Blutarsky needs no help pointing out the faulty thinking underneath John Feinstein’s latest column railing against the BCS, but I’m still amazed that Feinstein concedes that college basketball has more or less a three-week regular season.

It’s true that one of the biggest tradeoffs between college basketball’s emphasis on the postseason and college football’s emphasis on the regular season is the quality of regular season nonconference games. Because a loss or two during the regular season for a college basketball contender isn’t the death knell that it might be for a football contender, basketball fans get some very high-quality matchups. In two of the last three basketball seasons, the national finalists had played each other earlier in the season.

But, as Feinstein unintentionally implies, those great pre-January games are little more than exhibitions because the games that get the real scrutiny are those “played the last three weeks of the season.” College basketball did itself a great disservice by marginalizing those major early-season clashes. A team’s performance in its final 12 games was one of the selection criteria used in determining the NCAA Tournament field, essentially setting aside portions of the regular season as less important.

Feinstein’s view of the three-week college basketball regular season was so entrenched in the sport that the NCAA recently had to clarify that a basketball team’s final 12 regular season games will no longer be considered as part of the selection criteria. “Parsing a particular segment of games and implying it had greater weight than others seemed misleading and inconsistent,” said SEC Commissioner and Division I Men’s Basketball Committee chair Mike Slive.

Feinstein asks, “Are the BCS apologists trying to say that the college basketball regular season has no meaning?” It’s not just the BCS apologists, John. The recent admission and correction by Slive’s committee is proof enough that even college basketball’s inner circle is struggling with the issue.

While catching up with some friends in Athens a few weeks ago, we agreed that you could pretty much say the same thing about Joe Cox as you could about new basketball coach Mark Fox: everything sounds great so far, but now let’s win some games.

Fox, for his part, has made all of the right moves. His staff makes sense. He’s reached out to the fans whether meeting with local boosters or evangelizing on the football-focused Road Tour. He’s even signed a player at a position of need and hit the recruiting trail hard in the talent-rich state of Georgia. Short of actually putting a competitive team on the court, he seems to be off to a great start.

It’s much the same for Cox. Coaches rave about his attitude and ability. His teammates speak well of his leadership. Strong marks in those intangible areas aren’t a form of homely-person-has-nice-personality; Cox has talent. Greg Biggins of Rivals.com gushed at the 2004 Elite 11 camp,

In fact, with the exception of Mark Sanchez, no one was more impressive than Cox. He won every accuracy contest during the week, showed better than average arm strength, is incredibly smart and is a natural born leader. In fact, the college counselors voted Cox as the Best Leader of the group….He drew raves from all of the college counselors because of his mature game and his keen understanding of the position.

There’s that leadership thing again. Anyway, all that’s left to do is actually take the field, as Jim Donnan was fond of saying, when the band’s playing.

The level (or lack) of experience and quality among SEC quarterbacks is a big topic this week getting play everywhere from Get the Picture to Dr. Saturday to EDSBS to TSK. Without getting too deep into that discussion, it seems that it’s a pretty normal year with a few standouts, some teams dealing with known rubbish, and a healthy group of teams hoping that their young or inexperienced (or both) quarterback is going to develop into someone who can do more than just “manage the game” (a euphemism that usually means you’d better have a strong running game and defense).

Georgia is firmly in that final group. Cox isn’t a proven quarterback yet. Yes, there’s the Colorado comeback. (Everyone remembers the Colorado game, but memories become hazy when his subsequent start at Ole Miss comes up.) Though we’ve seen Cox on the field, he’s still as unproven as any incoming Bulldog starter since David Greene in 2001.

Depending on your level of pessimism, you’ll see Georgia’s quarterback situation in one of Hinton’s scenarios:

If your team has a quality returning starter, or a long history of producing quality starters and strong candidates to continue the line (a la Aaron Corp and Taylor Potts at Southern Cal and Texas Tech, respectively), that’s one thing; you have nothing to worry about except injuries.

