Masks up!

In Charlotte, that is.

The Board of Health of Mecklenburg County – which encompasses Greater Charlotte and five other North Carolina towns — passed a mask mandate at a specially-called meeting Wednesday night. That follows by a day a mandate issued by the City of Charlotte that masks be worn at all times while indoors, regardless of an individual’s vaccination status.

Masks do not have to be worn outdoors, which includes the seating areas inside Bank of America Stadium. That’s where No. 3 Clemson and No. 5 Georgia will do battle in the Dukes Mayo Classic on Sept. 4 (7:30 p.m., ABC-TV). However, masks will have to be worn inside the concourses and all enclosed areas in the stadium.

Also, all the restaurants, bars and hotels in and around Charlotte will be requiring masks.

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“When something’s happening, it’s a bad thing.”

Josh and Graham try to pick themselves off the floor after yesterday’s injury news and take a look at what might be in store for Georgia’s defense in the opener.

For now, the one thing I’m hanging my hat on in the wake of Tykee Smith’s injury is that Brini played very well at the STAR against Cincinnati and by all accounts has had a good preseason.  That being said, Clemson’s receivers are on an entirely different level than the Bearcats’ group.

Do you wanna know a secret?

Mack Brown says he didn’t hearing a word about Texas and Oklahoma going to the SEC until the story broke. That tells you how tightly locked down this was. https://t.co/fnVnpD6JKq

— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) August 19, 2021

Wolken’s right.  By far the most amazing thing about the relocation of Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC is that the three parties were able to keep it under wraps as long as they did.

Best SEC college football bets

Per ESPN ($$):

Georgia Bulldogs +750 to win national title

Connelly: I’ve joked all summer about how I’m confidently and boldly stepping on the Georgia rake once more, ignoring decades of Dawg underachievement because their quarterback looked good for four games last season. I think we’ve gone a little far with the underachievement talk, though. Georgia was one play from the national title in 2017 and one play from a repeat CFP appearance in 2018. And even though they HAVE underachieved the last two seasons, they’re also 20-1 against teams that didn’t have top-5 offenses. And before he shined late in 2020, JT Daniels was a five-star quarterback holding his own at USC. All this is a long way of saying that Georgia is one of the most talented teams in the country and basically needs to split two key games — vs. Clemson in the season opener and vs. Alabama (or Texas A&M, or whoever) in a potential SEC Championship matchup. And if they reach the CFP, they’ll either be the most talented overall team or very close to it. Seems to make +750 odds worth it.

Good thing I don’t have a ranch to bet.

Also, this is exactly how I feel about Auburn’s chances to win more than seven games this season.

QB Bo Nix returns and I expect his inconsistent play to follow suit. I suppose new offensive coordinator Mike Bobo could unlock him but I will continue to fade that until it actually happens.

Tank Bigsby averaged 13.8 carries per game last season under Gus.  Is there any chance, barring injury, he’ll be under that number in 2021?  Not if Nix and Bobo have anything to do with it.

Nick Saban doesn’t have time for SEC teams to play cupcakes.

I thought these were a couple of revealing Q&As with the Alabama head coach.

Oklahoma and Texas recently accepted invitations to join the SEC no later than the 2025 season. How would you like to see the league structured once the Longhorns and Sooners are members?

When you look at our league expanding, you’re going to play more good teams in our league. You’re going to have to lose more games. How does that affect people getting in the playoff? If we’re going to play 10 games in the SEC, which I would not be opposed to [because] I’ve always wanted to play more SEC games, you could play two divisions and you could play three teams from the other side. So every two and a half years, you’re going to play everybody. If they’re going to stay at eight or even nine, they should do the pods [of four teams], so you’re only going to have three fixed opponents and you would be playing five or six teams from the other regions or pods. You would play everybody in three years.

If SEC teams are playing nine or 10 SEC games and the playoff is expanded, that means there will be less opportunities for Group of 5 and FCS programs to schedule guaranteed games, which supplement a large portion of their athletic budgets. Does that concern you?

