The SEC’s new comedy duo

Shot.

pic.twitter.com/W7YDYnjube

— Mike Leach (@Coach_Leach) March 15, 2020

Chaser.

🤦‍♂️ Leach https://t.co/dxyszQHwnj

— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) March 17, 2020

I hope they get the season started in time for the Egg Bowl.  For that matter, why didn’t the SEC schedule the two of them back to back for SEC Media Days?

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Georgia don’t need no stinkin’ Air Raid.

Terrence Edwards, on what he hopes to see from Georgia’s new offensive coordinator:

Former Georgia wide receiver Terrence Edwards knows fans are excited about the prospect of Todd Monken loosening the reins on the Bulldogs’ offense this fall.

He believes that will happen to a large extent. But he also says fans shouldn’t go into the 2020 season with the idea that the Bulldogs will look drastically different than they have in previous years.

“I went back and looked at a lot of stuff that he’s done—his college days, not professional, because that’s totally different. In his college days, he’s been very balanced,” Edwards said. “Everybody wants to call it Air Raid, but he’s always had a 1,000-yard running back in his system.”

Edwards isn’t kidding…

“I like the approach,” Edward said. “I hope he sticks to what he’s done in the past in the college ranks, having a 4,000-yard passer, along with 2,000 yards rushing, because we’ve got some great backs who I think need to touch the ball.”

I went back and looked.  Over the last decade, the Dawgs never had a 4,000-yard passer.  Aaron Murray came closest, in the 2012 season, with 3,893 yards.  (In the injury-plagued 2013 season, Murray and Mason combined for over 4,000 yards.)

In both those seasons, the Dawgs did gain over 2,000 yards on the ground — 2,209 in 2013 (considering the injuries and who was forced to play as a result, that’s a pretty amazing stat) and 2,556 in 2012.

So, you could say that what Edwards is looking for from Monken is peak Bobo.  I could live with that myself.

Scheduling just means more.

This popped up last night in my Twitter feed.

I didn’t really want to stick my nose is somebody else’s conversation (particularly because I disagree with the premise).  Besides, I think this makes good fodder for a blog post at a time when there aren’t as many things to bloviate about as usual.

So, yeah, I’ve got a few thoughts.

1. Let’s not forget why such a binary choice is being posed in the first place.  It’s not the result of some cosmic accident that left the SEC as a helpless victim of circumstances.  We’re where we are with scheduling because expanding the conference to fourteen schools was the only course of action Mike Slive could come up with to extricate himself from the shitty television deal he negotiated a few years before.
2. Second, it’s something of a dodge to pose this as a binary choice between a ninth conference game or a game against a non-conference P5 opponent, at least as long as SEC schools are scheduling multiple cupcake games to foist on their fans every season.  (Florida played two FCS teams last season, remember?)  I know that’s what the coaches prefer, but given dwindling fan attendance numbers, I suspect P5 ADs are slowly heading in a fan-friendly direction with regard to beefing up schedules.  As they should.  Anyway, better games are better games, regardless of whether they’re in conference or not.
3. Don’t get me started on what the playoff era requires.
4. It’s complete bullshit that Georgia doesn’t play at College Station until 2024.  If you’re a conference, act like it.  Saban’s right about one thing — every SEC football player should face every other conference school during the regular season at least once in his collegiate career.  Spare me the discussion about pods or any other kludgy workaround; a nine-game conference schedule is the easiest, most direct way to accomplish that goal.  It’s a joke Sankey hasn’t pushed that.
5. If you really want meaningful non-conference regular season games, regardless of what era you find yourself in, you know what would work best for that?  Shrink all P5 conferences to ten members, play a round robin schedule to determine a conference champ, ditch conference championship games and add a 13th regular season game against a quality non-conference opponent.  (Yeah, I know.)

Whew.  Enough from me.  What do you guys think/want?

Will no one think of the poor talk-show host?

Pity the PAWWWLLL!!!.

“So what do you do every day? And the answer is, I don’t know. But one thing I do know is you can’t get too hung up on your normal (sports stories). Now it’s really a matter of hearing from people and trying to find the story of that moment and let emotions be heard. … You have to throw out the template — I don’t really care where Tom Brady goes in free agency right now.”

Finebaum predicts the college football season will kick off as scheduled, probably because he dreads the possibility that it won’t even more than we do.

College football in the time of pandemic, part six

At The Athletic, an observation about Arkansas’ trip to Notre Dame ($$):

Start with the home opener against Arkansas, with the Irish favored by 16.5. Does anyone see that game being even remotely close? The Hogs lost five games last season by at least 26 points. They have a new coach in Sam Pittman. Maybe he’s the long-term answer, maybe he’s not, but one thing is certain: The epic rebuilding task ahead of him is going to be that much more difficult now given the lack of time together during these formative months for a new regime.

As a general rule, 2020 is not shaping up as a good year for new head coaches, for exactly that reason.  It’ll be interesting to see how many of their athletic directors give them a pass if things don’t go well.  (I suspect it will be most, since for them it will be a matter of defending the hire more than a case of defending the coach himself.)

A warm thought

If, like me, attending the Army-Navy game is on your bucket list, but the idea of freezing your ass off in Philly isn’t the most attractive thought, you might like to know Orlando is trying to do something about that.

(h/t)

“If anything, this saves us money.”

You can’t lose money if you don’t play money-losing sports.