The whole “will Caleb King redshirt” question reminded me of this proposal I read recently at CFR.

Players are currently given five years in which to play four. With ever-shrinking scholarship numbers in football as well as the temptation to turn pro after three years, it makes sense to allow the player to participate in all five years of his eligibility. Simplify.

The current rule creates a complex but silly decision for coaches each fall as they must weigh the value of playing a true freshman versus the cost of burning that year of eligibility. Eliminate that decision and let the player contribute during the entire course of his eligibility. For those who would redshirt for traditional reasons (either to get a good start on academics or develop physically), the coach still has the option to play them sparingly or not at all. I like this proposal too.

True stars will leave after three years, but you’ll have received a full three years from them (instead of potentially wasting one year on the bench). Others will have a decision to make after their fourth season. They might be ready to go pro at that point, or they might be ready to graduate and move on. Still others will create a new class of player – the true 5th year seniors who will become the elder statesmen of the college game.

Georgia’s primary competition for Caleb King was Auburn, and at this point last summer it was still very much up in the air. Had King picked Auburn, yesterday’s news that he had qualified academically might not have mattered as much. A couple of Auburn signees have questionable transcripts, and grades might have been changed.

Nick Saban is already pushing the recruiting envelope at Alabama and might have committed minor secondary violations on a recent trip to Miami. For an Alabama program just emerging from the impact of significant scholarship losses due to probation, even a minor violation isn’t a good start for the new coach.

Georgia men’s tennis team won its fifth national title and first since 2001 on Tuesday in Athens. The Dawgs took a tightly-contested doubles point and then cruised in singles play to a 4-0 win over Illinois.

Senior Matic Omerzel clinched the win, and that was fitting as his match in last year’s national championship was also the deciding point. With the title, the Dawgs put the crowning accomplishment on a dominant undefeated season. I don’t know enough about college tennis to join the "best ever" discussion, but I do know that only an injury during last year’s NCAA Tournament kept Georgia from consecutive undefeated national championship seasons. Best ever or not, that’s a pretty incredible run in any sport at any time.

Though Dan Magill’s name is rightfully all over the tennis complex, Coach Manny Diaz has taken another step to cement his own legacy among the top names in the college game. This national title was his third – no other active coach has more than one title.

Now it’s on to the individual competitions where several Bulldogs stand a chance of earning even more hardware in singles and doubles play. John Isner will attempt to become the first player since 1998 to record a team, singles, and doubles national championship in the same season.

One has to think that Dan Magill has mixed emotions today. The man is synonymous with Georgia tennis – his name is on the nation’s best collegiate tennis complex.

Yesterday, he watched his beloved Bulldogs win the program’s fifth national title on its home court. What a triumph.

Then only hours later on those very same courts, Georgia Tech’s womens tennis team won the school’s first-ever outright team national championship in any sport. Magill, as anyone familiar with Bulldog history knows, places proper emphasis on the rivalry with Tech. It had to hurt to see the Yellow Jackets win a title in anything, especially in Athens, and especially in the tennis complex that bears his name.

On the plus side, this lead paragraph on ncaasports.com this morning had to really annoy Tech fans during their first taste of a national title:

With chatter about an early football signing period starting to increase, I wanted to think it through a little more. I can’t bring myself to entirely condemn the idea because other sports manage to get by with an early signing period, but something about it makes me doubt that it’s the best thing for football.

The chief argument for an early signing period usually reads similar to this: "by signing early, prospects could eliminate the pressure of the recruiting process and enjoy their senior years while focusing on academics and/or football." Sound about right? Packaged that way, it reads as if the intent is entirely altruistic, and who wouldn’t want to relieve these poor high school students from some of the pressure from the increasingly insane recruiting process?

In reality, you can tell who really benefits from an early signing period by those making noise for it: coaches and fans. Coaches and fans want the early signing period for similar reasons: make those commitments binding as soon as possible.

Forgive me if I don’t cry for the programs who are left in the lurch when a commitment changes his mind. If a prospect changes his mind at any time after the letter of intent is signed, the penalties are severe. An entire year of playing time is forfeited. There are no such consequences when a coach changes jobs or a program takes a different direction. The time before a letter of intent is signed is the only opportunity the student-athlete has for the next four or five years to reconsider his decision without a major cost. Why constrain that time period for the further benefit of the school?

There are some other minor questions that should be answered. Some of these are trivial, but I wonder if early signing period proponents consider them.

