Georgia’s Mark Richt knows that it won’t be long before the 2013 football season kicks off.  For Georgia, that means a first-month slate that includes games against Clemson (on the road), South Carolina and LSU is just around the corner.  Richt hopes his players will act accordingly this summer:

“I hope they would have the same commitment every year.  But they are human and they’re going to be hearing about it and thinking about it all year and they know that we can’t wait ’til midseason to be in midseason form.  We’ve got to be there Game One.  So that means you’ve got to be prepared.”

Or not.

Hey, we get what Richt is saying but it was just two years ago — facing a hot seat type of year — that Richt opened up against Boise State and South Carolina.  A pair of losses later and many Dawg fans were howling for the head coach’s job.

By December, Georgia had righted its ship, rolled off 10 wins in a row and secured an East Division championship.

So, yeah, it’s important to be ready early, but the game’s at the end of the schedule count just as much as the games at the start of it.

After a shockingly disappointing 3-9 season in 2012, Auburn canned BCS title-winning coach Gene Chizik and brought back his old offensive coordinator, Gus Malzahn, to run the show.  Malzahn’s message to his players is clear — forget about last season:

“All I can tell you is we’re moving forward… I told the players: ‘I don’t care what you’ve done in the past.  I don’t care what happened last year.  We’re starting over.’ 

I promise you this: We’re going to get back to playing good, hard-nosed Auburn football… Our guys are excited.  They’re looking forward to spring practice, they’re looking forward to next year, and that really makes me feel good.”

If the Tigers show any improvement at all they should have four built-in non-conference wins.  AU will play Arkansas State (Malzahn’s last school), Western Carolina, Florida Atlantic, and they open the season at home against Washington State.  Expect the showdown between Malzahn’s offense and Mike Leach’s offense to get plenty of August pub.

Inside the league, AU will face the rough-and-tumble West Division schedule with permanent cross-over rival Georgia and rotating East Division team Tennessee.  With that slate, Malzahn will likely turn the Tigers in the right direction and get them back into a bowl game.  But unless he’s got another Cam Newton tucked away on the Tigers’ roster, his team probably won’t be getting all the way back in first year.

Georgia coach Mark Richt will see his yearly compensation jump from $2.81 million to $3.2 millon thanks to a vote last night by the Georgia Athletic Association Board of Directors.  It is Richt’s first raise in nearly five years.

Since finding himself on the hot seat following the 2010 season, Richt has led the Bulldogs to back-to-back East Division titles and compiled a 22-6 record overall.

Outgoing president Michael Adams said: “It was time for us to do something in a preemptive way without him or anybody representing him to have to come to us.  Just a statement of our support for and respect for him.”

After Missouri’s mizz-erable 2012 campaign ended, head coach Gary Pinkel said there would be no changes to his coaching staff.  Fast forward a few days and that’s now changing.

Embattled offensive coordinator David Yost announced today that he’ll be stepping down after nearly two decades of coaching with Pinkel (the last 12 years in Columbia):

“There are a lot of factors that played into the process of coming to my decision.  I feel like I’ve had a great run here and that it’s just the right time to turn it over to someone else.  On one hand, it’s a really hard decision to make, but on the other hand, I feel good that it’s the right decision at the right time for me.”

With injuries to quarterback James Franklin and just about every offensive lineman on the Tiger team, Mizzou finished the SEC 11th in total offense and scoring offense.

So who might replace Yost?  A look higher up the SEC stats chart will show that Tennessee finished 2nd in the league in total offense and fourth in scoring.  With Derek Dooley out in Knoxville, offensive coordinator Jim Chaney — a Missouri native who joined Tennessee’s staff from the St. Louis Rams in 2009 — is available.

Chaney had great success as Purdue’s offensive coordinator and helped turn Drew Brees and Kyle Orton into household names before heading to the NFL and then back to the college ranks.  For Missouri, a Chaney hire would also bring someone into the fold who’s had success in the East Division and who has already established some recruiting ties in the areas the Tigers hope to target.

In the end, two plus two might equal five, but the math on a Chaney/Mizzou marriage seems to add up.

Readers of this site know that we believe you can easily follow the ups and downs of the South Carolina football team by tracing the number of barbs and digs Steve Spurrier tosses out during press conferences, at SEC Media Days, and to random scribes.

When he’s winning, he’s lippy.  When he’s losing, he’s pouty.  Following Carolina’s horrible bowl loss to UConn a couple of seasons ago, Spurrier looked embalmed and lifeless as he stood behind the podium during Media Days.  Two years later, with an East Division title and an 11-win season under his belt, he’s been talking more.

