#93k?

As mentioned in the comments to my previous post, one thing you couldn’t miss watching the three spring games yesterday was the size of each of the crowds.  Maybe everyone was on spring break or at home getting ready to watch the Final Four, but it was not an It Just Means More Saturday.

Trend?  Timing?  Who knows, but maybe that explains why Kirby hasn’t been quite as pushy this year about G-Day as before.

So while there hasn’t been that much buzz to date, it doesn’t sound like Smart’s ready to relinquish the Bulldogs’ place in the battle for spring game supremacy.

“University of Georgia fans love this game,” he said after the Bulldogs’ first scrimmage in Sanford Stadium. “I certainly don’t expect anything less. I’m not sitting here proclaiming that everybody has to come to the game. I think we’ve got a really good football team coming back. I think we’ve got an exciting team.”

I agree.  I’ll be there.

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Observations from the armchair, Spring Game Saturday edition

While waiting for the first game of the Final Four (and if you haven’t taken in some of the Barner post-game reactions, you really, really should), I spent some time watching chunks of the spring games for South Carolina, LSU and Ole Miss.  You want three bullet points?  Okay, you got three bullet points:

• South Carolina.  Goodness, are the ‘Cocks a bland team.  They’re not untalented, but they’re not elite in that regard, either.  Bentley didn’t play much, but given that the offense appears to be the same as it was last season — a lot of short passes and not much of a power running game — minus Deebo Samuel, I’m not sure how much it mattered.  I have no idea where they think they’ll get explosive plays from, but I’m not sure that matters much to Boom.  They’ll go as far as turnover margin takes ’em.
• LSU.  If I needed any reinforcement of the talent gap facing Muschamp versus the conference elites, I sure got it in Baton Rouge.  Noticeable athleticism all over the place, with a few more talented youngsters coming in the summer.  Joe Burrow looked comfortable running the offense.  Biggest takeaway with regards to personnel is that LSU doesn’t look as strong on either of the lines as it has in the recent past.  Because of that, I don’t know how they expect to overtake Alabama.  That also may explain why they claim they’re moving away from a power offense.  (They did run almost exclusively all game out of four- and five-receiver sets, but, yeah, it was a spring game.)
• Ole Miss.  Oh, mama, are these guys in trouble.  If there’s a noticeable personnel gap between LSU and South Carolina, there’s a bigger one between South Carolina and OM.  A slight clue as to that was that the game wasn’t scored between two squads, but between the offense and defense (with the defense being spotted 27 points going in).  The studs they had on offense are almost all gone.  There’s a total of four games of experience at quarterback on the roster.  They’ve replaced both coordinators and RichRod is changing the offense.  It’s going to be a long season in Oxford.

Anybody else watch?

Waitin’ on the newbies

Seth Emerson’s spring practice review ($$) reinforces a certain feeling I’ve gotten from much of the media’s reporting this spring:  there’s playing time available for incoming freshmen receivers George Pickens and Dominick Blaylock if they’re ready to seize the opportunity.

Seth specifically discussed Blaylock’s chances to be the primary option at returner.  Smart isn’t exactly being coy about that.

“I don’t mind a freshman at all,” Smart said. “That doesn’t bother me in the least bit if it’s the right guy. If it’s a guy you trust with decision-making, elite hands. This kid’s baseball (background), punt returner, great hands, great vision. I trust him all day to protect the ball. We’ve got to find out if he’s elite as a punt returner though.”

Now, being an elite returner isn’t the same thing at Georgia as being an elite wideout, for one very important reason.  Returners don’t have to block.  But outside of Holloman and Simmons, I’ve heard so little consensus about the other members of the receiving corps stepping up to fill the slots left open by the departures of Godwin, Hardman, et al. that it leaves me with the impression that Smart is keeping a very open mind about the depth chart at the position.

It also leaves me with the impression that all this new talk about how Georgia’s passing game is going to be more robust under Coley may be a little premature.

“Nike will not respond to the allegations of an individual facing federal charges of fraud and extortion…”

Nike’s problem isn’t that Michael Avenatti is a self-aggrandizing dick.  It’s that he’s a self-aggrandizing dick who appears to have receipts.