“We’re Reopening Notre Dame. It’s Worth the Risk.”

Father Jenkins, the president of the University of Notre Dame:

Athletic competition presents another set of challenges. We believe we can, with aggressive testing, hygiene and careful monitoring, keep student-athletes safe. Indeed, keeping healthy relatively small cadres of student-athletes, coaches and support staff members is a less daunting challenge than keeping safe the several thousand other people in the campus community.

Fans in the stadium, however, are a different matter. Fighting Irish fans regularly fill Notre Dame Stadium’s 80,000 seats. I see no way currently to allow spectators unless we restrict admissions so that physical distancing is possible…

We are in our society regularly willing to take on ourselves or impose on others risks — even lethal risks — for the good of society. We send off young men and women to war to defend the security of our nation knowing that many will not return. We applaud medical professionals who risk their health to provide care to the sick and suffering.

How can you equate college football players with soldiers and medical professionals like that?  Seriously, because I got nothing.

He goes on to get this part right:  “The pivotal question for us individually and as a society is not whether we should take risks, but what risks are acceptable and why.” That is a debate worth having, and not just at his institution.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t offer anything more than his hope that most people won’t disagree with his choice.  I wonder if he’s going to make the effort to find out what those football players being imposed on think about it.

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Takeaways takeaway

This certainly goes against the grain:

Going back and look at Georgia’s defenses under Kirby Smart, I came across a pretty incredible trend over the last four years. Georgia has created fewer and fewer turnovers each year since Smart arrived all while the unit, for the most part, has gotten better.

The Bulldogs generated 27 turnovers in 2016, a really good defense but one that wasn’t close to as good as it was in 2017 when it created 20 turnovers with two extra games to do so. That number fell to 17 in 2018, a defense that wasn’t quite as good as the group the year before and then 16 turnovers in 2019, the best of them all.

Outside of the fact that the Bulldogs just aren’t intercepting as many passes as they did in 2016, there’s no real way to explain it. There’s an element of fortune involved in creating turnovers. It also helps to have a veteran group, especially when it comes to creating interceptions because those guys are rarely out of position.

We’re also not interested in taking a deep dive into why the turnovers have trended downward over the past four years because it hasn’t really impacted the performance. Some how, some way, UGA led the nation in scoring defense in 2019 while ranking 60th nationally in sacks per game, 89th nationally in tackle for loss per game, and 84th in number of turnovers created.

The three best teams in college football a season ago. LSU, Clemson, and Ohio State all ranked inside the top 23 when it came to turnovers created, each having at least six more than the Bulldogs.

Still, without the benefit of creating negative plays at a high clip or turning teams over, Georgia held opponents to 12.3 points per game.

It’s like bend but not break on steroids.  Imagine what that defense might be capable of if they reversed that trend.

The state of the state

I swear, if Brian Kemp didn’t answer a question about a possible second wave of the coronavirus like this…

“Yeah, look. Depending on how this thing plays out, and whether there’s going to be a second wave or not—there are arguments that can be made that the season should start on time; that, really, late in the season would create more complications than earlier in the season,” Kemp said. “I wouldn’t say that that’s a fact, but there are a lot of opinions out there, and that’s certainly one of them.”  [Emphasis added.]

… I’d have to invent it.

Bonus points for this answer to a question about tailgating:

“I think people just have to be smart. I’ve been to many a tailgate and plan to be at many more. If you were at a tailgate today, I’d tell people, if you can’t stay six feet apart from people, you need to wear a mask or be cognizant of that. Obviously, if you’re trying to eat or drink, it’s hard to do that with a mask on, so I think you’ll have to be really smart. But one thing about outdoor tailgating, it’s kind of like being at the beach or at the state park. As long as you keep folks spread out, you’re a lot less risky there than being in a confined, small space. I think most our tailgaters in the Bulldog Nation will be pretty smart about it.”

Obviously, we attend very different tailgates.

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UPDATE:  For a different perspective,

McGarity said how players go about what they do when not at the Butts-Mehre weight room or the practice fields will be an important factor.

