Good Friday morning, Dawg fans. (Well, not "Good Friday," per se, but good morning on a Friday, which we hope will be good for you and yours, and... well, let's just move on, shall we?)
Hey, you! Have a good Friday.
There are quite a few bits of news worthy of note today. To wit:
- Former Bulldog Chris Sanders has officially enrolled at Georgia Military College, and though Mark Richt hasn't yet commented on the matter, Sanders is apparently under the impression that he may be able to return to Georgia after serving an appropriate penance in the (proverbial) wilderness. This leaves only Sanford Seay currently unspoken for.
- BREAKING NEWS: James Franklin acts like a jerk, rails at an 18-year-old kid, then says he's sorta sorry (but not really). To
borrow steal a phrase from tankertoad: Totally surprised.
- ACTUAL, IMPORTANT BREAKING NEWS: Greg McGarity confirms in a public statement that there is a very real possibility that the SEC will completely drop all permanent cross-division rivalries. This would mean the end of multiple annual rivalries that pre-date the SEC itself, including the
Deep South's Oldest Rivalry (Georgia-Auburn), the Third Saturday in October (Bama-Tennessee), and the Ole Miss-Vanderbilt rivalry. (James Franklin gets b*tchy in 5... 4... oh wait, he already has. Never mind.)
- UGA President Michael Adams thinks that an 8-team playoff is possible within the next 2 years. It wouldn't surprise me if he were the one pushing for 8 teams instead of 4 in a "plus one" format. Dang, I love that man. (Please note the sarcasm font.)
That's about it for now... MaconDawg's famous offseason-open-comment thread known as Free Form Friday is coming up soon, so until then, have a good Friday!
Go Dawgs!
not directed at you Kyle
because you’ve got a blog to fill with content, but as fans I think we give Franklin too much attention. Last year was an abberation of the existence of modern Vandy football. Standard troll rule applies: the more attention he gets, the more he will demand. He had a losing season and a 2-6 conference record despite playing in the worst version of the sec east ever conceived. His only sec victories were against the worst team in both divisions. He is just the buzzing of flies to me. Wake me up when they contend. I will say no more on the matter till then.
/end rant
Mark Mandingo - February 10, 2012 via mobile
He is "like the buzzing of flies" to you?
You forgot to include this:
vineyarddawg - February 10, 2012
that was exactly what i had in mind
Mark Mandingo - February 10, 2012 via mobile
Let me fix this for you
He is just the pile on the ground that causes the buzzing of flies to me
Dawg2011 - February 10, 2012
I think we may give Coach Franklin more attention than he has earned
But at the same time, I think that’s because its fun to mock a jerk… not because we think he warrants the attention. Same rules apply to Coach Larry and Paul “Captain Jowls” Johnson.
RedCrake - February 10, 2012
Meanwhile, SOS is a mere shadow of his former self.
The Gamecocks have improved, sure, but [some pun involving “rod” and loss of conductivity].
NCT - February 10, 2012
The fishwrapper that shall remains linkless actually had a good quote on this gauging opposing coaches
North Carolina’s Larry Fedora: "What does [Franklin] say about the kids that were committed elsewhere and de-committed from their places to go to his place? That’s my comment. What is his comment on those people? He’s got someone in his recruiting class that did that very thing. He’s saying those guys are not men of honor? Basically, he’s saying he has got kids in his own recruiting class that are not men of honor. He said that, and I didn’t."
I’d love to see them go through a couple more losing seasons, and him slowly go back to the wasteland that he deserves.
Mr. Sanchez - February 10, 2012
more from the bird-cage liner:
Wonder if he reads Dawgsports? He must really be feelin’ the love…
P.S. Have you circled Vandy on your calendar yet? What are you waitin’ fer?
DavetheDawg - February 10, 2012
Understood, Mark.
In my defense, I didn’t write this, and I haven’t mentioned James Franklin in a while, but your point is well taken.
T Kyle King - February 10, 2012
Does anyone know what Sanders did?
Regardless, I’m all for him returning, assuming it wasn’t a terrible infraction. It speaks volumes of Richt’s character that a player would even want to return after being booted. Good on him.
As for the potential elimination of our annual Auburn game, I am not pleased. Initially, while not my preference, I was not strongly against conference expansion. I thought the SEC would surely switch to a nine-game conference slate, which would not affect the traditional rivalries. Now, it appears we may have swapped Auburn for Mizzou. That is awful, and I’m sure the Tigers feel the same way about TAMU.
