Musical palate cleanser, too young edition

Sad.

Justin Townes Earle, an award-winning Americana singer-songwriter and son to country-rock troubadour Steve Earle, has died at age 38.

“It is with tremendous sadness that we inform you of the passing of our son, husband, father and friend Justin,” said a message posted Sunday evening to Justin Townes Earle’s verified Facebook page. “So many of you have relied on his music and lyrics over the years and we hope that his music will continue to guide you on your journeys.”

New West Records, Justin Townes Earle’s label, confirmed his death Sunday night. A cause of death was not given at time of publication.

I’ll leave you with a favorite of mine, his cover of The Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait”.

RIP, brother.

Butthurt in Urnge

I gotta say as a full-throated supporter of a one-time free transfer waiver for college football players, this is fucking hilarious.

The Cade Mays’ NCAA appeals case is fascinating on several fronts, and it has certainly captivated the Georgia and Tennessee fan bases.

It’s not often a two-year starter in the prime of his career on the brink of multi-million dollar draft status asks to transfer out of a national championship contending program.

But that’s what happened with Mays, who is seeking immediate eligibility at a rival school in the SEC despite having his first appeal denied…

There’s nothing fascinating about a social media pissing match between rival fan bases, but I digress.

My mirth stems from this whole #FreeCadeMays garbage take by the UT fan base, like he’s some sort of political prisoner being held somewhere against his will.

Thank you for your kind words Congressman Burchett! Keep fighting the good fight🍊 https://t.co/igI4cSDZnp

— Cade Mays (@cade_mays) August 18, 2020

I can’t wait for Bob Dylan to cover this.

And Griffith himself, who’s worked both side of this beat, deserves a nod of his own for adding just a dash of flavor to the pot stirring.

Pruitt says he writes outgoing #Vols transfers letters of recommendation for immediate eligibility –hard to imagine @KirbySmartUGA taking that suggestion in Mays' case …. https://t.co/g8CoIhy3RZ

— MikeGriffith32 (@MikeGriffith32) August 22, 2020

Tell us more about that sumbitch Kirby Smart, Mike.

There’s a tweet in the middle of what Griffith shared that says the irony here is that Mays is being denied eligibility in a year when there is no eligibility.  The real irony is all the angst Vol fans are generating for a kid who probably won’t play during a season that probably won’t be completed.

Wake me when it’s over.

Anonymous talk at Athlon

I maintain my evergreen position that articles like this have lost some of their spice ever since Tuberville left Auburn, but one comment kinda jumped out:

Todd (Grantham) has a great third-down package. He really mixes it up. They can kill you there with the different pressure packages because of how talented they are at every position.

I didn’t realize Athlon was now letting coaches speak anonymously about themselves.

Sounded good at the time

Looking back at some of the things Mark Emmert said under oath for O’Bannon in the harsh light of pandemic hindsight is pretty damned funny.

Here's some fun testimony from Mark Emmert from the O'Bannon trial. Remember this was all under oath. Can't really have just football or basketball without a full range of other sports. (all citations are to the O'Bannon trial transcript, this is from p. 1725) pic.twitter.com/VvZ3GxFUNP

— Andy Schwarz (@andyhre) August 21, 2020

Sure, Mark.

Here's Emmert testifying that the LSU Tigers are more popular than the New Orleans Saints because LSU football athletes are integrated members of the LSU campus. (pp. 1771-2) pic.twitter.com/8INbpY8pEP

— Andy Schwarz (@andyhre) August 21, 2020

Just like Joe Burrow.  And let’s not forget all the integration going on at North Carolina right now.

Here Emmert explains : if athletes can be paid, then they won't live with other students, or eat with other students, or be active in on-campus events – which would then fundamental ruin what college sports are about (as in the LSU vs Saints comparison). (pp. 1789-90) pic.twitter.com/nXZszVByXk

— Andy Schwarz (@andyhre) August 21, 2020

And, the topper.

Voila, if colleges go to a sports bubble, they will destroy one of their core claims about why pay above cost of education would destroy the popularity of college sports.

As a separate point, Emmert also said if Athletes can earn money from NIL, schools will quit D1 (p. 1783) pic.twitter.com/1P4iqePBOP

— Andy Schwarz (@andyhre) August 21, 2020

I sure hope there’s a lot more discovery in Emmert’s future, because the potential for comedic masterworks in spin is off the charts.

Lanning speaks!

I always enjoy those rare situations when Georgia’s coordinators are allowed off the chain, so to speak, and talk to the media.  Dan Lanning took his turn yesterday, and while there was the usual coachspeak dished out (“We’ve talked about Havoc plays a lot here in the past. That’s still definitely a big focus.”), there were a few niblets mixed in here and there worth considering.

I found this observation about preparation work interesting:

On players being ahead of where they’ve been because of zoom: “Yeah ultimately I would agree with that. Our mental prep, whether we’ve been able to create it through walkthroughs, zoom meetings, is actually further along than our physical prep as far as the tecnhqiue that is required to execute something properly. Getting more of those practice reps is going to be really valuable, but the mental prep is probably ahead of the curve.”

