Quick Friday pondering

Two quick thoughts, pulled totally out of my ass:

1. If what’s gone before this season is a guide, while we have no idea who’s starting at quarterback tomorrow, Smart and Monken made that decision early this week.  That’s what they do.
2. Why are people worried about Daniels being rusty?  Last season, after having missed playing football for eighteen months and facing a defense that sold out totally to make him beat them, all Daniels did was go 28-38, 401 yards, 4 TDs, 0 INTs and a 197.07 passer rating.  If that’s rusty, you can give me that all day against the Gators, thank you very much.

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Respect Their Authoriteh!

This is adorable.

The non-profit organization Bowl Season that represents the 43 postseason bowl games has asked the College Football Playoff that all games in an expanded playoff be played entirely within the bowl system. In addition, the organization has asked for a spot at the table in further CFP discussion.

In a letter dated Monday and obtained by CBS Sports that went out to the 130 FBS presidents, athletic directors, coaches and 10 FBS commissioners, the organization stated:

“An expanded playoff should include all playoff games being played within the traditional Bowl structure, not the home site of one of the participating teams. The Bowls would provide a neutral, competitively fair setting for these games as they have throughout their history.”

I’m sure the schools will take that under advisement.

“To exclude Bowl games from any round of an expanded playoff would be harmful to Bowl Season, individual Bowls and their host communities, and post-season college football in general,” the letter states. “The future direction of college football has reached a volatile point. As a leader and caretaker of college athletics, we appreciate your consideration of the key role the Bowls play in your university experience.”

Fellas, that’s not a winning argument.  If you aren’t doing it for the kids, you aren’t doing it right.

Stats, stats and mo’ stats

Seth Emerson’s Mailbag ($$) is chock full of ’em.

• Georgia has run fewer plays this season with the score within two touchdowns than any other team in the FBS (221 plays, compared to 226 with the bigger lead.) The takeaway: more than half of Georgia’s plays have been when it has a two-touchdown-or-more lead. Think that warps the overall stats?

• However, when the lead has been within seven points, the Georgia offense leads the nation in percentage of plays that gain 20 or more yards (11.5 percent, 11 of 156 plays.).

• Overall this season, Georgia ranks 18th in the nation in yards per play (6.74). But when the game has been within seven points, Georgia jumps up to fourth nationally.

• And when the game has been that close, Georgia has also been more likely to gain 10-plus yards on a play (26.3 percent of the time) than be stopped for no gain or a loss (20.5 percent).

• When the game has gotten out of reach, Todd Monken has taken his foot off the gas, both in pace and play-calling: Georgia has averaged a play every 27.7 seconds when the game is within 14 points, compared to every 30.4 seconds when it’s not, and the designed run-pass ratio has been 50-50 when the game was within 7 points (78 dropbacks, 78 designed rushes), compared to calling designed runs 66.3 percent of the time when Georgia leads by 14 or more.

The lesson to be drawn from that is Todd Monken knows how to play to the moment.

One more stat of note for the Cocktail Party:  Florida has turned the ball over in every game they’ve played this season.  And of the 13 giveaways they’ve produced, 12 have come by interceptions.

“How many times have we had it in our hands and it slips away in the 11th hour?”

David Wunderlich’s post aside, it’s not like we Georgia fans haven’t had our load of angst to deal with.

It’s why “Munsoning” is a word we all identify with.

“Something is just off about the Florida program right now.”

David Wunderlich has written a classic “Florida now is like Georgia used to be” piece.

During that long stretch of Gator dominance and even for a while after, the Florida-Georgia game wasn’t always about that day’s particular Florida-Georgia game for the partisans in red and black. They had to worry about if it was time to fire Ray Goff. Or Jim Donnan. Or Mark Richt, or at least one of his coordinators like Willie Martinez (yes) or Mike Bobo (no).

The tables turned after Meyer left Gainesville. Starting in 2011, Florida fans now wondered if it was time to fire Will Muschamp or at least one of his three offensive coordinators. Or Jim McElwain. UGA fans didn’t have completely smooth sailing once they started beating UF again, as they had more questions about whether it was time to fire Bobo (still no), Todd Grantham (after four years, yes), or Richt (eventually, yes). All that noise quieted down pretty quickly in the second half of the decade.

Last year’s Florida win was supposed to quiet things down in Gainesville. Everyone set it up during the offseason to be the Most Important Game in the Mullen Era, and the Gators passed the test with flying colors. Unfortunately, the quiet barely lasted more than a month.

Since that big win in Jacksonville, Florida has lost twice to severely shorthanded LSU teams, practically no-showed a bowl, and resolutely and determinedly stomped on a couple dozen rakes in a needless loss to Kentucky.

So where does that leave Gator fans tomorrow?  Well, put it this way:  as a Georgia fan, this sure sounds familiar.

All of that means that this year’s Cocktail Party can just be about the game itself. It’s about beating a hated rival and nothing more. That’s supposed to be enough for college football teams in such games, and it is for myriad programs that don’t ever have realistic shots at conference or national titles. We hate those guys over there, and so we’re going to try extra hard to beat them.

It’s not about positioning in the standings or rankings. It’s about bragging rights and getting the 1980 jokes off of life support.

It’s about us versus them, on this field, on this day. If Florida can focus on just that and play their best game, they do have a shot to win. It’s not a great shot, but they could pull it off. If so many big swings can go against them in the last season-and-a-half, maybe a big swing could go in their favor for once.

Good luck with that.  On our end, that was good for about one upset a decade.