Jman781 - February 10, 2012
Oh, playoffs
Whether we get a plus one or an eight team tournament in two years, it’s going to keep expanding. Perennial playoff advocate Doc Saturday says:
How playoff proponents reconcile the antepenultimate sentence with the last one boggles my mind, but they’ve won the war so I guess it doesn’t matter. The BCS is dead! Long live the BCS!Spears - February 10, 2012
Out of curiosity...
I am curious who on this site actually wants a playoff, other than myself.
While I respect arguments on both sides of the debate, from what I’ve read over the years, this site is frequented by many, many more anti-playoff advocates. You would think there would be a few playoff supporters on here!
Jman781 - February 10, 2012
We pride ourselves on tradition, education, and clear thinking.
Thus, few playoff advocates. /zing!
I’m kidding, of course. There are, as you say, reasonable arguments on both sides.
first and thom - February 10, 2012
I used to be a devout bowl believer
militant in defense of the regular season. But I’ve slowly had a change of heart. The Harris and coaches polls are jokes, the AP is filled with a lot of people (not all of the voters, but too many) who watch less national football than most fans. ESPN is able to drive an agenda due to their ownership of most of college football. And, not to rehash arguments here, but I can no longer say the regular season matters as much as I thought. I’m not anti rematch as a principle, but Okie State deserved the benefit of the doubt. I’m either for the old days of bowl chaos (for the fun) or for a 4 team playoff. Anything above 4 and you can claw the bowl system out from my cold dead fingers.
Mark Mandingo - February 10, 2012 via mobile
Honestly...
Seeing LSU-Stanford and Bama-Okie State play semifinal games would have been a blast this year. I’m not totally opposed to a four team playoff, but a four team playoff would never last more than a couple of years. Then we’d get six, eight, twelve, sixteen… and eventually the regular season only matters insofar as you have to win enough games to get into the playoffs.
But, hey, if we get rid of the South’s Oldest Rivalry, the regular season won’t be worth saving anymore anyway.
Spears - February 10, 2012
I agree with this.
I’m for a limited playoff, for I merely want to prevent a 2004 situation. I understand it’s rare, but I can’t respect any system that would leave an undefeated SEC team out of the championship game—Auburn or not.
Plus, by having only four teams in the hunt, the regular season would still mean a lot.
Once you start expanding to eight, ten, sixteen, etc. many undeserving teams will be included. I suppose you could say Stanford was “undeserving” last year, but their year was the same as Alabama’s…Regardless, the top four teams would not be pushovers, which cannot be said for some top-sixteen teams (and lower, if we include conference champs)…
Sorry, I truly didn’t mean to turn this into a playoff debate. I merely wanted to know if I was alone in my desire to see a Plus One.
Carry on!
Jman781 - February 10, 2012
"I can’t respect any system that would leave an undefeated SEC team out of the championship game . . . ."
This is precisely why Slive supported a Plus One back in 2008 (if not earlier). He’s apparently now firmly in the eight team camp. This is probably because other conference commissioners wised up and realized that a Plus One based entirely on polls could wind up with two SEC teams in many (if not most) years… so now, like Doc Saturday, they want to enforce a conference-champions-only rule in a Plus One. Theoretically, the push toward an eight team playoff by the SEC higher ups is intended to leave room for 2-3 SEC teams to make the playoffs every year.
Cash Rules Everything Around Me (dolla dolla bill, y’all)
Spears - February 10, 2012
thats true
I don’t think it would ever hold at 4, which is why I’m so reluctant to come out of the playoff closet. On the other hand, I think the current system is too dependent on the people we loathe the most as fans, coaches and media. Of course its always been that way, but now all the agendas and jockeying is so out in the open due to the new nature of media, its hard to stick my head in the sand these days.
I think a 4 team playoff is the way to go and it finally dawned on me that its probably not correct to avoid pushing for a home improvement out of fear that they’re gonna tear the house down (which will definitely happen). Anybody that opposes an 8 team playoff (including myself) should go buy a St. Jude medal.
Mark Mandingo - February 10, 2012 via mobile
So Stanford makes it, but an Oregon team that beat them for the pac 12 title
gets left out? After beating the Trees, in Palo Alto, by over 20 in dominating fashion?