• Pressure on a prospect could actually increase with an early signing period. The elite prospects can sign whenever they please; there will always be scholarships waiting for them. But for the marginal prospects, an offer might hinge on their willingness to rush their decision and sign early. You don’t think members of Grant Teaff’s AFCA would stoop to that level? Welcome to recruiting.
• An early football signing period would have to be earlier than that of any other sport – possibly even before the prospect’s senior year. We would attempt to remove some pressure on seniors by placing more concentrated pressure on kids just out of their junior years, few of whom are 18.
• The summer months aren’t dead times in the college and prep football worlds. Summer camps are critical evaluation opportunities for both the schools and the prospects. Would a signing period not long after the camps encourage more hasty and emotion-based decisions?
• Is an early signing period really in the best interests of the school? By pushing the decision process before the senior season, is the chance of missing on a prospect greater?
• Football is a senior’s game more than most other sports. It’s usually when the best stats are recorded, and the physical maturation of a high school football player is considerable from year to year. By signing before the senior season, a prospect could miss out on better offers that come from a solid senior season.

This is one area where I think college football has it right. Signing in early February allows the prospect to enjoy the 4+ remaining months in his senior year, focus on academics, and still take the time to make an informed decision. Schools are able to make decisions based on a complete body of work. Prospects are able to watch the most recent college season, know if their coach(es) will still be there the next year, and take official visits at their pace either during or after their own seasons. I don’t deny that there can be pressure throughout the process on those who commit early, but prospects who make it clear that their decision is firm seem to be more or less left alone. Those dealing with constant pressure to change their minds are often those who can’t say no or who leave the door open to the possibility that their commitment isn’t firm.

The world won’t end if we get a summer signing period in college football. I don’t necessarily mind attaching a stronger obligation to the verbal commitment, and an early signing period would do that. I just don’t see the idea solving any big, pressing problems, and I can see it creating a few minor ones. Someone would have to show me a real set of benefits to the student-athlete because the deck is already stacked enough against them.

Georgia’s #1-ranked mens tennis team, led by top-ranked John Isner, will face Illinois for the national championship this afternoon in Athens. The match begins at 3:00 and will be televised by ESPNU. You can also follow it online here.

Isner lost in team play at #1 singles for only the second time this year, falling 4-6, 4-6 to Somdev Devvarmann of Virginia, the #2 player in the nation. Isner beat Devvarmann earlier in the year, setting up a possible rubber match with everything at stake when the individual tournament kicks off in Athens later this week.

How good is Georgia? Just ask the Baylor coach who lost in the semis to Illinois.

“Georgia is way too good for everybody,” Baylor coach Matt Knoll said. “It is hard to realize how good they are. A guy like (Nate) Schnugg could be playing Davis Cup tennis one day. If we had gotten to the finals, we had no chance.”

Hopefully Knoll’s prophecy will hold true this afternoon. Georgia fell in last year’s national championship, but their #2 singles player was out with an injury. The Dawgs are at full force in this tournament and have lost a single point along the way. Illinois at #10 might be considered a heavy underdog in this match, but they’ve done all the right things so far to make it into the championship.

Related links:

• Georgia’s “Pit Players” get them to the finals
• Ever wonder what it’s like to return a John Isner serve? A Greensboro, NC reporter finds out.
• Magill Tennis Complex seen as the best of it’s kind. Athens is the pinnacle of college tennis.

One of the pitfalls of beginning the college football recruiting season earlier and earlier is that some of your early commitments will take the 9-12 months until Signing Day to reflect on their decisions, and some might end up changing their minds. The process doesn’t stop, and the competition won’t stop trying to sway a commitment until the Letter of Intent is signed.

There are those who will use that fact to point out how badly we need an early signing period in football. As the good Senator points out, that’s almost entirely in the school’s interest and not the prospect’s. Get him signed before he changes his mind or sees how our next season goes.

College recruiting has provided us with plenty of head-scratching terms over the years including the oxymoronic "silent verbal" or the favorite "soft verbal" which has done as much as celebrity marriage to set the bar for "commitment" as low as possible.

Recent events have inspired a new term. Call it the soft decommitment. A prospect goes so far as to back out of a verbal commitment to look at other schools but also hasn’t eliminated that original school. Georgia has had two such "soft decommitments" in recent weeks: offensive lineman B.J. Brand and running back Martin Ward. Both committed to the Dawgs earlier in the process, but as Brand put it, "I made a real quick decision and I like Georgia a lot, but I just want to make sure of things. I still like Georgia a lot and they are still up there on my list, but I am going to look around a little bit before making my final decision." OK…I can buy that. At least they were honest about it.

