Today, in always be ‘crootin’.

From an article in The Athletic about how hard it is for the vast majority of teams to crack the playoff field and win a natty ($$), here’s a helluva quote:

Wilson is the creator of The Action Network’s college football betting power ratings, a hobby-turned-profession that is entering its 11th season. Wilson’s ratings, like most matters with the sport, start with recruiting. From there, he relies on several advanced statistics (mean power rating, net turnovers, havoc) and trend lines. In this era, he says, a team’s defensive disruption is more indicative of success than its explosiveness on offense, since explosive offenses are pretty much par for the course among competitive teams these days.

Wilson, who has contributed to The Athletic, has Clemson No. 1 to start 2019 with a 99.8 rating. Alabama is second at 98.9. Georgia, at No. 3, is 93.7, the difference marking what a hypothetical spread would be between the Bulldogs and either program.

… For all of the champs or near-champs that came out of left field, Wilson sees a common theme: rich recruiting and a relatively new coaching staff. During the BCS era, Auburn made the biggest jump of any champion, going from 14th to first in 2010. Chizik was in his second year then, in the same scenario that Kirby Smart was in at Georgia in 2017, when the Bulldogs leapt from 25th to second.

Based on his program’s trajectory, Smart could either end up crashing the party soon or reinforce the old tropes about how few teams really have a chance, depending on your point of view.

“It starts at recruiting, and even when Saban falls, don’t fool yourself: Kirby Smart is the Empire from ‘Star Wars,’ ” Wilson says. “That is version 2.0. They’re the next 15 years. That’s what Georgia is.”  [Emphasis added.]

Jimmies and Joes will take you a long way.  Note also what he says about havoc.  Mr. Wilson gets Mr. Smart, and vice versa.

Advertisement

Today, in utter horseshit

No, no, a thousand times no to this…

"In SEC history, true legends go by just 1 name. Bear. Herschel. Bo. Now there’s another, although you have to stretch it out: Pawwwwl."@finebaum joins @tommytomlinson on SouthBound to discuss a new college football season, his legendary callers & more: https://t.co/f5o3C98npy pic.twitter.com/w1J41dVRCd

— Amanda Brooks (@BrooksAD) August 21, 2019

Times like this remind me why I dislike ESPN so intensely.

Your 8.21.19 Playpen

What a time to be alive…

After you stop chuckling, have at it in the comments.

Every picture tells a story.

A Bill Connelly chart that says a lot:

DANG, I screwed up the claimed titles on that one. UPDATED GEORGIA HISTORY: pic.twitter.com/SlRe3l2bkm

— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) August 21, 2019

It’s quite simple, really.  Mark Richt elevated the Georgia program from its previous, historical level and Kirby Smart has taken the program to an even higher stage.  Both men deserve appreciation for those accomplishments.

Thus endeth the discussion.

Today, in Jimmies and Joes

Yesterday, somebody on Twitter posted data on how teams match up based on the 247Composite ratings.  No, it’s not definitive in that it doesn’t include unranked players or account for player development, but it’s still quite interesting in painting a general picture of overall talent levels.

Here’s how Florida and Miami match up in advance of Saturday night’s game.

Boy, both of those offensive lines look like hot messes.  I’m a little surprised by Florida’s poor showing at defensive line, but that may simply presage a severe lack of quality depth at that position.

One more chart for your review — an SEC 24/7 recruiting ranking by position group.

Yeah, Alabama and Georgia are dominant, which is no real surprise, but check out Tennessee.  Overall, it’s not elite, but there’s certainly more talent there than recent history indicates.  In that regard, Auburn’s another example of last year’s record perhaps not indicating the current state of its talent level (which is clearly higher than UT’s).

**************************************************************************

UPDATE:  Check out the chart for Florida and Georgia.

I know Gator fans like to wrap themselves in the comfort that Mullen runs rings around Smart from a coaching standpoint, but with that talent disparity, Dan needs to be the second coming of the Bear and Steve Spurrier rolled into one.

TFW gambling meets amateurism

Man, what a dilemma for college sports — all that money to be made from tapping into gambling’s insatiable demand for data tempered by the risk posed as a result of not paying the hired help ($$).

“The topics of gambling on college sports and the compensation of collegiate athletes are entirely intertwined with one another and cannot reasonably be separated,” said Marc Edelman, a professor at Baruch College who specializes in sports law. “Today, there is far less concern about professional, commercialized athletes fixing games than there was in 1919 because the minimum salary in the four premier professional sports leagues is approaching half a million dollars. You are not going to have players like Shoeless Joe Jackson, who feel that they are not earning enough money to live a life in which they are entitled. The lone exception to that is college sports, which is a $13 billion industry and which coaches make many millions of dollars per year.

“That is entirely the NCAA’s own doing, by keeping its athletes even more impoverished than the players on the 1919 Chicago White Sox.”

That, essentially, is why some key voices in college athletics are sounding alarms. Their athletes are the most vulnerable by far.

“Sports wagering is going to have a dramatic impact on everything we do in college sports,” NCAA president Mark Emmert said at the NCAA convention this year. “It’s going to threaten the integrity of college sports in many ways unless we are willing to act boldly and strongly.”

Somehow, I don’t think that means what Emmert thinks it means.

Wednesday morning buffet

Mornin’, campers.

• You may be in a transitional year when you replace your scout team with a “developmental team“.  (To be fair, I think this is a good idea.)
• Seth Emerson’s look at Jordan Davis ($$) makes the point that it’s not his size but his speed that makes him freakish.
• Sagarin’s 2019 starting ratings have the Dawgs sixth.  Interestingly, he favors every team he ranks ahead of Georgia to win a game played in Athens.
• Derek Mason gets tricky for Vandy’s opener against Georgia.
• Rock M Nation admiringly previews the Georgia-Missouri game.
• Does anyone in college football have a tougher job this season than Georgia Tech’s offensive coordinator?
• Here’s Jake Rowe’s latest stab at Georgia’s defensive depth chart.  David Marshall’s post-surgery situation seems concerning.
• Another parent questions Michigan’s response to a transfer waiver request.
• My first thought on hearing that Auburn named a true freshman its starting quarterback yesterday…

Zen and the art of offensive playcalling

This is the best summary of the transition from Chaney to Coley you’ll ever read.

Asked guard Cade Mays, on the interview list for first time at Georgia, about the offense under James Coley. Mentioned about "spreading things out," and motions and misdirections. "It's not really that much different but it is different at the same time."

— Marc Weiszer (@marcweiszer) August 20, 2019

That should really help Derek Mason’s game prep.