Actions have consequences.

I’m not discounting the hangover effect from a 6-7 season, but when a school goes out of its way to make the game day experience both more expensive and less enjoyable, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to many.

(h/t Groo)

Wednesday morning buffet

Feel free to indulge yourselves:

• At least 26 schools are adding football programs between 2009 and 2013.  Why?
• Georgia is 24th in ESPN’s preseason power rankings.  Just thought you’d like to know.
• Speaking of preseason power rankings, did you ever expect to see Tennessee listed at eleventh in the SEC?
• CBS Sports executive vice president of programming anticipates that TV viewership of SEC football may decline in the wake of the GPOOE’s™ departure.  Sad tears.
• Tommy Tuberville closes Texas Tech practices to the public, citing the “element of surprise”.
• Think the Gator media identifies with the program too much?  Check out this quote from Pat Dooley:  “… if Meyer had been hired from Bowling Green in 2002 and gone 9-3 Gator fans would have been all over him. So don’t talk about Zook’s tenure as a failure, but as a needed block in the foundation of the building we have today.” Who’s this “we” you’re referring to, Pat? (h/t ChicagoDawg)
• Doc Saturday takes a look at my favorite fourth quarter college QB, Ricky Stanzi.
• Pat Forde is pretty impressed with the SEC.
• Heisman Pundit is kinda, sorta impressed with the SEC.  At least for the moment.  But check back with him.  Because something might change.
• A sensible editorial about North Campus… which means it’ll be totally ignored by you-know-who.

But we do small thinking so well.

If this were written by someone other than Tony Barnhart, I’d tip my cap for the snark.

… Two things should not factor into the decision on whether or not McGarity is the right person to lead Georgia’s athletic department: The fact that he’s worked at Florida for 19 years and the fact that he once worked for Dooley at Georgia.

Some don’t want to hire Florida’s No. 2 guy under any circumstances.  Others believe that Adams will not hire someone with ties to Dooley given the past conflict between the two men.

Both points of view represent small thinking. …

True.  So what’s your point, Tony?

Thursday morning buffet

No brats today, I’m afraid.  Still, there’s plenty to sample.

• Two more things to factor into the expansion discussion:  academics and politics.
• Jordan Jefferson gets the Doc Saturday breakdown here.  He’s definitely one of the biggest puzzles in the SEC now.
• Shakin the Southland asks what does it take to have a #1 program.
• Another recruit-has-concerns-about-the-spread story.  Except this one doesn’t involve Florida.  And he’s not a skill position player.
• The IRS audits Georgia.  Don’t they know who Michael Adams is?
• Quarterback signee gets kicked off high school baseball team for disrespecting coaches, then physically assaults head coach during a meeting about the dismissal.  In front of his parents. Then believes that Utah will still have a place for him on the team.  In the immortal words of Lt. Walters in Ruthless People, this could very well be the stupidest person on the face of the earth.  Perhaps we should shoot him.
• Jim Delany thinks he can use conference expansion as a means of getting some recruiting mojo for the Big Ten in sunnier climes?  I thought that’s what global warming was for.

Couldn’t we have kept this our little secret?

Why does Brian Cook hate Georgia fans?

Maybe he just needs a change of scenery.

While I enjoy a good Michael Adams bashing as much as the next fellow, as someone who’d like to see a new regime in Athens, I’ve kind of got mixed feelings about this Bob Ryan article (h/t Georgia Sports Blog) recycling some of the details from the Joe Rich Whitt book on Adams for a national audience.

Hey! You fans! Get offa my lawn!

Judging from the commentary here, at other blogs and in my e-mail box, I think it’s safe to say that the new tailgating restrictions announced by Michael Adams yesterday are being met with something less than universal acclaim.

Kinda scary how much that scene resonates here, isn’t it?

And, yeah, it’s certainly fair to vent some wrath in the direction of a few bad apples.  But looking back at how things have gotten to this point from the perspective of someone who’s tailgated on North Campus for almost thirty years, I find it pretty easy to discern the school’s fingerprints on the body, too.  Stadium expansion, an unprecedented level of campus construction over the past decade and the decision to move fraternities off Lumpkin Street each have had a noticeable impact on the North Campus tailgate scene.

Throw in the rising number of night games, with crowds consuming for longer and longer periods of time, together with the administration’s ineptness in planning for the same, and you’ve got all the ingredients for the perfect storm.  That’s basically what we got with the Auburn 2007 game.  And then we saw more of the same last season.  As we’ve seen on more than one occasion, giving Michael Adams an excuse to act generally isn’t going to end well.  So here we are.

The thing to keep in mind is that this isn’t being totally driven by a power trip.  In fact, I don’t think that’s even the primary motivation for this.  The bottom line for this is the bottom line.  This is about changing the motivations and the expectations for the (reasonably) well-heeled – the folks like you and me who spend the money on season tickets and like to make a social event out of six Saturday afternoons in the fall.  We’re being herded in a new, more profitable direction.

