Here’s the official confirmation:
That makes four former Smart assistants who are P5 head coaches now. That’s a good way to keep drawing top talent to Athens.
Daily Archives: December 11, 2021
The ugliest moment from an ugly evening
I still haven’t figured out what was going on here…
… but I sure was happy to see that flag for illegal motion.
Filed under Georgia Football
A matter of convenience
American Football Coaches Association executive director Todd Berry told ESPN on Friday that the increasingly active transfer portal — not the mid-December signing period for high school players — is driving discussion about possibly changing the recruiting calendar.
Discussions are underway with the Division I football oversight committee and the recruiting subcommittee on whether moving back the first signing period to early January would better serve the sport…
“The recruiting calendar needs to change because the whole transfer portal [has] upset everything,” Berry said.
What’s the problem, Todd?
“What’s new this year is you’ve got 85 players on your current team that are free agents. Most of our coaches would suggest that’s what’s really sped up the cycle. The early signing date being Dec. 15, we might not even know, as coaches, who’s going to be in the transfer portal at that time. So it’s hard to replace a football team when you don’t even know who’s going to come back.
“The bottom line is that makes that date a little bit difficult.”
Berry has heard from many coaches who had to cancel recruiting visits immediately after the regular season in late November so they could “recruit their own team.”
Let me suggest that if you have to spend a lot of time recruiting your own team after the regular season, you’re probably not doing your job right. Which is kind of a shame, considering you’re being paid major bucks to do said job.
Oh, Todd’s just getting warmed up.
Another item coaches are discussing is whether to implement a transfer window, which could run from after the regular season until the start of the winter semester. While athletes could announce their intention to transfer earlier, Berry said the portal would “open up” for a specific period.
“The transfer portal is here, we all recognize it. It’s changing the face of things, and that’s not going back, obviously,” Berry said.
At least he didn’t say they’re doing it for the kids.
Filed under Recruiting, Transfers Are For Coaches.
30 passes
From the indefatigable AirForceDawg:
HC Kirby Smart’s record at UGA: 64-15 (81%)
58-4 (93.5%) in games where the Dawgs threw 30 or fewer passes
6-11 (35.3%) in games where the Dawgs threw >30 passesStarting records when throwing > 30 passes in a game:
Eason: 3-3 at UGA; 3-4 at Washington
Fromm: 0-6
Bennett: 0-2
Daniels: 3-5 at USC; 3-0 at UGA
Point here isn’t to take shots at a particular quarterback. It’s to note that Kirby’s philosophy on program building has been consistent through all his offensive coordinators. Even with Monken, it’s been more about being creative with the passing game, rather than relying on the passing game to win games. That’s just how Smart’s built.
That’s why he’s comfortable ignoring the records of Bennett and Daniels in games that required a high volume of passing. After all, if the team is playing the way it’s supposed to, those games are anomalies that shouldn’t happen.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
If nature abhors a vacuum, does it hate the NCAA?
After seeing the NCAA do nothing about NIL compensation besides flail away fruitlessly in the courts for years and whine that Congress needs to do something about it, while abdicating their responsibility to deliver a concrete set of rules and regulations to govern its member schools, is anyone really surprised by this?
The NCAA is actively looking into a pair of high-profile NIL deals involving football players at Brigham Young University and the University of Miami for potential violations of the association’s interim rules regarding new marketing rights for college athletes, according to multiple people familiar with the probe.
NCAA enforcement staffers are trying to determine if these two deals qualify as a pay-for-play set-up, which is prohibited under the NCAA’s temporary NIL guidelines, according to the people, who were granted anonymity because the details are private.
“Actively” is doing a shit ton of heavy lifting there, and I suspect the relevant parties know that.
“We have communicated with the NCAA concerning the Built Bar NIL arrangement,” Jon McBride, BYU’s associate athletic director for communications, told Sportico in a statement Friday. “They have informed us they do not have any additional questions at this time. We will continue to monitor and abide by the NCAA interim NIL policy.”
… Jason Leonard, the NAAC’s president and executive director of compliance at Oklahoma, says his group pushed the NCAA to move briskly in shoring up the distinction between permissible and impermissible payments from third parties to college athletes.
