This, I predict, is going to be a real hoot, promising way more than it can ever deliver.
Well, except for letting the folks in charge feel good about doing something.
Uh hunh, right, Tony. That will make it all better.
If Barnhart didn’t exist, Greg Sankey would have to invent him.
Filed under Mr. Conventional Wisdom, SEC Football
That was said by the man whose conference added a championship game to a round-robin regular season conference schedule because he was worried about the playoffs.
Filed under Big 12 Football, Blowing Smoke
I’m just gonna leave this one out there for you guys.
Filed under Name That Caption
Yesterday, the SEC announced its football postseason bowls through 2025, in case you’re interested.
The SEC has extended its current agreements through 2025 with the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, the Outback Bowl in Tampa, the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl in Nashville, the Academy Sports + Outdoors Texas Bowl in Houston, the AutoZone Liberty Bowl in Memphis and the Birmingham Bowl.
In addition, the SEC will continue its relationship with the Belk Bowl in Charlotte, participating in that bowl game in 2021, 2023 and 2025. For the remaining three years of the six-year cycle, SEC teams will participate in the Las Vegas Bowl against a Pac-12 opponent in 2020, 2022 and 2024. The SEC has also added a new bowl partnership with the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa through 2025.
I guess the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl is the new Shreveport.
Filed under Georgia Football, SEC Football
I scarfed this off a message board post, so I can’t guarantee its provenance, but it purports to be one of those Athlon anonymous coach’s quotes you see every preseason, in this case about Kirby and Georgia:
“I think its fair to say Kirby got Georgia to that Alabama level faster than Nick Saban got Alabama there. They’re ready to roll. Obviously they lose some guys, some wideouts but on offense Kirby’s recruiting already has this program in a reload mentality. It’s scary how fast they’ve recruited. There is a few spots you can look at where they need someone to step in, center & receiver . At tight end they got hit with another early declare to draft (Nauta) and a transfer (Luke Ford) but there’s competition at every spot…. The 2 young RB’s James Cook & Zamir White, they look exactly like what you expect in a UGA backfield. They might not miss a beat….. I think with Jake Fromm coming back & Jim Chaney leaving they’re going to throw the ball a little bit more. I think they will spread it out a little bit more in their base stuff. …… The biggest question mark is James Coley as a first time play caller in the SEC. That’s going to be scary at first. And in that situation the responsibility is soley on you if it goes bad because the talent is all over the field but Fromm helps you out there. He’s comfortable with his stuff……. This is the best roster both both in talent & depth in the division & the first or second best in the league with Alabama. They’ll develop the defense just fine. It comes down to play calling and that SEC title game.”
That it do.
Filed under Georgia Football
This ($$) is the best explanation I’ve seen for why the NCAA and its member schools are likely to fight California’s Fair Pay to Play Act tooth and nail:
Even if the Working Group were to accept these sensible-sounding arguments in favor of an unrestricted NIL market, the Group or the NCAA may feel it is legally constrained from accepting the idea. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in the Alston financial aid case, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the OâBannon NIL case, have held that colleges are permitted to vary financial aid awards up to the full cost of attendance only as long as they are âtethered to education,â while the Ninth Circuit has allowed the NCAA to ban NIL payments to athletes.
If the Working Group and then the full NCAA were now to embrace the idea that college athletes can accept any NIL funds from third parties, the NCAAâs lawyers could find it difficult to defend what little remains of its âamateurismâ justification for imposing any limits of any kind on what college athletes can be paid and by whom. As the Ninth Circuit said in OâBannon:
âThe difference between offering student-athletes education-relation compensation and offering them cash sums untethered to educational expenses is not minor: it is a quantum leap. One that line is crossed, we have little doubt that plaintiffs will continue to challenge the arbitrary limit imposed by the district court ($5,000) until they have captured the full value of their NIL. At that point the NCAA will have surrendered its amateurism principles entirely and transitioned from its âparticular brand of footballâ to minor league status.â
The Working Group thus appears to be in a box: if it gives an inch on NIL, it may be treated the same way in court as going a mile.