Mr. Sanchez - February 10, 2012
No clue how it would have actually shaken out...
… and the BCS vote could have been entirely different if there had been a Plus One.
If I catch the drift of this post and your post below, I completely agree with your point. No playoff makes everyone happy unless it includes absolutely every possible team. This is why I’m against playoffs (including the current two team playoff): they always expand. I’m just conceding that it would have been fun to see those 2 games and that I’m not as opposed to a Plus One as I am to anything bigger.
If we were voting on this, I’d check the “bowls and polls” box. If it was good enough for Herschel, it’s good enough for me.
Spears - February 10, 2012
Understood, and we don't disagree on the enjoyment those two games would bring
I’d rather Oregon than Stanford personally, but again, that’s just personal preference.
My old theory was 24 teams, with the top 8 getting a bye to keep some regular season importance. But as I get older, I realize that will both diminish the regular season and kill bowls. And I’m starting to like the bowls a lot more, as it gives the kids a good vacation and hard earned gift packages, they enjoy the trips and it’s something for them (when so much the NCAA does hurts them more than helps), and it lets more teams enjoy a win to close their season than just the one likie in say college hoops.
I can live with an 8, but like most, the inevitable sprawl from 8 is a concern.
Mr. Sanchez - February 10, 2012
it lets more teams enjoy a win to close their season
than just the one likieunlike in say college hoops.Poor editing as I trade to say something different.
Mr. Sanchez - February 10, 2012
The problem with 4 is not too far removed from the current problem though
Take 2007. At the end of the year, you have Ohio St and LSU as the #s 1 and 2. But who gets left out of 3 and 4? Is it Southern Cal and Georgia, considering the two hottest teams at the time, and arguably the best? Then you leave out a 2 loss Big 12 champ Oklahoma team that was ranked #3 after beating a then #1 Mizzou, a 2 loss ACC Champ in Va Tech that was top 5, a 1 loss Kansas team that some felt the best of the Big 12, a 2 loss West Virginia featuring Pat White and Steve Slaton? While after the fact, everyone felt Georgia and Southern Cal might be the best, in the rankings, Okie, Va Tech, Kansas, and West Virginia were right there with them if not above them.
Or this year, you take LSU and Bama, and Okie St, but do you include Stanford as #4, leaving out Oregon? Make it Arkansas to get back in the SEC West round robin? Who is #4?
That’s my issue with many plans, they all seem reactive to the previous year, where every year is different and every plan looks perfect for some years but a disaster in several others.
Mr. Sanchez - February 10, 2012
WOOOO WOULDA-BEEN 2002 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS, PAAAAAWWWWWWWLLLL
vineyarddawg - February 10, 2012
Agree...
I would have placed Oregon over Stanford, since I favor conference champs. I like the idea of making it a rule that only conference champs get in.
Thus, my first rule would be simple: the top four conference champs in the BCS play in a Plus One. The only thing I am trying to prevent is the 2004-scenario. I’m not trying get teams like Alabama a shot at the title for, quite frankly, LSU was the only team who 100% deserved to be in the big game (including Okie State).
My next rule: the top two teams would host the next two teams. Thus, last year LSU would have hosted Wisconsin. Okie State would have hosted Oregon. The winners would have advanced.
In 2004, Southern Cal would have hosted Utah, and Oklahoma would have hosted Auburn. While not perfect, I couldn’t care less how the other teams felt outside of the top three, though Utah was also unbeaten. While Auburn would still be disadvantaged, they would have had a shot. (I would not be terribly worried about Utah beating USC and creating a VCU issue, but I supposed it would have been possible.)
Thus, in my perfect world, the chances of an undefeated UGA squad getting pushed aside would be lessened dramatically by my proposal. Additionally, limited the title game to conference champions would not diminish the regular season, since a team couldn’t lose it’s way into the title game, like Bama. Finally, the top two teams would get home games, making the regular season even more important. Who would not want to see a playoff game at Sanford stadium against a Texas or Michigan?
I know the reality of the situation (a) would not limit the teams to conference champs, (b) would not have the teams play at home, and © would not limit the number to four.
Jman781 - February 10, 2012
I'm fer it
The slippery slope argument is always legitimate (no matter what the debate is about) but I truly feel that determining who plays in the NCG—since we claim to have one now—should not be decided entirely by opinion (be it person or computer). Anything less than 4 leaves too much up to chance as to who plays. Anything more rewards too many mediocre teams in the name of fairness.
