Chad Simmons of UGASports.com reported yesterday that Richard Samuel committed to the Georgia football program for its 2008 signing class. Samuel is the sixth junior to commit to the Bulldogs for the 2008 class. Before the class of 2007 has been wrapped up and signed, Georgia is nearly 25% of the way to a typical class of 25 for next year.

It was a big deal a few years ago when A.J. Bryant committed to Georgia on Signing Day as a junior. The special circumstances with Bryant and his dying father made that a huge story, but it was also noteworthy that the commitment came a full year before Bryant could sign. Others follow this much more closely than I, but I don’t remember an earlier commitment at the time. It wasn’t long ago that the first commitments of a recruiting class would come in August or September of the senior year. We’ve since blown that benchmark out of the water; there are now six committed for 2008 who made their pledge even earlier in the process than Bryant did.

All of this leads up to the question, should there be an early signing period in football? After all, junior commitments are nothing new in college hoops, and the NCAA allows them to sign during the autumn of their senior years. Football starts before basketball in college, yet basketball players can sign before footballers.

I see the appeal of the early signing period on both sides. Prospects can make their decisions and focus on more important things like academics and their senior season. Colleges can wrap up prized prospects and not have to worry about stringing them along until February. Bill Curry seems to like the idea, and I can be open about this kind of thing.

The timing seems to be the big sticking point. It’s not likely that the early signing period would happen during the junior year, so that leaves early in the senior year. But that’s right in the thick of the football season. As distracting as recruiting is now, the pressure to make that decision early and make it binding would be even more of a distraction. I think it can be to the benefit of both the prospect and the college to let that senior season play out. As Rich Brooks notes, relying on junior evaluations and limited contact before the senior year to make the decision can be very risky. I would add that it’s potentially risky for both parties. Where basketball can gauge rather well the size and skill of prospects early in the process, the physical development (not to mention damage) that can take place between the junior year and the arrival on a college campus is so much greater for a football player.

It sounds from all accounts that Georgia’s six early commitments are the cream of the crop. If you’ve seen the A.J. Green videos going around, you see why people like our early commitments. I just wonder in which direction this trend will head. Will it become an arms race between schools to get commitments earlier and earlier with more imprecise evaluations? Maybe basketball provides some guidance. Though junior recruiting and early commitments have become a big part of the hoops recruiting process, it’s not like the commitments are spilling over into the underclassmen (at least not yet).

One impact the earlier commitments are having is to diminish the drama of Signing Day and the weeks leading up to it. Again, it wasn’t long ago that as much as half of a recruiting class was filled in the final few weeks leading up to Signing Day. Colleges hosted dozens of prospects on these weekends with the pressure to get handfuls of commitments each time. Those situations still exist, but for many schools January is becoming a time to 1) shore up the commitments you already have and 2) land the three or four remaining pieces to the puzzle. This is an interesting development to me because the attention and suspense heaped on those who hold out until the end is a huge ego boost to those prospects, but it seems as if more are realizing that the real prize is that scholarship to a major program.

I’m not a recruitnik in the sense that I can name the Top 50 prospects in Georgia or that I get bent out of shape about stars and rankings, but this is still pretty interesting stuff to keep an eye on. It’s the future of the program after all, and shifts in how the recruiting classes are assembled are worth keeping an eye on.

So there I was checking in on the big Duke-Tennessee women’s game last night, and I see this:

Bruce Pearl in a nice show of self-promotion support for the Lady Vols. The Lady Vols were so traumatized that they fell behind 19-0 before getting past the trauma (they still lost, though).

Let’s just all be glad that Pearl was the only Tennessee coach involved here…

Though the usual Congressional proclamations recognizing sports champions are just ceremonial, it doesn’t mean we have to like it when they recognize the Gators as national champions. Kudos to Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston for standing up as the lone dissenting voice. They might be champs, but we don’t have to sign our names to the official ass-kissing. Several others from Georgia, including Barrow, Linder, Deal, and Norwood are at least not among the "yeas". I’m surprised the Idaho delegation didn’t join them.

In fact, we’d like to see more things in government go along school and conference lines. Rule 3-2-5 should have been vetoed. You want legislation to go through? Talk to the SEC Caucus. Sponsor highway bills to connect Starkville with the rest of the civilized world. Disaster aid for hurricanes? Not if you ran up the score last year. Electoral votes could be awarded based on BCS rankings. Just keep Pac 10 instant replay out of the Supreme Court.

