Tim Tebow is an outstanding football player. He may or may not win his second Heisman this weekend. He may or may not win a national title in a month.

But this “greatest amateur player in a team sport” nonsense needs to be nipped in the bud. It’s indefensible, and it’s the same kind of in-the-now garbage that we’d expect from a throwaway ESPN segment. Worse, it forces us to take a critical look at one of the best players in the game right now when we should be congratulating him on another stellar season.

Even as a Georgia fan I wouldn’t go so far as to call Herschel Walker the “greatest amateur player in a team sport”, but you might be able to make a better case. Walker’s teams, and make no mistake – they were Walker’s teams, didn’t lose a single conference game or home game in his three years. He didn’t need dramatics or something disturbingly now called “The Promise“. He just ran over people.

And as for this “will to win” stuff, it’s going to be hard to top carrying your team to a national title by going for over 100 yards with a separated shoulder.

Again the worst of this kind of talk is that it’s a distraction from a wonderful season for Tebow and his team. It says a lot that there’s even a case to be made on a topic like this. Is the GPOOE no longer enough? Matt Hayes thinks we’re looking at the GAPIATS-E. And the guy has a freaking Heisman vote.

For the second year in a row, the Georgia Bulldogs have the SEC’s Freshman of the Year as voted by the coaches. Wide receiver A.J. Green was voted the league’s top freshman just days after the AP gave the same honor to Alabama’s Julio Jones. Green’s 951 receiving yards leads the SEC this year, and he’d be the first freshman to lead the SEC in receiving since Auburn’s Ronney Daniels in 1999 (half of Daniels’ total had to come against Georgia). It’s fitting that Green and Jones split FOTY honors. Both had stellar seasons, and SEC fans should enjoy watching them over the next two seasons.

On some of the other awards…Tebow and Berry make sense. I also can’t argue with Brandon James though I’m sure Arenas got plenty of consideration. It was interesting that there were no unanimous selections this year. Did someone like Cody take votes away from Berry? I can’t imagine a better season by a defender than what Berry put up.

Any time I see Michael Oher’s name on one of these lists, I have to wonder how much The Blind Side had to do with it. By all accounts Oher’s an excellent lineman and has lived up to the hype, but was he really the best lineman in the conference? Or was he the safe choice because we have a book that says he’s supposed to be a can’t-miss? I don’t pretend to be able to tell the difference between Oher and other top linemen like Andre Smith (who won the award last year), and most honest fans can’t either. So while I’ll admit to being curious about that award, I really can’t disagree with the selection.

That’s not the case with another award. This isn’t the first time I’ve questioned the coaches’ on their COTY pick, and I’ve really got to take issue with Bobby Johnson getting anywhere near it this year. True, the return of Vanderbilt to bowl eligibility is big news. There’s also no question that Vandy is at a different level from the days not too far gone when they were winning two games a year. He’s a good coach over the long haul, but what was exceptional about this season? Johnson’s indecisiveness at the quarterback position proved problematic, and he saw his team all but collapse over the last half of the season as they were unable to beat vulnerable teams like Mississippi State, Duke, and Tennessee. Vandy’s bottom line improvement was one whole game from a 5-7 2007 season.

Saban was the obvious choice, but I’m glad to see that Houston Nutt received enough support to tie for COTY honors. Nutt took the Ole Miss Rebels from zero SEC wins a season ago to 8-4 overall, 5-3 in the SEC, and a New Year’s Day bowl.s

Sports Business Journal has the lowdown on this year’s crop of bowl gifts (h/t The Wiz). There’s good stuff to be had even at some of the minor bowls. That hasn’t always been the case. I remember talking with some players at the 2001 Music City Bowl who were green with envy after comparing notes with friends who were going to New Year’s Day bowls.

The NCAA limits bowl gifts to $500, and it looks as if Georgia players will be getting most of their swag in the form of a $400 Best Buy shopping spree. Their Citrus Capital One Bowl gift package will also include a commemorative watch and probably smaller items like t-shirts.

Florida Citrus Sports, who organizes the Champs Sports and Capital One bowls in Orlando, have pioneered the shopping spree program that lets the players choose their own gifts rather than accept the predetermined gifts. Players in the two Orlando bowls will be taken to a local Best Buy for a party and must spend their $400 allotment there. The BCS championship game will use a similar program where participants can select $300 of Sony merchandise from a showcase at the team hotel.

