Legendary legend

#ThrowbackThursday Who is the 1st ex-college football player that pops into your head?

Mine: Georgia Tech QB Reggie Ball.

I don't care what anyone says, a 4-year starter with a 48.6 completion percentage is the absolute 🐐. pic.twitter.com/zJw45R0be7

— Jim Weber (@JimMWeber) July 7, 2022

True dat.  And so many memorable moments against Georgia along the way.

Sad to say, we’ll never see his like again.

Advertisement

UGA Advanced Stat Preview 2022: Outside WR’s

Graham posted this yesterday and it’s worth your time to read.  Some of what he writes illuminates things you might have already known, like AD Mitchell’s propensity for drops.  On the other hand, this bit about Mitchell came as news to me:

… I often repeat on our film shows that any receiver who wants to play at Georgia has to block. UGA’s receiving corps struggled mightily with its blocking in September last season before showing great improvement towards the end of the season. One of the reasons why Mitchell was probably on the field so much in 2021 is the effort and awareness he brings to his downfield blocking. Mitchell was in on 215 blocking situations last season and only drew one penalty. That’s impressive for any wideout, but particularly a true freshman.

No shit.  If you’re a receiver who can block downfield consistently, they’ll always find a place for you in Georgia’s offense.

And I can’t agree more with him about this:

Here’s a hypothetical for you: If you gave the UGA offensive staff truth serum and made them pick one guy on the roster who they could guarantee would be healthy for all of 2022 who do you think they would choose? I would put my money the pick would be Arian Smith.

They’ve got to find a way to keep Smith healthy enough to see at least a dozen snaps a game, week in and week out.  Why?  ‘Cause this:

• 16 career routes run
• 32.1 ADOT
• 9 targets/5 receptions/37.6 yards per catch
• 188 yards/3 touchdowns
• 11.75 yards per route run
• UGA QB’s have Rating of 140.0 when targeting Smith

Only sixteen routes run, but look at that productivity!  You could call him Georgia’s version of Jameson Williams, except Smith has a championship ring.  Put him in bubble wrap or something, but get him on the field and find a way to keep him there.

When he says it’s not about the money…

It’s really amazing to me that anyone who’s followed college football for the past two decades could believe this…

We’ve been told to believe, above all else, that money is everything in the latest iteration of college football expansion.

But money didn’t bring us to this point of no return, where college football — and college sports, by proxy — is hurtling toward the last move on the chessboard.

… but, hey, somebody does, and of course it’s Matt Hayes.

CFP expansion can never fail. It can only be failed.

As you can imagine, the latest round of conference expansion has generated a tsunami of hot takes.  Dan Wetzel’s thoughtfully provided my favorite “hammer, meet nail” version of those.  After bemoaning what the suits are taking away from the fans…

But for fans of college football as a whole, for the diehards that devour the sport 12 months of the year, for the fans of middle- or bottom-of-the-pack teams in even the best conferences, a world without the Pac-12 — or a new era of just two, top-heavy, juggernaut leagues — would be a depressing disaster.

If you love college football then you love it all. You relish in the circus. You crave the chaos. You celebrate the illogical nature of 130-something schools of all shapes and sizes competing for a single championship. Big state institutions, small religious ones, military academies, elite private universities, former jucos … whatever.

Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses and lace ’em up in this most American of creations. Not everyone has to be Alabama. Not everyone can be Alabama. Not everyone should be Alabama.

… The more teams playing so-called “major” college football the better. If you just want AFC v. NFC, well, the NFL isn’t hard to find on TV.

… he gets to the real monster.

Yes, they should have solved the playoff problem decades ago, a bigger field with automatic bids for all the worthy conference champions. Instead, leadership failed the sport, deciding to protect the bowl industry to such a degree that it wound up unable to protect itself.

Maybe college football will never get the postseason it deserved — and thus the regular season race towards it.

That he manages to write that immediately after his NFL quip demonstrates a lack of self-awareness that’s truly impressive.  But, you’ve got to admit “a bigger playoff would have stopped the conference shuffle dead in its tracks” is about as on message as a playoff expansion hammer can hit.  Well played, Mr. Wetzel.

Is ESPN stealing underpants?

While I’m on the subject of things that don’t make sense to me, here’s another.

Officials from the ACC and Pac-12 are discussing a broadcasting partnership with ESPN that would bring together the two Power 5 leagues from opposite coasts for a mutually beneficial relationship, sources tell Sports Illustrated.

The proposal, still in its infancy, heavily involves the ESPN-owned ACC Network. Under the plan, the ACC Network—or a renamed entity combining the two leagues—will have exclusive rights to broadcast Pac-12 games to West Coast households through ESPN cable providers. The agreement is not a merger or consolidation of the leagues but is instead built around a media rights agreement with the worldwide leader in sports—an effort to clap back at the Pac-12’s loss of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten.

While the joint move could feature marquee nonconference matchups from the West and East Coasts—think Clemson-Washington or Miami-Oregon—the primary reason behind the partnership is the TV property. This would replace the failed Pac-12 Network with a reliable provider that can reach millions of homes out west.

“The TV Property”?  What?  The reason these two conferences are in the shape they’re in relative to the Big Ten and the SEC is because their broadcast rights are worth significantly less.  How exactly is giving East Coast viewers an extra serving of Pac-12 football, and vice versa, supposed to ameliorate that?  I know synergy’s been a popular buzz word in marketing classes for decades, but this strikes me not so much as synergy as it’s something South Park’s Underpants Gnomes might cook up.

The part I really don’t get here is Mickey’s.  They’re smarter than the Clampetts running the conferences, so what are they seeing here that I’m not?  The only thing I can come up with is that the ACC Network is a bigger money loser than I thought, so if they can buy additional rights cheaply enough, it might make some sense.  But wouldn’t it make more financial sense to help blow the ACC up and shepherd a few teams the SEC’s way?

Help us, Obi-Wan Nike. You’re our only hope.

Can somebody explain the logic of this to me?

Exactly why does Knight care about being the Pac-12’s savior?  I mean, I get that he bleeds Oregon green, but doesn’t that imply he’s looking for a way to get the Ducks to the Big Ten, even if he has to come out of his considerable pockets to make it worth everyone’s while?  But why would he see it as his special responsibility to pull the conference out of a ditch that’s largely due to its own making?  Is there something special about adding “he saved the Pac-12” to his legacy?  I’m sure not seeing it.