The 2007 SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament begins Thursday afternoon right here in our backyard in Duluth at the Arena at Gwinnett Center. Tennessee once again is the heavy favorite after a perfect 14-0 regular season conference record, but the competition has been fierce this season among the next several seeds.

Click here for the bracket

From the Georgia perspective, the seeding worked out well. Tennessee and LSU, the only SEC teams to beat Georgia over the past two seasons, are on the opposite side of the bracket, and Georgia wouldn’t face either until the championship game. Georgia earned a #2 seed and a first-round bye, and they’ll face the winner of Kentucky-Arkansas on Friday. Should they advance to Satruday’s semifinals, they’ll likely face either Vanderbilt or Mississippi State. Georgia defeated all of their potential quarterfinal and semifinal opponents during the regular season.

Of course in a conference as competitive as the SEC, talking about ideal seedings and preferred opponents can be a matter of picking your poison. Seeds 1-11 are capable of advancing. Once you get beyond the Ole Miss vs. Alabama game on Thursday, any game for the rest of the weekend has the potential to be at least interesting and possibly much more. Here’s an overview of the teams heading into the postseason…

In a league of their own

• #1 Tennessee (14-0). The Lady Vols swept through the conference undefeated. Their only losses this season have been to ACC powerhouses Duke and North Carolina. That’s not to say that Tennessee hasn’t been pushed in the SEC; Georgia, LSU, Vanderbilt, and Arkansas proved to be tough tests for the Lady Vols away from home. They emerged with a win each time and with additional close-game experience that is very valuable in the postseason. When they are on, Tennessee can play with anyone. You have the dominant inside game of Candace Parker, the outside shooting of Sidney Spencer, the do-everything glue from Alexis Hornbuckle, and a stifling defense that creates offense. If there is a weakness, it’s outside shooting. Spencer can be streaky, and they aren’t quite as strong from the perimeter as they have been in recent years. Still, it’s not much of a weakness if they can work the ball inside to Parker.

The contenders

• #2 Georgia (11-3). Despite total of four games against LSU and Tennessee, Georgia was able to roll through the rest of the league and take a win in Athens over LSU. They are led again by forward Tasha Humphrey who is joined on the frontcourt by emerging freshman Angel Robinson. Two other freshmen, point guard Ashley Houts and dangerous wing Christy Marshall, form a solid young core for the future. It will be interesting to see how the freshmen hold up in the glare of the tournament spotlight. Guard play and perimeter shooting might be what determines the length of Georgia’s stay. Senior Cori Chambers was mired in a slump for much of the SEC season, but she shot very well in the last game against Arkansas. With a functional outside game and Humphrey operating inside, few teams can handle Georgia.
• #3 Vanderbilt (10-4). Vandy enjoyed a nice season and played themselves into this position by beating LSU a couple of weeks back. They were one of the hottest teams in the conference before a big defeat at Tennessee ended their regular season. Like most of the other top seeds, Vanderbilt didn’t lose to any "bad" teams, but losses to teams like Georgia and Ole Miss made it clear where they fall in the order of things. They’ve been ranked in the low-teens most of the season. They have all the pieces – a dynamic forward in Carla Thomas, a penetrating guard in Dee Davis, bulk in the middle in Liz Sherwood, and a potent outside shooting attack. This is probably Vandy’s best team since the 2004 SEC Tournament champions, but they still might be just short of Georgia or Tennessee on a neutral court.
• #4 LSU (10-4). LSU’s schedule caused them some problems late in the season, and they were knocked from the second place perch. They are just 4-4 in February and have lost two of three coming into the tournament. Though they still have the strong presence of Sylvia Fowles inside, they lack an explosive offense. They rely on strong defense, and it has worked more often than not for them. It’s not like they’re getting blown out; they’ve lost very close games to teams like Georgia, Connecticut, and Tennessee. The lack of a consistent playmaker other than Fowles has hurt them. Quianna Chaney and Erica White have tried to shoulder some of the burden on offense, but it’s a tall job when replacing someone like Simeone Augustus. Should Ole Miss advance, and that’s almost a certainty, LSU would get a rematch against the team which handed them their first SEC loss. It should be one of the most anticipated quarterfinal matchups.
• #5 Ole Miss (9-5). Ole Miss has been on the cusp of a really good season since beating LSU early in conference play. They feature Armintie Price, a scoring machine who is contending for Player of the Year honors. Since that win over LSU and a subsequent rise in the polls, Ole Miss hasn’t been able to sustain momentum. A loss to Auburn last weekend cost Ole Miss dearly. Instead of the #3 seed and a Thursday bye, they slid all the way to #5, must play on Thursday, and end up on the LSU/Tennessee side of the bracket. That’s a painful lesson in taking care of business, and I doubt they will make the same mistake on Thursday against a dreadful Alabama team.

Looking to make noise

• #6 Mississippi State (7-7). Mississippi State is a classic bubble team. They are a respectable 7-7 in the nation’s best conference. They have several "nice" wins over teams like FSU, Georgia Tech, and Ole Miss. But in true bubble team style, they hurt themselves with some missed opportunities such as a loss to South Carolina last weekend. As the #6 seed and finishing ahead of teams like Kentucky and Auburn, they can be considered the surprise of the conference. Their first round game isn’t as easy as it seems though. #11 seed Florida might be 2-12 in the SEC, but the Gators played MSU to within five points during the regular season.
• #7 Kentucky (6-8). Kentucky looked to be set up to finish .500 in the conference, but they blew it by losing at Florida. Kentucky is really under the gun now. They had one of their best seasons in decades last year and made the NCAA Tournament. They were ranked entering this season. But the signature wins that led them to the postseason last year didn’t come this year, and now the Wildcats find themselves in a desperate situation. The need to beat Arkansas on Thursday and possibly upset Georgia on Friday to have much confidence in a repeat NCAA invitation.

