After the Sugar Bowl, I took a day to reflect on the Dawgs season and the current state of college football. I’m pretty exhausted. It’s been a tough year to be a Georgia fan. For a lot of reasons, but mostly because this team lacked any energy, and had zero personality. Bobo’s offense was as predictable as… well, Bobo’s offense. I could go on…here you go:
With the Dawgs: There is good and bad. Good: this graduating class lost 5 games. Two national championships. That’s elite. However, the team from this year was flat. It’s probably my least favorite Dawgs team to watch since the Joe T. era. They averaged under six first-half points in games that mattered. I don’t know how you justify bringing Bobo back. His offensive imagination is very 2004. Very ‘get off my lawn’. The WRs dropped passes. A lot of passes. They missed tackles. Beck is all hat, no cattle…’looks great on paper’. If I were an NFL exec, I wouldn’t touch him. Concerning Gunner – given the circumstances, he played fine. I wonder what would have happened if Kirby started him all year…
I’m not ready to talk about next year.
The Sugar Bowl was much of the same. Dropped passes, stupid penalties, missed tackles, a boring offensive playbook, and no energy. Notre Dame played GREAT. I think UGA has more talent, but talent doesn’t win games (i.e. Beck). They had a great game plan, the QB played like a champion, and their head coach Freeman is an absolute class act. After that performance, I have all the respect in the world for those guys. Quite frankly, I’m pulling for the Irish to win the National Championship.
Interesting playoff stats:
- All teams with a bye are out
- Teams 9-12 were all destroyed
- All of the games have been boring
While there is clearly more parity in college football, the system and the playoffs still need some tweaks. Some of my early thoughts (not completely vetted):
- 16-team playoff. There’s an argument to get rid of conference championship games as they don’t really matter anymore. Still noodling on this one.
- The strength of schedules needs to be a more important factor vs. record or conference (hence: get rid of auto bids). In terms of talent, the SEC is clearly the dominant conference, but they beat each other up. All of the SEC detractors (“SEC has fallen off” headlines…): don’t be lazy. The same parity is coming to all conferences. There will be NO MORE off weeks. For anyone.
- The Player’s rights need to be adjusted. College football should put the GAME at the forefront, not focus on individual athletes who demand compensation.
- I support NIL but with limits. I think they’ll figure that out. The idea that a freshman WR can be guaranteed $5M/year for the next two years seems weird. Where is his incentive to play to the best of his ability? Look at Arch in Texas – why hasn’t he transferred out to get playing time? Maybe the solution is a top limit on payout and an insurance policy…something like that.
- I also support the transfer portal, but there needs to be limits. First, the idea that kids can transfer without limitation can crush a program. And that the transfer portal closes on 12/28 completely diminishes the importance of non-playoff bowls – extend that to mid-January after the season is over. A solution: why not limit a kid to one transfer during his eligibility with hardship exceptions?
Deep down, college football is still a game played by college kids who love the game and know they aren’t going pro. Don’t let the top 5-7% of kids that make money ruin the game for the other 95% of college football athletes.
On the playoffs: I don’t have any skin in the game with any of the teams remaining. I haven’t even looked at the lines. I probably won’t. However, here’s what I hope happens:
- I hope Notre Dame beats Penn State.
- I hope Ohio State beats Texas. Two reasons: a) I don’t want Greg Sankey to have the pleasure of Texas winning the natty (remember the SEC Championship?), and b) I’m hypnotized by Ryan Day’s jet-black Hair For Men beard. It’s like it has its own iPhone photo filter.
- Championship: I hope Notre Dame beats Ohio State. I will watch that game but with the sound off.
I’d love to hear your thoughts…
Hard to disagree with your comments, even for this UF grad. I am pulling for PSU to win it all but only because my sister is a professor there. Not much interest in it otherwise at this point.
The portal has become the biggest problem. NIL is out of control at the moment, but eventually boosters will tire of giving away money for zero ROI. However, when you combine the NIL with the portal, forcing coaches to re-recruit and renegotiate with anyone on their roster that wants to play the game, it creates a race to the bottom. Limit the transfers to one plus hardships and I think you see a lot of this get solved.
As for the playoff….bring back the BCS! (Kidding, sort of).
– On the Dawgs: I hear you on Bobo. I’m frustrated with some of his play calling – toss sweep, short side of the field… when your O line isn’t consistently blocking/opening holes, short pass when you have to go the length of the field in the 4Q. I could go on. But I don’t care who the OC is – if the like can’t block and the receivers can’t catch, it’s not going to be Elite/Monken 21/22 offense. It’s just not. Given the inconsistencies with the players, I think the the coaches over all did a helluva job to get an SEC championship and 11 wins outta this team. That ain’t nothin’.
NIL – the first, most obvious step for me is that there needs to be actual services performed, Not just rights paid for. The idea was the kids to make money off of Jersey and video game sales. Fine, great. But if kids are cutting contracts for commercials, let’s see them. No issue with guys on bill boards, but Texas oil barons shouldn’t be able to pay for the rights to a kids NIL, and then the kid doesn’t have to do anything for the money.
Transfer portal – agreed, one time with hardship exceptions. Players in the NFL just can’t walk away, if we want this to be more like the pros, should be the same rules.