The vast majority of offenses are either breaking in new starters or welcoming back a so-so option they’re just hoping will emerge as a respectable within-the-offense type, in which case, don’t get your hopes up.

During the offseason I’ve seen Cox compared to every recent Georgia quarterback but Quincy Carter. The comparisons, I’ve found, have little to do with Cox and more to do with how people view the state of the program. Cox is neither Shockley nor is he Tereshinski (or Zeier or Bobo or Stafford or Preston freaking Jones), but the split is definitely there between those who see him as the next in a long line of quality starters and those who see him as a placeholder until one of the younger quarterbacks is ready.

No one’s claiming that Cox will be able to step in and duplicate the throws we saw from Stafford. We’re talking about someone in Stafford who left as the #1 draft pick after his junior season. It’s hoped instead that a more experienced and healthy offensive line will give him enough time and room to do what he’s able to do well. You don’t need a first-rounder under center to win in the SEC, but you also can’t do much with a stiff. Cox is neither, and Georgia will find out pretty quickly against some quality competition whether he’s up to the job.

How do you expect the season to go for Cox? Will his leadership and talent make him an above-average performer in a relatively weak year for SEC quarterbacks? Will he prove to be more like Snead and Tebow or Crompton and Burns? How much will he struggle with a young group of receivers? Will he make the most of his one year as starter, or could someone else finish the season at quarterback?

Matt Hinton adds a few thoughts to the SEC’s run-pass balance discussion and looks at whether the pass has overtaken the run at the national level. He touches on a fundamental point – how a game develops affects a team’s run vs. pass decisions later in the game.

What would be illustrative is to look at when teams run. If you build a first half lead through the air and then seal the game by running the entire second half, your offense will look balanced (or at least more balanced than it looked at halftime). Was it? If you had a 1,000-yard back who put up most of his yards in the second halves of blowout wins, would it make you think differently about the player? Of course not all successful teams can or do skew rushing numbers this way – some just don’t have the running game, and others keep the foot on the pedal until the scoreboard need an additional column.

On the other hand, Hinton notes, “passing is a result of losing.” If you find yourself behind often, it makes sense that you’re going to be forced to the air even if you might consider yourself balanced or even a run-first team.

Boxscores-by-half would be really useful for topics like this, but, sadly, that’s an idea that has never taken off.

Trending younger?

Eric Berry’s 13-year-old brother has committed to play for Tennessee. Of course nothing is binding until Berry signs several years down the road, and we don’t even know who the Tennessee coach will be 4 years from now.

I’m not really worried about football following down the road of basketball and getting involved in earlier and earlier recruiting. You notice how football really isn’t feeling pressure to allow one-and-dones or draft straight from high school, and it’s for the same reason we’re not going to see a slew of offers go out to high school underclassmen, let alone 13-year-olds. Whether from high school to college or college to the pros, the physical development that takes place at each level in football is just to significant to skip over.

The junior year still remains the line in the sand for most of college football recruiting. Coaches are aware of younger prospects, but it’s that late junior year and on into the summer camps where much of the action remains.

Speaking of recruiting…

Georgia’s secondary got a big boost with the commitment of Newnan’s Alec Ogletree, the nation’s top safety prospect according to Rivals.com. The comparison to Thomas Davis was used a lot over the weekend.

It’s been a fruitful couple of weeks on the recruiting trail for the Georgia defense. Will the offense make a statement of their own soon?

We do what gets rewarded

I have no doubt that Steve Spurrier’s team will meet the APR threshold that gives him a bonus. Remember, the APR only measures progress; it doesn’t measure the relative quality of that progress. Spurrier meeting the target will be the story and not the behind-the-scenes wrangling that goes on at a lot of schools to make the numbers work. That’s old news, after all.

Finally…

Law enforcement agencies in Athens used the occasion of Athfest to set up DUI checkpoints over the weekend, and 48 violators were nailed. In a sign that things might really be different this year, it looks as if no Georgia student-athletes were among the 48.

