It’s trite and obvious to point out that injuries will affect a team. Most of us remember the horror of October 2013 as a slew of injuries derailed a team flying high after wins over South Carolina and LSU. Most often, though, we think about those injuries in binary terms: is a player available or out? After 2-3 (or 4-6) weeks, they’ll be back. In worse cases, they’re out for the year.

Georgia’s a little banged up right now, and that makes them just like most any other program during preseason camp. Tykee Smith and Darnell Washington have joined a list that includes several receivers and starting center Warren Ericson. Many of these players will return in time for the opener; game week has strong healing powers. Others, like Smith, Washington, or even Pickens, will have recovery periods that will linger on into the season.

Returning to the practice field though doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s no longer an issue. Certainly Georgia’s outstanding medical staff wouldn’t clear anyone in obvious risk of serious injury, but there’s a lot of gray area between being unable to participate and a clean bill of health. Most injuries aren’t as cut-and-dried as an incapacitating ACL tear, and there are many varying degrees of “OK.” Few players are going to feel fresh as a daisy during the physical grind of camp and the season. For these players then the season becomes a struggle of managing their condition(s) while remaining available to play. It’s a constant reassessment of the famous “hurt vs. injured” standard.

You often don’t hear about it until well after the fact. Just about every offseason has a story (or several!) like this one:

Georgia inside linebacker Nakobe Dean underwent surgery to repair his torn labrum this spring….Dean revealed he actually played through the labrum issue for the majority of the 2020 season.

Dean probably looked just fine to you and me as he continued to develop into one of the best inside linebackers in the nation. But clearly he wasn’t in top form, and he probably wasn’t the only one. How players cope with these minor injuries affects not only their ability to perform; it also affects how coaches manage lineups and situations. Ericson might return in time for the season, but the true extent of his recovery will have a ripple effect up and down the line. Blaylock might be cleared to practice or even play, but can he ever perform at his pre-injury level? Turf toe is one of those injuries that seems minor but can linger for weeks, and it could hamper Arian Smith’s top-level speed.

Georgia’s situation isn’t unique – the rare exceptions are those teams and players not dealing with a spectrum of injuries. Limited playing time or even absences might not make much sense in the moment, and coaches aren’t always forthcoming with their reasons. It’s worth keeping in mind that 1) an injury isn’t gone when a player returns to the team and 2) many injuries we’ll never know about until well after the fact, if at all.

As Georgia begins preseason camp today, I like to get my head around the composition of the team, and this format helps. The impact of the transfer portal and the exceptions made for the pandemic have made it tough at times to keep up with who’s coming and going, but things have settled down now. Georgia welcomes 20 true freshmen and three transfers to complete its 85-man roster.

Georgia’s personnel issues (if you can call it that) stand out in a format like this. At defensive back, there are as many newcomers as upperclassmen. You can see why the transfers of Tykee Smith and Derion Kendrick were so important. Brini, Speed, and Poole had all seen playing time but had yet to claim a starting job heading into their final season. The other options at cornerback were all largely unproven freshmen. We’ve penciled in Kendrick as one starter, and Smith would be considered a starter at star in a nickel defense. That still leaves one spot up for grabs (not to mention the rest of the depth chart), but you’re not as terrified about playing someone like Ringo or Kimber as you’d be if they were paired with someone much less experienced.

It’s a similar story on the offensive line. The return of Salyer and Shaffer for their senior season saves Matt Luke from dipping deeper into a 10-man pool of true and redshirt freshmen. Truss could still figure in the left tackle picture, and it would be encouraging to see the 5 starters come from among the 7 linemen with at least two years’ development in the program. Still, the offensive line tilts very young with 10 of 17 players as true or redshirt freshmen. The depth of the line and the flexibility of coaches to deal with injuries depends on this talented but raw group.

The hopes for a high-performing offense will lie with a young fleet of receivers and tight ends. There are no seniors among the group. With Pickens out indefinitely, Jackson and FitzPatrick are the only upperclassmen among the tight ends and receivers. This roster shows how Georgia is set up for a couple of exciting seasons with Gilbert, Burton, Arian Smith, Adonai Mitchell, and others having several years’ of eligibility remaining.

We also see how the team’s recruiting needs align with what’s going on out on the recruiting trail. The anticipated early exit of Daniels creates the need for depth at quarterback, and Georgia has a commitment from Gunner Stockton. Lovasea Carroll’s move to defensive back created a gap at tailback, and Branson Robinson will help there. Davis and Wyatt returning on the defensive front is huge for 2021, but they’ll leave a big hole next season especially if Travon Walker exits. Georgia has two defensive line commitments for 2022 and is on the hunt for more. Kirby Smart won’t be caught again without talent in the defensive back pipeline, and there’s a big group of seniors due to leave after this season. The same is true at linebacker where four seniors will depart and both juniors could be early exit candidates.

It almost goes without saying these days that the bulk of the roster (54 of 85) is freshmen and sophomores. Smaller senior classes are the norm with transfers and early draft entrants taking their toll on the roster. The team isn’t as young as it looks, though. 24 of the 54 freshmen and sophomores have redshirted, giving them at least one year of development in the system. All but four of the incoming true freshmen enrolled for spring semester. There’s no substitute for game experience, but coaches won’t have to worry about acclimating a large group of newcomers when preseason camp opens.

