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Thursday, January 10, 2008
Can Georgia handle the hype?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As we pack up the 2007 season, keep your eye on these potential story lines:
1. Georgia is going to get a lot of love: It’s really simple. Most of the national college football writers scheduled to cover the BCS championship came to New Orleans early to see Georgia play Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl. Because the Bulldogs were so dominant they look like a good alternative to putting Southern Cal No. 1 again in the preseason polls. And if Pete Carroll leaves USC, the Bulldogs could be No. 1 across the board. But can Georgia handle the hype? That will be Mark Richt’s greatest challenge in 2008.
2. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany: His champion, Ohio State, just got its butt kicked in the national championship game for the second straight year by a team from the SEC. Here is why that is significant.
After a story appeared in a Chicago newspaper last year about the SEC’s superior recruiting to that of the Big Ten, Delany said: “Winning OUR (my emphasis) way requires some discipline and restraint with the recruiting process.”
SEC Commissioner Mike Slive, being the gentleman that he is, didn’t respond to the scathing stereotype.
Rightly or wrongly, Delany is perceived as the single biggest impediment to changing the BCS system because of the Big Ten’s relationship with the Rose Bowl. Delany is a very smart man. He knows his league controls more TV sets than any other and uses that power to benefit his institutions. That is what the Big Ten presidents pay him to do. But as we move forward on the playoff discussion the heat is going to get turned up on the commish.
And just for the record: 11 LSU seniors graduated early this year and all 25 are on track to graduate before the end of the summer.
3. Keep an eye on the BCS commissioners: Now that UGA president Michael Adams has floated his idea of an eight-team playoff run by the NCAA, look for the commissioners to come out with their own plan as a pre-emptive strive. It will be more modest and probably involve four teams. They meet in Miami in April.
4. The Big Ten, Pac-10 are playing a dangerous game of chicken: Delany and Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen say they will simply withdraw from the BCS and do their own deal with the Rose Bowl if there is a move towards a “Plus One” or a playoff. That’s fine. Let’s see how recruiting goes at those 21 schools when the rest of the gang is playing for the national championship. And if there is a four-team playoff, I think there is a pretty good chance that one of the national semifinals will be played on New Year’s Day at 5 p.m.-the same time as the Rose Bowl.
5. It ain’t going to be a fun spring at Florida: Urban Meyer is not a happy camper with the way the Gators played and coached in the Capital One Bowl. Meyer took the same grumpy approach after this first season in Gainesville and Florida won a national championship in 2006.
