Georgia coach Mark Richt said yesterday exactly what you’d expect a coach to say when asked about the importance of a school’s NFL draft success in relation to recruiting the next round of superstars:

“I haven’t recruiting many guys that didn’t think or weren’t at least dreaming about the NFL or hoping to be or expecting to be (drafted).  I think it’s exciting for high school kids observing Georgia and trying to decide, ‘Hey, would this be a good place for me?’ 

It’s a big part of the recruiting process and what we’re trying to get accomplished.  But there’s a lot more to it than that here as well.  We care about an awful lot of other things, too, than just going to the NFL.  We care about school and how these guys grow as people.

But this time of the year, starting tomorrow night (tonight) for the next two or three days after that, it’s an important time for our current players and really for the future of our program, too.”

Since arriving at Georgia in 2001, Richt has had 71 players drafted into the NFL.  That’s nearly 14.5% of all the SEC players drafted into the league since ’01.

Until this week, Georgia coach Mark Richt only followed four people on Twitter; his wife, two sons and the Georgia football account.  But that’s changing now.  Richt, who has more than 64,000, followers, has upped the people he follows on Twitter to 82.  Almost all of them are recruits.  The Georgia coach talked Thursday night about the change.

“If you want to hit a guy up or want to even ask him to give you a call or whatever, he can do that, and if he wants to call you, he can call you. Then you’ve got some parents of the kid, too. Some are Twitter, some are Facebook. It just made sense to get into the Twitter world right now.

“We were Facebooking, but we weren’t getting them all. When you could text them, you just text them, and right now if you want to get up with them, you Facebook them. We still write hand-written letters. I think those are still important.”

The NCAA allows coaches to send an unlimited number of emails or messages on social media.

For years the NCAA has fielded complaints that its rulebook worries too much about minutae.  So the university presidents who make the NCAA’s decisions finally made some big ones — they decided to tear page after page out of their rulebook.

The response from coaches, athletic directors, and conference commissioners has been darn near unanimous in its negativity.

But you can’t add Mark Richt’s name to the list of people decrying the changes.  At least not yet:

“I would just say this: I will answer that question (about his feelings on the new rules) after March because there’s an override period.  My guess is that a lot of these things are going to be put on hold, so I don’t know if we need to get too concerned about them.  We do need to plan for them.

I’ve got a pretty good feeling that a lot of things are just going to be put on hold because of the amount of schools that just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that just 75 institutions need to cast votes to override the changes for them to be rescinded.

If/when those changes are rescinded, it will be interesting to see how schools — like Alabama — decide to re-purpose the employees they’ve recently hired in preparation for a less-regulated recruiting world.

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.”

Georgia added 32 players from 7 different states on Wednesday and Thursday.  A breakdown of the Bulldogs’ “target zone” is below:

Georgia = 18 recruits

Florida = 5

Mississippi = 4

Virginia = 2

Indiana = 1

North Carolina = 1

South Carolina = 1

In-State Signees = 56.2%

Out-Of-State Signees = 43.7%

Observation:

First, the bad news.  Nine of the top 10 prospects in the state of Georgia — including four 5-star prospects — decide to migrate out of the Peach State this week.  Now the good news.  The state is so deep in talent the Bulldogs still signed 18 local products and still wound up with a class ranked in just about everyone’s top 15.  UGA owned the state just two years ago and the Dawgs’ recent success would lead one to believe things would have stayed the same.  But this looks more like a one-year glitch to us than some sort of beginning-of-the-end scenario.  Mark Richt faced one of those on the field a couple of years ago.  He’s gone 22-6 since.  Don’t be surprised to see Georgia owning its backyard again by next February.

Shaq Wiggins plans to cancel his remaining official visits and sign with Georgia on signing day on Feb. 6.

The cornerback from Sandy Creek High School in Tyrone, Ga., made that decision after an in-home visit from Georgia coach Mark Richt on Wednesday night.