(Players are listed alphabetically by class. Possible Day-One starters in a base formation are in bold – just a best guess. [R] indicates a player who has redshirted. A star(*) indicates an early enrollee.)

When we tried to have a realistic look at J.T. Daniels’ Heisman chances, it boiled down to this conclusion: “Daniels would have to obliterate the Georgia record book and do things never before seen in Athens.” The high water mark for a Georgia quarterback remains Aaron Murray’s 2012 season: nearly 3,900 passing yards, 10.1 yards per attempt, and 36 passing TD. The stats of recent Heisman winners suggest that Daniels would either have to become a dual-threat quarterback capable of rushing for 1,000 yards, or he’d have to leave Murray’s 2012 passing stats in the dust. That doesn’t just mean break the records: Joe Burrow threw for nearly 5,700 yards and 60 TD in 2019. Mac Jones threw for 4,500 yards in 2020 in a shortened season – and didn’t win the Heisman.

Along the same lines, Blutarsky looks at the imperative to raise Georgia’s net yards per play (YPP). He clearly sets out the target for a team with playoff aspirations: “you’d better create a net YPP of 2+ if you want a realistic shot at the CFP (the four-team version, that is). And if you want to win, you’d better wind up north of 2.5.” What does that mean in practical terms? “Georgia probably has to bump its offensive YPP up a full yard over the 2020 number to make the CFP field this season, assuming it can maintain its defensive excellence.” Maybe a bit more context will help: “A 7.21 ypp would be the best in the program’s history.”

So there’s the simple challenge for Tood Monken and J.T. Daniels: perform at a level never before seen at Georgia. That sets the expectations fairly high, and it raises some interesting questions. What if Daniels matches or just barely surpasses Murray’s 2012 numbers? It would be a superlative season for a Georgia quarterback, but would it be seen as a disappointment? What if Georgia’s defense, and its secondary in particular, slips a little and yields, say, another half yard or so per play? Would we notice an appreciable gain on the offensive side? Would the pressure instead be on Monken to offset the difference and still come out with a net increase?

It’s good to put some concrete numbers behind our expectations beyond straight wins and losses. We recognize the need to modernize and increase the output of the offense to compete at the highest level; it’s why Todd Monken is here. Metrics like YPP, EPA, success rate, and explosiveness are important benchmarks to follow that let us know how things are going. We know, based on those metrics, what a successful team and offense looks like. If we want and expect Georgia to contend at that level, watching those metrics will be the equivalent of the world record line superimposed over an Olympic swimming or track event – is Georgia on pace, out ahead, or falling behind where they need to be?

The encouraging news is that while these numbers might be unprecedented at Georgia, several other teams have found multiple ways to get there. Georgia’s program bests, unless you’re talking about something like Herschel Walker’s output, represent good seasons but aren’t untouchable and should be surpassed if the talent and offensive system are what we claim they are.

Blutarsky has often identified college football’s regional passion as one of its unique characteristics worth preserving. That point has always resonated with me, and it’s not hard to see the downside of an enjoyable fall distilled down and repackaged into a nationwide “who’s in?” made-for-television event.

The conference expansion dominoes that fell across the nation a decade ago established conferences less as regional blocs and more as convenient revenue-sharing arrangements. The Big 12 stretched from west Texas to West Virginia. The SEC added a midwestern school to its East division, and Colorado found a home with the Pacific coast teams. Air travel meant that the rough geographic borders that used to constrain conferences were anachronisms, and conferences could be structured more around markets, eyeballs, and media rights. And as Blutarsky also points out, this train left the station long before 2012: the addition of South Carolina and Arkansas to the SEC in 1992 that facilitated a lucrative conference championship football game showed the way.

Texas and Oklahoma are coming to the SEC, and this pretty much says why:

If the SEC adds Texas and Oklahoma, a path can be drawn to the conference quickly generating as much annual revenue as the NCAA does — $1.3 billion in the 2024-25 fiscal year: https://t.co/e37G0idPE7

— Steve Berkowitz (@ByBerkowitz) July 26, 2021

That’s a ton of cash. (Though, for context, it’s still around 15% of the new NFL media rights deal. Why stop now?) What’s more important is that it creates an entity on par with the NCAA itself. That doesn’t mean the SEC’s revenues will equal the revenue of all other conferences combined. The NCAA is a distinct organization and gets its revenue from things like media rights for the NCAA basketball tournament. It does mean that the SEC, along with its media partner, will have sufficient clout to influence not only the competition on the field but also how college football is presented, marketed, and discussed.

Those focused on football have wondered how the addition of Texas and Oklahoma will shift the competitive balance of the SEC. How will the conference be organized? Georgia has played Clemson more often than A&M since the Aggies joined the SEC. Adding teams under the current model would be ridiculous. I do like the pod system many have outlined for football. (I can’t imagine a good system for sports like baseball though that would rotate through the conference often enough.) We can expect changes to scheduling, and it’s not as if Georgia will be playing Texas and Oklahoma every year.

