Andy Landers’ squad enjoyed the relatively close destinations of Auburn and Tallahassee in the opening rounds of the two most recent NCAA Tournaments. This year, for their 19th consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance, they’ll be sent about as far from Athens as possible.

The Lady Dogs earned the 4-seed in the Spokane Regional of the 2013 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Georgia will open on Saturday evening at 6:30 p.m. ET (ESPN2) against 13-seed Montana in Spokane, Wash. at the McCarthey Athletic Center – the home court of Gonzaga. The winner will advance to Monday’s second round game against the winner of 5-seed Iowa State and 12-seed, and host, Gonzaga.

Should Georgia advance to the Sweet 16, they’ll be right back in Spokane a week later – this time at Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena, the host site of the regional. It’s doubtful that the team would miss a week of classes to remain out west, so they could be facing consecutive coast-to-coast trips. Three seasons ago the team was sent to Tempe, Ariz. for the opening rounds, returned to Athens, and flew back out to Sacramento for the regional.

They’ll have to take care of business before worrying about frequent-flier miles. Georgia, given a high seed and a venue close to home, didn’t survive the first round a year ago. That loss to Marist should be fresh in the minds of a senior-laden Lady Bulldog team. Georgia faced Montana in 2000 when the opening round was hosted in Athens. The top-seeded Lady Dogs rolled 74-46. The setting won’t be as friendly for this meeting.

The Lady Dogs should expect to feel very much like the visiting team in Spokane. The University of Montana is only a three-hour drive from Spokane. Gonzaga, on their home court, will be a dangerous 12-seed for any of the other three teams. They’ve reached the Sweet 16 in three consecutive seasons. For the past two seasons, they’ve hosted as an 11-seed and ended up knocking off two teams with 3-seeds en route to the regional. Georgia has been fortunate over the past three seasons to host or play at a venue where the host team didn’t qualify for the tournament.

Georgia is the top seed in the Spokane group for the first two rounds. The top three seeds in the region are Stanford, California, and Penn State.

Led by Jasmine Hassell’s 19 points, the third-seeded Georgia Lady Dogs cooled off the SEC’s hottest team, #6 seed LSU, 71-53 in Friday night’s quarterfinal of the SEC Tournament. LSU had won seven straight games, starting with a 62-54 win over Georgia in Baton Rouge in early February.

All five Georgia starters scored in double figures and the team shot over 45% from the floor in a welcome show of firepower. The Lady Dogs hit two three-pointers to open the scoring and never trailed. Georgia led by ten at halftime, came out firing after intermission, and eventually led by as many as 28 points.

LSU, already down to eight players entering the postseason, took another hit when forward Shanece McKinney suffered an apparent concussion during the first half. The Tigers were taken to the buzzer by Auburn in Thursday’s opening round, and the thin roster wasn’t able to hold up against a Georgia team fresh off an opening round bye. The Lady Dogs were able to show off their depth and play 12 players thanks to the large lead.

Georgia advances to face second-seeded Kentucky in the second semifinal on Saturday. Tip-off will be just after 6:00. Georgia broke a 34-game Kentucky home win streak in February with a tight 75-71 comeback victory, and they know that Kentucky will be looking for redemption for one of their few losses. The Lady Dogs trailed by 10 at halftime in Lexington but exploded for 45 second half points. Khaalidah Miller was the star, posting a career-high 25 points and handling the point guard duties once Jasmine James headed to the bench with early foul trouble.

The Wildcats will present challenges on both ends of the court. Their trademark pressure defense forced 26 Georgia turnovers in Lexington, but opportunities are there if you can break the pressure. The Kentucky offense is no picnic either. Not only do they create transition chances out of their defense, but they can be efficient in the halfcourt game also. Jennifer O’Neill and A’dia Mathies will score from the guard position, but they can find Samarie Walker and DeNesha Stallworth inside. Kentucky had a fairly easy time of it with Vanderbilt in their quarterfinal, and they’ll be well-rested for Georgia. The Wildcats had 10 players play at least 12 minutes against Vandy.

The SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament is back at the Gwinnett Arena in Duluth this week after a couple of years in Nashville. We’ll be there all week, and each year we like to look around the conference before things tip off. You can follow us @dawgsonline for updates from the arena.

It’s a new era for the conference and the tournament. Three programs have first-year coaches. The conference has welcomed two new teams, and that means an extra day is added to the format. The bottom two seeds, Mississippi State and Alabama, have the ignominy of playing in the SEC’s first play-in game (obligatory “Les Robinson Invitational” shout-out). The winner will advance to Thursday to face #5 seed South Carolina.

There hasn’t been a dominant team this year, and that should make for a fun and competitive tournament. I could see anyone seeded 1-6 winning the tournament – #6 seed LSU is the hottest team in the league right now. Mississippi State has beaten Georgia, Missouri has beaten Tennessee, and a good South Carolina team isn’t even among the top four.

Georgia enters the tournament looking to send an accomplished senior class out with a title. The 2012 season ended with disappointment – Georgia was the #3 seed last year also, but they lost their first game in both the SEC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament. There was optimism that the loaded senior class would carry the Lady Dogs to a conference title, and they have some impressive wins over teams like South Carolina and Kentucky. Some flat performances on the road at LSU and Mississippi State cost them a share of the championship. They’ve played well enough to make a run in this tournament, but they’ve also been inconsistent enough to make any game a toss-up.