On a commitment scale of 1-to-10 where 1 is "John Capel undecided" and 10 is "came out of the womb wearing his future school’s colors", this new area is somewhere around a 5. It’s different from a soft verbal commitment since Mr. Soft Verbal doesn’t want to go so far as to decommit and risk losing his offer. Just for fun, here’s the rest of the scale.

Football Recruiting Scale o’ Commitment:

10: Odd birthmark in the shape of his school’s logo. Coincidence?

9: Becomes a recruiting intern and starts calling other prospects

8: Solid commitment. Makes his decision and isn’t heard from until he signs at 8:30 on Signing Day and shows up on time in August.

7: Committed, but hasn’t cleaned out his cell phone’s contact list just yet.

6: The soft verbal: claims he is still committed but has other visits lined up "just to be sure of my decision."

5: The soft decommitment: officially backs out of a hasty early commitment but keeps his original school at or near the top of his list.

4: Genuinely undecided but doing his homework

3: Major life decision is heavily influenced by paddleboats.

2: Anyone have a coin?

1: "I committed to Ole Miss because I really felt at home there. Just as I did at LSU the week before, Arkansas the week before that, and Tennessee last month. Where am I visiting this weekend?"

It’s a paradox of college football that because so much emphasis is placed on the regular season we end up with a regular season that doesn’t reach its full potential. It’s not a big revelation that most schools approach their scheduling asking "how much can we get away with?" The first priority is wins, and strength of schedule is a secondary priority for most teams in major conferences. No one likes the games against cupcakes, but the all-or-nothing nature of the regular season rewards those wins provided they are balanced against a sufficiently strong conference schedule. Even where national titles aren’t at stake, an impressive win total still plays into bowl bids and their valuable paydays.

It’s to the point now that Big 10 coaches are willing to acknowledge (HT: Get the Picture) that playing an additional conference game is not in their best interests. The sure win over a cupcake is worth more to teams because it’s a guaranteed notch in the win column, and that means more bowl bids (and money) for the conference. Though the really compelling out-of-conference game isn’t rare, it is still the exception and noteworthy enough to be the subject of press releases.

I don’t blame them in the least. It’s rational behavior considering the incentives. The consequences of a single loss often far outweigh any benefit of playing a tougher-than-necessary opponent. Why play nine conference games when eight will do and get you to the Rose Bowl? You might get the luck of the draw and not have to face Ohio State or Wisconsin along the way – all the better. I’d love to see more conference games – I find it ridiculous and contrary to the point of a conference as anything other than a revenue-sharing entity that teams in these super-conferences don’t play more often. But as the sport’s popularity soars and fans continue to fill the stands, what is the incentive to make things more difficult?

What I don’t get is those who bemoan these weak schedules and not ask "why?" Why are teams not doing more with this 12th game? Why are fans glad to see an additional home game if it means a glorified scrimmage? Why don’t people take a closer look at the incentives driving this scheduling?

First, congratulations to the drafted Dawgs and those signing free agent deals. Their work and dedication to this point has paid off with a great opportunity. This is just the beginning, though. Making the most of this chance, earning their way on to a roster, and starting a successful pro career is the next step.

With four players drafted, it’s hard to say that this was a sub-par draft class from Georgia. But relative to the competition, it was. It’s actually the second straight so-so group. For the first time since 1997, Georgia will go at least two seasons without a first-round pick. In fact, Tim Jennings was the only Bulldog taken in the first or second rounds in the past two years. The 2006 draft marked the first time since the 2000 draft that no Bulldog was taken in the first round.

Will Georgia return to the first round next year? It’s possible but not a certainty. Paul Oliver jumps out as the star, and we certainly hope he has a first-round kind of senior season. Kicker Brandon Coutu might get some interest, but kickers are almost never taken early. Kregg Lumpkin and Thomas Brown are pro-quality talents but don’t yet have the numbers to justify a first or second round selection. At this point, I don’t even see someone who I would consider to be a serious threat to enter the draft as a junior next year. Massaquoi? Southerland? Maybe. They’d have to have a pretty tremendous 2007.