The bigger impact will come nationally as the rest of the college sports landscape will have to deal with an expanded SEC as a bloc. The Pac-12 is already rattling swords about the SEC’s effect on the playoff expansion to 12 teams. The Pac-12 itself might not have much to say about it, but we can expect coalitions to form that will attempt to check the SEC. Those coalitions might be formalized through the expansion and realignment of other conferences, or they might remain informal and shifting alliances depending on the moment. No one wants to answer to the SEC, and there are several schools and conferences that might – might – be effective opposition if they can find common ground.

Those who appreciate the regional roots of college football might be amused that one effect of SEC expansion will be an even greater focus on southern football. Even as the playoff and media coverage package the sport for a national audience, the product will have a decidedly southern bent. It’s a big geographic footprint, but much of what happens in college football will be defined by what happens from Oklahoma to Florida. Certainly there’s enough good football outside of the conference to remain relevant and competitive, but it’s not hard to see that the narrative each season will begin as which outsider can take down the SEC’s best. Expansion might even lead us to rethink what it means to be a conference champion. Surviving and emerging as the SEC champion would, to many, be as impressive and more important than winning a national title against the best of the rest.

Whether it’s previewing each season’s football national title race or pondering the future of college sports, the addition of Oklahoma and Texas will raise the same question: “the SEC or the field?”

One more small thing…another effect I expect from this expansion will be to shift the SEC’s center of gravity westward. By that I mean six of 16 schools will lie on or west of the Mississippi. Oklahoma and Texas have just a bit more presence and clout than Missouri or even Arkansas. The SEC’s Nashville-Atlanta-Birmingham center can’t help but feel that tug. One consequence I expect will be the rotation of the SEC football championship game. Even a more permanent event like the SEC baseball tournament could be forced to rotate. There are at least four major domed stadiums in the west (New Orleans, Dallas/Arlington, Houston, and St. Louis) capable of hosting major events, and Dallas seems the most obvious choice to host the occasional SEC championship. You can be sure they’ll try.

Like it or not, the landscape of college athletics changed overnight. Laws in several states went into effect protecting the right of college athletes to earn money from their name, image, or likeness. The NCAA, pushed to the limit, adopted their own interim policy which will serve as a stopgap until legislation catches up. That day may never come – Congress is finding it difficult to find consensus, and we might just be left with a patchwork of state laws.

NIL is perhaps the cleanest solution the schools could hope for: NIL money isn’t paid by the schools, there aren’t employment issues, and there should be fewer Title IX issues. Athletes are now allowed to get what they can get from their personal brands just like any other person. Direct payments from the schools would have been much messier, brought along all sorts of regulatory questions, and cut out a large share of the NCAA membership who are barely solvent. The “Olympic model,” which is basically NIL, has been circulated for well over a decade. Schools and the NCAA could have been out ahead of this issue, but instead we have a last-minute acquiescence to look the other way while an inconsistent framework of state laws kicks in.

Georgia fans have been especially tuned into the NIL issue since the suspensions of A.J. Green and Todd Gurley. The draconian NCAA regulations and Georgia’s passive willingness to accept them had many of us beating the drum for NIL reform years ago. This new era won’t remove the bad taste left by those episodes; all we can do is say that it’s about time.

It will be fascinating to see what comes of this change. There will be an early rush as the market shakes out and determines value. Some will do well; others won’t. Some will build successful brands and set themselves up for a secure future, and others will squander the opportunity. Some will build brands that only tangentially have to do with their sport, and now they can monetize that following. Will there be locker room dynamics? Maybe – who knows? There will be some hilariously bad and cringe-y endorsements and branding. We’re here for all of it. That’s the way markets work, and none of it is reason enough to delay these rights to student-athletes.

Since there’s money involved, there’s also bound to be plenty of fraud and shady characters ready to prey on under-informed players and their families. Schools might not be facilitating the deals, but it’s in their interests to have a supporting role. Resources should be available to student-athletes to help them identify legitimate endorsement deals and stay within legal and regulatory guardrails. Many schools, including Georgia, have introduced such partnerships and programs, and hopefully more will follow. Businessman and NFL veteran Marshall Newhouse tweeted some good advice: get help to understand the state laws and school/NCAA rules that apply, thoroughly vet anyone who approaches you with a deal, and don’t lose focus. “The opportunities will come the more you shine.”

I’m particularly interested to see if and how recruiting changes. Do prospects have more incentive to remain closer to home where name recognition and brand value might be higher? Will prospects play fan bases off of each other to determine the most enthusiasm for their personal brand? Will we eventually see a decision based on what amounts to a legal bidding war? Fans are admonished to avoid communicating with or interacting with prospects on social media, but would it be a different story if they knew that buying that 5* prospect’s merchandise might tilt the scales? None of these prospects are beholden to a specific school’s compliance department yet – will this market be even more unregulated?

There are a million angles to NIL because it really is a fundamental change to the model of college athletics. Schools and the NCAA will still make a ton of money – these deals aren’t coming out of their vaults. Now, finally, the people who generate much of that revenue will get a taste of it and begin to realize the value that’s been there all along.

