Forget about havoc. Let’s talk about stop rate.

What? ($$)

Every defense in college football has the same goal on every drive: Get a stop and get off the field. It’s the most basic measurement of whether a defense is successful. And the successful ones win a lot of games.

We call this simple measure of success stop rate: the percentage of a defense’s drives that end in punts, turnovers or a turnover on downs. This metric can offer a more accurate reflection of a defense’s effectiveness in today’s faster-tempo game.

Stop rate: it's back!

The No. 1 defense in college football at getting stops is obviously @BadgerFootball. And 4 of the top 5 in stop rate are Big Ten teams.

Full FBS standings here: https://t.co/i1jqV3WHNU pic.twitter.com/1H8xzwkqOR

— Max Olson (@max_olson) September 26, 2019

At seventh in stop rate and 45th in three-and-outs, Georgia’s got the most bend but not break numbers on that list.

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The NCAA, in five sentences

This is as succinct as it gets.

Thus endeth the lesson, grasshoppers.

The vision thing

Virginia athletic director Carla Williams brought staff down to Georgia to see “what it looks like and what the possibilities are and what the vision is” ($$).

“It” being one thing Georgia’s athletic department excels at these days:  raising money from donors.

The interesting thing here is that in certain important ways, UVa is a polar opposite to UGA.  Unlike Georgia’s, Virginia’s existing endowment is massive ($9.5 billion).  Nor has Virginia suffered through a school president like Michael Adams, who alienated a significant portion of the donor base.  Clearly, nobody in Charlottesville has to be concerned about reaching out for contributions.

On the other hand, as Staples points out, Georgia has been far more committed, financially speaking, to its football program than Virginia ever has.

This is new territory for a program accustomed to spending among the least on football in the ACC. In the past four years of data submitted to the U.S. Department of Education, Virginia ranked either No. 11 or No. 12 in spending on football. In fiscal 2017, the last year of available data, Virginia was No. 11 at $22.6 million…

On Saturday at Notre Dame, Virginia will face a program that spent $42.8 million on football last year. This is why Williams took her team to Georgia (which spent $44.9 on football in that year, which also included an SEC title, a Rose Bowl win and a trip to the national title game).

So, you’ve got a wonderful source of funding that has gone relatively untapped and you want to mine it to build a football program.  Who you gonna call?

Williams’ former boss, Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity, said Virginia’s upswing in football should help raise that money. McGarity said Georgia’s athletic department is required to raise all of the money for capital improvements so as not to accrue more debt.

Of course you are.

McGarity said Williams already has the most important piece in Mendenhall. Smart, McGarity said, has been the driving force behind Georgia’s on-field and fundraising success. “Kirby’s a key part of that,” McGarity said. “He takes time to visit with donors. He’s so personable and he’s so sincere. It’s just how he’s wired.”

Williams also knows she has to make sure donors feel special. And sometimes, she said, that’s less complicated than most would expect. “It may be as simple as being on the field pregame,” Williams said. “When you can create unique experiences that people value and appreciate, that’s when you can start to make a difference.”

Wahoo wah!  A new day beckons.  Prepare to reach for your wallets, Virginia fans.  Your very own Magill Society is just around the corner.

Don’t be afraid to burn those bridges.

The first head coach firing of the year is real and it’s definitely spectacular.

“Escape goat” is so going in the Lexicon.

There is the small matter of reality intruding here:

The Falcons are currently 0-3 and none of them have been close. They have been outscored 148-28 by their first three opponents. His overall record was 10-28 at SAU since being named the head coach in the spring of 2016. All of those are enough to get fired as a head football coach.

Which is not to say Coach Chavous didn’t have a valid point to make, judging by this:

No compliance officer on campus from May-Aug to get transfers certified. Fire the strength coach 1st day of practice and change locks on the weight room. Kids have not lifted. Its one common denominator in all this. Its George William's. He clearly was out to get that man fired.

— Calvin Montgomery Sr (@bp4611) September 24, 2019

Why even bother to field a team?

Manball only pawn in game of life.