The BYU and Miami deals have been viewed by others in the compliance space as NCAA gut checks, effectively daring the weakened and besieged governing body to take an increasingly unpopular—and, perhaps, illegally anticompetitive—stand against athletes earning money while they play.
“There has been this waiting period to see where the NCAA is going to be,” said Leonard. “If they don’t take any action, then potentially more schools are going to jump in with both feet—because you have to.”
Somebody doesn’t sound overly concerned about the situation.
Dan Lambert — the Miami Hurricanes booster and founder of a mixed martial arts team and gym — said the momentum from Mario Cristobal’s hiring has left him encouraged that he (in combination with other local businessmen) will be able to double the monthly stipend offered to Hurricanes players through the NCAA’s new Image and Likeness rules.
Lambert made his comments three days before Sportico reported Friday that the NCAA is exploring whether his Miami deal violates any NCAA NIL rules. UM has not been informed of any ongoing NCAA investigation.
Lambert, reached by phone after Sportico’s story was released, was adamant that his NIL deal violated no NCAA rules.
“[Expletive] the NCAA,” Lambert said Friday evening. “I would love to sue those scumbags. I hired the pre-eminent attorney in the country on NIL [Darren Heitner] and he crossed every T, dotted every I and they still want to look into it. Maybe [the NCAA is] scared they’re losing their power. They’re all pieces of [expletive].”
Tell us what you really think, dude.
But don’t worry, Jason. Mark Emmert is on the case.
What’s the over/under on how long it takes Oklahoma to join the team NIL queue?
Filed under The NCAA
Jumping the gun: the Dan Lanning story
So, up pops this in yesterday’s Twitter feed:
I’m thinking good for Lanning, who passed on a bunch of lateral hire offers and wound up being rewarded with taking the reins at a quality P5 program. And good for Georgia, too, for a number of reasons: you expect quality assistants to take a step away, sooner or later; he’s going to a place far enough away that it should minimally impact this year’s recruiting; if there’s one thing Kirby Smart has on hand, it’s quality defensive assistants.
Then I remembered there’s a narrative bonus for Mickey, to boot. Georgia opens with Oregon next season.
Anyway, all this has barely had enough time to register when shit goes crazy on Twitter. Like this:
And this:
And this:
The Oregonian weighed in, as well.
Georgia defensive coordinator Dan Lanning, one of the top young assistants in the country, is a candidate to be the next head coach of the Oregon Ducks but his reported hiring is premature, at best, according to a UO source with knowledge of the matter.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Lanning, 35, was to be hired at UO with an official announcement to come on Monday.
A source told The Oregonian/OregonLive that Lanning, a two-time finalist for the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant coach, is a candidate at Oregon but he had not, nor had anyone else, been offered the job as of Friday afternoon.
Faced with all that pushback, did Chip Towers and the AJ-C double down on their original story? You can probably guess the answer to that.
One more deet from the AJ-C’s current version:
Lanning and Georgia are negotiating whether the assistant coach will remain with the school through the College Football Playoff.
On the surface, that sounds just like what went down when Georgia hired Smart, but there’s one huge difference between the two situations: the early signing day. If Lanning sticks around through January 10th (potentially), he’s basically cratered his first recruiting class at Oregon, assuming the rest of the Towers’ story as fact.
All of this begs the question of what exactly is going on in Athens right now. I certainly have no first hand information to go on and share with you, but I’ll just start with the assumption that Towers wouldn’t invent a story like this out of whole cloth, which leads me to think somebody at B-M leaked something, enough for him to sprint with a early take that’s now been modified. As to who that person is and what their motivation for doing so is, I haven’t a clue, but I imagine there are some people in the building — Smart and Lanning being at the top of the list — who are livid about it.
That no other local beat writers have joined in should give everyone an indication that the original source is on shaky ground.
That all being said, the AJ-C hasn’t published a full retraction. Nor have any journalists who pushed back on the original story claimed that Lanning flat out won’t be hired by Oregon. What we’re left with is a story that should have been a nice, clean promotion for a coach who deserves it, now turned into a messy distraction. I know Kirby’s on the mother, but I’m sure they’ve had to do a little last-minute tap dancing in the time leading up to the early signing day to reassure recruits that everything is under control.
Also left to answer is how much of a distraction this will turn out to be preparing for the semifinal game against Michigan. All we can do is wait to see.
Filed under Georgia Football
Get The Picture 