Red and black, Aussie style

G’day, mate.

BREAKING – #UGA lands a commitment from Australian punter Brett Thorson.

Let the bad puns begin https://t.co/ROVInlrpnO

— Radi Nabulsi (@RadiNabulsi) March 31, 2021

Bound to happen sooner or later.  Deets, if you’re interested:

Brett Thorson, a 2022 punter from Australia, has been a big target since the staff was alerted on him a few weeks back and it paid off on Wednesday when he verbally committed to Georgia.

Thorson, the 12th commitment for Georgia this cycle, says it was the Dawgs’ staff and his lead recruiter Todd Hartley that made this decision easier for him.

‘Right from the start coach (Todd) Hartley made me feel like a part of the family and that trend followed when talking to coach (Scott) Cochran and coach (Kirby) Smart as well,” Thorson said. “They made a big effort in their personal time due to the time difference between Australia and the United States and I really appreciated that. That along with the history of the program, the chance to compete for a national championship, further my education, and playing at the University of Georgia made it an easy decision for me.”

He will be a part of the 2022 class and will be a mid-year enrollee he says.

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The law, in all its majesty

The Alston oral arguments are underway right now.

Question:  if you had to pick the Supreme Court justice who would be the first ever to mention the transfer portal, whom would you choose?

Answer in comments.

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UPDATE:  I just…

An NCAA lawyer just said this during an argument in the Supreme Court: "Our own view is if you allowed them to be paid, they will be spending even more time on their athletics and even less time on academics."

— Andrew Carter (@_andrewcarter) March 31, 2021

“Marco! Don’t go on Twitter!”

Marco Wilson thought about turning pro after the 2019 season, but decided to come back to Florida because, in part, “I really wanted to beat Georgia because I didn’t want to go 0-3 against those guys.”

Well, he got that.  But he also got this:

On third-and-10, Johnson threw a pass in the flat to Kole Taylor, and Wilson and Tre’Vez Johnson closed in fast. Taylor tried to hurdle them, but Johnson grabbed him high, and Wilson, who was on his knees, took hold of Taylor’s legs. They stopped him 6 yards short of the first down, and for a heartbeat, Wilson had helped save the game. But as he finished the tackle, Taylor’s size 14 Nike popped into Wilson’s hand.

Wilson was elated yet surprised. In 15 years of football, he’d never had someone’s shoe come off and into his hand.

“In that type of energy, what did people expect?” Wilson said. “Like I was going to hand it back nicely to him? I was super excited and I threw it. I didn’t purposely do it; it was just a reaction. It went pretty far. I mean, I didn’t think it would go that far. But it did.”

It might’ve gone unnoticed had it been a simple fling. But the shoe went at least 20 yards, and almost hit an official.

Referee James Carter announced the penalty.

“After the play, unsportsmanlike conduct … throwing an LSU player’s shoe 20 yards down the field. That’s his first unsportsmanlike conduct foul of the game. Automatic first down.”

Fair trade?

Your 3.31.21 Playpen

If stupid is as stupid does, which of these two geniuses wins?

Mr. A?

When police showed up at Garret Miller’s Dallas home earlier this year to arrest him on charges that he had participated in the Capitol riot, his wardrobe spoke for itself.

The 34-year-old unemployed man, who allegedly forced his way into the U.S. Capitol building and threatened a congresswoman and a police officer, was clad in a T-shirt emblazoned with a photograph of former president Donald Trump and text declaring: “I Was There, Washington D.C., January 6, 2021.”

(Hard to believe someone that sharp doesn’t have a job.  Also, the only thing that would have made this better would have been for one of the cops to have worn an “I’m With Stupid” t-shirt when they perp walked him to the police car.)

Or Mr. B?

A mafia fugitive has been caught in the Caribbean after appearing on YouTube cooking videos in which he hid his face but inadvertently showed his distinctive tattoos.

Marc Feren Claude Biart, 53, led a quiet life in Boca Chica, in the Dominican Republic, with the local Italian expat community considering him a “foreigner”, police said in a statement on Monday.