Excitement about the potential for the 2021 Georgia offense can only mean one thing: offseason talk about J.T. Daniels’ Heisman chances. The strong finish by Daniels and the Georgia offense, the number of weapons returning, and a full and normal offseason with Todd Monken have generated tremendous anticipation. With record-shattering offenses at LSU and Alabama in recent years, the hope is that Daniels could lead Georgia’s transformation into the next powerhouse offense. But would that mean a Heisman for Georgia’s QB1?

I can probably just link to this post from 2019 when we were having similar discussions about Jake Fromm’s Heisman chances as a senior. Things didn’t go well for Fromm or the offense in 2019, but the larger points stand. If you’re not a dual-threat quarterback, you must put up ridiculous numbers to be considered for, much less win, the Heisman.

How ridiculous? Not many pocket passers have won the Heisman over the past 15 years. Sam Bradford won in 2008 with only 47 rushing yards. Were Baker Mayfield and Jameis Winston considered pocket passers? Neither put up big rushing numbers but had decent enough mobility to make plays on the ground. In their Heisman seasons, those quarterbacks threw for over 4,000 yards and 40 touchdowns. Bradford and Winston won before the RPO era and the unreal offensive production we’ve seen in recent years. Joe Burrow threw for nearly 5,700 yards and 60 TD in 2019. Mac Jones threw for 4,500 yards in 2020 in a shortened season – and didn’t win the Heisman.

The gold standard for quarterback production at Georgia remains Aaron Murray’s 2012 season: nearly 3,900 passing yards, 10.1 yards per attempt, and 36 TD. That was a productive and balanced offense that took Georgia to the cusp of the national title game.

Back to Daniels: Brent Rollins of UGASports.com framed the answer correctly in this video: “yes, but.” When you look at the stats of recent Heisman winners (or even those invited to New York) and compare them against Murray’s Georgia-best 2012 season, you realize what has to happen. Daniels would have to obliterate the Georgia record book and do things never before seen in Athens. As Rollins observes, it would also require Georgia to run a lot more plays, and a higher percentage of plays must be passes. The deep and talented backfield is going to put an upper limit on how pass-happy Georgia becomes. That’s not to say Georgia can’t and won’t air it out – we saw that evolution begin to take place last season. But if an opponent presents a soft rushing defense, Smart and Monken are just as happy winning with 16 pass attempts and 332 rushing yards as they did at South Carolina last year. They’d be foolish not to, and it would take an intentional shift in offensive philosophy to blow past Murray’s benchmark and put up modern Heisman numbers.

Rollins notes that the Clemson game could swing how the nation views Daniels. A big performance and perhaps a game-defining moment on that stage would make Daniels (or Clemson’s D.J. Uiagalelei) an early favorite, and it might be possible to maintain that edge with a consistently solid showing the rest of the year. After all, Trevor Lawrence never cracked 4,000 yards in a season and finished second in the 2020 Heisman voting. An unremarkable showing against Clemson, even with a Georgia win, would mean that Daniels would have to stand out in games against lesser opponents with fewer people watching. He’d either have to make it up with volume (outrageous stats) or with a defining performance in the few marquee games left on Georgia’s schedule (Florida.)

Lawrence’s career reminds us of another development to watch. After the Clemson game, Georgia should be favored in its remaining games. Any SEC game could be competitive, but you’d still expect some big leads and lopsided wins. If Georgia is in a number of tightly-contested games this year, Daniels probably isn’t having a Heisman type of season. If the Georgia offense does click, you can expect to see the playcalling shift towards the capable backfield in the second half. What’s more, the trio of Beck, Bennett, and Vandagriff could be doing the handing off late in games. Clemson so dominated the ACC that Lawrence watched his backups close out a lot of games. That hurt his numbers in terms of the gaudy stats Heisman voters like, but it kept him fresh and available for multiple runs into the playoff. I think that’s a tradeoff most Georgia fans would accept.

Marc Weiszer outlines the process and events that aligned to announce the accomplished Caryl Smith Gilbert as Georgia’s new track and field coach last weekend. The importance of the move isn’t lost on anyone – she’s Josh Brooks’s first hire, and she’ll be the first female head coach of a male team at Georgia. Smith Gilbert is looking for a step up in competition in the SEC, but it had to take more than just a new challenge to entice a championship-winning coach to leave one successful program for another.

Yes, Georgia – or most any SEC school – has the resources to outspend other programs for staff and facilities. But the trick is actually committing to put those resources to work. All of the parties in Smith Gilbert’s hire downplayed the facilities concerns that led to friction with the outgoing coach, but I think we can be certain that there were more than vague assurances made about Georgia’s future investment in the track program.

How can we be so sure? To get an idea of what Smith Gilbert was used to in terms of support, have a look at this. That’s a $16 million track renovation spearheaded by Smith Gilbert involving a significant private fundraising effort. The Spec Towns Track might be a nice neighborhood gathering place in Five Points, but it isn’t the showpiece of a multi-million dollar capital campaign. The common constraint at both USC and Georgia is the “landlocked” nature of their existing track facilities leaving little room for expansion. Georgia, though, does have options outside of the central athletics complex. It’s reasonable that a coach of Smith Gilbert’s standing would have to feel confident in Georgia’s willingness to put its resources to work.