I’m not a fan of the Steelers or Dolphins. If I were, I’d probably be staring cross-eyed at the newspaper wondering why Chan Gailey is still a candidate for either head coaching position.

Is Gailey a bad coach? No. He’s had at least some degree of success in most of his positions in the same sense that Hyundai is a "successful" car brand. Sure, it isn’t Toyota or Honda or even Ford, but it isn’t Yugo either. Such has been Gailey’s career. Rarely awful, never spectacular. There was a divisional title with the Cowboys and two playoff appearances. He has maintained Georgia Tech’s consecutive bowl streak while winning an ACC divisional title this past year. He isn’t known for any specific innovation or approach to the game; he’s just the beige of coaches.

Is that really what Pittsburgh and Miami are after? Jeez – Pittsburgh. Not even a season removed from a Super Bowl title, and they are considering a man who lost his only two NFL playoff appearances. Can you replace the dominant personality of Cowher with the relatively anonymous Gailey?

Miami is even more puzzling. They went out a few years ago and hired a flashy coach, proven as much as one can be at the college level, and still couldn’t get the ship righted in two seasons. They’re desperate. Read this quote from owner Wayne Huizenga and tell me you don’t see the desperation.

"There’s only one thing I want to do, and it’s win," Huizenga said. "I don’t care what it takes, what it costs, what’s involved, we’re going to make this a winning franchise. It’s no fun owning a team if you’re not winning, I can tell you that. And we are absolutely, positively going to get back to being a winning team. And sooner rather than later."

I’ve tried, but I can’t reconcile that statement with the fact that Gailey has had a second interview with Miami. Huizenga’s whatever-it-takes and whatever-it-costs mission to win is focusing in on a guy who has lost at least five games a season at Georgia Tech?

I don’t have anything personal against Gailey, and I don’t blame him for looking to move on. The Tech faithful aren’t especially taken with him, and it can’t be fun trying to babysit guys like Reggie Ball in the Tech academic jungle. I don’t question at all why Gailey would be interested in the head coaching positions of these two proud NFL franchises. I just question why they would be interested in him and his sure fate of 9-7 seasons. Other than the ties to those organizations in his past, what am I missing?

Update: I’m obviously not the only one scratching my head over this.

Conference validation

For the life of me, I can’t understand the SEC’s constant need for validation. Honestly I think it’s just something that’s woven into the fabric of the South as the region deals with stereotypes. Everyone knows that good football is played in the South, but we have to go to any lengths to prove that the SEC is the best. It’s all that "Yankee media bias" we have to overcome. SEC fans are so fanatical about our football that we’ve collectively developed this provincial and paranoid insecurity that requires us to be reassured constantly that the SEC is tops.

So it’s no surprise that SEC fans, and of course I’m mostly talking about the Georgia fans I hear from, are doing their best to ride Florida’s coattails. Great. Let’s print up a batch of SEC #1 t-shirts and measure the players for their SEC Rules rings.

I said back during the bowls that I don’t really buy into the conference loyalty thing. I don’t see how having the reigning national champion next door is a good thing, especially as recruiting hits the home stretch. Florida on top just makes our job that much more difficult, though not impossible – remember what happened the last time Georgia faced a Florida team holding the title. Nor do I use the bowls as conference barometers. If we do, how can we place so much importance on Florida beating Ohio State while ignoring an unranked Penn State making Tennessee look ugly or Wisconsin having no problems with Arkansas?

Of course I’m not trying to put down the SEC. I have no problem defending the football played here. We just go overboard sometimes (OK, often). If last night’s win is a fundamental statement by the SEC, what was it last year when the SEC champion fell behind 28-0 to a team from the Big East? I guess I just put a lot more value in matchups than geography.

The win much more than anything else just means that Florida was better and more prepared than Ohio State. It’s amusing that every SEC team on Florida’s schedule came closer to Florida than Ohio State did, but that doesn’t make the Buckeyes on par with Vanderbilt. Those extrapolating that Ohio State would be an 8-4 SEC team (and I’ve seen that very line) are reading way too much into a single game. The Buckeye defense looked lost against the spread offense, and Ohio State presented nothing unique and challenging for the Florida defense. Florida improved a great deal in their final two games; the same team that struggled to score and beat South Carolina and FSU in November got it together in time for the postseason.

Give Florida credit, and maybe the rest of the conference can try to knock Florida off instead of letting them carry the water for the rest of us.