The coach freely admits that in a fresh interview with ESPN’s Chris Low… and he also makes it clear that he doesn’t understand why folks take his words so seriously:

“I didn’t do a whole lot of talking because there wasn’t much to talk about.  We were winning seven games a year until the last two years.  If you don’t win very much, it’s hard to say anything…

They all want to hear something funny at the booster club meetings in the summer and laugh and giggle a little bit.  Bobby Bowden used to do it all the time, and they all thought it was funny.  But then I’d do it, and it would get out there, and they’d all take it personally and say, ‘You son of a gun.’

That’s OK, though … because it’s all just a bunch of talk.”

Well, it may just be talk, but there’s no debating the fact that Spurrier’s words get a bit more hurtful the more he wins.  In the early 1990s he once said this, for example: “How is it when (Georgia) signs people, they get the best, but when we play, we’ve got the best players?  Georgia has signed a lot of good players.  Something just happens to them at Georgia, I guess.”

A joke is a bunch of talk.  An insult is an insult.  That was an insult aimed directly at Georgia’s coaches.

Spurrier’s free to toss barbs — and many of them are amusing — but when some of his jokes read like insults, it’s tough for him to fall back on the, “I don’t know folks are so upset,” defense.

We can all expect to hear plenty from Spurrier next week during the SEC Meetings in Destin.  His plan to not count cross-divisional games will be one of the most debated topics of the week.

Steve Spurrier has done it.  He’s turned around the South Carolina football program.  In 2010, the Cocks won their first SEC division title.  In 2011, they won 11 games for the first time and swept their East Division rivals.  They also continue to do well on the recruiting trail.

And Spurrier knows it.  A tip of the cap to FootballScoop.com for picking up this video from Saturday’s South Carolina-Florida basketball game.  The coach was exuberant as he addressed a loud, fired up crowd and praised his team.




His closing comment?  “Let’s try to go for 12 next year!”  Twelve wins and/or an SEC title would be the only way to top 2011 — the best coaching job of Spurrier’s career.

South Carolina running backs Jay Graham is going home.  After serving on Steve Spurrier’s staff for three seasons, Graham will return to Knoxville to take over as running backs coach at Tennessee — a possibility we mentioned earlier today.

“Jay is not only one of the most accomplished running backs in Tennessee history, but he has also proven to be one of the top running backs coaches in the SEC,” Derek Dooley said via press release.  “Jay understands what it means to be a Vol, and we are thrilled to have him on our staff.”

For Dooley, the hire is a sound one.  He takes an up-and-coming coach from an East Division rival, he sends the message that his program isn’t so troubled that other coaches wouldn’t want to come onboard, and he earns some goodwill from the fanbase by hiring an ex-Vol.

For Graham, the decision is a bit tougher to decipher.  Yes, he’ll get to help his alma mater.  Also, you can bet he’ll get a hefty raise.  But while Dooley and his staff will face a hot seat season next year, Spurrier has things on the rise in Columbia.

Be it for his heart or his wallet, Graham might be risking his rear — at least in the short term — by moving from the Palmetto State to the Volunteer State.

Georgia is 5-1 in the SEC, South Carolina is 5-2.  For the Gamecocks to repeat as East Division champions, they need to win Saturday at home against Florida and then hope that the Bulldogs are knocked off at home by either Auburn (on Saturday) or Kentucky (next Saturday).

If the Cocks and Dawgs finish 6-2 in league play, Carolina’s 45-42 win over Georgia way back on September 10th would break the tie and Steve Spurrier’s team would head to Atlanta for the league’s championship game.

So unless Carolina expects Auburn and Kentucky to knock off Georgia, the Cocks must win Saturday against Florida to keep hope alive, right?  Not according to the Ol’ Ball Coach:


“We’ll try our best to win.  I don’t like to use the word ‘must.’  Sometimes your guys get too uptight if you say we have to do this or do that.  The only thing we say is play your best.  When you look at the way our team has played this year, you have to say those guys are 7-2 (overall) and in position to achieve some things this year.  We’re not moping around that we’re 7-2.  We have to play the game and fire up some emotion.”


Fair enough.  If the coach doesn’t want to put added pressure on his team — something he’s never worried about with quarterbacks — then that’s his call.  But any Carolina player capable of reading a leaderboard knows what’s at stake Saturday.

