Corch takes the wheel.

Here we go.

pic.twitter.com/wrlRi9jtZz

— Urban Meyer (@OSUCoachMeyer) August 3, 2018

Well, I was wrong.

No, not about him lying at Big Ten media days that he didn’t know anything about what happened with the Smiths in 2015.  Or about being a sanctimonious bullshitter.  Or about not going without a fight.

Not even about having to throw somebody under the bus to save his ass.

But I got the somebody wrong.  I figured he would talk his loyal wife into taking one for the team in the name of plausible deniability.  Instead, his story now is that he followed the usual protocols when he learned of it and reported it “to the proper channels”, i.e. his boss at Ohio State.  So it’s Gene Smith, instead, who’s smelling the diesel exhaust fumes up close and personal.

Now there’s a lot there that doesn’t pass the smell test, particularly the fiction he invents about why he wasn’t honest at Big Ten media days.  Regardless, Corch wants his job or in the alternative every penny he’s got coming under his contract and he just served notice he won’t go quietly.

The big issue now is whether there’s a paper trail with the higher ups at Ohio State.  If there really is, Urban ain’t the only one who’ll be shown the door.  You get the feeling this won’t end pretty for somebody.

*************************************************************************

UPDATE:  Zach Smith is backing Urban’s play.

Zach Smith says he got a call from Gene Smith in October 2015 about ex-wife's allegations. "They (OSU) handled it exactly how they should have handled it. The police alerted them. They investigated it, and there were no criminal charges."

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) August 3, 2018

The inevitable official statement coming from Ohio State is going to make for an interesting read.

Advertisement

A sign it’s time for the opening of August camp

C’mon, Kirby.

Coach Smart: “Can Tyson Campbell beat out DeAndre Baker? Yeah, certainly.” #UGA

— 960 The Ref (@960theref) August 3, 2018

I love Campbell as much as anyone, but that ain’t happening unless Baker has an unfortunate run in with Mudcat’s car.

Righteous indignation can be tiring.

So now we’re going to hammer Drew Lock for stupid stuff he tweeted in his eighth grade year in middle school? (h/t)

Jeez, if that’s now the going standard for living the righteous life, there aren’t going to be enough hours in the day to rake every guilty soul over the coals.  People do change from being idiotic fourteen-year olds, I’ve noticed.  Maybe cutting some folks a little slack might be in order.  Just sayin’.

That being said, kids, the next time an adult tells you to be careful what you post on social media, maybe you should think about paying attention.

“I would’ve picked a better place to put it, let’s put it that way.”

Nothing like a “he said, he said” story, when one of the “he”s is Greg McGarity.

A lot of folks in Elberton are hopping mad at Georgia. A lot of folks.

No doubt, everybody here has seen or knows about the big granite statue of the bulldog that has sat in place of prominence behind the east end zone at Sanford Stadium. Well, it’s not in a place of prominence anymore.

In fact, sitting in your seats inside Sanford Stadium this football season you won’t be able to see it at all. And that doesn’t sit well with the good folks of Elberton, and a subset of them who happen to be very passionate about the Bulldogs and that statue in particular.

Chief among them would be Tom Oglesby and other longtime members of the Elbert County Bulldog Club. Oglesby donated the 4,820-pound statue to UGA and Athletic Director Vince Dooley in 1992 on the occasion of the 100-year celebration of Georgia football. Created by master sculptor Steve Mooney, the statue has overlooked the East End Zone ever since then.

But UGA says it had to move it in order to install new premium, field-level suites between the hedges and the east grandstand. It was part of a $63 million renovation that included moving the team’s locker room from underneath the east stands into the new building on the west end.

The statue moved with the team, but it ended up out of view underneath the bridge in the northwest corner of the stadium and no longer a part of pregame proceedings.

… Here’s where the story gets a little cloudy. Georgia officials said Oglesby was informed of exactly where the statue would be relocated in a meeting back in February and that it had been designated for that spot since construction plans were finalized last December.

“The location has never changed from where it was on the original drawings and Tom knows that,” Georgia Athletic Director Greg McGarity said Thursday. “I’m not sure where there was confusion about that, but I’ve talked to Tom about it and he understands why we did what we did.”

Oglesby said he didn’t realize where the statue was going to end up until he came to Sanford Stadium this past Friday to oversee the crews charged with resetting the massive work of art. He said it was only then that he realized the statue would be out of view during the Bulldogs’ games.

