Thoughts of the Day: August 19, 2021

A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning:

A RUNNING BACKS ROOM THAT OFFERS PLENTY OF OPTIONS

“It’s the SEC, so it’s the next-best thing to the NFL,” says Florida running backs coach and special teams coordinator Greg Knox. “So you get a good, quality group of guys that come here to play and so with that, you get a lot of versatility and you get options.”

Knox likes the options the Gators have in 2021. So does HBC Dan Mullen. The Gators have five SEC-caliber running backs, all of whom present with a different-enough skill set that it’s going to problematic for opposing defensive coordinators who have the additional problem of scheming against a pair of quarterbacks who not only can throw the ball quite well but run it with speed and authority.

The hammer is senior Dameon Pierce, last year’s leading rusher (503 yards, 4.7 per carry) who has 1,232 career yards (5.4 per carry) for 10 touchdowns to go with 26 catches for 206 yards and two more TDs. Malik Davis is a make-you-miss type and an exceptional receiver, finally healthy after starting his career at UF by suffering two season-ending injuries. He has 983 career rushing yards (5.1 per carry) for three TDs to go with 47 catches for 509 yards. A year ago he ran for 310 yards and caught 31 passes for 377 more. Nay’Quan Wright might be the best combination runner-receiver. Last year he ran for 213 yards (3.9 per carry) for two touchdowns while catching 19 passes for 219 yards. And then there are the two former 5-star guys – former Miami transfer Lorenzo Lingard and Clemson transfer Demarkcus Bowman – who Knox calls “home run hitters” because “if they get in open space, they are a threat to put that ball in the end zone.”

All five of these guys can carry the ball. All five can catch it. But if they fumble the football or fail to carry out blocking assignments, they won’t be seeing the field.

“I tell them when they first get here, it takes to things to play here,” Knox said. “Number one, you’ve got to protect the ball. Number two, you’ve got to protect the quarterback. If you can’t do those two things you can’t play. I can’t justify putting you in the game. So, I think everyone in that room, they understand that. They’ve grasped the understanding of that knowing that ‘if I don’t protect the quarterback if I can’t pick up the blitz, all right, and I can’t protect the ball, I can’t play.’ And I think, I truly think they all understand that, and they know that ‘hey, Coach is not going to put me in if I can’t do those two things.”

Thinking ahead: All five will see the field, but Pierce will be the starter and the power guy. He has fresh legs after only 229 carries in three years. Mullen has already alluded to using two backs on the field at the same time which could be in an almost veer-type alignment or with one in the slot who can shift into the backfield for handoffs or run routes in the passing game. Davis and Wright are the most accomplished pass catchers so they’re likely to be in the slot. You don’t keep speed like Lingard and Bowman have on the bench, but they’ll probably lag behind the other three when it comes to touches. There is, after all, only one football to go around.

NICK SABAN ON FOOTBALL IN A 16-TEAM SEC “When you look at our league expanding, you’re going to play more good teams in our league. You’re going to have to lose more games. How does that affect people getting in the playoff? If we’re going to play 10 games in the SEC which I would not be opposed to [because] I’ve always wanted to play more SEC games, you could play two divisions and you could play three teams from the other side. So every two and a half years you’re going to play everybody. If they’re going to stay at eight or even nine they should do the pods so you’re only going to have three fixed opponents and you would be playing five or six teams from the other regions or pods. You would play everybody in three years.”

OVER, UNDER, AROUND AND THROUGH THE SEC Alabama: Right tackle Kendall Randolph and safety DeMarco Hellams (both sprained ankles) are listed day-to-day … Freshman corner Ga’Quincy “Kook-Aid” McKinstry has signed an NIL deal with – who else? – Kool-Aid … Nick Saban says all but one Alabama player has been vaccinated.

Arkansas: The highlight of a scrimmage marred by poor play in the red zone, turnovers and false start penalties was freshman placekicker Cam Little, who hit a 52-yard field goal.

Auburn: D1AA transfer safety Bydarrius Knighten has emerged as a probable starter. In four years at Southeast Missouri State, Knighten had 255 tackles and six pass interceptions … Vanderbilt transfer Donovan Kaufman is running number one at the nickel.

Georgia: Both safety Tykee Smith and tight end Darnell Washington have undergone surgery after suffering fractured bones in their feet. No timetable has been set for their return but both will be out a minimum of 3-4 weeks so they will miss the season opener with Clemson. Washington caught seven passes for 166 yards last season while Smith was a third-team All-American at West Virginia.

Kentucky: A fourth-degree assault charge against UK football chief of staff Dan Berezowitz has been dismissed after the Fayette County DA said there isn’t enough evidence to prove Berezowitz assaulted his wife. Berezowitz remains suspended from the UK football staff however … Freshman tight end Dekel Crowdus injured a knee last week but it will not require surgery.

LSU: The injury bug has hit the offensive line so hard that Coach O plans to avoid goal line and short yardage situations in Saturday’s scrimmage. “You’re at a point right now where you have to push,” Coach O said. “We have to scrimmage, but we have to get our guys game-ready also, and it’s a fine line. You’re at that part of a camp where, as a coach, you want to be hard and you want to push them, but you want to be smart and pull off at the right time, so I think it’s a fine line.”

Missouri: Walk-on offensive lineman Richard Taylor II was awarded a scholarship Wednesday.

Ole Miss: When it comes to the Ole Miss wide receivers, senior Braylon Sanders isn’t shy about what he sees as the potential. “I feel like we can be the best in the country,” Sanders told reporters Wednesday.