Interesting tidbit – the NCAA limits only provide for gifts for 125 people. "I don’t even need to know how many people will be coming through the doors," (promotions company rep Jon) Cooperstein said. "The NCAA allows each bowl to award up to $500 worth of gifts to 125 participants per school. Schools always bring more than that and pay for it on their dime. We’ll make up 500 folios and order forms for each school."

If the Dawgs run up another large tab this bowl season, you’ll probably find a nice chunk of it at a local Orlando Best Buy.

Georgia placed eight players on the AP All-SEC teams, but the Bulldogs only rated six spots on the coaches’ All-SEC teams.

Mohamed Massaquoi, Knowshon Moreno, and Rennie Curran were first team selections. A.J. Green, Matthew Stafford, and Brian Mimbs were second team picks. Massaquoi and Green flip-flopped from their spots on the AP teams while the coaches moved Curran up to first team. Clint Boling and Rashad Jones made the AP teams but were left off by the coaches. Knowshon Moreno was the only Bulldog named first team by both the AP and the coaches.

SEC individual awards and the All-Freshman team will be announced later in the week.

Georgia fans seem more or less resigned to Knowshon Moreno and Matthew Stafford heading to the NFL after this season, but two of their high-profile peers might stick around for another season.

Heisman frontrunner Colt McCoy has come out and said that he’ll return for his senior season. As a senior he’ll try to lead Texas to a Big 12 and national title after coming up just short this year.

Last season’s Heisman winner Tim Tebow won’t decide until after the BCS championship game, but he said that, "if I had to say I was leaning any way, it would be to coming back." Of course he’ll stay – Georgia has everyone up to and including Rashad Jones exploring their draft potential, but Tebow hasn’t even filed the paperwork.

Would taking those two out of the draft make the leap more attractive to someone like Stafford? The looming rookie salary cap is assumed to be one of the bigger issues out there, but a weekend interview with NFL exec Rich McKay (sorry, no link) seemed to indicate that a cap wouldn’t be in place until 2011 at the earliest. That makes sense as the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement isn’t due to expire until 2011. McKay added that agents might be giving misleading and self-serving advice about the rookie cap with the intention of pushing more players into the draft sooner.

Congratulations to the eight Georgia players who earned all-SEC honors from the AP.

With a quarterback, tailback, and two receivers earning all-SEC status, you’d expect a strong offense, and Georgia was definitely as strong as they’ve been on that side of the ball in some time. I was glad to see Clint Boling recognized for his work in 2008. Injuries to other linemen forced him to play out of position for much of the season, but he proved to be versatile and effective. I’m really hoping that Clint can get a season or two where he can stay in his element and see just how far he can go.

The AP wasn’t as kind to the Georgia defense, and that should be no surprise. The Dawgs had no defenders on the first team, and Rennie Curran and Rashad Jones earned a spot on the second team.

People found it a little strange that A.J. Green could be named a first team receiver yet lose out on Freshman of the Year honors to Julio Jones. It’s unusual, but it’s not unprecedented. Over in the Big 12, Sam Bradford was the first team QB by the AP, but Colt McCoy was Player of the Year. McCoy might win the Heisman, and he’d do it as the second team QB in his own conference.

We saw something similar in 2005 when Jay Cutler and D.J. Shockley shared first team honors, but Cutler was named SEC Player of the Year on offense. It comes down to voting and how certain votes are weighted. In the case of Green vs. Jones, the question might have come down to a decision between just those two for Freshman of the Year. But for the all-SEC receivers, you have other worthy candidates like Harvin and LaFell affecting the vote.

The one thing that stands out to me? For the first time I can remember, Georgia doesn’t have a defensive lineman on an all-SEC team. Geno Atkins was a first-team selection in 2007. Charles Johnson made the cut in 2006, and Quentin Moses was there in 2005. Then of course you get back into the days of Pollack, Grant, and Seymour. It had to be difficult for Atkins this year with the absence of Jeff Owens and spotty defensive end play, but I was surprised to see that he didn’t even rate honorable mention this year. Perhaps that won’t be the case when the coaches release their own list.