I’m not even opposed to giving them money so they can have programs. But nobody wants to come to watch some of these games, and the players are getting to the point where they don’t want to play in these games, just like players don’t want to play in bowl games. How many players opt out of bowl games? How many players did Florida have that didn’t play in a bowl game last year? None of that is good for college football, and I don’t think it’s good for the kids, either.

The revenue sharing part, they’re not going to be able to have programs if we don’t play these schools. If they didn’t get $1.6 million for coming to play these games, they probably couldn’t sustain their program. Again, you’re just going to keep minimizing opportunities for players to play. I’m not really wanting to play those schools, but they need to get some money. We still have to do some kind of revenue sharing with them or they’re not going to have programs. Nobody is going to want to do that, but then you’re going to have a bunch of kids that don’t get an opportunity to go to college or get scholarships and have an opportunity to play. I don’t think everybody looks at the whole picture. They say, “OK, you’re making all of this money in football,” but they don’t look at where all the money is going.

A ten-game conference schedule with three cross-division games?  Man, I would be so down for that in a 16-team league, it ain’t funny.  It’ll happen over Greg Sankey’s dead body, though.

I also think it’s funny that Saban believes the players don’t care much for cupcake games, either.  I wonder if the third-stringers who get to play in those agree with him.

Frosty the dead man

Shot.

Contrast that with Nebraska on Wednesday, which acknowledged publicly that its football program is being investigated by the NCAA after a report by the Action Network raised allegations of organized off-campus workouts during the COVID-19 pause and other practice violations, including improper involvement by analysts.

This is now, on the eve of a critical season for Nebraska coach Scott Frost, going to be a significant cloud hanging over his future. The NCAA will have to launch an expensive investigation that could take years to resolve before the school is assessed penalties, most of which will impact people who are long gone from Nebraska.

Chaser ($$).

If you want to truly understand the NCAA’s existential crisis, all you need to know is that Wednesday offered an example of the only practical use remaining for any of the organization’s rules: Giving schools who handed out idiotic contract extensions a path to wriggle out of paying the buyouts.

Hey, at least it’s good for something.

Calculate this, nerds.

This one goes out to the folks at Stingtalk who specialize in churning stats every year to come up with some convoluted way to prove it’s the season that Tech stands on even footing with Georgia:

Since 2006, just 18 P5 teams faced 4+ preseason top-10 teams. Only 2010 Iowa St wasn't in the SEC. Georgia Tech joins that list in 2021.

Yellow Jackets are also just the 10th team in the playoff era to have five top-15 teams scheduled. The previous 9 went 10-37 in those games.

— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) August 18, 2021

I’d say Coach Waffle House has his work cut out for him.

Your 2021 Fabris Pool link

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Week One picks are already up.

Kirby Smart is not a doctor…

… although he plays one at Butts-Mehre.

“Darnell Washington and Tykee Smith sustained foot injuries during practice this week,” Kirby Smart said in a statement. “They are both undergoing treatment and have an excellent prognosis. Their status is day to day.”

It’s worth noting that “day-to-day” has sometimes meant anything during Smart’s time at Georgia. In 2018, Smart listed defensive end David Marshall as “day-to-day” with a foot injury for weeks but he was regularly seen around the football facility using a scooter with a boot on his foot. We later found out that he had undergone surgery for a lisfranc injury. The recovery time for such an injury is often more than three months and it’s something that bothered Marshall for most of the following season.

Smart said the same thing about nose tackle Jordan Davis, now a senior, last season. Davis suffered an elbow injury on October 31 at Kentucky. He was labeled day-to-day for the next few weeks until he returned to action on December 12 against Missouri.

If either plays in the opener, it’ll be a gift.  Or else Ron Courson performed another miracle.

Musical palate cleanser, pick a number edition

I must know. What's a song you consider an absolute masterpiece, start to finish, no second of wasted time, every note just in a perfect spot, every word true?

— Sam the эксперт по вкусу соды (@SamFacto) August 17, 2021

Mine:

Yours?