Watching VCU in the tournament last year was fun and what the team did was amazing, but at the end of the regular season they had no claim whatsoever to be one of the 4 best teams in the country, and probably not even one of the best 50. I have no wish to replicate that in football.
Alkaline5 - February 10, 2012
Rec'd for this line:
Amen. The slippery slope may be a logical fallacy, but it is an historical reality. That’s one of the reasons I’ve essentially become a political agnostic; everything eventually is going to end in the worst case scenario, so my position on a particular issue boils down to this: “Do I think the inevitable worst case scenario under this approach is as bad as the inevitable worst case scenario under the alternative approaches?”
T Kyle King - February 10, 2012
My preferred setup:
At the end of the regular season, a group of journalists, small children, and trained monkeys vote for a champion.
Following a 2 week celebration period, the coaches of the top 5 teams in the final poll fight to the death using blunt weapons (each coach also gets 1 handgrenade for each player they have oversigned the previous year). A second champion is then crowned based on the surviving coach.
If the two championships are not awarded to the same team, the National Champion is Alabama by default.
RedCrake - February 10, 2012
The thing about "playoff supporters"
of which I’vwe slowly grown from being one to being on the fence about, is they are fractured from plus 1s, to 8 teams, to massive 16-24-32 team types. There is no unity amongst playoff ideas.
Mr. Sanchez - February 10, 2012
Good point...
For I’m in the Plus One only camp, as I want to eliminate the 2004-scenario while preventing a team like the NFL Giants from only playing half a season and getting hot at the end…
Jman781 - February 10, 2012
Exactly.
As a group, playoff supporters are like the Buckleyite fusionist conservatives of the 1950s: pulled from many disparate elements, joined together in furtherance of a common cause (in the case of the fusionists, anticommunism), and destined to be at daggers drawn with one another once that battle is won.
I’m not faulting anyone for that, but playoff supporters are an “us” only because people like me form a “them.” Once “they” have been vanquished, and there is no more “them” (at least as a meaningful force), the “us” will fracture into four or five different, incompatible, unruly, and internecine camps. Beating people like me is only the first step, and the need to beat people like me is the only thing upon which all playoff advocates truly agree.
Meanwhile, a 9-7 team just won the Super Bowl.
T Kyle King - February 10, 2012
I have long been a supporter of a playoff system and I have been torn between a 16, 12 or 8 team playoff,
but am quickly loosing my love for the idea. The problem is there is no way to determine who is really the best in the nation. A 3 loss SEC, Pac-12, Big-10 team could easily be better than an undefeated MWC, Conf-USA conference champion. The first thing in order for a playoff to work is there must be a standard measuring stick. How do we tell who are the top rated 8, 12 or 16 teams in the nation. The media cannot be trusted as we are all to aware that there is nation, regional and state based media bias that keeps this from becoming the standard. Coaches cannot adequately measure the other teams. What coach is going to spend time watching Hawaii vs. Nevada when his team plays LSU the following week? So the coaches are not educated about the rest of the nation to be that standard. Computers are reliant upong the programmer and you cannot remove bias from an individual. Even the BCS, which takes all 3 of these into computing the best in the nation, is ultimately flawed simply because of the old adage trash in = trash out. The more crap I hear about expansion, loosing traditions and the decay of NCAA football for cash the happier I am remembering the 10 team SEC, the
DeepSouth’s Oldest Rivalry, traditional Bowl tie-ins and the havoc and year long conversation that came up when the polls released after the Big 4 Bowls were played and 2 national champions were announced.Dawg2011 - February 10, 2012
We already have a playoff.
It’s just a 2-team playoff. Everythingcurrently proposed is playoff creep, not playoffs per se.
first and thom - February 10, 2012
I think everyone knows that I'm with you in wanting playoffs.
My thoughts/feelings have already been pretty well covered, however. I’m going to try to sit this one out.
MidnightFrost1701 - February 11, 2012
this thread was hell to catch up on
tankertoad - February 10, 2012
It damned sure was.
I was in a mediation all day Thursday, after which I went to Athens and spent the night there, because I was in a continuing legal education seminar at the Georgia Center all day Friday. I came home this evening, after having had only minimal internet access in the preceding 48 hours, and, when I logged on, my evening went to Hell in a handbasket.
