This seems nice.
Is booing a bad call by the refs “disruptive behavior”?
*************************************************************************
UPDATE: Damn, I missed the punchline.
*************************************************************************
UPDATE #2: Brave Sir Jason has run away.
Filed under Alabama, Political Wankery
Okay, so the SEC is going with this:
I’m curious what Shaw thinks the difference between blown and incorrect is.
Filed under SEC Football
If there is one college football player in America who could benefit from the new NCAA’s name, image and likeness rule, it’s Rodrigo Blankenship…
“I think he might have missed his window,” quipped Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart. “I don’t know enough about ‘name, image and likeness’ to know where it’s going to go, but he would have been a guy that would have done well with that, for sure.”
It’s only a funny joke when it’s about college athletes, get it?
Filed under The NCAA
According to his coach, Kelly Bryant is “day-to-day” this week due to knee and hamstring injuries.
Coming off a bye weekend, and with a road trip to No. 6 Georgia on tap this Saturday, Bryant stated that he’s currently feeling about 75-percent healthy.
“I just have to continue to rehab it and I’m just making sure that I’m not putting myself out there if I can’t go,” Bryant said. “If I can go, I’ll go.”
With those problems, I bet he’s being optimistic about that 75%.
The backup, you ask? Um…
Should Bryant be unable to go, redshirt sophomore Taylor Powell would make his first careers start. This season, Powell has completed 42.3 percent of his 26 pass attempts for 108 yards. Last season, he went 6-14 for 134 yards.
**************************************************************************
UPDATE:
Filed under SEC Football
Just a reminder — those that can, coach; those that can’t, pander.
Are Auburn fans really gonna vote for this guy?
Sadly, I can’t think of a truer metaphor for current day America than this story.
A man was stabbed to death outside a Maryland Popeyes in a fight over the chain’s popular fried chicken sandwich, police said.
A spokeswoman for the Prince George’s Police Department said the 28-year-old, who has not been identified, was killed at a restaurant in Oxon Hill, outside Washington D.C.
A fight began after someone cut in line, spokeswoman Jennifer Donelan said.
Forget about politics, parties, Trump, etc. This says something about us.
That people have enough rage to kill somebody over a sandwich order tells you all you need to know about a lack of personal control combined with the selfishness that I’m afraid defines so much about what our society is like these days. No, it’s not everybody, but it seems like it’s a lot more than it used to be. I mean, are you surprised by the story?
Christ, this is depressing.
Filed under GTP Stuff
The next time you hear a national pundit wax eloquently about Dan Mullen’s coaching greatness, keep this in mind.
The devil’s in the details, Gators.
Between stuff like this, roster management issues and having Grantham as DC, Dan Mullen sounds more and more like Florida’s version of latter day Mark Richt — 10-win good, but not good enough.
Filed under Gators, Gators...
Georgia’s defense is excelling in all ways but one.
Georgia has a top-five defense nationally when it comes to fewest points (11.4) and fewest rushing yards (77.6) allowed per game. The Bulldogs are among the top 10 in total defense (268.1), and they’re among the top 15 in pass-efficiency defense.
Yet when it comes to racking up turnovers, Georgia is 13th in the Southeastern Conference, ahead of only Vanderbilt.
“If I could give you the answer, I would,” Bulldogs junior safety Richard LeCounte III said. “We’ve definitely got to get turnovers and cause more havoc as a defense, but I love how we’re playing. I think we’re doing really well and that we’ve got room for improvement.
“Overall, I think we’re doing really well.”
Despite holding South Carolina, Kentucky and Florida to fewer than 300 total yards in each of its last three games, Georgia collected only one turnover, with LeCounte coming up with a fumble by Wildcats quarterback Lynn Bowden that was caused by Bulldogs safety J.R. Reed.
The Bulldogs have nine gained turnovers this season, exactly half the amount compiled by SEC leaders Alabama, Florida and Mississippi State.