Just hanging on

• #8 South Carolina (6-8). South Carolina is reasonably hot for a lower seed. They’ve won three of their final five games with the two losses coming to Georgia and Vanderbilt. They’ve been a thorn in the side to SEC peers like Kentucky, Auburn, and Mississippi State. They might not be done yet – another win over Auburn on Thursday could sink the Tigers’ postseason hopes. South Carolina has too poor of an overall record and no wins of significance to have any NCAA aspirations, but their solid finish could land them a WNIT bid.
• #9 Auburn (6-8). Despite a sub-.500 conference record, Auburn actually holds on to slim NCAA chances. They have a freakishly high RPI (#35) considering their record and lack of really stellar wins. If they survive a rematch with South Carolina, Tennessee might be standing between the Tigers and a tournament bid on Friday.
• #10 Arkansas (3-11). Arkansas is an example of a talented young team that hasn’t come together yet. They have speed, decent shooting, and a presence inside. They won 14 of their first 15 games this season and earned a ranking, but that was before SEC play. They showed what they’re capable of in the past week by taking Tennessee to overtime and playing Georgia even for a half. They are in a position to play spoiler in Duluth; a win over Kentucky to avenge a 20-point loss just a week ago would all but end Kentucky’s NCAA hopes.

Upset Special?

• #11 Florida (2-12). With a lame duck coach and a 2-12 SEC mark, Florida might seem like an odd team to keep an eye on. But they haven’t quit on their coach and have won two games down the stretch. A win over Kentucky last weekend was huge both in terms of what it meant to Kentucky’s NCAA hopes and the confidence it could give Florida entering the tournament. Florida played their first-round opponent, Mississippi State, close during the regular season, and they are capable of shocking MSU if the Bulldogs come out tight. We’re only a year removed from a Florida team that upset LSU and Tennessee in the same season.

Didn’t pack an overnight bag

• #12 Alabama (0-14). They are abysmal. It’s year two of Stephanie Smith’s rebuilding program after a thorough housecleaning, and the program is in bad shape.

According to the NCAA, college football at all levels is packing them in:

NCAA football attendance set a new standard during the 2006 season as 615 schools combined for a total gate of 47,909,313, shattering the 2003 record by 1,764,774 fans.

Though the 12th game in Division 1 helped boost the totals, the NCAA points out that per-game records were also set. Hooray college football!

The 32 bowl games in Division 1 drew an average of 53,114 per game. That’s up over 2005, but we also had an extra BCS-class bowl introduced last year.

It’s no surprise that the SEC and Big 10(+1) with their massive shrines to the pigskin are kings of attendance. Three of the top four are Big 10 schools. Half of the SEC is among the top eleven. Overall, the SEC lives up to its reputation as the home of passionate college football fans with a conference-record average of 75,706 fans per game. Big 10 schools averaged just under 70,000 fans per game. The Big 10, along with the Pac 10, Big East, and Mountain West, saw its average attendance drop in 2006. The Big 12 came in third with its own conference-best mark of just under 59,000 fans per game.

No other conference has the disparity between its top draw and the rest of the league like the Pac 10. Southern Cal had the eighth-highest average nationally with over 91,000 per game. You then have to go down to the 24th and 25th spots to find UCLA and Cal with under 65,000 per game.

Tennessee leads the SEC as always. Georgia is second in the SEC and fifth nationally, but Georgia, LSU, and Alabama are so tightly clustered that one school setting out a few folding chairs might change things next season. Another way to look at the numbers is by the percentage of seats sold. How did the SEC do?

It’s impressive that every conference member had at least three-quarters of its seats filled. Is it a sign that the South is football-crazy, or is it that there’s just nothing better to do in Mississippi on a Saturday than to watch bad football? I do wonder how some schools count their capacity and how others count attendance. South Carolina has had announced crowds as big as 85,000, yet their official capacity is 80,250. Georgia sold out all of their home games for an average crowd of 92,746 per game, but we all know how empty areas of the stadium were for certain games.

South Carolina at 94% of capacity, even with an understated capacity, is noteworthy. They have a reputation for being a wildly loyal and supportive fan base despite the program’s history of underachievement, and the Spurrier "revolution" was still fresh in just its second year. They were coming off a relatively successful season that included a win over Florida and weren’t far from winning the SEC East. Yet they drew an average of 75,630 in a stadium that has held as many as 85,000.

The rich get richer. You can see which programs are selling all of their seats, and many of those same programs keep building but still can’t keep up with demand. Even Arkansas completed a really nice expansion and upgrade not too long ago. You have to wonder where the upper limit is on capacity and demand for some of these programs even as ticket prices climb.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see some building projects at Auburn and Florida soon. Facilities, especially stadiums, have an arms race quality to them. So while it might seem satisfactory that Florida and Auburn are ninth and eleventh in average attendance, SEC programs continue to build their temples higher and higher. Though Florida added some club seats a few years ago, they haven’t had a really major expansion project since the early 1990s. With the surge in demand sure to come from Meyer’s turnaround job, we’ll see if they feel pressure to expand the Swamp. In the meantime, Florida is focusing on a $12 million "front door" to their stadium which will house football offices and various other support facilities for the program, but it won’t affect capacity.