In my zeal for speed, I missed a score alteration, causing me to misstate the score (though, thankfully, not the result) from this evening’s gymnastics meet. Then, in a bid for relaxation, I took part briefly in the trending #SlimmestSportsBook discussion on Twitter, throwing out several jokes, only some of which were about Georgia rivals, and only one of which was about Florida, but, within minutes, three or four Gator fans jumped into the fray to sound off in response, one of whom was an obnoxious, humorless, ignorant kid with whom I went back and forth until he told me that he was almost 21 years old, and he’d seen Georgia beat Florida five times in his lifetime. Well, I was born in 1968, so, by the time I turned 21 years old (in 1989), I had seen Florida beat Georgia five times. I let Bratty Know-Nothing Gator Boy know that trends ended and he needed to learn something, then I signed off, because I really didn’t care to read what that officious little upstart had to say in response. If anyone happened to see it, don’t tell me about it, because I don’t want to know.
To wind down from that unpleasant experience, I thought I’d run through the comment threads here and get caught up, and, while I appreciate the wit, civility, and reasonableness of the playoff discussion going on above, I’m basically now of a “screw it” mentality after reading the above report (which I had not previously heard about) that SEC expansion may end Georgia-Auburn as an annual rivalry. Between the last round of conference expansion (which effectively cost us our series with Clemson) and the current round of conference expansion (which now threatens our annual series with Auburn), we may have sacrificed two of our four biggest rivalries historically.
I have nothing against Arkansas, Missouri, South Carolina, or Texas A&M, all of which are decent schools with fine athletic programs whose addition to the SEC made good sense for numerous reasons. At this point, though, the dollars have become so big that the universal solvent of cold hard cash has eaten away everything meaningfully defining. No major conference now has a name that makes both geographical and numerical sense; defining rivalries (Georgia-Clemson, Penn State-Pitt, Nebraska-Oklahoma, Texas-Texas A&M, now perhaps Alabama-Tennessee and Georgia-Auburn) have ended or are ending; playoffs are coming, apparently because everyone just decided that they were.
At this point, screw it. The slow sucking of anything unique or inspiring about intercollegiate athletics from NCAA sports has picked up speed in recent months, and the powers that be seem absolutely determined to cast everything of any historical worth into the wind. If they had a checklist headed “Things Kyle Loves About Sports” by which they were going, they couldn’t be doing any better a job of destroying everything of worth that I enjoy about college athletics.
Thank God we have baseball, equestrian, golf, gymnastics, lacrosse, tennis, and the like, because they’re doing everything they can to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, and we’re just sitting back and taking it. The day I see a Georgia football schedule without Auburn on it is the day I sit down to evaluate seriously whether writing for this weblog any longer is worth it.
T Kyle King - February 11, 2012
Two words:
Promotion. Relegation.
Or, to be more specific, the promotion and relegation system that I created. It would have solved all of our rivalry issues by:
a) returning us to a 12-team conference with an 8-game conference slate, and
b) allowing us to schedule as a non-conference opponent any of our 4 rivals who drop out of the top division… even if the team that drops is us.
Boom… Clemson, Florida, Auburn, and Tech every year… guaranteed.
vineyarddawg - February 11, 2012
I agree.
Unfortunately, that won’t happen, and what is happening is ripping away everything about college football that matters to me. “Hey, it’s going to be great! The Southeastern Conference is no longer Southeastern, Georgia no longer plays Auburn and Clemson, meaningful non-conference games are going to be replaced completely with Sun Belt and Division I-AA schedule fodder, the Sugar Bowl is going to be replaced with an NCAA semifinal, you can no longer refer to the Florida game as the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, and you’re going to go a couple of years without an Uga, but it’s going to be wicked because it’s going to make a ton of money! Oh, hey, did we mention, Missouri’s in your division now, which only made sense if we were going to keep the permanent cross-division rivalries, but, now, we’re not going to do that, either!”
This is a nightmare. Virgil is leading me up to a gate marked Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate (“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”). As a league, we have consigned ourselves to college football Hell.
T Kyle King - February 11, 2012
Kyle, I just want to say I was a lot more concise. I know you admire it, even if you don't practice it.
and yea, this new conference thing is the devil.
tankertoad - February 11, 2012
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