Nevada Dawg

Precisely!!

Kirby Smart gave an interview recently about NIL and recruiting. The essence of his post is that if the first thing a recruit (or his parents) ask about is NIL, he immediately starts to wonder if he is chasing the wrong kid. His thinking (I think) is that a money first approach suggests a "me first" attitude that is incompatible with the effort to building great team chemistry. Case in point. Georgia and Texas are reported to be the most likely landing spots for 5-Star QB Arch Manning. When it comes to NIL, Smart has said that Texas will undoubtedly mention higher NIL payouts than Georgia. This will not be a bidding war and the Manning family has even said that they want this to be an old-fashioned 1970s type recruitment with NIL not being a major consideration. As for Arch (who admittedly may be atypical among QBs these days ), he says he wants to play college football, but that simply being a college kid in a great environment is very important to him as well. As Austin TX and Athens, GA are both great college environments, we still don't know which one Arch chooses. But he is precisely the kind the kind of recruit that coaches love as they stress player development and the long term over immediate NIL payouts. And also life beyond football I might add.

I don't mean to be critical here because I am a big fan of Noah. But there is some room for very real improvement in Noah's game. Last year, I noticed that he was all in in a big way for plays directly in front of him. But Noah sometimes took plays off when the play moved away from the center of the field. I would like to see Noah consistently pursuing from sideline to sideline, and he will have to be more engaged in this way, I think, to win a Butkus award. The good news is that you can bet that Lanning and the position coach most responsible for ILBs have watched film and have seen what I, as an admitted nonexpert, have seen. If they can stimulate that kind of consistent involvement from Noah, he will not only become a better player, but serve as even a greater leader on the field than he may already be.

I am certainly not against a 16 team playoff. Assuming there may be no on-campus games in such a scheme, it would involve 15 of the biggest existing bowl games in which every bowl therein would mean something. There will be screams from some quarters for making kids on teams that go deep into the tourney play even more games and possibly interfere with their schooling. And before anyone claims these players are not real students, I can assure you that more than you might imagine do value, schooling and the value of a degree. So lengthening the season is a consideration. Having said that, the real students I have had in classes would overwhelmingly vote, I suspect, to play another game or two in pursuit of a Natty.

I am still a big fan of the 12-team model proposed last year for the reasons I have posted here before. I just love the idea of having first round games played on college campuses, and the four bully boys on top will not get to partake in this excitement by virtue of getting a bye. Imagine a Notre Dame Oregon matchup played in Autzen or South Bend. Excitement anyone?

Point well taken Ohio Duck.

I concur David. I don't know about being a Heisman candidate, but given that Oregon usually has a good offensive line, the Ducks offense under Bo should be fun to watch if Oregon's receivers are reasonably talented. I also think that Caleb Williams is a bit overrated in general, but he may put up some real stats against PAC-12 defenses.

I think that on one of my first posts here, I indicated that I am a big Lanning fan and congratulated Duck Nation on landing a first-rate coach. Yet I have cautioned before to not have unrealistic expectations in the first year or two. It takes a while to assemble a championship roster with great players across multiple classes. I think that Lanning has the energy to accomplish this. Hey, aspirations to shoot for the moon are great and are the kind of energy that great programs all have. But don't burden a young and developing coaching staff with unrealistic early EXPECTIONS. If the staff becomes as good as I think it can be, you'll get there.

I think that the spread is high but not by much. I may put my money where my mouth is with a (small bet) that Oregon covers. I also think that the Georgia offense is much better than many Duck fans seem to think it is. Interesting tidbit I learned today: Last year's Dawgs scored more points in SEC games than did any other SEC team. Much of that offense is back along with two talented wide receivers who were injured last year. Add in TE Arik Gilbert to go along with Brock Bowers and Darnell Washington and any defense in the land is going to struggle with this team. Oh and the Dawg defense will be very formidable. So the bet I referenced above is far more of sign of respect for the Ducks than it is any concern about the capabilities of the Dawgs.

Both are good players in my opinion, but I think that Sewell has the greater upside. Nice debate to have though.

I loved Bo Jackson, even though he played for Auburn, a bitter rival. I didn't attend many baseball games at Georgia, but the most memorable was one involving Bo Jackson. In that game Bo hit three of the longest home runs that I have ever witnessed anywhere. All were over 450 feet and one was measured at 480 something feet. Bo was a man playing with boys on that particular day.

Lot of SEC hate here, and I get it given the way the SEC has dominated college football in the later BCS and the playoff eras. But until the other power 5 leagues regularly show that they can compete, any separate playoffs excluding the SEC will have to put an asterisk beside the name of its champion. Anyone who has followed my posts on this forum knows that I have argued for more parity in college football. I'll say again that an expanded playoffs is a realistic contributor to that end. Growing up in Pac-12 country where I lived and died Pacific Coast football, I truly want to see College football west of the Mississippi river being able to strut its stuff on the national stage. In my opinion, it serves neither the SEC or college football in general to break away--and for some of the reasons posters here have mentioned. The vast majority of people who primarily for an SEC team would scream bloody murder at the prospect of balkanizing college football. That is an inappropriate proposal in my humble opinion.

Let's see; Georgia fans' colorful representations of the gators. There are many others that are especially profane/obscene. One thread on the Dawgnation site has a whole thread entitled Florida Hate Zone. It currently currently has 2,900 posts and counting. But many Georgia people simply refer to Florida as the "lousy, stinking Gators" and/ or proudly label themselves as a G8R H8R, letting it go at that. one rival.

