A quick look at how the NFL
draft and transfers will affect some teams in Georgia’s neighborhood next
season. This list is surely incomplete, and corrections / additions are welcome.
Georgia basketball fans haven’t had much good news lately, but Wednesday could provide some of the biggest news in program history.
Superstar hoops prospect Derrick Favors will announce his college decision on Wednesday evening at 6:30. He will select from between Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Memphis, and his coach is trying to arrange to have the announcement at ESPN Zone in Buckhead. There is no understating the impact that the #1 prep player in the nation could have on a program like Georgia.
If you’re trying to read the tea leaves, Georgia is out of town at Vandy on Wednesday night while Tech hosts Duke in Atlanta at 7:00.
You might think of your outgoing transfers as head cases, malcontents, dead
weight, or simply bad fits, but one thing they shouldn’t be is "chattel".
If schools are going to put these kinds of restrictions on transfers, I’m even
less inclined to be sympathetic when the programs complain about unsigned prospects
changing their minds and requiring a bit of hand-holding during the recruiting
homestretch.
It’s mine, you understand? Mine! All mine! Get back in there! Down, down, down!
Go, go, go! Mine, mine, mine! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!
Consequences, schmonsequences, as long as I’m rich.
While we’re on the subject of chattel and recruiting, let’s come back to the
story about South Carolina and Tucker High School. It’s always good to get
a laugh at the expense of South Carolina and Spurrier, but I’m not really concerned
about South Carolina’s blunder. Recruiting is about relationships, and they
blew it. I’m more interested in the high school coach declaring his school off-limits
for a specific college program.
It’s fine for Tucker’s coach to say that the Gamecocks are "no longer
welcome" at the high school. It’s his decision who he welcomes into his
office, and it’s a bridge burned. But it is most certainly not his place to
dictate that "South Carolina will not be recruiting any more Tucker players."
It’s easy to accept and get behind since we’re talking about South Carolina,
but a high school coach deciding who may not recruit a prospect seems about
as meddlesome as the college coaches putting restrictions on transfers. Of course
a prospect might and often does seek the counsel of a coach, and that’s the
prospect’s choice, but a coach only does a disservice to his players by inserting
himself as a gatekeeper before the fact. It’s not his call whether or not South
Carolina recruits any more Tucker players.
The AFCA has forwarded a proposal (h/t Get the Picture) to conference commissioners for an early signing period for college football. The proposed signing day in the “third week of December” would come approximately six weeks before the current signing day on the first Wednesday in February.
There’s an early signing period in sports like basketball of course, but the difference between those signing periods is closer to six months rather than six weeks. What’s so important that the coaches can’t wait until the February signing period? “What we’re seeing is oversigning and late switches,” claims Notre Dame’s Rob Ianello.
I’ve written plenty before about why I’m suspicious of the coaches’ motives with an early signing period, and Ianello’s comments do little to show me that those concerns are unfounded. Even as the coaching ranks shuffle as staffs are assembled into December and January, coaches would rather that prospects give up the last bit of leverage and unrestricted choice they’ll enjoy for the next three-to-five years. Six measly weeks.
A rare kind word about a player about to redefine the word "overexposure"…
When I see the
headline in the AJC that the "NFL doesn’t know what to do with Tim
Tebow," that comes across to me as a bug with the NFL and not a flaw with
Tebow.
I get why certain things don’t work in the leap from college to the NFL. The
mismatches in talent that are exploited and punished in a variety of collegiate
schemes aren’t there in the pros, so every team more or less runs its own variation
on the same West Coast-y system used by every other team, and the blandness
has persisted long enough for us all to understand what a "pro-style"
quarterback or offense means – and what they don’t mean.
It’s not just Tebow of course, and it’s not just football. Every incoming tailback
now would love to be "the next Reggie Bush", but the real Bush is
close to becoming little more than a punt return specialist at the next level.
There are questions about Tyler Hansbrough’s ability to play in the NBA. It’s
still fundamentally football or basketball, but at times like this the college
and pro games seem like very distant cousins.