Robert Dozier, who once committed to play hoops at Georgia, was selected by the Miami Heat with the 60th and final pick in last night’s NBA Draft. For some reason, it seems oddly fitting that the closest Georgia came to the draft was a player who never actually enrolled at Georgia and who was involved in some sort of shady academic deal.

It was a weak night overall for the SEC with only a trio of players from the conference going in the second round (Meeks, Thornton, and Calathes). A couple of individual teams can claim to have had as much of an impact on the draft as the entire SEC.

Georgia’s $92.8 million deal with ISP Sports for marketing and media rights is official now. It’s a big deal on several levels. The deal represents well over 10% of athletic department revenue ($84.2 million at last report).

For comparison, Georgia Tech recently re-upped with ISP to the tune of $50 million over the life of a 10-year deal. FSU’s deal with ISP signed back in 2007 was worth a reported $66 million over ten years. Auburn’s 2006 nine-year deal with ISP was for $51.3 million. The Dawgs, on an annual basis, now have one of the highest-paying marketing deals in the nation.

Make no mistake, ISP is going to make their money back somehow. If you haven’t become numb to the barrage of advertising at Sanford Stadium yet, you won’t like what’s ahead. At least with Cingular becoming AT&T, there should be less orange and blue around. The additional time (possibly 9+ hours of total broadcast time on a football game day) added to the pregame and postgame shows will surely be advertising-heavy. I’d also expect the enhancements to online and mobile content to come with a price tag. If they can make it more reliable than G-Xtra, it might be worth it.

For many fans, the most interesting development to watch will be this one:

With the ISP deal in place, Georgia expects to announce its radio broadcast teams for the coming season soon.

Scott Howard called the football and men’s basketball play-by-play last season. Eric Zeier provided football color commentary.

“Certainly we look forward to working with the stable of folks that have been working with us before and potentially adding others into the fold,” Thomas said. “You will continue to see a lot of those that you’ve seen involved in the broadcast.”

The last line gives us a bit of hope, but I’m a little apprehensive at the direction this could take. Howard and Zeier were never going to be a permanent arrangement, but I’d be just fine leaving that intact. No one is going to replace Munson, but Howard is at least competent and, most important (to me at least), a homer and comfortable bit of continuity from the Munson days. I dread the day when some polished outsider is brought in who is bland and detatched or, worse, from the cheeseball Mick Huber mold. There are so many ways it could go bad and so many people who would be worse for the job than Scott Howard. It could have a silver lining – the broadcast team could end up being bad enough to force fans to leave the headphones at home for once and actually get into the game.

Of course there’s more to it than the guys in the booth. Sideline reporters and pregame and postgame hosts will have to be sorted out, so we’ll have to see what the announcement brings and where the changes will be made. Basketball and baseball could also see a shakeup – will Jeff Dantzler still be a part of the picture?

I also wonder about Hondo and the guys managing the broadcast network for WSB. WSB will still be the Atlanta broadcast affiliate, but the network is managed by ISP now instead of Cox/WSB. Hopefully they’ll still have a role in the new arrangement after the great work they’ve done.

Atlanta and Nashville were the big winners when the SEC announced upcoming sites for the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. Through 2014, the 2012 men’s tournament is the only event that won’t take place in the Nashville or Atlanta areas. It’s great news for Georgia fans – Atlanta and Duluth are obviously convenient, and Nashville is a 4-hour drive and an enjoyable place to spend a March weekend. If Mark Fox can build a competitive team, traveling to follow the Dawgs into the first stages of the postseason isn’t going to break the bank.

The Georgia Dome was the (initial) site of the legendary 2008 SEC men’s tournament, and the conference will tempt fate (and weather) by bringing the tournament back in 2011 and 2014.

The news is even better for Lady Dogs fans: the women’s SEC Tournament will return to Duluth’s Arena at Gwinnett Center for 2010, 2013, and 2014. Though the SEC is typically the strongest women’s basketball conference, Atlanta is the only SEC-area city with a WNBA franchise. The SEC has to hope that an increased awareness of women’s basketball in Atlanta (not to mention the short drive from Tennessee) will help to fill the seats.

