Reinvent or repair?

Hyperbole or not?

“They’re very excited thinking Jamie Newman is that, but you’re excited because you want to know what kind of player he is,” Pate said. “And the rest of the country does too. Let me tell you what the rest of the country doesn’t want to see. The rest of the country is totally fine with Georgia being dominant defensively. They’re totally fine with Georgia being able to run the ball. They’re totally fine with all that because they believe if they are, Alabama, or their Clemson if they’re Ohio State if they’re LSU like last year, they’re confident that they could drown you offensively. You can’t keep up. So, you do your bully ball over there. You build that defense, and you build that running and you build that offensive line, we’ll be okay. We’ll stretch you vertically. We will torch you, you won’t be able to keep up with us. But what they don’t want to see is Georgia look across the aisle and take a page out of their playbook.

“They don’t want to see Georgia modernize offensively. No one wants to see that because that means you potentially could have another tier one program. I already think they’re there, a lot of you don’t, because they haven’t won a national championship. Well, I think we can all agree if George’s offense is all of a sudden able to kick it up a couple of notches with the defense they already have established, yeah they probably arrived in the tier one category.”

Oklahoma tried to drown Georgia offensively in the Rose Bowl.  It didn’t work.  Georgia did a fair job limiting Tua in the 2018 SECCG, too.  LSU, admittedly, was a horse of another color, one that did a spectacular job of outpacing the Dawgs.

But count me among those who will be happy if all Todd Monken manages to accomplish as the offensive coordinator is this:

 “He’s seen it work at both the collegiate and pro level so he knows the spacing he’s looking for, he knows the timing he’s looking for and he knows how to drill it. He knows how to get the reps because, especially in college, you only have a limited amount of time you’re with those guys, a limited amount of time in the meeting room, a little amount of time on the field. He knows how to get the most out of his time.”

If “modernize offensively” means getting the mechanics of a competent passing game nailed down, then I’m down with modernizing.

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He’th thtill got it.

Lou Holtz, with the kind of steaming hot take that is his specialty:

Lou Holtz wants football to come back: "There's no way in this world you can do anything that's without a risk. People stormed Normandy" pic.twitter.com/WPSCFSpIAO

— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) July 10, 2020

I only wish she’d brought on Mark May in rebuttal.

Excuses in amateurism

This rebuttal to some of what got pitched at that Senate hearing on college athletes and NIL compensation packs quite a punch.

First, this on Title IX:

… there was the notion that NIL funding for men’s basketball and football will pull funding from women’s sports.It’s a bad argument, but it was one that was made by SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who appealed to the myth that Title IX requires equal spending among genders in college sports. This isn’t how Title IX functions in collegiate athletics, and NCAA records prove that men consistently receive more funding than women. That’s likely because Title IX only requires schools to allocate equal spending on athletic scholarships. However, universities frequently violate Title IX laws as they pertain to scholarships. According to the NCAA’s Financial Reporting System, male athletes receive an average of 51% of their university’s scholarship dollars, while female athletes receive 45% at the Division 1 level (4% of scholarship expenditures were recorded as “coed or unaccounted”). The same source indicates that “Division I FBS institutions spend more than twice as much on each male student-athlete than on each female student-athlete,” so financial inequity already exists in the NCAA because the NCAA’s member schools are getting away with skirting Title IX.

Furthermore, even if Title IX required equal spending on all fronts, every NIL bill currently on the table is simply focused on granting college athletes rights to their NILs—none of these laws require universities to pay college athletes as if they’re employees. Equal rights to a free market would be a massive step toward gender equity in collegiate athletics, especially for female athletes who have fewer opportunities to compete professionally and typically reach their peak athletic earning potential in college. Title IX isn’t an excuse to avoid passing NIL laws, and it’s a deeply flawed, but persistent argument against college athlete NIL rights.

Then she takes on the proposal that “Among the working group’s guiding principles is the notion that NIL rules should “ensure student-athletes are treated similarly to non-athlete students unless a compelling reason exists to differentiate.” “.

“Why?” College athletes live vastly different lives than non-athlete students because of their athletic obligations that tether them to a borderline extreme lifestyle. Given the NCAA’s laxly-regulated 20-hour rule, which actually allows college athletes to spend upwards of 50 hours a week on their sport, college athletes are arguably employees, whereas most non-athlete students are not. Furthermore, college athletes already sign autographs, wear the logos of university sponsors on their uniforms, and make media appearances—they’re just not paid for these uses of their NIL. However, as indicated by the pervasive practice of schools using athlete NILs to boost PR and solicit alumni donations, it is clear that the NILs of college athletes have market value that the NILs of most non-athlete students do not. It is also worth noting that every non-athlete student enrolled at an American university has the unfettered right to profit from their name, image, and likeness. If the NCAA truly wanted to treat college athletes like non-athlete students, the Association would extend these rights to athletes as well.

They really do make it up as they go along, don’t they?

By the way, the author is a woman who ran track at a D-1 program, so she knows something from where she speaks.

Looking for the rat poison antidote

Kirbs, as the grasshopper showing he’s learned his master’s lesson:

“I’m excited about the defensive unit. The biggest concern is the complacency, the have-we-arrived. They’ve gotten a lot of hype off the returners and what they did last year, which does nothing for this year,” Smart said during his interview on the ESPN College Football Podcast with David Pollack and Kevin Negandhi. “But, I’m excited about this defensive group, if they approach things the right way. I would have gotten a really good impression on that from spring.”

Smart has seen complacency take hold of a defensive unit before.

“I was part of a lot of defenses at Alabama that were coming off really good years, then came out in the spring and laid an egg,” Smart said. “I didn’t get to see that, I didn’t get to feel that psyche of that group—were they hungry or were they complacent? It’s a disease. It just creeps in if you’re not careful, so we can’t have that.”

That’s exactly why Gawd created roster depth.

Don’t cry for me, Bloomington.

Indiana taking a $44000 hit to lose to Tennessee in a bowl game isn’t great, but in comparison to this…

#Tennessee pays Georgia State $950k to come and play:

*Georgia State after the game:pic.twitter.com/DjBhethJYi

— Brady McCarter (@bmccarter122) August 31, 2019

… it’s a fucking bargain.