R & R time, baby

By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be 30,000 feet over middle America, headed to California for my first (sadly, short) vacation in more than a year.  My dance card is pretty full for this one, so regular posting is probably out of the question.  I will try to dial a few things up over the next few days, so as not to leave y’all hanging completely.

And, yes, on Saturday, I plan to keep an eye on the Georgia-Auburn game while I watch Porsches race at Laguna Seca.  Who says I can’t multi-task?

In the meantime, as always, behave, you scamps.

“I love early kicks on the road.”

I doubt there’s a Georgia fan out there surprised by this stat.

So, who has the earliest kicks in the past 11 years? The answer may surprise you.

It’s Georgia.

The Bulldogs have 39 games in that early timeslot followed by Florida with 38.

Auburn is tied for ninth most with 26.

LSU’s had the fewest with 11 with Alabama next at 15.

Before you go blaming Greg McGarity and his penchant for rolling over whenever the SEC looked his way, there’s actually a better villain behind Georgia’s number.

The Bulldogs’ number is padded by the fact the last eight regular-season finales with Georgia Tech began at 11 a.m. CT or noon in Georgia.

Yeah, at Georgia Tech, you can do that.

Bad for football

So, how’s all that “NIL and player free agency will kill college football, I tells ‘ya” talk playing out?

Excluding rivalry week, Saturday was the most-watched regular season CFB Saturday ever, with nearly 12B total minutes consumed across all rated networks.

— Flora Kelly (@ESPNFlora) September 26, 2023

I see.  Sounds terrible.

Seriously, in other sports player free agency (which isn’t exactly what we’ve got in cfb) is always more popular with the fans than with management.  And it turns out, just as the schools feared, that fans really don’t care that players are getting paid.

Now, let’s wait and see what conference realignment and playoff expansion do to those regular season eyeballs…

Number One in the Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda Poll

Ladies and gentlement, your Clemson Tigers!

#Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney just wrapped up his Tuesday news conference. Said Swinney: "These guys are three plays away from being 4-0, top three or four in the country and everybody telling them how great they are. That's a fact."https://t.co/ijxIFRGFTO

— Tigerillustrated.com (@TIinClemson) September 26, 2023

I do not think “fact” means what Dabo thinks it means.

Would it help if we told him Clemson is the best two-loss team in the country?