RWS

Oh, ok then chump. Did you say the same thing about UGA when they lost close games three years ago? Maybe you're 8 and you can only remember UGA at the top but, please remember, this sport is cyclical. AU is down and UGA is up, for now.

The "SEC has a losing record against P5 out of conference" arguments is as dumb as conference records in bowl season. If the #8 team in the SEC (or B1G, or any other conference) plays the #3 team in another conference and loses, what does that prove? Yes, it indicates that the SEC is not so much better than the other conference that the #8 SEC team is better than the #3 team in another conference, but that's it. If there are multiple results where teams lower in conference standings from one conference beat higher end teams from another, that does prove something but that isn't what has happened with the SEC this year. LSU is upper-middle class and lost to the best team in the ACC. Bama is probably the second best team in the SEC and lost to the best team in the Big 12. UF loses to Utah, but UF is in the bottom third of the SEC and Utah is the top third of the Pac12. The point being, if you just look at the win/loss numbers, you're missing the context. Also, despite getting out of the basement of the SEC, AU is still in the bottom half of the SEC by most people's view, even before the result Saturday.

I took to mean that they base their program on "business" aka winning, preparation, etc., with the implication being that TN is based on flash and hype.

What gives you the impression that he's giving up? He said it's difficult and sometimes kids make decisions that are not in their best interest because they're getting bad advice or are having a hard time adjusting to higher level of competition when they get on a college campus. Look at what Saban has said about the transfer portal and then try to tell me it's materially different than what Freeze said. Then tell me if Saban has given up.

He does have another year of eligibility

Apparently he has a clause that increases the buyout if he's over .500 for his HC tenure. I hope that he'll see the writing on the wall and agree to resign with the school still paying some significant portion of his buyout, which is what AU did with Tuberville, if remember correctly. He seems like a great guy and certainly stabilized a program in free-fall after the Chad Morris years.

I'd guess Arky if he goes anywhere this offseason

Your thoughts have some merit, though this is not the case in which you should apply them. Leach passes away out of the blue and MS State has to hire someone immediately. Arnett was never more than a glorified interim getting a tryout this year but now he can say he has experience running a program and MS State structured this deal so that they will likely pay very little to fire him, given the offset language. MS State did it right, which is doubly impressive given that they did not have the long-term AD there when this all went down, if I remember correctly.

That was exactly my thought. I think Arky is a toss up and NM State is probably 85% win probability; given that they only need one more win, it seems highly unlikely that they'll miss a bowl. I will say, 7-5 (3-5 in conference) sounds a lot better than 6-6 (2-6 in conference). Not writing off any chance at the Iron Bowl, I'll be there cheering, but the chances for that one aren't nearly as high as the next two.

Purdue is a good thought; I'd say they tend to be giant killers in their better years, it's just that a good year at Purdue is 7 wins.

If that A wasn't next to your name that might actually be worth addressing. But it is, so maybe just worry about players getting arrested with guns and pot, providing guns to teammates who then shoot young women, or any of the other items on the long laundry list you can find with a quick google search.

That is a terrific idea. You have a pro on the other side of the table, get one for the University too.

A quick google shows that those were his stats last year at N. Colorado

I'd imagine he's referring to the former players for the deaths portion, at least from what I have heard about.

It's always the whiniest who accuse others of being soft. Go hibernate in some spanish moss and let people who actually enjoy football talk about it.

Giving up over five yards per carry while only averaging 3.6 on offense didn't help either. It's been years since I've seen a UGA team that has struggled to run the ball like this, even given the health issues at RB. AU's d line and LBs are not as talented as years past so the coaches are having to scheme around them. At the end of the day, it just came down to Beck throwing the ball to his playmakers, but given that he had one pick and another potential pick was dropped, I don't know that I want him throwing 40 times a game if I'm a UGA fan but that seemed like the only way the offense could consistently move the ball. All that said, I will be more surprised if UGA loses a regular season game than if they win out. I think they'll tighten some things up, some of the injured players will come back and they'll round into form. Not to mention, the schedule isn't exactly punishing the rest of the way.

1000%. Rule has been changed but the whole reason we know about the "Bush Push" is that it should have been a penalty.

