It’s not that the Georgia offense has been abysmal during the first half of preseason camp, but the lion’s share of good news so far has had to do with the defense.

• The safety position. Departures have left the position a little thin, but those still on the team are having a heck of a preseason. The trio of Rambo, Hamilton, and Nick Williams has emerged as a strong rotation across the two safety positions. But even the other safeties are making noise. Shawn Williams “may be the most improved player” since spring. True freshmen Alec Ogletree is among the newcomers most likely to see playing time this year, even if it’s primarily on special teams at first. With all five getting positive reviews, you wonder if there will be some creativity involved to get them on the field. Nick Williams has spent time at linebacker, and Ogletree was considered another Thomas Davis type of player who could excel at either safety or linebacker. I’m not talking about more position moves, but it’s not hard to imagine the occasional use of a third “safety” as a rover or pass rusher. Experience remains a concern, and the group is just an injury away from having no more wiggle room with the depth chart.
• The emergence of Justin Anderson. DeAngelo Tyson is probably Georgia’s best and most versatile defensive lineman, but his placement as the nose guard was more out of necessity. He’s more suited for the end position in a 3-4. If someone has come along to the point of allowing Tyson to slide over to his more natural position, it’s great news for the defensive front. The rapid ascent of Anderson is even more impressive considering that redshirt freshman Kwame Geathers has reported to camp in tremendous condition and has stood out himself. A projected starting line of Dobbs, Anderson, and Tyson will do just fine. A second line of Abry Jones, Geathers, and Brandon Wood isn’t bad either.
• Competition at linebacker. You’ve seen how the coaching change has given new life to players like Darryl Gamble. Gamble’s been good enough to push presumptive starter Cornelius Washington. Injuries at inside linebacker have given Akeem Hebron an opportunity, and he’s recorded the most tackles in both scrimmages so far. Akeem Dent seems on track to return from an injured toe on, if not ahead of, schedule. There’s tight competition between Christian Robinson and Marcus Dowtin at the other ILB spot. We haven’t mentioned Justin Houston yet. Depth remains thin, and even a single injury like Dent’s has both ILB positions unsettled. But the play of Gamble and Hebron has provided coaches with options.

Contrast that with a couple of the major themes on offense. The offensive line has been hobbled by injuries and illness. The starting quarterback has looked fine in practice but has yet to really put it together in anything resembling a game.

To be fair, it’s not nearly all bad news. It’s important to remember we’re also limited to the information that trickles out. Practices are closed to the public and somewhat to reporters. The defense is new and unknown, so naturally there’s going to be a lot more reported about it. Some positive news we take for granted. You don’t have to be told this August that A.J. Green can do ridiculous things with the football or that Clint Boling might be the SEC’s best lineman. From Hutson Mason catching on quickly to Marlon Brown’s maturation, there are also positive stories on the offense.

I think expectations are largely at work here. If you had to sum up the narrative for Georgia entering the season, it would be a loaded offense that has to carry the team while the defense goes through the learning curve of the new 3-4 scheme. Georgia’s offense is presumed to be set with a question only under center. Green, Charles, Ealey, and King are all proven skill players. The line showed what it was capable of as it found its stride at the end of last season. With a defense expected to have some issues in its transition to a new scheme and coaching staff, the offense is supposed to be the strength of the team in 2009. It’s one thing to have questions at places where we expect them, but you also have to make sure that your strengths are really your strengths.

Remember the guiding assumption going into last year: a running game with Samuel and King behind a more experienced and proven starting line would remove a lot of the need for Joe Cox to be as much a part of the offense as Matthew Stafford was. Of course Sturdivant went out immediately, Samuel proved ineffective, King and Ealey were injured early, and Cox ended up with roughly as many passing attempts as Greene or Shockley did in their final seasons.

Which preseason assumptions will we have to revise this year once the season gets underway?

Atlanta’s AM 750 WSB, the flagship station for the Bulldog Radio Network, announced on Monday that they’ll be simulcasting in Atlanta and northeast Georgia on 95.5 FM. 95.5 FM used to be The Beat, a hip-hop station since 1999 when it took over the frequency from country station WNGC.