South Carolina: In the absence of injured Luke Doty, Saint Francis (PA) transfer quarterback Jason Brown (6-3, 228) has been taking the first team snaps with walk-on Connor Jordan working with the second team.

Tennessee: Five starters from last year’s defense will be playing somewhere else in Division I this fall.

Texas A&M: Tyrece Radford, who averaged 12.2 points and 5.9 rebounds per game last year at Virginia Tech is transferring to Texas A&M. Radford, who was dismissed from the team back in January after being arrested for DUI and carrying a concealed weapon, had all charges dismissed earlier in the week by a Montgomery County (VA) judge.

Vanderbilt: First-year HBC Clark Lea is the first Vanderbilt alum to coach the team since 1990, which was Watson Brown’s final year … Vandy is one of only four teams in Division I that doesn’t return a back who ran for 100 or more yards last year.

COUNTDOWN TO FIRING DAY, PRESEASON EDITION

Extinct Species List

Les Miles: Too many Title IX issues got him fired at Kansas.

On Life Support

Scot Loeffler, Bowling Green: Everybody says he’s a great teacher of quarterback fundamentals. Maybe he can land a gig as someone’s QB coach after this season, because it’s going to be a VERY long year. Paycheck games with Tennessee and Minnesota won’t help. Loeffler is 3-13 in two years. If he wins three this year he should be the MAC coach of the year.

Thomas Hammock, Northern Illinois: The Huskies have been to 12 bowl games since 2004 so the alums are not accustomed to two straight years without a bowl game, much less last year’s oh-fer six. Paycheck games at Georgia Tech in the opener and at Michigan week three aren’t going to help Hammock’s cause. The Huskies are predicted to finish dead last in their division in the MAC.

Dana Dimmel, UTEP: Dimmel should be given a long-term contract for even attempting to coach college football in El Paso. Yes, it’s in Texas but it borders New Mexico, which may produce one four-star recruit every decade and it’s 342 miles from the nearest Texas football hotbed (Odessa). The closest Conference USA rival is 552 miles away in San Antonio. Give Dimmel credit for trying, however.

Walt Bell, UMass: He’s 1-14 at one of college football’s dead-end jobs. Either he was dropped on his head way too many times as an infant or else he hated Willie Taggart. Why else would he have departed FSU, where he was offensive coordinator, to coach a team that is only in Division I to get paycheck games that pay for the other sports. The only winnable game is D1AA Maine.

Tom Arth, Akron: They fired Terry Bowden, who made them respectable, and hired Arth, who is 1-17 in two seasons. The Zips open their season at Auburn for a paycheck. The only winnable game is against D1AA Bryant, which plays in something called the Northeast Conference.

Endangered Species List

Ed Orgeron, LSU: The Tigers will probably win nine games this season. It’s the off-the-field stuff that might tank Coach O’s career. Between the NCAA and a Title IX lawsuit on which he’s named as a defendant, Coach O might have problems dodging the bullets.

Dino Babers, Syracuse: If Babers had been a bit more patient he could have landed a decent HBC gig after going 18-9 in two seasons at Bowling Green. Instead, he took Syracuse where he’s had one winning season in five years. He needs to break even to remain gainfully employed.

Chip Kelly, UCLA: This is a make-or-break year for the Chipster. He’s 10-21 in three seasons and the fine folks in Westwood think that’s a rather poor return on $6 million a year. Beating Southern Cal is imperative. Circle September 4 when LSU comes to Pasadena. If LSU blows the doors off UCLA then the Chipster has one foot out the exit door already.

Clay Helton, Southern Cal: We couldn’t have an Endangered Species List without Clay Helton on it. The alums hate him and would to see him gone, but he’s got a schedule that has 10-2 or 11-1 written all over it. If he wins nine or more, they’re stuck with him another season.

Randy Edsall, UConn: After coaching UConn to a brilliant 0-0 record in 2020, Edsall returns to the sidelines. In the last three seasons when they actually played football at UConn, Edsall piloted the Huskies to a positively marvelous 6-30 record. There is a real shot at a 3-9 record this year because UConn plays Holy Cross and Yale, D1AA programs that don’t give out scholarships, and UMass, which is so bad it might as well be D1AA.

Hoping He Would Just Up and Leave Jim Harbaugh, Michigan: He’s 49-22 at Michigan, which is not the kind of overall record that gets a coach fired. However, he is oh-fer six against Ohio State, the only game that matters to a Michigan man (or woman). He won’t beat the Buckeyes this year either. They aren’t going to fire him, but everybody wishes he would just up and leave.

Scott Frost, Nebraska: It was not supposed to be this way. He was the golden boy, coming home to rescue college football in this once proud outpost, but he’s 12-20 in three years. This minor dustup with the NCAA won’t get him fired and they probably won’t fire him if he doesn’t win seven or eight this season. That’s because he’s got a $20 million buyout. But what if he just ups and leaves? They can only wish.

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Nick Saban pointed out the obvious in an interview with Mark Schlabach of ESPN when he talked about the impact of the new transfer rules that allow a player a one-time transfer without having to sit out a year. “You can only transfer once,” Saban said. “You know if you get 19 transfers they’re going to be here. If I get a good [high school] player, he might leave. Why would you recruit high school players? That’s just a lot of opportunities the high school kids won’t get.” The smart coaches in the future are going to hold 5-7 scholarships for transfers. That’s going to mean a lot of talented high school kids will fall through the cracks and go to Group of Five or D1AA schools, which could end up as the equivalent of the minor leagues. The times they are a’changing.