As one Bulldog quarterback prepares to enter the NFL, another has decided that his professional football days are over. The Albany Herald is reporting that David Greene has decided to retire. Greene was offered an opportunity to try out for the New York Giants but declined. “In my own heart,” he said, “I knew it was time for me to kind of move on.”
Though his pro career never really got off the ground, Bulldog fans will remember him for these accomplishments:
At Georgia, Greene started all four years (2001-04) and is NCAA FBS’ winningest quarterback with 42 wins in 52 consecutive starts. His career statistics for the Bulldogs were school records of 11,528 passing yards and 72 touchdowns and was the SEC’s 2001 Offensive Rookie of the year and 2002 Offensive Player of the Year. He also made a conference record of 214 consecutive pass attempts without an interception.
But what really sets Greene apart among Bulldog greats can be summed up in two plays.
Greene plans to settle in Gwinnett County with his wife and young son and work in the insurance field.
The ABH reports that ESPN will be in town to televise the April 11th G-Day game. You can count on them focusing on the QB and RB position battles, but hopefully they’ll pick up on some of the more subtle story lines too.
Of course G-Day conflicts with the Masters again, so I’m going to guess that attendance shouldn’t be more than the usual 20,000 or so. We’ll see if the ESPN presence will encourage a little higher turnout or if fans stay at home and watch the broadcast. It will also be interesting to see if Coach Richt livens things up a little more with the national spotlight on the game. G-Day has become more or less a let’s-get-through-this vanilla scrimmage over the past couple of years.
A national broadcast of the spring game and the exposure that comes with it is nothing but a good thing for the program. Will Joe Cox have his own magic moment with Erin Andrews?
It’s been a tough basketball season, so allow us to bask in the meaningless glow of being a team that beat the team that knocked off #1 last night. Congrats, Hokies. That December 9th win is looking to be Georgia’s highlight of the season thus far.
University of Tennessee officials are discussing how the athletic departments could increase efficiency and possibly generate more funding for academics as the UT system grapples with a projected state funding shortfall of at least $66 million.
In fiscal 2008, the UT athletic department generated a net surplus of about $5.04 million before making transfers of $4.54 million to support the UT system and Knoxville campus programs. Its operating budget is $87.8 million. Surplus funds go into what is “essentially a rainy-day fund” for the department, spokeswoman Tiffany Carpenter said.
You had to figure that in these tough times the disparity between athletic department performance and academic budget shortfalls would emerge as an issue. Georgia is in a similar boat as the university system faces large budget cuts while the UGA athletic department enjoys surpluses that makes Tennessee’s surplus look meager. Both the Tennessee and Georgia athletic departments are more or less distinct entities that aren’t supported by public money, and they do contribute millions of dollars back to their respective universities.
Regardless, the contrast between the financial performance and needs of the academic and athletics departments of these major universities will only continue to sharpen. Tennessee’s athletic department has made its own cuts and is looking at other ways to raise money for the university, but they have been anything but frugal when assembling their new football staff this month. SEC athletic departments will have even more money to spend as new television deals kick in, but public universities dependent upon taxpayer money will have to fight for their share of a smaller pie.
The Wiz
turns cartographer today and builds to a familiar challenge that, for once,
points the spotlight of shame at someone other than Georgia.
We’d like to see SEC teams, with their wealth of talent and top-notch teams,
get out and show other parts of the country how great they are at playing
football. BCS champion Florida, for example, hasn’t played an out-of-state
nonconference game since Sept. 21, 1991, when it lost at Syracuse, 38-21.
Since that 1991 trip to Syracuse, the Gators have played for four national
titles and won three. They’ve produced two Heisman winners and won all of their
eight SEC titles. Even in their 9-4 seasons they managed to remain relevant.
If schedule has been a hindrance on their rise to elite status, I haven’t seen
it.
Why does everyone get so hung up over distance when it comes to the quality
of schedule? Florida’s annual game against FSU put the Gators against a top
5 opponent almost every season during the 1990s. No other program had such a
consistently tough nonconference opponent. Would it have been better or more
impressive if they had played a 5-7 Arizona State team?
Does anyone see an incentive for Florida to leave the state? If they want quality
competition, Miami and FSU are in their worst seasons at least among the ranks
of the bowl-eligible. The Gators certainly don’t need any more help in the exposure
department. Why travel the nation to showcase your program to elite prospects
when your state produces more
than any other?
Schedules are not created equal, and some of the 2009 hopefuls will take very
different approaches to how they navigate the season. Southern Cal and Texas
can tell you that getting through the conference slate can be the real challenge,
but the nonconference games can have an impact not only on the record but also
on how the program is perceived by peers and pundits.