Bulldog football fans have had an FM option around northeast Georgia on 106.1 (the home of WNGC since 1999). The addition of WSB at 95.5 gives local fans an FM outlet now for basketball, the Bulldog Brunch, the coaches’ hotlines, and all other Bulldog programming from the flagship station. With a tower in southern Hall County, 95.5 FM provides a strong signal across northeast Georgia from Toccoa to Atlanta and of course across Athens.

With the NCAA going back for seconds at the Carolina schools, I wondered whether A.J. Green was ever interviewed in the first place. We knew that the NCAA had asked for permission to interview someone at Georgia, but it isn’t clear whether the NCAA ever followed through on that interview request. We’re led to believe that they never did follow through. Other schools have been able to confirm when their players were interviewed. Last week reporters got basically another “no comment” from Green who made it clear that he was under instructions not to elaborate on his involvement in the investigation.

Kyle’s right here when he notes that as long as this investigation remains unresolved, Green’s character and judgement are taking an unfair hit. It’s fortunately not that large of a hit thanks to the quick response and strength of Green’s alibi for the weekend in question. I don’t blame UGA for the “gag order” – that’s prudent with any ongoing investigation. It’s not as important to me whether Green ever addresses this story again. If he’s clear, that’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned.

The important issue here isn’t Green being freed to tell all. It’s clearing his name and letting him move on. The ball here is in the NCAA’s court, and they’ve held it for nearly four weeks. While other schools remain up in the air about the eligibility of their investigated stars for the season opener, Mark Richt seems confident enough that he won’t have similar concerns. If the NCAA wants to double back and focus on a second round of questions at other schools, that’s fine. Just don’t leave A.J. Green twisting in the wind. He has a season to start in three weeks, and he and the Georgia program don’t need the distraction if his role in the investigation is settled.

It’s official now – Greg McGarity has been introduced as Georgia’s next athletic director. The UGA alumnus is returning after nearly two decades at Florida.

Hopefully he’ll bring the same enthusiasm to this job as he did working in the UGA SID office back in the day…

Quintin Banks’ talent or drive were never much of a question. His knees, unfortunately, almost always were. According to Rivals.com, Banks was the #11 safety in the nation coming out of high school in 2006. Banks played in 12 games as a redshirt freshman in 2007 and seemed poised to become another dependable Georgia defensive back. But he tore an MCL during the 2008 preseason and missed the first month of the season. He was able to go for the Tennessee game and then had another injury the very next week that sidelined him for the rest of the 2008 campaign. Lingering knee concerns held him out of all but four games in 2009.

Those knee problems have continued into 2010, and Banks has finally decided it was time to hang it up. It has to be tough for the senior to give up one more chance at getting back on the field, but our bodies ultimately call the shots. When you look at it the way Mark Richt put it, the decision becomes a lot easier:

“He wants to be able to run around and play with his kids one day. He didn’t want to sit there and have to think about a knee replacement at a very young age, so I think a lot of those things crossed his mind.”

Banks will remain on as a student assistant before facing more knee surgery down the road. His experience and attitude will be very important for a safety position that’s become short on depth and experience.

Banks becomes the fourth safety with eligibility remaining to leave the team over the past year and a half. John Knox’s academic struggles caused him to leave before the 2009 season. Rashad Jones of course was an early entrant into the NFL draft. Makiri Pugh announced his intention to transfer this spring.

Both safety positions now come down to a group of five players. We’ve heard good things this week about the trio of Rambo, Nick Williams, and Jakar Hamilton. The depth is provided by Shawn Williams and Alec Ogletree. Think about the experience of that group. Rambo of course had an impressive 2009 coming mostly off the bench. Nick Williams has shifted between linebacker and the secondary during his career, and he has a total of nine tackles in 24 appearances in 2008 and 2009. Shawn Williams saw limited action last year as a freshman but had a nice finish in the bowl game. Hamilton and Ogletree are newcomers. Both are very highly regarded prospects, and Hamilton is a little more advanced as a JUCO transfer, but both are going to have to come up to speed quickly to give Georgia any kind of depth at the position.

Greg McGarity seemed to be the nearly universal first choice of many Georgia fans to be the new athletic director, and it looks as if they’ll get their wish. Florida’s #2 man is all but announced as the new top Dawg. We were warned that a thorough search might take anywhere from 6 to 12 months, but it seems to be over in just about six weeks.