I would assume if there’s been a real benefit to that, even when circumstances return to a more normal setting, some of the virtual training is going to be incorporated into future preparations.

It’s funny, but the most intriguing things he had to say were about offense.

What LSU did in 2019, scheme or personnel?: “Obviously they have phenomenal players and you don’t want to discredit anything they did as a team last year. They did a really good job. I think there’s elements of both. Ultimately we didn’t finish on plays. We were in the right place sometimes and didn’t capitalize. On the same note, they do a lot of unique things with empty. You see more of empty in our league than you ever have before. You see a lot of things from a motion standpoint, shifts, that they create and was unique to face. Moving forward I don’t know how much of that we’ll see, but I know we’ll be more prepared for it.”

Defending Todd Monken’s offense and what he brings to the table and what kind of challenges he can create for a DC: “One thing that’s unique about Todd, I’m not going to tell you what plays we’re running, right, but what’s really fun is he’s the definition of a coach that, he obviously has a lot of experience, knows exactly what he wants in his product. He’s very demanding of his guys, and what right execution looks like. But he’s also very adaptable to change. The game’s changed over the years. And I think you see a lot of pieces of that in his offensive game plan.”

Most people looking at Georgia’s offense for this season have tried to focus on how much Air Raid Monken plans to incorporate into his offensive scheme in Athens, but I don’t think that’s the way Smart has approached where he wants to go post-Coley.  I think that LSU’s game plan in the SECCG really left its mark.  There’s definitely a whiff of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” in Lanning’s comments there.  I’m thinking we’re going to see more empty sets and creative use of personnel out of them to create mismatches than we’ve seen before.

The sincerest form of flattery

I’ve thought this myself.

#UGA DC Dan Lanning says that the SEC will see a lot of "copy cat" plays from #LSU's 2019 offense and that's something they've studied this offseason.

— Jake Rowe (@Rowe247) August 21, 2020

I mean, why wouldn’t you?  (Assuming you’re not James Coley, that is.)

The question is what SEC teams have the offensive personnel to make that really go.

With only the best of intentions

So, there’s this.

The NCAA Division I Council on Wednesday evening released a set of recommendations that could have far-reaching impact on college football for years to come.

While sandwiched in the middle of the release, this section is the meatiest issue the Council addressed on Wednesday night:

Members also recommended the board give all fall sport student-athletes both an additional year of eligibility and an additional year in which to complete it, a recommendation that is even more flexible than what it endorsed last week.

They don’t just want to give seniors an extra year to compete, they’re giving all fall student-athletes an extra year of eligibility.

My first thought upon reading that was, if you’re a head coach, you aren’t going to redshirt any player in 2020.  There’s no incentive to do so; the NCAA has invited you to call for all hands on deck.  And, given the nature of the coronavirus, that makes sense.

But if there’s ever a devil’s in the details decision, this surely constitutes one.

So while the Council had to make that concession to make 2020-21 work, that could have massive, massive implications that might not fully untangle themselves until 2025 or so.

Let me explain.

The way I read this, not only do all 2020 seniors receive the opportunity to play a second senior year in 2021, all 2020 juniors get to be juniors again in 2021, etc. And while 2020 freshmen get to repeat their freshmen year in 2021, another crop of freshmen will arrive behind them in 2021 as well. The Council essentially just created one mega-freshman class of 2021, and either schools will have to respond by signing tiny classes in 2022 and ’23, or the NCAA will have to relax the 85-man scholarship limit until the 2020-21 classes exhaust their eligibility.

Or Saban’s roster management protocols will have to be put on steroids.  As I can’t imagine the NCAA changing the 85-man rule, something that would bring its own set of unintended consequences, that’s going to be one big challenge.

No matter how this shakes out, this could have a major chilling effect on competitive imbalance in major college football. Consider the following:

— If the NCAA doesn’t relax the 85-man limit beyond 2021, suddenly Alabama has much less room in its 2022 class and beyond. Players that normally would have signed with the Tide now go to Ole Miss, players that would have gone to Ole Miss go to Memphis, and on and on it goes.

— If the NCAA does relax the limit and temporarily pushes it to, say, 105, there are still only 11 spots on the field at a time. Players that waited their turn to play suddenly find themselves stuck between a veteran repeating his senior year and two groups of freshmen nipping at their heels. Now, for example, redshirt sophomores with four years in a Power 5 strength program (not three, because 2020 doesn’t count) are going to hit the Transfer Portal in even greater numbers than they were before.

— The most likely scenario, particularly at the bottom of the FBS food chain, is that schools who were already struggling to pay the bills before the pandemic hit find themselves unable to fund an extra 20 or so scholarships in a time when they can’t sell football tickets, and a lot of players’ careers are prematurely cut short.

A choice between the Alabamas and the bottom feeders of the college football world?  Gee, I wonder which way the NCAA will jump.

Oh, and here’s the topper:

Update: The NCAA got back to me on Thursday morning. Here is their response:

If the Board of Directors approves the Council recommendations tomorrow, it is accurate that the recommendation to allow all fall student-athletes a season of competition waiver will – in effect – give any fall student-athlete that competes in 2020-21 five total seasons of competition (including this year).  And six years in which to complete those seasons.

