“Why would I leave for somebody that hasn’t put a single second into this program yet?”

I dunno… because you can see the writing on the wall?

Fields couldn’t beat out Jake Fromm, but it looks like he’s running off guys at Ohio State before he’s even eligible to play this season.

Good times in Gainesville

You may remember Saturday Down South for hosting this hilarious hot take about Georgia football last season.

Welp, the calendar page has turned to a new year and SDS has gone back to the well with a new school as the next challenge.

Maybe, just maybe, Florida’s “lost decade” is over.

If it isn’t, this is the greatest false alarm yet.

The past two weeks have been the best two weeks for Florida football this decade.

First, Florida clobbered Jim Harbaugh and Michigan in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl, vanquishing all manner of 2010s demons in the process…

Later that week, rival Georgia lost the Sugar Bowl decisively to resurgent Texas, a sign Kirby Smart’s program might have been too impressed with themselves and what game they felt they should have been playing instead of interested in making a statement in the one they were playing.

The Bulldogs are the one program in the SEC East Mullen and Florida are definitively chasing, but that chase became a little easier over the last month of the season, at least from a momentum standpoint.

Georgia didn’t just lose the SEC Championship Game in heartbreaking fashion or stumble in the Sugar Bowl after claiming the Twitter trash talk national championship.

They lost a massive amount of production and potential production for 2019.

Justin Fields, the jewel of Kirby Smart’s best recruiting class to date, transferred to Ohio State. Days after the Sugar Bowl defeat, junior playmakers Riley Ridley and Mecole Hardmon declared for the NFL Draft. Tight end Isaac Nauta, who terrorized Florida, also declared, as did All-SEC running back Elijah Holyfield.

Then Tuesday night, in a shocking development, Georgia also lost its offensive coordinator, Jim Chaney, the quarterback-whisperer who so often seemed to have Todd Grantham’s number over the past two years, to SEC East rival Tennessee.

If you had “Chaney’s departure as the beginning of the end of Georgia’s run in the SEC East” in the office pool, go collect your winnings.  If you’re not too shocked, that is.

Look, I’m not mocking the idea that a resurgent Florida is a legitimate possibility.  Certainly if the Gators are back, they’re a credible threat — likely the most credible threat over the long haul — to any sort of dominant run by the Dawgs.  But the idea that a disappointing bowl loss, players leaving early for other opportunities (something the Gators aren’t immune to, by the way) and some coordinator turnover all add up to a return to the glory days in Gainesville does seem like something of a stretch, at least until Mullen shows he’s recruiting at the same level as Smart.

Hey, I’ll give the author some credit.  At least he didn’t resort to a cannon shot metaphor.

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Is amateurism about to get a real market-based threat?

Oliver Luck, who once was one of the higher-ups in the NCAA’s chain of command and is now the commissioner of the reconstituted XFL, isn’t exactly saying his league is ready to sign kids who don’t want to stay in college for three years, but he’s not kicking the possibility out of bed either.

… Players have to be three years out of high school to be eligible for the NFL Draft.

During a December podcast interview with with Brian Berger of the Sports Business Radio Road Show, Luck said flatly: “We’re not subject to that.”

“Theoretically we could take a player right out of high school. I doubt we’ll do that,” Luck said, noting the difference in physical development between an 18-year-old and the 24-to-25-year-old fringe NFLers they plan to build their base from.

“But I wouldn’t rule it out,” Luck said. “Nor would I rule out taking a player who played a year of college football and let’s say isn’t eligible academically, which happens. Or a player who is two years out of college, and is transferring, and would have to sit out a year. A lot of guys don’t want to. . . . We are in that position to be able to take players who wouldn’t be eligible to play in the NFL. . . .

“But that’s an option that we have and we’re going to look at it long and hard. There are a lot off very good college players after a year or two who may not want to play that third year of college football, may need to earn a little money, support the family. That’s not uncommon as well.”

You can almost hear Mark Emmert whining, “why that ungrateful son of a bitch… after I took him in and showed him everything I know.”

Now, remember, this is a long way from reality.  The XFL isn’t even hitting the field until 2020.  Events like the Alston case may overtake Luck before then.  And as much as the schools may pretend otherwise, I really doubt they’ll simply let an upstart league peel away the biggest names in college football without countering.  (Then again, this is the NCAA we’re talking about, so who really knows if there would be a coherent response.)

But for those of you who have been hoping for an alternative that would take some pressure off the player compensation front, maybe this is the opportunity you’ve been hoping for.  Maybe worth keeping an eye on…

TFW imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

You can tell Mark Bradley wants so much to use Jim Chaney’s departure as a stepping off point for trolling Georgia fans about the potential dire straights where Kirby finds his program now.

The problem is, when you frame your piece “ooh, look out Georgia, you’re becoming just like Alabama”, you wind up trolling yourself.

#BigBankTakeLittleBank

Kirby Smart’s farewell to Jim Chaney falls into the “of all the offensive coordinators in the world, Jim is certainly one of them” category.

“We were very fortunate to have Jim join our staff when I came to Georgia in 2016,” Smart said. “He has been an integral part of our team and program over these past three years and we are grateful for his contributions to the Bulldogs during that time. I’m sure this represents a new challenge that will be exciting for Jim and his family and we wish him all the best.”

Part of that challenge appears to be his new tight ends coach, who’s not above some sweet clown action (h/t).

So we flipped an OC from TSDS? I’m with it. #GBO #VolNation #BigBankTakeLittleBank #PruittEra

— Brian Niedermeyer (@NiedermeyerB) January 9, 2019

The School Down South?  Seriously?  If I were Niedermeyer, I might set my sights on The School In Nashville first.  Baby steps, podnah.

Thursday morning buffet

The chafing dishes are set out and ready to go.

• Here’s a lawsuit I’ve been waiting to see drop.  Adding the NCAA is a nice touch.
• The AFCA wants the targeting rules changed to allow for two levels of penalties.  On its face, it sounds sensible, but you can just see that next can of worms waiting to be opened.
• Malzahn’s “right hand man” jumps off the Gus Bus for… Georgia Tech.
• Les Miles asks for a change to the recruiting rules after he sees the Kansas roster he inherited.
• This really seems like the least they could do.
• And this continues to be the name I hear most frequently as the candidate to be Mel Tucker’s successor, although it has to be said that Kirby seems to be in no hurry on that front.
• Now they tell us.
• “If a shoe company wanted to pay one of University of Washington’s running backs $50,000 to appear in a television commercial, House Bill 1084 would permit that.”