PAWWWLLL, that’s rat poison!

Aw, geez.

Paul Finebaum says Georgia should be on the shortlist of Playoff frontrunners given what the Bulldogs having coming back from an elite team. Finebaum was asked this week to choose between Kirby Smart, Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher or Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley and who would be the first to win a national championship at their respective program.

“I think it’s Kirby Smart. I think of those three, he’s got the best chance this year,” Finebaum said Monday on WJOX-FM. “By the way, not by much over Lincoln Riley. I think this is an Oklahoma team that finally is capable. But I see the same fate for Oklahoma as always. Kirby Smart, to me, has a really-good chance. If you look at this. If you take out ‘oh well the two meltdowns against Alabama.’ If you excise that out of the conversation and simply look at what Georgia has on its roster and the schedule, Georgia should easily be considered among the two or three favorites to win the national championship this year, especially when you look at that first game.

“Right now, it’s easy to predict games six or seven weeks out, but if I had to predict a game today, I’d pick Georgia to beat Clemson. If that happens, we all know what’s going to be happening the next Monday. Georgia will be the talk of the country.”

I find it hard to believe Dan Mullen wasn’t part of that conversation.

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9-0, bitchez

The Alston ruling is out, and if you’re the NCAA, it ain’t pretty.

Gorsuch: The NCAA "seeks immunity from the normal operation of the antitrust laws." But the court declines its request, noting that "this suit involves admitted horizontal price fixing in a market where the defendants exercise monopoly control." https://t.co/JcdyRepr9l

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) June 21, 2021

Last paragraph of Kavanaugh's concurrence:
"Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their
workers a fair market rate. … The NCAA is not above the law." pic.twitter.com/vBJtjsTiaU

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) June 21, 2021

No, this doesn’t mark the end of amateurism, since that was not what Alston was about.  But there’s only so many times a door can get slammed in your face, by the public, by state governments, by the courts and soon to be by Congress, before you get the message you can’t go inside anymore.

The decision the NCAA made to appeal Alston has proven disastrous for them.  Where now?  Sadly, I suspect the NCAA doesn’t have the first clue about what to do, other than continuing to procrastinate.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of the United States just declared it’s open season for antitrust lawyers on the NCAA.

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UPDATE:  This part from Kavanaugh’s concurrence, where he roasts the NCAA’s manipulation of the romance of amateurism, is just brutal.

Kavanaugh: pic.twitter.com/o2kKaAVZhT

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) June 21, 2021

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UPDATE #2:  More Kavanaugh.

And more from Kavanaugh. This type of language would turn a "modest" NCAA loss into a massive, industry-shifting defeat. pic.twitter.com/khnZiCtaYi

— Gabe Feldman (@SportsLawGuy) June 21, 2021

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s been reading the blog.

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UPDATE #3:  And, of course, the take you’ve been waiting for.

Oh my! https://t.co/0cfCc34qYP

— Tony Barnhart (@MrCFB) June 21, 2021

The man doesn’t miss.

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UPDATE #4:

NCAA statement on Alston ruling. pic.twitter.com/8tquvt1uvs

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) June 21, 2021

In other words, they got nothing.

Today, in kids these days

Mike Farrell goes all in on the tats and weed narrative.

This is where people will disagree with me but I believe guardrails are needed here, at least at first. I am all for players making money working camps or signing autographs or being on a billboard, but a limit to how they can make is probably a smart thing. Why? These are still kids, and money changes many things. The hunger they have to make the NFL and provide for their family could be curtailed by what is honestly a pittance of money comparatively.

I’d hate to see a player lose his drive or passion because he made $100,000 on something. That’s massive money to a college student but could cost them a lot more in the end if they think they’ve made it. Does that make sense?

No, especially after that “at least at first” qualifier.  What’s supposed to happen that eventually makes it okay for college athletes to pull in whatever they can, just like the rest of us slobs (including Farrell)?

“Them stadiums undefeated.”

Dan Mullen’s got some weird motivation stones.

The Florida football team set out to atone for last year’s painful home loss to LSU bright and early this morning. Lose a home game, run stadiums.

That’s been the rule since Dan Mullen took over as coach at Florida. In an effort to stress the importance of protecting home field advantage, Mullen instituted the rule when he arrived, requiring players to touch every single step of the stadium in the summer for each home loss the previous season.

Luckily for the Gators, the trip up against the Tigers was the only such stumble in the Swamp in 2020. Unluckily for newcomers, they weren’t exempt from running.

“I wasn’t even here and I still gotta do it,” Penn State graduate transfer Antonio Shelton wrote on Twitter.

Marco Wilson was and didn’t.  What’s the opposite of “if the shoe fits”?

200+

Interesting tidbit from Pete Fiutak’s Clemson preview:

Only two teams hit the 200-yard rushing mark against the Clemson defense last year – Notre Dame and Ohio State. Those were the two losses, and they were the only time all year the Tigers allowed over five yards per carry.

The 2019 team didn’t allow over 200 rushing yards to anyone, but the only time it gave up more than five yards per crack was to Ohio State in the epic Fiesta Bowl and to LSU in the national championship loss.

Those two 200-yard rushing days against the Tigers were the only time anyone got to the mark since Alabama did it in the 2016 national championship – Jalen Hurts had something to do with that. Before that, Louisville ran for 273 thanks to some Lamar Jackson guy.

Over those same two seasons, Georgia cleared 200 yards rushing ten times.  They won all ten games.

Outside of the opener against Georgia, be shocked if anyone can get close to 200.

Clemson’s got the d-line to try — do the Tigers play to stop the run and make Daniels beat them over the top?  Does Monken take what he’s offered?

A regular murderer’s row

Ladies and gentlemen, the SEC’s 2021 non-conference schedules:

Toughest Non-Conference Schedules in the SEC 2021 pic.twitter.com/yTUOzCN3xj

— parker (@statsowar) June 20, 2021

There is exactly one program on that list facing two P5 opponents.  A real profile in courage.

“A new and minimalist approach”

Let me see if I’ve got this straight:  after months of whining about how it would be a complete disaster for college football to administrate different states’ laws governing athletes’ NIL compensation, this is now what’s on the table?

The new proposal directs schools in states that have impending NIL laws to follow their state law. In the 40-plus states that are not currently on pace to have laws in place this summer, each individual school would be responsible for developing and publishing its own policies for what kind of NIL opportunities their athletes can pursue. The only guidance to schools in creating those policies would be: A) Don’t allow school employees or boosters to pay athletes and B) Don’t allow payments to be in exchange for athletic performance or recruiting inducement.

So, we’re going from states with different approaches to schools in the same state with different approaches.  Is it any wonder why nobody takes this bunch seriously when they go full apocalypse?

That being said, this may be the most coherent reason the schools have ever given for a stance on player comp:

College sports leaders are now concerned that, without the help of a federal law, any blanket restrictions imposed on all NCAA athletes could be used against them in antitrust lawsuits. The NCAA is the midst of multiple antitrust suits from current and former college athletes, who say the organization illegally restricts the earning power of its athletes.

“It would not be surprising if the same plaintiffs’ lawyers saw the passage of the NCAA Proposals as an opportunity to expand their existing lawsuits or file a host of new ones,” the commissioners wrote in the letter sent earlier this week, “ensuring that the schools, conferences, and the NCAA will continue to be in jeopardy of long‐running litigation and retroactive trebled damages claims.”

‘Ya think?  Imaging how much easier things might have been if they had reached that conclusion fifteen years ago.