In retrospect, it’s pretty incredible that Georgia won the SEC in 2005 without much first or second round talent on that team. Of course that doesn’t mean that Georgia had or has lousy players. We’re talking about guys like Pope, Jean-Gilles, Shockley, Taylor, Moses, Johnson, Golston, and so on. They were very quality college players – just not the prototypes that stand out to pro teams. Having tons of players drafted high doesn’t necessarily mean that you had a good team (right, Miami?), but as with highly-rated recruits you’d rather take your chances having more of them than fewer.

Coaches like Willie Martinez have taken some lumps in the past couple of years because of letdowns that didn’t happen as frequently earlier in the decade. Georgia’s cupboard might not be empty, but the draft could be telling us that it wasn’t as full as it once was. The SEC title in 2005 and the strong finish last year might suggest that there’s some pretty good coaching going on with the talent that is there.

The coaches don’t get a pass though – talent and recruiting is also their department, and there are signs that deficiencies are being addressed. If you hope to have a strong team and don’t see many players projected as high draft picks, you’d better have some young talent, and Georgia does. Stafford is the obvious. A slew of young players at linebacker and defensive back are coming into their own. Georgia had one of their best offensive line hauls this year. Tailbacks like Moreno and King have promising futures. Now even receiver recruiting is taking a step up with AJ Green and hopefully a few others.

With Florida back in form, Tennessee and Auburn holding on, a stronger Alabama on the horizon, and a wild card over in South Carolina, Georgia has no choice but to increase its talent level. A return to producing top draft picks won’t necessarily mean that the Dawgs will dominate the SEC, it will just mean that Georgia will have the players it needs to compete and hold ground in this conference.

Draft day to me is much more about the greatness of college football than it is about the NFL. Only a fraction of those who follow the draft pay attention to the various free agent moves and trades that were made prior to the draft. The fates of those who don’t make the final rosters will barely be noticed. Draft day is graduation day for college football, and that’s why people pay attention. (Well, that and watching insane Jets fans.) For fans of individual schools, draft day is yet another way to keep score and claim bragging rights. It’s about pride as your star takes the stage as a top pick. Football is our national game now, and this is the one day when the college and pro fan bases converge.

I’m not a Brady Quinn fan, but ESPN did him no favors with that ridiculous game of "when will he be drafted?" on Saturday. The result was one of the most embarrassing and awkward green room displays since Jumaine Jones. As team after team passed on Quinn, the ESPN obsession with the Notre Dame quarterback became more and more apologetic until the commissioner, acting out of mercy, moved Quinn to a private area. Even worse was the disservice done to Jamarcus Russell and the other 20 or so guys picked ahead of Quinn. On a day where the focus should have been on Russell or Calvin Johnson, the story became Quinn, and each pick couldn’t pass without a shot back to Quinn, his vest, his untucked collar, and his mom and girlfriend.

It’s become an annual draft ritual for Georgia fans to complain that the Falcons don’t draft enough Dawgs. The Falcons’ job is to put an interesting and competitive team on the field, and they will fill seats if they do. Even if the Birds dressed the entire 2002 Bulldog team, a 4-12 season would still empty out the Dome and get the coach sent on his way.

The complaining got even more pathetic this year. Somehow the decision to take a first-team All-SEC defensive end not named Charles Johnson was the wrong move. Then because the Falcons drafted Martrez Milner, they didn’t draft the right Dawg. Then after the draft, the Falcons signed linebacker Tony Taylor and punter Gordon Ely-Kelso to free-agent deals. Add them to D.J. Shockley and the signing in recent years of Josh Mallard, Terrence Edwards, and Steve Herndon, and it sure does start to look like a big ol’ anti-Georgia conspiracy, doesn’t it? The Dawgs have some great fans, but they’re the most paranoid in the SEC outside of the state of Alabama.

Come to think of it, I’m getting a bit fed up with the Dawgs ignoring guys from my high school.

It has to be asked now whether Danny Ware and Charles Johnson made wise decisions to come out early. I’ve already said that I think Ware’s decision was correct, even if he was undrafted. I just didn’t see his situation or playing time improving this season. Johnson’s case is a bit different. Someone who believes himself to be a possible first-round selection and slides into the third round either 1) got snowed by an awful lot of NFL teams or 2) chose to listen to the wrong people in his camp. Many observers seem to think that the Panthers got a great deal with Johnson in the third round, and he’ll probably make the roster. It’s still an uphill climb though to get himself into the position, both in terms of a contract and the job security, of a first-round pick.

