Wut.
What time was that, exactly? It certainly hasn’t been that way for a while.
Daily Archives: December 21, 2022
Everything you need to know about NSD, in less than 280 characters
Kirby Smart is a friggin’ machine.
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UPDATE:
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting
There’s that gap again.
From today’s Mandel Mailbag ($$):
But his tenure also coincided with the single biggest factor working against Florida right now: the rise of Georgia. It was one thing when Mark Richt was the coach there, winning more than his share but never towering over the Gators or anyone else. Kirby Smart has built what may be the pre-eminent program in the country right now (check back on that statement come Jan. 9), and it happens to be Florida’s chief division rival. I would love to see Florida build itself into more of an equal footing with Georgia for the sake of future Cocktail Parties, but it’s a hefty gap as of the moment. [Emphasis added.]
This probably won’t help close it, either.
That’s gonna leave a mark on Your Daily Gator.
Filed under Gators, Gators..., Georgia Football, Media Punditry/Foibles, Recruiting
Housekeeping note
I’ve seen that some are having problems with the “like” feature on WP. I checked to see if there was an issue that WP had addressed at some point, and this is the only thing I’ve come across so far:
By default Safari has “Prevent cross browser tracking” checked in preferences and this stops the like button working.
If I come across anything else of note, I’ll post it for you.
Filed under GTP Stuff
“We obviously finished on a high note.”
Shot.
The Tennessee Volunteers are the only top-25 team entering their bowl game coming off a shutout.
Chaser.
Of course, no Football Bowl Subdivision program surrendered more points in its next-to-last contest than the 63 Tennessee yielded at South Carolina.
Filed under Because Nothing Sucks Like A Big Orange
Do we still need a national signing day?
Andy Staples is the first person I remember who proposed doing away with NSD entirely and just allowing players to sign with a school when a coach offered. Thought it made sense then and it still does now. In fact, Dan Wolken offers a couple of additional reasons to support that sentiment.
First of all, liberalized transfer rules have introduced a lot of uncertainty into roster building and maintenance.
But with the NCAA liberalizing transfer rules in 2020 and pretty much making player movement a free-for-all, building a roster no longer revolves solely around high school prospects. In fact, for programs that aren’t hauling in the four- and five-stars — which is to say most of them — decisions are now significantly influenced by who’s in the transfer portal where coaches often feel safer filling an area of need with somebody they’ve seen on film in college football games rather than a high schooler who may or may not pan out.
That’s perfectly fine, and in some ways good for the sport. It has given more programs a chance to rebuild, reenergize their fan bases and emerge as College Football Playoff contenders without having to endure years of painful losses.
But with the transfer window opening on Dec. 5 and more than 1,000 players putting their names in the portal, it has created a circumstance where coaches have to figure out who’s leaving, who they want to bring in as a transfer and which high school players they want to sign all within a couple weeks.
It’s fine at places like Georgia that have the luxury of picking and choosing, but not so fine at a lot of other places.
Nor is it great for a lot of high school recruits.
And it certainly has the potential to put borderline high school prospects at a disadvantage. Before the early signing period and transfer freedom existed, high school players who didn’t know where they wanted to go or were looking for a better offer could hold out and see if a spot opened up somewhere right before signing day. Now, they’re competing not just with other high school players but current college players for scholarships. There’s little doubt that when Wednesday is over, hundreds of recruits who wanted to have their recruitments over and done with will have to drag things out for several more months as the transfer portal settles and coaches see how many slots they have remaining.
One other point Wolken makes:
One unintended consequence of the December signing period had already shown up the last few years in the coaching carousel, as schools felt compelled to fire coaches earlier and make new hires quicker.
So basically what the new signing day protocol has done is to squeeze a maximum amount of chaos into a small period of the football calendar that doesn’t really benefit most schools, coaches or recruits. Unlocking signing day isn’t a be all and end all to that, but it should at least relieve some of the pressure.
Filed under Recruiting
Moar Peach Bowl talk
Josh Pate makes a couple of good points in that clip. Ryan Day and Ohio State definitely come into the game feeling more pressure on them than do Kirby Smart and Georgia. The Dawgs have experience dealing in the moment now; the Buckeyes have their own fanbase questioning their stoutness after getting smoked by Michigan at home.
Which leads into his second point — OSU has played conservatively this season, which makes sense, given their talent advantage over teams on their schedule. It worked, until it didn’t. So, do they change their approach for the CFP semi-finals, or simply convince themselves that the Michigan loss was simply the result of flawed execution? Ummm…
“All year we were flying around,” nickel safety Tanner McCalister said. “Everybody was on their Ps and Qs. That game we just had a lot of missed assignments — everybody, me included. A bad time to have a bad game, really.
“So after watching the film, we saw that it really wasn’t anything that our opponent was doing. It was us. We beat ourselves.”
Okay, fine. Hope you guys decide to run the ball 25 times against Georgia’s run defense. But I digress a little.
Anyway, back to Pate, the point he makes that I’m not sold on is his prediction that AD Mitchell will be the key player for Georgia. Don’t get me wrong. I’d love for him to be correct about that. But, expecting a player who just started getting multiple play reps in the SECCG to ball out in his next game, even with three weeks to prepare, is asking a lot. Besides that, I’m a little skeptical with this whole “Ohio State had the second best pass defense in the country against tight ends and running backs” narrative that I’ve seen pushed by Pate and some others.
I mean, Brock Bowers gets lined up inside, outside, in the slot… every which way, in other words. I doubt Ohio State’s faced another tight end like him this season. Beyond that, Todd Monken’s had a the better part of a month to prepare for the Buckeyes’ pass defense. Are we really supposed to think he can’t come up with an effective game plan?
Filed under Big Ten Football, Georgia Football, Strategery And Mechanics
The gap, she isn’t closing.
If this news is true…
… Napier has upgraded the position from the nation’s 76th ranked quarterback in passer rating to the nation’s 67th ranked quarterback in passer rating.
Filed under Gators, Gators..., Transfers Are For Coaches.
Staking a claim
Look, the odds are quite strong that Alabama signs the top recruiting class in the country (again) and Saban flipped Kadyn Proctor, a five-star offensive tackle from his home state school yesterday, so it’s silly to talk about the end being near for that program. But, I’ve got to admit this quote from Proctor is a little out of the ordinary.
When is the last time you heard a freshman commit proclaim “it’s a good chance I start right away” in Tuscaloosa? That ain’t the way the Process rolls, normally. Did the coaching staff make a promise? Or is this something he concluded on his own after looking at the state of next year’s offensive line? Either way, it’s a bit strange.
Filed under Alabama, Recruiting
Today, in where are they now?
Man, never would have seen this coming a couple of years ago, that’s for sure.
Hope it works out for JT.
Filed under Transfers Are For Coaches.
Get The Picture 
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