In furtherance of the academic mission

This news has sort of gotten buried under the semi-finals avalanche, but it’s definitely something to marvel over:

Want to own a piece of a major college football conference?

There may be one for sale shortly.

Pac-12 Conference leadership pitched university presidents and chancellors a strategic plan aimed at bailing out the struggling conference and helping it keep pace with its Power Five Conference peers.

The “Pac-12 NewCo” plan was introduced to the conference presidents and chancellors at their mid-November meeting and was subsequently discussed in a conference call in December, per sources. Private investors would own 10 percent equity in the newly formed entity in exchange for a $500 million investment.

A six-page document obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive outlines the plan presented by conference commissioner Larry Scott to his bosses during the November meeting of the “Pac-12 CEO Group.”

The document outlines the conference’s current lagging media rights projections and introduces an ambitious plan that involves taking on a strategic private investor.

Sure, this is schools weighing a proposal to sell a piece of a collegiate athletic conference to an outside investor, but it hardly poses an existential threat to the nature of college sports the way a kid sitting out a bowl game to prep for the NFL draft does, amirite?

Larry Scott, genius.

Randy Shannon’s knickers are in a wad.

There is something highly amusing about UCF defensive coordinator Randy Shannon’s argument that college players who are deciding to skip bowl games to prepare for the NFL draft will one day decide to not suit up for certain games in the professional ranks.

“If a team is 6-9, no chance of them making the playoffs, are they going to play or are they going to tank it?” Shannon said. “Especially if you’re on the last year of your contract, option year.”

Tanking?  Seriously?  Has this guy not paid attention to the number of pro franchises that use tanking as a deliberate strategy to improve their drafting positions?  Has he missed the NFL teams that, having clinched a playoff spot with nothing more to play for in the regular season, sit their starters?

Evidently.

“The fact that [Shannon] thinks that [spit] matters to people at this level shows just how out of touch he really is,” a longtime NFL scout told CFT in an email that alerted us to the coordinator’s quotes, adding, “It’s embarrassing.”

This is a league that hired Bobby Petrino, after all.  Skipping out isn’t considered a character flaw.  Making an irrelevantly big deal about it, though…

By making his private thoughts public, about the only thing that the old-school Shannon has accomplished is to make his — and his football program’s — job on the recruiting trail that much harder. There’s little doubt his words will be used against him by those competing for the very same recruits who could be in a position to make that very same business decision X number of years from now — and know they won’t have Shannon’s support if he maintains his archaic stance.

Welcome back to the real world

This Twitter thread from former Georgia players, started by JJ Green who transferred to play for Paul Johnson makes for some great inside baseball commentary.

GT offense when they have to learn an actual playbook and the first pass play is Lou Gun Trips 364 Y shallow X Dig 😂😂😂Good luck yall boys pic.twitter.com/ts7nrE22Mh

— GEO JIGGA (@Jay__Green) December 28, 2018

https://twitter.com/Real_JSW/status/1078732587756081158

https://twitter.com/RamseyQB12/status/1078733319188164609

https://twitter.com/Real_JSW/status/1078733431813668867

Makes you wonder what kind of Twitter thread Reggie Ball could inspire on the subject.

Today, in you’ve got questions?

Do you think Alabama’s offensive line gets a special pass from SEC refs when it comes to holding?

Well, let’s go to the source.  No, not Steve Shaw.  Alabama.

Jonah Williams tends to stay away from social media, but Alabama’s star left tackle knows the kind of stuff that circulates online among opposing fans every time their favorite team gets beat by the Crimson Tide.

“People who don’t know O-line play love to watch it and take a freeze frame and say ‘they’re holding’ because they want excuses for why we beat them,” Williams said. “It always starts with attacks at play, attacks at players, then attacks at institutions, and people won’t just accept teams might be good at football.”

The phenomenon Williams is referencing exists largely on Twitter and popular message boards like the SEC Rant, where fans have done deep dives on statistics and compiled screenshots that supposedly provide proof of how Alabama’s misdeeds get systematically overlooked by SEC officials.

Fair or not, the notion that Alabama’s offensive line gets away with holding has become by far the biggest piece of folklore among SEC fans related to the Crimson Tide’s dominance under Nick Saban.

“Does anybody not get away with it?” Alabama offensive line coach Brent Key said with a slight laugh. “We watch a lot of tape and we see a lot of it. It happens.”

And they say hard hitting journalism is dead.

Your morning Sugar Bowl mystery

Up until ten minutes ago, anyway.

13 minutes before Georgia takes the stage for today’s defensive interviews and even Sugar Bowl officials have no idea what Georgia coach is coming. #topsecret pic.twitter.com/BW15fnzZZl

— Anthony Dasher (@AnthonyDasher1) December 29, 2018

Well, we knew it wouldn’t be Mel Tucker.

Now, the mystery is solved.

Here’s the answer: pic.twitter.com/qWMjqFwnDJ

— Seth Emerson (@SethWEmerson) December 29, 2018

At least we know Lanning isn’t sitting out the game getting ready to go to the NFL.