Also, eligibility – Covid is gone, so should all these exemptions and restrictions exceptions for more years. Kids playing 5, 6, 7 years is nuts. It’s gotta stop. The NCAA is scared of their own shadow now with lawsuits, so it’s a free for all….
And the NCAA – we need national legislation to give the NCAA (or some other org) actual police powers. And all these states passing different laws to give programs edges is causing chaos as well. There’s gotta be order, and absent either an act of Congress (or a National contractual agreement with all conferences and independent schools?), it’s just gonna get worse.
Texas vs ASU was a great game. Sparky got screwed!
I hate uga and outside of Beck I can’t name one player. What happened to uga RB’s?
I mean we all saw this coming with NIL and transfer portal, right? I don’t have an answer, but it’s a shame that NCAA football is being reduced to “Who can pay the players more”. The NCAA needs to be the adult in the room, but as someone already said, they’re afraid of their own shadow. As far as playoff structure, I’d have no issue with the conference champions receiving auto bids plus 1 wildcard from each conference. I gotta say, as a Notre Dame alum raised in Georgia and now living on Tobacco Road, I’m soaking-in every minute of this.
Bobo’s going nowhere. I was listening to a UGA insider on a local sports talk show earlier this week. He said Kirby had to treat Carson with “special treatment”. Sounds like he’s soft. Looked like he was soft too. Great talent but I think more interested in the IG and Lambos than being an elite QB (which he is not).
This is a class act. Gotta say all from a ND fan the Georgia fans have been nothing but class in every interaction. When Georgia fans mad the trip up to south bend they really were nothing but nice and welcoming! I will now be rooting for the Dawgs as long as they aren’t playing The Irish !
Last thing college football needs is another bloated postseason playoff like literally every single other sport. What is to gain by a #1 vs. #16 matchup? Sounds very boring. College football is great (er, WAS great) when every single week mattered. An 8 team playoff is plenty and honestly I’m not sure anything was broken with 4 really. But beyond the playoff issue, 1-A college football is just losing it’s special-ness. It has the stench of the NFL now and I feel there is no turning back. Personally I’m enjoying watching the mid-majors, smaller schools and even Ivy league more than the power 5 teams these days.
Post of the year.
For reasons nobody wants to hear, things aren’t going back to the ‘good old days’. NCAA had head in the sand for too long on any reasonable player compensation which spurred the NIL situation we have now. Conferences and their athletic directors will continue to pimp themselves to TV networks for the highest dollar while degrading everything that made this sport great, the week in – week out importance of the regular season
Texas-Arizona State was far from boring. The 4th quarter and overtime were nuts.
How did the SEC favor Texas? By putting the SEC championship in Atlanta? Seems like that was a huge gimme to Georgia at the expense of every other team in the conference. Get ready for a big push to move the game to “neutral” Jerry World in Arlington.
About the portal, one thing is going unsaid: Coaches are using it to run off players that aren’t producing and/or they simply dislike. Except for a very few disgruntled stars, most portal travelers end up at a program of lesser status, from a big state school to a directional.
The NIL pay is getting so high that there is speculation that Ewers will transfer instead of going pro because he can make more money in college than if he is a late first/early second -round pick in the NFL draft. If you read the legal opinions, there’s little that can be done and the ineffectual NCAA certainly won’t do that.
Prediction: The SEC, Big 10 and a few other major (as in money and eyeballs) programs will break away from the sinking NCAA and create a new association that’s run by people with athletic director backgrounds, not hesitant, bureaucratic college presidents.
Hook’em!
Pretty amazing that some players can make a lifetime worth of money playing college ball. The elite athletes will always go pro, but many B listers/ those on the cusp of elite may choose to get paid for 4-5 years at college and not worry about getting hurt in the NFL. If you’re going to be a big fish in a small pond (NCAA), might as well get paid, I guess.
No two people will agree on the system or moving forward. A very simple solution – Take away a top 25 ranking system, bring back BCS bowl rankings since it takes SOS in to consideration and have a top 24 ranking and those 24 make the playoffs. Many can argue a few 9-3 teams would have done better than half the field they had this year.
The transfer portal also should not open until after the bowl season/season ends in general. Its obnoxious these kids opt out or transfer before bowl games. They chase money more than a degree or quality playing time. The “what can you do for me” mentality would be taken in to account if I was a GM.
Side comment on Arch @ Texas. My family and the Mannings are friends. Arch is old school in a sense that he listens to his Dad, Grandfather and Uncles. He waited his time, learned the playbook, has not complained, stated his desire to stay on multiple occasions, and knows he will be financially secure from his NIL, family money, etc. His dad is the familys “financial advisor”. His future is solid and bright. More kids need to treat the NIL&NCAA as a business/opportunity and not like they are owed it and squander the opportunities and connections that come with it.
I would argue two things:
1. I don’t think Clemson got destroyed. They got beat, but it wasn’t a beatdown on the same level as nearly everyone else.
2. I don’t think all of the games were boring. The Texas/ASU game was fun to watch (at least starting around 6:00 in the 4th when I turned it on). And, again, I think the Clemson game wasn’t bad. But yes, 6 out of 8 were boring.