“On the surface, this one might not seem believable.”

Now, why would a Gator fan writing for Saturday Down South say that?

… Georgia has a history of producing NFL running backs, while Florida’s most recent successful pro running back is Mike Gillislee. This isn’t about history, however, it’s about the 2018 roster.

Make no mistake, any SEC team (including UF) would love to have D’Andre Swift, Elijah Holyfield, Brian Herrien and Zamir White. Swift averaged an eye-popping 7.63 yards per carry as a freshman. A 5-star recruit, White was ranked the No. 1 running back in the 2018 recruiting class. But one ball-carrier tips the ground game in Florida’s favor: Jordan Scarlett.

Oh.

It’s all about a combination of cherry-picked stats, ignoring that Chubb and Michel sucked most of the oxygen out of the room for Georgia’s backs last season (understandably) and not mentioning either team’s offensive line.  With a stretch like that, I don’t think it’s just on the surface, brother.

Again, it’s amazing to watch how suddenly Florida folks have had to abandon their traditional air of superiority and grab on to an almost Stingtalk-like approach to assuring themselves.  Is it wrong to be looking forward to this year’s Cocktail Party as much as I am now?

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I don’t often do requests…

… but Uglydawg asked nicely, and it is a slow day, so here goes:

We make fun of GT’s “Two hotdogs and two cokes” (or whatever it was) promotion.

Maybe give your bloggers  an opportunity to assign appropriate ticket “packages” to match other schools (perceived) fan bases.

Someone may respond, for instance, “Kentucky,  two bourbons on the rocks, a box of KFC and basketball schedule”

I recently poked fun at Tennessee with “Four beers, four pickled eggs and a can of Skoal”.

Have at it.  And try to keep it clean, you scamps.

“… and then the stars are plucked from the ranks of losers in the great game of blue blood football.”

I don’t know that I always agree with everything Ian Boyd writes, but he’s good at being thought-provoking.  As an example, here’s a piece on how West Virginia’s reliance on transfers to flesh out its roster with higher-rated talent may soon become a model for much of the Big 12.

The spread offense in college creates a similar effect. If you’re a blue chip wideout in the SEC who’s tired of playing second/third string behind other guys while coach yells at you to block more on run plays in the hopes that as a senior you’ll be the single wideout that actually gets the ball…you should transfer to the Big 12. Your chances of playing shoot up, your role simplifies to running routes all the time on RPOs or deep shots, and the offense is set up to allow you to put up huge numbers running choice routes on isolated DBs or quick hitters on conflicted LBs.

If you’re a QB? The West Virginia Air Raid is installed in three days and then the rest of practice is about repping everything and learning to execute the base offense by muscle memory so that you can advance to learning defenses and calling the plays from the line of scrimmage. That’s arguably a better audition AND a better prep for running an NFL offense than even executing a more pro-style approach in terms of the throws but doing so in a more limited fashion and with less autonomy.

What happens, I wonder, to the transfer debate if an entire P5 conference embraces transfers as a means of roster enhancement?