This isn’t quite balance talk, but it’s close enough.
Wait ’til he lets ‘Cocknation know SC is going back to traditional I-formation offense. Cutting edge, for the win!
Daily Archives: September 4, 2020
Happy talk on the Plains
If I had a dollar for every time an Auburn player said something like this…
You know, for somebody who’s supposed to be some sort of offensive mastermind, Gus’ folks sure seem to get excited about doing things differently there.
Filed under Auburn's Cast of Thousands
Today, in I heard it on the Internet, so…
Shot.
Chaser.
I’ve gotten a fair number of queries from folks in the last day or so asking if I know why Jamie Newman decided to drop out of the 2020 college football season. All I’ve got is speculation. I know nothing definitive.
And I strongly doubt, outside of a very few number of folks, none of whom have been quoted on the record, that anyone else giving their take on the situation does, either.
All I’m saying is make sure you take anything you read or hear about Newman with a very large grain of salt.
Filed under Georgia Football
“You don’t get your cake and eat it, too.”
Not when it comes to playing football in the spring, anyway.
The Football Oversight Committee on Thursday agreed to recommend to the Division I Council a spring-season model for conferences that push their seasons to spring of 2021. It includes 15 practices in 29 days and an eight-game season that must end by April 17.
Any other conferences that have postponed their season because of the coronavirus pandemic but decide to resume playing games earlier than next spring will not be able to use the 15-practice model, but it will be recommended all leagues that have postponed will have 13 weeks to complete their seasons.
If a school or conference wants to commence play earlier than in the spring, then it won’t be limited to an eight-game schedule. And those who try to split the baby don’t get the proposed spring model.
If the Big Ten or any other league resumes play in late November, it wouldn’t be allowed to use the proposed practice format of 29 days to have 15 practices, as is the case during a typical spring season. Only teams that push the season to spring of 2021 would be able to make use of that model.
“There was a concern about having more than eight games if you’re only in the spring,” Lyons said. “If you’re using your 13 weeks in both terms, then you don’t get fall ball or spring ball. You don’t get your cake and eat it, too.”
One more thing:
The split college football seasons have also raised a question for midyear enrollees — high school athletes who graduate in December and enroll in college in January so they can participate in spring practices. Instead of practicing, though, some teams might be playing games, opening the door for debate about whether those recent high school graduates will be eligible for competition.
“There was not support to allow midyear enrollees, transfers or incoming freshmen to compete in the spring semester,” Lyons said.
I don’t get that. If, as Lyons indicated, the NCAA is concerned enough about player safety issues to limit the spring season to eight games, why wouldn’t you let teams play as many kids in the spring as they can?
Filed under College Football, The Body Is A Temple, The NCAA
One born every minute
For years, Travis, who also hosts a gambling show on Fox Sports and runs a website called Outkick, has been building a brand partly rooted in attacking progressive athletes and accusing ESPN of liberal bias. But this summer, as the pandemic, protests over racial injustice and the approaching election collided with the return of sports, Travis’s nascent mini-media empire has morphed into the go-to platform for Republicans hoping to win over sports fans.
… The motivation is clear for politicos, said Republican strategist Jim Hobart, given Travis’s audience of red-state SEC fans.
“These sports issues can be a very effective base motivator,” he explained. “They can drive donor interest, especially small-donor interest, and the reason they are going on with Clay is that he reaches the same audience that they are trying to reach.”
For Travis, the calculation may be riskier. After spending years lambasting the politicization of sports and arguing about the business downsides of activism, his own politics may be impacting his long-term position in sports media.
He’s not hiding anything, because he doesn’t feel the need to hide anything, which says a lot about what he thinks of the people he’s pitching his shtick to.
“Stick to sports” is profitable in this day and age, if you know how to sell it. And whom to sell it to.
Your Daily Gator grudgingly assesses the Cocktail Party.
From one of the board staffers:
Couple of key “probably”s mixed in with an “If they show up with the correct arm bands this year” gets you to a Florida win.
Gonna be tough.
Filed under Gators, Gators..., Georgia Football
By the book
You know how we’ve sort of half-assed speculated about which schools might try to fudge testing data so as to keep their players eligible on game days?
Well, here’s your list of suspects.
As debate swirls about the return of college fall sports amid an increasing number of positive COVID-19 tests on campuses, football coaches and athletic directors have been loudly championing their schools’ health and testing protocols.
The schools are much less forthcoming, though, about the actual number of positive tests in their programs and other related data.
In response to a series of questions from ESPN about their COVID-19 testing protocols, almost half of the 65 schools in the Power 5 conferences declined to share data about how many positive tests their programs have had to date. Nearly a third of the schools overall declined to provide information about protocols in addition to withholding the number of athletes who have tested positive. Twenty-one schools that declined to provide data are in the conferences that plan to play college sports this fall: the ACC, Big 12 and SEC.
You want a reason?
Many of the schools that declined to give data to ESPN cited federal student privacy laws, university protocols and other confidentiality considerations, although legal experts say those laws shouldn’t be applied to such a request because the data wouldn’t identify specific students.
If you don’t find that convincing, how about this?
“We’ve just followed our university protocols when we do have positive tests, whether they be staff, student-athletes or what have you,” said Greg McGarity, athletics director at Georgia, one of the schools that declined to answer any of the nine survey questions. “They’re reported through the university channels, and everything is done by the book.”
I don’t have any reason to think Georgia is going to be one of those programs trying to skirt its way through the season, given the absurd depth Smart has to work with, but how weird is it to see McGarity being more secretive than Saban or Swinney?
Anyway, somebody’s gonna try and I wonder what the repercussions will be if/when they’re caught.
Filed under College Football, Georgia Football, The Body Is A Temple
One of those thousand-word pictures
If you want a visual confirmation of how crazy good Georgia’s defense projects under Bill Connelly’s SP+ metric, here you go.
That is almost literally off the charts.
It’s why I came close to laughing at Barrett Sallee’s “what happens when they have an off day on defense” take in picking Georgia not to win the East.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
Jamie Who?
There’s something missing from this clip of Georgia’s last scrimmage… I can’t quite put my finger on it…
I’ll figure it out eventually.
Filed under Georgia Football
Get The Picture 
You must be logged in to post a comment.