There are many reasons why a college player might not excel in the pros just
as most of us could name a few local high school stars who faded in college.
But if NFL teams are struggling with the "risk" and "uncertainty"
of how to use a player like Tebow while peers Stafford and Bradford are can’t-miss
top picks, that’s not exactly a positive comment on the imagination of NFL front
offices.
An NFL general manager’s comment that, "It’s not like you’d
be taking Joe Flacco," kind of says it all, doesn’t it?
So at least there’s that. After an inexplicable 7-point jump in the coaches’ poll (that Cap One win must’ve been more impressive than I remember), Georgia finishes the season ranked at #10. (#13 in the AP.)
That’s little consolation when you’re living in #1’s subdivision.
The Bulldogs fielded a pretty good team before Stafford and Moreno and will do so again next year, but that didn’t stop this headline from appearing on the Arizona Republic site:
Path to winning season easier for ASU football
By any measure, Louisiana-Monroe (for BYU) and QB Joe Cox/TBs Caleb King-Richard Samuel (for Stafford/Moreno) will make it easier for ASU to avoid a second straight losing season.
Arizona State hasn’t had consecutive losing seasons since 1946-1947 (impressive), and Dennis Erickson has never coached a college team to consecutive losing seasons. In fairness, the author isn’t chalking the Dawgs up as a win. “Of course ASU still has to play at Georgia on Sept. 26 with a new starting QB of its own so winning that game will be a stretch no matter what the Bulldogs personnel,” he cautions. Stafford and Moreno are the least of Erickson’s concerns when the Sun Devils make their return visit. For starters, they’ll have to improve on an offense that managed just 10 points against a Georgia defense that ended up averaging more than twice that.
Florida’s Tim Tebow, Brandon Spikes and Percy Harvin will announce whether they will leave school early for the NFL Draft within a week after Thursday’s BCS national championship game against Oklahoma.
The three, however, have already had discussions about possibly doing something the Gators’ ’04s basketball stars did in 2006: returning as a group.
“We have a lot of conversations about that issue all the time,” Spikes said.
Well of COURSE Florida’s Axis of Awesome will be back next year – intact. Could it go any other way?
Sure, Tebow says, “We’ll have to look at it and sit down after this game and really pray about it and try to figure out what’s best.” Fans of any other SEC school will tell you that “what’s best” will turn out to be touring and ministering on unicorns to impoverished nations in the offseason, putting the brakes on a global recession, releasing an album featuring John Legend and Beyonce, earning ATP pilot certification, representing Illinois in the Senate, and producing a library of 63 segments about themselves and their impact on humanity for ESPN’s use during the 2009 season that make us recall wistfully the understated and tasteful senior season of Joakim Noah.
David Hale reminds us today that we aren’t necessarily free from the aftermath
of this season’s injuries just because the calendar has flipped. 14
players will be limited or absent from spring practice due to recovery from
2008 injuries. I’d say about half of them are players you’d consider likely
or possible starters in 2009.
TE Bruce Figgins, shoulder
DE Rod Battle, shoulder
LB Darius Dewberry, shoulder
DT Jeff Owens, ACL
OT Trinton Sturdivant, ACL
OG Vince Vance, ACL
OG Chris Davis, hip
Put another way: anywhere from a quarter to a third of Georgia’s 2009
starters are expected to miss spring practice due to injury. The impact
on the offensive line is especially acute. With new starters at tailback and
quarterback likely in 2009, the play of the offensive line will become even
more important. The good news is that depth and experience are finally in place,
but our ideal starting line which would include Sturdivant, Vance, and perhaps
Davis won’t get much work together before August.
Though all of the injured are expected to be back in plenty of time for the
season, the Southerland factor has to be given at least some consideration.
By that I mean we should consider that the road to recovery might be rocky for
at least one of the injured. Whether it delays their return altogether or impacts
their conditioning, there is at least the possibility that we will still be
paying for these injuries into next season. Injuries that linger into summer
and even into August make it very difficult especially for someone who is trying
to earn his way up the depth chart. I think back to Tony Wilson who had to miss
spring ball last year, struggled to get back into the rotation for this year,
and then went out with another injury which, according
to the ABH, might keep him out of yet another spring practice.
