Errand boy, sent by grocery clerks

There are a couple of “oh, snap” moments in today’s Seth Emerson Mailbag.  First, in response to a question about how Smart’s success will affect Mark Fox’ fate (HINT:  it won’t), Seth differentiates the hiring/firing settings:

The football coaching change, going from Mark Richt to Kirby Smart, was an institutional decision, with many voices and powers at work. Greg McGarity was the one assigned to tell Richt and appear at the press conferences, but he sitting alone in his office was not the one making the decision.

“McGarity was the one assigned”?  You mean… gasp!… Charles wasn’t in charge?  Damn, Miz Scarlett, suddenly ah feel faint.

Then, almost as an after dinner mint, comes this less than innocent question to wrap things up.

Why did @UGAAthletics pay (waste) $42k to a search firm to tell them to hire Kirby Smart when the deal was already done via back channels.
– Russell Sauve

You’re new around here, right, Russell?

Anyway, so much for that man with the plan narrative.  Why do I suddenly have this sense of another “McGarity’s Minutes” being feverishly typed as you read this?

Advertisement

They fought the law, and the law won.

So, there’s this.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards believes that multimillion- dollar college football coaching salaries are “obscene” and a cap to limit them should be in place.

Edwards, during a meeting with The Advocate editorial board last week, expressed his concern over escalating staff salaries that have “gotten out of control.” Louisiana’s flagship college football program, LSU, is one of the country’s leaders in football staff spending.

In addition to the 2017’s staff price tag of $9.4 million, the university is paying four staff members who are no longer employed at the school, including a remaining buyout of about $7 million to former coach Les Miles.

The money is generated by the athletic department through private funds, rather than state funds.

“I am concerned. I’m not as concerned as I would be if those were tax dollars being spent,” Edwards said. “I do think that there has to be some look nationally at some sort of salary caps for the organizations. This is an arms race, and it’s gotten out of control. Some of the salaries and buyouts are obscene, and they can create all sorts of problems.

It’s a notion that’s cited approvingly in this SB Nation piece.  There’s only one problem:  a salary cap imposed on coaches by the NCAA is an antitrust violation.  That’s not speculation on my part, either.  The NCAA has already lost once on that front.

A Federal jury in Kansas awarded more than $66 million yesterday to 1,900 assistant college coaches whose salaries were found to have been illegally restricted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The penalty, which included more than $22 million in back wages, penalties and legal fees that were tripled under Federal antitrust law, was by far the largest court assessment against the association, which regulates and administers major intercollegiate sports.

The verdict came after five years of often tortuous legal wrangling, in which the coaches contended that a blanket rule imposed by the N.C.A.A. in 1992 to restrict the salaries of certain assistant coaches to $12,000 for an academic year had stifled competition and deprived them of fair market wages.

Whether an individual conference could impose such a restraint legally is a different question, I suppose, given that conferences compete with each other.  Maybe Governor Edwards could push Greg Sankey into taking the lead on that.  I’m sure it’ll take off quickly.

Let’s face it, folks.  The reason coaching salaries continue to rocket skyward isn’t because of Jimmy Sexton.  It’s because we’re nuts about college football.  All of us.  Collectively.

Today, in the return of you get what you pay for

I see it’s time for the “waah, college football spread offenses aren’t preparing players for the NFL” horseshit to make the rounds again.

The first round has been more miss than hit the last three years at wide receiver. Corey Davis, Mike Williams and John Ross were selected in the top nine last April and they combined for 24 games, 45 catches, 465 yards and no touchdowns as rookies. The Bengals are considering shifting Ross to defensive back. Corey Coleman, Will Fuller, Josh Doctson and Laquon Treadwell were taken in the first round in 2016 after six went in Round 1 in 2015 — Amari Cooper, Kevin White, DeVante Parker, Nelson Agholor, Breshad Perriman and Phillip Dorsett. Of those 13, there’s probably not a true No. 1 in the bunch.

Has anyone told this guy that Cooper and Agholor played in pro-style offenses in college?

Maybe Mike Vrabel needs to ask for a refund of some of that $10 million.  Or spend it on a developmental league… like that’s gonna happen.

Babes in the woods

I’m not saying that Nick Saban’s gentle “I think the road we’re going down right now is not always best for the players that are making decisions to go out early” criticism of college players who elect for early entry in the NFL draft is off-base, or that Saban himself is full of shit for making it, but when you prohibit these same players — many of whom come from impoverished backgrounds — starting from the beginning of the recruiting process all the way through the decision to submit to the draft from being allowed to engage professional advisors to look out for their best interests, what do you expect?

Projected offensive depth chart

I don’t want to get overly giddy about it, but I’ve got to tell you it’s been a long time since I’ve felt this comfortable looking over a Georgia preseason depth chart for the offense.

Yeah, I know there are some big name departures, but there is also plenty of experienced depth ready to step up and fill in the holes.  If I had to point to my biggest concern, I guess it would be seeing how Andrew Thomas handles the switch to left tackle… but then I remember how confident Pittman sounded about it a couple of weeks ago.

How are y’all feeling about things pre-G-Day?

Praise the Lord, I saw the light.

I’m not going to get into the sincerity of the opening round of Hugh Freeze’s redemption tour, but, man, this quote:

“I have a total new appreciation for integrity,” Freeze said.

That’s some moral high horse you rode in on in Oxford, stud.

“It’s a whole new avenue that we haven’t experienced in recruiting.”

My favorite hot take making the rounds this week is that the early signing period is bad because it’s made the two weeks leading up to the February signing date uneventful.

Today, in what a difference a year makes

A year ago, if you looked at one of those ubiquitous coach rankings, Kirby Smart showed up in the lower half, whether it was for the SEC of D-1 as whole.  Now, you see stuff like this:

TIER 1: NICK SABAN

• Nick Saban (Alabama) – Six national titles. Successfully held off the heir apparent by making a personnel change that no one without Nick Saban-level job security would. Is still Nick Saban.
• Kirby Smart (Georgia) – Technically is not Nick Saban…but still. Kirby is hoarding elite quarterbacks like my father hoards soy sauce and hot mustard packets. Clearly that team has all the talent it needs to be a juggernaut and keeps bringing in more. It’s only a matter of time before they are the big bully of the conference.

Those “Dan Mullen is the second-best coach in the SEC” takes seem kind of quaint now, don’t they?

“I think it’s more exciting.”

Nick Saban, I don’t know you anymore.

Listen to Coach Saban discuss the college game, it's influence on the #NFL game and the subject of spreading the field and RPO's. #spreadoffense #SeniorBowl pic.twitter.com/EVJ6LAbYNh

— SpreadOffense.com (@SpreadOffense) January 24, 2018

I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard him say it.  I think my world has been rocked a little.

Musical palate cleanser, glorious mono edition

Someone mentioned the late, great Gene Clark yesterday, so I thought I’d put up my favorite song of his from his solo debut, Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers.  There’s a helluva cast of backing musicians on the album:  former Byrds bandmates Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke; Glen Campbell and Leon Russell; future Byrd Clarence White; and Clark’s future collaborator Doug Dillard.

The song is “So You Say You Lost Your Baby”.  The clip I’m sharing isn’t the LP version, though.  It’s the mono version released first as a single, back in the day when they did that kind of thing.  It’s mixed differently, most notably with the harmony voices.  Just a great song.