Today, in understatements

Auburn's Hugh Freeze, at first SEC Media Days since 2016, opens with: "It's good to be back."

Last time he was here, asked if he regretted a tweet daring anyone with proof of violations to contact compliance.

"Sometimes you make decisions that probably aren't the sharpest."

— Kyle Tucker (@KyleTucker_ATH) July 18, 2023

Really?  ‘Ya think?

“Senator Blutarsky’s been tough on me over the years.”

It’s not every day you hear your moniker come up on an Andy Staples podcast.  (Dial this clip up to the 52:35 mark to hear.)

Hey, I love ‘ya, Andy.

There’s already one loser in the SEC conference scheduling format battle.

Back on June 1, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey announced the conference was sticking with an eight-game conference schedule for the 2024 season. Sankey noted that the SEC’s plan for 2025 and beyond had not been decided, and on Monday, Sankey explained what the road ahead looks like.

Sankey was asked about future scheduling plans at SEC Media Days and acknowledged a decision will eventually have to be made for 2025 and beyond. Sankey explained making a decision sooner rather than later would help teams when it comes to potentially canceling scheduled non-conference games, though he did not share when a decision needed to be made…

Auburn’s Hugh Freeze was one of the coaches at spring meetings who pointed to the playoff as a big reason why he was hesitant to fully support a pivot to a nine-game conference schedule.

“From a football coach’s perspective, the biggest question I would have is as important as those games are to us, how does the playoff look at it?” Freeze said. “If you’re an SEC opponent and you’re really quality and you’ve won a lot of good games but you dropped two to top teams or a third one, do you still get in when the playoff expands?

“I think all of those are unknowns. Ultimately, I think we as coaches, we just say, ‘Hey, give us our marching orders, tell us what it is and what is best for our conference.’ And hopefully, it aligns with what is best for our school.”

While some of the coaches in Destin offered strong stances on staying at eight conference games or pivoting to nine, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart was not one of them.

“Most overrated conversation there ever was,” Smart said. “In four years you’ll play everybody home and away.  I get it, the traditional rivalries, you have three, you have two, you have one. You guys need something to write about bad when you start writing about this. It’s not that big of a deal to me. You have to win your games to advance. You need to be in the SEC championship.

You know who nobody bothers to mention?  The fans aren’t even worthy of lip service.

Your concern is deeply appreciated, fellas.

Has the AJ-C’s tactical retreat begun?

So, over at Dawgnation, Connor Riley sounds the alarm.

Were it a more normal offseason, Georgia players and Kirby Smart would be readying to talk about repeating as national champions and trying to win a third-straight national championship.

What Georgia is trying to do on the field this season is unprecedented in that regard. No team in the AP Poll era has won three consecutive national championships. In theory, it should be the biggest story surrounding Georgia at the 2023 SEC Media Days.

But this has not been a normal offseason in Athens…

Normally Smart would prefer to duck questions about who the team’s starting quarterback might be or spend time discussing Georgia’s place in the college football hierarchy. Instead, he’ll once again be discussing the mental state of his team.

Smart won’t be the only one answering for the off-field transgressions this offseason. Sedrick Van Pran, Brock Bowers and Kamari Lassiter will as well. As unpleasant and unfair as it may be, that is what leaders do and those three players are all leaders for Georgia.

The funny thing is, the only concern worthy of being dredged up in his piece relates to the offseason traffic incidents.  There’s nary a mention of Smart being a serial excuser of his players’ sexual assaults.  For that matter, crickets so far from Chip Towers, too.

Eh, probably just a coincidence.  We’ll know more today, I suspect.

The media and the “g” word

I hope this question gets asked of every SEC head coach this week…

The Southeastern Conference staging its annual media days event in the Volunteer State wasn’t the only first that took place Monday.

A reporter asked a coach, “How do you close the gap with what Georgia has been doing?”

… but I’ll settle for only Billy Napier getting hit with it.

A simple question for the SEC Commissioner

If, as you say, national legislation regulating NIL is urgently needed because “our student-athletes deserve something better than a patchwork of state laws that support their name, image and likeness activities if support is the right word”, how come we don’t see college athletes putting the full court press on Congress the way the schools and the NCAA are?

Don’t wanna know about that.

By the way, while we’re on the subject of Jeremy Pruitt, that “cash from his car, where he typically stored it” bit?  Check this part out:

Bank records showed that Pruitt and assistant coach Brian Niedermeyer made large cash withdrawals on dates surrounding all-expenses-paid recruiting visits and alleged payments to recruits, players and their families.

Both said that didn’t mean anything because it’s normal for them to have large amounts of cash on hand.Pruitt cited his bank records to show that his cash-driven lifestyle dates back to his time at Alabama.

As UT coach from 2018-20, Pruitt and his wife made 75 four-figure or five-figure cash withdrawals from their bank account, the report said. He earned $3.8 million annually.

As Alabama defensive coordinator from 2016-17, the Pruitts made 40 four-figure or five-figure withdrawals.

I bet connecting those particular dots is something the NCAA investigators wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole.  I mean, I ask you, who among us doesn’t keep thousands of dollars routinely stashed in the glove compartment?

The ultimate “doing it for the kids” defense

Cheater, please.

Pruitt said a player’s mother showed up in the parking lot outside the UT football complex in tears because of financial hardship. She told him she had nowhere else to turn for money to pay her bills.

Pruitt admitted giving her the cash from his car, where he typically stored it.

He told investigators that he felt sorry for her because of the financial strain caused by the COVID shutdown and that UT’s Student Assistance Fund, which is used for student-athletes with hardships, was tapped out.

And Pruitt said his privilege, her race and social unrest were on his mind.

“Then you throw in George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, okay, so you sit there as a white man and you see all of this going on and you can see these kids suffering,” Pruitt said.

“… (It’s) pitiful when you sit in a room and you hear grown men, and I’m talking about our coaches too, when they talk about growing up and the circumstances that they’ve been under, because it’s hard for a white man to understand, right.”

It ain’t easy being white these days, that’s for sure.  Amirite, Jeremy?

Musical palate cleanser, blues, ctd. edition

One of my favorites, here’s Otis Rush, with his classic, “I Can’t Quit You Baby”.

That opening “Wellllllll” is electic electric.