Georgia’s Path Through the Tournament:

• Wednesday and Thursday / First Round: Bye
• Friday / Quarterfinals: vs. LSU-Auburn winner, ~8:30 p.m. ET. SportsSouth
• Saturday / Semifinals: ~6:00 p.m. ET. ESPNU
• Sunday / Finals: 6:00 p.m. ET. ESPN2

Complete Bracket Here

The Field:

1. Tennessee (12-2, 23-6): It’s rarely a surprise to see Tennessee as the top seed, but it kind of is this year. The Lady Vols lost five starters, returned only three upperclassmen, and – of course – started their first season since 1974 without Pat Summitt on the bench. They were actually picked to finish fifth by preseason polling. So while it’s easy to overlook the job that first year head coach Holly Warlick has done as just Tennessee being Tennessee, it’s a significant accomplishment to have her young team play to the standard set by the program.

It hasn’t been a smooth ride. A season-opening loss to Chattanooga raised a lot of eyebrows. The Lady Vols have played their usual challenging schedule and have come up short against the nation’s elite teams. They’ve survived scares against Florida, LSU, and Arkansas and still have the capability of putting up a head-scratching loss as they did at Missouri. They’re not going to challege for the national title, but they’ve still done enough to emerge as the team to beat heading into Duluth.

The Lady Vols start with junior guard Meighan Simmons. She’s the SEC’s leading scorer and the team’s emotional leader. Freshman Bashaara Graves has stepped up as the post presence the team had to have. Massengale and Spani are important role players at guard, and Kamiko Williams and Cierra Burdick have come on strong at the end of the season.

2. Kentucky (13-3, 25-4): The Wildcats were the preseason pick to win the conference, and they came close. They started the season 18-1 with the sole loss coming to #1 Baylor. They’ve only lost three times in conference – all to respectable teams (Georgia, South Carolina, and LSU) and all by five points or less. That thin margin was enough to bump UK to the second seed, and only Georgia’s improbable loss at Mississippi State kept UK from falling to the #3 seed. Though Kentucky lost to LSU recently, they still finished strong with wins over ranked South Carolina, Texas A&M, and Tennessee teams. The Wildcats pulled away from Tennessee in the regular season finale and served notice that the top seed might not be the favorite to win the tournament.

Kentucky is loaded with talent. Senior guard A’Dia Mathies has been the constant during the rapid rise of the Kentucky program. She’s aided on the perimeter by Jennifer O’Neill. The guards have plenty of help inside – Samarie Walker and DeNesha Stallworth have to be accounted for. Kentucky’s style is characterized by relentless pressure that has them tops in both steals and turnover margin. If teams can break the pressure, there’s opportunity for favorable numbers, but that’s easier said than done.

3. Georgia (12-4, 24-5): Georgia is another team that thrives on its defense. The Lady Dogs are second only to Kentucky in steals and turnover margin, and they thrive on creating points from those turnovers. They’re among the top three in scoring defense and opponent shooting percentage.

The senior trio of Hassell, Armstrong, and James often sets the tone on defense, but they’re not always among the team’s leading scorers. Hassell has been great down the stretch both in scoring and rebounding. The production of James and Armstrong can vary wildly. Georgia’s depth has been bolstered by a strong freshman class. Shacobia Barbee, Merritt Hempe, and Tiaria Griffin will see lots of time. Thanks to the contributions of the freshmen, Georgia should be fresher entering the postseason than they’ve been in years.

Georgia’s weakness is a big one: they don’t shoot the ball all that well. They’re 9th in overall shooting percentage (40.5%), 11th in three-point percentage (27.9%), and 10th in free throw percentage (66.8%). Considering that those numbers are inflated by the volume of transition chances created by the defense, halfcourt offense can be an adventure for Georgia. The defense has been good enough to cover for several sluggish nights shooting the ball, but it has cost them in some puzzling upset losses (Illinois and Mississippi State).

4. Texas A&M (11-5, 21-9): Which SEC school has the most recent national title in women’s hoops? Not so fast, Tennessee. The addition of A&M to the SEC made big waves in football of course, but the Aggies have also been a recent powerhouse in this sport. A&M imported coach Gary Blair from Arkansas, and he built a program that broke through for a national championship two years ago. Conference re-alignment brought Blair right back into the SEC, and his team roared out to a 10-1 start in the conference. The Aggies have stumbled recently, losing four of their last five. They’ve been competitive in nearly every loss, but the sheer number of losses and the late slide took them from the brink of a title to the fourth seed. A win over South Carolina could set up a semifinal showdown with Tennessee and a chance to recapture some of the momentum and stature they enjoyed a few weeks ago.

This is still a very dangerous team. South Carolina transfer Kelsey Bone is perhaps the SEC’s most dominant frontcourt player on offense. She’s third in scoring, second in rebounding, and tops in field goal percentage. Few teams can match up well with her, and the Aggies have guards, especially Courtney Walker, that can make teams pay for showing too much attention to Bone. The Aggies don’t have to attempt a lot of outside shots – no team has attempted fewer three-pointers – but they’re tops in the league (36.3%) at hitting them. But if the backcourt is misfiring, as they did in the season-ender against LSU (0-of-8 from outside), not even Bone can carry the Aggies past better teams.