Auburn might be a bit more under the gun to keep up. Expansion of Jordan-Hare Stadium has been discussed as long ago as 2001, but nothing has been done. There are grand plans floating around, but university officials maintained as recently as October that expansion is "not something that we are actively considering." Auburn has turned its priorities to other facilities improvements such as a badly-needed arena.

As with most things in Alabama, the rivalry between Auburn and Alabama might be what drives expansion on the Plains. For years, Jordan-Hare was the crown jewel of football stadiums in the state. Alabama’s on-campus stadium was just a part-time home. But recent rapid expansion to Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa has pushed its capacity to 92,138 – the fourth-largest stadium in the SEC and a close second to LSU among SEC West programs. The most recent expansion in the north end zone also included an impressive stadium facade and plaza leading in from the central area of campus. Alabama currently might not have the best football program in the state, but its stadium now at least looks the part. Fans of both programs have noticed.

Georgia is getting some media attention this week for some new academic rules for student-athletes that include fines and loss of playing time for missing classes and tutoring sessions. Imagine the bill if you got fined $10 every time you blew off a class.

I have mixed feelings about these policies. I’m not pleased when we add another layer of oversight for coaches and administrators whether we’re talking about academics or disciplinary matters. (Why is the coach always compelled to do something if someone on his team has a suspended driver’s license?) Sure, it’s in the coach’s best interest to have his players eligible and out of trouble; it’s hard to play someone who’s in jail or not enrolled. Still, at some point they need to do their job instead of monitoring attendance at study hall.

On the other hand, if we are going to hold coaches and administrators responsible for the education and graduation of student-athletes, then I don’t blame them for introducing such policies.

I think this is one of those things that will go under the radar until a high-profile player misses a big game because of these rules.

Along with the decision to scrap Rule 3-2-5-e a few days ago, the AJC also reported some other related changes proposed by the Rules Committee. Again, all of these still must be approved by an oversight body in March before they become official. The theme still centers around reducing the total length of games, though the impact on the game clock itself is much less under these changes (until 2008…see below).

Kickoffs will be from the 30-yard line instead of the 35. The clock won’t start until the receiver touches the ball; last season it started as soon as the ball was kicked.

This rule is getting the most attention and comment, but I like it. Kickoff returns add excitement to the game, and both a good return unit and a good coverage unit can affect field position one way or the other. Touchbacks can be the reward for exceptional kickers.

Coming out of a television timeout, the play clock for the first play of a possession will be 15 seconds instead of the normal 25.

That’s another rule I like. You’ve had three minutes on the sideline – get out there and play ball. 15 seconds is enough time to audible depending on what the defense shows. So long as you have a clear sign from the officials that the TV timeout is coming to an end, this rule shouldn’t be a problem.

Charged team timeouts — not TV timeouts — will be cut by 30 seconds.

If I have problems with one of the proposed changes, it’s with this one. Team timeouts are often used just to stop the clock, true, but they’re also used to deliberate strategic decisions. Is 30 seconds enough? Probably. But if we’re going to allow two minutes for replays and allow for many long TV timeouts, taking this time away from team timeouts seems a bit miserly.

On kickoffs, the play clock will start once the kicker is handed the ball by the official. In the past, the kicker could take as much time as he wanted before kicking the ball.

Note that this rule just starts the play clock and not the game clock. It’s not a bad idea – tee it up and let’s go. I wonder if allowances will be made for wind blowing the ball off the tee.

The time allowed for instant replay reviews will be capped at two minutes.

Ehhhh. As the AJC said, replays last year took an average of 1:49. No big deal. While some replay decisions could drag on, the real problem often seemed to be the frequency of replays. In most conferences, they tell us that "every play is reviewed by the booth" and that the officials can choose to examine a call without a request or challenge from a coach. I think that happens too often sometimes. Of course you want to get the calls right, but anyone who remembers the first quarter of the 2005 Georgia-Georgia Tech game knows how bogged down things can get when play after play after play gets reviewed. This area needs further discussion; it’s not just a clock issue.

The article also lists a rule which will be put into place for 2008:

"The rules committee also announced that starting in 2008, college football will go to a 40-second play clock like that now used in the NFL. The 40-second clock will start at the end of every play. College football currently uses a 25-second clock that doesn’t start until the ball is put in position and declared ready for play."

I’m pretty skeptical about this one. Part of the outcry over 3-2-5-e was the number of plays it cost us. This rule seems headed in that same direction. Unless it takes longer than 15 seconds to set the ball currently, this rule will likely result in fewer plays. Teams can also start taking a knee with two minutes remaining in the game if the opponent is out of timeouts.

J Huggins has some good thoughts on the proposals in the comments here. Anyone else?

The Lady Dogs face perhaps their most difficult challenge left in the regular season tonight at Kentucky. As I said the other day, Kentucky is backed into a corner right now. They started the season ranked, but now they’re desperate to salvage this season and earn another postseason bid.

Last year, Georgia’s speed at guard ate Kentucky alive for a blowout win. The Wildcats are coming off a loss to Tennessee in which they had a season high in turnovers. That’s a good sign for a Georgia team which has thrived off of turnovers and the transition game in its last two outings, but now they face a better opponent with something to play for. If they keep up the defensive fire they’ve shown over the past week, they’ll be in great shape and should be able to get out in transition again.

