Well off

You may remember that last year’s EADA report confirmed what we already knew:  protests aside, Georgia’s athletic department ain’t missing any meals.

The newest numbers are out, and guess what?

#2 Georgia $123.1 million (=)

UGA remains the richest program in the SEC. Long blessed with the combination of a fan base seated in the largest metro area (Atlanta) amid the epicenter of the most fervid football conference in the nation, Georgia now adds its most competitive program since the glory days of Hershel Walker. The Dawgs lost a 35-28 SEC title battle in a rematch with Alabama from the prior CFP championship, then dropped the Sugar Bowl to Texas. UGA still cleared a gargantuan $73.9M in profit.

Pretty awesome they’re using that financial depth to deliver championship after championship, amirite?  Er… what’s that you say?  Georgia’s 61st in the latest Director’s Cup standings?

Allow me to use this evergreen quote again:

I keep coming back to this quote from McGarity when he was hired.

McGarity, who played and coached tennis at Georgia and worked in its athletic administration before leaving for Florida, said “there is nothing greater than being part of championships. That’s why we do what we do.

“At the end of the day,” he continued, “all the time you put in at the office, the fun comes when you’re competing for championships and you see what these coaches have done over a number of years to finally get to the top of the mountain and you’re able to be just a small piece of that.”

You having fun yet, Georgia fans?

We may not have the athletic director we want, but we do have the athletic director the powers that be think we deserve.

True dat.  Suckers.

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Loaded for bear

This is impressive.

How much #depth & talent does #UGA have returning on defense?@GeorgiaFootball has 13 returning defenders who played at least 200 snaps and had a @PFF grade of at least 70.0.

No other #SEC team had that many play and meet both those marks in 2019, let alone returning in '20.

— Brent Rollins (@PFF_Brent) March 24, 2020

He keeps working his way back to you, babe.

Somebody’s been making diligent use of his spare time.

Well known quarterback coach Quincy Avery has worked with many talented quarterbacks over the years. He is the personal coach of Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson , Jalen Hurts and many others travel to the Atlanta area to work with Avery.

Georgia QB Jamie Newman also works closely with Avery and the two are hard at it during this college football layoff due to the spread of the coronavirus. Avery knows the former Wake Forest signal caller very well and believes he is already a little step ahead of the game as a graduate transfer and mature player entering his one season at UGA, even without spring practice.

“The situation that Jamie is in, is a lot different than someone that is coming in from high school,” Avery told Dawgs247 .”Jamie knows what it takes to be a starter at the division one P5 level already. He understands what it will take from him, he does not need to get acclimated to college football. Of course reps of spring ball would have been a positive and beneficial, but I am 100 percent confident that Jamie can get his guys together when they are allowed and get going with work.”

The current objective of Newman’s training is fine tuning his skill set and keeping him ready for when the practice and throwing sessions resume in Athens.

“Right now we are training essentially like I train my guys for the combine and draft, “ he said. ”With Georgia’s offense not being completely in with a new offensive coaching staff, our focus has been really just working technique and understanding football right now. Jamie is so mature and he wants to be great so bad. It has been great. He always wants to get better. He really threw the ball well last year at Wake Forest. He has never had the opportunity to throw with receivers like he is about to have at Georgia with George (Pickens) and those kind of guys. As soon as he can get on the field with those guys and get consistent, he is going to look even more talented than people saw last year.”

One thing to say about Newman is that he knows what’s at stake for him personally:  a chance to display his skills on a higher level and to a wider audience than he’s had before.  If Smart has gauged his character correctly, that should go a long way.  Too bad the work with the receiving corps is put on hold for now.

I got ‘yer gap right here.

Josh posted a couple of handy dandy charts, showing the state of SEC recruiting in the year 2020.

First, look at the six-year track record.

Let’s say it again:  Florida ain’t closing any gap with Georgia, so much as trying to regain lost ground.  In 2014, it posted a higher composite average, but since then, the Gators have watched Richt erase that first and then Smart run away from them.

That all being said, before we crow too much, there’s still Alabama.  No program recruiting that well and that consistently can be dismissed as a conference and national power.  Which means Georgia still has work to do.

That’s reflected in Josh’s second chart, which measures the composite averages of SEC teams’ 2020 projected rosters, position-by-position.

As Josh points out in this post, the average lowest-rated CFP team put up a .906 composite average, so you can see several SEC teams have managed to recruit at an elite level.  The problem for schools like Auburn, Florida and Texas A&M is that there’s elite and then there’s what Alabama and Georgia are doing.

In my mind, some of this takes us back to what was said in the clip I posted yesterday.  To beat Alabama and Georgia, a team either has to match them in overall talent, or have a truly exemplary quarterback who can elevate them.  Is there an SEC quarterback out there who’s capable of that this season?  And, yes, you can ask that question about Georgia as it attempts again to run down the Tide.

