The sweet smell of success

From McGarity’s Minutes comes the new ticket pricing structure, starting, as I expected, in 2018.

Basically, they’re going to a two-tier format, one for P5 opponents, at $75 a game, and another for the cupcakes. at $55 a game.  Total cost for a season ticket:  $465.  The average per game ticket price has gone from $50 to over $66.  That’s some “adjustment”… er, “modest increase” you got there, Greg.  I’d hate to see what a full bore, rip ’em a new one would look like.

The secondary market for the attractive games just got more expensive for those of you who intend to forego the season ticket route.  I feel your pain, dawgs.

As a finish, this is a nicely weaseled touch:

With the success we have experienced, we will incur increases in compansation compensation to maintain that level of success.  We plan to make substantial adjustments to the compensation of our coaching staff, which will necessitate these ticket increases.

Hey, don’t blame Greg, blame Jimmy Sexton.  I’m sure not a penny of the scheduled increase will make its way to anywhere but Kirby’s paycheck.

Jeez, man, I knew the hit was coming.  At least you could have been straight about it from the get-go.  If I’m getting screwed, I’d like to be kissed.

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“For the first time ever in college athletics, the student-athlete is empowered.”

Dennis Dodd reports that yet another transfer proposal is in the works:

Athletes would be allowed to transfer schools without restriction if their coach were fired or left for another job as part of sweeping proposal that is making its way through Division I, CBS Sports has learned. However, athletes would not be permitted to follow the departing coach to their new program.

The proposal, which originated from the Big 12, would also allow athletes to transfer without sitting out a season (as currently mandated by NCAA rules) in the event a postseason ban is handed down by the NCAA as punishment to their program.

The traditional academic “year in residence” for transfers in all other situations would still be in place and extended to every sport. Presently, that is only a requirement in five NCAA sports.

Bill Connelly has the specific language.  Athletes would be able to transfer without sitting out as long as they met one of the following guidelines:

1. the student-athlete earned a baccalaureate degree at the original institution;

2. the student-athlete’s head coach at the original institution resigned or was fired during or after the most recent season of competition, except that the student-athlete is not immediately eligible at another institution at which the head coach is employed;

3. sanctions have been imposed on the original institution that limit post-season competition in the student-athlete’s sport;

4. the student-athlete did not receive athletically-related financial aid at the original institution; or

5. an exception in bylaw 14.5.5.2 or 14.5.6 is satisfied.

Dodd goes on to write, “Skeptics note it is merely a proposal, not the proposal.”, to which I can only say, no shit.  Coaches are unhappy with any loss of control over player transfers; can you imagine what the reaction of athletic directors will be to item no. 2?  Put it in a very understandable context:  how do you think Butts-Mehre would have handled the Richt dismissal if every player had the free opportunity to leave the program afterwards?  (No doubt Greg McGarity could have turned on his legendary charm and convinced the entire team to sit tight and trust him.)

So count me among the ranks of the skeptics.

The NCAA is stuck flailing around floating this stuff on a regular basis because on the one hand, it knows the transfer policy currently in effect is untenable, given how everyone else in collegiate sports can move without restriction by the organization, but on the other, is stuck promoting changes that those very same constituencies are going to oppose.  I’m sure it’s all meant with the best of intentions, though.

All is not lost.

Just when I was starting to believe things were getting hopeless, comes this news.

So much for “Dilly Dilly.” Bud Light suffered its biggest year over year decline in 2017 (5.7%), according to @BeerInsights. pic.twitter.com/IUFccPlYzS

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) January 30, 2018

A lame marketing campaign for an even lamer product fails to produce.  Way to go, America.  I still have faith.

Closing that gap

This year’s recruiting isn’t likely to help the rest of the SEC East gain ground on Georgia.

#ESPN class rankings with just 9 days until signing day:

1 #UGA
2 #OhioState
3 #Texas
4 #Alabama
5 #PennState
6 #Clemson
7 #Canes
8 #Auburn
9 #Sooners
10 #NotreDame
11 #USC
12 #LSU
13 #Michigan
14 #Oregon
15 #Washington
16 #Baylor
17 #SouthCarolina
18 #Gators
19 #TCU
20 #Vols

— Gerry Hamilton (@HamiltonESPN) January 30, 2018

It’s gonna take some super genius Xs and Os to make up for that.