I’m trying to understand the source of the unbridled enthusiasm for this pick. I’m not being contrary, and I see few obvious negatives other than his lack of experience as an athletic director. Most are basing their preference basically in his association with a wildly successful Florida program. Make no mistake, that counts for a lot. Florida, like Georgia, has an impressive record in the field of play, in NCAA compliance, and in academic success. I appreciate that the next athletic director comes from a similar culture.

I admit to being a little underwhelmed in the list of applicants that was released last week. Most saw McGarity’s name on the list, breathed a sigh of relief, and moved on. There were a few impressive names on the list , including McGarity, some with NFL experience, and a few from smaller programs. But there were few, if any, public applicants from similar programs. I grant that people in those positions might have been approached off the record in order to preserve their standing at their current high-profile jobs.

So if everyone else is happy with McGarity, I suppose I should be too, as much as anyone can get excited about an administrator. Damon Evans, for his personal faults, leaves a pretty good legacy in the areas of compliance, financial management, and academics. McGarity’s first job is preserving and building on those strong attributes while he seeks to improve Georgia’s overall performance on the field.

We’ve explained for a while that there’s a disincentive for major programs to overschedule. Teams still do it, but the incentives built into the BCS system make it a less-than-optimal strategy. Florida AD Jeremy Foley is on board. Mark Richt seems to think along those lines too.

Add Bob Stoops to the list of co-signers. The money quote:

Everybody talks about (schedule) early. By the end of the year everyone’s talking about wins and losses and you’re ranked accordingly.

We’ve already looked at Oklahoma and how their 2010 schedule favors a good season if they can find some answers at quarterback and a few other spots. They have fair non-conference competition with Florida State headlining the list, but it’s not a murderer’s row this year. Stoops was asked if this view meant he’d try to get out of some future contracts. He admitted, “It’ll be considered. It’s too early to say. I know (athletic director Castiglione) Joe’s looking at that but it’ll be considered.”

The reviews were generally positive yesterday regarding Aaron Murray’s first preseason scrimmage as the Bulldog starting quarterback. He threw for over 200 yards and had two long touchdown passes to A.J. Green. Players and coaches commended Murray for his reads, the way he trusted the line, his presence in the huddle, and the placement of his passes. It seems a little incongruous that he was 12-of-21, but we don’t know anything about the conditions of the scrimmage or the number of drops or things like that.

But as if we needed a reminder of his inexperience, he’s still going through the same learning process that most freshman do. “I did force a couple throws today trying to make plays, and I will learn from that,” Murray admitted. One of those forced throws was a poor decision in the red zone that resulted in an interception. “It was not a wise decision,” noted coach Mark Richt. “He knows he doesn’t have to be a hero, and it’s all right to throw it out of bounds some times.”

That’s not an indictment of Murray – it’s a lesson for new quarterbacks that plays out time after time, and even future #1 draft picks go through it. It continues to be something Murray struggles with. Including yesterday’s scrimmage and going back through G-Day and the spring scrimmages, Murray has yet to have a scrimmage this year without an interception. Yesterday’s pick as well as the one at G-Day were the result of poor decisions and trying to force something to happen. Murray, a bright guy, has immersed himself in the feedback loop of film study, evaluation, and adjustment, and he’s not oblivious to these mistakes.

You appreciate the touchdown passes to Green and recognize that with Green, Charles, and handful of other dynamic receiving options that this could be quite a productive passing game. On the other hand, you think back to Stafford’s first season (not to mention last year) and remember the crushing role that turnovers played in those lukewarm years. The defense creating more turnovers this year is only half of correcting last season’s dreadful turnover margin. Getting fewer than 15 INT from the starting quarterback would also help. Georgia had just three games without giving up a pick last year, and two of those were some of the biggest wins of the season (Auburn and Georgia Tech).

Despite the tempting weapons on the receiving end, the touted offensive line and solid tailback tandem makes it possible to ask just how much you need a freshman quarterback to do. Murray seems to be headed for a bright future, and he already has a solid command of the team and offense even before his first game. You can’t blame fans for being a little nervous though – they still remember the 10 of 22 for 96 yards at G-Day, and Murray continues to work through the occasional forced pass. A 2-to-1 TD-to-INT ratio wouldn’t be awful, but can the Dawgs ride out this learning process, or will it put the brakes on the 2010 season at some point?