Things could become more difficult for Georgia in a halfcourt game. Kentucky has some nice size inside, and Georgia will need solid foul-free performances from Robinson, Humphrey, and Darrah to keep Kentucky’s front line from hurting them. They’re not a particularly good three-point shooting team, so Georgia’s effectiveness in denying the entry passes will be key. Kentucky’s best bet is to keep the game low-scoring and make Georgia grind out the offense. With that strategy, Kentucky has beaten Ole Miss, come very close against Vanderbilt, and lost 53-51 to a Top 10 Ohio State team.

Bracketology wears me out.

I’ll come right out and admit that. I just don’t get the point of calling the #7 seed in the Midwest Regional in February. Many of us, myself included, were sure that Georgia was heading for a postseason of some kind after beating Alabama in early February 2006. Then the rest of the season happened.

More than that, I just get tired of the politicking that goes on around the bubble and projecting which teams will be in and out. What I really dislike about it is the mindset it forces on many of us. We get the idea in our heads that 9-7 or even 8-8 is the goal, and we do the RPI calculus to show how that record distinguishes us from the truckload of other ordinary teams who also flirted with .500 in their conferences. We work backwards from that 9-7 mark to identify those nine wins and hope that we don’t drop one and have to win at Ole Miss to make up the difference. To me, it’s like focusing on becoming bowl-eligible. Why not just play the games and win?

This mindset is all over the SEC this year. With an undefeated Florida well out ahead of a slew of teams all with at least four conference losses, the label “Florida and the Seven Dwarves” is unfortunately pretty apt. That label comes from a very interesting piece today in the Chattanooga Times Free Press by Darren Epps that talks about the strength of the SEC with Jerry Palm of CollegeRPI.com. Palm attempts to deliver a dose of reality to the SEC: there aren’t very many impressive teams in the SEC once you get past Florida. He projects just five SEC teams in the NCAA Tournament.

Palm correctly points out that the strength of the SEC isn’t so much a lot of good teams as it is the lack of really bad teams. Other than South Carolina, most SEC teams can hold their own. That’s just good enough to get you in the discussion though. From there, you’re hoping that your good features outshine your warts. You’re left with weak and pathetic arguments like Randolph Morris’s "the way we played should say something about our team." Close is good enough in horseshoes, hand grenades, and Kentucky games against Top 25 teams.

Palm is brutally honest to the SEC West. "I see six NIT-quality teams in the West," he said. The winner of the SEC West might have an 8-8 conference record. Preseason favorite and last year’s great story LSU is bringing up the rear. That’s not parity to be celebrated; it’s just not good basketball. They’re not bad – any of them – but a game or two separating first and last place isn’t a sign of exceptional quality.

The East is a bit better, but they have their own problems. Tennessee might be the second-best team in the league, but they stumbled enough early in the season to be just around .500 in conference at this point, and they haven’t done much yet on the road. Kentucky looks to be just strong enough to merit a postseason bid, but they don’t seem likely to hang around long. Vanderbilt had a tremendous run against ranked teams but has been inconsistent and found it hard to gain traction. Georgia is dangerous but is vulnerable to poor shooting and has lost a key starter.

I’m by no means saying that these SEC teams, especially Georgia, should be left out. Teams don’t have to be flawless to get postseason bids, and they’re competing with other teams with their own pluses and minuses. All conferences will be campaigning to get as many bids as possible, and most have teams in the same position as the SEC’s "dwarves" . The fifth-place team in the ACC is just 5-5 right now. There are so many teams in this boat that selection committee chairman Gary Walters said, "conference tournaments could take on increasing significance this year in helping us to separate teams."

We’re all happy with the progress that the Georgia team has shown this year, and it would be gratifying for the all of the sacrifice and work put in over the past three years to be rewarded. The best way they can get there is to forget about aiming for 8 or 9 wins and have the kind of finish to the season that separates themselves from the rest of the SEC pack that’s drifting towards room temperature. If they do end up around that 8-8 or 9-7 mark, they’re putting an awful lot of pressure on themselves for the conference tournament, doing a lot of scoreboard-watching, and leaving their fate in the hands of the selection committee. Do better and the only bracketology they’ll have to worry about is their seeding.

With the High Holy Day of college football’s national signing day past us now, the competition to get the best prospects and be named the best class is as much of a sport to some fans as the football games themselves. At the center of this "sport" are the recruiting services. Since the early 1980s, these services have gone from newsletters and 900-numbers to full-fledged media companies with TV and radio shows, exclusive combines, and people as pseudo-celebrities and brands.

Behind the growth of this industry are the recruitniks who live and breathe recruiting news. Recruitniks have a love-hate relationship with the recruiting services. They devour every morsel of information and multimedia, and they rejoice when the prospects heading to their school are rated highly. After all, the recruiting rankings are the scoreboard in this sport. That fact also brings out the hate mail if the news is bad. The passion and irrationality can create a bizarre cast of characters on both sides of the information exchange including the overzealous, walking-NCAA-violation fan and the arrogant kingmaker recruiting guru. Most of us fall short of those extremes – I hope.