(By the way, I can’t help responding here to Kyle’s
claim that the BCS "encourages…strong scheduling in ways a playoff
never would." The primacy of the regular season and the stigma of even
a single loss provide a strong disincentive to schedule tough opponents. I understand
that there are reasons for doing so, but the system hardly "encourages"
it. What the system encourages above all else is playing in a major conference
and navigating the season with as few blemishes as possible. College basketball
has a playoff and, by consequence, less emphasis on regular season games, but
the tradeoff is that big games like last weekend’s Duke – Georgetown matchup
are commonplace in college hoops.)
Here are the nonconference schedules of the top 6 contenders next season (according
to Mark Schlabach). Most (save Texas) have at least one decent challenge,
but on the whole it’s pretty much status quo.
Texas:
Wyoming
La. Monroe
Central Florida
UTEP
Comment: To be fair, Texas did have Arkansas back out, and the ‘Horns
are
looking to improve their schedule over the coming years. But we’re focusing
on 2009 here, and the Big 12 opener against Colorado should be the only thing
standing between Texas arriving at the Red River Shootout with an unblemished
record, a very high ranking, and a slew of lopsided yawners under their belt.
Southern Cal:
San Jose St.
@ Ohio State
@ Notre Dame
Comment: As usual, the Trojans have a respectable nonconference slate,
and only one of the games is at home. The Pac 10 plays nine conference games
(there’s a novel idea for the superconferences), so SoCal only has three games
to schedule.
Ohio State:
Navy
Southern Cal
Toledo
New Mexico State
Comment: Southern Cal stands out of course, and assume that everyone
will head into the season chalking that up as a loss. The rest of the nonconference
schedule is light. Who in the Big 10 will be able to stop an improved Pryor
and his team? Michigan’s not there yet. Penn State’s losses are big. Iowa loses
their threat at tailback. Any conference loss would have to be considered a
big upset. Go ahead and pencil in the Buckeyes for Pasadena – but for which
game?
Alabama
Virginia Tech (in Atlanta, Ga.)
Florida International
North Texas
UT-Chattanooga
Comment: The Tide used a big win over an ACC team to launch their
2008 return to glory, and they’ll go back to that well in 2009. The rest of
the schedule is miserable, and their SEC slate doesn’t include Florida or Georgia.
Oklahoma:
BYU (in Dallas, Tex.)
@ Miami (Fl.)
Tulsa
TBA
Comment: Even with one game TBA, Oklahoma already has one of the better
schedules of the contenders. Their decent schedule in 2008 gets credit for landing
them at the top of the one-loss teams, but winning their conference didn’t hurt
either. They’ll be the more battle-tested team when they play Texas, but will
it matter?
Florida:
Charleston Southern
Troy
Florida International
FSU
Comment: Urban Meyer’s not dumb. Win the SEC with one loss or less,
and you could play high school teams from region 4-AAA and stand a good chance
at making the national title game. The Gators can focus on repeating as SEC
champs and won’t have to face Auburn, Alabama, or Ole Miss during the regular
season. The Gators won a national title in 2008 with only a middling Miami bulking
up the schedule, so what’s the incentive to toughen the schedule again?
Though no one will include them among the list of 2009 contenders, offered
without comment is Georgia:
Congratulations are in order for Andy Landers who became the second-fastest women’s college basketball coach to reach the 800 career win mark last night. The Lady Dogs rolled over Savannah State 74-28.
It can’t be easy for such an accomplished coach during what can kindly be called a transitional year for the program. The easy win last night was the first breather in a long time for a team that had lost three straight before last Sunday’s nailbiter of a conference win over South Carolina.
The Lady Dogs are back in action on Sunday at Florida (2 p.m., Fox Sports South). Landers is 42-7 all-time against Florida, but this weekend’s game will test that phenomenal record. For once, Florida is ranked and Georgia is not. A road win over a ranked SEC opponent would be a tremendous boost for a team that has quite honestly struggled against quality competition this year.
The NCAA has ruled that seventh graders are now considered prospects for the purposes of college basketball recruiting.
The organization voted Thursday to change the definition of a prospect from ninth grade to seventh grade — for men’s basketball only — to nip a trend in which some college coaches were working at private, elite camps and clinics for seventh- and eighth-graders. The NCAA couldn’t regulate those camps because those youngsters fell below the current cutoff.
What’s scary about the question “where does it stop” asked by the NCAA’s Joe D’Antonio isn’t the question itself. What’s scary is that he couldn’t give an answer. According to D’Antonio, the new age limit might be considered for other sports down the road, including football. Just to be safe, you might want to hold off on sending a baby gift to Candace Parker and Shelden Williams.
A quick look at how the NFL
draft and transfers will affect some teams in Georgia’s neighborhood next
season. This list is surely incomplete, and corrections / additions are welcome.
His decision leaves QB Matthew Stafford, CB Asher Allen, and RB Knowshon Moreno as the Georgia players declaring for early entry. The deadline for announcing has passed, and we’ll have a look soon at how some of our competition fared.