The kickoff for the Oct. 2 Colorado game, previously set for 4:30 p.m., has been moved back 2 1/2 hours to 7:00 ET (5:00 for those of us heading out there). FSN will still televise the game. Why the change? From the UGA release…

The change came about after CU’s and the Big 12’s television network partners re-examined an earlier but tentative decision to allow the game to be televised inside an exclusive ABC telecast window.

ABC has only one time slot for a Big 12 Conference game that day, and has already committed to televising the Oklahoma-Texas game in its afternoon window (1:30 p.m. MDT). The kickoff adjustment allows the Colorado-Georgia game to be televised in the later prime time window and afford ABC its full exclusivity in the afternoon.

Telecasts after the third week of the season are generally made public on either 12-day or 6-day advance notice, but ABC relinquished the rights to the FSN, the Big 12 cable partner, early to afford CU the opportunity to better promote the game time.

The later time isn’t the best of news – many Georgia fans have booked early morning return flights on Sunday. With a game likely ending closer to 9 PM local time now, you might as well just stay awake. Any fans watching on TV that had it planned for Georgia-Colorado to lead into Alabama-Florida are screwed too.

You can also bet that the coaches aren’t happy – the earlier the start, the better when it comes to getting back into Athens, resting, and bouncing back for a huge game the next week with Tennessee. Those few extra hours make the difference between getting home closer to dawn than midnight on Sunday morning. There’s also a weather factor and a huge difference between a mid afternoon and early evening game there. The average high in Boulder over the past 5 years on October 2 was about 76 degrees. The average low was under 53 degrees…and the wildly variable October weather in the high plains has seen temps range all the way from 86 in 2005 to 28 degrees last year.

If it’s a sport, there’s someone unhappy with the officiating. It seems we’ve had some of the worst calls of all time recently. There was the perfect game that wasn’t. The story of poor officiating took over the World Cup this June much as it did SEC football last October. And if there’s something as universal as gripes about the refs, it’s ideas for what should be done about it.

Our pet idea for football is fixed goal-line cameras. The ball crossing the line is what the game is all about, and we have no consistent way to review that most fundamental of calls. But even that simple idea has its flaw: the view of the goal-line can be obscured from the sideline.

The NFL is looking at an even better idea: chip-in-ball technology. A spokesman for the NFL “said on Tuesday that they are looking at expanding their use of technology.” German company Cairos Technologies claims that they are talking with the NFL about this specific chip-in-ball technology.

The German manufacturer of the technology does get one thing very wrong about the rules of American football. He states that “in American Football you have the same situation (as in soccer), you need to cross a line and the ball needs to be over the line 100 percent.” The two sports are completely opposite in their treatment of the ball crossing the line. It’s true that in soccer/futbol the ball isn’t considered out of bounds or in the goal until it completely crosses the boundary line. American football only requires the slightest bit of the ball to “break the plane” to register as a score (or first down, etc.). If you’ve ever seen a first down measurement, you know that. Whether that different set of rules is enough to matter in the technology is of course going to come up as the NFL investigates, but it does make a difference in how sensors are to be positioned and triggered.

If the system works, hopefully it’s not too long until the technology trickles down to major college football.

Will Hutson Mason redshirt? Mason has done just fine so far, but all of the caveats about a true freshman in his first preseason camp apply. Seth Emerson asked Mark Richt yesterday “whether they’d still try to avoid burning Hutson Mason’s redshirt.” Richt’s response was about what you’d expect: it’s still way too soon to tell.

I can’t say that there’s even a question here. Mason has to play this year. There’s no need to worry about a redshirt: Aaron Murray will have three to four years under center, and VHT Christian LeMay is on his way in next year. Mason could of course make the competition interesting years from now, but this is very much a situation where Georgia can afford to have a short-term outlook. with Logan Gray moving to receiver, the need is there now to develop a permanent option at #2 QB.