“They showed me another place, which they deny now,” Oglesby said. “But it’s not where I thought it’d be. We just set it where they said to set it, but I wasn’t happy about it. I’m concerned it’s not going to be on TV. I’m worried it’s going to get vandalized. Where it is now, there’s nothing stopping a Tech fan from dropping a bottle of paint on it from the bridge and just keep walking.”

Sure, Greg, Tom sounds real understanding about it.  Makes you wonder why he’s complaining about it publicly now and not when you showed it to him in the original drawings.

At least you didn’t blow him off with a “it’s only a statue, dude” defense.  I guess that counts as improved PR.

Tom, if you’re looking for real sympathy, next time, write a bigger check.  That’s the only language that resonates at Butts-Mehre these days.

Today, in Gawd’s way of saying you have too much money

Rutgers fires an inept athletic director and pays her approximately $500,000 more than she was reportedly owed in exchange for agreeing not to sue the university for wrongful termination.

This is what comes of getting to suck at the Big Ten Network’s teat.

In my next life, I want to come back as a P5 AD.  Life is good.

“… necessity is the mother of invention. And, apparently, the grandmother of the transfer rule.”

Something we tend to take as a given is, based on recruiting prowess year after year, the talent level at LSU.  If there’s a slide in Baton Rouge, that means we point fingers at the coaches for not getting the best out of their rosters.

Maybe that’s not as much of a given as we think.

Friday, when LSU players report to campus for the start of preseason camp, 14 of them will be transfers. That’s the most for an LSU team since 2013 and fifth-most in the SEC.

Of those, 11 will be newcomers or players who were on the roster but did not play in 2017. Only Mississippi State, with 15 such players, and Tennessee, with 12, have more among SEC schools.

Several of those LSU transfers are walk-ons who will likely never play a meaningful snap in a game. But a large number of them are poised to fill major roles for the Tigers’ hopes in what bodes to be a challenging and critical season as LSU tries to reassert itself as a championship player.

As a rule, the best SEC teams have the fewest transfers. Defending national champion Alabama has just six, four who didn’t participate in 2017. Reigning SEC champion Georgia has just seven transfers, including three new faces for 2018. Auburn, which won the SEC West, has eight and four.

That’s certainly not a definitive data point, but it’s not nothing, either.  And depending on what happens with Demetris Robertson, Georgia’s numbers may change.

The thing is, what separates Alabama and Georgia on transfers is as much how good both programs have been integrating transfers into successful roles on the field as it is on the overall comparative numbers.  That’ll be the real test for Orgeron and his staff, especially when you consider that one of the key players is Burrow, who they’re largely pinning their hopes on to succeed as the starter at quarterback.

Today, in rather being lucky than good

BTW, one useful thing about that Connelly preview of Florida is that he linked to an old Football Outsiders post of his about new coaching hires that I searched like mad for when Georgia hired Kirby Smart and couldn’t find.

Here’s the link.  Read it and maybe you’ll understand a little better about my frustration with the hiring process (using the term loosely, ya’ know) that led to Smart’s hire.

Two-year change at BCS Conferences Based on Coaching Type
Coaching Type	N	1st Yr Chg.	Avg. Two-Yr Chg.	Applicable 2010 Teams
College Assistant	30	-0.8%	+1.4%	Florida State, Kentucky, Louisville, Vanderbilt
BCS Conf. Coach	18	+0.5%	+5.4%	Notre Dame, Texas Tech, USC
Non-BCS Conf. Coach	12	-0.8%	+2.3%	Cincinnati, Kansas, South Florida, Tennessee
Fired BCS Conf. Coach	5	+2.0%	-1.1%
NFL	7	-7.6%	-4.8%
FCS Coach	4	-5.0%	-16.0%	Virginia
Grand Total	76	-1.2%	+0.8%

The odds favor bringing on another BCS head coach.  That — obviously — doesn’t mean Smart wouldn’t click, but it also strongly suggests that McGarity, who had the premier opening in college football to fill, just as obviously didn’t make much of an effort at performing his due diligence.  Sometimes things just work out.

“But Florida is a total mystery this year.”

I think Bill Connelly’s preseason preview of the Gators is spot on, but that’s probably because it neatly fits in with my preseason expectations (duh).

First, from a historical preference, Mullen is a step up from Jeremy Foley’s last two choices.

Muschamp and McElwain had solid résumés. But neither had been a P5 head coach before.

Mullen has nine years of not only P5 head coaching experience, but SEC head coaching experience.