We struggle trying to make a connection between penalties, discipline, and
ultimate success on the field. Georgia’s high number of penalties in 2008 led
some to try to make the link to off-season disciplinary issues and create the
perception of a lack of control in the program. But do a lot of penalties automatically
hurt a team? You’d think so, but it’s not necessarily the case. Here’s where
this year’s final top 10 rank among the fewest
penalties per game:
Florida: 105
Southern Cal: 114
Texas: 77
Utah: 96
Oklahoma: 105
Alabama: 5
TCU: 119
Penn State: 3
Oregon: 99
Georgia: 116
60% of the top 10 were among the 20 most penalized teams in the nation including
TCU who were dead last. All but two teams (and the entire top 5) were in the
bottom half of the FBS.
That doesn’t mean though that those committing few penalties are bad teams.
Obviously Alabama and Penn State did well. For teams like Arizona, Iowa, Boston
College, and Vanderbilt, committing relatively few penalties was probably a
factor in their overachieving success last season.
There just seems to be little rhyme or reason in the impact penalties have
on a team, and I think that’s more to do with the fact that we measure raw penalties
and yardage rather than trying to understand the impact of individual penalties.
Take the BCS Championship. You have a meaningless celebration penalty on Tebow
after the game was in hand. Then you have a Duke Robinson hold on a first quarter
pass play that turned a long reception into a punt, ending an Oklahoma scoring
drive and starting Florida’s first scoring drive.
On the ledger the Tebow and Robinson penalties count the same. The Tebow penalty
was even more costly – 15 yards versus 10. The difference in their impact on
the game was far different. If you watched the game, you know that, but the
box score tells us that Florida was the more penalized team in the championship
game by more than a 2-to-1 margin (8-81 yards vs. 4-31 yards). The 30 or so
yards negated by Robinson’s penalty are gone from the record.
Many of Georgia’s 2008 penalties were inconsequential. Many more were not.
The facemask calls after third-down stops, the pass interference in the Florida
game – all had big impacts. Until we have some kind of a metric for the cost
of individual penalties, it’s hard to say with any authority that it’s bad to
be one of the more penalized teams even though everything you know about football
leads you to that assumption. Is there a better way?
Asher was one of the bright spots on the defense last year, and it’s arguable that replacing him will be a bigger challenge than replacing Stafford or Moreno. The heirs to the offensive stars might not be direct swappable replacements, but they were at least in line. I’m not so sure we can say the same for the cornerback position.
Georgia basketball fans haven’t had much good news lately, but Wednesday could provide some of the biggest news in program history.
Superstar hoops prospect Derrick Favors will announce his college decision on Wednesday evening at 6:30. He will select from between Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Memphis, and his coach is trying to arrange to have the announcement at ESPN Zone in Buckhead. There is no understating the impact that the #1 prep player in the nation could have on a program like Georgia.
If you’re trying to read the tea leaves, Georgia is out of town at Vandy on Wednesday night while Tech hosts Duke in Atlanta at 7:00.
You might think of your outgoing transfers as head cases, malcontents, dead
weight, or simply bad fits, but one thing they shouldn’t be is "chattel".
If schools are going to put these kinds of restrictions on transfers, I’m even
less inclined to be sympathetic when the programs complain about unsigned prospects
changing their minds and requiring a bit of hand-holding during the recruiting
homestretch.
It’s mine, you understand? Mine! All mine! Get back in there! Down, down, down!
Go, go, go! Mine, mine, mine! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!
Consequences, schmonsequences, as long as I’m rich.
While we’re on the subject of chattel and recruiting, let’s come back to the
story about South Carolina and Tucker High School. It’s always good to get
a laugh at the expense of South Carolina and Spurrier, but I’m not really concerned
about South Carolina’s blunder. Recruiting is about relationships, and they
blew it. I’m more interested in the high school coach declaring his school off-limits
for a specific college program.
It’s fine for Tucker’s coach to say that the Gamecocks are "no longer
welcome" at the high school. It’s his decision who he welcomes into his
office, and it’s a bridge burned. But it is most certainly not his place to
dictate that "South Carolina will not be recruiting any more Tucker players."
It’s easy to accept and get behind since we’re talking about South Carolina,
but a high school coach deciding who may not recruit a prospect seems about
as meddlesome as the college coaches putting restrictions on transfers. Of course
a prospect might and often does seek the counsel of a coach, and that’s the
prospect’s choice, but a coach only does a disservice to his players by inserting
himself as a gatekeeper before the fact. It’s not his call whether or not South
Carolina recruits any more Tucker players.
"Everyone is different, but the smartest decision you can make as a prospect is to stay in state if you are from Georgia. If a guy comes from Parkview, Thomson, or anywhere, the best thing that he can do is to be a Dawg. Everybody will know you, and it is such a big thing to play for the University of Georgia."
David Greene to retire
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