5. South Carolina (11-5, 23-6): Dawn Staley’s team took a big step forward last year with a Sweet 16 run. Their style is consistent: low-scoring, grinding defensive battles. They’re tops in the SEC in scoring defense and next-to-last in scoring offense. It won’t be aesthetically pleasing, but the formula has worked to lift the Gamecocks from the basement to a team that’s often right around the 4 or 5 seed and a lock for the NCAA Tournament.

South Carolina is built on attacking the basket – they drive and crash the boards. They don’t shoot well, but they’re tops in the SEC in rebounding margin. Forwards Aleighsa Welch and Ashley Bruner are the top scorers and rebounders, and Ieasia Walker is the top threat from outside. If South Carolina survives their Thursday game, and they will, Friday’s quarterfinal with A&M will be a war. Only two points separated the teams in an earlier meeting won by A&M. The Bone storyline will be a big one, and both teams take pride in defense.

6. LSU (10-6, 19-10): If it’s the end of the season, LSU must be on a winning streak. A year ago they won six of their final seven regular season games and rolled on into the SEC championship game. This year they enter the tournament as the conference’s hottest team and winners of their last six games. A heartbreaking home loss to Tennessee on February 7th dropped LSU to 4-6 in league play and 13-10 overall. They’ve turned it around and are on a six-game tear that includes wins over Georgia, Kentucky, and Texas A&M.

Forward Theresa Plaisance has taken a big step forward in her junior year. The former McDonald’s All-American struggled as a freshman and only tallied just over 2 points per game. She came off the bench as a sophomore and improved slightly to 4.5 PPG. She’s now right at the top of the SEC scoring chart at 17.6 points per game. She’s also among the top ten in rebounding and leads the SEC in blocked shots. Teams can’t afford to pay too much attention to Plaisance because Adrienne Webb is a credible perimeter threat. Danielle Ballard is the likely SEC Freshman of the Year and posted consecutive double-doubles to end the season. Ballard stands out as a freshman for making the hustle plays – she’s an effective rebounder from the guard position and leads the SEC in steals.

7. Vanderbilt (9-7, 19-10): It’s an exaggeration to say that Vandy has had a disappointing season, but they’ve struggled to gain much momentum this year. They have a big non-conference win over Oklahoma, and a recent upset of A&M might’ve been the win that clinches their spot in the NCAA Tournament. But Vanderbilt went from early January to the last week of the season without consecutive conference wins. The Vanderbilt offense flows through senior forward Tiffany Clarke, and Jasmine Lister is a veteran point guard. Another experienced guard, Christina Foggie, is working back from an injury.

Vanderbilt’s opening opponent, Missouri, will be a concern only if the Tigers can get hot from outside. That plays into Vanderbilt’s strength – they’re the SEC’s top defense against the three-pointer. Vandy did a great job taking away this element of Missouri’s game when the teams met in Nashville. Mizzou was a horrid 4-of-27 from outside, and Vanderbilt came away with an uneventful win. We expect a similar result on Thursday as a loss to Missouri would do serious damage to Vanderbilt’s postseason hopes.

8. Arkansas (6-10, 18-11): Arkansas followed a familiar pattern of starting the season strong and then struggling to sustain success in SEC play. They started 12-1 and notched a win over then-#17 Kansas. Fayetteville proved to be a tough place to play, as usual, but Arkansas couldn’t close out home upset opportunities against Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Six of their ten SEC losses have been by six points or less, but those losses might be enough to keep them from a consecutive NCAA Tournament bid.

The Hogs are led by a pair of versatile forwards who can score inside or outside. Sarah Watkins is Arkansas’ leading scorer, and Quistelle Williams has continued the form she showed in last year’s NCAA Tournament. She’s prone to foul trouble, though. The Razorbacks succeed with defense – only South Carolina does a better job limiting opponent field goal percentage.

9. Florida (6-10, 17-13): It’s been a frustrating year for Amanda Butler’s squad. There’s some good talent – Jennifer George is an experienced forward, Jaterra Bonds is a capable guard, and Sydney Moss has emerged as one of the conference’s top freshmen. It just hasn’t been enough – there’s a nice early win over LSU before the Tigers caught fire, but the rest of Florida’s SEC wins have come against the bottom of the league. It’s not that they haven’t been competitive – seven of their ten conference losses have been within ten points. The biggest problem has been on defense where they rank 12th in scoring defense.

There’s reason for optimism – at least on Thursday. Florida had a relatively easy time with Arkansas in Gainesville a week ago, and they held the Razorbacks to just 31% from the floor. If Florida can defend that well on a neutral floor, they have a good chance to advance to a rematch with Tennessee – a team Florida took to overtime earlier in the season.

10. Missouri (6-10, 17-13): As with football, Missouri didn’t have quite the impact on the SEC that Texas A&M had. Still, Columbia proved to be a dangerous place for some of the conference’s best teams. Tennessee and South Carolina both lost on Missouri’s home court. The key for Missouri is simple: outside shooting. Mizzou hit a school-record 253 three-pointers this year – no other SEC school made more than 200. In their February 3rd upset of Tennessee, Missouri drilled 11 three-pointers. They concluded the regular season hitting 13-of-28 three-pointers against Bama.