And he led historical overachievement at Mississippi State. In the 50 years before his arrival, MSU’s average percentile rating was 57 percent. In his nine seasons, it was 75.4 percent. His Bulldogs finished ranked in the AP top 20 three times and won six bowls. He raised the bar significantly in Starkville.

Any further context you want to add is even friendlier. You know, like how how Florida’s offense had an average Off. S&P+ ranking of fifth during his last three years as OC in Gainesville (2006-08) and has had an average ranking of 65.4 since.

On paper, this is very likely to be at least a good hire for Florida. I would be floored if the Gators weren’t at least top-15 good soon. (They’ve only hit that mark twice in the last seven years.) On the field, this was a nearly risk-free hire.

That has to be tempered by the program’s less than auspicious start under Mullen’s watch.

So why isn’t there more energy emanating from Gainesville? This hire got a good grade from everyone who grades such things, but “Florida’s going to be back soon!” buzz — like what we saw from Scott Frost’s Nebraska hire — has been minimal.

Recent headlines haven’t helped. Something in the neighborhood of seven Gators were allegedly involved in a confrontation involving gamblers and BB guns (and a frying pan). This came after a few key players were suspended or booted for “misusing school-issued funds” last fall. It’s a lot harder to get your program to achieve when your two-deep is randomly Thanos-ing itself.

Meanwhile, though July recruiting rankings are as conversational as they are consequential, Mullen hasn’t done himself any favors there either.

Then there’s the product on the field. Florida didn’t bottom out in exactly the same way that Tennessee did last season — while UT’s Butch Jones was very much fired for on-field performance, McElwain’s dismissal was blurrier, and the Gators were decent for half the season. Still, as with Jeremy Pruitt at UT, Mullen is facing a Year Zero season while figuring out what kind of building job he’s got.

Florida’s got plenty of individual talent, even if this latest stupid scandal continues. It’s hard to set 2018 expectations until we know the timeline for the rebuild…

There’s always one team every year in the SEC that I have a hard time getting a handle on before the season’s start and I’m starting to think this year that team is Florida.  Read Bill’s complete post and you’ll get where I’m coming from on that.

He’s projecting the Gators to go 8-4, with three tight games (LSU, Missouri and South Carolina).  That looks about right to me, but I’m not sure how meaningful a range of 6-6 to 9-3 really is, other than any of it is better than 4-7.

Circling the wagons

Ohio State hunkers down.

Ohio State closed ranks around the rollout of its football season as the university investigates whether coach Urban Meyer failed to report domestic abuse allegations, a scandal hitting a school already accused of not facing up to sexual misconduct allegations against a sports doctor.

The Buckeyes plan to open their first football practice Friday without Meyer, who was put on administrative leave during the probe and also suspended from an endorsement deal by restaurant chain Bob Evans. It’s not clear how restrictive the paid leave will be for the coach who is expected to earn $7.6 million for the 2018 season after getting a raise earlier this year.

Ohio State officials declined comment Thursday beyond barring reporters from practices and saying they would decide by Monday when to allow coaches and players to speak to media. Co-offensive coordinator Ryan Day was named acting head coach while Meyer is out.

“Due to the ongoing investigation, football coaches and student-athletes will not be available for interviews until further notice and all practices will be closed,” Ohio State spokesman Jerry Emig said in an email.

Hey, that seems totally normal.

They’re probably the only folks on the planet currently not speaking about Urban Meyer’s problems.

***************************************************************************

UPDATE:  Spurrier on Meyer is… ugh.

Am I being overly sensitive or was this kind of a crappy response by Steve Spurrier on the Urban Meyer situation?

He's hoping Shelley didn't tell him so he can keep coaching, the ones he's had to dismiss before "fortunately" weren't starters, etc. Just all football 1st mentality pic.twitter.com/ZhwAKdBvJh

— SingleShot ⚾ 🏈 (@Singleshot25) August 2, 2018

Embracing Dragon*Con

Honestly, there isn’t enough mockery in my brain to do this justice.

Georgia Tech’s seniors wanted to create a different level of energy to start their final preseason camp. The solution: Report to the team hotel Thursday dressed as superheroes.

Among others, quarterback TaQuon Marshall was Spiderman. wide receiver Brad Stewart assumed the identity of Captain America, linebacker/safety Jalen Johnson was Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and A-back Qua Searcy walked through the hotel lobby dressed as Superman.

My Gawd, it’s like someone said it’s not possible for them to be bigger dweebs and their collective response was “hold our beers”.