We know that Georgia lacks a master plan for facilities, and Brooks revealed that developing such a roadmap is a priority this summer. “We’re going to take a deep look this summer into the next five to seven year plan for…all facilities,” Brooks said. “Softball, baseball, everything.” (It’s interesting and encouraging that baseball – another “landlocked” facility – would receive attention just a few years after a $12 million renovation to Foley Field.) Brooks was caught in a tough spot by not inheriting a long-term facilities vision, and that reportedly strained the relationship with Petros Kyprianou. But Brooks had to anticipate that the facilities question would come up while trying to attract a replacement for Kyprianou. Even if a more comprehensive master plan isn’t ready yet, Brooks knew about the pending change long enough to at least come up with a coherent and acceptable answer. The hiring of Smith Gilbert indicates that he was able to do so.

The hiring of Smith Gilbert was a strong first move by Brooks. She’d be an impressive addition under any circumstances, but it was especially noteworthy after the messy PR that followed the inability to retain Kyprianou. In a way, it strikes the same tone as Kirby Smart’s knack of having a bit of good news ready to go on the heels of a setback. The facilities issues raised by Kyprianou were legitimate (and, to be fair, were mostly out of Brooks’s control), but this announcement has done a lot in a short time to change the conversation. If a title-winning coach in a good spot has faith enough in Brooks’s vision and leadership to move across the country, maybe there’s hope.

When most of us over a certain age think about NLI endorsements, we think of the star quarterback doing ads for the local car dealership. Those types of deals will surely come, but Blutarsky highlights a vector for income that might be more appealing (and effective) for college athletes: social media.

Just as social media has disintermediated so many other industries, individuals on social media can build and monetize a large number of followers on their own. Simply allowing student-athletes to share in the opportunities realized by others in their peer group will be a major benefit of NLI policies and laws. Sponsorships and endorsements are part of that, but some have even built their own personal brands. For many, the opportunity to cash in on that brand might be during college. To take an extremely local and specific example, think about Rodrigo Blankenship being able to cash in on the “respect the specs” brand during his time in Athens.

The social media vector could be especially important for female student-athletes. Gender inequity has been a concern raised (whether in good faith or not) about NLI income, but often that’s viewing it through the lens of the QB/car dealership endorsement. Several female student-athletes have large social media followings, and those followings are often independent of the success or revenue potential of the woman’s sport.

David Hale wrote a piece earlier this spring illustrating how this might work.

A new study from Temple University’s School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management found the potential for NIL revenue, on average, was actually greater for female college athletes than men, and athletes outside the revenue sports of football and men’s basketball could still cultivate valuable brands.

He features twin sisters on the Fresno State women’s basketball team. Their team went 17-11 last season and makes about $2 million in revenue. But the twins have over 2 million followers on TikTok, and they alone “could have a potential combined income of more than a half-million dollars annually.” Hale also mentions Olivia Dunne, “a freshman gymnast at LSU, whose nearly 5 million combined followers on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok make her one of the most potentially valuable brands in college sports.”

Every student-athlete won’t have millions of social media followers just as every member of the football team won’t get the car dealership deal. NLI is a wide-open market, and schools are quick to shy away from proposals to pool NLI income. You get what you can get, and some will be left out or limited to smaller “in kind” deal. It’s still better than what’s allowed now, and services are already popping up to help student-athletes establish and cultivate their personal brands. Access to the opportunities is what NLI is about and what has been denied student-athletes under the current system.

It kind of went under the radar yesterday, but the Jacksonville Jaguars and owner Shad Khan announced plans for a $441 million development around TIAA Bank Field. The project would include a $120 million football facility requested by new coach Urban Meyer as well as indoor/outdoor practice fields. Currently the team’s facilities are co-located inside the stadium with an indoor practice field on the south (river) end of the stadium. The new facility would be on the opposite northwest end of the stadium (Lot R area).

The ambitious plan would also include “a Four Seasons hotel and residences, office space and renovations to the city-owned marina.” The plan must still face scrutiny from a labyrinth of city agencies and political bodies, and a similar proposal was tabled not long ago. If the plan survives the process, “the team and its affiliated real estate development company hope construction could begin by the end of the year and be completed in 2023.”

The most interesting bit was this:

The Jaguars hope the project is the first step in what they are calling the Stadium of the Future for Jaguars fans, meaning eventual significant renovations — or possibly even a brand-new one — within the next decade.

When we talk about the future of the Georgia-Florida game, the facility in Jacksonville is more or less taken for granted. The game didn’t miss a beat during the last renovation that added the large scoreboard and pool areas in the endzones. A more significant renovation or a rebuilt stadium could take the venue out of play for multiple years as it did in 1994 and 1995. The series returned to the new stadium in 1996 without much fuss. At that time there wasn’t much support for moving the game out of Jacksonville long-term. That’s shifted somewhat in the 25 years since, and Kirby Smart is among those who might welcome a change. Another return to campus (or another neutral site like Atlanta) in the near future could be an opening for those who favor changing the nature of the series.

Additionally, there might be another party at the bargaining table:

The proposal said that the team would sign a long-term lease of the facility and that the team — not the city — would be responsible for ongoing maintenance and operational costs.

