Moar film review, less get together time.
Category Archives: SEC Football
Wednesday morning buffet
It’s a virtual buffet, peeps, so don’t worry about exposure to the virus.
- The Pirate gets a commitment out of a four-star QB from Texas.
- Here’s the transcript from Smart’s conference call yesterday.
- The SEC cancelled its spring meeting in Destin.
- Athlon’s preseason top 25 list has Florida ahead of Georgia.
- Two Rivals pundits think Jamie Newman will be the real deal this season.
- “Using ESPN’s way-too-early preseason Top 25 as a guide, 247Sports national analysts Bud Elliott and Brad Crawford take a stab at which teams are overrated and underrated ahead of the 2020 season.” Elliott thinks Georgia’s number four ranking is right; Brad Crawford continues to pump the brakes.
- NCAA President Mark Emmert and members of the association’s senior management are taking pay cuts. I wonder if that will comfort the athletic directors out there irritated about the significant drop in funds being paid out by the NCAA.
- Spurrier, on Finebaum, about spring practice: “Most all coaches would tell you that the staffs that have been there for 2, 3, 4 years or more that it’s not that big a deal not having spring football,” Spurrier said. “Maybe if you had competition at quarterback or some other positions, it would be important, but preseason, if you can get a month in before you play, I certainly think everyone would be capable of playing — maybe not quite their best, but pretty close to playing the best they can.
You think we’ve got problems?
For those of you who think Georgia has issues on offense going into the 2020 season, there are issues on offense and then there’s Vanderbilt.
Filed under SEC Football
Meet the new meme
I’ve been waiting for something to drop and it’s finally here — the reason to doubt Georgia wins the SEC East.
Blame it on no spring practice, kids. Here’s Barrett Sallee leading off.
Following him in the lineup is Pete Fiutak.
The Bulldog talent level isn’t a problem after years of phenomenal recruiting, but there’s still a whole lot of work to do with ten players showing off at the NFL Combine, and with at least 13 starters expected to be off the Sugar Bowl-winning team.
And that’s the problem everyone has to deal with – there’s no spring football to figure out all of the parts of the puzzle that have to fit.
Pete does a lot of “every other program would be jealous of Georgia’s talent level” offsetting, but then he gives the game away with this:
They miss LSU and Texas A&M from the West, but they have to face Auburn in their annual showdown and they get what should be improved Missouri, South Carolina and Kentucky teams on the road.
South Carolina’s revamped its offensive staff and Missouri’s breaking in an entirely new coaching staff (along with a new quarterback), but somehow both should be improved against the likes of a Georgia team with far better depth and talent? Sure, Pete.
I’m not minimizing the work Monken has ahead of him, but you know what every other program should be jealous of about Georgia? The defense. There isn’t a team in the division that returns as much experience and talent as the Dawgs do. You can cover a whole lot of figuring out what to do on offense with that.
Filed under Georgia Football, Media Punditry/Foibles, SEC Football
Hands on, virtually speaking
I thought this was an interesting exchange between Seth Emerson and J.R. Reed ($$):
The expectation is that the defense should be fine because so many guys return. What do you think is the impact for the offense, considering there is a new quarterback, a new coordinator and so many new other guys?
Well you know, there’s a lot of things they can do where it’s not face-to-face. You can install things. You can go over film, like with Zoom and FaceTime, and get those guys on the same page. New quarterbacks, old quarterback, new coordinators getting into contact with quarterbacks. You can still set up meetings and sessions. And most of it’s done in the film room, as a lot of people know, but some people don’t know. You’ve got to be smart. You get all those X’s and O’s done, then you’ve got to go out there and run the play.
Except until yesterday, the SEC wasn’t allowing schools to do that. That policy just changed.
Football programs across the SEC will be allowed to offer football instruction via remote tools beginning Monday, industry sources tell 247Sports.
A memo was sent Friday to athletic departments outlining the new guidelines.
The SEC had disallowed football programs to offer virtual instruction, position meetings and other football-related activities via online-only software such as FaceTime or Zoom during the coronavirus pandemic. The guidelines were enacted March 13 to allow no competitive advantages during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, when students were sent home from campuses across the SEC over the last two weeks.