The first hint of that is in the timing of the announcement itself.  If you think choosing to impose the new policy shortly after contributions were due was merely innocent timing, I’ve still got that Hahira beachfront property for sale.

But there’s more than that in play here.  One real key to what’s in store is the four-hour pre-game restriction.  That’s not going to impact the uppah crust folks who’ve paid a lot more money to tailgate elsewhere and it’s not going to have an effect on the twenty one-year olds who’ll stroll up to North Campus with styrofoam coolers and chilled cases of Natty Light, both of which will be thoughtlessly abandoned at the first opportunity.  Nah, that’s only going to matter to the families and groups who travel on game day and want to have a chance to set up tents and grills and settle in for a while with folks.  The responsible people.

The other key, which seems to have gotten less attention than the North Campus rules, is the complete campus ban on pull-behinds like trailers and cookers.  Again, this affects the same group – the very well-to-do and the irresponsible will care less about it.

When you look at this, it’s hard to see how it’s going to have much of an impact on what Adams is crying about.  If you’re really worried about trash, for example, how do you not ban something like styrofoam coolers?  But if you look at it as a step along the way to monetizing more of the tailgating experience, it makes much more sense.

I posted a long time ago that if these guys could figure out a way to charge you for the air you breathe on campus, they’d do it.  An exaggeration, sure, but consider where this is all likely headed, at least in my humble opinion – to a point when the university charges a fee to retain a designated tailgate space on North Campus and a license fee for pull-behinds.  The gamble in the short term is to create enough grumbling about how the new rules don’t really fix the underlying problems – much of which the school had a hand in creating – so that Adams can use that to take things to the next level and wring a few dollars more out of a block of folks who don’t share as much of the blame for existing conditions.

There’s no way to win on this.  If you complain about the new rules and threaten to pull financial support over it, they’ll spin that as part of the concern over how things have gotten out of hand.  If you complain that the new rules don’t really fix the problem (they won’t) and that something more effective needs to be done, you’ll give Adams another excuse to take action.

And that’s the perverse genius of the man here.  It’s not just that he’s going to get us to pay money for something that we used to get without charge.  It’s that he’s going to do that and make us grateful for the opportunity.

In the end, we’re all nothing more than wallets.

Michael Adams defends his turf.

Your president has a vision:

President Michael Adams said he still wants fans to be on campus and enjoy the games.

Just not so much on North Campus anymore.

Tailgating on North Campus can begin only four hours before kickoff, according to the rules the UGA Cabinet released Thursday. Tailgaters also will not be allowed to bring tents, kegs, generators, grills, tables, folding chairs and other items to that area on game days.

I guess that means you can have a cooler, unless that falls into the “other items” category.  Otherwise, it looks like all you can do is stand there with a drink in one hand and a sandwich in the other.  Sounds like fun.  I suppose we should be happy that there’s no charge for that.

*************************************************************************

UPDATE: The AJ-C‘s list isn’t accurate.  Here’s what’s posted at Gameday Gameplan 2010.

To reduce physical damage to North Campus grounds and mitigate behavioral concerns, the following new procedures are being implemented:

• Tailgating on North Campus will be allowed beginning four (4) hours before kickoff.
• The following items will not be allowed on North Campus on gamedays:
  • Tents
  • Kegs
  • Generators
  • Televisions
  • Amplified music
  • Grills or cookers of any type
  • Tables larger than 4 ft. long
  • Household furniture (folding chairs not included)

So you can still sit. That’s a good thing.

By the way, I share Paul’s sentiment on this development.

Movin’ on up

There isn’t much I can add to this story, except for a sincere offer on my part to help Adams pack if he gets the position.

Ironically, if he does succeed Brand, he’ll arguably be in a weaker position to influence the BCS/playoffs debate than he is in his current post.

Not that that’ll stop him from trying, I suppose.

Nice gig if you can get it.

I would have expected to read something like this on April 1st, because it sounds like a practical joke, but the Marietta Daily Journal dateline is August 25th.

“Rumors have been swirling in recent weeks over the Board of Regents and what is said to be a plan for some bold moves just before Gov. Sonny Perdue leaves office. As the storyline goes, Perdue — who is joined at the hip with UGA President Michael Adams — would consider being named by the Board of Regents as president of the University of Georgia at the end of his term. In exchange for the creation of an open seat via the resignation of Adams, Adams would then be in strong consideration to become the system’s new chancellor. Sound crazy? Well … so did borrowing $21 million in the middle of a world financial meltdown. But Perdue pulled that one off didn’t he?

“But wouldn’t the new governor decide those matters? Not if the constitution means anything. Of all the board’s current members, only one has a term that ends in 2010. In fact, most of the members have terms that last well into the next governor’s first term in office. If they are willing to risk not being reappointed by the next governor, they could pull off an Adams-Perdue move with very little difficulty…

Admit it.  You thought it couldn’t get any worse.

I wonder what Sonny’s position on playoffs is.