The good news for Vanderbilt, Missouri’s first-round opponent, is that Missouri’s excellent shooting has been hard to come by away from home. They have a pair of road wins against poor Alabama and Ole Miss teams, but five of their six road losses were by 15 points or more. Morgan Eye is the SEC’s top three-point shooter at nearly 42%, and she and forward Bri Kulas will have to be on fire for Missouri to have a chance of advancing.

11. Auburn (5-11, 16-13): Former Georgia assistant Terri Williams-Flournoy was hired from Georgetown to take over head coaching duties at Auburn. It’s been a rough debut for a coach who built Georgetown into a respectable program. To be fair, Williams-Flournoy hasn’t had a lot with which to work. The Tigers won the regular season finale against Mississippi State and avoided Wednesday’s play-in game.

Auburn has good size – 6’1″ guard Hasina Muhammad leads the team in scoring but prefers to work inside the arc. Wing Blanche Alverson is a capable threat from outside. Sisters Tyrese and Tra’Cee Tanner contribute in the frontcourt.

12. Mississippi State (5-11, 13-16): The Bulldogs also welcomed a new coach. Vic Schaefer was the respected “defensive coordinator” for Gary Blair’s Arkansas and Texas A&M programs, and he’s been working towards this opportunity for a long time.

The Bulldogs dropped their first six SEC games, but they’ve gone .500 since. They won four of their last five home games, including wins over Arkansas and Georgia. Schaefer hasn’t had the raw material to craft a defense comparable to what he had at A&M, but there has been some progress by one player in particular. Center Martha Alwal leads the league in rebounding and is second in blocks.

13. Alabama (2-14, 12-17): It’s been another year at the bottom of the conference for Alabama. They won a couple of early SEC games against Ole Miss and Auburn, but they’ve lost their last ten. The Tide are at or near the bottom in shooting percentage offense and defense, and that’s about all you need to know. Mississippi State hasn’t had a great year, but it would be a mild upset for Alabama to win on Wednesday.

Hey, wait, aren’t there 14 SEC teams?

Yep. One team, Ole Miss, won’t even make the trip. An investigation into “recruiting and academic misconduct” led to the dismissal of the head coach and several staffers entering this season. The school also self-imposed sanctions including a one-year postseason ban. That self-imposed ban will leave us one team short in Duluth.

Junior linebacker Alec Ogletree will be in the NFL next season, and we learned today that his brother Zander will leave the team because of “medical concerns.” He will remain in school and on scholarship.

Zander’s career was one of the more puzzling ones to track. He played in every game (as a reserve) in his sophomore season, and he seemed poised to enter 2012 as the starting fullback. We got almost daily updates about the early-season suspensions on the defensive side of the ball, but apparently Zander sat without much fanfare during that time too. Rambo, Alec Ogletree, and the others on defense stepped right back into their roles upon returning from suspension, but Zander found himself displaced by a mix of players up to and including walk-on Merritt Hall. We asked after the Kentucky game whether we’d seen the last of Zander.

Then came the Florida game. Ogletree re-emerged in Jacksonville to catch two passes from the fullback spot. He built on that performance against Ole Miss with two more receptions and a run that would turn out to be the only touchdown of his career. He saw a couple of more carries against Georgia Southern but faded as the season ended.

We wondered a bit when Georgia got a commitment from Augusta RB/FB Brendan Douglas at the end of January, and some rumors about Ogletree’s future came out not long after. We’re glad to learn that Ogletree remains in good standing and will continue in school and that he hasn’t been dismissed from the team. This news does make more sense out of the Douglas signing – it fills the roster spot left by Ogletree, and it leads us to believe that Ogletree’s future had been thought about as long as a month ago.

The fullback position will look again to Merritt Hall, its most experienced returning player. We also expect to see big strides from Quayvon Hicks whose reputation as a solid and fearless hitter turned heads in preseason camp last season. Of course Douglas will be in the mix too, but he could very well redshirt.

As the ACC schedules were announced on Monday, we learned that South Carolina’s season opener with North Carolina would be moved to Thursday night, Aug. 29th. ESPN is credited with arranging the move.

I’m probably not the only person who assumed this was set as a Thursday game already – it’s been a popular and successful setting for South Carolina to open the season. The Gamecocks have had a Thursday opener six times in eight seasons under Steve Spurrier, and they’re a perfect 6-0 in those games.

The new date gives South Carolina an additional two days to rest and prepare for their Sept. 7th trip to Athens to open SEC play against Georgia, but does it matter? The Gamecocks are just 1-4 in the Spurrier era when they face Georgia in the week following a Thursday game. They’re 3-0 under Spurrier when they’ve had the usual week to prepare for the Dawgs. Now had Georgia entertained the idea of moving the Clemson game to Labor Day…

For Andy Landers, an uneventful win at Ole Miss is newsworthy. Despite the vast gulf in class between the two programs over the years, Oxford has always been a bit of a tar pit for the Lady Dogs. Georgia entered Sunday’s game just one game over .500 in 15 games at Mississippi. But a pair of double-digit runs to start each half (13-0 in the first half and 12-0 in the second) put to rest any concerns of an upset. Andy Landers notched his 900th career victory with a 73-54 win over Ole Miss. Georgia has won three in a row and stands at 23-4 overall and 11-3 in SEC play, good enough for a tie for second place in the conference.