“I am about to cut off all my official visits,” Wiggins told ESPN RecruitingNation. “Richt says no more.”

Wiggins, who visited South Carolina last weekend, had considered taking trips to Mississippi State and Texas A&M despite an 11-month long commitment to Georgia. But Wiggins decided to solidify his commitment to the Bulldogs by shutting down the recruiting process.

“I just feel like leading other schools on would hurt the chances of another recruit getting that scholarship,” Wiggins said, “so I just had a real conversation with my parents and decided to make my decision. I am 100 percent committed to UGA and I just feel like UGA is the place for me.”

SEC West

1. Texas A&M offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury on rumors linking him to the Kentucky job. “I haven’t seen too much of that,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m just trying to get a first down against Alabama.”

2. Is Texas A&M Oregon Lite? Kevin Sumlin learned the up-temp offense from Mike Price.

3. How does Alabama stop Johnny Manziel? Nick Saban: “People have got to be athletic and they’ve got to be able to move playing against this team.”

4. Gary Danielson on Manziel: “His career as a high school player, he was good at everything. On a 1-to-10 scale, he was all 8’s and 9’s.”

5. Auburn has played Georgia 39 times more than its played Alabama.  Georgia 5-1 in the last six meetings.

6. Auburn’s Phillip Lutzenkirchen was told if he didn’t’ get his hip fixed – he’d probably need a hip replacement by the time he was 30.

7. One year to the day Houston Nutt was fired, Ole Miss is on the verge of being bowl eligible. Latest injury updates.

8. Arkansas not expecting injured players Knile Davis and Chris Gragg to play this weekend, nor are they counting on suspended receiver Brandon Mitchell.  Offensive coordinator Paul Petrino: “As of right now, until I am told I have him, I am planning on not having him.”

9. Mississippi State co-defensive coordinator Geoff Collins: “We’re built to play with the Alabamas and play with the LSUs.”

10, LSU used five different offensive line combinations before settling on the current group - only two of them are seniors.

11. Les Miles is 18-1 at LSU following a loss.

SEC East

12. What about former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel for Kentucky?

13. Florida offensive coordinator Brent Pease on Kentucky:  “I wouldn’t do that. I’m focused on here. I’ve only been here one year. I’ve made a commitment to be here, especially with my family.”

14. Expect Florida to use more of the no-huddle to jumpstart its offense. Will Gators quarterback Jacoby Brissett stay or transfer?

15. Tennessee’s Cordarrelle Patterson was so exhausted against Troy that he missed the start of the third quarter while being given fluids through an IV.

16. Georgia wide receiver Marlon Brown is the third starter for the Bulldogs to go down with a season-ending injury.Tavarres King: “I ask God for safety any time I step on any field.”

17. Dan Wetzel: “There isn’t any way to separate Mark Richt the football coach and Mark Richt the Christian.”

18. A familiar theme –  we’ve seen similar stories out of LSU this week –  ”With SEC title hopes gone, South Carolina still chasing goals.”

19. Not as many turnovers created but improvement across the board for Vanderbilt’s defense this year.

20. Bright side to injuries along the Mizzou offensive line? Four of this week’s starters will be back next year - three of them are freshman and sophomores.

SEC/College News

21. Aaron Murray on the possibility of an Alabama-Georgia SEC championship game: “I bet they’re going to be huge favorites going into the game, and rightly so.”

22. Would Jon Gruden be a bad fit at Tennessee?  Five reasons why.

23. Arkansas schedules a home-and-home series with Michigan starting in 2018.

24. The Champions Bowl in New Orleans – “Now the Texas members of the Big 12 get an idea how the old Big 8 felt.”

25. Former Texas coach Darrell Royal - dead at the age of 88.

26. UCLA coach Jim Mora is steaming mad over a phony Twitter account.

27. Lane Kiffin feeling the heat at USC: “There’s no excuses with the players they’ve got.”

28. For people whose names are tied to the world  of sports – not a good night at the ballot box.

29. Saban and Calipari in 2016?

SEC Basketball

30. Florida opens its season Friday night against Georgetown on the deck of the USS Bataan.  Gametime temperatures expected in the 40′s.