At any rate, the rare lack of a standout defensive tackle or end kind of tells the tale for this year’s Georgia defense. Improvement in that area might be one of the big things to watch in 2009. Atkins has pledged that he’ll be back, and we hope that Owens will join him. Defensive end is the bigger need, and Georgia is again looking for help at that position ($) from the junior college ranks.

Welcome to the week that was in Georgia athletics where the number 42 served to tie together three very low points for three Bulldog teams.

42 points in football is usually enough to outscore anyone except Oklahoma, but we know how that turned out last weekend.

On the other hand 42 points in basketball often means a loss, and that was the case for the Lady Dogs on Friday at Georgia Tech. Not only did Tech beat Georgia by double-digits; they also took sardonic pleasure in making Georgia fans look up at the scoreboard and see “42″ in the second losing effort to Tech within a week. “Just like football,” indeed.

Andy Landers might consider teams like LSU and Tennessee more worthy peers and rivals, but like it or not he’s got a very serious challenge in his own state. Georgia controls the series with Tech 28-3, but the series is an even 3-3 over the past six years, and Georgia has lost two out of the last three on Tech’s home floor. There was no question who the better team was on Friday night.

Even the men’s basketball team pitched in with their own 42-point nightmare on Saturday. The Dawgs trailed from the start and saw a somewhat close game deteriorate into a 34-point blowout loss at Illinois. The lowlight, pointed out in graphic detail by the Georgia Sports Blog, was a 22-0 Illinois run to close the game. Once Illinois started finding openings and hitting perimeter shots against Georgia’s 1-3-1 defense, the game was over. But the meltdown at the end was one of the things you might have expected from Felton’s first few teams where we patted everyone on the head for the effort and reassured ourselves that such defeats would be soon forgotten once 2003 was comfortably in the past. So much for that.

Maybe Georgia just needs to avoid teams from Illinois.

Alabama has done a lot of things well this year, and staying healthy is one of them. Chris Fowler reports…

Health is another reason the Tide are one step from the BCS title game. Unlike the Gators, who have endured a steady rash of injuries, Alabama has been astoundingly healthy.

The Tide have lost only a handful of starters to injury, and for a maximum of two games apiece. Check out the numbers Alabama SID Jeff Purinton provided me:

Total starts missed: 5
NG Terrence Cody: 2 (Tennessee and Arkansas State)
OG Marlon Davis: 1 (Western Kentucky)
OT Andre Smith: 1 (Tulane)
WR Mike McCoy: 1 (Kentucky)

Meanwhile, Georgia will go into the bowl practices with 4 healthy linebackers (Curran, Dent, Dowtin, Ellerbe – 5 if you count former walk-on Benjamin Boyd). Half of Georgia’s scholarship linebackers are unavailable due to injury.

Consider coming out to support the Lady Dogs as they play at Georgia Tech (7:00 tip – $5 tix). A Georgia win won’t take the edge off what happened last Saturday, but it’s always nice to get a win over Tech in a sport we’ve traditionally dominated. It won’t be easy though.

Georgia is 28-2 against Tech, but those two Tech wins have come within the past six years, and Tech, with back-to-back NCAA Tournament bids, is as strong as they’ve ever been. They’ve already put scares into UConn and Texas and knocked off ranked Michigan State earlier in the week. They’ll be the toughest team Georgia has faced so far this season.

I haven’t done a Lady Dogs preview this year, but it figures to be a lull between the disappointing end of the Tasha Humphrey era and a really solid recruiting class coming in next year. Hopefully there’s enough left in the tank with this year’s squad to get by an improving and young Tech team. See you in enemy territory tonight.

I was listening to Cowherd’s interview with Gary Danielson yesterday, and the SEC championship was framed as a clash between defense (Alabama) and offense (Florida). This isn’t to pick on what was a good interview or disagree with that storyline because – let’s be honest – most people are looking at it that way because those have been two very dominant units.