The Lady Dogs enter the final week of the regular season with a good shot at claiming second place outright thanks to Sunday losses by Kentucky and Texas A&M. Georgia is currently tied with those two teams at 11-3, but the schedule is much more favorable for Georgia. Kentucky and A&M both face Tennessee this week while Georgia’s toughest test will come on Sunday at home against Vanderbilt. Tennessee has had some shaky moments though, and there’s a small but not insignificant chance that we could see a four-way tie for first place at 13-3.

First things first, though. Georgia has to do its part and handle its final two games. Road trips are never a given (see Tennessee’s improbable loss at Missouri), and Mississippi State has won three of its last four home games. It should at the very least be a tougher game than Ole Miss was. Vanderbilt is going through some rebuilding this year, but they’ve begun to figure things out. They’ve won two in a row with attention-getting wins over Florida and Texas A&M. Georgia will host Vandy on Sunday in what figures to be a very emotional Senior Day. The Lady Dogs will bid farewell to seven seniors, and you never know how the team will respond.

One of those seniors has been the constant during Georgia’s streak of seven wins in their last eight games. Forward Jasmine Hassell has posted four double-doubles over the last five games, most recently 23 points and 10 rebounds at Ole Miss. Though the seniors will be in the spotlight on Sunday, an outstanding freshman class has made a big difference on this year’s team. Tiaria Griffin added 12 points at Ole Miss, and Shacobia Barbee earned SEC Freshman of the Week honors for strong games against Arkansas and Ole Miss. The contribution of the freshmen make this team fairly deep – an unusual luxury for an Andy Landers squad – but they’ll need more consistent offense from seniors Jasmine James and Anne Marie Armstrong to be a postseason contender.

The SEC Tournament begins next week in Duluth, and Georgia will have the small advantage of being the “home” team in any game not involving Tennessee. Georgia’s seeding and the rest of the SEC standings should be determined by Sunday evening.

In addition to wanting more rotation along the defensive line, Todd Grantham also had something to say about the inside linebacker position. I don’t know if there was a more turbulent position on the team in 2012 than ILB. Ogletree was a rock, but even his four-game suspension factored into the story.

We began to hear a lot about the position’s role in communication among defenders. It’s the job of a middle linebacker to identify the offense’s formations and get the defense adjusted and lined up correctly. In 2012 you had a situation where the more experienced players who could do a better job aligning the defense weren’t necessarily the best athletes or tacklers, and a younger player like Amarlo Herrera was better at making the plays but maybe not as good at quarterbacking the defense.

This issue came to a head in Shawn Williams’ midseason tirade. The “soft” challenge to his fellow defenders got the most attention, but Williams also had some things to say about the inside linebacker position.

“As a player, that’s what I want. I want to see Amarlo Herrera and Ogletree in the game at inside linebacker. I don’t want to see anybody taking them out of there. I feel those are two guys who will go out and give everything they’ve got, even if they mess up. I feel they will get to the ball. That’s what we need – get to the ball.”

That statement might’ve ruffled some feathers inside the locker room, especially since Williams implied that two seniors, Gilliard and Robinson, should see less time on the field in order to get Herrera out there. But that got to the point – was it more important to “get to the ball” as Williams put it, or did the larger responsibilities of the position matter enough to keep the allocation of playing time as it was? Gilliard was no slouch, and Robinson thrived against the option teams late in the season, but here we are talking about the need to improve the defense against the run.

Herrera saw plenty of playing time of course. He started nine games, and he was fifth on the team with 70 tackles (second behind only Ogletree among inside linebackers). That doesn’t mean that the issue was settled: though he forced a fumble on special teams in the SEC Championship, the defensive coaches didn’t use him much even as Alabama’s running game got going. He finished with only two tackles in the game.

I think Herrera is emerging as one of the most important keys to the success of the 2013 defense. With Gilliard, Robinson, and Ogletree gone, Herrera enters his junior year as the most experienced ILB. He can make the tackles, and now his leadership and analytical abilities will be tested. If Grantham is looking to this position to help improve the defense’s success against the run, Herrera’s role is central.

Blutarsky highlights a Todd Grantham interview with Chris Low, and a few things jumped out at me from Grantham’s prescription for getting better against the run. The first is this imperative for the defensive line: “We’ve got to play more players up front and keep them fresh.”

Much of the attention given to Rodney Garner’s departure has focused on recruiting, but the change is also an opportunity to take stock of the defensive line, and that includes a look at the rotation. In a discussion about defending the option offense, Rodney Garner gave some insight into his approach to rotating linemen:

Garner has no desire to play a lineman he does not have faith in simply to give one of the regulars a breather.

“Obviously if you’ve got more depth that you can have that’s quality depth that you feel like you can win with and compete with, I think that’s good. But I think people think it’s real easy to play a bunch of people,” Garner said. “Well, the game’s always on the line. People can score like that, so you’re constantly trying to put guys out there that give you a chance to win it, to finish, that you have confidence in…We’re all creatures of habit, so if I’m confident and I know this guy right here’s going to do his assignment, then obviously you want to go with that guy that you know. With such-and-such, ‘Well he’s 50-50,’ you play the odds.”