It’s also too soon yet to know what Richt would do if he had to turn to a backup in a game. “It would just depend on how far (Mason) progresses as we go,” Richt said. “I hope we don’t have to worry about that.” Me too. Whether that answer turns out to be Gray or Mason, Georgia is going to be in bad shape at quarterback if Murray suddenly becomes unavailable. You’ll either have a raw true freshman getting his feet wet, or you’ll have a rusty junior with little game experience who has done none of the prep work. Which poison do you pick?

I cast my vote with Mason back in May under one very obvious condition:

If Mason – and of course this is a big condition – shows a fair amount of competence in August, he just about has to be named the #2. I’d take an inexperienced guy who’s in the meetings and getting the reps every day over someone more familiar with the playbook whose repetitions and preparation are mostly at another position. It’s not just a matter of Gray stepping back in to QB if the need arises; even ARod needs to take batting practice and stay sharp. Either way, here’s hoping the backup QB is an afterthought this year.

Richt downplays that concern by noting Gray’s experience and intelligence and reminding us “he’s not gonna forget how to throw the ball.” That’s true, but he’s also not going to have a clue about the defense he’s facing. The only scenario in which Gray might be a better choice is if the need to go to the backup is determined early enough in the week for Gray to have some practice reps and go through the quarterback position meetings and prep. Otherwise I’ll stick with the raw but focused and prepared freshman over someone relying on muscle memory – this is playing quarterback in the SEC, not riding a bicycle.

Ideally, Georgia will blow past the 25.5 point line in the season opener, and Richt will have some considerable garbage time with which to play. Who comes off the bench to spell Murray? That would be the perfect time to play Mason. It’s not going to instantly prepare him for the big time in Columbia, but it would be the start of building that experience he’ll need if the question of a replacement comes up down the road. You’d also expect to play Mason in that scenario because that’s the exact same time Gray should be getting his first significant game experience at receiver. Gray isn’t likely to be anywhere near the first team for a while, and he’s not spending all this time working at receiver just to be switched back to QB when the second team goes in.

The Denver Post sensationally reports tonight that “CU football ticket system hacked by Georgia fans, school says.“

Colorado’s 2010 motto: The only winning move is not to play.

Hacked?!?! What happened? Did some enterprising Georgia fan crack a password and start playing Global Thermonuclear War on the CU ticket system? Are they sure this wasn’t a bitter Georgia Tech fan seeking revenge for 1990?

Nope. A promotion code (“1990”) was issued by the Colorado ticket office and “intended to be used only by members of Colorado’s 1990 national championship team which will be honored at the game as part of its 20-year reunion.” With all the security of “hey, guys, here’s a promotion code you can use for tickets,” CU gave ticket buyers a way to purchase single-game tickets to the October 2nd game. That’s valuable information because the only other way to buy tickets is through a three-pack. Colorado, seeing a fine opportunity to stick it to their Georgia guests, does not offer single-game tickets to the general public for only this game.

Of course that code soon found its way outside of the tight circle of Colorado’s 1990 national championship team, and it was soon spread across the Bulldog nation via message board and e-mail. Pretty cloak-and-dagger stuff, right? So by using this code, and entering it in a promotional field that had zero authentication or validation, Georgia fans started buying tickets without being extorted for the three-game packs. These Georgia fans almost surely had no idea of the intent of the promo code, and I doubt they cared – the code worked, the orders were processed, and all was good until the loophole was closed.

Colorado officials were not amused. Rather than owning up to their mistake and honoring the tickets bought legitimately through their system, they have deemed these purchases “fraudulent.” All 123 tickets ordered using the code will be invalidated. If you bought tickets using this promo code, tear them up.

If you’re a Georgia fan still looking for tickets to the game, Kanu’s advice is solid. Patience is still a good policy. But if you do decide to go “hacking” again, remember your way out: tic-tac-toe with zero players.

I was reading the very enjoyable Michael Elkon dissection of Mandel’s “dirty coach” piece, and his final question gets to the heart of it: “should Masoli have been banished from football for his offenses at Oregon”?

That question of course implies a “who?” Who would ban Masoli? In Mandel’s world, that decision was Houston Nutt’s. It’s a pretty common mindset. When a player gets in trouble, we automatically look to the coach for discipline and draw amusement from those coaches who go a little easier than others in that department. But if these coaches are so dirty, why do so many of these decisions keep ending up in their hands?

