TFW you try to sound like you know more about Georgia football than you actually do

This isn’t a political post, although it’s a post about politics.

Most of y’all know that Herschel Walker is considering entering the 2022 Senate race in this state, but has yet to make up his mind about it.  Here’s a CNN piece about how his decision is affecting the Republican primary this early on.  But, again, that’s not what this post is about.

It’s about what Randy Evans, a longstanding Republican influencer, has to say about Walker’s contemplated run.

“He is a candidate that Trump Republicans, non-Trump Republicans, Independents, traditional Democrats, and even many partisan Democrats can agree with,” said Evans. “It is why so many Georgia voters of all persuasions have taken to quoting the famous Larry Munson who was often heard to shout, ‘Run, Herschel, run.'”

Yeah, Randy, I bet you heard Munson often shout that.

The rest of us heard “There goes Herschel!”.

Dude, some quick advice from a Georgia fan:  stick to politics.

Ahead of the curve

Here’s an unsurprising development, at least to me:

A bill passed by the Georgia legislature last month that would allow athletes in the state including those at UGA to be paid for the use of their name, image or likeness awaits Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature.

Georgia athletic officials are already preparing for a new world for their athletes when it comes to them being able to profit from the change as early as July 1 under an arrangement it’s made with Altius Sports Partners.

The firm, headed by a former vice president of business and legal affairs for the NFL Players Association, is already preparing UGA athletes to understand NIL policies and to monetize their intellectual property. They are doing that through workshops over the next year on personal branding and business formation and opportunities with social media posts, autographs, personal appearances, camps, clinics and such merchandise as T-shirts and bobbleheads.

As Weiszer notes, Kemp still hasn’t signed HB 617, but yesterday, Arkansas’s governor signed that state’s NIL legislation, which is scheduled to go in to effect January 1, 2022.  (Florida’s, Mississippi’s, and Alabama’s laws go into effect July 1.)  That ‘crootin’ window won’t stay open on its own, Governor.  But I digress.

Here’s a likely taste of what’s coming to ruin college football for some of y’all.

Schwab said Georgia’s more than 500 athletes all will have opportunities at least to receive performance gear and apparel for posting about it on social media or snag a free pizza or shoes at a local establishment by taking a photo there and tagging it on their personal accounts.

He doesn’t think that will mean “life-changing dollars,” but it can mean free merchandise and some extra cash for many.

“If you think about where a lot of the athletes at the University of Georgia are from, their hometowns are small towns,” he said. “Going back to their small towns, they’re superheroes. I don’t care if you’re the starting quarterback on the University of Georgia Bulldogs football team or you’re the backup tight end of the backup women’s basketball point guard, it doesn’t matter what sport you play, you’re going to be a superhero in your hometown.”

And Kirby Smart’s encouraging that!  Doesn’t he realize he’s sowing the seeds of his own destruction?

You cannot defeat the narrative. You can only hope to contain it.

I knocked Barrett Sallee a little earlier this week for bringing forth the already stale “Kirby Smart’s under pressure from the fan base” preseason talking point.  At least, though, Barrett was honest enough to put Lincoln Riley on the same footing as Smart — hell, let’s not forgot who beat whom when the two faced off in the CFP.

Leave it to Stewart Mandel ($$) to turn the volume up to eleven.

Kirby Smart or Lincoln Riley: Which coach has the most pressure going into this season? Both have done great, but the fan bases at each school are not going to be satisfied with conference championships and/or participating in the Playoff. Sooner or later, patience will wane, and usually, that starts the clock ticking. — Mike

… I don’t think Riley is under any pressure at all as long as he keeps dominating the Big 12 and beating Texas more often than not. I could be wrong, but I think Sooners fans will be more frustrated if Oklahoma goes to the Playoff and gets blown out by an SEC team in the semifinal again than if the Sooners go 10-2 and miss it entirely. OU fans are proud enough to believe they should win the national championship more than once in 20 years, but also realistic enough to realize how good they’ve got it.

Most importantly, longtime AD Joe Castiglione realizes that. He never flinched when Bob Stoops had the occasional 8-5 season, and that will be the case with Riley as well unless there’s a more-than-one-year blip.

Georgia is another story because Smart himself has created a national championship-or-bust expectation level with his tremendous recruiting. Georgia sits at No. 1 in the country in 247Sports’ team talent composite rankings, so it’s understandable why Bulldogs fans think they should finish an actual season No. 1 at some point.

But, one step at a time. First Georgia needs to actually win the SEC again (it won in 2017), which will require either beating Alabama for the first time under Smart or beating someone else in the SEC West that was good enough to beat Alabama. I would think that checking off that box, regardless of what happens in the CFP, would be considered a successful season.

