“The presidents are going to take a vote in the SEC.”

What. The. Fuck.

The Southeastern Conference university presidents will vote on an undetermined date whether players will be able to return to campus on either June 1 or June 15, LSU Executive Deputy Athletic Director Verge Ausberry told the Louisiana Economic Recovery Task Force Thursday morning.

Ausberry, who also serves as LSU’s Executive Director of External Relations, told the task force that the athletic department is aiming to return its players to campus on June 1, something athletic director Scott Woodward had also said in the department’s virtual Coaches Caravan Wednesday night.

If this sounds pretty seat of the pants to you, it’s only because it is.

“We are preparing for a June 1 return, even though we don’t know that,” Woodward said. “The prohibition’s in place for the SEC for us not to use facilities until May 31. When that prohibition comes up, which hopefully won’t be extended, and, if it is, we’ll be read for that too. But I see some time in June our student-athletes getting back to campus and us taking care of them.”

I presume the players don’t get a vote.  Sure hope this ends well for all concerned.

(h/t)

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UPDATE:

Reading the tea leaves everywhere, and based on my own conversations, seems the goal right now is for a mid-July start to an extended preseason and to get players on campus for workouts sometime in June.

That’s if positive momentum continues, and hopefully it does.

— Seth Emerson (@SethWEmerson) May 14, 2020

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UPDATE #2:

SEC Presidents will vote next week whether to bring student-athletes back to campus on June 1. Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley: "All this talk of schools wanting to bring players back on June 1st is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard"

— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) May 14, 2020

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2019 SEC YPP

Matt Melton is back with his annual conference review of yards per play.  Here’s how the 2019 SEC shaped up:

So we know what each team achieved, but how did they perform? To answer that, here are the Yards Per Play (YPP), Yards Per Play Allowed (YPA) and Net Yards Per Play (Net) numbers for each SEC team. This includes conference play only, with the championship game not included. The teams are sorted by division by Net YPP with conference rank in parentheses.

First off, the gap between Georgia and Florida was much smaller than that between Georgia and the top teams in the West.  You hate to see that.

That being said, neither the Dawgs nor the Gators underperformed based on net YPP.  You know who did?

For the statistically inclined, the correlation coefficient between a team’s Net YPP in conference play and their conference record is around .66. Since Net YPP is a solid predictor of a team’s conference record, we can use it to identify which teams had a significant disparity between their conference record as predicted by Net YPP and their actual conference record. I used a difference of .200 between predicted and actual winning percentage as the threshold for ‘significant’. Why .200? It is a little arbitrary, but .200 corresponds to a difference of 1.6 games over an eight game conference schedule and 1.8 games over a nine game one. Over or under-performing by more than a game and a half in a small sample seems significant to me. In the 2019 season, which teams in the SEC met this threshold? Here are SEC teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

Alabama.

By the way, I knew Vanderbilt had a terrible season, but I didn’t realize how terrible.

As I mentioned previously, Vanderbilt had the worst Net YPP of any SEC team since 2005. Here are the other four SEC teams that make up the bottom five of Net YPP.

Vanderbilt is the lone team to finish three yards per play underwater and they were more than a half yard worse than the second worst team (Houston Nutt’s final Ole Miss squad).

Woof.

“As Kanell points out…”

I know I shouldn’t waste time reading Connor Riley’s shi… er, stuff, but, damn, I’ve got to give the guy credit for pulling off a tough “watch me click bait off some click bait” move with this:

It’s what Kanell said about Georgia’s probable starting quarterback, Jamie Newman, that is pretty spot on.

“I think too many people are plugging in Jamie Newman, the transfer from Wake Forest to Georgia, and just assuming it’s going to work,” Kanell said. “I need to see it. Georgia has a bunch of issues across the offensive line they need to fix.

“I don’t know if Jamie Newman is going to be the next coming of Joe Burrow. I would bet against it, considering that standard that Burrow set.”