That makes sense – you don’t want to put a liability out there just for the sake of resting a starter who, even tired, might be the better choice over a fresh reserve. At the same time, Garner was infamous for his “doghouse“, and there’s a difference between “playing the odds” as Garner put it and just not trusting your players. One early thing to watch with new line coach Chris Wilson is whether the defense takes a few more chances with playing reserves. Grantham is the coordinator, but substitution decisions are often left to the position coach. We’ll see if a new position coach is more amenable to Grantham’s vision than the entrenched guy was.

Each season starts with fresh hope and promise, and so it is with the 2013 Diamond Dawgs. But a trip back to last May is sobering. A late-season collapse kept the team from making the NCAA Tournament even after a 10-1 start and a top-ten ranking. The evaluation of the season even prompted a defense of the program by AD Greg McGarity – one that included a puzzling statement about Georgia’s expectations to compete against the teams at the top of the league.

Georgia could be good this year, and the return of Kyle Farmer fuels that optimism. A deeper pitching staff will have to carry an offense that still doesn’t look to have a ton of power. The question is whether “good” will be “good enough.” The Dawgs are projected to finish fifth in the seven-team SEC East, and it could be another season on the bubble. If that kind of season pans out, it’s hard to imagine Greg McGarity having the same certainty about the leadership of the program.

The Georgia Athletic Association Board of Directors met on Tuesday, and as usual there’s some news:

Richt rewarded

Mark Richt has navigated some difficult seasons to produce back-to-back SEC East champions, and his compensation has been increased by about $400,000 to $3.2 million as a result. The raise is appropriate – it’s enough to acknowledge the performance of the program over the past two seasons, but it also doesn’t go crazy and put Georgia at the bleeding edge of SEC (and national) salaries.

Richt might consider passing on some of his raise to one of his former players. Shawn Williams’ role in the 2012 turnaround continues to get praise from no less than Richt’s boss. “Kentucky was a tough, tough game,” said athletics director Greg McGarity. “And then Shawn Williams stepped in, and made a few comments, and it just kind of seem to turn the tide….He’s one of my favorite players of all time.”

Richt and his staff now have the job of making the changes brought on by Williams’ leadership a lasting part of the program rather than a one-off push as the finish to the 2007 season turned out to be. There was no news concerning adjustments for the assistants, but AD Greg McGarity expects to discuss that with Richt soon.

Student Tickets

Student attendence has been an issue since the 2011 season, and the school took steps in 2012 to rework the priority system and get tickets into the hands of students who wanted to come to games. But it was clear that the student section was just too large to begin with, and that’s been addressed now.

Georgia will take 2,000 student tickets and set them aside for a new “Young Alumni Program” designed to get recent alums (within the past five years) on the road to becoming renewable season ticket holders. The young alums will have no donation requirement the first year they buy tickets. This is similar to a program that was available when I graduated in the 1990s that subsidized the required donation for the first couple of years, but I guess that program had been ended at some point.

Anyway, this is a win all around. The student section gets reduced to about 16,000 seats (though, on average, fewer than 12,000 students have attended each game since 2009.) The school now has a way to reach out to the next generation of season ticket holders for whom the initial donation might’ve made the leap from student tickets to season tickets too steep. And though the school misses out on an initial donation from these recent alums, it still receives full face value for those tickets. The school will receive $448,000 a year in additional revenue (assuming a seven-game home schedule) by selling these 2,000 tickets at $40 face value rather than selling them to students at $8 per game.

Also of note

Fans visiting Foley Field this year will see welcome improvements to the facility even if a more ambitious overhaul or replacement is still needed down the road. The athletic department also boasts a stable and strong financial position, and the news is also positive on the academic front.

The suggestion that Jadeveon Clowney should skip his junior season in order to train and avoid the risk of an in-game injury does seem silly, and it was roundly dismissed by both Clowney and his coach.

But watching Nerlens Noel go down last night, I couldn’t help but think of the Clowney story. Noel and Clowney are two student-athletes playing amateur ball at a professional level for no other reason than the barriers to entry erected by their respective professional leagues. Certainly they receive the benefits of development and exposure playing for high-profile college programs, but there’s no question that they’d be snapped up tomorrow by professional teams if eligible.

We’ve already seen Brandon Jennings’ long way around the one-and-done rule in basketball, but not many others have followed his lead. And why should they? For the elite basketball player, a one-and-done season isn’t a bad deal – with a good season and a tournament run, your profile is much higher than it was coming out of high school. Yes, players like Maurice Clarett have tried to work around the restrictions, but it’s not something that you’re used to hearing from someone in good standing, as it were.

I think the Clowney decision is the correct one – there’s something about commitment to a team and the experience that can’t be replaced, as Spurrier points out. Even if Clowney took the year off from competitive football to take an advance on future earnings and just focus on training, injuries are still possible. I just wouldn’t be surprised for someone in the near future to take a more serious look at stepping away from college football after a high draft status is wrapped up (and, granted, it could just as well be someone who’s received some very bad advice to do so). The emerging evidence of head trauma places a cost on every time a player steps on a field, and it’s not outrageous for a college player who’s gotten as much as he can out of the college game to consider if he wants to continue paying that cost.