The lifting of the instructional limitations will allow coaches and players to conduct meetings similar to a normal spring-practice situation, though all must be done virtually. This includes film review and instruction. Programs will be limited to two hours per week of mandatory activity.
Here’s the exact language from the SEC:
Required virtual film review, chalk talk, etc. that does not include physical activity shall be permissible. Any required activity of this nature shall be limited to two (2) hours of activity per week in all sports, shall be scheduled in accordance with the institution’s established Time Management Policy, and shall not interfere with required class time for online instruction. These activities may not include a review by or live monitoring of film/video of a student-athlete engaging in workouts or physical activity occurring after March 13, 2020. Institutions may not suggest or require a student-athlete to make film/video of his/her workouts or physical activity available by other means (such as social media).
Lotta questions for me there, mainly about how staffs will allocate time and how schools plan to keep track of it — or, to put it more finely, where the edge of the envelope is. I’m sure Saban’s already got a couple of people on the mother.
Filed under SEC Football
“It just means more”, on steroids
Just when you think you’ve seen everything — Arkansas gave two assistants raises before they even coached a single game there.
Arkansas defensive coordinator Barry Odom and offensive line coach Brad Davis each received $100,000 pay raises after other SEC programs tried to hire them away.
Odom’s raise brought his annual pay to $1.3 million – the highest salary on the Arkansas staff – and Davis’ raise increased his salary to $650,000. Odom’s raise was finalized March 10, and Davis’ was finalized Feb. 3…
During a March 12 speech at Cross Church Pinnacle Hills, Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman said Davis had been offered a job by Texas A&M, where he was once a graduate assistant, and that Odom had been offered a defensive coordinator job by another SEC program, but did not specify which one.
Turns out there’s precedent.
As Arkansas’ newly-hired offensive line coach in 2013, Pittman received an annual pay raise from $275,000 to $500,000 and a two-year contract extension after Alabama showed interest in hiring him. Neither Odom, who is under contract for three years, nor Davis (two years) received extensions.
No extensions this time? I guess that’s the Saban factor.
(h/t)
Filed under Arkansas Is Kind Of A Big Deal, SEC Football
“If we don’t fans are going to quit coming, and I can’t say I blame them.”
David Ching does a walk through of the non-conference schedules for every SEC team, and I’ve got to tell you, as much grief as we’ve given Florida over the years for not venturing out of state much, it’s really Alabama that deserves shit for its low profile in scheduling courage.
When Alabama visits Texas in 2022, it will be the first time since 2011 – when it visited Penn State – that the Crimson Tide has played a non-conference game at a campus site. Eleven years! Obviously Saban’s strategy of playing a marquee opener at a neutral site and three cupcakes at Bryant-Denny has been effective, but is it any wonder that attendance is slipping even at arguably the nation’s preeminent football program?
‘Bama is stepping up in the twenties (shamed by Kirby, perhaps?), but for a guy who’s notoriously whined about students not staying through all four quarters in Tuscaloosa, he sure has been serving up some mighty thin gruel in that regard.
By the way, in case you’re wondering…
Like Florida, South Carolina and Kentucky, Georgia plays an in-state rival every year – Georgia Tech – from the ACC. That being the case, those programs are generally the most likely to play two Power Five, non-SEC opponents. Florida did it three times in the 2010s, South Carolina did it four and Georgia did it six. That includes UGA home-and-homes with Notre Dame, Clemson and Colorado. The Bulldogs are slated to play neutral-site games in each of the next three years – versus Virginia in Atlanta (2020), Clemson in Charlotte (2021) and Oregon in Atlanta (2022) – but perhaps no program in the country has been as aggressive as UGA in scheduling future home-and-home series. The Bulldogs will play at least two Power Five, non-conference opponents in all 10 years of the 2020s, and they will play three in 2028, 2029, 2030 and 2031. Check out these future non-conference slates: in 2028, Georgia visits Texas and hosts Florida State and Georgia Tech; in 2029, the Bulldogs host Texas and visit Clemson and Georgia Tech; in 2030, Georgia hosts Clemson, Ohio State and Georgia Tech; and in 2013, the Bulldogs host Oklahoma and visit Ohio State and Georgia Tech. Wow.
Wow, indeed.
Filed under SEC Football
