“It’s the Green Tide and Roll Greed Roll. That’s my new motto.”

Sad.  Pathetic.  But entirely predictable.

A surgical $106 million renovation to the 90-year old structure is doing away with those approximately 2,200 modestly priced nine rows of seats on the U1 and U2 levels tucked between the west side’s upper and lower bowls. These were quality seats, covered from the elements and chair-backed unlike the majority bench seating in the 101,821-capacity stadium.

That space will now be occupied by the Champions Club, one of the several new premium options replacing more traditional seats in the U1 and U2 levels of the stadium’s west side. Starting next fall, those in Section P will have cushioned seats, access to an indoor, temperature-controlled club and an all-inclusive buffet.

That doesn’t come cheaply, and that’s where the issue for families like the Burnettes come into play. Each seat now requires a $10,000 one-time donation and an additional $3,500 contribution every season. That doesn’t include the price of the actual tickets, which were $495 apiece last year for the top tier seats.

Burnette in 2019 paid $940 a ticket including a $480 donation for each of his four seats minus the amenities.

That same seat next year is $13,995 in the Champions Club if the initial donation is paid up front or $5,995 if spread into five equal portions. It comes with a 10-year commitment meaning each seat will cost $49,950 and only if the $495 season ticket prices never rise.

And this quote is a perfect of example of someone trying to sound sympathetic without actually being sympathetic.

Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne said the school intends “to be transparent and you also want to be empathetic” to those impacted by the changes.

“One of the things that we had to balance here is we don’t take any satisfaction in moving anybody out of their seats. Zero,” Byrne said in an interview with AL.com. “And we want to be very sensitive to all of our season ticket holders and all of the stadium. At the same time too, we have to balance that with what do we do to move the program forward? One of the worst things we could do as a program is while we’re having historical success to not look at where our long-term strategies are for our department.”

Those long-term strategies ain’t gonna pay for themselves, Mr. Burnette.

I assume this is something else from Tuscaloosa we can look forward to being imported to Athens soon.  You can’t stop progress, fellow wallets.

(h/t SSB Charley)

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“We want to get the best football players we can and student-athletes we can.”

Of all the things to criticize Kirby Smart about, not signing enough in-state players in a highly rated recruiting class seems a mite bit silly.

Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart, a former Georgia High School football product himself, explained that it’s not a matter of the UGA staff looking any more or less in state or out of state.

“It (out-of-state recruiting) hasn’t been an emphasis, it’s been more of what are our needs and who can we get?” Smart said at his Wednesday press conference.

“We try to go out and evaluate and find the best character, football player, students — all of those factors for us are important.”

You go where the talent is.  As long as you’re not doing it in an arrogant manner that pisses off local high school coaches, why wouldn’t you?

“A playoff of a kind”

Jim “A Playoff Over My Dead Body” Delany has certainly changed his tune.

Delany called it “painful and damaging” for a league to be left out of the playoff, echoing the recent comments from Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott. He reiterated that adjusting the current model will be difficult during the remaining six years of the cycle — “It’s no better than 50-50 that things would change,” he said — but thinks changes should continue to be discussed.

“You don’t know what it means to your brand and to your recruiting prospects and so on, what it means to be left out,” Delany said. “The irony to me is you’ve doubled the access points from two to four, but you’ve at least doubled the damage and the pain associated with being left out.”

Playoff expansion needed for branding and recruiting is the new black.  The thing is, once you go down that road, there’s zero reason to stop at eight.  Think I’m exaggerating?

Delany also said he’s surprised by how important the so-called “eye test” has been in shaping the playoff field, noting that it never came up in forming guidelines for selecting playoff teams.

“Somebody like an Iowa or a Kentucky or any other program that is a developmental program, taking players from three stars to compete with teams with five stars, if you used the eye test in that area, they would never be considered to be better,” Delany said. “We thought it would be résumé-based, ties would go to conference champions, and strength of schedule. In that area, it doesn’t reflect what I thought would occur, but it is occurring.

“I don’t inject bad faith into it. I just don’t think it’s nearly as predictable on outcomes as I thought it might be, but it’s human.”

It’s a subjective process, Jimbo.  That’s what you and your fellow geniuses willed into being.  If you want to take the eye test out of the mix, either remake your sport so that the postseason is based solely on conference championships, or enlarge the field enough that Larry Scott’s fee-fees are never hurt again.

Nobody said a father’s love can’t turn a profit.

Way to go, Dad.

Vegas had two bettors place a $2,000 preseason Heisman bet on Joe Burrows at 200/1 odds. One of those bettors was Jim Burrows, Joe’s Dad. pic.twitter.com/1AbSonehSw

— Jared Christopher (@JaredLChris) December 19, 2019