The art of gentle criticism

Really, David Paschall deserves some sort of mention for the… um, restrained way in which he describes the Hindenburg-like performance of last year’s Georgia defensive backfield here:

Pruitt looks to improve a secondary that was young last season and had to learn on the fly, which resulted in several disastrous moments.

Sympathy for the devil

See if you can spot the straw man Chris Low builds to better his argument that Nick Saban Will Survive, By Damn.

So regardless of what Saban’s agenda is or isn’t, saying he’s trying to create a competitive advantage for his defense through a rules change is a stretch.

The competitive advantage he has created goes back to the way he has recruited and developed players.

Nobody’s saying Saban’s trying to create a competitive advantage with the 10-second substitution rule proposal.  He’s simply trying to keep the one he’s already got – you know, the one Low references in his second sentence.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But the reality is that Saban’s advantage is hard to construct and expensive to maintain, which is why it’s one that few programs can match.  While that makes it worthy of a strong defense on Saban’s part, it also makes it harder to support if others lacking in Alabama’s resources are able to level the playing field on any given Saturday with greater strategic creativity.

You know it’s the offseason when…

I guarantee you the only person who cares less about the question posed in this header than me is Nick Saban.

Tuesday morning buffet

Have at it, guys.

• Scarbinsky mocks Nick Saban’s concern about football becoming a “continuous game”.
• Arthur Lynch be preppin’ for the NFL.  It’s always interesting when players find new motivation (read:  $$) to take better care of their bodies than they did in college.
• Dan Jenkins has a memoir coming out today.  That should be a semi-great read.
• Ed Aschoff says Jeff Driskel, who’s important enough to the Florida program that Boom pushed back the spring practice schedule to accommodate his recovery, “has every reason to be bitter”.  Hmm.
• CFN‘s “unsolicited advice” to Georgia for spring practice is to work on turnover margin.  Dang, I bet Mark Richt wishes he’d have thought of that.
• Miami joins the ranks of programs hiring high-profile high school coaches in an advisory position.
• Weiszer notes a comment made by a 2015 Georgia commit:  “They’re switching to a 4-3 defense and I think that will give me an opportunity to come in and play as a true defensive end…”  Jeremy Pruitt, all things to all men.

Monday morning buffet

Jump right in and get your week started.

• Vince Dooley plays 20 questions with Gus Malzahn about how the 10-second rule might affect his offense.
• About Mark Richt’s trip to Houston as part of the UGA Day schedule, Mark Slonaker, head of the Bulldog Club, said the decision to go was made in part because of the SEC’s new reach into Texas.
• CFN dumps all over the genius and Georgia Tech football.
• Quarterback guru George Whitfield Jr. has expressed interest in working with Nick Marshall this summer, but Malzahn will not allow it.
• I really should know better than to read a Bleacher Report piece on discipline at Georgia.
• Former Milton basketball coach:  “What my players have told me in the past is they aren’t going to Georgia because they perceive it to be considered second-class to football.”
• Tennessee returns just six combined career starts on the offensive line after entering the 2013 season with 123 career combined starts.

How do I know Georgia recruiting has failed?

Why, the AJ-C says so.

Remember that vaunted Lowndes-to-FSU pipeline that sort of died out when Josh Harvey-Clemons put on an UGA baseball camp?

That pipeline is flowing again after Lowndes High School linebacker Brian Bell committed to FSU over Clemson and UGA, although he didn’t have an offer yet from the Bulldogs.  [Emphasis added.]

There is so much epic troll packed into those two short sentences that all I can do is tip my cap in the presence of a master at work.

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UPDATE:  In the interest of fairness, I want to mention that Carvell e-mailed me to let me know that “committed to FSU over Clemson and UGA” were Bell’s words, not his.

Q. E. D.

Shorter Matt Hayes:  For Nick Saban, the 10-second substitution proposal is strictly a matter of player safety, because… well, Nick Saban.

Tuesday morning buffet

Grab that plate and fill it up.

• Ah, the AJ-C, doing what it does so well – concern trolling about recruiting.  (The grammatical error in the header is a real bonus, though.)
• Socrates has an idea about what to expect from Jeremy Pruitt’s scheme this season.
• And Seth Emerson tells us that everyone on the defense starts with a clean slate under Pruitt.
• Free Malik McDowell!
• Marc Weiszer counts the clock in last season’s games against Clemson and Missouri.
• The bid by Northwestern University football players to unionize goes to round two, with three days of hearings in Chicago.
• Brad Wolverton, on “How Should Big-Time College Sports Change?”
• SEC football attendance numbers rebounded last season.

Thursday morning buffet

If you’re facing the same weather conditions I am, it’s not like you’ve got anything better to do right now than to slip into the buffet line.

• Sorry, Missouri, but you just got the KC Joyner kiss of death.
• Stewart Mandel throws in the towel on oversigning.
• Clowney says he might have stayed in Columbia for his senior year if he were paid enough to support his family.  Now he tells ‘em.
• The NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors hopes to have a new management structure in place by August.
• Here’s a coach who’s on his eighth job in eight years.
• It turns out that among all the Vols who were arrested at that wild party last weekend, a man who identified himself as an assistant strength coach for Tennessee’s football team was handcuffed and put in the back of a squad car when he tried to intervene.
• “An online survey by a group of Canadian researchers suggests that Internet trolls are more likely than others to show signs of sadism, psychopathy and “Machiavellianism”: a disregard for morality and tendency to manipulate or exploit others.”
• The NLRB held its first hearing yesterday on the Northwestern players’ move to be certified as a union.

Another Mark of genius

Shorter, yet utterly predictable, Mark Bradley:  Even if Georgia Tech isn’t very good at them, Mark Richt sure could learn about special teams coaching from Paul Johnson’s example.