Of sites and stats

Given Clay Travis is the subject of this past week’s Playpen, I just had to share this with you guys:

Travis doubled down on this claim in his responses to questions sent by The Daily Beast. He also boasted the site is “growing rapidly,” as evidenced by the “tens of millions of readers, video views, podcast downloads, [and] so forth.” OutKick.com and outkickthecoverage.com attracted about 720,000 total visits in June, per SimilarWeb, and Alexa does not show signs of rapid growth for either URL over the last 90 days.

I’ve done better than his total June numbers in happier, more engaged times here at the blog, and my June numbers are over half of what his two sites combined to generate.  All that without plastering myself all over social media and television as Travis does, which makes me wonder if I could do a better job of promoting GTP than I do.

Just kidding.  Really, I mention this just to say again how much I appreciate every single one of you who visit here and lend your take on whatever in the comments.  Y’all are the best.

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Downfield action

Some criticism I’ve seen concerning Jamie Newman’s transition to Georgia amounts to an argument along these lines:  sure, he’s surrounded by better talent, but the opposition he’ll face is a lot better, too, and besides, he had some really good receivers to throw to at Wake.

With regard to that last bit, PFF offers something of a rebuttal with this:

Wake Forest WRs had a step or more of separation on 46% of passes (lowest in CFB).

𝗝𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝗺𝗮𝗻 was still the 2nd highest-graded QB on throws 20+ yards downfield. pic.twitter.com/AnRGqtFUtt

— PFF College (@PFF_College) July 25, 2020

So, Wake’s guys were worse at getting separation last season than Georgia’s and Newman still managed to nail them downfield at a better rate than Fromm did?

I could be wrong, but it sounds like Monken has something to work with here.

Someday

Some people don’t appreciate the concept of an athletic department being part of the academic experience.

The union representing professors at Rutgers is suing the university over a $100 million transfer to the athletics department. The news was first reported by Bloomberg.

The union is not suing to stop the transfer — that’s already been done. Rather, the union wants the university to disclose details and documents related its financial support of the Scarlet Knights’ athletics department. The union says the school has not responded to open records requests.

“The amounts are just staggering,” said Rutgers associate professor and chair of the union’s budget committee Andrew Goldstone. “We’ve known for years about the subsidy to athletics that comes out of student fees and general appropriations from the university. That makes less and less sense in the era of COVID, when the athletics program will have an even harder time getting to the break-even point.

“But then there’s this loan book, which they call ‘internal debt,’ that ballooned from $45.4 million to $121.5 million in a single year. And the university refuses to release any information about it: where the money came from, whether there’s an interest rate, when it will be repaid, if it will ever be repaid, and, above all, what on earth they’re spending $76 million on.”

Why so glum, chum?

The university has laid off 20 percent of its adjunct faculty, applied furloughs to some remaining faculty and has declared a fiscal emergency in response to the covid-19 pandemic.

Yeah, that would do it.

Mickey makes bank.

You should read this article in its entirety, but, the tl;dr version is expressed in these two graphs:

Two things:  It may be an understatement to call Disney the 800-pound gorilla in the room and it’s not so hard to understand ESPN’s relentlessness in converting college football into a game where national focus replaces regional appeal.  It’s where the money is.

No justice, no peace

No fans, no game.

There is no room for negotiation on one key point as Atlanta organizers consider multiple contingency plans for three season-opening games during the coronavirus pandemic: Without fans, the games can’t be played in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl president Gary Stokan, whose organization is making plans for the Florida State-West Virginia, Georgia-Virginia and North Carolina-Auburn kickoff games, says fans must be allowed for the games to be played at the neutral site.

“If there are no fans allowed in the stadium, then we can’t do these games primarily because we only exist in our budget on ticket revenue and sponsor revenues,” Stokan told The Associated Press on Thursday. “All the TV monies are negotiated in a conference package. That money all goes to the conference.”

Sounds like you’ve got a challenge, Greg.