Men’s Tournament future venues:

• 2010: Nashville, Tn.
• 2011: Atlanta, Ga.
• 2012: New Orleans, La.
• 2013: Nashville, Tn.
• 2014: Atlanta, Ga.

Women’s Tournament future venues:

• 2010: Duluth, Ga.
• 2011: Nashville, Tn.
• 2012: Nashville, Tn.
• 2013: Duluth, Ga.
• 2014: Duluth, Ga.

It’s news today that Georgia football brought in more money last year than any other program except Texas.

I’m not exactly sure what constitutes “football revenue”. Bowl money surely counts. Hartman Fund donations were less than $30 million, and ticket sales can’t account for more than a couple million dollars per game. Is the SEC distribution figured in? It would be interesting to see the breakdown…I’ll have to check the Hartman Fund annual report.

Though football revenue is among the best in the nation, overall revenue is “only” 13th among all programs. Football revenue accounts for 80% of what the Athletic Association brings in. Football at a school like Georgia is always going to lead the way, but it also demonstrates the problems with and potential for the other men’s sports.

Basketball is a big moneymaker for a lot of schools, but Georgia hasn’t been in a position to do much with its hoops programs lately. Demand is barely palpable, the Coliseum doesn’t offer much in the way of generating revenue (suites, sponsorship, etc.), and no postseason money is coming in. Hopefully Mark Fox will begin to change all of that; it’s certainly an expectation that’s implied by any major college coaching job. Even baseball has potential. The product is quality, but the media deal is negligible (a single local AM station), and the facility is among the smallest in the conference and becoming more outdated by the year.

It’s great that football is doing so well, but any business person knows the dangers of relying too much on a single product, vendor, or customer. In addition to increasing revenue from the other sports that have been poor performers, the Athletic Association is looking at other ways to bring in more cash.

That brings us to another story in the news: Georgia is close to signing a deal that would move its broadcasting rights from Cox/WSB to ISP Sports.

Georgia is nearing a lucrative deal with North Carolina-based ISP Sports, which currently holds the school’s marketing and sponsorship rights. Contracts have been drawn up for the extended rights deal. The deal would include radio, TV, Internet and digital content.

Under the deal with ISP, the pregame show would increase to four hours in length, and, including the game and postgame show, “the broadcast programming window would grow to at least nine hours.” That might sound like great news to those who tune in to the pregame show, but that deal’s going to have to be paid for somehow. If you think the current broadcasts and Sanford Stadium experience have become commercialized, ISP has a reputation for making that seem like an interruption-free PBS broadcast by comparison.

cocknfire over at Team Speed Kills has a look at the 2002 Sugar Bowl – an improbable matchup that turned into a high-scoring track meet. cocknfire’s post focuses on the Big Ten / SEC Sugar Bowl, but that 2001 SEC championship game he mentions might have been one of the bigger turning points in the conference this decade. It was a huge stamp of legitimacy for Nick Saban’s LSU program and was also the last time a Phil Fulmer Tennessee team would play a part in the national title picture.

It’s hard to imagine Nick Saban’s LSU program “on the brink”, but that’s where they were midway through 2001 after a loss to Ole Miss. They recovered (read the link at TSK for more), got back on track with an impressive upset win over Alabama, and went on a run to win their last six games of the season. Within the span of about six weeks, Saban went from 4-3 and still unproven as an SEC coach to the head coach of the SEC champions.

Tennessee, despite the upset home loss to Georgia early in October, had risen to #2 in the nation. They had survived trips to Tuscaloosa, South Bend, and Gainesville. The game with Florida, delayed until the end of the season by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was a thrilling 34-32 win that wasn’t just a showdown for the SEC East title; the winner would also become the presumptive favorite to earn the #2 spot in the BCS rankings. That game in itself was a bit of a turning point – instead of playing for another SEC and national title, Steve Spurrier’s Gators had to settle for an at-large bid to the Orange Bowl. Spurrier announced his decision to leave for the NFL a few months later, and it was the beginning of a few lean years for Florida fans.