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

UPDATE:  Hey, you guys get credit!

thanks to some of @MummePoll's readers. I my @SEC 2020 projections were off. Gatewood out at AU, in at UK. Trask's .793 average was into UF QB position as it was outside the top 1200 in class. Manually added those

Post updated https://t.co/PWHlOUziwN@GPoole_BI https://t.co/6iR8hyp6tW pic.twitter.com/BhYALYFhEf

— DawgStats (@Dawg_Stats) March 24, 2020

The soft bigotry of low expectations, Urnge edition

This survey of the Tennessee fan base at The Athletic ($$), is such a perfect picture of the Vol mindset.  One example:

How would you rate Jeremy Pruitt’s performance so far as Tennessee’s coach? (1: poor, 5: excellent)

• 4: 70.7 percent
• 3: 22.1 percent
• 5: 7.2 percent

Fascinating that not a single respondent rated Pruitt below a three. Every college football fan base is fickle, but I’d have been curious to see these numbers when Tennessee was 1-4.

This one’s even better.

How would you rate Pruitt’s performance as a gameday coach?

• 4: 53.4 percent
• 3: 37.2 percent
• 5: 6.6 percent
• 2: 2.8 percent

How would you rate Pruitt’s performance as a recruiter?

• 4: 62.6 percent
• 5: 27.7 percent
• 3: 9.3 percent
• 2: 0.3 percent

This is a fascinating result. Pruitt has actually recruited somewhat worse than Butch Jones and inherited a lot of underdeveloped talent, but fans were significantly more pleased with Pruitt’s work as a recruiter than his work as an on-field coach.

Pruitt’s first three recruiting classes ranked:

• 21st nationally, 8th SEC
• 13th nationally, 7th SEC
• 10th nationally, 7th SEC

Butch Jones recruiting:

• 25th nationally, 11th SEC
• 7th nationally, 5th SEC
• 4th nationally, 2nd SEC
• 14th nationally, 7th SEC
• 17th nationally, 7th SEC

Just imagine how they’ll feel about the next guy.

Glorious

My friends, a simple question for you:  has there ever been a finer seven and one-half minute start to a Georgia-Florida game than this?

All that talk of closing the gap is a stretch, because the bar started so low as to be almost subterranean.  Hell, showing up for a 0 – 0 tie at kickoff the next year closed that gap.

“Kids are going to go where they want to play.”

Here’s Dennis Dodd’s summary of the proposed changes to the NCAA’s existing transfer rules:

• The transfer cannot have faced a disciplinary suspension. Think of any player suspended for a drug positive. Clemson tight end Braden Galloway couldn’t have transferred and been eligible right away after testing positive in late 2018 for ostarine, classified by the Word Anti-Doping Agent as an S1 Anabolic Agent.
• The transfer has to maintain academic progress. That progress toward a degree requirement has been around for 17 years. The “40-60-80″rules states that, prior to a third year of college enrollment, an athlete must have completed 40 percent of credit hours required toward a degree. That number goes to 60 percent before the fourth year and 80 percent before the fifth year. (Athletes must declare a major by their second year. The NCAA allows athletes five years to complete four years of eligibility.)
• The transfer has to leave school academically eligible. That’s why former West Virginia safety Kenny Robinson couldn’t find a home in Division I after being expelled in 2018. Robinson ended up in the XFL.
• The transfer must get a release from their departing school. This is a rule that was once in place for every college athlete, but following the creation of the transfer portal in 2018, had been removed for the five aforementioned revenue sports.  [Emphasis added.]
• Specific intraconference transfer rules can still apply.

If you’re a little skeptical about that whole “must get a release from their departing school” thing, Dodd is here to reassure you it’s no big deal.

Critics have seized upon the point regarding transfers needing a “release” from their departing school. Athletes will be allowed to transfer, but if they don’t get that release, they’ll have to sit out a year. There is a general feeling that, by the time a player jumps through the first three hoops, the release by a school will be a formality. If not, the coach/school will be Twitter shamed into granting a release. By then, why fight it when the downside is protracted public battle damages a program’s brand?

Gotta love using release in air quotes there.  Funny how he doesn’t mention a single school whose brand was damaged by a coach being a dick over a kid’s attempt to transfer.

In other words, I’ll believe the air quotes when I see them.

Brooklyn isn’t in Montana.

Jeff Sentell looks into why Georgia is having some recruiting success in the greater New York City area.  According to one coach up there, it’s — believe it or not — familiarity.

“Georgia is very popular up here,” Whitehead said. “One thing about Georgia. Georgia is on TV a lot up here. They are on TV all the time. It is not the same way with all the programs down South. Georgia is just one of those programs where it is just a popular program. I don’t know even if I can explain how or why.”