Your 10/21 (ND) game day post

Georgia isn’t on the menu today, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other viewing options.  Here’s what’s out there:

And here’s what I’ll be watching from Section HD:

• Penn State at Ohio State.  Somebody’s conference and CFP hopes are going to take it on the chin today.
• Tennessee at Alabama.  One thing I feel fairly certain about is that there will be a whole lot less points scored today than in last year’s game.
• South Carolina at Missouri.  Shane’s foot will give me a chuckle, but the main reason to watch is to keep an eye on one of Georgia’s remaining opponents this season.
• Ole Miss at Auburn.  Hugh Freeze’s old program visits Hugh Freeze’s new program.
• Utah at Southern Cal.  Do the Trojans bounce back from last week’s loss?

What’ll you be watching?

Can you hear me now?

The thing that gets me the most about Harbaugh’s Spygate drama isn’t that Michigan is suspected of cheating.  It’s that the whole problem is easily avoidable.

No. 2 Michigan is involved in an alleged advanced scouting and sign-stealing scandal. This as the age-old practice of sign stealing may already be on its way out of college football.

During the upcoming 2023-24 bowl season, the NCAA Rules Committee is giving teams the option of using coach-to-player helmet communications to relay plays from the sideline. While the practice has been a foundation of the NFL for nearly three decades, for some reason, it has not taken hold in the FBS.

That may be about to change.

“If you polled coaches and said, ‘What is your No. 1 technology desire?’ it would be coach-to-player communications,” said Steve Shaw, secretary-editor of the rules committee.

The technology’s only been around for almost three decades.  The NFL has been using one-way helmet communication since 1994.  So what’s college football’s problem?  One guess:

The college rationale for not adopting the technology has centered around cost and liability concerns. Helmet manufacturers have made it known that any moderation to that piece of equipment may violate National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) safety standards. NOCSAE is considered the industry standard for helmet safety.

Of course.  Although the romantic in me prefers Steve Shaw’s explanation for the reluctance.

“Once the coaches trust it and feel good about it, it would [eliminate signs],” Shaw said. “[Coaches] probably would be paranoid about if the technology goes down. ‘What are we doing to do then?'”

Maybe Paul Johnson had it right when he used to send a player in every down with the play call.

Money down in the SEC

You know what’s interesting about this chart?

2023 #SEC QBs on 3RD DOWN. It’s the Money Down and the Top 5 are performing at an ELITE level! @14Southeastern pic.twitter.com/q9wwSoIpp9

— Blayne Gilmer (@BGilmer18) October 21, 2023

It’s typically an obvious passing down and yet half the conference’s quarterbacks are completing passes at better than a 60% clip.  Only three SEC QBs have failed to complete over half their third down throws.

If that doesn’t tell you the era of three yards and a cloud of dust is deader than dead, I don’t know what does.

Today’s chapter of “Kids These Days”

Like many of us, Hugh Freeze longs for a simpler time.  You know, like back in the days when he was the Ole Miss head coach before there was NIL complicating things on the recruiting trail.  It’s just not the same anymore.

Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze believes in the “process of becoming.”

It’s the same process that helped Freeze rise from the high school football ranks to being the head coach of a place like the SEC.

It took patience, stops at Lambuth University and Arkansas State and getting over plenty of bumps in the road that came along the way.

That same process is why Freeze prefers recruiting high school kids over plucking them out of the transfer portal.

“My preference would be to develop kids,” Freeze said. “But the process of becoming is kinda being lost.”

A dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to, eh?

That’s not the most eyerolling bit in the article, though.  This is:

Today’s society is one that constantly seeks instant gratification.

Do tell.  If anyone’s an expert in instant gratification, it’s Coach Escort Service On Speed Dial.

Guess who’s giving Brock Bowers career advice.

It’s none other than Terence Moore, in a column that’s as stupidly cynical as it is utterly predictable.

Message to Brock Bowers: Forget the Titans, and forget the Alamo, and forget the time (as in Michael Jackson).

Remember Jaylon Smith.

So, Brock. Regarding the Titans, the Alamo, the time and the memory of Smith watching NFL dollars fly away quicker than a flash, Google if you don’t understand those references.The same goes for anybody else you encounter who refuses to believe you should wave goodbye to your Georgia teammates, coaches and fans.

You should tell everybody in Athens, Georgia it was swell spending your freshman and sophomore years leading the Bulldogs in receptions while helping them grab consecutive national championships through this past January. You should tell them you know if you stick around a tad longer to pat the head of UGA, Georgia’s live bulldog mascot, you could become only the third tight end ever to win the Heisman Trophy and the first since Notre Dame’s Leon Hart in 1949.

You also should tell them you know Georgia’s chances of sprinting from 7-0 right now to a three-peat winner of the College Football Playoff (CFP) improve if you decide to leave the heavy lifting of your rehabilitation to bring your clutch ways back to the Bulldogs before either the SEC Championship Game in December or the CFP afterward.

Terence is just trying to help, Brock.  He only has your best interests at heart.

The thing I don’t get about suggestions like this is why only offer them to stars who get hurt mid-season.  Shouldn’t Caleb Williams take a powder now and leave his USC teammates in the dust?  What about Marvin Harrison, Jr.?  For that matter, shouldn’t Bowers have announced his retirement from college football right after the Auburn game?  It’s not like any of these guys have anything left to prove to insure their draft stock.

This is not meant as criticism of players who decide not to suit up for a meaningless bowl game and risk injury that might affect their draft status.  That’s an entirely different cost/benefit analysis there.  But to tell a kid who’s obviously a competitor first and foremost to walk away from a host of potential accolades, both personal and for his team, and place himself in a bubble until he hears Goodell call his name on draft night because there’s a chance he might be seriously injured is… well, entirely understandable if your agenda is hoping for the worst for Georgia football.

Like I said, cynical and predictable.