BCS validation

We’ve also started to hear how this outcome validates the matchup set up by the BCS. That’s fine; these were two of the top teams and I have no problem with either in the title game. But I can’t help thinking how close we came to not having this matchup and about the sequence of events that had to happen in order to bring about this outcome:

• Florida had to block several South Carolina kicks to avoid their second loss.
• SoCal losing an improbable finale to UCLA.
• Louisville being offsides on a field goal attempt.
• Poll voters explicitly engineering around a tOSU – Michigan rematch.

Again, I’m not knocking Florida’s title. They earned it, and of such breaks and plays are champions made in all sports. But events independent of Florida’s control nearly kept them from even having a shot at the title. Would a playoff be any better? You’re still not guaranteed that the "best" teams will play for the title, but you are at least more certain that qualified teams will have the opportunity to play in the process. We’ve seen before (2004) that the regular-season-is-your-playoff line can be pretty flimsy. We’ve also learned a bit about how hard it is to be objective when determining the two best teams. Two months ago, the "Hype Lives Here" machine of ABCESPN, complete with countdown clock, had a lot of us thinking that Michigan and Ohio State were #1 and #2. Both proved to be paper tigers in their bowls. With Florida on top, we’re still left with a question we had two months ago: who’s #2?

On that note, we also need to look sometime at how we use losses as strikes against title contenders. Of course a five-loss team doesn’t belong in the discussion, but I think it says something that a couple of two-loss teams turned in two of the most impressive BCS performances. Even given their losses, I’d have trouble picking against SoCal or LSU versus any team.

Aside – can we shut up about 2004 now?

One of the biggest chips on the shoulders of SEC fans recently was the "snub" of Auburn in the 2004 national title game. In our insecure little province, that event was a sign that the media and the rest of the nation didn’t respect the SEC. Oklahoma and SoCal started the season #1 and #2. Without a loss, there is no way that any other team was going to jump them. Yet some still maintain that an Auburn team who came into 2004 off an 8-5 season and a generous #10 preseason ranking should have been in the title game instead.

Did it suck that Auburn didn’t have a prayer at playing for the title if neither #1 or #2 lost? You bet. That’s a separate issue though. Under the BCS system, conference, schedule, none of it mattered – #1 and #2 remained intact throughout the season, they woulda/coulda/shoulda played for the title in 2003, and there was nothing that would keep them from playing for the title in 2004.

It didn’t just get Troy Smith, though his 4-for-12, 35 yd. performance in the national championship game is about as ugly as it gets. Look how the top 10 Heisman finalists went out in their bowl games.

Troy Smith, Ohio State: dreadful
Darren McFadden, Arkansas: lost (89 yards)
Brady Quinn, Notre Dame: painful
Steve Slaton, West Virginia: injured, non-factor
Mike Hart, Michigan: lost (< 50 yards) Colt Brennan, Hawai'i: finally someone who played well Ray Rice, Rutgers: 170 yards, but no one saw him play Ian Johnson, Boise State: another big winner Dwayne Jarrett, Southern Cal: huge second half on the biggest Jan. 1st stage Calvin Johnson, Georgia Tech: great bowl but still lost If we're ranking them just according to bowl performance, the list gets flipped almost upside down:

1. Brennan
2. Jarrett
3. Calvin Johnson
4. Ray Rice
5. Ian Johnson
6. McFadden
7. Quinn
8. Hart
9. Smith
10. Slaton (injured)

It’s certainly not unusual for a successful team to have some staff turnover in the offseason, but LSU seems to be taking it on the chin this year.

• First they lost offensive line coach Stacy Searels to Georgia in a lateral move.
• Now, they’ve lost offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher to FSU.
• We might not be finished – high-profile defensive coordinator Bo Pelini has been mentioned in connection with the Minnesota job.

Les Miles could have quite an HR crisis on his hands if both coordinators end up leaving. It’s never easy replacing such talented assistants, and it’s vital to your program that you have good people in place.

Calvin Johnson announces that he will declare for the NFL draft.

Though Johnson will be a top draft pick and will be remembered as one of the best receivers to ever play at Georgia Tech, his career numbers against Georgia will always be the most bitter part of the Johnson-Ball-Gailey era:

9 receptions, 71 yards, 1 TD

It took Nick Saban about 17 seconds to come face-to-face with that unique animal known as the Alabama football fan. He was mobbed at the little Tuscaloosa airport and required a police escort to get through the crowd. Have you ever seen someone so uncomfortable as he looks around these people? Watch these two videos:

• Video #1
• Video #2

Of course this is Alabama football, and a school that has given us the Mike DuBose and Mike Price soap operas can’t just end a story like this without introducing alcohol and the law. Follow this link to read the tale of Ms. Alana Colette Connell, seen here giving the new coach a smooch and apparently a good whiff of a 9-martini lunch.