But if Georgia, despite finally having a legitimate star quarterback (who hasn’t transferred yet) in JT Daniels, goes 10-2 again and either loses to Florida and misses the SEC title game or gets there and loses, that will truly be a test of fans’ patience. Mind you, that’s still a pretty good season, but the CFP has changed the way fan bases like Georgia’s measure success. Mark Richt made it 15 years in Athens without ever reaching a BCS title game. Smart made it to the national title game in his second season and is hardly getting a statue built for him just yet.

Sigh.  There must be something in the water in Montana.

“I think you’ve got two really big questions on… Florida fans’ minds.”

The header on the clip gives away what turns out to be only the second question.  The first?  Well, let’s just say Gator fans are coming around to something we already knew.

“The data is the data.”

The NCAA is changing preseason camp rules.

In response to results from a five-year concussion study released earlier this spring, an NCAA legislative committee is deeply exploring ways to make the annual August camp a safer place, officials told Sports Illustrated in interviews this week. The Football Oversight Committee (FOC), college football’s highest policy-making group, plans to present recommendations soon that will significantly change one of football’s most grueling traditions.

Committee members are considering a reduction of full-padded camp practices (from 21 to eight), the complete abolishment of collision exercises (such as the “Oklahoma” drill) and limiting a team to two scrimmages per camp (lowered from three and a half).

The changes stem from a study published in February that was funded by the NCAA and Department of Defense. The study tracked head exposures in six Division I college football teams from 2015 to ’19, finding that 72% of concussions occurred during practice and nearly 50% happened in preseason practice, despite it representing just one-fifth of the football season. Total head impacts in the preseason occurred at twice the rate of the regular season. More than 650 players from Virginia Tech, North Carolina, Wisconsin, UCLA, Air Force and Army were involved in the study.

The study leaves college administrators with no choice but to again adjust college football’s preseason camp policies, says Shane Lyons, the West Virginia athletic director and the chair of the FOC.

Nobody likes being sued.  Right, NCAA?

Though the changes seem significant, they shouldn’t impact the majority of coaches in a dramatic way. Results from an American Football Coaches Association survey this spring showed that many coaches already adhere to such camp practices, says Todd Berry, the AFCA executive director.

That’s what they say, anyway.

The new rules are the latest way the NCAA is attempting to relax what was once known as the most excruciating and laborious experience in football. For years now, fall camp has seen its teeth removed in the name of safety. In 2017, the NCAA banned two-a-days, and in 2018, the governing body reduced the number of preseason practices from 29 to 25.

The latest impending modifications keep both the number of practices (25) over the same amount of days (29) but adjust the type of practices coaches can hold.

In the latest working model, a 25-practice camp must include at least nine non-contact, padless practices (helmets only). That’s up from the current rule of two mandatory padless practices, which are part of an acclimatization period at the beginning of each camp. No more than eight practices can feature full pads and full contact, up from 21 under the current rule.

… The working model would also reduce scrimmages from three and a half to two; would permit a maximum of 90 minutes of full tackling in any one single padded practice; and would prohibit more than two consecutive full-padded practices, requiring coaches to wedge in non-contact and shell practices.

There was a limit on the changes, though.

… The committee rejected a request from the SEC to expand camp by six days to allow for more days off. According to a letter obtained by SI and sent to the FOC, the league wanted to hold 25 practices over 35 days, lengthening camp to spread out its full-contact practices.

That seems like a player-friendly, pro-safety move, so why not?  My guess — and it’s pure speculation, based only on my gut feeling of college football doing college football things — is that it would cost more money to do so.  Doing it for the kids is not the NCAA’s prime directive.

Cruisin’

Tell me, what does it say that Alabama, with the stronger SP+ rating, has less than half the chance Clemson does of going through the regular season undefeated?

Here's the 25 most likely teams to go undefeated this season per pre-season SP+ ratings from @ESPN_BillC.

s/o to @cfbnate for the table theme pic.twitter.com/bPY4CA6xne

— Garrett McClintock (@GJMcClintock) April 21, 2021

Good news for Charlotte?

Today, Gov. Cooper announced that North Carolina hopes to lift mandatory social distancing, capacity and mass gathering restrictions by June 1. The more we encourage people to get their shots, the sooner we can put this pandemic in our rearview mirror.https://t.co/NOIccm9vpQ pic.twitter.com/OHgZImbgJX

— Governor Roy Cooper (@NC_Governor) April 21, 2021

North Carolinians, get your damned shots.  We’ve got a game to catch in September!

Today, in thought experiments

So, here’s something for you to chew over:  would a point ever come when you could see yourself feeling sorry for Tennessee football?

None of Tennessee's top five December signees will compete in Saturday's Orange & White game:
LB Dylan Brooks (now at Auburn)
LB Aaron Willis (suspended)
QB Kaidon Salter (suspended)
DT KaTron Evans (released from NLI)
RB Cody Brown (now at Miami)

— David Paschall (@DavidSPaschall) April 21, 2021

I’m not saying that’s the moment, just wondering if such a thing even exists.