, but is limited by his inability to find an offensive coordinator who can take things to the next level.
- Texas A&M. If there’s a conference program that really ought to be better than it is, it’s this one.
- Missouri. Nice second half run fueled by a mediocre schedule. The question from here is how the change at offensive coordinator affects that momentum.
- Ole Miss. Considering everything, Matt Luke did one of the better coaching jobs in the SEC this season.
- Kentucky. The conference mirage. If I could have ranked the Wildcats lower, I would have… which ought to tell you a lot about the bottom quarter of the SEC.
- Florida. An awful year. What remains to be seen is how far in the ditch McElwain left the Gatormobile. From here, it looks like more than a one-year repair job lies ahead.
- Arkansas. If Bert’s eight-figure buyout after Arky’s nothing-burger of a season doesn’t tell you how out of whack coaches’ contracts are, nothing will.
- Vanderbilt. They’ll always have the Tennessee game.
- Tennessee. If you’re not a Vol fan, this has been a season to revel in.
And there you have it. College football’s two best teams, followed by several good ones, a few mediocrities and then some genuinely terrible programs. I think the ragging on the conference this year was a little undeserved. Overall, the SEC wasn’t that bad. The problem in perception was due to two traditional powers, Florida and Tennessee, being that bad.
Filed under SEC Football
Matt Wyatt’s Film Study: Alabama vs Georgia | CFP National Title Game
If you have the stomach for it, Wyatt provides an excellent breakdown of Georgia’s last game.
This game really was mainly about the three quarterbacks, wasn’t it?
Filed under Alabama, Georgia Football, Strategery And Mechanics
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