On the flip side, there’s Quentin Moses. Moses was probably drafted lower than he would have been as a junior. He didn’t slide as far as some thought, but I think the consensus is that he would have fared better in last year’s draft. Part of the deal when you come back for your senior season to improve your draft position is to actually show improvement. It’s a risk, and we can’t blame Johnson for taking it. He’s certainly not going to be hurting as a third-round pick, and Moses still did fine for himself as well.

It’s interesting to see the draft results from some of the nation’s most talked-about college offenses. Florida in particular was worth noting. Urban Meyer’s offense was a favorite punching bag among cynics because Florida failed to break 30 points in an SEC game until the SEC championship game. I guess you could say they still had a pretty decent season. Now fans of other schools are trying to convince themselves that the Gators will be vulnerable because of losses on defense. It’s true – the Gators had seven defensive players drafted. But another way to look at it is that Florida had only two late-round draft picks from their offense. Key members of that offense like Caldwell and even Leak went undrafted. It kind of makes you wonder what Meyer can do on offense with better talent, and recruiting rankings tell us that better talent is supposedly in place among the underclassmen.

Another team worth noting is Notre Dame. Charlie Weis got some good results out of his offense over the past two seasons, and the draft tells us that his talent wasn’t the best either. Clearly Quinn was a fine quarterback, and Weis got plenty out of him. But Notre Dame’s only other draft picks from offense were a pair of tackles. Key skill position players Darius Walker and Jeff Samardzija were undrafted. Notre Dame has added some high-profile newcomers like Jimmy Claussen, and we’ll watch what Weis can do with that talent.

With Ohio State’s loss of three receivers, Antonio Pittman, and Troy Smith to the draft, the best concentration of talent on offense in the Big 10 next year seems to be in Ann Arbor. Schools like Michigan, Louisville, Southern Cal, and West Virginia didn’t lose many of their key offensive playmakers to the draft, so it’s no accident that a lot of the preseason attention is on those programs.

Georgia fans will give you endless excuses why we never draw more than 20 or 30,000 people to the spring scrimmage. After all, other teams draw 50,000 or even more for their scrimmages. You’ll hear about Masters weekend or sometimes Easter weekend or the weather or Richt’s tendency to play the scrimmage as vanilla as possible. It’s always something, and that’s just fine with me.

Let’s be honest. You’re watching a scrimmage. You have no emotional stake in the outcome. Your greatest concern is that everyone remains healthy. The only reasons for going are to spend a day in the ol’ college town, stock up at the bookstores, entertain the kids, and sit a lot closer to something resembling football than you otherwise could in the fall. Football practice is boring once you get over the novelty, and that’s why I’m glad that most Dawg fans usually can find better things to do when G-Day comes around each year.

Over 92,000 Alabama fans had nothing better to do on Saturday than to attend A-Day in Tuscaloosa just to be a part of Nick Saban’s first public appearance on the Bryant-Denny sideline. Fans actually used words like "historic" to describe a football scrimmage. Far be it from a sportsblogger to play the "obsessive to the point of unhealthy" card, but damn. The coverage of the crowd also serves to remind the rest of us that Alabama football fans are similar to Kentucky basketball fans in that same kind of arrogantly annoying way. We don’t enjoy them being down as much as we would, say Auburn or Florida, but just know how insufferable they’ll be if Saban actually does do something there.

Someone on the DawgVent asked what the turnout was for Richt’s first G-Day game back in 2001, and I came across this recap from UGASports.com. If ever G-Day was set up for a huge crowd, it was that day. You had a triple-shot of hype: Richt was bringing his shiny FSU offense to Georgia. G-Day returned to Sanford Stadium after skipping a year due to that infamous sewer leak. Finally, fans got their first look at quarterback phenom David Greene. Despite all of those things that might have made G-Day 2001 ever so slightly more interesting than usual, I’m very glad to say that only 20,445 showed up in Athens on that day.

We’ve known for years that it’s a quirk of these spring games that some unusual suspects can steal the show. Georgia has had Johnny Brown, Ronnie Powell, and even Jason Johnson – the heros of spring games past. 2001 was no different. With several players held out due to injury, you need to dust off a media guide to follow the recap.

Much like 2006, the quarterback position was a question mark and a big area of interest. It was clear by that point that Quincy Carter was long gone. Cory Phillips, the caretaker quarterback of the 2000 season, was given the opportunity to win the position. Fans were eager to get a look at redshirt freshman David Greene after hearing the hype during his redshirt season in 2000. Matt Redding didn’t last long at quarterback after the spring. He’d be tried at linebacker and eventually left the program. Neither Greene nor Phillips looked very impressive against the first-string defense, though Greene threw two touchdowns. Coach Richt would not name a starter until the week before the 2001 season.