But framing the game that way tends to underrate the other elements of the game – namely Alabama’s offense and Florida’s defense and special teams. First let’s look at the Alabama offense. It has most of the pieces you’d expect from a quality offense. The line is veteran and talented. Knowshon Moreno might be the best back in the SEC, but no school has a running back tandem as good as Coffee and Ingram, and Upchurch isn’t bad. Receivers are adequate until you come to difference-maker Julio Jones. It’s a long time ago, but the way this offense came out, mixed it up, and took it right at teams like Clemson and Georgia earlier in the season opened a lot of eyes.

As the Senator notes, it all comes down to quarterback play for the Tide. He’s been shaky a few times this season but nothing like the roller coaster ride that was 2007. If he has time, he should be fine, and Alabama’s experienced OL should help them here against a talented but young Florida defensive front.

Then there’s the Florida defense. It was assumed during the offseason that the Florida defense had to be better because – hey- it couldn’t get much worse. I don’t think many people expected this kind of improvement though. How good is the Florida defense? You know that great Alabama defense everyone sees as a strength in this game? They check in at #3 in total defense (248.5 YPG) and #3 in scoring defense (11.5 PPG). Pretty damn good, right? Florida is #7 (275.67 YPG) and #4 (12.3 PPG) in the same categories. Less than 30 YPG and 1 PPG separates these two defenses.

Florida also has the edge in turnovers. They lead the nation in turnover margin thanks in large part to being third in the nation with 32 takeaways. Florida has 23 interceptions this year, and that’s just one less than Alabama’s total number of takeaways.

Any distinction between the two defenses becomes even more hazy when you look at common opponents.

Common Opponent – Georgia: Florida W 49-10, Alabama W 41-30. Both teams had one explosive half against the Dawgs, but Florida’s defense held Georgia off the scoreboard better than Alabama’s. You can argue whether or not Alabama let up, and Florida did give up close to 400 yards to the Georgia offense.

Common Opponent – Kentucky: Florida W 63-5, Alabama W 17-14. Not even close. Kentucky had the Tide nervous, and Florida reduced the Cats to rubble.

Common Opponent – LSU: Florida W 51-21, Alabama W 27-21. Both teams feasted on LSU turnovers, but the difference was in the ground game. LSU rushed for 201 yards against Alabama but only 80 against Florida. Did the nature of the game matter? The LSU-Alabama game was a close one where LSU could stick with the run. At Florida, the Tigers were down 20-0 and in comeback mode not long into the second quarter.

Common Opponent – Ole Miss: Florida L 30-31, Alabama W 24-20. Both teams played Ole Miss close, and Florida actually held Ole Miss to fewer yards than Alabama did. The difference might have been turnovers. Florida forced only one Rebel miscue, and Alabama came away with three. Florida in 2008 mostly avoided the big play bug that hurt them so much in 2007, but an 86-yard TD pass in this one made them pay. Again, Alabama let up in this game and saw a 24-0 lead evaporate.

Common Opponent – Tennessee: Florida W 30-6, Alabama W 29-9. Both teams held Tennessee to a few field goals, but Florida held the Vols to nearly 100 fewer yards.

Common Opponent – Arkansas: Florida W 38-7, Alabama W 49-14. Alabama was definitely the more dominant team against the Hogs. Florida was in a 17-7 game in the second half while the Tide used offense and defense to put their game away by halftime in a foreshadowing of what was to come in Athens.

After looking at that, is the Alabama defense really that much of a relative advantage in this game? Special teams will also matter. Both teams have exciting return men, but Florida’s punt block unit has been one of the big behind-the-scenes development of the season. They plowed through Kentucky and Vanderbilt punt protection with speed and skill that would make Poland nervous. Florida right now is the opposite of what we’ve seen this year from Georgia. Instead of offense and special teams making it tough at times for an already-shaky defense, Florida defense and special teams are making things easier for an already-potent offense.

Alabama has the pieces to win this game, but I have to go with a Florida team that has been consistently excellent over the past two months on offense and defense. The Alabama and Florida defenses are statistically very close over the course of the season, but the gap between the offenses is nowhere near as tight. Florida wins, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the underrated Florida defense make its mark on the game in a very big way.

Looks like we’re back. National tragedy averted.

Backup, backup, backup.

A Pennsylvania company is coming out with a line of unique fragrances aimed at fans of certain colleges. Penn State was the first school with its own fragrance which, in cologne form, “smells of blue cypress and cracked pepper.” Somehow “old man smell” didn’t make the cut for the Nittany Lions.