Smart explains that’s inherent in the way his defense is structured.
“We play a little different style, because we’re a match defense for the most part,” Smart said. “I think a lot of interceptions come through zone defenses and being able to see the ball a lot of times. We are not all looking at the ball. We are looking at the man, whether it’s a zone matchup or a man matchup, and it’s what we think gives us the best chance to make people inefficient, and it doesn’t always promote a lot of interceptions.
“I mean, historically, we have not had a ton of interceptions.”
That doesn’t explain everything, of course, as Smart acknowledges.
“We’ve got to do a better job getting turnovers. There’s no doubt about that,” Smart said. “That comes with forcing them, havoc, tipped balls, batted balls, strip-outs, knocking the crap out of people, ripping the ball out — those things all affect turnovers, but we’ve been short on interceptions, for sure.”
You can see what he’s getting at with this — making offenses inefficient as a base strategy, something that is exacerbated by Georgia controlling time of possession, should limit scoring opportunities by its opponents. If the trade off for doing that well means a few less interceptions, I can certainly live with that. Of course, when you turn the ball over a bunch, like Georgia did against South Carolina, and that approach goes out the window, you either adjust or you get beat.
Filed under Georgia Football, Strategery And Mechanics
So… I’ve got a question.
How often does the home team in a SEC game dress out fewer players on scholarship than does the visitor?
Filed under Gators, Gators...
ESPN conducted a survey in the offseason of the 65 P5 head coaches on a variety of questions about the CFP. (All but three, Saban, Orgeron and Kelly, responded.) Some of the results were more surprising than others, but all in all, it’s interesting.
While a majority of coaches are in favor of expansion to eight teams, it should be noted that selfish interests — surprise! — are being served. Check out these two notes as evidence:
Funny how that works sometimes. The comment about expansion that resonated with me is this one:
Kirk Ferentz, Iowa: No. I don’t know what we’ve gained by expanding it other than the obvious, financial [reasons]. It’s almost become an industry, this whole playoff deal. I don’t know how the game of football is any better right now. I’m not sure we’ve gotten a truer champion. What I don’t like about the playoff system is that there’s kind of a pull that if you’re not in that final four, what you’re doing really doesn’t matter that much. It takes away from a lot of really good experiences that are going on in college football. I think we’re creating a mentality that, to me, takes away from what the game is all about.
As much as some want to insist that when college football expands its postseason, it’s part of some noble effort to produce a better, more competitive result. It’s not. It’s about the money, pure and simple, just like every thing else in college football today. (Just like professional sports, for that matter.) When college football finishes playoff expansion some day down the road, the only people who are truly going to be satisfied with the results are the ones getting paid for it.
Speaking of money, Gary Patterson has the best cynical comment in the piece.
This question was based on the current system, in which the value of a conference championship has been called into question after both Alabama and Ohio State have landed in the top four without winning their leagues. “The only league that really matters if they have a championship game is the SEC, and it’s because of money,” TCU coach Gary Patterson said. “Everybody else it doesn’t make any difference.”
If that wasn’t made apparent after Patterson’s own conference made the absurd decision to tack on a championship game to a round robin schedule, I don’t know what is.
Speaking of apparent, here’s why we can’t have nice things, SEC fans.
The company line, from Jeremy Pruitt:
Jeremy Pruitt, Tennessee: I worry a little bit about getting rid of the old rivalries. It’s already now in the SEC, you’re not guaranteed as a student-athlete, if you come to Tennessee you’re not guaranteed to play at Texas A&M in a four-year period. By not being able to do that, it possibly eliminates some of the experience, or somebody coming to play at Neyland Stadium. But I do think from a conference standpoint, I think we have a great system in what we use to determine a champion, and I think it’s fair.
He doesn’t sound that worried. Sigh.
And the bullshit award goes to…
Love. That would explain why DJ Durkin is still coaching at Maryland.
Filed under BCS/Playoffs
Get The Picture 
You must be logged in to post a comment.