The stadium is and will remain city-owned, and Georgia and Florida negotiate the terms of the game with the city. If the Jaguars take a more substantial stake in the operation of the stadium, they could have input on how much of the game’s costs are shouldered by the hosts.

Most of us have a date or event we’re looking forward to as a personal return to normal. It could be a trip, a family gathering, or even the season opener in Charlotte.

For Kirby Smart that date might be today – June 1, 2021. It’s been 16 months since Georgia and other schools have been able to host prospects. A 2020 post-signing day dead period was extended over and over, eventually spanning the 2020 football season and entire recruiting calendar. Recruiting was done virtually, and decisions were made in some instances without ever setting foot on campus. That all ends today.

Georgia still did well in its 2021 signing class with a consensus top five class with several impact players. But we know the real magic of Kirby Smart’s recruiting happens once kids are on campus, and that hasn’t been possible for the past year. Though Smart adapted as well as he could to the circumstances, it was tough to maintain the national reach and appeal he had cultivated in earlier recruiting classes.

Visits will begin immediately, and Smart is raring to go. There are almost too many visits on tap to keep up with, but suffice it to say that it’s going to be a very busy summer making up for lost time. Plans that have been in development for months will finally become reality as the top prospects of 2022 and beyond experience Athens and all that Georgia football has to offer. Beyond that, Smart will also introduce prospects to the nearly-completed $80 million football facility. It’s the latest improvement to bring Georgia’s facilities on par with the best programs in the nation and should only bolster Smart’s effective recruiting.

If that’s not enough, the one-time transfer exemption will continue until July 1, so we could still see some high-profile transfers for the 2021 team arriving in Athens.

Smart put it plainly last week: “It’s about to go crazy.” June should bring a frenzy of offseason football activity and kickstart a busy summer that leads us into a huge season opener in just three months.

An interesting development in the world of college basketball:

Sources: Multiple mid-major programs are opting to not play guarantee games against high-major programs because it gives power conference teams a "free live evaluation" of future players who could move up via the transfer portal.

The level of separation has NEVER been greater.

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) May 25, 2021

First, it’s a bit silly to avoid playing a game because it might amount to a “free live evaluation” when extensive game film on just about any player is available with a few clicks. Doug Gottlieb makes a more relevant observation that just practicing at the facilities of a major program amounts to a recruiting visit during which a mid-major player can see how the other half lives. Even if you manage to avoid playing those games, talent will reveal itself. Then what?

Tampering isn’t permitted of course, and a player is off-limits until they enter the transfer portal. But the one-time unrestricted transfer is allowed for most sports, and as Nicole Auerbach explained last year, coaches in those sports have ways of contacting potential transfers through backchannels without making the in-person contact permitted by the portal. You can be sure that your favorite major football or basketball program knows how to gauge the interest of a player who might help them well before that player hits the portal.

One of Auerbach’s coaching sources suggested what might come next. Forget tampering or the portal – just plant the seed of a transfer before the player even enrolls. Call it outsourcing grayshirting:

One scenario I hadn’t considered was suggested by a soccer coach. He “can absolutely envision a world where high-major or elite Power 5 football coaches tell a recruit that he’s not quite good enough to play at School X right now, but he could be after a good season at School Y. Those coaches could maintain the relationship with the recruit and circle back a year later, eventually adding him as an up-transfer.”

This needn’t only be done at the individual player level. You wonder if a mid-major coach will lean into this idea and develop more overt, though still unspoken, relationships with larger programs. We’ve seen this with certain junior colleges for decades: academic non-qualifiers at a major program are “placed” in a favorable JUCO or prep program with the intent to re-recruit the player once grades are no longer an issue. The informal arrangement has risks: the player is under no obligation to sign with his original school, he may never make grades, or he might wash out as a prospect. But the system worked well enough that no explanation was required when a top prospect ended up at a familiar junior college.

Mid-major coaches might bristle at taking on the role of short-term player development. We can go back to Jake Spavital’s lament last week: “I can take the [high school] kid down the street that no one wants and no one offers who, after three years, you develop him into a good player, and he can leave.” But what if that coach becomes a participant in the process rather than a victim of it? Could you get better results if you have a steady stream of players who might be marginal prospects at major programs than you could relying on your usual recruiting pool? If transfers are a fact of life and the window of time for developing talent and winning with that talent is shrinking anyway, why not take a shorter-term outlook?

As I read this piece over at Get the Picture, what struck me is how easy it was to see the Georgia basketball program mirrored in Texas State football. That’s not a cheery thought.

There are differences. Some players like Savhir Wheeler recruited by Tom Crean were certainly sought-after prospects, but, man, if this line didn’t hit close to home: “My whole argument is I can take the [high school] kid down the street that no one wants and no one offers who, after three years, you develop him into a good player, and he can leave.” Again, Wheeler, K.D. Johnson, and Toumani Camara were wanted and offered by good programs, but that doesn’t make it easier to see a player’s development pay off somewhere else. It’s especially tough when that “somewhere else” is a team you’ll be facing next season.