This like the worst guy you know actually making a good point. You hate to see it.

Newman has yet to officially win the starting job, though it was widely assumed he will do so. You don’t pass on schools like Oregon and Miami to come and play back-up at Georgia for your final season of eligibility.

No one is realistically expecting him to pull a Burrow…

And yet, Kanell said it, because he knew he’d get a reaction, which is what Riley’s “Danny Kanell made a fair and accurate point” does, as well.  Funny how that works.

For the record, since I’m already here with this, Georgia doesn’t need for Newman to be Burrow.  It just needs for him to direct an offense that functions better than the one we watched the second half of last season.  Admittedly, that sucks as click bait, but what’s a blogger to do?

But they did stay at a Holiday Inn Express.

Look who’s an expert on pandemics.

WVU President Dr. E. Gordon Gee: "We are going to play football in the Fall, even if I have to suit up."@WOWK13News @WestVirginiaU @WVUathletics #CollegeFootball #WVU @gordongee pic.twitter.com/YI5pTO3uGG

— Anna Maria Tarullo (@tarullotweets) May 14, 2020

He’s not alone.

Auburn’s president is confident that there will be football on the Plains this fall.

Dr. Jay Gogue, in a recent video greeting to incoming freshmen, claimed that the university is “going to have football this fall,” as well as resume on-campus instruction and activities — including more than 500 clubs, freshman convocation and fraternity and sorority activities — for the semester.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with hoping.  We’re all doing that.  But these two are writing checks with their mouths their asses can’t possibly cash right now.  And I’m pretty sure they know it.

I also can’t help but wonder if either of them have chatted with football players to see how on board they are with the plan.  I’m guessing not yet.

“He is a force to be reckoned with in the East and ultimately the SEC as a whole.”

I know I get my jollies with the Daily Gator posts, but at least I’m making fun of Florida fans (who, to be fair, remind me of Georgia fans in past years).

When it comes to delusion, Tennessee appears to be eliminating the middle man.

This comes from a writer who appears to be affiliated in some form or fashion with USA Today.  He is all freaking in on a “The Vols are back, baby!” narrative.  His expert to bolster that?  A former player of Pruitt’s.

He’s just getting warmed up, though.  Here’s his column predicting the outcome of Tennessee’s 2020 season, again, with the same expert support.  If you don’t want to listen to the podcast for the gory details (and you really should, if you are in need of a chuckle this morning), here’s how he breaks it down:

• Charlotte 38-6 W
  @Oklahoma 23-31 L
  Furman 56-3 W
  Florida 30-17 W
  Missouri 44-16 W
  @ SCAR 37-14 W
  BYE
  Alabama 13-16 L
  @Arkansas 40-13 W
  Kentucky 34-17 W
  @Georgia 27-20 W
  Troy 42-13 W
  @Vanderbilt 44-15 W

Presumably, UT gets its revenge against ‘Bama in the SECCG, because, why not?

(By the way, Georgia didn’t give up more than 20 points in regular season conference play in 2019, but the Urnge, which averaged 20 ppg in conference play last season, is breaking that streak?  Against this year’s Georgia defense in particular?  Sure, dude.)

Oh, and bonus crazy points for this:

A schedule breakdown can also be listened to on a recent “Tennessee Two-A-Days” show co-hosted by Valdosta High School head coach Rush Propst, along with George Bates as a guest.

Good to see Propst, a well-known neutral observer when it comes to all things Pruitt, has time on his hands right now to tend to something like this.  Then again, we’ve always known he can multi-task.

What have I done for me lately?

Oh, cry me a fucking river.

“It’s going to suck for future prospects and no one is really saying it. Say I have a (top recruit) and I’m telling them ‘you’re my best, you’re the world, you’re my joy.’ Well you’re not if I get a transfer that can come and play right away,” said head women’s basketball coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin. “Because at the end of the day you’re still a freshman that needs to go through the transition phase. I think that somebody needs to go and share that narrative. If you are top, you could easily go from top to third or second if the transfer situation goes through. So not only will it hurt us, as we don’t know what team we’re going to coach each year, but it’s also going to hurt the freshman I believe.”