I don’t claim to be any kind of recruiting expert, and I certainly don’t follow recruiting as much as many people do. I know generally who Georgia will sign and some basics about those guys, and I am familiar with the higher-profile targets who considered Georgia this year. That’s about it. I’ve found that following recruiting and absorbing all of this information as a casual recruitnik has been a lot easier and less stressful keeping these things in mind:

• Recruiting rankings and ratings are just opinions. They might be based on hours of film study or trips and interviews all over the state, or they might be shots in the dark. Some of the "gurus" might have never played or been involved with college football; some have. That doesn’t mean that their opinions are without merit; some have worked hard to become informed and even earn the off-the-record confidences of coaches. There are no absolutes in this business, so just relax – discuss, disagree if you like, and remember that the rankings and ratings you see are just someone’s opinion.
  
• Recruiting rankings and ratings are not perfect and are often wrong. This might seem like the most mind-numbingly obvious thing you’ve ever read, but forgetting this simple point leads to so much of the bad blood from those who take these things too seriously. The recruiting services sell credibility and authority, so the more insecure among them are hesitant to admit that they might get it wrong. It’s OK to admit that, and to me it actually adds to the credibility of those who aren’t stuck on being right all the time. On the other side, you have fans too caught up in the minutia of specific rankings. "Why is our running back only rated four stars? Why is he the #3 guy in the state when he is clearly better than the #2 guy?"
  
• Recruiting rankings, even with their imperfections, can still provide some useful information in the big picture. If you look at the top prospects on a service like Rivals.com, you’ll see that most are committed to or have been offered by some of the best programs in the nation. If the best schools are offering the guys at the top of your list, chances are that you’ve identified some pretty good prospects. If you think in terms of generalities and don’t worry about specific rankings (the #6 vs. the #8 class), they have a good bit of value and show which teams should have better talent. Then it’s up to coaching, player development, scheme, academics, and everything else that turns the potential of top prospects into productive college players.
  
• Coaches are also not perfect in their evaluations. The ranks of Division 1 and 1-AA are full of stars that the big programs missed on. In fact, those kinds of programs depend on finding such guys that slip under the radar. Further, the top programs often have a good bit of dead weight from scholarship players who didn’t pan out. If the coaches who are supposed to be the real experts and have resources to meet and evaluate these prospects can’t get it right much of the time, I don’t hold the recruiting services to a higher standard of accuracy. Some coaches get it right more often than others; you can tell who they are because they keep their jobs.
  
  There’s an interesting post from HeismanPundit recently where he looks at the recruiting pedigree of various Heisman winners. Naturally the paper trail is much better for players from the Internet era, but his list is pretty thorough. What strikes me is that of the Heisman winners he considered to be top prospects, nearly all of them won the Heisman at a traditional power (surely the dynamics of the Heismandments come into play there). On the other hand, almost all of the Heisman winners he lists who weren’t top prospects won their awards at schools on the periphery of college football. Wuerffel seems to be the exception, but even Florida wasn’t much of a traditional power until the Spurrier years. It’s likely that a lot of "good" programs passed on or lightly recruited guys like Sanders and Ware, and they dramatically elevated their programs in such a way that they had the outrageously successful seasons it takes to win a Heisman at a school like BYU. If you want a name who fits that mold for next season, it’s Colt Brennan. He started his career as a walk-on at Colorado before going to Hawaii via a junior college and is poised to have the obscene stats that you need for Heisman consideration from such schools.
  
• As a rule, you want higher-rated prospects. One of the things you’ll hear this time of year, and I admit it annoys me to no end, is someone who’ll say, "Recruiting rankings don’t matter – <player name> was just a two-star prospect and he turned out to be an All-American." Good for him. Again, if the coaches can’t even get it right, I’m going to accept that there will be cases where blue-chippers are never heard from and walk-ons become All-Americans. This is usually the mantra of the fan whose school just lost out on a highly-rated kid. There is a reason why teams like Florida and SoCal are loading up on five-star prospects. As a rule, they’re better prospects. More of them, as a percentage, turn into elite college players. While some top prospects don’t pan out, having more on your roster means you have a much better chance of having a few who do. An elite prospect who lives up to that tremendously high billing can be truly special.
  
• Player-to-player comparisons get more hazy the closer you get to the national level. How can you say with any certainty that one offensive guard from Virginia is better than some other one from Ohio? In the same county or region, you might be able to get a pretty good comparison between two kids who play against each other. Even in the same state, you’ll have comparable opponents and are usually getting the opinion of someone who has a good feel for the quality of football in different parts of the state. But when you get to the multi-state region or the national level, it’s a tough job. You have editors trying to pull together the opinions of different local guys each with their own biases, and highlight films don’t always tell the whole story. Combines and national all-star games can help, but even they provide relatively few points of comparison. So someone is the #6 quarterback in the nation instead of #3. What does that mean?
  
• Highlight videos are nice, but they are highlights. Most of the recruiting services offer deep libraries of highlight videos now, and some of them are truly sick. Fans can make the mistake of getting too caught up on the highlights though. They are supposed to make the prospect look good, and you can piece together a pretty decent reel on most anyone who has seen much playing time. They’ll show the lineman making a pancake block, but they won’t show him giving up the sack. They’ll show the circus catch but not the pass that went right through a receiver’s hands.
  
