Blame Bobo?

Seth Emerson ($$) plays the “there are three types of” game here:

This is simplifying it, but there are generally three types of offensive coordinators:

1. Great ones who will improve almost any offense they have, though they may not make what should be a bad offense great. More like bad to average.
2. Decent ones whose fortunes will depend on the personnel they have.
3. Bad ones who will take what should be good offenses and make them average, and make average ones bad.

He places Mike Bobo’s floor on level two, and his ceiling, based on what he showed during his final years in Athens, on level one.  What say you?

I bring this up, because Bobo is scheduled to meet with the media today and figures to have to answer a fair number of questions about the transition from Todd Monken.  Will your answer be any different after he speaks today?  Stay tuned…

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UPDATE:  Matt Hayes, of all people, brings up a good point about Bobo.

So he wasn’t much of a head coach. Big deal. He has proven chops as an OC and QB coach, and has developed 3 of the greatest quarterbacks in Georgia history: David Greene, Matt Stafford, Aaron Murray. Don’t be shocked when he does the same thing with current Georgia QB Carson Beck.

Say what you will about his ability as an OC, there’s no question Mike Bobo is a good position coach.  And, yeah, that’s definitely valuable this season.

How it started, how it’s going and where it’s headed.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mike Gundy, a prophet for our times.

When I visited Oklahoma State and sat down with Mike Gundy this spring, he told me he suspects the future of CFB is a 30-team megaconference. Why he thinks that: pic.twitter.com/eAQfHmZxr3

— Max Olson (@max_olson) August 7, 2023

I detect no falsehoods there.

There’s a sixties folk song called “Blues Run The Game“.  “Television runs the market” is the college athletics version of that.

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UPDATE: In case you need “Television runs the market” spelled out for you, here you go.

Earlier this summer, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith told Eleven Warriors that he did not expect the Big Ten to add more teams this year. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti echoed that belief at Big Ten Media Days in July, saying that conference presidents and athletic directors had instructed him to focus on integrating USC and UCLA next summer.

Just nine days after Petitti’s press conference in Indianapolis, the Big Ten announced the additions of Oregon and Washington, who will join the conference alongside UCLA and USC in the summer of 2024.

What changed? The answer is the one you’d probably expect: More money – specifically, more TV money.

A primary concern leaders from many Big Ten schools had about the potential additions of Oregon and Washington was that they would have to split the conference’s revenue with two more schools. That concern was nullified when Fox, the Big Ten’s primary television partner, gave the conference more money – approximately $30-35 million per year for each of those two schools, according to Smith – to add the Ducks and Huskies.

As a result, Ohio State and the other 15 Big Ten schools (including UCLA and USC) will not see any decrease in revenue from what they were already projected to receive – a number estimated to be approximately $70 million per year for those schools – from their new media rights deal with Fox, CBS and NBC, while Smith believes Oregon and Washington will give the conference even more value in negotiations for future media rights deals.

“The original dollar figures that we had prior to Oregon and Washington coming in stayed the same for those institutions that were already in. Fox brought new money to the table for Oregon and for Washington that they provided,” Smith said during his press conference on Wednesday. “It wasn’t diluted to us…

And so it goes.

(NIL) death and taxes

LOL.

The 12th Man Foundation, Texas A&M’s primary athletics fundraising arm, announces that it will discontinue the 12th Man+ Fund, which was created for NIL activities.

Full announcement: pic.twitter.com/0bFtvKPnHF

— Sam Khan Jr. (@skhanjr) August 9, 2023

It’s one thing to show your ass to the NCAA, but it’s an entirely different matter when the IRS comes knocking at your door, ain’t it?

Texas A&M has shut down the controversial 12 Man+ Fund after reviewing directives from the IRS. The fund, which attempted to bring name, image and likeness (NIL) collective efforts in-house, put the 501(c)(3) status of the 12th Man Foundation at risk.

The decision to shut down the NIL fund came after the IRS released a memo on June 9, which told NIL collectives their function doesn’t fit within the confines of tax-exempt status. The 12th Man+ Fund attempted to reward donors with athletic department points and tax benefits in exchange for donations to provide NIL compensation to athletes.

Now the spigot isn’t being turned off so much as the water supply is being “redirected”.

Texas A&M plans to reach out to 12th Man+ Fund donors and allow them to redirect their donations to approved fundraising organizations. While the 12th Man Foundation is eliminating its collective-based NIL arm, the organization says it remains committed to supporting NIL for players through marketing efforts rather than direct payment.

Those tax writeoffs are a beyotch, boys.

Today, in kids these days

Then again, with coaches like Stanford’s Troy Taylor, maybe the ACC’s brain trust is on to something.  Taylor goes all Lewis and Clark on today’s soft youth with this observation:

“People used to have to come across the country in a covered wagon — it would take them months and they’d be completely different people by the time they got there. We get on a plane for five hours, six hours, that’s not the end of the world. You get drinks served to you and some snacks, and it’s not that bad.”

Yeah, you kids are bitching about jet lag and back in the day the Oregon Trail pioneers were dying of cholera.  Get some perspective, why don’tcha?  Besides, those peanuts they serve on airplanes… mmm, tasty!

Who are these people, anyway?

I’m not even sure what to say about this.

I’ve gotten some very mixed reviews around the league but as one AD told me, this can’t be entirely a financial play. There’s reasons to expand even if the $ don’t change considerably.

— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) August 9, 2023

Since when is anything in college football administration not a financial play these days?

I’d love to hear the justification for sending non-revenue sport athletes clear across the country for weeknight games.  It ain’t academics, that’s for sure.

It’s like these people are out to prove to everyone they really aren’t as smart as they think they are.

Oh, wait…

Notre Dame pushing ACC to add Stanford & Cal, while SMU would join w/no revenue the 1st 5-7 years in ACC, sources told @ActionNetworkHQ. "Notre Dame continues to push, yet won’t join as a full-time member,” a source said. "That makes no sense to us."https://t.co/PkUIPBB0kv

— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) August 9, 2023

This stuff makes George Kliavkoff look almost competent by comparison.

Musical palate cleanser, another giant gone edition

Aw, shit.

Robbie Robertson, the chief composer and lead guitarist for the Band, whose work offered a rustic vision of America that seemed at once mythic and authentic, in the process helping to inspire the genre that came to be known as Americana, died on Wednesday in Los Angeles. He was 80.

His manager, Jared Levine, said he died after a long illness.

The Band basically created an entire genre of music, Americana, and Robertson wrote many of the songs.  The group’s first two albums were incredibly influential almost immediately.  And as much as I love those two, my favorite thing they released was their collaboration with Dylan, The Basement Tapes.

On top of that, they contributed one of the greatest documentary films on rock music, The Last Waltz.  Helluva legacy, in other words.

Here are two cuts from the film, both written by Robertson, who also contributes some very tasty guitar work.

Sad, sad day…