Tuesday morning buffet

A little snow, a little buffet…

• You’d think the one place where they wouldn’t have to dumb down the defense would be Vanderbilt.
• Bill Connelly does all the heavy lifting on Georgia Southern, a Dawg opponent this season, so that you don’t (okay, so I don’t) have to.
• Michigan’s policy for student football tickets now includes need-based discounts.
• “That was an incredible testament to Bobby Petrino.”  Oy.
• What’s in a name:  dual-threat quarterback vs. pocket passer.
• Thomas Brown likes Brian Schottenheimer’s open-mindedness with his assistant coaches.
• Hey, Snapchat and recruiting.  What could go wrong?
• Auburn’s explanation of the two players and the service dog incident?  They may have been dumbasses, but there was no malicious intent.  Hey, it’s Auburn; I can buy that.

Wednesday morning buffet

A warm buffet for a cold morning.

• I’d say stay classy, Auburn, about this, but what’s the point?  (UPDATED: Spencer Hall has some advice about dogs for Auburn players.)
• More from the annals of stay classy.
• Want a pretty good tell that a kid isn’t going to commit to your program?  This is one.
• Here’s a look at Georgia’s 2015 signees on the offensive side of the ball.
• Year2 checks out luck in the SEC, 2014 edition.
• Kansas is going to experiment with the use of impact-sensing mouthguards to monitor concussion risks.
• Phil Steele projects Georgia to crack the preseason AP Top 10.  (And you can click here if you want to listen to Steele and Schlabach discuss preseason Top 10 lists.)
• Will the pop pass survive the new downfield blocking rules?  Ian Boyd says yes, somewhat.

Stability pays.

You may have heard that in the most recent (2013-4) financial report filed with the NCAA, Alabama claimed a $33 million surplus in its athletics operations while Auburn posted a deficit of $13.7 million for the same.

Setting aside the usual black magic, book-cooking disclaimer for any numbers a school generates about its athletics department, if you take it for granted that Alabama had a better financial go of it than did its neighbor on the Plains, there are some interesting takeaways from the linked article.

Start with this:

Both schools have won a football national championship in the last five years, but Auburn has gone through a coaching change and Alabama hasn’t. Same thing goes for basketball where Auburn made a change last year, while Anthony Grant has been in Tuscaloosa since 2009.

Auburn is on the hook for buyouts for former football coach Gene Chizik and basketball coach Tony Barbee, among others — adding an additional $4,846,662 in severance payments. Alabama, meanwhile, only paid $272,140 in severance payments in 2013-14.

The stability of Alabama’s two revenue sports has helped it avoid costly buyouts and build up its financial coffers.

Because Alabama hasn’t been on the roller coaster ride that Auburn football has enjoyed over the past five seasons, it hasn’t taken the hit financially.  And that just doesn’t extend to head coaches, either, when you consider what Auburn is on the hook for replacing defensive staff this offseason.  Assistants leave Alabama, but they do so of their own volition, which is a no-cost situation for the school.

The point is that while there is more than one way to skin the cat when it comes to chasing excellence, as a general rule, this suggests over the long haul that landing on the right guy and sticking with him through changing market conditions (i.e., paying your head coach $7 million/year) is going to be better for the bottom line than going the flavor of the month route.  And for those who suggest otherwise, it’s worth pointing out one last note.

Auburn collected $4.384 million in student fees, while Alabama collected nothing. Essentially, Auburn students are directly subsidizing the athletic department.

Of course, those students go to Auburn, so maybe they don’t care, but all other things being equal, I bet they’d prefer not to stroke the check if they don’t have to.

Out in the open

Get ready for a whole new front in the recruiting wars to be opened by our friends on the Plains.

In the autonomy session last month, the SEC proposed a rule that would require schools to disclose what they’re including in the full cost of attendance for athletes, including any variances from the school’s average cost, but it was voted down by the other conferences.