• Who’s offering? If you want a very general sense about the potential of a prospect, look at who is after him. If is down to Michigan, Oklahoma, and Texas, he’s probably pretty good. Scholarships are scarce, and programs don’t intend to waste them on prospects they don’t consider to be worth it. You have to be a bit careful with this one though, because the inverse doesn’t always apply: the absence of a lot of big-name offers doesn’t necessarily mean that the prospect is a stiff. Maybe the staff has found a true diamond in the rough. Maybe the prospect fits a specific need that other teams don’t have. Maybe there are academic or character concerns. Maybe he’s such a mortal lock to one school that others don’t even bother. All of those cases happen every year. There are dozens of reasons why programs do and don’t offer certain prospects.
  
• Recruiting services are great for gathering data points. This is where they add most of their value in my eyes. Where is a prospect looking? Who has offered? Who leads? Will he qualify? The steady stream of updates about and direct quotes from the prospects and those involved in the recruiting process is very valuable information to those who follow recruiting. Though these decisions can often be fickle or irrational, the services do a great job of identifying the important factors and participants in the decision. Some of the best even form solid relationships with the prospects and are the first to know, often from the prospect himself, when there is something to report. College coaches subscribe to these services just to keep up with this kind of information. I get a bit less interested when the "guru" puts on his evaluator cap and starts telling me about a lineman’s technique with his feet or a defensive back’s hips.

As we get ready to welcome the next football signing class, Steve Patterson at UGASports.com compiles some of their signing day coverage going as far back as 1998. Much of it is free content, so read away. Some humorous stuff in there as you remember who did and didn’t pan out.

The past two Super Bowls have been some of the ugliest football I’ve had to watch. I still can’t believe that what Chicago trotted out there Sunday night was supposed to be professional football at its highest level. Indy’s dink-and-draw offense looked remotely attractive and effective only because Chicago looked so weak. I don’t know if it was the weather or the talent level being so even, but this was another painful four hours where the commercials were more entertaining.

Even in a BCS blowout, Florida’s offense looked interesting and was fun to watch. Last year’s Texas win was as good as football gets. The NFL sure knows how to market itself though. Even though the best football was played in the conference title games, they still have us convinced that this was the Big Game.

Last night’s 66-61 loss at Vanderbilt might seem like just another close road SEC loss, but there are two trends developing that might continue to hurt this team in SEC play. It’s not just about the past two losses; Georgia has even been able to overcome these things and win, but I don’t know how many more wins you can expect with these things happening.

• Georgia’s offensive decisions. Takais Brown did not attempt a shot nor go to the foul line for the entire last ten minutes of the game. I don’t know how many touches he got, but he was not a factor on offense. The leading scorer and a guy shooting 5-for-8 from the night is completely taken out of our offense due to shot selection and bad decisions. Meanwhile, Mike Mercer leads us in attempts again and shoots for another low percentage. Surprised?

  Honestly, I don’t blame Brown or Mercer. This wasn’t the first game that Mercer took too many shots and played out of control. If Richt had a quarterback whose favorite check was to throw deep into double-coverage no matter what was called, we’d first get on that QB, but eventually we’d wonder why Richt kept him in the game. Bad shot selection in basketball is bad enough, but when it comes from your leading shooter, it’s twice as bad. Think in terms of possession. If you have, say, 15 turnovers as a team and your leading attempts guy takes 10 shots that are rushed or low-percentage for him, that’s actually 25 possessions where you didn’t get a good shot. That’s a lot of pressure on the defense.

  Coach Felton must tighten up his offense. Georgia didn’t learn from the Kentucky game, and they shot under 30% from outside in the past two games on an average of 25 three-point attempts in each game while Brown attempted just 8 shots in each game. Why should we expect anything different against Florida and down the road?

• First half production. In the four games leading up to and including the Alabama game, Georgia averaged 39.5 first half points in each game. They didn’t fail to score fewer than 30. Since the Alabama game, Georgia is averaging 28.5 points in the first half and has scored 30 or fewer in three of those games and no more than 33 points. They have trailed at halftime in each of the past four games.

  The point isn’t that Georgia came back to win two of those games or that they scored 39 points in the second half at Vanderbilt. When you dig yourself that kind of hole in the first half, it requires a lot of energy to come back. Against Kentucky and LSU, Georgia had the home crowd and good enough defense to completely stifle the other team in the second half. Still, because of the first half, all of that great second half play just meant that Georgia had a shot at the end of the game.

Are these two trends related? You tell me. Here’s Georgia’s three-point shooting in each of the past four first halves: 2-15, 3-11, 1-14 , 3-10. Less than 30% in each game.

If this team is going to choose to live or die by the three-pointer, they have to shoot much better and make sure the people they have on the court taking the deep shots can hit them. If they want to be a more balanced team and take advantage of the improving Brown inside, then he shouldn’t be third or fourth on the team in attempts.

Conference validation

For the life of me, I can’t understand the SEC’s constant need for validation. Honestly I think it’s just something that’s woven into the fabric of the South as the region deals with stereotypes. Everyone knows that good football is played in the South, but we have to go to any lengths to prove that the SEC is the best. It’s all that "Yankee media bias" we have to overcome. SEC fans are so fanatical about our football that we’ve collectively developed this provincial and paranoid insecurity that requires us to be reassured constantly that the SEC is tops.

So it’s no surprise that SEC fans, and of course I’m mostly talking about the Georgia fans I hear from, are doing their best to ride Florida’s coattails. Great. Let’s print up a batch of SEC #1 t-shirts and measure the players for their SEC Rules rings.

