Manball crosses the final frontier.

Yep, it’s Mandel’s Mailbag ($$).

Georgia is the harder one to read. Kirby Smart is no doubt feeling urgency to get away from old-school “man ball,” as Dawgs fans began to call his old scheme, and modernize the offense.

I have no worlds left to conquer.

Livin’ on a prayer

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey clarifies that spring football practices are NOT technically canceled yet, but adds that with the CDC guidelines on not having gatherings of 50 people or more for two months, "I think practically that window is very narrow.”

— Seth Emerson (@SethWEmerson) March 18, 2020

SO HE’S SAYIN’ THERE’S A CHANCE, PAWWWLLL!!!

This is what you say when you’re the guy in charge, you don’t have the slightest clue where things are headed but you can’t bring yourself to admit that:

In the end, it’ll probably boil down to what Mickey wants, like everything else these days.

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Your 3.18.20 Playpen

Pretty obvious topic for today:  no sports to distract us from life, so how are you coping/staying sane/surviving?  Any tricks you can share?  Distractions that work best?

Have at it in the comments.

Your Daily Gator couldn’t catch a break.

Just a reminder of one of the more enjoyable moments from the 2019 season:

The Portal Master™ was not happy with the officiating crew that day, my friends.

An unexpected consequence

It appears the coronavirus is going to force some athletic directors to work for a living.

Major-college athletics directors are planning on the NCAA not being able to cover all of the revenue it will lose because of the cancellation of the Division I men’s basketball tournament due to the coronavirus outbreak, six ADs and college sports administrators have told USA TODAY.

That is likely to result in a reduction of the association’s scheduled distribution of $600 million to Division I schools and conferences this spring, the ADs and administrators said. How much of a reduction is still to be determined, and that will depend on the association’s ability to tap its reserves and borrow money.

The ADs and administrators spoke on the condition of anonymity because the financial details are still being worked out.

“The economics of all this could definitely be extensive,” one AD said.

No shit.

The NCAA has about $275 million in business-interruption insurance connected to the tournament coming.  The men’s tournament rakes in almost $900 million for the organization, so you do the math.

The NCAA’s 2020 Revenue Distribution Plan calls for the association to make payouts to Division I schools from April 15 through June 10. Just over $220 million in payments are scheduled for April 15, but those may be delayed.

One AD said it will take a long time for the finances to be fully determined and sorted out legally.

You can bet athletic directors across the country are already doing just that.

Et tu, NAIA?

Man, what’s the world coming to when the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics doesn’t have the NCAA’s back?

Schools in the small-college organization recently received proposed legislation that removes the word “reasonable” from previous NAIA rules that allowed athletes “reasonable compensation for use of name, image and likeness …”

In considering the change, NAIA commissioner Jim Carr said it would be difficult for his organization “to determine what’s reasonable and what’s not” going forward.

In addition, NAIA athletes — unlike those governed by the NCAA — could represent their schools while earning that outside compensation.

Such legislation would be considered far less controversial than an NCAA version. Due to economic and professional issues, the NCAA continues to wrestle with the name, image and likeness concept. In general, the NCAA does not allow such compensation. A working group is expected next month to make recommendations to the NCAA Council relaxing some of those restrictions.

The NAIA proposal is expected to be less restrictive than what will eventually be adopted by the NCAA. The NAIA legislation is similar to the California law due to go into effect in 2023, having limited restrictions and allowing athletes to have an agent.

If the measure passes, the NAIA would be the first college organization to allow athletes to earn money from outside entities based on their notoriety.

Death knell for small college athletics, amirite?  If it’s not, though, how does the NCAA rationalize that?

What exactly are “team activities”?

Seth Emerson ($$) asks Georgia’s compliance director about some program dos and don’ts during the shutdown.  This is actually the thing I’ve been most curious about:

Coach-player communication

Coaches and players can talk, but mainly just on logistical matters, such as checking in and seeing that everybody is OK. They cannot have what Lawler called “chalk talk.”

There are some exceptions, as Lawler explained: “If they ask and say: ‘Hey, I’m here at my house, I don’t want to go to a gym, can you give me some body-weight workouts?’ or something like that. You could provide it to them. But you can’t require it. There’s no reporting back. There’s no any of that. There’s some flexibility. This thing kind of moves pretty quickly.”

I’ll bet it does.

What’s the over/under on the number of SEC programs pushing that particular envelope?

2020 season ticket renewals

If you’re wondering where the coronavirus leaves us in terms of renewing our season tickets for 2020 — leaving aside the question of exactly what we’re renewing — Greg McGarity reached out yesterday with a status report.

This, of course, doesn’t address the question of what happens if all or part of the regular season isn’t played, but I doubt B-M has tried to game that out yet (not that I blame them).

There is some sensitivity to current affairs shown there and if anyone has spoken with the UGAAA about the options he mentions, please share your experience in the comments.

No doubt

If you had even the slightest hope that somehow we were going to see G-Day in some form or fashion, Greg Sankey put that to rest yesterday.

ALERT-The @SEC has announced all regular season conference and non-conference competitions are cancelled for remainder of the 2019-20 athletic year, including all Spring FB Games and remaining SEC championship events, due to continuing developments related to the coronavirus.

— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) March 17, 2020

That was the easy call.  The hard part is going to come when they try to figure out how to restart the season.  Or, if they try…