Name that caption, cruel and unusual edition

Tiger Jake ready for gameday! pic.twitter.com/iha4SuGACQ

— TransPerfect Music City Bowl (@MusicCityBowl) December 28, 2018

“Marge, where’s the number for the ASPCA?”

“… it’s a Mickey Mouse move by Disney.”

One thing about molding college football into a national product is that it makes ESPN’s job of squeezing the market easier.

Can’t wait to watch my Notre Dame squad take on Clemson in the College Football Playoff semifinals this Saturday. Or not.

Tuned in to ESPN this morning and on the bottom of the screen appeared a warning that I (as a Verizon Fios customer) may soon not be able to watch the CFB playoffs and other programming, and I should call Verizon. A few minutes later ESPN ran a commercial saying I might not be able to watch the Rose Bowl and Fiesta Bowl and provided a Verizon number for me to call.

I called Verizon. A recorded message essentially tells me that ESPN is spreading misinformation about Verizon customers losing ESPN when the network’s contract with Verizon expires later this month. The recording says Walt Disney-owned ESPN wants to charge Verizon hundreds of millions of dollars more for ESPN. The recording also says Verizon has been negotiating in good faith with Disney.

My take is Disney, which already charges by far the highest affiliate fee of any sports channel—around $8 per month per subscriber—is using the CFB playoffs and bowl games to play hardball.

Hoisted on our own petards.

“The LSU defense is going to be at half strength against UCF.”

Sigh.

A unit that is already missing its two starting corners, Greedy Williams and Kristian Fulton, just found out it will be without Kelvin Joseph as well. That’s the team’s top three corners. This is on top of losing the top two nose tackles, Breiden Fehoko and Ed Alexander, forcing Aranda to start a freshman (Tyler Shelvin) backed up by another freshman (Dominic Livingston).

Oh, and the linebackers will be without K’Lavon Chiasson, as they have all year. Additionally, Jacob Phillips will serve his suspension for an illegal hit in the Texas A&M game in the first half. We also don’t know what sort of punishment John Battle will face for his role in the postgame shenanigans.

Oh, but don’t worry.

While I won’t sit here and tell you it’s a good thing LSU will be scraping the bottom of the bowl to find anyone who can play cornerback, what is exciting is that this is essentially the first game of 2019. LSU’s defense is going to be playing on one leg (but come on, we’ll still have Devin White and Grant Delpit, so let’s not pretend we won’t have our two best defensive players), but the offense will finally be ready to go.

Ensminger has had the excuse all year that this was a complete rebuild of the offense. LSU had to replace its starting quarterback, its top two runners, its top two receivers, and four offensive linemen. All while installing a new offense. Some growing pains were bound to happen, and that’s before the line showed about as much stability as a plutonium isotope.

However, the line is now healthy and Ensminger has had a full year to install his offense. Joe Burrow is no longer the outsider, a transfer from out of conference, he is now the undisputed team leader. The receiving corps is no longer going to be judged on its potential, but its actual production.

The offense is out of excuses. It’s time to take down those “pardon our progress” signs and debut the finished product. It’s a new year, and the year of construction is over. Now, part of this timetable is due to the defense needing the support. There’s nowhere for the offense to hide in this game. It has to produce.

Those assholes are gonna beat another SEC West team, aren’t they…

A little Sugar Bowl talk

Eh, why not?

I’ll use Pete Fiutak’s preview as a jumping off point.  First, he’s got a few neat factoids worth sharing:

• “(Jake Fromm) has thrown just one pick since the loss to LSU in mid-October.”
• “The Texas defense can be hammered really, really hard by good, efficient passers, giving up 240 yards or more eight times. In the last nine games, Texas has allowed 19 touchdown passes with just five picks.”
• “Georgia should dominate on third downs. Again, Fromm is terrifically effective, helping the offense finish second in the SEC and 11th in the nation converting 48% of its chances. Texas? It gives away third down conversion like M&M’s, allowing teams to convert over 44% of the time. Over the last six games, offenses are connecting on 50% or more their chances.”

If Fromm is his usual efficient, effective self — and, on paper at least, it appears the Texas defense may be willing to accommodate him — it’s hard to see how the Dawgs don’t approach their seasonal scoring average against D-1 teams of 38.7 ppg.

Also worth noting is that Georgia has beaten eleven of its thirteen opponents this season by double-digit margins, while nine of Texas’ regular season games were decided by seven points or fewer.

Fiutak thinks the bowl game will boil down to Georgia’s attitude and that while the team will start out sluggishly, it will eventually grind its way to covering the spread.  Considering that’s how a number of Georgia’s regular season games played out, that’s not a bad assumption.

Watch a football player swallow his tongue in real time.

This is pretty funny.  Quinnen Williams is on the verge of talking a little shit about Kyler Murray and then it’s like you can see the thought balloon pop up over his head with Nick Saban looking at him disapprovingly over creating bulletin board material.

Alabama DL Quinnen Williams looked like he was going to say something about Kyler Murray … and then he thought better 🤐 pic.twitter.com/ZXwn0CT5wl

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) December 28, 2018

“Nah, I’m good.”