“Voluntary workouts, that’s not a lot of time in your facility,” McGarity said. “So there’s going to be a lot of free time. It’s going to be essential that we educate not only our staff but our student-athletes on best practices due to the fact that they’re not going to under our watchful eyes 24-7. On all campuses, if there’s not a level of cooperation and understanding and buy-in, whatever we do internally inside our facilities will go for naught unless everyone buys in when they’re away from our facilities.”

Video of people close together at some Memorial Day activities nationally including Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, Alabama beaches and Ocean City, Md., alarmed those concerned about another wave.

“It’s got to take a lifestyle change,” McGarity said. “What we saw this past weekend in certain areas of the country certainly we could not have that environment on our campus.”

When Greg McGarity is showing you up on the PR front, it’s time to admit your communication skills need work.

Your 5.27.20 Playpen

Here’s a question for you — what’s the best movie you’ve seen by accident?

I remember going to some multiplex, finding that the movie I was planning on watching was sold out and stumbled into this instead.

Breaker Morant is a movie about how, as the director once put it, wartime atrocities can be “committed by people who appear to be quite normal”.  It’s also about the difficulty of a government putting its own soldiers on trial for murder for acts performed in the field.

The acting is superb and the ending is one of the most moving I’ve ever watched.  Try to keep a lump out of your throat.

“Shoot straight, you bastards.  Don’t make a mess of it.”

So, what’s yours?  Share in the comments.

The secret to Jeremy Pruitt’s success

Bud Elliott’s been tracking this season’s football commitments, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post.  To say they’ve been coming at an unprecedented rate is an understatement.

A lot of schools saying yes to commitments from players they would never have greenlit in May of prior years without first seeing them in person or in a camp. https://t.co/NBjcvkscub

— Bud Elliott (@BudElliott3) May 27, 2020

Either coaches have evaluation skills that the coronavirus has sharpened into superpowers, or we’re going to see an epic flood of de-commitments once things return to some degree of normalcy.

I’m looking forward to hearing the rationalizations.

Sammy Wheeler, salut!

K-State TE Sammy Wheeler arrested on charges of unlawful use of driver’s license, purchase/possession/consumption of liquor by a minor (the day before he turned 21!!!), interference with a law enforcement officer, and urinating in public: https://t.co/DZxGpYwsmI #FulmerCup #Late

— The Fulmer Cup (@TheFulmerCup) May 27, 2020

“The day before he turned 21” is what really makes this sing.

As the saying goes, youth is wasted on the wrong people.

You can take the boy out of Gainesville, but you can’t take Gainesville out of the boy.

Brian Edwards is something of a college football tout.  He’s also something of a Florida fan.

This list is what you get when you do a mashup of the two.

In Birmingham, they love the Senator.

Politically speaking, I don’t have a dog in the hunt that is the Alabama Republican primary for the US Senate, which doesn’t mean I can’t take all kinds of pleasure from this exchange, coming after Jeff Sessions called for a series of debates with Tommy Tuberville:

 

Statement from Tommy Tuberville is, uh, blunt: "If coaching taught me anything, it's that you don't let the losing team dictate the game when you're sitting on a lead." #alpolitics https://t.co/jG5lg2n8mT

— Brian Lyman (@lyman_brian) May 26, 2020

 

If watching you coach taught me anything @TTuberville, it’s that you’re no good at sitting on a lead. That’s why you finished 5-7 and 4-8 in your last seasons at Auburn and Cincinnati. If you are too weak to debate, you do not deserve to represent the people of Alabama. https://t.co/3Jdt8XC2mG

— Jeff Sessions (@jeffsessions) May 26, 2020

Kudos to Sessions’ research staff, but, guys, you’ve just scratched the surface there.  How about a video series of interviews with folks at Ole Miss and the Texas Tech recruits Tubs blew off during lunch after he learned he got the Cinci job?  (“Alabama voters, if he’ll do it to them, he’ll do it to you, too!”)

And if y’all can’t find a way to mock Tuberville over this…

… you need to go back to snark school.  The man’s a walking advertisement for bullshit.

Get crackin’, fellas!  Time’s a wastin’.  Entertain us.