The reason that’s a legitimate concern is because the NCAA has allowed itself to take the position that there’s no fixed definition for amateurism, but rather, the concept is simply what the organization says it is. That’s how you get from COA stipends once being anathema to now being part of the status quo.
There are all sorts of concerns the schools aren’t ready to address. Take Greg McElroy’s suggestion, for example.
“The only way I can see it being done is if the universities or the conferences or the NCAA takes the initiative and creates a fund,” McElroy added. “At the end of the year, all the money that’s in that fund gets redistributed.
“The only way to do it is for the NCAA to take it as one giant umbrella. You play Division I football, you account for this much of the pie. Every single player, however many tens of thousands of players, everyone gets a check.”
What about the other sports? If it takes including sand volleyball players sharing with football players, so be it. This could/should be about all NCAA athletes being able to share autograph, YouTube channel and licensing money.
Reasonable, eh? Well, not so fast, my friend.
Anticipating weaker versions of a free market in NIL contracts, Simon argues that requiring the money one or two athletes may get for their NILs to be put into a pool for others would be an administrative hornetsâ nest, wouldnât help some athletes who need it most, and wouldnât weaken incentives for players to take money under the table or to go pro if they can. Moreover, he raises the prospect that the pro rata distribution of the NIL funds to athletes could be construed as salaries, making the athletes employees, a result the NCAA has never accepted â not only because it so clearly conflicts with claims of amateurism but also would give legs to the claim, so far not accepted by the National Labor Relations Boards, that athletes should be able to join a union.
Now, who knows if that’s a winning argument, but the idea that it would be raised is probably enough to render that NCAA Working Group on third-party compensation a quivering bowl of Jello. (Not that it was likely to be much firmer, anyway.)
The idea that there’s a reasonable way out of the mess the NCAA has fashioned is comforting, but unrealistic. Mark Emmert is going to do what we know Mark Emmert is going to do — bullshit the courts and legislatures in a holding action while begging Congress for an antitrust exemption. It may not work, but it’s all he knows.
Filed under Political Wankery, The NCAA
So, the AP is going with this theme for SEC Media Days.
This year, though, a group of talented and experienced quarterbacks could lead to a little more drama in the SEC â maybe. Georgia’s Jake Fromm, LSU’s Joe Burrow, Florida’s Feleipe Franks and Texas A&M’s Kellen Mond are major reasons those teams feel they have a realistic chance of knocking Alabama off its title perch.
If I may be so bold as to suggest that one of those names is unlike the others…
Filed under Georgia Football, Media Punditry/Foibles, SEC Football
Whatever hopes the Florida Gators have for the 2019 season just went up in smoke with this news:
The Red Sox announced the signing of five players in advance of Friday’s deadline including Florida quarterback Feleipe Franks, who will be assigned to an affiliate team at a later date.
Franks signed with Boston for $40,000, according to the Boston Globe, after being selected by Boston in the 31st round (No. 947 overall) of last month’s MLB draft despite not playing baseball for the Gators this season. Franks played baseball at Crawfordvilleâs Wakulla High and was rated the 500th player in the country prior to his senior season, according to Perfect Game.
In a statement after he was selected, Franks said he was flattered by the selection but added he is, “living out my dream being the quarterback of the Florida Gatorsâ and is getting ready for the upcoming college football season.
I mean, obviously every Gator offensive lineman is going to be consumed with jealousy over Franks making bank and them not receiving a penny, amirite, amateurism romantics? Poof, there goes your team chemistry. Pass protection is going right in the toilet from where it was expected to be… oh, wait.
Filed under Gators, Gators..., It's Just Bidness
So, imagine you’re somebody enjoying a Paul McCartney concert at Dodger Stadium when this happens:
I don’t know about you, but I would’ve gone nuts. A bit ragged, to be sure, but for all that, still totally awesome.
Filed under Uncategorized
Get The Picture 