And there it is.

TexAgs.com reports that James Coley has left to become the TE coach at TAMU.

“The top one percent of one percent”

Corch, Corch, Corch…

This has to be the craziest thing in sports history pic.twitter.com/mwYOTm2WEb

— Ben Stinar (@BenStinar) January 24, 2020

Huntley Johnson had to be one busy son of a gun back then.

Today’s Question of the Day

Presented without comment.

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“What have they done since their last National Title?”

(continued)

Win % and rank since last title
• UGA (1980), .715, #9
• Florida (2008), .667, #18
• Miami (2001), .629, #25
• Auburn (2010), .618, #37
• Washington ('91), .560, #39
• Oregon (N/A)

— Pick Six Previews (@PickSixPreviews) January 24, 2020

On the one hand, that’s depressing as hell, but on the other, how do you manage to win at better than a 70% clip over a forty-year period without another title?  Pretty astounding…

It’s personal.

Shot.

The Big Ten is proposing a new rule that coaches must make recruiting calls and do all electronic correspondence on a school-issued and purchased device.

— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) January 23, 2020

Chaser.

Not as hurry up as you think.

Via Brian Fremeau,

CHART: First Half Offensive Plays Per Game, 2007-2019

Tempo* peaked in 2013 and has been drifting down since.

*Tempo? 1st half only?
1) 1st half plays (except end-of-half clock kills) are non-garbage
2) 2nd half tempo can be more influenced by game state than by team preference pic.twitter.com/lpDKpeDHHi

— Brian Fremeau (@bcfremeau) January 24, 2020

Interesting, no?

I wonder how much of that is due to the way officials now manage the snap when an offense makes substitutions.  Thoughts?

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

UPDATE:  Moar data.

In 2012, there were 11 FBS #CFB teams that averaged running 80+ plays per game and there were 31 who averaged running 75+ plays per game. In 2019, there was one team that averaged running 80+ plays and 13 that averaged running 75+ plays. Where have you gone tempo?

— SportSource Analytics (@SportSourceA) January 24, 2020

I have come not to bury your Daily Gator.

The offseason marks a good time for Gator sport here at the blog.  There are plenty of reasons to mock Florida fans’ dreams of world domination in 2020, but one of those probably isn’t losses from the receiving corps, as this David Wunderlich post demonstrates.

I am curious to see what happens in 2020. There is a clear top three of returning wide receivers in Grimes, Toney, and Copeland, and Pitts easily could lead the team in targets and catches again. If Toney stays healthy, I want to see how much he does with routes and traditional receiver stuff in addition to taking screens and handoffs and using his elusiveness to try to break big gains. This will be his fourth year as a receiver, the second under a highly regarded developer in Billy Gonzales. If he has the full receiver toolset in him, we should start to see it this year.

After those four, it’s a complete crapshoot.

Yeah, they’ve got some holes to fill, but they’re not anywhere near the void Georgia was facing before the start of last season.  Just sayin’.

Another early clue to the new direction?

I know many of you follow recruiting more closely than I do, so you’re probably already aware of the late offer to Ladd McConkey.  I don’t know anything about the kid, but there’s something in Jeff Sentell’s piece about Georgia’s offer to him that caught my eye.

“Georgia offered me to be a true slot guy,” McConkey said. “Guys that can win the one-on-one battle. I mean obviously they have guys who can win one-on-one matchups but really get in space there down in the slot and make people miss in real tight coverage.”

But, muh blocking!  What are you thinking, Kirby?

His weight is a story on its own. He weighed 178 pounds this past summer. That was before basketball camp and then a football season and then basketball season.

He’s about 165 pounds right now. That’s not really SEC grade, but keep in mind this is a Monken system fit. A new way of looking at that spot. McConkey has impressive ball skills and the short-space quickness that will flourish in any “Air Raid” sets. He’s also a guy who wants the ball coming his way in big spots.

He’s small. Especially for a typical UGA signee, but consider his stature in the right context.

This is not your father’s manball, Dawg fans.

The rich always want to get richer.

I’m guessing these two proposals have Nick Saban’s approval.

There are three proposals related to signing limits in football. One would end the hard cap of 25, allowing 50 counters over a two-year period with a cap of 30 in one year.

— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) January 23, 2020

Boy, if there’s one thing the Sabans and Smarts of the recruiting world need, it’s a mulligan.  It’ll be roster management on steroids.

Today, the role of Hamlet will be played by the NCAA.

Mark Emmert: “Many people believe that college sports is fundamentally unfair right now… And I know for me, that’s really frustrating.”

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) January 24, 2020

Cry me a river, Mark.

“You can’t flip a switch. There’s an overwhelming sense of urgency but there’s an urgency to do it right and get it right. You get one chance at this thing.”?  Give me a fucking break, dude.  This isn’t a crisis that sneaked up on you people.  You’ve let it fester until the politicians got involved and now there’s a sense of momentum running against you that you can’t control.

You probably felt like you could handle this the same way you did when the politicians started pushing you on playoff expansion.  The difference is that there you were faced with controlling how to let more money flow into your collective pockets.  This time, the threat involves the cash going in the opposite direction and you don’t like that.  Even more, you don’t know how to change the narrative.

So you’ll spin madly.

And when that doesn’t work, you’ll lobby Congress even harder than you are now.

Emmert said he has been working with members of Congress for much of the past year to ask for help in creating a national law that would make uniform rules for college sports in different states and allow the NCAA to maintain some control over policing the new market for college athletes.

“Clearly people in Washington want to know what the desires are of college sports, and we need to work with them to help figure that out,” Emmert said.

But mainly, you’ll flail and hope somehow you’ll get bailed out.

Emmert said he did not know if the NCAA would regulate that market or if it would ask a third party to be in charge of that process. The National College Players Association, a non-profit aimed at advocating for college athletes and an outspoken critic of the NCAA, published a paper last week saying that it is in a better position to make sure it is representing the interest of athletes in future discussions about money-making opportunities. Emmert urged NCAA delegates at this year’s convention to make sure they were keeping the well-being of athletes at the forefront of all their decisions and acknowledged that many critics believe the organization has conflicts of interest that keep it from acting in the best interest of athletes.

This is what comes of taking maximalist positions and failing to be proactive.

Athletics directors, by and large, are watching this from the sidelines with cynical eyes. Many of the younger, more progressive administrators saw the crisis coming years ago and have little trust in NCAA leadership to get this right. They’re not particularly doctrinaire about the name, image and likeness issue, they just want to know the rules they’re playing by. What was notable, however, was how few of them came to this NCAA convention. This is largely the presidents’ show.

“Maybe some anticipated that we could get all the parties together in the old collegial way,” said Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson. “I don’t think there’s going to be that kind of time.”

Tell that to Emmert.