That ain’t bad. Not even a little bit.
Daily Archives: April 19, 2019
Butthurt Junior is the best Junior.
Imagine the Laner getting his panties in a wad over somebody wanting attention.
“It’s definitely a win in our books.”
In a shocking development, the NCAA Division I Council actually passed something sensible. Two things, actually:
College athletes who have enrolled in summer school and received athletics financial aid can transfer and play immediately without a waiver if their head coach departs before the first day of classes for the fall term. Additionally, walk-on student-athletes on teams that provide athletics aid and nonrecruited walk-ons can transfer and play immediately without a waiver. Those rules are effective for students who transfer to new schools this fall.
Good job, folks.
Oh, and this happened, too.
The Council also defeated a proposal that would have required schools to count financial aid for some postgraduate transfers against team limits for two years, regardless of whether the student remained enrolled after exhausting athletics eligibility. The proposal would have applied only to student-athletes competing in football and basketball.
I bet those lower division coaches are pissed right now.
Filed under The NCAA, Transfers Are For Coaches.
Filed under “that’s for me to know and him to find out”
Hmmm… this sounds vaguely ominous.
During a recent appearance on Atlanta-based radio station 680 The Fan, Smart was asked if he was aware of Florida’s trolling of Georgia.
“Yeah, I heard,” Smart replied.
As for a response, Georgia’s coach didn’t really want to go there.
“I’m really comfortable not talking about it,” Smart said when asked for his response.
My guess is that he’ll be really comfortable watching his team bludgeon the Gators in Jacksonville, too.
Again, trolling only works when you can back it up, Dan. See, for example, the Evil Genius.
Filed under Gators, Gators..., Georgia Football
2019 G-Day rosters
In case you can’t tell the players without a scorecard…
************************************************************************
UPDATE: If you’re looking for the tl;dr version…
Filed under Georgia Football
“He’s got a B in a class and he’s never made a B before.”
I don’t know if I’m more impressed with Nakobe Dean pursuing an engineering degree or with the coaching staff letting him pursue an engineering degree.
Well played, all concerned.
Filed under Academics? Academics., Georgia Football
These spring practice notes are making me horny.
First off, major kudos to Seth Emerson ($$) for printing a warning about drawing G-Day conclusions without making an obligatory reference to QBR.
But the real point to this post is to tell those of you who don’t subscribe to The Athletic what you’re missing: the part of his article referenced under “A few things we’ve learned” may be the purest and longest dose of Dawg porn I’ve read in 2019. I’m not sure there’s a shower cold enough for afterwards. And that’s after reading it yesterday.
Things can change, obviously, but this program is in a very good place right now, and that’s before a few more likely 2019 contributors arrive this summer.
Can I bum a cigarette off one of you?
Filed under Georgia Football
“That has not always proven to be best for kids.”
Kirbs, at his disingenuous best:
Speaking on Sirius XM Radio Thursday, Smart did not hold back on his opinion of the transfer portal, which has seemingly created a new landscape in college football.
“I don’t know that it is right for college football,” Smart said. “It may be good on an individual basis. But when you give kids an easy way out sometimes, sometimes they take the path of least resistance. People can say ‘well, coach, you are free to go wherever you want to go,’ we also have a contract and they are free to fire us anytime they want. So they can fire us anytime they want as an assistant coach.”
You can deny renewing a scholarship to a kid, or simply letting him know he’s buried on the depth chart forever, anytime you want. At least your contract has a buyout provision. That student-athlete being tossed aside doesn’t even have that much.
“For a student-athlete, to say they should be able to go anywhere, I really believe if the kid graduates now, he should be able to go anywhere he wants to go,” Smart said. “I am even okay if the kid has been there three years because that probably means he has been there long enough realize I can or cannot play.
“But giving kids a way out when early on it’s tough, and the process is hard, that’s the biggest problem I have.”
Yeah, Smart at least is copacetic with graduate transfers (although you can cynically argue that’s because he’s been the beneficiary of those), so he’s not as rigid as others I could name. But to pretend transfers are generally wrong because as a coach you know better than the kid does about what’s best for him despite the obvious conflict of interest is just another way of saying “best interest of the kid” = coach’s control.
Let’s remember what “giving kids a way out” means here. If a student-athlete wants to leave a program, ultimately there’s nothing Smart or any other coach can do to prevent that. All that’s being debated here is how much information should be available to a potential transferee about places that would take him in and whether he should be immediately eligible for financial assistance if he moves. If you’re a coach objecting to that, well, there’s your real hard process.
Filed under Transfers Are For Coaches.
“We’re better off padding the goal posts.”
Mel Tucker learned right from the start that he wasn’t in Georgia anymore.
The University of Colorado hired a new football coach in December, and as coaches are wont to do, he talked tough.
“Our team, we will be physical,” Coach Mel Tucker said at his introductory news conference. “My dad always told me the name of the game is hit, hit, H-I-T. There is always a place on the field for someone who will hit.”
He was preaching that old-style pigskin religion. Unfortunately, Tucker, who came from the University of Georgia, runs a football program that has produced at least a half-dozen players — including several who played in the N.F.L. — who have killed themselves. Other former players are alive but afflicted by severe post-concussion problems.
Two university regents, dissenters from the Church of Hit, Hit and Hit, read Tucker’s remarks and shook their heads. A few days later, these heretics voted against his five-year, $14.75 million contract. They could not block the contract, but another cannon had been fired in the football concussion wars.
“I really thought at first that we could play football safely with better rules and better equipment; I drank the Kool-Aid,” she told me. “I can’t go there anymore. I don’t believe it can be played safely anymore. I want these young men to leave C.U. with minds that have been strengthened, not damaged.”
I wish I could say I have a good rebuttal for that, but I don’t. In fact, I don’t think you’ll find a better summary of the dilemma college football faces in that regard than this quote:
“We should move in the direction of offering lifelong insurance and medical care for football players who become badly damaged,” said John Kroll, the other regent who voted against the coach’s contract. “But to do that is an implicit acknowledgment this game is incredibly dangerous to play.”
We love the sport and our passion fuels its success, but, man, the price some of these kids wind up paying for that. I don’t know about you, but, yeah, I feel a little guilty. In the meantime, as a minimum, make that lifelong insurance and medical care a reality, schools. It really is the least you can do.
Filed under College Football, The Body Is A Temple
TFW competition is unnecessary
One thing you’ve got to say for Ohio State — spring game QBR doesn’t mean shit in Columbus.
Filed under Big Ten Football
Get The Picture 