After surviving those road tests and Spurrier’s last stand, a win over #20 LSU was supposed to be a formality for Tennessee, and Vol fans were making plans to head to Pasadena for a Rose Bowl clash with #1 Miami.

The 2001 SEC championship game opened with a first quarter LSU touchdown, but the Vols exploded for 17 points in the second quarter to take a 17-10 lead into the locker room. LSU inched closer with a pair of third quarter field goals but still trailed by a point entering the final period. Freshman quarterback Matt Mauck’s second rushing touchdown of the day put the Tigers up for good less than a minute into the fourth quarter following a critical Travis Stephens fumble. Domanick Davis sealed the win a one-yard touchdown run with just over two minutes left after a long six-minute drive.

The story of the game, other than Mauck’s just-good-enough relief of injured starter Rohan Davey, was LSU holding the SEC’s top rusher, Travis Stephens, to just 37 yards on the ground. The Vols did some damage through the air, but the inability to convert on the ground cost them when they missed out on a chance to answer LSU’s go-ahead score. Tennessee drove down the field and set up a 1st-and-goal at the LSU 4. No longer trusting the ground game, Tennessee’s coaches called three passes, and quarterback Casey Clausen threw three straight incompletions. Instead of tying the game with a touchdown, the Vols had to settle for a short field goal and still trailed.

The game remains the only instance out of eight opportunities since 1992 where an SEC team in line to play for the national title lost the SEC championship game. Since that pivotal game, LSU went on to win three more SEC West titles, two more SEC championships, and two national titles. They even survived a coaching change along the way. Tennessee managed to return to the SEC championship game in 2004 and 2007, but they were clear underdogs each time and couldn’t upset the 2004 undefeated Auburn team or the 2007 national champion LSU team. The Vols never again finished in the top 10 under Fulmer and were even left out of the final poll in three of the next seven years.

Can you think of many other games in recent SEC history that sent the two teams in such different directions? The 2006 Florida “jump pass” win over LSU was certainly a key moment in the rise of Urban Meyer’s Florida program, but LSU rebounded to beat Florida and win the national title the following year.

Seven UGA student-athletes won individual NCAA titles over the past academic year:

• Chris Hill repeated as javelin champion over the weekend with a throw that was 20 feet longer than the next best.
• Courtney Kupets (four individual gymnastics titles)
• Haylie Jayne (equestrian)
• Allison Schmitt (swimming – 500 freestyle)
• Wendy Trott (swimming – 1,650 freestyle)
• Troyden Prinsloo (swimming – 1,650 freestyle)
• Neil Versfeld (swimming – 200 breaststroke)

It’s Tennessee week over at Team Speed Kills, one of our favorite pan-SEC blogs.

Anthony Dasher of UGASports.com reports on a new SEC ruling “that will no longer permit media or scouting services to attend summer sports camps.” The NCAA is expected “in the near future” to “issue an interpretation dealing with NCAA Bylaw 13.10.5 and the concept of the media taking pictures of and/or filming PSAs at institutional camps,” according to SEC Associate Commissioner for Compliance Greg Sankey. Sankey continues,

“An institution has an obligation to preclude the presence of media (including scouting services) at its institutional camps for the purpose of writing stories, filming and/or taking pictures of PSAs, as those actions are contrary to bylaw 13.10.5. This would include the aforementioned activities taking place from a location that is open to the general public and on any occasion, regardless of whether the institution invited the media to attend.

…we advise you to immediately notify media outlets they are not permitted to be present at institutional camps. Otherwise, media activity around camps may result in a rules violation and penalties that could limit recruiting opportunities with involved prospects.”