“The rest (of available scholarships) have gone to transfers, 11 of them. That after (Jake) Spavital lost 12 players to the portal. He has not signed a high school prospect at Texas State in his Class of 2021…”

That’s describing a mid-major Sun Belt football team, but it’s not far from the story at Stegeman Coliseum. Crean has at least signed a few high school players, though the current recruiting class is rated near the bottom of the SEC. Like North Texas football, Georgia basketball will remake its roster largely through the transfer portal. For the third straight season, well over half the roster will turn over. Continuity is impossible. The coach’s job now is to assemble a roster with a one-year expiration date and win with it. That might be invigorating for Spavital: “it’s given life to our program.” It’s proving more difficult for Crean though as the top performers from each team leave and are replaced with less-accomplished pieces.

The contrast with what’s happening across Smith Street is glaring. Sure, the Georgia football team has lost players to the transfer portal, and there have even been some highly-rated Georgia players like Brenton Cox to transfer out. On the whole, though, most of Georgia football’s losses to the portal have been typical of transfers in earlier seasons – players with disciplinary issues and players buried on the depth chart who haven’t showed signs of breaking through. Georgia football approaches the portal from a position of strength – as a destination. The portal is used to improve the program and not just fill out numbers.

That’s the age-old problem for Georgia basketball: how to make it a destination. It’s been tough enough over the years just to recruit players to Athens, and now the program is doing someone else’s player development. Players have recently departed Georgia for Arizona, Kentucky, Auburn, Dayton, and of course the NBA. That’s quality talent that could have been a solid core had it held together. The long-term goal is to make Georgia a place at which those players see themselves accomplishing their goals. The short-term imperative is to piece together a roster from transfers and recruits and try to hold it together long enough to accomplish something significant enough to make Georgia that destination. Even that is proving difficult, and even signs of progress like attracting an Edwards or a Wheeler are followed by two steps back and have failed to “give life to our program.”

The fans did their part. Challenged by Tom Crean to show support for the program, Georgia fans set attendance records. The setting for big moments like the 2019 Kentucky game was as good as it gets. Facilities are no longer an anchor holding the program down. What’s left? That’s why Crean gets the big bucks. It’s generally accepted that this will be a decisive season for Crean’s future at Georgia. With the number of decent perimeter shooters coming in, the upcoming roster might actually be more suited to Crean’s style than any roster he’s had at Georgia. But it’s asking a lot for another overhauled roster to come together in the time it takes to have an effective November and December and have enough wins in the bank to survive the SEC slate and deliver Crean to the NCAA tournament. That’s what’s at stake. As Spavital put it, “[if] you don’t win, you get fired. We gotta think outside the box here.”

Couldn’t describe my 2020 viewing habits better:

A number of fans were introduced to the pleasure of attending Man Cave Stadium last season and found easy access to things like restrooms and refreshments to be something of a pleasure.

As much as I hated to break my home game streak and go without one of the things I enjoy most, I have to admit that it was nice to set up in the backyard with all of the comforts of home steps away. Can’t even begin to calculate how much money I saved, too.

So why am I so excited to get back? I wrote this about opting out last fall:

For many of us the social element of gameday is as important as the action on the field. It’s an opportunity to bring together friends and groups from around the state (and beyond) and rekindle family bonds and traditions that span generations.

That’s the advantage the in-person experience has over watching at home. With the social aspect of gameday significantly (and necessarily) curtailed last year, it made it a fairly easy decision to watch from home. Now that it’s looking like 100% capacity and a fairly normal experience on tap for the 2021 season, I’m more than ready to be back.

I do agree that Barrett Sallee might be stretching it a bit saying fans will “never take the joy of watching a game in person for granted again.” It might not take that long either – ask me about joy around the second half of a hot September guarantee game against UAB.

I called last year’s NFL draft results “decent but not great” for Georgia. Georgia did have seven players drafted, but several of the higher-profile draft-eligible Dawgs went later than expected. We saw LSU’s dream season pay off with a record-tying 14 picks, and Alabama had nine picks in the first three rounds. Those were extraordinary results, but those are the programs against which Georgia competes on the field and on the recruiting trail.

Thursday’s first round of the 2021 draft got off to a slow start. It wasn’t a surprise to see Eric Stokes selected in the first round, but it was a little unexpected that he would be the only Dawg who came off the board on Thursday. The news got much better on Friday as Tyson Campbell and Azeez Ojulari were drafted early in the second round, and three more players followed in the third round. By the end of the seventh round on Saturday a program-record nine Bulldogs had been drafted. Six were drafted in the first three rounds. As usual, several undrafted players quickly signed free agent deals and will report to an NFL camp.

With the nine Bulldogs selected in 2021, 29 Georgia players have been drafted in the four drafts held since the national title game appearance. That’s the best four-year run of draft picks ever for the Bulldogs. There have been other clusters of years with strong draft results: 15 players were drafted in 2012-2013 and 2002-2003. No other time period in program history has seen this quantity (29) or consistency (at least 7 each year) of draft picks. That’s what you’d hope for as a string of highly-rated signing classes becomes draft-eligible. We can’t quite close the book on the Mark Richt era yet, but it’s fair to say that the Kirby Smart recruiting machine that kicked into gear in 2017 is now producing its share of draft picks.