I said back during the bowls that I don’t really buy into the conference loyalty thing. I don’t see how having the reigning national champion next door is a good thing, especially as recruiting hits the home stretch. Florida on top just makes our job that much more difficult, though not impossible – remember what happened the last time Georgia faced a Florida team holding the title. Nor do I use the bowls as conference barometers. If we do, how can we place so much importance on Florida beating Ohio State while ignoring an unranked Penn State making Tennessee look ugly or Wisconsin having no problems with Arkansas?

Of course I’m not trying to put down the SEC. I have no problem defending the football played here. We just go overboard sometimes (OK, often). If last night’s win is a fundamental statement by the SEC, what was it last year when the SEC champion fell behind 28-0 to a team from the Big East? I guess I just put a lot more value in matchups than geography.

The win much more than anything else just means that Florida was better and more prepared than Ohio State. It’s amusing that every SEC team on Florida’s schedule came closer to Florida than Ohio State did, but that doesn’t make the Buckeyes on par with Vanderbilt. Those extrapolating that Ohio State would be an 8-4 SEC team (and I’ve seen that very line) are reading way too much into a single game. The Buckeye defense looked lost against the spread offense, and Ohio State presented nothing unique and challenging for the Florida defense. Florida improved a great deal in their final two games; the same team that struggled to score and beat South Carolina and FSU in November got it together in time for the postseason.

Give Florida credit, and maybe the rest of the conference can try to knock Florida off instead of letting them carry the water for the rest of us.

BCS validation

We’ve also started to hear how this outcome validates the matchup set up by the BCS. That’s fine; these were two of the top teams and I have no problem with either in the title game. But I can’t help thinking how close we came to not having this matchup and about the sequence of events that had to happen in order to bring about this outcome:

• Florida had to block several South Carolina kicks to avoid their second loss.
• SoCal losing an improbable finale to UCLA.
• Louisville being offsides on a field goal attempt.
• Poll voters explicitly engineering around a tOSU – Michigan rematch.

Again, I’m not knocking Florida’s title. They earned it, and of such breaks and plays are champions made in all sports. But events independent of Florida’s control nearly kept them from even having a shot at the title. Would a playoff be any better? You’re still not guaranteed that the "best" teams will play for the title, but you are at least more certain that qualified teams will have the opportunity to play in the process. We’ve seen before (2004) that the regular-season-is-your-playoff line can be pretty flimsy. We’ve also learned a bit about how hard it is to be objective when determining the two best teams. Two months ago, the "Hype Lives Here" machine of ABCESPN, complete with countdown clock, had a lot of us thinking that Michigan and Ohio State were #1 and #2. Both proved to be paper tigers in their bowls. With Florida on top, we’re still left with a question we had two months ago: who’s #2?

On that note, we also need to look sometime at how we use losses as strikes against title contenders. Of course a five-loss team doesn’t belong in the discussion, but I think it says something that a couple of two-loss teams turned in two of the most impressive BCS performances. Even given their losses, I’d have trouble picking against SoCal or LSU versus any team.

Aside – can we shut up about 2004 now?

One of the biggest chips on the shoulders of SEC fans recently was the "snub" of Auburn in the 2004 national title game. In our insecure little province, that event was a sign that the media and the rest of the nation didn’t respect the SEC. Oklahoma and SoCal started the season #1 and #2. Without a loss, there is no way that any other team was going to jump them. Yet some still maintain that an Auburn team who came into 2004 off an 8-5 season and a generous #10 preseason ranking should have been in the title game instead.

Did it suck that Auburn didn’t have a prayer at playing for the title if neither #1 or #2 lost? You bet. That’s a separate issue though. Under the BCS system, conference, schedule, none of it mattered – #1 and #2 remained intact throughout the season, they woulda/coulda/shoulda played for the title in 2003, and there was nothing that would keep them from playing for the title in 2004.

How many times have you or one of your buddies wanted to be a fly on the wall during halftime of a big game? Did the coach peel the paint off the walls? What adjustments were made?

Loran Smith comes through with a pretty interesting recap of the Georgia locker room at halftime of the Chick-fil-A Bowl. Down 21-3 after the first half, I know I wasn’t alone in wondering what the Dawgs did during halftime to turn the game around. Some things that stood out:

• The reassuring calm of Richt. Others did the screaming, but Richt was the steady force this time. I know Richt has a reputation for being too calm or stoic, but this was a time when it was called for. The Dawgs didn’t need a kick in the pants as much as they needed a break. Richt was plenty animated in the second half – if you saw him upset during a fourth quarter pass interference call, you know what I’m talking about.
• Martinez asking for, and receiving, turnovers. He told his defense, "you must make turnovers," and they delivered four in the second half. I didn’t know it was something as simple as just asking for them.
• Bobo stressing the importance of getting a few first downs for momentum. "It is simple. Make first downs." That’s why I called Raley’s catch in the third quarter the most important play of the game. It was Georgia’s first first down since their opening drive, and it began to tip both field position and momentum in Georgia’s favor.
• The onside kick as a rallying point. Hope is a key for anyone trying to overcome an adverse position. The job of coming back from 18 down against the nation’s best defense had to seem pretty hopeless. Sensing that, Richt put the team’s hope in that onside kick. It was a great tactic – it gave the team a visible lift in the locker room, and if it were executed in the game it would mean that the Dawgs had already put points on the board with momentum on their side. Obviously it worked.

Good insights from Loran.

Entering conference play, a basketball team hopes to be hitting its stride. You’ve had two months in which to test tactics and rotations against competition of varying quality. You want to start well because a few early setbacks in conference play can make the rest of the season an uphill climb.

