Thanks for the memories.

Welp, Scott Frost is dead to Central Florida now.

“… But at the end of the day, the playoff system is that the national champion is the team that wins the playoff.”

If that sounds like Frost isn’t completely aboard the national title train, it’s because he’s not.

“All I’ll say is if we had stayed there, I would have had a hard time getting behind it,” he says. “I think it was smart by them, because it has kept UCF in the media and in the conversation. But you know, like our rings, I kind of wish my ring just said ‘Undefeated Season’ and ‘Peach Bowl Champion.’ ”

If the football gods have a sense of humor, they’ll match Nebraska and UCF in a bowl game this season.

“… it’s great to have a guy like Coach Fulmer who has actually done it before…”

“It’s definitely an edge for me being a first-time head coach to have somebody to lean on and bounce things off of, [and]  I’d say a lot of folks are jealous from that standpoint,” thought no one other than Jeremy Pruitt.

Draft value as food for thought

One thing Phil Steele tracks in his annual college football preview magazine is the amount of talent every program loses to the NFL draft.

… Basically I assign a point total for players selected in the different rounds of the draft and here is what the numbers have totaled.

Over the last 12 years teams that earned more points than the previous year and accumulated….
12 or more points – Weaker or same record 164 of 216 (75.9%)
24 or more points – Weaker or same record 47 of 55 (85.4%)
35 or more points – Weaker record 13 of 15 (86.7%)

We’ll have to wait another month or so for his 2018 assessment, but in the meantime, here’s Chase Stuart’s compilation of 2018 NFL Draft value by program.

You will not be surprised to learn that Alabama, Ohio State, and Georgia were the three schools that dominated the 2018 NFL Draft. Players from the Crimson Tide were taken using draft slots worth 83.9 points of value, the most of any school; second was Ohio State with 70.4 points of value, followed by Georgia (68.7)…

So, top three, with a bullet.  Not sure how many of Steele’s draft points that translates into, but I’ll just point out that Georgia ranked second on Steele’s 2009 list and I think we all recall how that year went.  The good thing is that the 2018 roster is far deeper than that 2009 team’s was.  We’re about to find out if Smart’s got things to the reloading, not rebuilding stage in Athens.

The greatest second-half performance by any quarterback in college football history

Tua Tagovailoa is Sporting News’ pick as the second-best quarterback in all of college football.  Even better, “We thought about putting Tagovailoa No. 1, and there’s no hesitation in that thought process.”

I had to check.  Tagovailoa’s passer rating in the championship game was a respectable 149.35.  Not exactly the stuff legends are made from, but, then again, I’m not a national CFB pundit needing to push a narrative in May.

College football’s most pointless “tradition” returns.

ESPN is thrilled.

#GoldRush time! Save the dates ✏️
The first weekly @CFBPlayoff selection committee ranking will be released October 30 on @ESPN 🏈 #CFBPlayoff || #BayArea2019 pic.twitter.com/rUNILfeUqt

— College Football Playoff (@CFBPlayoff) May 3, 2018

Tuesday nights in November have meaning again.

“If you’re going to write these policies, you have to be ready to honor them.”

Hey, here’s a story for all you guys who argue that kids who sit out bowl games to protect their professional futures should buy an insurance policy, suck it up and play.

Attorneys representing former University of Arkansas, Fayetteville football standout Rawleigh Williams have filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit alleging breach of contract and other complaints against insurance giant Lloyd’s of London.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in Washington County Circuit Court, naming underwriters at Lloyd’s, International Specialty Insurance and agent Justin B. Boeving of Prairie Grove as defendants.

Williams, 21, is suing the parties for breach of contract, claiming they have not paid on a $1 million disability insurance policy taken out in March 2017. The lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, also claims bad faith, deceit and civil conspiracy on the defendants’ part.

An insurance company avoiding payment?  Mah stahs, Miz Scarlett!

“The reason you file these lawsuits is, for one, you paid for a product that was not given to you, which is simply unfair,” Horton said.

The lawsuit claims Williams entered into the policy on March 10, 2017, and that Lloyd’s amended the policy last May — after Williams suffered the injury that led to his retirement — to include an endorsement that would exclude coverage of any injury that arose out of Williams’ “spinal column and adjacent and related structures.”

The lawsuit alleges Williams was made aware of this “endorsement 3” for the first time on May 9, 2017, by Boeving and was told he could decline the policy within 10 days and have his premiums returned.

Yeah, that seems entirely fair.

I guess it’s time for some folks to regroup behind some sort of love of the game argument.  That works for coaches, right?

Envy and jealousy, make amateurism great again edition

Man, I wish I had the balls to come up with an analogy like this one:

“One-and-done” is college basketball’s version of the wall.

It’s good because it rings true.

Today, in the check’s in the mail

Kirby’s getting a big, well-deserved raise of about $3.5 million a year, which puts me in mind of one of Greg McGarity’s greatest hits.

With the success we have experienced, we will incur increases in 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.

As I recall, the increase in the average season ticket price from $50 to $66+ is expected to generate more than $6 million a year in new revenues.  Even with staff pay bumps included, the final hit will fall considerably short of the new collections.  I guess necessitate doesn’t mean what I think it means.

I’m not stupid enough — or sarcastic enough, maybe — to suggest a refund here, but would it be too much to expect some of that newfound jack to find its way into making the game day experience more fan friendly?  A blogger can dream, can’t he?