Here's the top lesson from Saturday: If you're a major program, never schedule a game you can lose as your season opener. Period. This should be a rule. Why? Because we fans sit around for nine months waiting for the college football season to return, and then, in one sixty minute game, the entire season is ruined. It's just not worth it. You roll out of bed the next morning and effectively the wildest dreams of the offseason, that your team could run the table and contend for a national championship, is over.
Ask Georgia fans what they feel like this morning. Ask Tennessee fans what the last two years prior to this season felt like losing the first game of the season in California. Losing the opening game counts as two losses, it makes you feel like complete crap. And don't even get me started with how good you feel if you win an opening game. You're a liar. You don't feel good, you just feel relieved. Nothing has changed about your season if you win a big opening game. You just get to dream for one week more. On to the ClayNation Starting 11.
Tennessee receiver Marlon Brown has done the unthinkable in spurning the home state Volunteers to play for Mark Richt and the University of Georgia Bulldogs. The six-foot-five receiver was widely regarded among the nation's best, with an excellent combination of speed, hands and leaping ability.
His offer sheet included nearly every top national program before he narrowed things down to Florida, Ohio State, Tennessee and eventual pick Georgia. Asked by ESPNU to explain his decision, Brown cited Georgia's ability to get young receivers up to speed. The 'Dawgs clearly have a solid record of that lately, as A.J. Green was among the SEC's best receivers as a true freshman last year.
Prop Bets for the College Football Junkie is a weekly post that cares not for your silly point spreads. If you have the money and the gumption, we'll lay down a weekly gauntlet of propositions that'll take you from the penthouse to the outhouse faster than you can guess the number of times Lee Corso will say "not so fast my friend." As always, this is for entertainment purposes only.
$ With the big news of the week being the firing of Tommy Bowden at Clemson, the crew at ESPN will be sure to debate the thought process at Clemson. Lou Holtz will most certainly defend Bowden and Mark May will defend the administration. So we give you a straight up bet that Holtz will forget the camera is still rolling again this week and have some less than flattering words for Clemson. What the heck, +/-5 on the number of times he says "damn."
$ Jim Harbaugh and Rick Neuheisel are both known for taking jabs at opposing teams and coaches in the week leading up to the game. As both have been quiet this week, we're sure they are saving everything for the post game handshake when Stanford plays at UCLA. The conversation will most certainly revolve around the post-game speech Neuheisel gave after the Tennessee game. Straight up, one of two thing will be said depending on the outcome of the game. Neuheisel-"Jim, I'd love to stand here and talk, but I've got a speech to give. Better luck next year, loser." Or, Harbaugh-"Doesn't look like anyone stuck around for your speech tonight. You guys got any games left on the schedule you think you can win?"
$ When Mississippi State travels to Tennessee, we'll be seeing the 103rd and 104th worst offenses in the country. So we'll put the over and under on the closeups of each team's offensive coordinator at +/-10. Because if someone is going to go, these guys are going to get the boot first.
Look, I'm not the one saying Charlie Weis is underpaid. It's the fine folks over at Coaches Hot Seat who claim that the best-paid coach in college football isn't making enough. Notre Dame's head coach makes $4.2 million a year, but Coaches Hot Seat says he ought to be paid $5.25 million.
Where do they get off saying this stuff? They didn't just pull that number out of thin air. Coaches Hot Seat figures that a coach should be paid 7.5% of his school's football revenue. Why 7.5%? I don't know, but they claim that the average coach takes in 7.61% of the team's football revenue, so their numbers seem reasonable. Still, take all this with a grain of salt.
Weis is getting shafted by more than a million bucks a year, so is he the most underpaid coach in college football? Nope. Not even close. The school getting the biggest bargain, as measured in sheer dollars, is Georgia. Few can argue with Mark Richt's record as the head Bulldog and, at $2.2 million a year, he probably doesn't remember what ramen noodles taste like. CHS says he ought to be getting just under $5 million. Mack Brown? Underpaid. Jim Tressel? Ditto.
Matthew Stafford was decently efficient (18 of 28 for 213 and two touches) and Knowshon Moreno was an absolute monster (18 carries for 168 yards and three trips to the end zone) but I think we all know that it was Mark Richt's message on his brand spankin' new blog (MarkRicht.com) that inspired Georgia to a 56-17 slaughterhouse of Central Michigan on Saturday.
I want to see if our atmosphere can exceed anything Central Michigan has ever experienced. I am challenging the fans to get as loud as they can when Central Michigan is on offense and they're trying to communicate signals, plays and audible. You can make a difference! I want Central Michigan to see what SEC Football is all about.
Georgia coach Mark Richt plans to blog Sunday. Sometime between now and then he'll have to figure out exactly what that is.
"I don't even know what a blog is, to be honest with you," Richt said with a laugh Thursday afternoon.
Yet ... he ... somehow ... already ..... blogged? Is it meta? Or does Richt just not care? I'm guessing the latter. Also, it would be nice to hear him blog about red-shirting Moreno, an act he admitted was a pretty big mistake after tonight's game. I'm not guessing he mentions that though.
(Double fist head pound to Game On for finding said site.)
As FanHouse previews each BCS conference, the college football songbook will cast an unflattering light on each conference in the only way we know how. Next up the SEC.
