From the Department of Shocking, if True comes this news:
So much for a bowl game at Wrigley Field.
Sources told the Tribune on Thursday that the game is off, at least for now.
The breakdown in negotiations occurred because Cubs officials wanted a premier spot in the Big Ten bowl lineup — the ability to land the league’s No. 3 or No. 4 team. When Big Ten officials queried schools, the response was that they’d prefer a warm-weather destination. [Emphasis added.]
I know, I know. Whodathunkit?
Filed under Big Ten Football
That’s signed, not signed and committed. Jeebus.
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting
Kirby Smart needed outside help.
Alabama’s defense had just been shredded for 42 points and 537 yards in the Sugar Bowl by the eventual national champion Ohio State Buckeyes. A defense that had been top 5 in yards allowed per game six years in a row finished 12th nationally. A unit full of future NFL Draft picks looked a step slow, finishing 59th in pass defense.
So Smart, then Alabama’s defensive coordinator, gave Tom Herman a call.
“You talk about evolution and adjusting to the competition, for us that meant talking to coach Herman,” Smart, now the head coach at Georgia, said during a coaching lecture at the Texas High School Coaches Association Convention. “We said, ‘Give us everything you got. Help us, be honest. Tell us where we stink.’”
They “stunk” where they weren’t supposed to stink.
That meant facing a fact – Alabama was built to stop a thing of the past.
“We’re built for big, physical, eight or nine in the box. How are you going to stop the run?” Smart said. “That’s a dinosaur.”
Smart’s lecture began with a chart of Alabama’s starting lineup during the 2009 national championship game. Featured prominently were nose tackle Terrence Cody (365 pounds) and inside linebacker Dont’a Hightower (260 pounds). Smart flashed to another slide displaying his 2017 equivalents to that All-American pair, John Atkins (305 pounds) and Roquan Smith (225 pounds).
The dinosaur age of Smart’s defense involved stopping 21 personnel and two-back sets. That’s what Hightower and Cody were built for. In the age of three and four-wide sets, Atkins and Smith represented an evolution. The recruiting prototype changed for Smart changed from big run stuffers to more agile prospects capable of running in space.
I would have loved to have seen Kirby’s reaction when he first realized what he had in Roquan Smith.
Anyway, read the whole thing.
Filed under Georgia Football, Strategery And Mechanics
I guess this means the only barrier stopping the genius from kicking ass on the recruiting trail is now relegated to the dust bin of history.
By the time everyone at Georgia Tech figures out the scam, Johnson will be looking to retire, anyway. At least they’ll have those spiffy Adidas uniforms to remember him by.
Filed under Blowing Smoke, Georgia Tech Football
He’s the second-highest rated recruit in the country and he’s already committed to an SEC powerhouse program.
But Nolan Smith II’s first visit to the school he eventually committed to Georgia when he was a high school freshman didn’t leave a good impression on him.
“I didn’t like it,” Smith, now a senior defensive end at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, told the Herald at IMG’s Media Day on Wednesday. “I hated it.”
The reason? Current Miami coach Mark Richt.
Smith said Richt always recruited Florida players instead of Georgia’s own when he was with the Bulldogs.
“Even Deshaun Watson went out of state, and he won a national championship for somebody else,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of Georgia stories about Georgia boys going to Georgia that a lot of people don’t know about. … [Watson] went to Clemson, played quarterback and got drafted.”
We’re still litigating Georgia’s recruitment of Watson in 2018? I guess we are.
Meanwhile, two former beat writers chime in.
Methinks Mr. Hale is on to something here. And, oh, the potential irony of it.
Smith, who is a consensus 5-star recruit according to the 247 Sports composite rankings, said things are changing with Kirby Smart as Georgia’s coach.
Watching the Bulldogs reach the national title game last season brought out the fan in Smith, who is from Savannah, Georgia.
“I was like a groupie,” Smith said. “I was like, ‘Wow … everything is changing.’ We’re building the culture. It’s new, it’s not like ‘Bama but we’re building the culture.”
Can’t you just see Kirby, the master Alabama recruiter, planting the negative recruiting seed, only later to reap in Athens what he sowed in Tuscaloosa? That’s some serious five-dimensional chess, man.
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UPDATE: More beat writer testimony.
It’s amazing how invested a portion of our fan base is in this story. That Chad Morris stole a beat on the entire world, recognized Watson’s talent and sold the kid on Clemson early seems to be completely irrelevant for some.
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting
My first thought on seeing this was how impressed I am with the good work Georgia’s strength and conditioning staff is doing.
My second was “steaks for that bunch?”. Man, it’s a good thing Pittman got that raise.
Filed under Georgia Football, The Body Is A Temple
According to a university police interview with UF tight end C’yontai Lewis, Zachery had a “good relationship” with Lewis “while the football team was winning, but when they began losing, “Tay Bang” would call them “garbage” and would complain about losing money after he bet on football games,” the report states.
Your first mistake, “Tay”, was betting on Gator football.
This led to what sounds like a classic confrontation between a disappointed gambler and Florida football players.
Zachery, 21, and his friends were waiting for the football players near the dorms. The football players began to confront the group, but left in vehicles, the report states. As the group left, they could be heard yelling, “We coming back strapped,” the report states.
The other group returned and a confrontation ensued. One player reported the group had a baseball bat, a red laser being pointed at another player’s chest and another individual threatening “Come any closer, I’ll spray you.”
Zachery told police, he observed one football player holding “some sort of assault rifle and some others were [holding] rocks.”
… The football players initially denied having any involvement with the incident, according to the report. While searching for evidence, police didn’t find any bullets. However they did find a frying pan that, according to the report, was seen on camera being used by one of the athletes during the confrontation.
You know what they always say — never bring a frying pan to a gun fight. I think that’s from Sun Tzu‘s lesser known work, The Art of Bitch Slapping.
Nobody was charged with a crime, which is probably a good thing, because I suspect Huntley Johnson isn’t at his best when he’s doubled over in laughter.
Tailgating in Jacksonville this year ought to be a riot. Some enterprising entrepreneur needs to design a t-shirt displaying the header for the fashionable Dawg fan to wear there.
(Thanks to everyone who thoughtfully provided me with a link to the story last night. As if I could have ever missed this.)
Filed under Gators, Gators...
Tennessee comes in state and snatches a defensive lineman away from the clutches of Georgia Tech.
Get The Picture 