Betting on the come

I’m sure there will be much rejoicing concerning this news.

For those who never stopped believing… #EASPORTSCollegeFootball pic.twitter.com/ojDl9LzXuj

— EASPORTSCollege (@EASPORTSCollege) February 2, 2021

Deets:

EA Sports is coming back to college football.

After last making a college football video game in 2013, the possibility of the game returning had been in limbo. Now, it isn’t. EA Sports vice president and general manager, Daryl Holt, told ESPN the game maker will be returning to the space with “EA Sports College Football.”

“As we look for the momentum that we’re building on in sports, it all starts with the passion of our fans and the opportunities of what they are interested in,” Holt said. “I don’t think a visit where I go outside wearing a piece of EA Sports branded apparel, that someone doesn’t go, ‘Hey, when is college football coming back?'”

It will — at some point. Holt said there is not a date on when the game will return or even a date where the return will be announced other than it won’t be coming back for this year.

To make the game happen, EA Sports partnered with collegiate licensing company CLC to make sure they had the FBS schools, traditions, uniforms and playbooks — among other things — ready to go for the game. Over 100 teams will be in the game.

For now, EA Sports is planning to move forward without rosters that include the names, images or likenesses of real college players. Current NCAA rules prohibit athletes from selling their NIL rights while in college.

“For now”, eh?  The thing is, that was how the game was set up before and that didn’t stop EA Sports from being sued.  So what might be changing?  You probably can guess what the company is expecting.

However, those rules are likely to be changed at some point in the coming year — either by the NCAA, state legislatures or Congress. It’s not yet clear if the evolving rules will allow for the kind of group licensing arrangements that would be needed for EA Sports to negotiate with athletes to use their names in the game.

The company claims it’s going forward no matter what.  We’ll see.

By the way, “Holt said the plan for the reboot will be to not have the NCAA name, but to use ‘EA Sports College Football.'”.

Bracing for impact

This is just incredible ($$).

Since Tennessee fired Jeremy Pruitt, a host of players have left. Dating back to the preseason, Tennessee has lost a total of 30 players who could or should still be on the 2021 roster. That includes the departures of 23 scholarship players, highlighted by the team’s two leading rushers, leader in sacks and leading tackler, who’s still in the transfer portal.

And that’s before any NCAA sanctions kick in.  Remember, if there’s a multi-year postseason ban included in those, that gives UT’s upperclassmen a license to jump ship without having to sit out a year.

As Ubben notes, the Vols are going to be playing the 2021 season with less than a full 85-scholarship deck.  The only question is how far less.  At least they’ve spent a lot of money to get there.

Sabansplaining

Yeah, that Nick Saban, he be slippin’, man.

The Nick Saban recruiting pitch is perfect. https://t.co/hVYhYJCaVX

— Unnecessary Roughness (@UnnecRoughness) January 30, 2021

Helluva sales pitch, especially ’cause nothing he says is factually incorrect.  Yeah, it’s depressing to hear.

Kirby’s gotta beat Nick, plain and simple.  The sooner, the better.

When you have three five-star quarterbacks…

… you have three five-star quarterbacks.  That is not a bad thing.

Gunner Stockton committed. What does that mean for the 2022 class? What does that tell us about the Georgia program? Well, a lot. The price of entry into the CFP is an elite quarterback, and Georgia just secured the position for at least the next four seasons.

There’s a chance that Vandagriff won’t live up to his billing. There is also a chance that Stockton won’t live up to his five-star ranking. There is virtually zero chance that neither of them will be an elite quarterback.

Add JT Daniels to the mix and it’s hard to see how even the Kirby Smart of naysayers’ “he chose Fromm over Fields!” hindsight dreams could screw that up.  The worst that happens is one of the two incoming studs leaves, but that would be because the other one nailed down the starting job.

I might be more doomy-and-gloomy if Coley were still the quarterbacks coach, but Monken’s gonna polish somebody into an elite quarterback is the expectation I’m going with.  You should, too.

Today, in when they say it’s not about the money

Shot.

Conferences, referencing Board of Regents: "judges, including Justices of this Court, have long found it obvious that not paying student-athletes to play is what defines that college-sports product." https://t.co/kxMOcA9e9u

— Steve Berkowitz (@ByBerkowitz) February 1, 2021

Chaser.

“Obvious”?  I don’t think that word means what they think it means.

By any means necessary

Is this a real cause for concern?

The Bulldogs' per-game rushing average has dropped every season since 2017, when it was 258 yards and three touchdowns. In 2020, it was 174 yards and two touchdowns.https://t.co/0JKkNmu6DX https://t.co/R56RV1zMDn

— Dayne Young (@dayneyoung) February 1, 2021

I ask, because here’s a comparison between Georgia’s 2017 passing game, and Georgia’s passing game under JT Daniels:

• 2017:  61% completion rate, 176.9 yards per game, 1.6 touchdowns per game
• 2020:  66.9% completion rate, 310.8 yards per game, 2.5 touchdowns per game

Oh, as far as scoring goes, the 2017 average was 35.4 points per game and the average from Georgia’s last four games of 2020 was 36.5 ppg.

Bottom line, I don’t care how they get in the end zone, as long as they get there.

Clemson’s got a new secret weapon.

Game changer for Georgia’s opener.

Dabo Swinney is adding a former head coach to his staff.

Former Duke head coach Ted Roof, who spent last season as Vanderbilt’s defensive coordinator, is joining Swinney’s staff at Clemson. The Clemson Insider has confirmed Roof will join Swinney’s staff as analyst. He is expected to be approved, along with other coaching items on the football staff, at Thursday’s Board of Trustees Compensation Committee meeting.

I’m pretty sure Venables already knows how to blitz, so I don’t know what else Ted brings to the table, other than a familiarity with losing to the Dawgs.  Maybe Dabo’s trying to manage expectations.

TFW you’re committing to the school, not a coach

Meet the star signee of Tennessee’s post-early signing period class:

The only signee Tennessee has added since the early period is three-star receiver Andison Coby of Northeast Mississippi Community College, who is already taking spring semester classes.

“Technically, he committed to Tennessee and enrolled without there being a full-time head coach in place,” Callahan said, “which I had never seen before.”

LOL.  I have this picture in my head of the kid greeting the new staff as they arrive and them going “Andison who?”