Remember, Nick…you chose this.

It already includes two powerhouse recruiters. FSU linebackers coach Kevin Steele will be the defensive coordinator. BamaOnline is also reporting that UCF’s Lance Thompson will join the staff.

You know, the one thing really missing from the Alabama coaching search story was unnecessary drama.

Thank goodness ESPN.com’s Pat Forde came through to fill this void. In a world of baseball steroid scandals and NBA brawls, Forde steps up as whistleblower on the lies, misinformation, and secrecy that surround football coaching moves, and Saban is the tipping point. That’s not all, though. It’s such an egregious fault that Saban, by association, taints the entire coaching profession.

So it’s time to rename the American Football Coaches Association the Liar’s Club. I understand that I’m tarring a lot of good men — and even a few honest ones — with a broad brush, but that’s Saban’s gift to his profession.

I’m not particularly impressed by Saban’s choices, but I’m also not going to take them as a personal affront. I’m also certainly no fawning admirer of Saban. If Forde is set off by a bit of hypocrisy and misinformation when it comes to a coaching search, then perhaps covering sports isn’t for him. Politics might be a more sanitary subject.

It’s amusing how quickly the big story became how Saban didn’t do things the "right way" throughout this process. He dared to contradict his earlier claim that he wouldn’t coach at Alabama. He didn’t appear in person to break the news to his staff or players. Forget about Saban the coach or the challenges facing him at Alabama – the narcissistic media had to make the story about themselves and how Saban wasn’t honest with them. You can just see the indignation dripping from Forde’s column. "He lied to us. US!!!" Even the Banner-Herald’s Andy Johnston gets into the act. As if every coaching search until now were conducted with forthrightness and transparency. These guys have been covering sports for years and still manage to write about this with the disillusionment of kids who just found out about Santa Claus.

Am I just numb to it? You’d think from this venom and hysteria that Saban had shot both Mike and Don Shula while looting the Dolphins’ locker room on his way out of town.

And as for those young innocents these coaches will be shaping? If Forde has lost faith in the once-hallowed profession of mercenary football coach, it’s a good thing he hasn’t turned his attention to the world of college recruiting and how 18-year-olds have come up with a unique interpretation of the word "commitment". He might never watch a game again.

It’s bad enough that the system is engineered more and more in their favor, but they could at least bother to field a competitive team when they do back into a BCS slot.

Notre Dame has now played in three BCS bowls. They are 0-3. In the 2001 Fiesta Bowl they lost 41-9 to Oregon State. In the 2006 Fiesta Bowl they lost 34-20 to Ohio State. In the 2007 Sugar Bowl they lost 41-14 to LSU. In three BCS bowls, Notre Dame has given up over 38 points per game and lost by an average margin of 24 points, never coming closer than 14. I doubt many nine-win teams from any BCS conference could do worse. That’s Pitt 2004 bad.

Of course it’s true that Notre Dame has always been matched against a higher-ranked opponent in their BCS games. Tough. If anything, these mismatches show just how undeserving they are of the automatic bids brought on by inflated rankings. Wisconsin in particular has to be pissed.

As Alabama fans continue the Saban vigil, I have to wonder when he became the end-all of coaching candidates. Two SEC titles and share of a national title are impressive. On the other side of the ledger is a record of losing at least three games per season at LSU except in 2003. Fine coach, certainly, but I’m not sure if he’d even be the best coach in the state of Alabama. Maybe I’m just bracing for it, but you and I know that if Saban returns to the SEC he will immediately be fawned over on a scale that will make the Urban Meyer worship seem muted.

It hasn’t been Reggie Ball’s month. A month ago, he was the senior quarterback of the team on top of the ACC standings. His team was expected to end the losing streak to Georgia and win the ACC title.

In that month since, Ball has:

• Turned in a 6-for-22, 2 INT performance against Georgia to finish with an 0-4 career record against the Dawgs.
• Followed that up with a 9-29, 2 INT performance in the ACC title game loss to Wake Forest.
• Become academically ineligible for Tech’s Gator Bowl appearance against West Virginia.

I would never pull for Ball on the football field, but this complete fizzle to the end of his career just makes you cringe. Four years of eligibility was just too much to ask for Mr. 4th Down.