I get a kick out of this forum and learn a lot about the Ducks in so doing. Sounds to me like Duck fans' attitude about OSU match almost exactly that of Georgia Dawg fans about Georgia Tech, once UGA's biggest rival. Now they are the "little brothers". Florida is the equivalent for Georgia fans of what the Seattle Dawgs are for you guys. Interestingly, I did not know this before perusing this forum. I would probably have guessed that your most hated rival was USC just given USC's historic dominance of the conference.

Is it not likely that the PAC-12 will respect a couple of well-entrenched (bitter) rivalries for each team, say Oregon State and Washington for the Ducks, and go with a round robin with the remaining teams? Every team in the SEC has one permanent cross-division rival that it plays every year: Georgia's is the Auburn Tigers, Florida's is the LSU Tigers, for example. Most SEC fans would prefer to add another permanent cross division rival and play 9 rather than 8 league games. No one likes paying significant $ to come watch an SEC team slaughter a FCS team. Some of these match-ups are as cruel as a baby seal clubbing. I am confident that should the SEC do away with divisions, each team may have 2-3 permanent rivals and 6 games each year from a round robin schedule. The way it is now is that some cross-division rivals almost never play each other. Georgia has played Texas A$M exactly once since A$M joined the conference. That is silly. I hope everything works out with the division less structure. One thing is sure: it will take some getting used to.

I applaud the optimism of Duck fans on this topic. It reminds me of the tremendous enthusiasm Dawg fans showed when Kirby Smart was hired by Georgia. Many of the posts in that period were, frankly...delusional. Kirby arrived in Athens with a stacked roster. Yet his team finished 8-5 in that first year. It took a while for returning players to adjust to a new coaching staff. It took a while for Kirby to learn how to manage the game clock in crunch time. And it took a while for him to develop confidence in his own decision making. I am not saying he was a deer in the headlights, but he didn't always give the impression of being on top of game situations. Three of his losses came by a total of something like 8 points. A couple of those were due to coaching brain cramps in my inexpert opinion. Expect some missteps in a first year Duck fans: it happens to the best of coaches. Many of you may not know that even Nick Saban was something like 6-7 in his first year at Bama. I don't know how the Ducks will fare in Lanning's first year, very well I hope. But I can almost guarantee that the team will be better, perhaps much better, by year 2 or 3.

Where did you get this information DanLDuck (as if I could snag one of UGA's allotment, LOL)?

I posted the target article to Charles because I knew it would generate discussion and raise a few hackles. I grew up in California and was a lifelong fan of the PAC-12 and its predecessors (Remember Snow White and the 7 dwarfs) and have watched its gradual slide in the football arena over the past 20 years. There are several reasons for that in my opinion but that is beside the point. Given the system we have, two few teams have a realistic shot at the playoffs. Sure an Oregon or an SC will occasionally break through and land one of the coveted 4 spots. But recruiting out West is going to have to be a lot better for that to happen consistently. Comparing talent on rosters of Pac 12 teams begs the issue. Dudes want to play with dudes, and this is why Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Texas A$M, Clemson, Notre Dame and (formerly) Oklahoma were so darned attractive to recruits. You don't build championship rosters with a few 4- and 5-star recruits. You need bunches of them in all your recruiting classes. I love college football but it is becoming a bit stale. I want to see more conferences represented (especially the PAC-12) and the 12-team playoff format is a way to get that ball rolling. The cool thing about that proposal is that the first-round four games would be played in the home stadiums of the higher seeded teams, with the top overall four seeds getting a bye. Talk about juicing fan enthusiasm! If more recruits see more teams in the playoff picture, this should help to diminish the view that "I have to go to one of the 5 or 6 schools listed above to have any chance of my team being relevant." Over time, this may level the talent playing field and eventually give more schools a realistic shot of winning a Natty now and then. Every one of my points can be counterargued, but the status quo is not good for college football. Oh, and I get the indignation over the "lead the meek to water" quote in the target article. I felt it as well.

Couldn't agree more with this post. Beating Georgia, which has an experienced and top notch coaching staff, in Mercedes-Benz no less, is, in my opinion, a far more impressive feat than winning in the Horseshoe last September. A win there gives momentum that's hard to beat, last year not withstanding, and gets the Ducks serious playoff attention that will be invaluable if they can win the PAC-12, even should they stumble once along the way. I also believe that barring catastrophic injuries, a Duck team that can beat Georgia in Atlanta will cream Utah later in the year, provided that they continue to improve, which Lanning will preach. Having said all this, there is the small task of actually beating the Dawgs.

I think that Nix is head and shoulders above Emory Jones.

Lots of guys on the Bulldawgs recruiting blogs really want Malik. Should be a good one, but Georgia is trending for several top wide receivers I am led to believe, owing to the rumors that top rated QB Arch Manning may be committing to the Dawgs.

One thing I can guarantee about the game on September 3 at the Benz is that Dan Lanning runs the Ducks on the field with a plan for winning that contest. The second thing I can guarantee is that Kirby knows this, will not take the Ducks lightly, and will not let his players be guilty of that sin. I am expecting a fun and competitive game, and yes, honesty compels me to believe that the Dawgs will find a way to "get er done". Having said this, I think that if the line continues to favor Georgia by 15 points, I may be tempted to place a small bet on the Ducks, perhaps to win back part of the dinero I may have to shell out to a scalper to get into the game.

Lots of people still say "whoop" down South.

Big shout out of congrats to Kayvon whose play I admired very much.

Not McDawg but the defensive cupboard is well stocked with talent. The lack of experience here almost guarantees a drop off on defense, but Georgia's unit is always very good and will be again this year. I am most concerned about the interior linebacking crew which is very inexperienced. Kirby will probably challenge that group a great deal this summer with one of his catchy slogans like he used this year, i.e., "You're either elite,...or you're not"!