The greatest threat to Tua Tagovailoa’s Heisman campaign…

… is his little brother.

Oy.

(h/t UncleBeezer, who is living proof that there are some ‘Bama fans who are good folks)

The best preseason happy talk

… is the preseason happy talk that comes from the mouths of Georgia’s rivals.

Those Gators are gonna be awesome this year, I tells ‘ya.  ‘Cause nobody else has hard preseason workouts.

Thursday morning buffet

I haven’t taken the chafing dishes out in a while, so here goes…

• No matter how you slice it, Georgia’s 2018 signing class is stellar.
• Which makes it no surprise Kirby’s decided he can live with the early signing period.
• Gene Smith bitches about head coaching salaries out of one side of his mouth, but talks a very different game when it comes to assistant coaches.  Again, it’s not what you think your guys are worth that matters.  It’s what your competitors think your guys are worth.
• Looks like Jim McElwain’s got himself a new gig.
• It’s amazing to see the level of navel gazing going on in the Alabama media with regard to the Tide’s 2018 class.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Kirby’s really got those folks shook up.
• “Who’s been the top recruiting team of the entire internet rankings era? The answer will probably surprise you.”  Number two on the list certainly did.

Is the NFL trolling college football now?

You tell me.

When the NFL’s brightest stars take the field at the 2018 Pro Bowl in Orlando, they will be joined by UCF’s football team. In recognition of their national championship, undefeated season, the UCF Knights will be honored by the NFL following the first quarter of the game.

Maybe this is just a case of a school’s PR department getting a little too breathless and all that’s going on is a nice hat tip for a great, undefeated season.  Then again, maybe not.  Of course, this being the Pro Bowl, will anybody be watching to find out for sure?

Today, in getting the band back together

John Jancek now works for Mike Bobo.

“I’ve had the opportunity to coach on the same staff with John at Georgia, and I’ve coordinated offenses that have gone up against his defenses,” Bobo said in a statement.

That’s the first time I’ve heard of a coach hiring a guy to make his offense look good in practice.

The new guy

Honestly, when I read quotes like this,

“We’ve gotten a lot stronger and a lot more explosive,” Johnson said. “I got a lot stronger and more explosive, and a bunch of the freshmen made big jumps.”

Kelly said it’s no secret that the Vols dealt with numerous injuries during last year’s 9-4 season.

“I think we’re making sure we take care of our bodies more than we have in the past,” he said, “and that’s something we really need to take into consideration.”

… I wonder why football programs don’t hire a new strength and conditioning coach every damned year.  After all, who wouldn’t want to get stronger, more explosive and more careful all the time?  It’s guaranteed!

“I know we live in a society of negativity…”

If they ever establish a College Football Cliché Hall of Fame, Butch Jones had better be the first inductee.

Zen and the art of Booch

Grasshopper, this is deep.

Butch Jones says that the first element of winning championships is contending to win championships.

— Barrett Sallee (@BarrettSallee) May 30, 2017

But they’re already champions, I thought.  Of life!

McGarity’s “The First Word”

If you were wondering what some of the references were in yesterday’s comment threads about “The First Word”, it seems that Georgia’s master of PR has decided it would be to his advantage to speak directly with the fan base rather than let the pesky media dictate the narrative.

Thus was born “The First Word”.

“You will begin to see more frequent news coming your way via emails under the tag line “The First Word”.  Our intent is to bring the major news to you first, instead of reading about it via the media outlets.  There are times when we can’t predict what issues are brought to light in the various forms of media, and out commitment is to respond accordingly when clarification is necessary…”  [Emphasis added.]

In other words, it takes less effort to spin than to figure out a course of action to address what actually might be troubling the fan base — excepting the big donors, of course.

Given McGarity’s track record, I have no doubt this will be as an unqualified a success as his hiring record has proven to be.  Surely, if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that “remain calm, all is well” never fails to satisfy.

“We don’t sign backups here at the University of Texas.”

Sure, Tom Herman signed the lowest-rated recruiting class at Texas ever, but at least there was science behind it.

However, it seems there was actually some strategy that went into Texas’ 2017 class. Herman said in a recent interview with Longhorn Network that he and his staff found research regarding first-year head coaches’ classes that prompted them to change their approach a bit. Below are some of Herman’s comments during the interview, which were transcribed via Football Scoop.

“We knew through all the metrics, all the analytics, all the numbers that point to most of the time in years of transition in coaching staffs, that signing class has the highest rate of attrition – meaning kids that quit – has the highest rate of off-field issues including academics, drugs and social, and has the highest rate of guys that can’t play, and don’t ever see the field.”

Whatevs, dude.  Just explain how proclaiming that you don’t sign backups — “None of these guys were signed for depth or anything other than we believe that they can either play now and help us win championships…” — turn right around to say that one of the main focuses of your 2017 signing class was to add guys who can provide depth, as opposed to ones who would see the field right away is anything other than a roundabout way of pretending you don’t really need those all-star recruits you were chasing and will continue to keep chasing.

Better stick the landing a helluva lot better with next year’s class.  At least that way you won’t have to spend as much time spinning to defend it.