Incumbent tailback Musa Smith was held out of G-Day 2001, so the running game wasn’t really on display. Even Jasper Sanks was out. Georgia’s leading rusher that day was the forgotten Bailey, Kenny. Kenny spent some time as a reserve tailback before trying his luck as a defensive back later in his career. You can’t mention G-Day during this era without mentioning Ronnie Powell. Powell scored the game’s lone rushing touchdown and averaged over 10 yards on his four carries. Lurking down among the running backs was a fullback named Verron Haynes.

The receiving stats were particularly interesting. The top two receivers in the game became known more for leaving Georgia than for anything they did in Athens. Durrell Robinson came to Georgia as a partial qualifier, made a few receptions in 2000, and was off to junior college not long after this spring of 2001. Robinson became one of the nation’s best JUCO receivers and committed to West Virginia before dropping off the face of the earth. Tavarus Morgan also left Georgia during 2001, and he settled as South Carolina State where he had a decent career. Standouts Randy McMichael, Terrence Edwards, and Damien Gary didn’t have stellar performances, but that’s not unusual for G-Day.

Georgia’s leading tackler that day? Safety Burt Jones. Jones would go on in his career to become (quite seriously) one of the best cover guys Georgia has had on special teams in some time. Right behind Jones was safety standout Terreal Bierria who scored eight tackles and was involved with two interceptions. The defense tallied four interceptions overall.

Sophomore Billy Bennett was the game’s leading scorer. He connected on five field goals (a sixth was blocked) in a foreshadowing of his record-setting six field goal performance that was to come much later in 2001 during the streak-breaker game at Georgia Tech.

How in the world did only 20k show up for that?!?!

While I’m in Top 5 mode, I was going through some of last year’s games on the Tivo. We all know that the SEC’s best teams are flush with talent. What makes it especially tough is that even the bottom teams have exceptional playmakers. Here are five players I consider to be some of the best in the conference from the teams we usually consider the bottom four of the league. They struggle for exposure as better teams get the good TV slots, yet they still turn enough heads for conference and even national recognition. Behind Burton and Woodson, Kentucky shed their usual bottom four status for third place in the SEC East last year. With those two back, can they stay out of the lower half of the division again and earn a second-straight bowl bid?

1. Earl Bennett, receiver, Vanderbilt. Vandy producing a talented player is nothing new. Jay Cutler notwithstanding, most of their star talent has been on defense – particularly at the linebacker and secondary positions. There has been the occasional offensive standout like Todd Yoder. But rarely have the Commodores had a weapon on offense like Bennett. He has had at least 75 receptions in each of his first two seasons – the first SEC player to ever do so in back-to-back seasons. His 82 receptions last year were an SEC-best, and I remind you that he increased his reception total without Cutler under center. He’ll surely be the focus of opposing defenses this year, and we’ll see if he can take advantage of a nationwide drain at the receiver position in order to pick up some national honors.

2. Andre Woodson, quarterback, Kentucky. A year ago, Kentucky coach Rich Brooks was in trouble. The program had slid from some modest success, and most assumed that Brooks was on his way out. The Wildcats’ turnaround in 2006 was one of the biggest stories of the year in SEC football, and it was topped off with wins over Georgia and Clemson. One of the biggest reasons for the turnaround was the maturation and improvement of quarterback Andre Woodson. Woodson’s own turnaround was just as dramatic. Kentucky passed for just 169 yards per game in 2005 and threw an incredibly low six touchdown passes. The situation was so grim that Woodson was in a battle with the unknown Curtis Pulley for the starting job. Woodson quickly ended the competition in 2006 by throwing nine touchdowns in the first three games of the season. He finished the year as the SEC’s leader in total offense. A lot of credit for his improvement belongs to position coach Randy Sanders, exiled from Tennessee. Woodson’s transformation was so complete that he now merits national attention.

3. BenJarvus Green-Ellis, tailback, Ole Miss. Ole Miss is becoming Transfer U. Quarterbacks Schaeffer and Snead got the headlines, but Indiana transfer Green-Ellis in 2006 became just the third Ole Miss tailback to rush for over 1,000 yards in a season. With Schaeffer settling in as a dual-threat quarterback, Green-Ellis might have a chance for an even bigger 2007 behind Michael Oher and a decent line.