“It was really more of a system to make sure everybody stays in line with what the university cost of attendance is and you don’t wake up all the sudden and some institution triples it one day,” Auburn athletics director Jay Jacobs said. “Maybe people thought it was too bureaucratic, too much paperwork. Maybe people didn’t quite understand it, but we know if we go through a year of this and there needs to be checks and balances, it wouldn’t surprise me if the other conferences caught up.”

It’s not hard to envision a world coming to fruition in which those checks and balances might be necessary.

Jacobs, for instance, said the average full cost of attendance benefit for Auburn athletes is likely in the neighborhood of $6,000 per year, with an additional $1,500 if they enroll in summer school. That number would rank among the highest in the SEC and perhaps even a couple thousand dollars more per year than some of the regional schools Auburn regularly recruits against.

Will that be an advantage Auburn can point to in a close recruiting battle? You better believe it.

“We think student-athletes are going to choose Auburn because it’s the best place for them to come and get an education and compete, but certainly having a higher number than most in the Southeastern Conference is going to be helpful,” Jacobs said. “Having the lowest number in the SEC could be hurtful. The way we recruit and the quality of student-athlete we want, we hope that number isn’t a deciding factor but human nature says it could be depending on the circumstances.”

“The way we recruit and the quality of student-athlete we want”?  Heh.

Give it a couple of years and a chance for the new tactics to sink in, and we’ll be seeing a race to the top in full cost of attendance.

Thursday morning buffet

Here you go.

• Bill Connelly looks at the ebb and flow of each team in 2014.
• Emerging meme alert:  “Outside of Starkville, SEC quarterbacks have a ton to prove during the 2015 season.”
• The head of NCAA enforcement says academic misconduct is on the rise in college athletics.  Or maybe it’s just a case of people paying more attention to the problem.
• Perhaps it needs to be said more, but Jeremy Pruitt did a helluva job defending Auburn.
• The Vanderbilt rape case and the “culture excuse”.
• Sometimes recruits forget the interview process “goes both ways.”
• With the departure of two more receivers, South Carolina will have no more than two wide receivers who caught a pass in 2014 on the 2015 roster.  I guess Spurdog’s got some coaching up to do.
• By comparison, here’s a look at the current state of Georgia’s receiving corps (plus some signed as receivers who’ve moved).

Fleeing Tuscaloosa

Wow, the hits just keep on coming for Nick Saban.

The off-season coaching attrition continues at the University of Alabama has BOL has learned that outside linebackers’ coach Lance Thompson will accept a job offer from Auburn coach Gus Malzahn as part of new Tigers’ defensive coordinator Will Muschamp’s defensive staff.

Dude is another helluva recruiter who’s gone.  And to Auburn?  Whoa.

Nick Saban doesn’t have time for that shit, but he’ll have to make some now.

And this last month before signing day just got very interesting indeed.

“It was like the shootout at the OK Corral.”

It sounds like there’s more to the circumstances leading to Jakell Mitchell’s death than we originally knew.

Testimony during the hearing showed that Hart and Mitchell both opened fire, and that Hart was moving away from Mitchell when the fatal shot was fired, said Treadwell.

Hart later tested positive for marijuana use, but toxicology results aren’t yet available for Mitchell, Treadwell said.

Authorities had not previously disclosed allegations that Mitchell was armed and opened fire, but additional evidence could be revealed during a preliminary hearing set for Tuesday in Alabama’s Lee County, where the killing occurred.

The probation report said a witness told police that Mitchell got into an argument with a brother of Tyrone Ware, who isn’t otherwise identified. The brother pointed a gun at Mitchell and fired several times, according to the document.

Treadwell said a statement by Hart and a police investigation showed that Mitchell fired several shots with a .45-caliber handgun, and Hart fired a .40-caliber weapon. The path of the casings fired by Hart was “streaming away” from Mitchell, he said.

Investigators found the gun Mitchell was using but the other weapon remains missing, Treadwell said.

If there’s anything to this, I’m sure there are Auburn fans ready to insist that Mark Richt has tolerated far worse behavior at thUGA.  Meanwhile, between the incident and Michael Dyer, is it fair to start asking questions about the gun culture surrounding Auburn football?