Scene from a Costco

I got ‘yer metaphor right here.

Supply and demand. pic.twitter.com/P3aXavGtW0

— Senator Blutarsky (@MummePoll) August 25, 2018

Give it two more weeks, and you can probably pick up that Tech chair for under twenty bucks.

On a mission

Or, to put it another way, saying the quiet part out loud.

“Head coaches are the CEOs of their programs. Our business is about players and wins. As much as administrators will say it’s about impacting the lives of student-athletes, they don’t match that message with their actions. Whenever a dad gets hired because of their kid or kids, all of a sudden it seems like ‘morals’ are at the top of our list. That’s a joke.”  [Emphasis added.]

Bet this guy would be fun in an antitrust suit deposition.

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“I find it virtually impossible to believe that Damon Evans was not aware…”

If any of the key figures in Maryland’s sports administration survive the twin debacles of McNair’s death and the hiring of counsel with school funds to defend two players accused of sexual misconduct, even I, as cynical as I am, will be surprised.

Boy, that Urban Meyer coaching tree is really something these days.

Rebuilding, not reloading

Steve Spurrier was famously neglectful on the recruiting front his last couple of years at South Carolina, so this should come as no surprise:

The Gamecocks have played more true freshmen than any team in the country the past two years, and while only one is projected to start this year, there are seven others that are almost certain to play, and four more who could play.

How many is more?  This many.

Thirteen true freshmen played in 2016, seven of them starting. Included were Jake Bentley, Rico Dowdle, Bryan Edwards and Keir Thomas.

Eight true freshmen played in 2017, four starting (Jamyest Williams, Sherrod Greene, OrTre Smith, Shi Smith).

All of which brings me to today’s point, which is why are so many pundits looking at the Georgia-South Carolina meeting in week two and seeing the key issue being the Dawgs getting their collective shit together early on?  That’s not at least as big a deal for the ‘Cocks, given their inexperienced roster?

Not even Carolina’s coaches are going there.

“We’re in a phase of our defense where we got to keep developing guys. We didn’t develop enough that we needed to (last year),” defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson said. “We got a lot of young guys, whether they were mid-years or the guys that came in in June, that we got to get ready to play in Game 1.”

Forget about comparing raw talent levels for a minute.  What remains is the reality that Smart walked into a situation with a more talented roster than did Boom, thus giving his staff a development advantage over SC.  And we’re supposed to believe that won’t matter in the season’s second week?

Fromming at the mouth

Herbie, on Georgia’s quarterback situation:

“… What’s going to happen at Georgia, you’ve got a guy in Jake Fromm who led them to the National Championship. They were inches away from winning it with a true freshman quarterback, and that kid has the it factor. You can maybe find a taller guy or a faster guy or a guy with a stronger arm, but as far as an it factor, Jake Fromm has that. And if you’re going to put in Justin Fields, you’d better be very, very careful with how you put him in and when you put him in because I would not want to mess with Jake Fromm, who was kind of the leader of that team and did great things for them.”

Ben Cleveland:

Fromm impressed Smart and teammates with his poise and leadership in the huddle as a freshman. Left tackle Ben Cleveland says Fromm has even more composure entering his second season.

“He’s got more confidence than anybody I’ve ever seen at the quarterback position,” Cleveland said after Friday’s practice. “He’s very vocal, knows all the checks and he knows what needs to be done. Our whole offensive line has faith in him to make the right calls and get us to where we need to be.”

And my favorite comment:

“You can tell he’s maturing. He came in, he might have had some troubles with the calls and everything but you can tell he’s more comfortable in the backfield,” junior wide receiver Tyler Simmons said of Fromm. “He’s getting everybody else lined up. He’s like the Roquan of the offense, that’s how I think of it.”

Our quarterback of the offense is just like our quarterback of the defense was!  (Then again, at Georgia, that’s a pretty serious compliment.)

Call it the intangibles, if you like, but it’s hard to see how the coaches can ignore the confidence factor in setting the two-deep.  Yeah, Kirby’s started himself some true freshman quarterbacks, but that was more out of necessity than anything else.  It’s a whole ‘nother ball game when you do it out of choice between two great options.