Think about all of the layers Masoli passed through before this even got to the “dirty” Houston Nutt. Start with the criminal justice system. Being a part of a team is a secondary concern if the person is in jail. Even after pleading guilty to a second-degree felony and subsequent drug and traffic charges, Jeremiah Masoli has remained free to leave the state and continue his quarterbacking career. Yes, it’s possible that he could still face charges for violation of his probation, but does anyone expect that to go anywhere? In the case of the bar fight at Tennessee, only Darren Myles Jr. currently faces serious charges. Why?

Then there are the heirarchies of authority within the universities. Someone at Ole Miss made the decision to admit Masoli, a convicted felon. All of these schools presumably have a president, athletic director, dean of students, and even student judiciaries. They’re silent. These offices needn’t be powerless against the football coach. The cases of Jamar Chaney and Michael Grant should still be familiar to Georgia fans as instances of an oversight committee stepping in to question the admission of a football player. Georgia’s athletic department also removes some of the discretionary power from its coaches by mandating minimum suspensions for drug and alcohol-related arrests. Coaches can and do butt heads with the administration over these questions, but those conflicts show that the administration can have teeth when it asserts itself.

So when the police, judges, prosecutors, and several layers of university bureaucracy punt, it’s left to the coach to be society’s gatekeeper. It’s not the witnesses who looked the other way at the bar, the judge who decided probation was plenty strong enough for a felony conviction, or the admissions officer who thought Masoli would make a fine addition to the Ole Miss graduate program.

I don’t mean to come off like Otter’s defense of Delta house or cast the coaches as sympathetic please-protect-us-from-ourselves figures. Yes, they’ll bend the rules to win at almost any cost and take at least as much latitude as their bosses will give them. I also don’t pretend that these other parties (yes, even local law enforcement) operate without heavy pressure to do right by the home team. But, as Elkon points out, these “dirty” coaches aren’t the guys breaking NCAA rules. In the case of Masoli, you have a player who, for now at least, is permitted by the law to leave the state of Oregon and continue his career elsewhere. Thanks to the NCAA’s recent rule change, Masoli is eligible to play his final year of eligibility wherever he likes. He’s been admitted by the University of Mississippi. So Nutt is the problem for playing someone who has been cleared by every other level of oversight along the way?

So coaches should have no role in discipline or no standards for character? Of course they should. Consider it selfishly – players who are problems off the field can often be poison to the chemistry of the team. Disruptions harm the team, and negative publicity makes it more difficult to recruit and keep the fans on your side. A coach has plenty of reasons to be active in the discipline of his team. But don’t mistake that job with our irrational expectation that the coaches serve as a proxy for actual justice.

We’ve seen coffins with collegiate branding, so no marketing opportunity should surprise us.

AdAge is reporting that fans of Texas and Texas A&M can add energy to the list of products and services they can buy with the alma mater’s logo slapped on it.

In a deal put together by sponsorship broker IMG College and Branded Retail Energy, a Dallas-based company that markets electricity through affinity partnerships, the schools will create university-branded power companies. Texas Longhorns Energy and Texas A&M Aggies Energy will begin selling electricity and natural gas to consumers in deregulated markets in the state next month.

Each new customer will “generate funds for sustainability initiatives for the respective schools,” and customers will also benefit through various loyalty programs. Customers can “accumulate points for merchandise, tickets to athletic events and more.”

Now this idea isn’t about to sweep the nation; not every state has fan bases large and insane enough to support a venture like this, and only 14 states have deregulated their power industry to allow for such deals. Arkansas is the only SEC state to have done so. Georgia though has already deregulated its natural gas industry. Georgians can buy natural gas from various marketers, so why not one using UGA branding? For now this seems like a straight Texas thing, so no jokes yet about the lights going dim every year around November 1st.

It’s noteworthy that the deal was put together by IMG – IMG recently bought ISP, the sports management firm that controls marketing for Bulldog athletics. ISP wasn’t exactly shy about what it would sell (those who have been to a Tech game know about that), and IMG doesn’t appear to have many qualms about it either.

Georgia has returned to the top of the Princeton Review’s list of party schools. The tradition is upheld at North Campus tailgates, across the football team, and right up to the athletic director’s office. That’s how you win – it takes a campus-wide commitment. Michael Adams, banging his head against office furniture, could not be reached for comment.