Unsportsmanlike conduct... seventy counts of too many men on the field... penalty is 1050 yards, or 10 and a half touchdowns for Florida... repeat the down.
In the history of human conflict as we know it, the one unifying constant isn't violence, it's escalation. You can start a blood feud without a single shot; you can't start one without deliberately trying to piss the other side off. That's a fact that Mark Richt and Urban Meyer are both well aware of these days as anticipation builds for the 2008 iteration of the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.
Recall, if you will, the scene above, as the Bulldogs celebrated their opening score with a giant dance party at the goal line. Better yet, watch the video:
Yes, that's Richt openly admitting to encouraging that behavior. As you might imagine, Urban Meyer is less than amused.
Sophomore defensive end Michael Lemon has run his last wind sprint, lifted his last weight, and punched his last eye socket as a member of the Georgia Bulldogs, it seems. Coach Mark Richt announced today that Lemon has been dismissed from the program:
"He's been dismissed as a result of some poor decisions and conduct that is not in line with standards we have in place at Georgia," head coach Mark Richt said in a university release. "I have had discussions with Michael and he understands the decision."
Richt goes on to say that Lemon would like to return to the program, but that decision is a long, long way away, and we're not holding out hope.
Lemon's dismissal is likely the result of a battery charge from earlier this month, when he punched a fellow student's face hard enough to cause a blowout fracture to the eye. What's a blowout fracture? Glad you asked!
According to medical Web sites, a blowout fracture occurs when the eye suffers significant blunt force trauma, typically from being hit by a baseball bat or getting kicked in the face.
In other words, OWW OWWW OWWWWWWW. The incident took place at a barbecue at a local apartment complex; we can't think of anything worse to accompany fresh grilled food than getting your face shattered. Except maybe Sun-Chips.
The fact that Georgia is getting lots of love this offseason as a potential BCS contender doesn't impress coach Mark Richt, who was quoted recently saying preseason rankings "[don't] mean jack, because if you lose your first SEC game, preseason doesn't mean nothing anymore." Of course, I'm sure Richt doesn't mind any extra national attention from the media and potential recruits that a top-five ranking brings--although it does hurt the "us against the world" mentality that coaches like to cultivate. It's also much easier to position yourself for a BCS championship starting the year at number five than, say, number 15.
But Richt's right; preseason rankings are pretty much meaningless. And if you need proof browse though the stats at Stassen.com (they keep up with these things). There's goodies like the preseason consensus (of which UGA is currently a member, and though it's early, I'd expect them to stay put).
Even more interesting is the comparison of preseason and final polls. In the last 10 years exactly half of the teams that started as a consensus top-five didn't end the season there. And the fall can be dramatic: 12 teams since 1999 have had double-digit drops from the preseason top 5 to the year's final AP poll, and six of those fell out of the top 25 altogether. Unfortunately, this is a topic I know a little about, as my beloved Tennessee has the distinction of having fallen from preseason top five to unranked twice--in 2002 and 2005--a feat no other team has managed. Yay.
Mercifully this cannot be blamed on the usual bogeymen: global warming and President Bush
"In our league, more and more people are spreading out (on offense), and I think it's happening pretty much around the nation," [Georgia coach Mark] Richt said. "The more (offenses) spread, the less (defenses) play their Sam linebacker. You could play Sam and play a certain team and play maybe 15 snaps or something. And then if you have two Sams who are ready to play, you are splitting time like that."
When offenses spread out their formation, defenses have to replace the Sam linebacker with a defensive back, a player who is expected to be faster and better in pass coverage. With a linebacker in the game against a spread offense, Martinez said, quarterbacks and offensive coordinators know the defense will be playing zone defense, giving the offense an advantage.
"They know a linebacker is not going to play man (coverage)," [Georgia defensive coordinator Willie] Martinez said. "He's going to play zone."
Cry not for the SAM backer, Argentina. We're talking evolution here, not extinction.
From now on, the head coach said, Georgia's strongside linebackers will have to be able to either play defensive end in passing situations or play more than one linebacker spot to ensure themselves playing time.
"You are going to see us more and more where that guy is a jack of all trades," Martinez said. "No doubt, it's a special kind of guy. You want the strength, you want the power, you want the size, but at the same time, you don't want that guy out there in space, trying to defend the spread."
Just the same, the position's changing and wise high school coaches, parents and players will adjust accordingly. This is the trickle-down from the change in the quarterback position at the college level.
Exit question: how long before these changes in the college game manifest themselves on the pro level? The NFL is stuck in its one way of football and has been for the better part of 30 years. Can it continue to resist the changes happening at the college level?
Here's the top lesson from Saturday: If you're a major program, never schedule a game you can lose as your season opener. Period. This should be a rule. Why? Because we fans sit around for nine months waiting for the college football season to return, and then, in one sixty minute game, the entire season is ruined. It's just not worth it. You roll out of bed the next morning and effectively the wildest dreams of the offseason, that your team could run the table and contend for a national championship, is over. 
Tennessee receiver 
Look, 
Sophomore defensive end Michael Lemon has run his last wind sprint, lifted his last weight, and punched his last eye socket as a member of the Georgia Bulldogs, it seems. Coach Mark Richt announced today that Lemon has been 
The fact that Georgia is getting lots of love this offseason as a potential BCS contender doesn't impress coach 