4. Titus Brown, DE, Miss. St. Brown has been a solid performer on a defense that had been led on the front seven by guys like Deljuan Robinson, Michael Heard, and Quinton Culberson. Brown led the Bulldogs in sacks with 7.5 and was fifth in the SEC. He was third in the league in tackles for loss. It’s Brown’s defense now, and the second-team all-SEC performer will anchor the line as a senior. Without the presence of Robinson and Heard up front, it remains to be seen if Brown can remain as effective. He’ll be the focus of protection schemes. Derek Pegues might be the most exciting player on the MSU defense, but Brown is the difference-maker.

5. Keenan Burton, WR, Kentucky. Woodson’s improvement didn’t happen in a vacuum, and the reliable Burton was a big piece of the puzzle. His 77 receptions, 1,036 receiving yards, 1,845 all-purpose yards, and 13 touchdowns led the Wildcats in 2006. He ranked second in the SEC just behind Bennett in receptions per game and behind McFadden in all-purpose yardage. His 13 touchdowns last year were second-best in the SEC also behind McFadden. Burton, along with top tailback Rafael Little, decided to return for a senior season. Those two plus Woodson give Kentucky a lot of returning experience and talent at three key skill positions and should give Wildcat fans plenty of reasons for optimism on offense and a chance to do as well or better in 2007.

The NCAA’s tomes governing permissible contact between a prospect and a coach have been behind the technological curve. Traditional methods of contact such as phone calls or face-to-face meetings have been successfully regulated. Even e-mails and faxes have been regulated to some extent. But coaches have found loopholes in the rules and can send (and receive) text messages with the frequency of a sugared-up pre-teen. Isn’t that right, Coach Nutt? Most coaches, whether they admit it or not, can work a Blackberry in their sleep now. Let’s not put all of this on coaches – you’d be amazed how many text conversations are initiated by the prospects.

For the coach, the technology is a mixed blessing. You have the ability to contact your prized prospects at any time with brief, casual messages using the kids’ prefered method of communication. But that same ease of communication applies to your competition. You don’t want to be second to congratulate the guy (or girl) on a great game, and the immediate access means that you are tethered to the technology lest your rival develop an advantage. Some prospects live for the constant attention, but most find it intrusive.

With all that in mind, the NCAA Division I management council has recommended "a ban on all electronically transmitted correspondence, including text messages, between coaches and recruits." E-mails and faxes would be exempt because they are covered under existing guidelines. The NCAA intentionally used the broad brush of "all electronically transmitted correspondence" in order to cover the pace of technological change that can adapt faster than the ability to regulate it. "The reality is that it does keep us a little bit ahead of the curve, for now," said committee chair Kate Hickey.

Coaches naturally are concerned that the ban would eliminate a channel of communication that is familiar to the prospects and their families. Kids communicate through text messages, and being able to relate to how they communicate goes a long way for a coach. Many kids have given up e-mail entirely. I think most coaches though will secretly breathe a sigh of relief – you can’t put the genie back in the lamp, but they might at least get some sleep now.

The AP article is correct that enforcement of the ban will be challenging. I imagine that if anyone gets busted it will be because some annoyed prospect turns in a coach who won’t leave him alone.

The NCAA will decide the fate of the ban at its April 26 Board of Directors meeting. If adopted, the ban would take effect in August.

It’s worth noting the other proposed rules change in that article. Currently, student-athletes may not try out for a professional team if they are enrolled. This seems absurd. We’re trying to graduate student-athletes, but we force those with professional aspirations to drop out of classes for what amounts to a job interview. In a wise change, the committee passed a recommendation "that would allow athletes to receive money from pro teams to make a 48-hour trip. Or they could also pay the bill themselves and not be bound by the time limit." The only gotcha, which seems fair, is that the kid would not be allowed to miss class for the tryout. Adopting this change seems even more important to me than the text message ban.

Last week I mentioned five things that Georgia football could do without this year. Why stop there? College football is a great sport, but even it has its warts.

1. Knee-jerk rules changes like 3-2-5-e. This is low-hanging fruit since the process to rescind this failed experiment is now complete. But the almost universal distaste for the changes had a few additional undertones. The first is a growing irritation with television advertising. More than a few fans noticed that fewer plays didn’t mean less advertising. We know that these huge television deals help to fuel the beast. Advertising has always been there, but the scrutiny and backlash brought on by the new rules really put ads into the spotlight. The second is the realization that college football isn’t the NFL, we like it that way, and we should resist attempts to package it up into three-hour blocks.