UNC is the second batch of suckers fan base with a signature scent. As the Carolina Man is a complex animal, it follows that his scent is an intricate bouquet that is part Willie Wonka, part Willie Nelson, and not at all flaming. (Note that what follows is a description of a cologne and not a dish from last week’s Top Chef.)

UNC for men is a light and crisp fragrance that embodies alluring Carolina Blue in a bottle. The fragrance opens with fresh Sicilian lemon and bergamot. The aromatics extend with lavender and the subtle spice of sensual white pepper. The base notes combine a soft white amber and tonka bean. An irresistible and fresh creation for the proud Carolina man.

The company will wisely dip its toe into the SEC market next season (insert corndog joke here), but we suggest that the SEC game day fragrance is already available in bottled form.

Any other guesses about the fragrances for Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, and LSU?

Coincidence?

• Waiting for us in the mailbox Saturday evening was the Hartman Fund renewal envelope. Talk about perfect timing. Somehow I don’t see 10,000+ points as the cutoff for new season tickets next year.
• Aside from Massaquoi’s afternoon, the one good memory I’ll take away from the game was the block that Chapas threw to spring Moreno around the end for his touchdown run. It was Tony-Milton-2002-Kentucky good.
• Speaking of Chapas, his contribution this year was a bright spot. He answered the call and really set himself up as the next Georgia fullback. But what ever happened to Southerland? Was his conditioning just shot after the injury kept him off his feet for so long? Southerland played and contributed where he could – even at tight end in certain packages – but surely this isn’t the way most of us thought and hoped it would end for him.
• Either Lane Kiffin stole HeismanPundit’s girlfriend once, or Tennessee will be looking for another new coach in a few years. HP first warned athletic directors back in September and has continued to beat the drum since. No punches pulled there.
• Clemson’s new coach also fails to impress. It comes off like a cross between Bill Stewart and Ray Goff. He’s regarded as a recruiter, young, liked by his players, and has embraced his school’s traditions, but the win over South Carolina sure seems a lot like Stewart’s win over Oklahoma last year. I look at it this way – if Swinney were in the same assistant position at, say, his alma mater Alabama, would he even register on a Clemson coaching search?
• If Georgia has a kindred spirit this year, it’s Missouri. The Tigers started the season around the top 5, didn’t have to play Texas Tech or Oklahoma in the regular season, and still finished 9-3 giving up 40 points to a 7-5 team in their last game and loss. Yet they’re playing for a conference title this weekend.

You’ve really got to hate it for Texas safety Blake Gideon. A single dropped interception a few weeks ago is all that stands between Texas and the #1 spot in the polls, a spot in the Big 12 title game, and the inside track to the national title game. Instead, Texas is now on the outside looking in for not only the national title game but even the championship of half of a conference.

The bits and bytes will be burning up this week debating the subject, so here are a few more points to ponder.

First, understand that this is a Big 12 problem, not a BCS problem. The Big 12 chose to make the BCS part of its tiebreaker process. Blaming an undesirable outcome on the BCS in this situation makes as much sense as pointing out the flaws in rock-paper-scissors if the conference had chosen that method to break its ties. The conference will surely revisit its tiebreaker scenarios after this year, and it’s on them for not taking care of it earlier.

Second, the BCS got it right. As much as Texas wants to boil this down to a 45-35 45-35 45-35 45-35 45-35 argument, it’s not that simple. To begin with, it conveniently skips over the loss to Texas Tech and the fact that the #1 team in the nation couldn’t hold a lead with a minute to go. That’s not a fatal flaw for Texas by any stretch – all three Big 12 co-champs have their warts. But it is enough to step back and remember that the BCS evaluates not only individual results but also the entire season.

That’s where Oklahoma shines, and I’m glad to see that in this case schedule was rewarded. Oklahoma has wins over BCS-bound Cincinnati and #11 TCU. Texas’ best nonconference opponent was Arkansas – a middling SEC school. Texas Tech played no one from another BCS conference. Texas did have their tough gauntlet that culminated in the loss at Texas Tech, but among a group of three teams that played the conference season to a deadlock Oklahoma’s out of conference slate has to tilt things in their favor.