My SOMP ballot

It’s been interesting to read the rationales you guys have employed to come up with your choices for the teams you’d expect to populate the CFP semi-finals field.

Me, I’ve looked at this as having a friendly debate with some buddies at a sports bar over a few beers.  My first instinct was to limit my vote to three — Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State — but four teams make it and the usual suspects list in that context really isn’t that long.

• Alabama
• Clemson
• Georgia
• Notre Dame
• Ohio State
• Oklahoma

Will my list read differently five years from now?  Quite possibly, but at present, that’s where my head is at.

By the way, if you haven’t cast a ballot yet, there’s still time.  The link to the poll is here.

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Everyone’s a winner, baby.

Barrett Sallee takes a look at preseason over/under win totals on SEC teams and comes up with this:

• Alabama:  Pick: Over 11 (-140)
• Arkansas:  Pick: Over 7 (-125)
• Auburn:  Pick: Over 6 (-130)
• Florida:  Pick: Over 7 (-125)
• Georgia:  Pick: Over 11.5 (+150)
• Kentucky:  Pick: Under 8.5 (-140)
• LSU:  Pick: Under 7 (-130)
• Mississippi State:  Pick: Under 6.5 (-110)
• Missouri:  Pick: Over 5 (-105)
• Ole Miss:  Pick: Over 7.5 (-140)
• South Carolina:  Pick: Over 6 (-125)
• Tennessee:  Pick Over 7.5 (-145)
• Texas A&M:  Pick: Under 8.5 (+145)
• Vanderbilt:  Pick: Under 2.5 (-170)

He’s really bullish on Ole Miss, picking them to win ten games.  He’s most bearish on Kentucky’s chances, seeing them losing five, including to Missouri.  I’m not sure I’m buying either of those, but most of the rest of what he’s come up with looks reasonable to me.

What do y’all think?

The nobility of Kentucky football

Mark Stoops has made it abundantly clear that he’s opposed to a nine-game conference schedule, but at least he’s been honest about his motives.  His athletic director, on the other hand, is full of crap.

If UK loses the fight to keep the 8-game schedule, Kentucky could keep the Governor’s Cup alive. However, it would come at a cost, most likely impacting FCS football programs. This year UK will host Stoops’ hometown team, Youngstown State, and pay the Penguins’ athletic department $550,000 for the trip to Lexington.

“It’s important to support FCS football because I want people participating in college football,” Barnhart said. “I think sometimes we forget about thinking about the end game, making sure everybody is still playing. If there’s opportunities that go away and there’s not kids that want to play the game of football, the game of football suffers. We’ve got to make sure we do things that ensure the game of football and people want to play the game. Keeping FCS football alive is very, very important to that end.”

Doing it for the kids can never fail; it can only be failed.  The only thing more laughable than his absurd attempt to cloak cowardice with some sort of allegedly higher calling is the pretense that he can use the threat of cancelling the series with Louisville as some sort of leverage with Greg Sankey.

All of that word salad cannot make the FCS game more significant than the rivalry against Louisville. Still, Barnhart will not take the Governor’s Cup off the negotiation table. After all, it’s one of his greatest pieces of leverage to prevent the SEC from expanding its conference schedule. Even though the game is under contract until 2030, Kentucky’s athletic director will not commit to playing Louisville until after a scheduling decision has been finalized by Southeastern Conference officials.

Of course it can’t.  Just ask Mitch McConnell, a die hard Louisville fan.  Who, by the way isn’t likely to be pleased if Barnhart actually tries to can the series.  I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

When optimistic assumptions collide

There I was, reading Pete Fiutak’s South Carolina preview, thinking it was a pretty good take on the ‘Cocks upcoming season.

Until I got to this:

There’s no question the team is good enough to pull off a big upset somewhere, like at home against Texas A&M or maybe against Georgia.

But can it get by an improved Florida on the road?

My brain is honestly having a hard time digesting that.

“… but I feel like Alabama and Georgia are pretty trustworthy overall.”

One thing you can say about Kirby Smart’s refusal to dip into the transfer portal — it’s made Bill Connelly’s job easier.

Connelly appeared on The Solid Verbal podcast for Tuesday’s episode and discussed several topics in the lead-up to the 2022 season, including his SP+ projections entering the new year. The Solid Verbal co-host Dan Rubenstein asked Connelly which teams is Connelly the most sure of based on the amount of data Connelly has to work with, and Connelly immediately pointed to the Bulldogs.

“I mean, no transfers. They didn’t take a single transfer this year. I mean, the defensive coordinator [Dan Lanning] left, so there is that, but you know the offense — we kind of know what that offense is going to be,” Connelly told Rubenstein and co-host Ty Hildebrandt. “And we trust even with the defensive coordinator gone — the last time they lost a defensive coordinator [Mel Tucker], they got better defensively. So, I’m not real worried about that side either. Like, they have really, really good pieces to replace. They’re projected third in SP+, a hair behind Ohio State and Alabama, but I feel we’ve got a very, very good read on them. Alabama too, if we’re being honest.”

And that’s with 15 players gone to the NFL draft.  Reloading for the win, baby!

The futility, she burns.

How pathetic has Georgia Tech football been under Coach 404?  This pathetic:

Looks like they’re gonna need a bigger Waffle House cup.

Suppose they gave a collective and nobody came?

Hard times in Knoxville:

Basically, they’ve only raised enough money to pay the $8 million to the five-star quarterback recruit.  Hard to believe, given the history of UT athletics, that most of their fans don’t think throwing money at unproven 18-year olds is a sensible investment, but there you have it.

Those of you who’ve been slitting your wrists over the end of college football as we know it just got another data point to consider.

Musical palate cleanser, sandals dance at my feet edition

From their 1972 release, Carl and The Passions, here’s the Beach Boys, with “Marcella”.

There are two things in particular I love about this song.  (Besides the song itself, that is.)

First, it was written based on a massage therapist Brian Wilson was kind of fixated on at the time.  No, really.

“Marcella” was written about a real woman that Wilson knew. Music journalist Nick Kent explains that she “worked at a parlour just off the strip called Circus Maximus” and had allowed Wilson to “stay and talk to her even though she was aware most of what he said was crazy bullshit.” According to Jack Rieley:

About that time Brian began talking in detail about a massage parlour in West Hollywood and one of the girls who worked there. At first he spoke only of going there for massages. Some days later he began going on and on about the masseuse who he said was turning him on.… The only thing I could think of to quell Brian’s fixation was to channel it. Thus it was I who suggested Marcella as the title for a tune Brian had been working on. With my promise to write the Marcella lyric, he jumped into the project with immense enthusiasm. Brian, Carl, Desper and I worked hard on that record. Dennis helped too. The zither was a cool idea but it was mixed poorly. My lyric was minor… efficient at best.

Second, the musical influences!

Wilson later said that one of the lead guitar parts was inspired by George Harrison‘s playing,^[5] namely, Harrison’s solo on “Let It Be” (1970).^[6] On another occasion, Wilson said that the song “represents one of the first times we tried to emulate The Rolling Stones. In my mind, it was dedicated to the Stones, but I never told them that. It’s one of the rockingest songs I ever wrote.”

I admit you can hear Harrison on the guitar break, but the Stones? C’mon, Brian!