If the vague answers on Signing Day didn’t give it away, we get official word today that, yes, defensive coordinator Todd Grantham is going to interview with the New Orleans Saints. No one should be surprised – he has a strong NFL background, we know he has ambitions beyond Georgia, and we kind of want that from everyone but the head coach, don’t we?

We’d very much like for him to stick around, and we expect he will – for now. The Philadelphia Eagles have reportedly already found their man, so it seems to be either New Orleans or bust for Grantham this time. Grantham will be up against Rob Ryan who’s considered the favorite for the position.

I don’t see the Saints interview just as a means to better Grantham’s Georgia contract, and I also think he was sincere when he told recruits that he’d still be at Georgia in the fall. The Saints interview – with Ryan the strong leader – is a way to get word out that Grantham is very much on the market not for this year but for next year, and it’s a way to prepare for a much more serious attempt at a move towards the end of the 2013 season.

If that’s the case and he does return, the 2013 season at Georgia will be a big one professionally for Grantham. He’s had mixed results even with a loaded roster, and he’ll preside over a fairly large rebuilding project on that side of the ball. Georgia fans probably won’t be the only ones watching to see what he does with the challenge.

In looking for a way to reconcile a recruiting class that met needs and replenished the scholarship numbers with the lackluster results landing top targets, I settled on this: it’s the 2008 season of recruiting classes. Most programs would jump at the chance for a season like the Dawgs had in 2008: 10 wins, a win over the defending champs on their field, and a New Year’s Day bowl victory to close it out. But when the season began with a #1 ranking and the potential of a star-packed offense leading the team to SEC and national glory, it was tough to get excited about the outcome – especially when the three losses laid bare some unpleasant realities about the program.

So it was on Signing Day on Wednesday. There’s every reason to be thrilled with those who signed. It’s almost unheard of for a class of this size not to have many reaches, but Georgia’s signings all make sense. The immediate needs for 2013 were met: there will be impact players coming in at defensive back, linebacker, and receiver. We won’t sweat many of them qualifying – 13 of them are already enrolled. Georgia competed against some of the top programs in the nation for nearly every member of the class.

But when the state was loaded enough to give Georgia a very good shot at landing the nation’s top class, finishing just on the edge of the top 10 doesn’t move the needle. You’ll never get all of the top prospects from a talent-rich state like Georgia, but you also expect to do better than getting just two of the top 15.

It matters. If the whole ranking system is your problem, just focus on specifics. Could Georgia have used an elite tackle to give them flexibility with Gates, a good lineman who’s probably better suited for the interior? Could Georgia have used the state’s top tailback to spell Gurley and Marshall during the grind of the SEC season? Could Georgia’s thin defensive line, which had no answers against the Alabama running game, have used an impact player to rotate in to keep the group fresh for the fourth quarter? Georgia’s Signing Day targets weren’t just extraneous bling; they were all good enough to have very clear roles already defined for them. Georgia fans, of anyone, should understand very well how elite prospects can elevate a program. Even if they don’t all pan out (and they don’t), you increase your odds of finding that difference-maker the more you bring into the program.

We can stop with the 2008 analogy for a minute. That year helped to expose a rotten conditioning program and continued a downward slide on defense. There’s no crisis in Georgia recruiting. Led by the coordinators, the staff is full of strong recruiters. The behind-the-scenes organization is led by the right person, and that organization will be expanded and supported under new NCAA rules. At the same time, that doesn’t mean that Georgia can’t improve its recruiting. They’ll have to take full advantage of the NCAA’s more streamlined rules. There might be tactics used by successful rivals that are worth adapting. The departure of Rodney Garner might have cost Georgia a little at the end, but it also provides an opportunity for a needed re-vamping of everything from how prospects are evaluated to how they are contacted and offered.

We’re not going to rend garments over a strong class that features 14 of the ESPN 300, and hopefully it’s possible to talk about the big misses while giving those who did sign their due. It’s tough to say though whether this class gets Georgia any closer to the top of the conference or even shores up their position at the top of the division. As the 2008 season saw the beginning of the rise of Alabama as the standard against which the rest of the conference had to compete, Georgia’s recruiting only matters in the context of how well the program is stocked to play in the SEC and challenge for its top spot.

It’s been a while since we’ve been able to say it, but it was a winning weekend for both of Georgia’s basketball teams. Both squads got back into the win column after a disappointing home loss, and both have a good opportunity to build on those victories with some winnable mid-week games.

The men pulled off a surprising road win on Saturday at Texas A&M. In their first visit to College Station, the Dawgs got on top and stayed there, opening up a lead that grew to 17 points in the second half. The Georgia offense became stagnant and the hosts made their push, but Georgia, to their credit, made just enough plays and held A&M scoreless in the final minute. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, as usual, was the story – he was incredibly efficient on offense with 22 points on 8-of-12 shooting including a 50% night from behind the arc. He was also Georgia’s leading rebounder by a wide margin with nine boards. The team made their free throws, limited their turnovers, and won the rebounding battle. That’s what it takes to win on the road.