The only student-athletes whose aid would be exempted from the limits next year would be those who would have exhausted eligibility this year under normal circumstances. The Council has noted the issue you raised, and will continue to work through that and other effects of the new flexibility provided to student-athletes in this challenging time.

In other words: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, this is gonna work out just fine.

“… A healthy and safe campus is the highest priority.”

Shot.

Of all the damned bloody lousy aspects of a pandemic that belong in the nontragic categories, one has begun trickling across the American Southeast. It’s the school-by-school cancellation for 2020 of on-campus football tailgating, that national art form of runaway merriment mingled with an alleluia of fat grams.

Auburn announced its cancellation on Wednesday. Alabama had done so on Tuesday. Mississippi State canceled its alumni-association tailgating back in early summer. These absences will double as rational and offensive to anyone who likes life, and if one moves through those three places along the map westward, one begins to approach Shangri-La.

This thought must be a peerless bummer in tailgate Shangri-La: the University of Mississippi.

There hasn’t come any announcement from Ole Miss, that Sydney Opera House of tailgating, and there’s ample reason for reasonable procrastination like they’re doing at Georgia, where athletic director Greg McGarity took a wait-and-see on Wednesday by telling reporters, “We’re not even out of August yet, so we’ve got plenty of time.” But in a league which plans to play a conference-only football schedule beginning Sept. 26, and for the Ole Miss people who arrange their autumn Saturdays around the rhythms of the 10-acre mirth mass called The Grove, there’s already cause to wince.

Chaser.

Governor @tatereeves issues an executive order limiting college football seating to no more than 25% of capacity, along with social distancing and mask guidelines for fans attending the games.

Tailgating and game day events outside stadiums prohibited https://t.co/TVgyXDplQN

— SuperTalk Mississippi (@supertalk) August 20, 2020

Oh, and speaking of Athens…

Even with plans rolled out this week calling for mask-wearing, social distancing and hand sanitizing ticket holders, bringing together somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 people together in a pandemic is risking exposing them and others to COVID-19, according to two epidemiologists.

“I don’t think that’s a wise move right now,” said Kathleen Bachynski, assistant professor of public health at Muhlenberg College. “When you have 20,000 people coming from all over the place to be in the same space together even though being outdoors could mitigate some risk, there’s just so many other moving parts and so many ways that social distancing could be ignored or forgotten about that I think you’re creating an additional both significant and not necessary risk certainly in terms of public health. There’s just not enough added benefit here to warrant the risk that could generate for the community.”

… Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity said he’s leaned on the 14-member SEC’s medical advisory group. Georgia also consulted with local and campus officials that included UGA health officials, it said.

“We think we’ll be able to practice social distancing in a way that will allow fans to come and be as safe as possible,” he said. “We feel that we’ve mapped out the stadium that wan can maintain social distancing and still abide by CDC guidelines as far as keeping people as safe as possible. People can opt out. People elect to come to our game. People that do come certainly will have a level of risk as they move towards the stadium. We’re thinking the numbers that we have will be like a rainy G-Day (spring game)….It’s going to look very sporadic for sure.”

“People that do come certainly will have a level of risk as they move towards the stadium.”  Well, then.  Don’t say he didn’t warn ‘ya, homies.

Of course, this being Greg McGarity, a little bet hedging is in order.

McGarity said depending on health conditions, it’s possible that games could still be held without fans.

“We have to be ready to pivot every way,” he said. “If the numbers are where we can’t do it and we’re being advised not to do it, certainly, that would affect attendance.

Bottom  line, just as it’s been for months, these folks don’t have any more of a clue about what we’re facing than we do.  They want college sports to get paid without risk exposure, which is a pretty narrow line to walk.  Hope is a helluva drug, that’s for sure.

Out of the gate

Here’s Pete Fiutak’s early take on Georgia’s opener:

Georgia at Arkansas

Knee-Jerk Instant Analysis: New Georgia starting QB Jamie Newman – that’s a projection, by the way – looks the part right out of the gate as he carves up the Arkansas secondary on the way to an easy win. The downfield passing game will get Dawg fans fired up right out of the gate.

It’s not that Arkansas will be awful; it’s that Georgia is that good with a defense that will shut everything down hard in the second half after Newman generates a few big plays early.

First Thought Prediction: Georgia 41, Arkansas 10
First Thought Line Guess: Georgia -26

Thoughts?  I’ll just say that the last time Feleipe Franks faced a Georgia defense, he was playing with more talent than he will be playing with in a month or so.  And that didn’t go too well.

Labor law, college football players and COVID

If you have a few minutes, spend them listening to this clip about the labor law environment college athletes find themselves operating within.

I broke down some of the emerging legal issues for college football players under COVID-19 in 2020:

– Status as employees
– Union eligibility
– Player associations
– And the NCAA's role with eachhttps://t.co/FOOPdyZsFV

— Cameron Soran (@cameronsoran) August 20, 2020

(h/t DawgStats)