The hottest of hot takes on the Freeze fallout

Everything in the SEC always comes back to one man.

Advertisements

The fifth estate responds.

There’s “McGarity’s Minutes”, so it seems like it’s only fair to give this portion of Seth Emerson’s mailbag a catchy name:

THE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR UNDER FIRE

It seems there are some people who do not understand the difference between a “hit piece” and publishing a letter from an influential Bulldog letterman, booster, and alumni in order to underscore the dissatisfaction the majority of people in the vast DawgNation are feeling about the facts of Greg McGarity’s lack of forward-thinking vision and underwhelming leadership as AD; where almost every single sport is performing worse now than when he took over as AD, and how he is doing nothing to stem the tide of mediocrity within the Athletic Association (not firing Fox or Stricklin for starters) or creating a master plan to improve facilities, which are now so poor that UGA lost the ability to host the NCAA Tennis Championships, which Dan Magill worked so hard to make a semi-annual event in Athens. It’s as if Greg McGarity’s short-sighted penny-pinching is costing UGA in more ways then one, which is one of the many issues I believe Carroll Minick was trying to highlight in his letter-not-hit-piece.

Could you kindly explain the difference so those people would no longer be able to hide behind their ignorance?
– Matthew Cafaro

Actually, the response to the Minick letter, at least judging by social media and the comments on the story, seemed to be around 90 percent in support. (Though not everyone agreed with everything in the letter. I didn’t either.) And, as I’ve told UGA officials who have complained to me about the thrust of my stories this year, there hasn’t been much, if any, blowback from the fan base. We feel, as Chip put it the other day, that we’re reflecting the dissatisfaction of the fan base. But we’re also informing them, such as the $33 million that was in the UGA foundation but the school didn’t advertise.

The people I speak to on a regular basis, donors and alumni alike, want Georgia to be great. They feel that enough isn’t being done now to be great. They want the best for a school they love, and they wanted light shed on these issues. I have no doubt that Greg McGarity loves Georgia dearly. So do his critics. They evidently just disagree on the best way to get to the mountaintop.

McGarity’s statement in May to the athletic board – “let us not be distracted by those who seek to divide us” – struck many as not seeing the point of the criticism, and the stories that give voice to these critics: They’re not seeking to divide, they’re seeking to make Georgia better.

The job of the media, meanwhile, is to inform the public and hold the powerful’s feet to the fire. I hope that’s what we’ve been doing.

“Emerson’s Eternity”?  “Seth’s Seconds”?  I dunno.  Can’t say I see anything unreasonable in what he wrote, but, then, again, I don’t have an office in Butts-Mehre.  Fortunately.

What I do find interesting is how McGarity has allowed his athletic department to become such a big issue this offseason.  It’s not a typical situation; the closest analogy I can come up with was the unrest that Dave Brandon stirred up at Michigan, and I’m not really sure how good a match that is for what’s going on in Athens.  Brandon was an outsider who turned out to be a fish out of water in managing a university’s athletic department.  McGarity, on the other hand, is basically an athletic department lifer.  (Plus, Brandon got shown the door.  We all know where McGarity is.)

In any event, having an athletic director with a management style that tends to suck goodly amounts of oxygen out of the room is probably not the best look for a school’s athletic department.  No matter what the press thinks.

Perception is a beyotch.

Georgia’s athletic department may not be working as hard as we’d like to achieve excellence on the field, but nobody there is sleeping on working the refs.

That’s where I believe there is a disconnect between what we do here at DawgNation and what UGA would have us do. We’re too negative, they say. We don’t draw enough attention to what the Bulldogs are doing well.

For instance, the folks at UGA have been on me for a while to draw some positive attention to the fact that the Bulldogs finished 15th as a program in the in the Learfield NACDA Directors’ Cup standings for the 2016-17 academic year. They feel that hasn’t been put that in proper context.

… Here at DawgNation, we’ve been accused by UGA – and a few fans, here and there– of being too negative. But it’s my contention that we’re merely reflecting the negative sentiment that’s already out there. We hear about it in our email inboxes and read in comments sections here and on other fan sites.

McGarity can “First Word” the subject to death, but in another year of football mediocrity, the vast majority of Georgia’s fan base isn’t going to get pumped about a top 15 finish in the Directors’ Cup standings.  More significantly, you can’t have it both ways, fellas.  If you count on the fan base’s apathy regarding any program that isn’t football — and you do — then don’t start whining when we don’t get excited about anything outside of football.

The irony of it all is McGarity was brought here seven years ago from Florida – where he served in a No. 2 role for 18 years – for the express purpose of seeing that Georgia closed the gap on the Gators. Instead it has only widened.

Even more importantly, consider that what generates fan enthusiasm isn’t the media pushing Greg McGarity’s spin on Georgia athletics.  It’s results on the field, pure and simple.  Butts-Mehre, get your priorities straight, and maybe you won’t have to worry about what Chip Towers writes.

Nick Saban isn’t man enough.

According to this Al.com writer, the reason Nick Saban didn’t mention Auburn in his list of conference schools gaining on Alabama is because he’s scared Auburn is already the best team in the SEC.

SEC Media Days sure bring out the media smarts, don’t they?

The hottest take on Jacob Eason you’ll read today

Shorter Greg McElroy:  Jacob Eason sucks because his freshman season pales in comparison to Matt Stafford’s NFL body of work.

Mr. Conventional Wisdom, on automatic pilot

The Tony Barnhart post on the start of SEC Media Days writes itself.  Best of all, change a couple of dates, add an occasional one-sentence anecdote, and he can recycle it for at least another decade.  (Which says as much about SEC Media Days as Barnhart.)

I love the smell of righteous indignation in the morning.

Kevin Scarbinsky’s all up in the grills of Auburn fans about their hypocrisy over transfers.  Why Auburn?  Um, well…

No doubt some of the same Auburn fans who applaud Gus Malzahn for blocking Antwaun Jackson’s ability to transfer to another SEC school, a school on this year’s schedule or Ohio State were thrilled when Mark Richt didn’t block Georgia safety Tray Matthews from moving to Auburn.

Matthews will be one of Auburn’s representatives this week at SEC Media Days.

Great story, bruh.  Except for one thing:  Mark Richt didn’t block Matthews’ transfer because there wasn’t a transfer to block.  Matthews was kicked off the team by Richt.