I focus on the first three rounds since those players are more likely to make rosters, start, earn more, and have lasting NFL careers. Of course there’s value to be had in later rounds (and even UDFAs) – just ask Tae Crowder. But just as the odds are better for highly-rated recruits to be drafted, you’d rather be drafted earlier. It’s one thing to claim a high number of draft picks, but it’s better to have those picks concentrated higher in the draft. Having a top pick doesn’t guarantee a title (Stafford), but championship teams produce high draft picks. LSU’s remarkable 2020 draft class had five first-round picks. Alabama’s 2020 championship team produced six first-round picks. It was encouraging, then, to see Georgia have twice as many early round picks (6) in 2021 as they had in 2020 (3).

The next step for Georgia is to have more of its players called even earlier in the draft and especially in the first round while maintaining at least seven picks per year. Georgia has recruited as well as anyone over the past four recruiting cycles, and the talent pipeline seems to be just as full for the future. This is what I touched on after the national title game. Then we wondered how very good players become elite Heisman-quality performers. Now we ask how do obviously talented and draftable players become elite high-round draft picks?

This might seem like a secondary concern for Kirby Smart since job #1 is winning football games getting whatever production he can out of these players while they’re in Athens. Two things are true though: first, Georgia promotes not only the number of players playing in the NFL but also their earnings. Higher draft picks earn more at first but also have a better shot at sticking around in the league long enough to sign higher-paying contracts once they prove themselves. Second, while a single elite pick might not say much about a team’s success, a slew of such picks probably means you had a pretty good season. LSU and Alabama are the extreme examples, but it’s also not much of a coincidence that the most Georgia first-round picks (3) came after they played for the 2017 national title. More early draft picks will be a lagging indicator that Smart got it done on the field.

This is a discussion at the margins, but marginal differences distinguish championship programs. Once you get to the point at which talent and resources are no longer roadblocks, so much time and energy is spent coaxing out the fractional improvements that matter against the best opponents. Entire fields of study using terms like “Pareto analysis” and “80/20” have been built around all that goes into getting that last bit of improvement out of a system. If you look at the final SP+ rankings of 2020, you see that the margin between the #25 team and the #10 team is as wide as it is between the #10 team and the top four.

That’s where we are with draft picks. It’s difficult and a tremendous accomplishment to be drafted at all. We’re thrilled to see a record number of Bulldogs drafted, and the year-over-year continuity shows what we all know to be true: Georgia is a consistently strong program with consistently strong recruiting. It already produces draft picks at a clip better than all but a handful of programs. Just as the Georgia program is trying to make the difficult incremental improvements to move from a perennial top 10 program to a regular playoff participant, those efforts will pay off with Georgia’s draft picks coming in earlier rounds in better and higher-paying situations for those players. Six early-round picks in 2021 is a good start. If Georgia puts together another title run, the results on draft day could be even better.

Georgia’s 2021 NFL Draft Selections

• DB Eric Stokes: Green Bay Packers (1st rd, 29th overall)
• DB Tyson Campbell: Jacksonville Jaguars (2nd rd, 33rd overall)
• LB Azeez Ojulari: New York Giants (2nd rd, 50th overall)
• LB Monty Rice: Tennessee Titans (3rd rd, 92nd overall)
• OL Ben Cleveland: Baltimore Ravens (3rd rd, 94th overall)
• TE Tre’ McKitty: Los Angeles Chargers (3rd rd, 97th overall)
• DB Richard LeCounte: Cleveland Browns (5th rd, 169th overall)
• C Trey Hill: Cincinnati Bengals (6th rd, 190th overall)
• DB Mark Webb: Los Angeles Chargers (7th rd, 241st overall)

From ESPN:

The SEC will not require fully vaccinated individuals who are asymptomatic to participate in the league’s surveillance testing program, according to an updated version of its COVID-19 protocols. As long as they have approval from their local health authority, fully vaccinated SEC staff and players also will no longer have to quarantine following an exposure to someone with COVID-19.

This is good news and a strong message from the SEC. Vaccination is our best path out of the pandemic, and there need to be clear benefits for those who choose to get a vaccine. This updated policy reflects the reality of what it means to be vaccinated and recognizes the growing understanding that vaccinated individuals are at much lower risk of contracting or transmitting the virus. It’s also an incentive for those who might be hesitant about getting the vaccine. Any temporary and minor effects of the shot pale next to constant testing and lost time due to quarantine.

Of course any vaccine isn’t 100% effective, hence the allowance for “asymptomatic” individuals. It does mean, though, that a rare positive and symptomatic infection won’t cause vaccinated teammates to have to quarantine. Those quarantined close contacts, many of whom didn’t test positive themselves, wiped out entire position groups and were a big driver of reduced roster numbers and canceled games in 2020.

Hopefully other conferences adopt this policy change soon while continuing their diligence. Though not all will be able or willing to receive the vaccine, the goal is for near-universal coverage to prevent a single case from becoming a larger outbreak. Widespread vaccination will not only mean full stands this fall, it will also protect student-athletes, staff members, support personnel, and others who come in contact with the program. It will reduce, and hopefully eliminate, the weekly uncertainty and disruptions that ruled the 2020 season and ensure the likelihood of a full season.