The road map to the 2019 signing class
Here's a nice summary from Jeff Sentell about where Kirby Smart is headed with Georgia's next class, not from the perspective of individual recruits, but overall needs for the roster. The staff has already sent out 192 (!) offers, broken down by position as follows:
QB: 10 (5 Dual-threats, 5 Pro-Style)
RB: 9
WR: 28 (Already with a pair of 5-star commits)
TE: 5 (Already with a 4-star commit)
OT: 22 (Already with a 4-star commit)
OG: 7
OC: 1
DE: 33 (Both strong-side and weak-side DEs)
DT: 16
OLB: 14 (Already with a 5-star commit)
ILB: 2 (Already with a 4-star commit)
CB: 18 (Already with a 4-star commit)
S: 11
ATH: 16
It's interesting to see the points of emphasis at this early stage. Apparently, somebody has figured out that you can never have enough offensive tackles. That's a refreshing change.
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting
Pigskin Disney World
I don't know how to take this.
Texas athletics director Chris Del Conte wants to make some major changes to the game day experience for fans during football season in order to improve attendance.
The new AD told ESPN Radio's Freddie and Fitzsimmons that his staff is working on ways to make attending football games more attractive during a time when college football attendance is down across the country. Del Conte said he believes it starts with improving the atmosphere and fanfare around the game itself.
"Whenever we have a football game, it's truly a chance for us to celebrate our university," Del Conte said. "And that means not only just the game, but all the pomp and circumstance that goes around that game. These stadiums are 60, 70, 80, 100,000-seat stadiums. Things have changed. With television, the kids, how they view their content. … So we have to look at different ways we purpose that in-game experience as well as that out-of-game experience."
Del Conte said the school needs to improve wireless access for fans who want to use their phones and participate in the experience on social media during games. He also emphasized a need to "repurpose" in-game entertainment during timeouts and television breaks.
The Texas AD pointed to Disney World as an example of a fan experience that goes beyond the main attraction. He wants to create that same sort of atmosphere around Texas football games.
"If you look at Disney, the experience of your children going to Disney starts when they receive that ticket," Del Conte said. "And they fly to Orlando. You get in the hotel and [you get] all that [Disney] experience until you get to the gate. Then you wait in line for three hours to get on the Matterhorn. Right? Three hours. And then you get on the ride for 40 seconds, and you're going, 'Oh my God.' Then we do it again.
"But what happens when you get back to the hotel? Your kids [say], 'Dad, that was awesome! Can we do it again?' We've got to create that same experience all the way around our venues."
On the one hand, it sounds like a classic example of "talk is cheap". (Although if any program can afford to simulate what Disney does to create that experience, it's Texas.)
On the other hand, it's more of an acknowledgement about what an athletic department needs to do to improve the game day experience than we're likely to hear out of Butts-Mehre.
"Just building an O-line and go there and dominate all other SEC teams."
A little Sam Pittman porn for your morning pleasure:
Georgia landed three of the top eight offensive line prospects this year by the 247Sports Composite: No. 2 Jamaree Salyer, No. 4 Cade Mays and No. 8 Trey Hill.
That's after bringing in two of the top 10 2017 line recruits in Isaiah Wilson and Andrew Thomas, giving the Bulldogs five top-10 offensive line prospects in the past two recruiting cycles. Only three other programs have more than one: Ohio State with three and Alabama and Stanford with two each.
More than twice as many as 'Bama? Hoo, boy. I need to go off and decompress somewhere.
Friday night light
There is just something a little sad about this.
For the second year in a row, Georgia Tech football will play its annual spring intrasquad scrimmage under the lights at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
The school's athletic department announced on Monday that the Yellow Jackets spring game will be held on Friday, Apr. 20, and will begin at 7 p.m.
It's not a game; it's an "intrasquad scrimmage". It's not on a beautiful spring afternoon. It's at night. It's not on a Saturday, when fans can make a day of it.
All that's missing is a Paul Johnson promo advising fans not to bother showing up.
Filed under Georgia Tech Football
In the toilet
Mike Brewster's coaching career has nowhere to go but up from here.
Until last month, I'd never called a phone number that I'd found on a men's room wall. Of course, none of the other numbers were attached to a résumé that included Jim Tressel as a reference.
Mike Brewster didn't originally plan on posting copies of his résumé on the wall above the urinals in the highest trafficked men's room at the American Football Coaches Association convention, but desperate times called for a little ingenuity. Brewster had carefully assembled résumé packets before traveling from Orlando to Charlotte, but he had quickly realized he had to scrap his original plan if he wanted to get his name in front of coaches who might hire him…
… Brewster devised a surefire way to get his information in front of as many coaches as possible. Pee would meet CV. Brewster blocked out the phone numbers for references that included Tressel, the former Ohio State coach who is now Youngstown State's president, and Jim Bollman, Brewster's college offensive line coach who now serves as Michigan State's offensive coordinator. Then he stuck them to the wall above a place almost every coach would have to visit at least once.
… So far, the placement hasn't landed Brewster a GA job, but plenty of coaches saw his résumé. Three told me about it within a few minutes of walking into the convention last month.
"I hired him after I read his résumé while I was taking a leak" isn't exactly the stuff legends are made from, but, hey, it's a start, hopefully.