As tough of a season as it’s been, it’s been – relatively speaking – a good stretch for the team. They’ve won two of three and were up on Florida at halftime of Wednesday’s game before the wheels came off. The math is fairly simple – Georgia is going to score somewhere in the high 50s or the low 60s – no more. They won’t stay close in a shootout. If they can hold the opponent in that range, we’ll have a game. The team isn’t going to become an offensive dynamo, but there are still opportunities for other players. Georgia still needs KCP to have a good game to have any chance, but when you get things like Brantley’s mini-hot streak in the second half or valuable minutes from Tim Dixon or six blocks scattered throughout the box score, it will occasionally be enough to come away with a win even on nights where no other player sniffs double-figures in scoring.

Though no SEC opponent is a sure win for a team in Georgia’s position, they’re in as favorable of a stretch as the schedule has. After six conference games, the Dawgs are just one game out of the league cellar, but they’re also tied for 7th place with an astounding seven teams at 2-4. A couple of wins over the next few weeks could move Georgia to the top of that logjam, and they’ll be facing several teams stuck right there in a similar position.

The women had a week to stew over their embarrassing home loss to Texas A&M. Though just their third loss and first home loss of the season, the Lady Dogs looked completely outclassed and punchless against a good-but-not-great Aggie squad. The bye week gave the team a chance to rest and dwell on the loss, but the lackluster effort stayed with the team until they were shut out of their practice gym mid-week. It’s insane that a team that hadn’t actually won anything could ever get complacent, but that’s what we heard after the A&M loss and also what we heard after the season’s first loss at Illinois.

It turns out that this tumultuous week was just what the team needed – at least in the short team. Florida caught a ticked-off Georgia team on the wrong day. The Lady Dogs roared out to a quick double-digit lead, and Florida never mounted a serious challenge. They led by 19 at halftime and eventually pushed the lead over 30 before Florida got it back under 20 in garbage time. Though Georgia didn’t really shoot lights-out, they had a balanced attack and were able to get points both in transition and from the halfcourt offense. Neither team shot well from outside, but Florida shot just 34% from the floor and was an abysmal 5-of-14 from the line.

Andy Landers continues to experiment with his deep roster. Small forward Krista Donald started and responded well with 11 points despite low minutes as the team manages her damaged knee. Anne Marie Armstrong came off the bench and played with more energy than she’s shown so far in SEC play, finishing with 7 points and a big 9 rebounds. Freshman Tiaria Griffin continues to embrace the starting role and finished with 12 points. Though the offense got sloppy at the end of both halves, the effort was so much better than in the A&M game or even in earlier wins against Arkansas and South Carolina.

The Lady Dogs host Alabama on Thursday in a rematch of a high-scoring but comfortable Georgia win in Tuscaloosa earlier this month. Another strong effort should see them push their winning streak to two games, but extending it to three games will be tough, and they can’t pat themselves on the back too hard for the Florida win. After Alabama, Georgia visits #5 Kentucky next Sunday in a game with SEC title hopes at stake. At 5-2 in the league now, Georgia is just outside the top four, and they’ll need to keep winning in order to keep pace with the SEC leaders.

The title of “recruiting coordinator” is coveted by certain assistants. It’s a way to earn extra visibility on a staff, and it usually comes with a nice salary bump. Many assistants of varying coaching ability have carved out relatively stable careers for themselves as recruiting coordinators, and the best enjoy a status on a staff comparable to offensive or defensive coordinators.

This specialty position developed because the NCAA required that many essential recruiting functions be performed by a coach, and the NCAA is very clear about who may or may not be considered a coach. For all of the support staff a school can hire, no football program may have more than 7 assistant coaches. But new NCAA rules meant to untangle and streamline the current rulebook will allow programs to move these recruiting functions away from coaches and onto staffers. Specifically,

(Proposal) 11-2, which will eliminate the rules defining recruiting coordination functions that must be performed only by a head or assistant coach.

There are a whole lot of rules changes involved in this batch (all of which will take effect on August 1st), but they more or less add up to the decoupling of the coaching staff and the recruiting process. Your recruiting coordinator needn’t be a coach now, and schools are free to build up departments dedicated to interacting with prospects in any medium from printed material to social media. Certainly these changes allow for big advantages for those schools with the resources to staff these departments. Hopefully Georgia will be among those taking full advantage of the new rules.

These rules changes also give an insight to Georgia all but shrugging off the title of recruiting coordinator following Rodney Garner’s departure. Sure, there are several worthwhile candidates on staff, and a couple have even held the recruiting coordinator position before. But under the new rules there’s just no need to bother an assistant coach with the administrative details of the coordinator role. Those tasks can now fall to someone who can focus on recruiting rather than split time between coordinating visits and trying to come up with a defensive line rotation for next week’s game. The coaches of course will remain the primary recruiters and evaluators of talent, but this non-coaching position is about to get a big boost in both visibility and importance.

For Georgia, that person might already be in the program. Daryl Jones was hired in May of last year as the team’s Director of On-Campus Recruiting. In that role, he’s already involved in recruiting strategy, coordinating visits, and acting as a liason between the program and high schools. Jones spent 17 years involved in Georgia high school football, rising from an assistant coach to athletic director. He also has experience managing and coaching in Under Armour camps and the Under Armour All-America game.

After the new rules take effect in August, it will be interesting to see what role Jones has in the allocation of recruiting duties that had previously been limited to coaches. In hindsight, it’s good fortune (or good planning if this rules change was already under consideration) that Georgia chose someone with Jones’s administrative background rather than one of the inexperienced recruiting analysts who were reportedly under consideration for the position.