31. Trailing at half, Alabama rallies to win its exhibition game.  

32. Tennessee’s Jeronne Maymon spotted on crutches recently - status remains unclear.

33. This conference prediction has Kentucky on top, Tennessee second.

On Saturday, Georgia coach Mark Richt will shake hands and chat a bit with Auburn’s Gene Chizik.  It’s likely the Bulldog coach will have some words of encouragement for the embattled Tiger coach… seeing that it was only a year ago that he himself was on a scorching hot seat in Athens:

“It is kind of a roller coaster, and sometimes you do go up and down, and you just don’t know how close you might be to having a really good football team if you’re just patient for one more year.  I think a lot of teams go backwards because they make changes when maybe they are on the verge of something good happening, and then if you make change and you start over again, it’s hard for all the cumulative reps that you’ve had to all of sudden blossom.  I would imagine it’s hard to try to figure out as a decision maker if that team is close or if they are not…

There is truly a very, very fine line between winning and losing.  There are a lot of good teams in our league in my opinion that still might have a losing record in league play.  You lose some close games and sometimes you win the close games.  Sometimes you get a break here or there and you grab momentum, and it serves you well for the rest of the year, and sometimes you don’t ever find it.

Obviously I’ve been coaching going into 12 years now, and it is a very fine line.  Even the year we went 6-7, how much of a different team did we have than some of the teams that might have gone 10-2?   Probably not a whole lot different.  Not making a play here or making a bad decision there as a coach or the other team just making a play that day.  It’s not all that mind-boggling to me because it’s just a really tough league.”

While the future is uncertain for Chizik, Richt knows exactly what he’ll be doing this offseason.  He’ll be having hip-replacement surgery.

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Anything for an edge.

Last year, Georgia’s Mark Richt called 4-star safety prospect Tray Matthews on his birthday and sang “Happy Birthday” to him.  (Hopefully not in a faux-Marylin Monroe voice.)  According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Richt did the same thing this week when Matthews’ birthday rolled back around:

“My coach called me from lunch and said, ‘Hey, Mark Richt and them want to holler at you…

Coach Richt said hello and started singing again.  He tried to hit a real high note this time.  It was so funny.  I mean, he tried real hard to get that high note.  And I will give him the benefit of a doubt… He did all right signing…

It means a lot for Coach Richt to do that.  They don’t do it for every recruit.  It shows me how much they want me.  I’m blessed to have the opportunity to have good coaches around me, and to be committed to the University of Georgia.”

How many SEC coaches will start singing “Happy Birthday” to their top recruits?  Half of them?  All of them?

If it works, it works.

In the NFL, teams are required to put out injury reports that accurately portray player’s health concerns and his chances of playing.  (We’ll pause for those of you who want to yell out, “They do it for the gamblers!”  And we don’t disagree.)  Well for the first time many who cover the college game are pushing the idea of NFL-style injury reports making their way down to the amateur level.  Yours truly made that suggesting on this site earlier this month.

For now, neither the NCAA nor Mike Slive’s league appear to be moving in that direction.  But that didn’t prevent the topic from coming up during yesterday’s teleconference with SEC coaches.  Some of their views can be found here and here.

“I wouldn’t be for that.  We’re sitting there in a Monday press conference and they’re asking you if a guy’s going to play on Saturday.  In a lot of situations, I don’t know… That’s not going to work on our level.”

– Will Muschamp, Florida

“We don’t like to discuss injuries with other people.  These aren’t professional athletes.  These are young kids and they should be treated like other students… There are a lot of privacy rules for students on campus, and we don’t feel that we should discuss their medical concerns with the general public.”

– Dan Mullen, Mississippi State

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