“But even more, Mullen is responsible for closing the gap.”

I feel like the way the 2021 season has progressed so far has been a double bonus for long suffering Georgia fans like myself.  Not only are the Dawgs playing stellar football, but Florida’s giving us a delicious case of regression (to the mean, one hopes).  Even better, Andy Staples ($$) sums up the place Dan Mullen’s led the program and it’s perfect.

Mullen already has lost the bulk of Florida’s fan base. The rank-and-file doesn’t believe he’ll ever be able to win national titles with the Gators, and that group believes the job description requires at least competing for national titles…

Mullen has not lost Florida’s administration, though. Athletic director Scott Stricklin worked with Mullen in the same position at Mississippi State, and Stricklin always has taken a more realistic view of the program’s expectations at both of his stops as an AD. Stricklin knows SEC and national titles are obscenely difficult to win, especially with Nick Saban at Alabama. Stricklin can point to a team that has outgained every opponent despite losing three of its seven games. Stricklin has had to deal with fewer issues than he did when Jim McElwain was the coach, and Florida’s power base wants to see how Mullen does when the Gators’ football operations building is finished next year and Mullen is working with most of the same tools his SEC peers enjoy. Despite what the people on those barstools and in those barber chairs want, Mullen is safe barring an unexpected late-season meltdown.

How can you not love that, Georgia fans?  If the football gods are really smiling on us, the Gators will lose in Jacksonville this weekend, win out the rest of the regular season, plus a mediocre bowl game, so Mullen can spend the rest of the offseason crowing about how his team improved upon their 2020 win total, all the while backed up by his boss.  (He’ll probably have to replace Grantham, unfortunately, but there’s only so much good luck we’re entitled to.)  Meanwhile, Florida’s lost its top two commits and has dropped to ninth in the conference in 2022 recruiting.  The fan base will be thrilled.

If Anthony Richardson can fix all that, he’s got my vote for the Heisman already.

What’s so bad about a tie?

I meant to post something about the epic 9-OT game last weekend between Penn State and Illinois, but forgot, which probably gives you a good indication that the new overtime format isn’t exactly a burning issue in my mind.  That being said, I kind of found it silly.

I understand that college football, to its credit, is trying to avoid any further 2018 Texas A&M-LSU game situations, but there’s got to be some approach that doesn’t feel so contrived, Steve Shaw’s back patting ($$) notwithstanding.

“The rule is a player safety rule,” Steve Shaw, the NCAA’s national coordinator of officials, told The Athletic on Monday. “We started on this journey a few years back, with that Texas A&M-LSU game that went seven overtimes and had almost 260 plays. It was a lot of plays. Way too long. The injury rate began to creep up in that game; it was observable.

“Even though I know you are going to hear both positives and negatives … it accomplished what we wanted it to by limiting plays. You can’t just say (you’re) for student-athlete health and safety, and, ‘Well, there’s only a few of them, so put them through the gauntlet,’ right? That’s not the right answer, even if it’s a low percentage of games.”

If the goal is to limit plays, why not cap the number of overtimes at, say, two?  Are ties such anathema?  Shaw says we think so.

“I would never be opposed to a tie. But our society is not dictated in that way, and too many conferences (need results for divisional races). Everybody wants the game to have a winner, and if you’re looking out for the student-athletes, this is the best way to do it.”

Agree or disagree?

Your Fernandina Beach PSA, revisited

If y’all will recall, it was about this time last year that I introduced everyone to Hamp Tanner’s brewery.

… after almost two years of renovation effort, Mocama Beer Company will open its doors this Tuesday, 11/3/20 at 629 S. 8th Street, Fernandina Beach. The building is at the intersection of 8th St and Gum St in an 18,000 square foot former Ford Dealership building built in 1953. We have a 3500 square foot taproom with 24 taps on the wall. We will have 10-12 distinct beers on tap this weekend.