Since you're apparently new at this, AU was leading the rivalry all-time 10 years ago. Saying that UGA has dominated the last 10 years is definitely accurate, 20 is a pretty big stretch.

Ricker, ironically Hunter was a 3* that Harsin picked up right before signing day. I'd say the other backs in the RB room are going to be good, they're just young. The DBs have been good, the D Line and LBs are more of a question. I only see three 4* OL on the talent composite and two are true freshmen. The talent at O Line is just not where it needs to be. Though some of the players have exceeded their recruiting rankings in terms of play, the level is still somewhere in the middle of the SEC in my view. Bottom line is that the QB play to this point hasn't been enough to create any real apprehension from defenses, so they can load the box. O Line struggled to protect last week, even with no blitz. No passing game, the ceiling is the same as it was at the end of last year after Harsin was fired.

Bama hasn't played a conference game, they're 0-0 in SEC play so far.

You know his team just went to double OT against a Mountain West team in a game in which they were favored by 24 points, right?

Again, I know the slobbering dawgs aren't terribly bright, but you were directly making fun of the schedule. Because your comment referenced the schedule. I know admissions standards at UGA were drastically lower back in the old days but I can't believe you ever stepped foot on that campus, with the possible exception of a fall Saturday when you made the drive from Cumming.

Very well put. Pretty much an encapsulation of my thoughts on the upcoming game.

Living up to your teams favorite cheer, the "drunk obnoxious Georgia fan."

I know complex reasoning is hard for you so I'll try to use small words here. In college football, players only have a few years in which they are allowed to play. This means that each year, the team has many new players. That means, they are not the same team from the year prior. Which means that UGA is 3-0 with wins against SP+ #40, #118, and an FCS team. They might be very good. Nothing in what they have done this year is great evidence of that.

I looked it up and three of the four players are transfers in to their respective programs this year. I don't know what significance there is, if any, but I found that interesting.

Jaylin Simpson is not playing corner this season, he's a safety. You literally imbedded a highlight video of him where he is clearly playing safety

Jaylin Simpson is not playing corner this season, he's a safety. You literally imbedded a highlight video of him where he is clearly playing safety.

No, just because I don't lay out the full explanation in a comment doesn't mean it's poorly thought out. I think that players deserve to be compensated in a way that reflects at least an approximation of their free market value. I think there are a number of ways to make it work but the simplest would probably be to have a players union for each conference that would negotiate a a flat rate for football players in that conference, probably based on a percentage of revenue at the school they play for. They can run down the rabbit hole to figure out how to make the numbers work. I will acknowledge that it would be very difficult for the schools to directly pay the players according to their value, which is why I would suggest that all players on the team get the same amount from the school. Then, as is the case now, the best players get NIL deals that would begin to compensate the better players more. It's not the ideal situation, but it's better than what we have.

If you're going to say that most of the kids are overpaid by virtue of their scholarship, then why don't schools make a choice to offer fewer scholarships so that the kid who's only worth a 1/2 scholarship only gets 1/2? The reality is that, even a practice player is worth the $40k a year that tuition + room and board costs at a public university. It is possible that the same money being wasted on the lazy river is also flowing into subsidizing the less valuable players, but that's a counterfactual we're unlikely to see. I fundamentally disagree with the premise that, because someone chooses to play football, that means that the deal is fair. If you live in a communist country where the price of bread is $10 a loaf, but it's illegal to buy it anywhere else, can you really say that $10 is fair because they pay it? No, it's an artificially constrained system that doesn't relate to actual value, but the communist government has a monopoly so, if you want bread, you pay $10 a loaf. This is the same thing; there is an effective monopoly on football before the NFL so that the only way to get paid (pre-NIL) for playing was to accept a scholarship. I will fully acknowledge that a degree is a valuable thing to have and the fact that schools seem to be pushing harder and harder to make sure that athletes make progress toward graduation is laudable. In many cases, the scholarship is a deal that players would make even in a free market. The reality though is that the scholarship is somewhat self serving. College football is a semi-professional sport at this point; anyone who claims these kids are truly amateurs in the true sense of the word is kidding themselves. In order to keep up with the rules that were put in place when amateurism was real, players have to be enrolled as students in good standing at the university they play for. Therefore, in order to get these players eligible, the players would have to pay for the privilege of playing if it wasn't for the scholarships.