… but Lamont Gaillard is still here.
Daily Archives: July 13, 2018
Good Hands Godwin
I said, watching Terry Godwin’s play his first season, that he had the best hands on the team.
That doesn’t appear to have changed.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
“You want to keep local kids home when you can.”
One of the start-up professional football leagues, the Alliance of American Football, has announced that signing kids who aren’t yet eligible for the NFL is off the table.
One thing the AAF will not do is bring in college freshmen or sophomores who are not yet eligible for the NFL draft. McKay said he doesn’t think players are ready for pro football until they’re three years out of high school.
“From a health and safety standpoint, we’re concerned about the idea of having a kid come sooner than that,” McKay said.
Eh, maybe. Although I think we can all point to examples of exceptions.
I suspect this is more about not pissing schools off. After all, read what the AAF’s marketing strategy is all about:
J.K. McKay, head of football operations for the AAF, told PFT that the AAF’s top priority in stocking the rosters for its teams will be to keep players who played their college football near the AAF’s eight cities close to home.
“You want to keep local kids home when you can,” McKay said. “It creates fan interest. Our Birmingham team will have Alabama and Auburn, and that will draw some fan interest.”
The AAF will have teams in Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, Orlando, Tempe, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and San Diego. For players who didn’t go to college near any of those cities, they’ll be allocated to AAF teams based on the last NFL roster they were on. Previous rival leagues, including the USFL and XFL, have taken a similar approach.
“It just makes sense,” McKay said. “You’re bringing in guys people know. From a marketing standpoint it’s good, it allows players to stay home. Other leagues have done it and we’re absolutely committed to it and excited about it.”
Creating a hostile relationship with the source of your product isn’t a smart way to go. Of course, that assumes schools won’t take kindly to having their talent raided on a steady basis. Maybe some of you in the “kids have options” camp disagree about that, but, then again, you’re not a coach paid to win football games.
Filed under It's Just Bidness
SEC hype, and the lack thereof
With SEC Media Days kicking off next week, Barrett Sallee takes a look at how the media’s done with its team predictions over the past six seasons.
We looked back at the past six preseason predictions (since expansion in 2012) and compared them to how division races actually turned out. Teams are ranked based on their final standing within the division relative to where they were picked in the preseason media poll. Head-to-head results and standard SEC tiebreaker procedures were used to prevent ties being factored into the final standings.
Team Performance vs. hype (wins) Average (wins) Mississippi State +10 +1.67 Missouri +6 +1.0 Kentucky +4 +0.67 Vanderbilt +3 +0.5 Florida +1 +0.17 Ole Miss +1 +0.17 Texas A&M +1 +0.17 Alabama -1 -0.17 Auburn -1 -0.17 Georgia -4 -0.67 South Carolina -4 -0.67 LSU -5 -0.83 Arkansas -5 -0.83 Tennessee -6 -1.0
It’s natural to see the top and bottom of the list as the big stories, but for me the amazing number there belongs to Alabama. To live up to sky high expectations every year except 2017 (and even there, it was nothing worse than a second-place finish — and they still won the natty!) is a testament to Saban’s coaching.
As far as Georgia goes, here’s what Sallee writes:
(-4) The Bulldogs used to be known as the king (or, at least co-king) of preseason hype. However, in four of the six years since expansion, the media has been spot-on. The only two swings and misses were 2013 and 2015, when they were the preseason favorite in the division and finished third.
Hopefully, those days are gone for a while.
Filed under Media Punditry/Foibles, SEC Football
“… a person doesn’t check their constitutional rights at the field house…”
Remember Donald De La Haye, the backup kicker who was kicked off the Central Florida team last year because he wouldn’t deactivate his YouTube channel?
Well, he sued the school, claiming his First Amendment rights were violated and is seeking to have his scholarship reinstated. UCF filed a motion to dismiss his claims. Yesterday, that motion was denied.
Senior district judge Anne Conway denied UCF’s request to dismiss De La Haye’s lawsuit almost a month after attorneys for both sides appeared in court. The court found that De La Haye has a plausible first amendment violation claim allowing the case to continue. The court agreed with UCF in that De La Haye’s fourteenth amendment right pertaining to due process was not violated and dismissed the claim.
“Donald was a model athlete who, like nearly all college students, uses social media to connect with friends and followers and offer glimpses into his life. But rather than reward a student for using his talents, passion, and creativity to create content that tens of thousands of people enjoyed—just as Donald was doing as a UCF student—UCF chose to punish him,” said Goldwater Institute Director of National Litigation Jon Riches. “We hope that today’s decision denying UCF’s attempt to dismiss this case will be a step toward protecting Donald’s rights and ensuring all college student-athletes’ free speech rights are protected.”
Don’t know where this one’s going yet, but seeing as we’re entering an era where 1A rights are being asserted to overcome all sorts of governmental actions, I wouldn’t be so quick to presume UCF prevails here. How that would impact enforcement of NCAA bylaw 12.4.4 remains to be seen.
Filed under See You In Court, The NCAA
At least he didn’t predict Jake Bentley would win the Heisman.
Now that Finebaum’s got a new deal with ESPN (sigh), it looks like we get the old PAWWWLLL!!! back.
Yeah, I know, on one level, who really gives a shit what a former Gamecock thinks about his team’s chances against the Dawgs, but I do think a steady drumbeat of this kind of stuff makes Kirby’s job keeping his team on its toes going into its first conference game on the road easier. Thanks, PAWWWLLL!
Filed under 'Cock Envy, Georgia Football, PAWWWLLL!!!
Get The Picture 