I went and was, shall we say, well served.  As a plus, their flagship brew, Cosmico, was available at the Harris Teeter we usually shop at.  I can tell you from personal experience it makes for a fine accompaniment to an afternoon on the beach.

Anyway, enough background.  Hamp sent me an email about this year’s offerings and asked me to share the info with those of you heading to Amelia this week, so here goes.

In addition to being able to find Cosmico everywhere on the island and throughout Jax, we should have the following on tap for the Georgia-Florida weekend.

In no particular order:

Ruby Rosa Raspberry/Tart Cherry Berliner Weisse 4.8%

Prosim Pilsner 5.0%

Burial at Sea Baltic Porter 8.7%

2X Raspberry Ruby Rosa Berliner Weisse 4.8%

Moder Marzen 5.3%

Cosmico IPA 7.0%

Coconut Cosmico IPA 7.0%

Evocateur Coconut Porter 5.5%

Montreux Lager 4.6%

Rare Cargo Double IPA 8.3%

Cucumber Basil Gose 4.5%

We are going to be promoting Friday all day as a Georgia-Florida Special event with a food truck and hopefully looping the 1980 game on our one tv. Do you happen to know if that game is available on YouTube or elsewhere? [Ed. note:  It is!] If so, we can make that happen. I would really prefer to call it a Bulldog party, but the business owner in me recognizes that Gator dollars also help pay the bills. I am wide open to any input you may have regarding this party. In fact, if you believe Thursday would be a better day to promote a party, we could do that but I’m not sure if enough Dawgs are down here by Thursday. We will begin promoting it by this weekend.

On Wednesday next week we have a local band playing from 6-9. They are a jam, funk-fusion 5 piece that have been together for less than a year but are starting to sound really good.

… We are bigger and better this year. We have recently opened our coffee bar with outstanding coffee/espresso etc with a small selection of pastries. Coffee bar opens at 7:00 am every day. Our beer bar opens at 1:00 pm on Tues, Wed and Thurs and noon on Friday. 11:00 am on Sat-Sun.

I will be there Thursday.  If any of you are down there then, come drop by.  I’d love to meet you over some tasty brews.  Not to mention we need to shore up Hamp’s business plan. 😉

My Week 8 Mumme Poll ballot

Out with Okie State, in with Oregon.

• Cincinnati
• Ohio State
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Alabama
• Georgia

It’s gotten to the point that if I’m including Ohio State, which looks to have the best offense in the country (OSU just overtook UGA in SP+ this week), it’s hard to ignore one-loss Oregon, which beat the Buckeyes in Columbus.

I left Oklahoma in and left Michigan/Michigan State out because I feel like the schedule is going to address both situations — in the case of the latter, this very week.  I’ll add the winner of the Michigan/Michigan State to my ballot next week.

Just a play or two away

Or maybe three…

#Gators coach Dan Mullen: "This year's adversity is finding a way to win these games that we're right there and we kind of find a way not to win in three of the games…I mean, you go change three plays, we might be 7-0."

— Graham Hall (@GrahamHall_) October 25, 2021

Or maybe more.  LSU ran a boat load of counters.  It was kind of like their wheel route.  But I digress.

Trollin’, trollin’, trollin’

Danny Kanell sets his sights high.

New #DKtop8 Winning should matter.

1. Georgia
2. Michigan
3. Cincinnati
4. Oklahoma
5. Michigan State
6. Wake Forest
7. Oregon
8. Ohio State

— Danny Kanell (@dannykanell) October 24, 2021

In case you’re not sure what he’s up to…

The AP's message to college football fans. Oklahoma ALMOST LOSING is clearly a worse outcome than Bama ACTUALLY LOSING.

Nobody gets more free passes than Bama.

— Danny Kanell (@dannykanell) October 25, 2021

Sure, Danny.  No doubt you’d bet the house on Wake Forest beating Alabama.  What a wanker.

Your Daily Gator places his bet.

Florida’s a 14-point underdog Saturday?  Ain’t no thang, mane.

I’m starting to think that if Jones starts, Gator fans are going to boo their team more loudly than our fans will, and I am so there for that.