At first glance, this ruling might just appear to be aimed at recruiting services and their notoriously zealous coverage. But stepping back, why would the SEC in particular care to be proactive about keeping the media away from on-campus events where coaches and prospects mingle? After all, the NCAA hasn’t even finalized its interpretation yet. Sankey’s statement concludes,

“While this is a “mid-course correction” to application of Bylaw 13.10.5, keep in mind that camps were never intended to be promotional and/or publicity opportunities related to prospective student-athletes. Camps are intended to be instructional opportunities. However, it has become clear that media activity around camps has overshadowed the camps’ purpose, which is the reason for this modification.”

It’s odd: it’s not as if any SEC schools have been in the news recently for trouble related to media coverage of contact between prospects and coaches.

The 2010 game at Colorado might be standing in the way of Georgia opening the season at the Georgia Dome (not necessarily a bad thing), but I’m looking forward to seeing a game in a setting like this:

Photo comes from National Geographic’s Photo of the Day site.

HeismanPundit takes Georgia associate AD Arthur Johnson to task for Johnson’s candid comments about how an SEC program looks at scheduling. The title of his post is tongue-in-cheek of course, but it does raise the issue of the incentives that guide the behavior of many of the nation’s top programs.

HP’s site is valuable and his analysis (of the Heisman landscape) typically accurate because, as he frequently must explain to critics, “I analyze the Heisman race in the context of how it is, not how it should be.” Fair enough, right? You might not like that the Heisman more or less ignores defense or favors certain schools, but you have to accept those realities if you hope to follow the Heisman race with any kind of perspective, insight, and accuracy.

With that maxim guiding his site, you’d expect him to recognize that Johnson’s comments are cut from the same cloth. It’s not the job of Johnson and his peers to schedule in a way that would sit well with fans of the game. The incentive system for major college football programs – as it is – values wins (or, more correctly, lack of losses) far more than strength of schedule. It’s one of the tradeoffs of making the regular season count for so much. Teams schedule accordingly.

If scheduling reform is necessary, it’s because incentives are out of balance. When you look at what gets rewarded, Johnson’s approach is completely rational. Strength of schedule *is* overrated. Even when it’s a question of deciding who plays for the national title, other factors like conference championships or poll position often come in to play before strength of schedule. Additional wins for major conference teams mean higher rankings, bowl games, TV appearances, and money. If you can do it at home and collect the gate receipts, all the better. That the Pac-10 would consider dropping its round-robin schedule in the pursuit of more bowl-eligible teams shows how strong the pull of the financial incentives are.

Bringing about more attractive or aggressive schedules means either changing the incentives or compelling teams through top-down rules to schedule in ways that are contrary to the current incentives. Unfortunately, the same conference-based organizational structure that works so well as a money-making machine would surely be as resistant to further scheduling restrictions as it was to the idea of Congress meddling with the BCS.

As an aside, Johnson’s best comment was this:

You’d love to have a national name [opponent] that’s in a valley one of these years. It still looks great. You just don’t know when people are going to be up and down.

It’s so true. How much credit is Georgia getting for scheduling mediocre Arizona State and Colorado teams?

Since we’re in off-season if-I-were-king mode…if you really want the best regular season schedule, take HP’s 10-team conference model and use relegation to determine membership instead of geography. You’d have nine conference games and can use the other three on regional rivals in other divisions or however else you’d like. Scheduling wouldn’t matter – winning the first division (or earning promotion) would be what it’s all about. And what matchups every week…

You won’t find Paul Johnson and I agreeing on much, but both of us understand that the Atlanta Sports Council bringing in SEC and ACC rivals to the Georgia Dome for the Kickoff Classic isn’t doing the local programs any favors.

“Helps the teams that are playing in it, no question,” Johnson said. “Doesn’t do anything for us or Georgia. When you bring in teams in your own conference to showcase them every year in a kickoff game, it’s got to help them recruit the area.”

The quick reaction is to point out that Georgia or Georgia Tech could just as well participate, but doing so would still be less optimal than simply hosting a quality home game at which either program could actually host area prospects.