He was betrayed by a YouTube channel in which he showed off his Italian cooking skills. The videos never showed his face, but the tattoos on his body gave him away, they said.

(Gotta sing, gotta dance, gotta cook.  I hope he keeps it going in prison.)

Anyway, the floor is yours.  Comment away.

Is the NCAA looking for a scapegoat?

I mean, it’s understandable, in a sense.

The N.C.A.A. is embroiled in perhaps the most crucial stretch of its long relationship with Washington, where top government officials have increasingly voiced doubts about the management and restrictions of college sports.

On Wednesday, the 115th anniversary of the N.C.A.A.’s founding under pressure from President Theodore Roosevelt, the Supreme Court will hear the association’s appeal in a case about caps on certain benefits for student-athletes. This summer, around the time the justices could announce their ruling, a Florida law is scheduled to take effect and allow players to profit off their fame, disrupting the uniform rules that have regulated college athletics for generations.

Those potentially seminal developments were brewing before this month’s N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments demonstrated unequal treatment between the men and women competing in them, prompting new outrage from members of Congress. And, encouraged by Huma, star athletes at both tournaments called attention to what they condemned as overly restrictive N.C.A.A. rules that have remained in place even as the industry’s financial might swelled.

The confluence of events could ultimately push Washington toward a few outcomes, including national protections for student-athletes or sustained scrutiny on the N.C.A.A. from Capitol Hill and the Justice Department. What lawmakers say is already clear, though, is that the N.C.A.A.’s political standing has eroded in recent years, diminished by protracted internal debates and bipartisan, coast-to-coast pressure for changes that benefit athletes.

I doubt that qualifies as times that try men’s souls, but, still, an existential threat to a business model is an existential threat to a business model.  So, if you’re someone at a school in a P5 conference that’s concerned about what kind of hit your bottom line might be taking, there’s a certain logic to… um… creating a little separation between you and your front man.

NCAA president Mark Emmert has long passed the point where the failures of his tenure register as shocking news. Emmert has been so ineffective and so unpopular for so long that leaders within college athletics have long given up hope that he could evolve into a functional leader.

So when Emmert became the face of the equity issues between the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments last week, it only further entrenched opinions among leaders around college sports.

… Yahoo Sports spoke to multiple commissioners who estimated that there’s at least an 85% disapproval of the job Emmert is doing among college commissioners. Among Division I athletic directors, his support is about the same. And those estimates are considered conservative. All are quick to point out that his job is hard and thankless because it lacks unilateral power, but there’s a consistent message that they want more for the $2.7 million he was paid in the last reported year.

One major conference had an athletic directors conference call recently where the unhappiness with Emmert was so unanimous that the athletic directors all agreed to take their issues with Emmert to their president.

Ooh, look, Martha!  The natives are getting restless.

Don’t get me wrong.  Mark Emmert is a contemptible human being.  But he’s been doing what the schools that are paying him millions want him to do.  He may be a shitty messenger, but it’s the message that generated the political reaction.

That being said, I don’t think there will be a moment’s hesitation if it’s deemed necessary to hand over Emmert’s head on a platter in order to move forward on a new amateurism platform that keeps the cash flow rolling.

“Burton screamed in pain… and had to be helped off the field.”

— You can’t get players hurt in spring practice if you don’t have spring practice.

The football gods are screwing with us now.

Georgia wide receiver Jermaine Burton suffered a knee hyperextension in practice on Tuesday and had to be helped off Woodruff Practice Fields.

The injury was confirmed by Chris Claiborne, Burton’s coach at Calabasas (Calif.) High School. It was characterized by him and others who have been in contact with Burton as “not too serious.” However, he is expected to miss the rest of spring practice.

No other information was immediately available.

It could have been worse, and I’m glad he’ll be back, but, damn, maybe they need to put the receivers in bubble wrap for the rest of the spring.

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UPDATE:  Breathe.

Georgia receiver Jermaine Burton has a hyperextension of his knee, which has a timetable of four-to-six weeks, a source told The Athletic.

So no spring practice, but the sophomore should be fine by summer workouts, barring a setback.

— Seth Emerson (@SethWEmerson) March 31, 2021