“No decision has been made whatsoever.”

Kirbs ain’t givin’ nothin’ away, peeps.

Smart was asked if it was likely that both Bennett and Daniels will play against Florida.

“It’s going to depend on how they practice and what they do,” he said. “Is it likely that we will see both of them? I don’t know that. I haven’t seen practice today. I’d like to see practice today to know a little bit better to know, OK, where’s he at. Based on Wednesday and Thursday, he was able to throw without pain. That’s step one. The next step is can I move? Can I throw with accuracy? Can I do all the things required to play quarterback? I don’t know if he can do those things just yet. We’ll see by how he practices this week.”

What about rotating quarterbacks week to week or during a game?

“I’ll say it again, I’m really OK with whoever the best guy that gives us the best chance to win is,” Smart said. “That’s based on practice and health and it will continue to be that way the rest of the year. The question of ‘Are you OK rotating them’ is really not relevant if they’re not both completely healthy.’ I’ll just go off of A, are they healthy, and who gives us the best chance to win based on what we think we need to do offensively against their defense.”

And that’s driving somebody crazy.

Mullen asks if Georgia has named a starting quarterback yet. "That's shocking. They're the No. 1 team."

— Nick de la Torre (@delatorre) October 25, 2021

Mission accomplished.

“You take away a game like this one, I’ll tell you what, I wouldn’t want to be the mayor that lost that.”

Last week, I made fun of Chip Towers for asking Kirby Smart about leaving Jacksonville for a home-and-home series with Florida, but I have to admit his piece today is a balanced look at the Cocktail Party.  A few examples:

• “Previous Georgia coaches have complained about the game being played on Florida soil. The Gators’ football facility is located just 75 miles from TIAA Bank Field, so they bus to Jacksonville. In contrast, the Bulldogs fly to Jacksonville out of Ben Epps Airport in Athens. However, the flight time by Delta charter — one hour — is actually less than Florida busing from Gainesville, Fla. (1½ hours).”

• “But Smart’s beef is that the Bulldogs lose an opportunity to show off UGA’s campus on official visits.

  “It certainly is valuable (during a) time when kids are deciding before the early signing date in December and enrolling in January,” Smart said. “Those are the most critical weekends you can have to get kids on campus. I stand by the fact that we miss out on one of those opportunities every other year and everybody else on the country doesn’t.”

  Ironically, in the same week Smart made that statement, the Bulldogs received commitments from three elite recruits and moved up to No. 1 in the 247Sports.com composite national recruiting rankings for the Class of 2022. If that ranking holds up, Georgia will have averaged a No. 2 national recruiting ranking over the last six classes under Smart, including three years as the nation’s No. 1 team.”

• “… 38 players on Georgia’s roster are from Macon, south and into Florida. Likewise, a huge number of UGA alumni encompass that same geographic region.

  For them, Jacksonville is significantly closer than going to Athens. And the annual flock of fans to the Georgia coast provides a fall economic stimulus that otherwise wouldn’t be available to that region.”

The most interesting part of his piece concerns the economics behind the move under consideration by Jacksonville’s City Council to remove 6,000 temporary seats for the game.

The fact is, demand for tickets is not as great as it once was. In recent years, both Georgia had Florida have had to make a second pass at donors to exhaust their allotments. It’s not a reflection on this particular game, but more of a college football trend in which staying home to watch games on television is a viable option much less expensive.

“Given the recent demand for more premium seating in the stadium and the fact that both schools’ ticket demands could be met, all parties agreed the temporary seating could be discontinued this year to make a premium area available,” Georgia’s Brooks said in a statement provided to the AJC. “The change will also have a positive impact on fans at that end of the stadium and will help with some of the ingress issues we have experienced in the past.”

If, despite demand being down, the city is willing to maintain the payments it’s contracted for with the two schools, that would seem to be positive financial reinforcement for both Florida and Georgia to keep the Cocktail Party right where it is.