Missing spring practice isn’t the end of the world, but they wouldn’t be practicing
if it didn’t matter.
It started as the basketball team blew a double-digit second half lead to Georgia Tech (sound familiar?). The Dawgs, up by 13 earlier in the half, couldn’t manage but 24 points in the second half and wilted under Tech pressure before losing 67-62. Tech gave Georgia every opportunity to put the game away, but Georgia wasn’t good enough to take advantage of the opening.
You can go down the box score…19-of-31 from the line. Outrebounded by 15. 12 Tech steals. 18 turnovers – most of which came in the second half. 8 Tech blocks on glacially slow moves to the basket. And it’s not like Tech was much better. 1-for-11 from outside. Around 60% from the line. Neither team shot better than 36.1%. It was Tech’s night, but this will likely be a bright spot in their own long season.
I think it’s the first time Tech can claim wins in football, women’s basketball, and men’s basketball in the same year, and that doesn’t sit well.
Now we learn that Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno are expected to announce their NFL intentions on Wednesday. UGASports.com is reporting that both are expected to declare for the NFL draft. It won’t be official until we hear it from the players, but don’t plan on either being back next season.
While Dawg fans aren’t happy to see either go, hopefully we can leave the bitterness out of it and wish both of them well. Both should be great ambassadors for the program at the next level, and it will be good publicity for Georgia to have two draft picks of that stature. Stafford is poised to become Georgia’s first first-round quarterback selection since Johnny Rauch in 1949.
Moreno is expect to become Georgia’s highest draft selection at tailback since Garrison Hearst in 2003.
It’s a good time to remember that players like Geno Atkins and Jeff Owens along with coaches Rodney Garner and Stacy Searels WILL be back next season.
Missouri goes to overtime with double-digit underdog Northwestern
Oklahoma State can’t keep up with underdog Oregon
Ole Miss shreds favored Texas Tech
Even “split title” Texas in a win looks nowhere near as good as SoCal did against the Buckeyes.
Prior to the bowls, Oklahoma was the only Big 12 contender to play a decent nonconference schedule with opponents like TCU and Cincinnati. The rest sure are looking a lot like paper tigers now. The conference overall is 4-2 in bowls, but the mighty Big 12 South is 1-2 heading into the BCS title game.
Colt McCoy, though…wow. What a clutch player. If the coach-in-waiting’s defense could have held in Lubbock, we’d be talking about McCoy’s game-winning drive there that planted the Longhorns in the national title game. Even with the split title argument shot now, he was able to lead his team back again tonight from the brink of an upset. Tremendous player.
Apparently this UT plane has been back and forth to Athens and Georgia quite a bit in the past day. (It had to divert to Atlanta last night due to heavy fog.) It returned to Athens earlier this afternoon and is now on its way back to Knoxville. Common sense would indicate that it came to pick up Garner.
Here’s where things get interesting. UGASports.com is reporting that the plane is returning to Knoxville without Garner. The plane came, sat, and returned without Garner getting on board.
What does it mean? Has Garner decided to stay at Georgia? Are negotiations underway? Is he taking another night to sleep on it? Did he just need more time to tell the Georgia players? Or did Lane Kiffin just want some takeout from The Grill? No one knows. Sure does make for fun speculation though.
Today marks the final Cotton Bowl in the old Cotton Bowl stadium. The game will be moving to the shiny new home of the Dallas Cowboys next year. What better way for a Georgia fan to bid farewell than with a look back at our most memorable trip to Dallas?
Remember the Steve Spurrier who would call a pass to the end zone on 4th-and-a gazillion?
Yes, folks, that really was the Ball Coach, formerly of Bandits ball, and Gators offensive juggernauts, explaining why he kicked a field goal – a field goal! – with two minutes left in the game.
“Well, it was fourth and about 10, wasn’t it?” Spurrier said. “It was a long way. Just trying to put a few points up. 31-10 looks better than 31-7.”
Attrition watch
Comments
Dawg Media
RSS 2.0