When you’re on a need to know basis…

… and the coach doesn’t think you need to know anything:

UGASports.com: Which lesser-known players really turned heads during practices and in the spring game?

Lowery: “I can’t really comment on practices because Dan Mullen closed all of them save for one 20-minute stretching period…”

C’mon, man.  You’re not really trying if you can’t figure out something from a stretching period.

If Trump wants to stop all the leaking from his administration, he ought to hire a bunch of SEC coaches.  They don’t seem to have any problem at all locking down the media.

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Where have all the quarterbacks gone?

The article to which this is a part is a conceptual mess, but what does come through is how bad the SEC as a whole has been of late evaluating and developing quarterback talent.  Check it out:

Between 2007 and 2016, current SEC schools signed 67 blue-chip quarterbacks — either 4- or 5-star prospects per the 247Composite rankings. Out of that group, only 32 stayed with their original school. Thirty-three transferred, while two signed to play baseball before arriving on campus.

From 2007 to 2014, 60 percent of the SEC’s blue-chip quarterback recruits transferred. The 2015 and 2016 seasons were not included in that statistic because several of those quarterbacks have yet to get on the field.

Astonishingly, all nine quarterbacks signed in 2011 and 2012 finished their careers at different schools — Jeff Driskel, Kiehl Frazier, Jerrard Randall, Christian LeMay, Jacoby Brissett, Matt Davis, Maty Mauk, Zeke Pike and Patrick Towles.

The article implies that a rash of transfers is what’s caused the recent decline at the position, but the transfers aren’t the cause.  They’re the effect.  Georgia didn’t fight to keep LeMay on the roster, because LeMay washed out at the position.  That’s why all nine of those quarterbacks are gone.  Of course, if you’re a head coach facing a hole at the position from that sort of departure, you’ve got little choice but to take a shot at asking a kid leaving another program to parachute in to provide depth, if nothing else.  Necessity, mother, and all that.

In any event, it’s fair to say revolving doors aren’t a guarantee of great quarterback play.  Just ask Florida.  In fact,

Ultimately, failing to commit to a long-term project eventually catches up with teams. Only one transfer quarterback since 2004 led the conference in passer rating — some kid named Cameron Jerrell Newton at Auburn in 2010. Otherwise, every other passing leader has been a homegrown prospect.

Hmmm… maybe there’s something to Kirby trying to stockpile recruits at the position.

Progress of a sorts: “…we shouldn’t have too many awful signal callers.”

I enjoy it when the guys at And The Valley Shook! roll out their preseason position rankings, and this post on the SEC’s 2017 quarterback group is no exception.

There are two obvious takeaways from their ballots:  one, with a couple of exceptions, nobody really knows what to expect from the position this season, and two, say what you will about him, Dan Mullen is underrated as a developer of quarterbacks.  It’ll be interesting to see how Georgia’s defense handles Nick Fitzgerald.

At least there’s one.

If I told you that Georgia had one player make the Southeastern Conference football information directors’ list of the league’s best players by position and overall, who would you guess that is?

Spreading the gospel of the SEC grind

Somewhat surprisingly, here’s a list of the top sixty non-conference schedules for this season in which four SEC teams, including Georgia, crack the top fifteen.  Maybe things are more credible than we’ve given credit for… er, wait.

62. Missouri: Missouri State, Purdue, Idaho, at Connecticut. How the mighty schedulers have fallen. I know I do this every year, but what the heck. Let’s return to the golden days of Mizzou in the 1970s. In 1979, Missouri played Illinois, Ole Miss and Texas. In ’78, Notre Dame, Alabama, Ole Miss and Illinois. In ’77, Southern Cal, Illinois, California and Arizona State. In ’76, Southern Cal, Illinois, Ohio State and North Carolina. In ’75, Alabama, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. You get the picture. All the while a member of an eight-team Big Eight that was far superior to Mizzou’s current seven-team SEC East.

It always seems like the recently converted embrace religion more fervently than those who grew up in the faith, doesn’t it?

Withstanding the test of time

What’s striking about these hot seat posts you read about this year’s group of SEC coaches is that so many of them seem to be sitting on one, despite the fact that only two have more than five years of service at their current schools (and neither of them have warm derrières).

At four million a year (at least), considering buyout expense and what it usually costs to bring in the next guy, that’s an expensive way to seek short-term gratification.  Good thing the conference is chock full of sharp athletic directors and presidents.

“ANY JERSEY THAT LOOKS COOL I’LL THROW IT ON.”

Ole Miss learns that the Internet can be a cruel place.