Yesterday, it was all about getting D’Andre Swift the ball.

“If number 7 is running the ball the way he was running the ball, it’s hard to give the ball to anybody (else),” Smart said. “The guy was making people miss, running possessed.”

Today, it’s about letting Jake Fromm make plays.

Smart said he also wants Coley to help find ways for Jake Fromm — the top playmaker of all — to take more shots downfield with more opponents aiming to stack the line against the run game…

“It’s limitless what we’re trying to do, but the central focus is protecting Jake and let him throw the ball vertical,” Smart said. “Spread the ball out some and loosen people up.

“We know our strength is running the ball. Sometimes teams try to take that away, and you’ve got to have answers.”

Sometimes?  Shit, Kirby, when’s the last time Georgia faced a decent team that didn’t try to slow down your running game?

I’m a dumbass blogger who’s never coached a minute of football in his life, but if watching Georgia go up tempo against Notre Dame didn’t give you a clue on how to solve your dilemma, I don’t know what to tell you.

“What does that even mean?”

His team’s bragging rights smashed by a last minute upset at Pitt, Danny White is broken but unbowed.

“If it’s a power anything, it’s a Power 6,” White says. “Our conference was better than one or two of the so-called Power 5 last year.”

As Stewart Mandel pointed out, at least according to Sagarin, that ain’t even close to right.

But what do you expect from a guy who thinks college football’s postseason has been in “a kind of beauty pageant mode”?

TFW you do your job and it doesn’t show up in the box score

Great quote from Jordan Davis ($$):

As it was lyrically put by nose tackle Jordan Davis: “If it’s two (blockers) on me then someone’s free.”

And how often are two people on him?

“It’s a lot. It’s a lot, especially as the game picks up,” Davis said. “I remember at one point in the game (against Notre Dame) I had three people on me. And we got a pretty good stop on that one, too. I take pride in that. It’s a real good feeling, an accomplishment, if I have two people on me.”

If it makes you feel any better, Jordan, I saw it plenty on Saturday night.  You more than held your own in that department.

‘(J)ust be the guy we know you are in practice.’

Georgia’s punt game, on both sides of the ball, left something to be desired Saturday night, to say the least, so this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise:

Coach Kirby Smart defended his punter after the game. He said Camarda “just had a couple bad punts” and assured all that the Bulldogs “had his back.”

But Smart confirmed this week that a competition for punting duties is being waged. Georgia is off until its trip to Tennessee on Oct. 5.

“We’ve got two or three guys out there (competing),” Smart said. “… They haven’t out-punted (Camarda) in practice and they haven’t out-punted him in games or scrimmages. Up until Saturday, he was really hitting a lot of bombs. He didn’t hit two good punts (against Notre Dame). He knows it.”

Problem for Kirby is that there aren’t a lot of options behind Camarda on the roster, although I do wonder if they look for someone with more touch on the ball for shorter kicks they look to down inside the opponent’s 20.

As for punt returns, Smart made an in game change after the muffed punt.

Smart has been critical of other areas of special teams, as well. Senior Tyler Simmons was benched as punt returner this past Saturday after muffing a punt inside the 10-yard line. Notre Dame recovered at the 8 and scored its first touchdown of the game four plays later.

Simmons was replaced by freshman Dominick Blaylock, who caught one for a fair catch and let another go, which rolled for another 15 yards.

“So, he was 50-50, and you can’t be 50-50 in this league,” Smart said.

Unlike at punter, it would seem that Kirby has plenty of options on players to return punts, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see some experimentation here until somebody steps up to seize the job.

Towers doesn’t have anything to say about return blocking, but I would hope the coaches are looking carefully at that, as well.  Matt Landers did a poor job in that regard on both of the Simmons’ catches.

Lots of things to tweak/fix, in other words…

Reelin’

Enjoy.

🎥 The Reel: Georgia vs Notre Dame#ATD #GoDawgs pic.twitter.com/5Wrkq9bWmw

— Georgia Football (@GeorgiaFootball) September 25, 2019