Today, in Sad!

I’m trying to figure which is the more “bless your heart” posture — UCF’s continued insistence that it’s the real national champion, or the ever-vicarious nature of Stingtalk denizens.

“This is the AAU of football.”

If Texas high school 7-on-7 football is a harbinger of the general future of college recruiting, Gawd help us all.

I mean, doesn’t talk like this warm the cockles of your heart?

“It’s bad when it gets to the point of having a street agent,” Joseph said. “It’s not about the kid anymore. It’s about that guy and what they can do for him.”

Said Herman: “There’s good trainers and good 7-on-7 coaches that have provided some of these young men with some really, really good mentorship. And so … to lump them all into shady character category, I think, is unfair to them as well.

“As long as we’re following the rules, unless we’ve been specifically told that a guy has been sanctioned by the NCAA — which we have a list of — as long as we go about our business in compliance, who we’re dealing with is irrelevant. Just follow the rules and you’ll be OK.”

…

“What I learned when I was a GA under coach [Bob] Stoops is you have to find out who helps them with their decision, who is influential in their life and you have to make sure you have a relationship with them,” Texas Tech linebackers coach Zac Spavital said. “Well, when you do that now, there could be 10 people, but it could be somebody other than their parents. I think that’s been the biggest change is you’ve got to build relationships with people that you normally didn’t have to in terms of the impact and trust in the kid’s decision.”

We’re fucking doomed.

What is it about college football…

… that allows so many of you to wave off normal economic concerns?

The majority of responses to last night’s post about the impending increase in Georgia football ticket prices are consistent in chastising me for even mentioning the possibility, on the grounds that it’s an inevitability.  Skipping past the suspicion I have that most of this advice comes from folks with no skin in this particular game, why am I, as a consumer, expected to remain passive in the face of a cost increase?  Is there something about college football that requires me to demand nothing for my hard-earned money?  Do those of you who offer that advice operate that way in every other sphere of your economic lives?  (Yes, that’s a rhetorical question.)

To put it in the vernacular of a comment I received this morning, why is raising ticket prices like the weather?  If we give B-M a pass on that, aren’t we encouraging more of the same down the road?  (Not to mention that nobody ever expects a reduction in ticket prices after a disappointing season.)  Are those of us paying the freight, so to speak, not even entitled to question how the money is being used, or why we can’t have a more fan-friendly game day environment if we have to pay more for the privilege?  What other things do you people buy in such a way?

Speaking of silence and encouragement, does it not occur to some of you that by failing to make demands of Butts-Mehre, we get the sort of mediocrity that’s been a hallmark of much of Georgia athletics for decades?

I suspect that if I drew a Venn diagram of the folks shrugging off the ticket price increase with those who insist that college football players are adequately compensated for their efforts, there would be a large overlap.  Again, with regard to the latter group, why do you have little compunction in urging that student-athletes accept conditions that you would never accept for yourself in your career?

So, what is it about college football?  Is it just that it’s so easy for some of you to dismiss the concerns of others if they don’t personally affect your pocketbook?  Or is it something about the sport in particular that makes you so passive?

I’m not asking these questions out of frustration or anger.  I’ll stroke the check for the new price because I can afford to do so and because I still get enough enjoyment out of my hobby that it’s in my interest to do so.  But I would never be as blithe as many of you are about it, even if I decided to walk away.  I’m simply curious where the source of your apparent indifference comes from.

Gone Gatah

Long way down from this…

… to this.

CONFIRMED: Former Congresswoman #CorrineBrown has turned herself in to federal prison. A bishop who was on this rental limo bus with her tells me her demeanor was #humble." @ActionNewsJax #ANJaxbreaking pic.twitter.com/0c9wIcW1DN

— Jenna Bourne (@jennaANjax) January 29, 2018

I’d like to think it’s a metaphor for our times.