That’s a 38, followed by six zeros… not to coach.
And to think some of you can’t understand why there are those who believe the players deserve more than they’re getting.
Daily Archives: October 16, 2018
“Hi, Mahmoud. First time caller, long time listener….”
I gotta say, it’s not every day you see a tweet like this one.
It’s only a matter of time before Harbaugh schedules a camp in Tehran, right?
When stats confirm what your eyes were seeing
If you thought LSU flummoxed Georgia’s defense with pace, here’s a pretty stark confirmation:
Per this unofficial accounting from Cody Worsham, LSU racked up 207 yards on 20 tempo plays: 11 runs for 119 yards, plus 6-of-9 completions for 88 yards from Burrow.
That’s on the coaches, my friends. They simply weren’t prepared to set the defense in a timely manner when LSU went hurry-up. Maybe some of that was a change in the Tigers’ strategy, but it shouldn’t take Smart and Tucker that much time to adjust. Instead, we saw a confused defense that took us back to the fun times of 2013.
This is something that needs to be addressed in the next two weeks, because I’ve got the feeling Dan Mullen is taking notes.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!, Strategery And Mechanics
“A season’s not built on one game.”
Looks like the 2017 Auburn loss is the new hope.
“Some of us experienced players that were here for that last year can grab some of that stuff from last year,” junior running back Elijah Holyfield said.
Georgia rebounded and reeled off three straight wins to reach the College Football Playoff.
“We’re a new team,” Holyfield said. “We’ll go back to work similar to what we did last year.”
…
“It gives us a platform,” quarterback Jake Fromm said. “Something to kind of work off of. It helped us last year and hopefully it helps us this year.”
Two problems I see here. One, it’s an imperfect analogy, as Smart acknowledges.
“I mean this is very similar to last year, and we probably played better leading up to our loss last year,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said . “I didn’t think we had played as well this year. But we lost to a team (in) the West, on the road, everything’s still in front of us, what are we going to do from here? Because they define you by how you respond, not how you react. We’re going to respond the right way.”
The team played better leading to the Auburn loss than it has this season pre-Baton Rouge, so there was a standard then to bounce back to. That’s not the case in 2018, as the team has yet to turn in the kind of whole-game performance we all believe it’s capable of from a talent standpoint.
The second problem is that there’s a somewhat fine line between using what happened after last year’s regular season blowout loss as a road map to a better place now and simply using that experience as a crutch by assuming the magic will be there because… well, because. And if that sounds like an extension of the mindset that’s marked this Georgia team, so far, it’s only because it is.
The coaches have a couple of weeks to figure out that right response Kirby assures is there. Hope he can find the lever for that, and soon.
Filed under Georgia Football
Hey, it’s a start.
Wichita State’s athletic director is at least willing to have a discussion about player compensation.
On the subject of paying athletes, the Wichita State AD said he believes athletes should be paid.
But it comes down to value, the sport, and how do you pay the players.
“You take a basketball team,” Boatright began. “One or two kids probably are marketable. Landry Shamet last year, he probably could’ve brought a little money. He had value, but you have kids on the end of the bench that don’t bring any value. Do you pay them the same? If so, why?”
All good questions. I suspect that the garbage coming out with the basketball fraud case is making athletic directors, or the realistic ones, anyway, face up to what a black market in high schoolers (and parents) says about the value of some student-athletes. You’d think it would behoove the NCAA and schools to get proactive with this, but who are we kidding here?
Filed under The NCAA
The Gus Bus needs a new road map.
They’ll get right on this, I suspect.
Well, you can if you’ve got a crazy good running quarterback… oh, wait.
“We are not going to be under athletics partly because of NCAA…”
When amateurism is a bug and not a feature, schools are still going to act in their own best interests. Shocker, that.
I await the romantics’ case for distinguishing collegiate esports players from “student-athletes”. Ought to be fascinating.
Filed under It's Just Bidness, The NCAA
“College football coach contracts are often prematurely renegotiated.”
The unique genius of college athletic directors, in two paragraphs:
“If we have a good coach or we think we do, we’re probably better off extending him because if we don’t, we have to let him go for whatever reason because he went to greener pastures, well, then we had the one coach that got away and it’s going to be expensive for us to pay off all the assistants who otherwise didn’t find a job and hire a search firm and hire a new coach and then pay market-grade for that particular coach. I think that that’s mistaken,” said attorney Bob Lattinville, co-chairman of the St. Louis-based Spencer Fane LLP’s collegiate athletics legal team.
I presume Bob gets paid for giving that advice. Nice work, if you can get it. Especially when you know going in that your clients aren’t going to listen to you.
“For some reason, we have some large swings in the marketplace and then it seems like a number of (contracts) start to get adjusted based on a wild swing in the marketplace. Whether or not they might be justified,” Castiglione said. “But there are other forces at work. I don’t mean to sound like I’m commenting against anyone, but agents are crafty. They know how leverage works. They can manipulate the marketplace at times to the advantage of their clients. They’re doing their jobs.”
“For some reason”? You mean, like it’s some sort of mystery why Jimmy Sexton can’t wait to sit down with the next overmatched negotiating partner?
Damned crafty agents. Yeah, that’s the problem.
Filed under It's Just Bidness
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Jeremy.
He’s just heppin’, man. Whether you need it or not.
Get The Picture 