Has HB 617 already reared its ugly head?

I ask in light of this de-commitment from yesterday.

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— THE BIG BEAR (@BearAlexander_) June 7, 2021

“The landscape of football has changed tremendously since I last visited with schools…” is an observation I’ve seen discussed in several different quarters on the intertubes as referring to what’s going on with NIL rights.  Now, Georgia has its version of a law that permits compensation for a player’s NIL rights, but that law also contains the pooling provision that has some, including me, worried about it being used as a negative recruiting weapon with recruits.

I can’t say this came into play with this kid in particular, but I’m not dumb enough to think it couldn’t.  I’m not dumb enough to think it’ll be the only time, either, especially if it turns out to be effective.  Kirby may have his work cut out for him here.

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Question of the day

… comes from Bill Connelly, and it’s a fun one.

Random question for you on a sunny Tuesday morning:

In your lifetime of rooting for [insert your team here], what opposing receiver scared you the most?

— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) June 8, 2021

For me, it’s gotta be Percy Harvin.  I was happier to see him turn pro than any other receiver I can remember.

I can also tell you who it’s not:  Calvin Johnson.  As always, thanks, Reggie!

Dawg porn, roundtable style

I sure hope you’ve got a subscription to The Athletic, because this discussion between Seth Emerson and the beat writers for Florida and LSU about Arik Gilbert ($$) is a worthwhile read.

I’ll give you one tidbit from the Florida guy:  “He’s further along football-wise at this stage than Kyle Pitts was, and considering how Pitts flummoxed defenses last season, play-callers can envision Gilbert doing the same.”

So can Dawg fans.

Fitting a round data point into a square narrative

Thomas Goldkamp, bless his heart, is so wedded to this whole “recruiting vs. development” faux debate concerning Smart and Mullen…

Perhaps it’s just overly exaggerated narrative, but the general consensus in football fan circles tends to be that Smart is a better recruiter than Mullen, while Mullen is a better developer of talent than Smart.

Is there any merit to that?

… that he’s just dying to try to work this 247Sports Development Rating metric into the discussion.

There’s one small catch:  the ratings cover the 2012-16 classes.  Even for Goldkamp, that’s a little awkward.

So Mullen is only just starting to go through seasons where the vast majority of the roster is made up of guys he recruited. Smart is a little further past that, to where some of his recruits begin to show up in the 247Sports Development Rating for 2021, a project the site has been cranking out each year in an attempt to quantify player development.

… Now, note that this isn’t any sort of a direct reflection on Dan Mullen just yet. While he had some to do with it, a little less than half of the prospects that played into this ranking actually played under Mullen and had the chance to develop under his staff.

“Played under Mullen” is, as we like to say here, doing a shit ton of heavy lifting.  The period Goldkamp is referring to is when Mullen was Florida’s offensive coordinator.  How he was involved with the development of Gator defensive players at the time is, at best, murky, and, more likely, fictional.

But you’ve got to work with the material you have, right?

“The road of least resistance toward a good result”

Well, this sounds peachy.

Yahoo Sports spoke to more than a dozen stakeholders Monday on every side of the playoff decision – university officials, athletic directors, media executives and others around college sports. Amid those conversations, a surprise emerged — officials on campuses, in conference offices and in the television world have expressed an openness toward a 12-team playoff as the most likely result.

Why twelve, you might ask?

Let’s start with at-large bids. In the current four-team College Football Playoff model, all four teams are at-large. In a majority of the eight-team models that have been projected, there’d likely be either five or six automatic bids. That means a decrease in at-large bids, which would not be of much interest to the SEC — or even Notre Dame — which could perceive the expanded playoff as having less access. (The Pac-12 and entire Group of Five, to counter, would likely not be interested in expansion without some type of automatic bids).

Another snag that makes some uncomfortable with eight teams is who’d get left out. If there are six automatic bids, for example, a team ranked No. 4 or No. 5 could theoretically be left out and a team ranked No. 18, for example, makes the field. That scenario makes some uncomfortable.

You may recall that I recently wrote,

What the geniuses who run college football are about to do is foist a hybrid subjective/objective set up on us that’s going to set up a negative feedback loop guaranteed to bring even more expansion. What I mean by that is an eight-team playoff field comprised of the five P5 conference champs, the top rated G5 team, plus two more at-large teams (in most seasons, one of those will be Notre Dame) is going to give us the worst of both worlds in that we’re bound to get some conference champs that are worse teams than some of the teams passed over because there aren’t enough at-large spots to accommodate them. That will go over well in certain quarters.

So, they’ll skip that and go to twelve.  Checkmate, Senator!

A 12-team version would answer a lot of the immediate looming issues with the College Football Playoff — lack of diversity of programs, access for Group of Five and the erosion of the importance of supposed top-tier bowl games outside the CFP thanks to player opt-outs.

Oh, yes.  And don’t forget about that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, fellas.

It’s far too early to declare what the TV deal could look like, other than that it will be much bigger than the current one that reportedly averages a $470 million annual payout.

So, what’s the catch?

The details of how those 11 games in a 12-team system would unfold will still need to be worked out in upcoming months. But the thought is that the first four teams would get a bye and teams No. 5 to No. 8 would host teams No. 9 through 12 at home sites. (This could, of course, irk teams that finished higher and don’t get the big gate, memorable experience and home-field advantage of a playoff game.)

Let me see if I’ve got that straight.  The four best teams lose out on the gate from a home playoff game, but get an additional week of rest and preparation, compared to the rest of the field.  There’s only one way to fix those problems.  On to sixteen!

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UPDATE:  This is a good point.

This is fantasy. Many of the championship games would not be play-in games, because at least one and possibly both teams would be in line to get at-large bids even with a loss https://t.co/VPWNPbRzSR pic.twitter.com/OQ8hOCFADk

— Becoming Brandon (@BecomingBrandon) June 8, 2021

“He will be a home-run hire.”

Forget about the coaching comings and goings.  Here’s the big hiring news of the offseason, at least from Butts-Mehre’s perspective.

The Georgia Bulldogs have tabbed Ford Williams as their top fundraising executive.

Williams succeeds Matt Borman, who served as the athletic association’s executive associate athletic director for development since 2017. Borman left UGA in April to assume a similar position at LSU.

Borman and Williams have worked closely together since Williams came to UGA from Clemson to head up UGA’s major gifts program in the summer of 2017. Over that span, the Bulldogs have seen the Magill Society donor club grow to more than 1,400 members and have completed $184 million worth of facilities projects.

Yessir.  They’re in good hands; just check out his background.

Before coming to Georgia, Williams was assistant director of major gifts for Clemson’s “IPTAY” fundraising program from 2012 to 2017.

Looks like they’re gonna need a bigger acronym.

Conference only over/under win totals

Via Brett McMurphy:

What looks like a better bet, Georgia and the over, or Vandy and the under?

Also, I don’t know how to break it to South Point, but their win totals add up to 56.5.  Since there are only 56 conference wins for the taking, somebody’s definitely hitting the under.