No spring practice? No big deal.

Stewart Mandel ($$) has Georgia fourth in his current post-spring top 25 rankings, writing in part,

Kirby Smart’s roster is now comprised entirely of top-three recruiting classes, and that doesn’t include Wake Forest grad transfer QB Jamie Newman. The nation’s No. 2 defense last year returns 80 percent of its production, led by LBs Monty Rice and Azeez Ojulari, CB Eric Stokes and S Richard LeCounte. New offensive coordinator Todd Monken inherits playmakers like WR George Pickens and RBs James Cook and Zamir White and a touted if inexperienced O-line…

You know, when you put it that way, that doesn’t sound half bad.

Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

Who’s your pick for best returning SEC QB? pic.twitter.com/dAfAP2sUqy

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) April 28, 2020

As we like to say in these here parts, “have to” is doing a shit ton of work there, Buddy.

Housekeeping note

I finally got around to updating the Lexicon with a couple of needed definitions.  Feel free to check them out, criticize and offer your own suggestions.

Your Daily Gator is bumfuzzled.

With Jamie Newman’s name popping up on a number of projections of 2021 NFL draft prospects, you can imagine that’s not sitting well in certain quarters.

Seth’s just getting warmed up there.

The quarterback who sucked never lost to Florida.  Life just ain’t fair if you’re a Gator fan these days.

“There’s a clock ticking.”

On the eve of the NCAA board of governors adopting recommendations from an NIL working group, this deep dive into where things stand on the political front is a must read, if you’re interested.

If all you want is the tl;dr version, well, let’s just say that if this really is the current framing of things, the NCAA has royally screwed the pooch.

Sports Illustrated met with more than a dozen members of Congress this spring, many of them the primary drivers of this issue on Capitol Hill. While consensus is rare in Congress, legislators agree that sweeping athlete compensation reform is necessary. The debate in D.C. is two-pronged: (1) what a new athlete compensation framework should look like and (2) who should have control in formalizing such a system, the NCAA or Congress? In short, the future of athlete pay is in the controls of two of the most unpopular entities in the nation. [Emphasis added.]

Even more so, when you add in this:

Rep. Donna Shalala (D., Fla.) might have the most experience with the issue. Shalala was president at two major universities, Wisconsin and Miami. She has received a great deal of questions from Republican lawmakers who are SEC fans. While they want to be helpful, she says, they are both wary and ill-informed on NCAA matters. They agree, however, on one thing. “They have nothing but negative feelings about the NCAA,” she says.

Who says bipartisanship is dead?

TFW you want to say the quiet part out loud

Shot.

Dan Mullen says he's more hopeful than optimistic about a football season.

— Nick de la Torre (@NickdelaTorreGC) April 27, 2020

Chaser.

As for football, “we hope to god that we will be back to football and to sports” but will have to do it safely

— Bess Casserleigh (@BCasserleigh) April 27, 2020

The Portal Master™ is being diplomatic.  The LSU president is balancing a ledger.

It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘balance’ is.

Bill Connelly throws some exquisite “blame Bobo” shade here.

What’s the over/under on the number of times Boom and Bobo cite balance this season?

Urnge thirst

LOL.

Two people are charged with attempting to steal more than $600 worth of beer after breaking into Neyland Stadium on the University of Tennessee campus over the weekend, according to arrest warrants.

Police were dispatched shortly before 11 p.m. Saturday after as many as five people were spotted on security cameras inside the football stadium.

Officers arrived to catch three people inside the perimeter fencing near Gate 22. Two of the suspects were carrying 24 beers apiece.

Beers at Neyland Stadium are sold for $12-13 each.

The total beers between them were valued at $624, the warrants read.

Rachel N. Barber, 20 of Nashville, and Spencer Ranencio Ngumuya, 19, of Osceola, Indiana, both admitted to crawling under the fencing to gain access to the locked stadium, and then deciding to steal the beers once they spotted them inside a walk-in cooler, the warrants state.

Seemed like a good idea at the time, no doubt.  In hindsight, though, trying to steal the most expensive Miller Lights in the state of Tennessee might not have been so smart.