As for the team he’s now chasing, Spurrier said yesterday, “If Georgia wins seven straight conference games, they probably deserve to be the Eastern Division champion.”

Probably so.

On Saturday afternoon in Jacksonville, Mark Richt won a game he most desperately needed.  And judging by some of the chatter on Georgia messageboards, there are more than a few Dawg fans disappointed with their team’s 24-20 victory over Florida.

Why?

Because many of Richt’s critics already believe he’s past his prime, that the SEC has caught up to him, and that he’ll never be the one to win “the big one” in Athens.  Better UGA had lost to the dreaded Gators and sealed Richt’s fate than to have him live another day and survive for another season.

That’s not uncommon thinking, of course.  Those fire-eating anti-Richters aren’t the first bunch to root against their own team for what they believe to be the greater good overall.  (I liked Pete Carroll as the coach of my Patriots, but the end of his three-year reign I wanted him to lose so he’d get an ouster.  So I understand the thought process.)

In speaking to a Georgia sportstalk show host this morning, I was told that his email inbox had been filled with “yeah, buts” over the weekend:


“Yeah, but Georgia only won because Florida turned the ball over twice.”

“Yeah, but Georgia played terribly on special teams and didn’t deserve to win.”

“Yeah, but the coaches didn’t have the team ready as they fell behind 17-3 early.”

“Yeah, but this Florida team just isn’t very good.”


All may be true.  But you can bet those folks pshaw-ing UGA’s win on Saturday have never credited Richt in past years by saying things like, “Well, Richt’s team should have won and we can’t blame him for those fumbles.”  Yeah.  Right.

Well, it doesn’t work both ways.  The bottom line is the score on the scoreboard.  Winning is winning, whether the opponent plays well or not.  Just as losing has been losing, whether Richt’s Bulldogs have played poorly or played well, only to be undone by a bad break or clumsy turnover.

After an 0-2 start to the season, the Bulldogs are now 6-2 overall and 5-1 in the SEC.  Considering South Carolina’s schedule (at Arkansas, Florida at home) and the way the Cocks’ offense looked Saturday night in Knoxville without Marcus Lattimore, the Bulldogs (Auburn and Kentucky at home) appear to be in the East Division driver’s seat despite USC holding the head-to-head tiebreaker.

If the Dawgs drop a game or two from here on out, the calls for Richt’s head will start anew.  And if Georgia comes from behind to win the East, that accomplishment will be pooh-poohed by the “we need a new coach” crowd.  “He backed into it.”

Tough noogies for that bunch. 

If Richt wins eight or more games it will be the 10th time in 11 seasons that he’s reached that number.  If he records nine or more wins it will be the 8th time in 11 seasons that he’s accomplished that.  And if he wins the East Division, it will be the 4th time in 11 years that he’s taken the Dawgs to Atlanta.  And only a 6-7 2010 season would mar his otherwise spiffy record.

Like him or not, coaches who put up those kinds of numbers aren’t fired.  Whether he wins ugly or wins pretty, as long as Richt keeps winning, the heat of his seat will continue to cool. 

Much to the chagrin of those who’ve already decided he needs to go.

1.  Some Florida players still hold a grudge from Georgia’s unsportsmanlike touchdown celebration way back in 2007.

2.  The Gators know how much this game means as they try to improve upon UF’s 18-3 mark against UGA since 1990.

3.  This writer says the Dawgs will have to be calm to tame the Gators.

4.  Rather than put all the focus on Florida, Mark Richt continues to talk to his team about winning the SEC East.

5.  Receiver Malcolm Mitchell suffered a setback in practice and may miss Saturday’s game due to a hamstring injury.

6.  When the hometown team is as bad as Kentucky, it’s no wonder the media continues to buzz about the school’s new black uniforms…

7.  And it’s basketball team.  John Calipari says Terrence Jones is more focused this season.

8.  South Carolina held a players-only, team meeting on Monday to remind themselves that an East Division title can be won with victories of Tennessee, Arkansas and Florida over the next three weeks.

9.  In discussing Justin Worley — the Carolina native who’ll start at QB for the Vols on Saturday — Steve Spurrier makes it sound like he has no idea who his program recruits.

10.  The Volunteers have got to overcome their second-half woes.

11.  They’ll have a chance to do that against a team that’s still recovering mentally from the loss of Marcus Lattimore.

12.   Tailback Zac Stacy could be Vanderbilt’s first 1,000-yard rusher in 16 years.

13.  Arkansas’ players have noticed Vandy’s “improved and energetic play.”