But the Lady Dogs aren’t hitting their stride yet as they enter SEC play tonight against Florida. For reasons explained nicely by Marc Weiszer in the ABH, Coach Landers cautions that it might be at least mid-January before the team really gets into their groove. Off-season surgeries disrupted preseason conditioning and development. Tasha Humphrey’s suspension required a Plan B approach to the first month of the season (which worked way beyond my expectations). When Humphrey returned in early December, you had a team that was marginally conditioned and playing with all pieces for the first time in nearly 14 months.

The SEC isn’t very forgiving, and Georgia will have to find its form quickly. There are some obvious areas where improvement will have to come.

1. Start stronger. Georgia raced out ahead of Rutgers and Stanford in key early games, but they’ve struggled for the first ten minutes of several games in December. That’s fine against Richmond, but it will kill you at Baton Rouge.
2. Production from the point. We’re not only talking about points, though Ashley Houts hasn’t played to her November form in several weeks, but the tandem of Houts and Hardrick must also do better jobs as creators for the other players. The assists-to-turnovers number has to go way up.
3. Where is Darrah? Megan Darrah is in a big slump, and the Lady Dogs can’t afford an outage from the wing. Christy Marshall is looking good but is still a freshman. Darrah can be a real difference-maker when she’s on.
4. Turn up the defense. Georgia is scoring fewer points in large part because they are creating fewer transition chances. We got spoiled with Sherill Baker’s steals. If they aren’t going to be as prolific in creating steals (and who can be?), they’ll have to compensate with better halfcourt defense.

On paper, the Lady Dogs have some great pieces. Angel Robinson is coming along nicely inside. Chambers is a sharpshooter from outside. Humphrey should be free to cause trouble from the inside on out. Role players like Darrah and Marshall bring a tremendous amount of skill, but they must be more consistent. And point guard play must improve a good deal – we’ve seen what Hardrick and Houts are capable of.

Last year’s Lady Dogs emerged from December with an identity forged from off-season attrition, and they were able to roll through the SEC losing only to Tennessee and LSU. Though they were few in number, they had reliable parts – you could count on Humphrey to be strong inside, Chambers to shoot it up from outside, and Baker and Kendrick to control the backcourt. This year’s squad has yet to solidify around such consistent roles, and it could be a dicey few weeks as they try to find that identity.

There were a lot of big plays by both teams in Saturday’s Chick-fil-A Bowl. Georgia had them on offense, defense, and special teams in the second half. But the biggest play might have been a simple pass on a short drive that resulted in no points.

Entering the third quarter, Georgia hadn’t managed a first down and only two yards of offense since its first drive. They had no running game to speak of, and passes were either intercepted, dropped, or off the mark. Through turnovers and special teams Virginia Tech had scored three times with a short field. The second half didn’t start much better. A short kickoff return gave the ball to the Dawgs on their own 16 yard line. Two plays only moved the ball three yards. Georgia faced third-and-seven from their own 19, and they hadn’t converted a third down all evening.

Then Matthew Stafford hit Mario Raley for a 24-yard pass down the seam. The pass itself was impressive enough. Any flatter and it would have been tipped by a linebacker. Any more time in the air and a defensive back would have made a play on the ball. It was Stafford’s best-thrown ball to that point, and it would be the first in a series of beautiful second half passes. Then there was the catch. Raley was hit and dropped as soon as he caught the ball. This was the same Mario Raley who less than two months ago was knocked motionless and carted off the field at Kentucky after catching another pass across the middle of the field. To most watching it was just a nice completion, but those familiar with the shot Raley took in Lexington know how truly impressive it was that he made this play and hung on to the ball.

Raley’s reception didn’t result in a score; Georgia advanced the ball as far as midfield before they had to punt. But the effect of the play was to flip the field and force a Virginia Tech offense that had operated from midfield or better for much of the first half to start their first third quarter drive from their own 10. It started a series of events that changed the game. Georgia’s defense held. Virginia Tech had to punt from their own 18. Mikey Henderson returned the punt 20 yards. On the next play, Stafford hit Brannan Southerland down the middle for 26 yards, and Georgia soon started an incredible string of 28 consecutive points to beat their third consecutive ranked opponent.

We’ll all remember the onside kick or the many stellar defensive plays or the long pass to Milner, but it all started with a pass to a nearly-forgotten senior receiver who shook off one of the most devastating and scary moments a football player can experience to go back across the middle and come up big in his last game.

If you’ve got another underrated play that featured into the win, be sure to leave a comment.

Since most of the bowls have nothing at stake, we have to make up some kind of competition. So we’ll use the win-loss records of conferences in bowls to say which conferences are better.

Make sense? Not to me.

Bowl games are all about matchups and motivation. The third place team of conference A playing the fifth place team of conference B tells us about as much about the respective conferences as the quality of the cheerleaders. It says plenty about those individual teams of course, but Alabama losing to Oklahoma State doesn’t mean the SEC is down any more than Kentucky beating Clemson means it’s the best conference out there.

On a related topic, I also don’t buy into the conference loyalty thing. I’m supposed to cheer for SEC schools. Sorry…can’t do it in most cases. These are opponents on the field as well as in the year-round sport of recruiting. I don’t want our competition having more feathers in their caps. The quality or shortcomings of teams are obvious on their own. I don’t need the rest of the SEC doing well in bowls to validate Georgia.