It seems as if the next target of the rules committee laboratory is the play clock. 25 seconds isn’t good enough. Now coming out of timeouts, we’ll have a 15-second clock. Nick Saban and others have suggested adopting the NFL’s 40-second clock. I understand the rationale regarding the 15-second clock, but all of this tweaking has me asking, "exactly what is so wrong with college football that we’re suddenly treating it like a beta software release?" The game between the whistles is fine. The postseason? That’s another story.

2. Ballin’. Since the days of Mark Gastineau, celebrating a sack has become an art form. That art took an ugly turn last year worthy of an NEA grant. Is there anything more awkward-looking or out of place than a 6’4" defensive end in full pads simulating a basketball jump shot? The ballin’ celebration, started by the New York Giants, trickled into college football last year. Let’s hope it died as quickly and completely as the Giants’ 2006 season. Is air guitar next?

3. Wake Forest and Georgia Tech in the ACC title game. It was a nice story and surely a special run for the few fans of those schools, but the crowd at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville for the ACC Championship game more closely resembled what you’d expect for a high school marching band exhibition. With a four-loss FSU team winning the title in 2005 and Wake taking the trophy last year, the conference badly needs to produce a contender again. The addition of Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College was supposed to turn the ACC into the next superconference while decimating the Big East. While the ACC does have a bigger upside and has two huge dormant programs in the state of Florida, it’s Big East football enjoying the higher profile. Will shakeups at FSU, Miami, UNC, and NC State change that?

4. Tuesday morning football. It’s easy for a fan of a major BCS-conference program to take for granted the value of a televised game. There is another tier of programs who must market themselves not only to recruiting prospects but also to pollsters. Such is life for the mid-major: does a team win ten games if no one sees them? Boise State is hardly an unknown now but will play nearly half of its 2007 games on days other than Saturday. Fans and the traditional campus gameday environment become secondary to the small chance of exposure. As fans of schools who can count on at least regional TV coverage for most our Saturday games, we can’t be too quick to condemn smaller programs for jumping at a national television slot no matter the time or day. Still, it’s not a positive development for a sport that draws so much of its appeal from the Saturday gameday experience.

5. Premature BCS politicking and whining. Call it the Tuberville Effect, but it’s almost given that a coach who starts complaining about their position in the BCS during October is sure to lose and lose soon. This goes for fans too though. Eight or nine undefeated teams in mid-October does not mean OH MY GOD WE HAVE A BCS CRISIS!!! Teams will lose. They always do. I’m certainly no fan of the BCS, but college football invariably reduces a huge mess in mid-season down to a much more structured picture by year’s end. Chill and let the process play out as it does most every year.

There’s also plenty that college football could use more of, and we’ll get to that next time.

A pretty cool project going on in Blacksburg: when Beamerball has its players flying around the football field this fall, several players will have helmets outfitted with accelerometers and wireless transmitters to record impact forces. 300,000 of the 1.5 million traumatic brain injuries nationwide each year are to athletes, and football has more of them than any other sport.

Though the system will collect and store the data for research, it will also provide some real-time feedback that can alert team doctors to signs of trouble before a player notices a problem or if a serious impact is missed during the hectic action of a game.

“We have a pager that alerts me when we receive a high head acceleration,” (team physician Dr. Gunnar Brolinson) said. “We set the pager at 98g – an impact of 98 times the force of gravity at the Earth’s surface – . We think that’s a fairly significant head acceleration.”

Brolinson noted that if he’s alerted to such a blow to the head of a player, then he watches the player for signs of a concussion.

One very interesting result so far is the common-sense finding that different positions receive different impacts, and that might lead to additional equipment refinements.

Brolinson said that so far the study of Virginia Tech’s football players has turned up some interesting and useful data, the most notable being that different positions apparently sustain different types of blows.

“Linemen sustain frontal blows. They’re usually low impact blows, but there are lots of them. Wide receivers receive fewer blows, but get higher blows when they happen. Linebackers sustain higher accelerations than linemen.”

Brolinson said that he thinks the data developed by the instrumented helmets may lead to changes in football equipment. “One of the things that may come out of this research, as we start to understand the blows, is position specific helmets. A lineman may need a different helmet from a wide receiver,” he said.

The work should have applications across athletics, in the military, and even in automobile safety.

(HT: Engadget)

Here’s Charles Johnson about to provide a data point to QB Sean Glennon:

Photo: UGASports.com