She’s pissed, not because she might take a transfer, but because if she does, she exposes having lied to a recruit.  And this is coming from a women’s basketball coach.

Meanwhile, from the Laner:

“This is a different era of college football. It’s more like the NFL with how you manage your roster,” Kiffin said. “These kids leave so often. We had maybe five go into the portal before we got here. They came back, but normally, they don’t come back. I think people plan on losing kids after spring, so that’s why we save some (roster spots). Because you’ll see a lot of kids leave after spring because it’s not going exactly the way they want.”

“Yeah, those kids shouldn’t make a preemptive decision to leave because of a coaching change.  I mean, I just got here.  I should get to decide who leaves because of a coaching change.”

Oh, and if this isn’t rich, considering the source.

“I can get in this portal so I can get some attention. We’re in a generation of just wanting attention no matter what. So now, I can go in this (portal), get an article written about me, and get re-recruited because I don’t like exactly how something’s going,” Kiffin said in March 2019.

These people are sociopaths.

Branding Montana

I have a suspicion I’m being baited, but anyway, here’s Stewart Mandel’s Mailbag yesterday ($$), returning to a familiar topic:

Stewart. Have you done another updated edition of “Kings and Barons” recently? I would love to see if the group of Kings has shrunk to three to five teams and the group of Barons has expanded to include former elite programs like Texas, USC, Penn State and Florida State? — KC, Phoenix

For those not familiar, KC is referring to a series of columns I’ve written, beginning in 2007, that divided the Power 5 programs into a four-tier pecking order based on their perceived level of prestige — Kings, Barons, Knights and Peasants. The most recent edition was in May 2017, for a previous employer. To this point, I’ve rigidly adhered to the “every five years” rule, which means the next edition won’t come until 2022. As I’ve stated many times, it takes more than a year or two for a program to significantly alter its brand nationally, either for better or worse. These are reputations that took decades upon decades to build. As a result, I assure you all four of the teams you mentioned very much remain Kings.

But there are definitely a few schools whose classifications could swing up or down based on the next two seasons. Consider this a mini-status update between editions.

Georgia: This whole thing started 13 years ago with a question about the Dawgs and my assertion they were more of a regional than national power. But seven months after that 2017 update, Kirby Smart’s team came within 2nd and 26 of winning that elusive first national title since 1980. And over the past three years, the program has gotten more national attention than at any time since the Herschel Walker era.

I’d still like to see the Dawgs climb that last rung and hoist a trophy before including them with a group of programs that have all won ones more recently, but even a second CFP berth might be enough to justify that long-awaited promotion out of the Barons.

Seriously, is there any rhyme or reason to that?  Has there ever been any rhyme or reason to that?

The secret to their success

Say what you will about Missouri, but those guys sure know how to schedule.

Over the last three years, Missouri is 2-16 against FBS teams that finished with a winning record, and is 19-1 against teams that finished at .500 or worse and FCS programs.

Yeah, I don’t think the Tigers are going to be pushing the SEC to go to a nine-game conference schedule any time soon.

Putting a face with a name

Are you somebody who gets confused when you hear terminology like “11 Personnel”?  Well, here’s a handy chart you can use to sort that out.

You may hear '11 personnel' or '12 personnel' — but you may not know what that means.

I was just talking to someone and they asked what these meant. This is the first image that popped up when I Googled it to help explain. Figured I'd share for others who wonder the same. pic.twitter.com/vwTsXU7lyq

— JWack (@JaredWackerlyFF) May 13, 2020

Promises, promises

If “this year, Georgia is really going to use the tight ends more” is the evergreen siren song of the Dawgs’ offense, “Good things do indeed appear to be headed James Cook’s way this season” is the flavor of this offseason.