Monday Morning Quarterback: We should stop being surprised; Loughdmouthings-Bad ADs, HoCo's Askew, unbeatens, fans (*sigh*), UK's timeout, more
What’s next in the world?
Peach County loses by two touchdowns at home, and then Warner Robins trails the entire game, and was almost in danger of sniffing a rout.
Alabama loses to an unranked team led by a stunningly overpaid and overrated head coach. Iowa, well, OK, Iowa will Iowa under Kirk Ferentz.
Take nothing for granted? No kidding.
For those wearing no colors or logos, it’s downright fascinating.
Peach County had a 35-game region winning streak snapped at home to a good team, a nice team, but not overwhelming. And lost by two touchdowns.
Warner Robins had won – on the field, excluding a forfeit to Harris County in 2018, a 41-0 Demon win – 15 straight region games. Sure, Ware County is a quality program, was ranked fifth, and home, but who saw a 22-0 deficit until a Warner Robins touchdown in the final seconds of the first half?
Can you imagine the possibility of Warner Robins on the painful side of a running clock three weeks after doing that to 6A’s No. 1 team?
Nope, me either.
Loughdmouthings
Any AD in charge of an absurd buyout should be pretty much fired.
With no buyout.
Like Ross Bjork at Texas A&M, who OKd a buyout of $96 million if Jimbo Fisher was fired without cause on Dec. 1, and a buyout in which Fisher owed the school nothing if he broke the contract.
The buyout doesn’t fall below $50 mil until 2027. ON top of a ferociously overpaid $7.5 mil a year contract that was recently extended and upped to $i mill ayear on up.
Fully guaranteed.
That obscene. And horrific fiscal responsibility under the often-use and weaker-than-unsweet-tea reasoning of “Providing the appropriate amount of stability and continuity during this important time” steaming pile.
Ed Orgeron was fired Friday, beat Florida Saturday, and sat Sunday night with a little smile at the explanation press conference about the $17 million he gets, two years after a national championship and right after assorted off-the-field mess regarding things more important than football.
Somebody’s fixing to get rich, because the man who doesn’t care about other people’s money and overpaid at A&M is now the AD at LSU.
Between college sports officials throwing money away and major companies throwing money away on overpaid and expendable people in charge, um, well, there was a point there, other than what makes you throw up. …
It was already going to be a bad Friday night for winless Wayne County taking on Warner Robins. Now that the Demons have been awakened to mortality, it’s going to leave marks.
And that leaves only Bleckley County, Macon County, Putnam County, GMC, and John Milledge as Central Georgia’s unbeaten GHSA and GISA teams.
That honor will be in danger Friday night for the Royals and Bulldogs (Milledgeville edition). …
Congrats to Houston County’s Simeon Askew, now the program’s record holder for rushing yards in a season with 1,624, an average of 7.2 yards a carry. That latter stat is fourth among the top 13 single-season runners, behind Ernest Simms (7.7, 1998), Kenny Gant, 7.4, 2014, and Patrick King (7.3, 2000).
Askew is seventh on the all-time list with 2,097 yards, 72 yards from sixth-place Robert Williams (2,169, 2007-9). Simms leads the list with 3,815 yards (and 42 TDs) from 1996-98. …
It’s generally hard to take fans’ takes seriously on about anything, because there’s no objectivity, no interest in understanding rules, no concern about being wrong.
People just boo or whine and happily plead immaturity or ignorance.
Or say remarkably stupid stuff, like the Tennessee idiot defending the hundreds – it was more than four people throwing crap Saturday night – of other idiots throwing crap Saturday night, as well as the other idiots defending idiots:
Of course, it’s debatable if the pinhead realizes the idiots he defends were angry at an accurate – yet misunderstood – official’s decision, not the performance on the field, which was fine.
Either way, it’s not like Tennessee is persecuted any more than anybody else by those dadgum refs who – like so many blatherers in front of cameras and mics – just hate, hate, hate their team.
For no logical reason.
Know this: people aren’t jealous of your school or team. Nope. Many because their team is just as, if not more, successful, and many because simply they have priorities in their lives. Relevant and big-picture priorities.
Next time that happens anywhere on any level, get the head coach on the public address and say that one more incident, and the stadium will be cleared to finish the game, and the first half of the next home game, and if the classless and clueless are identified, prepare to be banned. …
As per the Georgia High School Football Daily, nobody in Central Georgia was involved in an upset last week.
No. 5 Ware County beating No. 1 Warner Robins, an 8-point favorite, qualifies in only that we didn’t expect the Demons to lose this year, let alone almost get run out.
That’s a 15-point turnaround, with an 8-point defeat. …
Where are they now? Well, longtime Central Georgia high school coach C.B. Cornett is now on the college level, as a volunteer assistant at GMC JC. …
The coin toss is never, ever worth audiocasting, yet there are cameras and mics out at midfield for as boring an exercise as imaginable.
So, let’s try this more often.
Now, that would be worth listening to. …
Dear Friday night gamecasters: Please seek something for the allergy to tell us the time and score with every commercial break. Something to alleviate the pain of informing listeners, like how nobody can see a play or a call (yet can whine about the call they didn’t see). …
Fans, Part II: The number of late timeouts in games that are done when nobody’s near the goal line is fairly sizable, and those, those you can grumble about.
When you’ve driven against an elite defense, when you’re playing for the rest of the season, and you’re within spitting range of the end zone, you call timeout and try to score.
The grousing comes from the same bellyachers who bark “Well, then, you should stop us” when a team is running up the score.
You play to the end of the game. That’s what programs do. And if you don’t think Georgia’s defense is more agitated with Georgia’s defense than Kentucky’s timeout, you’re wrong.
This is a defense of “We should stop everybody all the time” attitude, and the Kentucky touchdown will be a bit of a sticking point down the line. But the timeout won’t matter.
Had Kentucky been at its 30 and called timeout, yeah, I’ll be in the “what the hell?” line. …
The NCAA should be barraged with email and calls eliminated the phrases FCS and FBS and go back to I-A and I-AAA. …
It’s absolutely moot – which means national and regional media are aaaallll over it – to start speculating on who replaces who where a vacancy is, like LSU and Washington State. And for in-season high schools moves, too.
Wait a month to see how the hot names - rarely a good hire – are, and where the team with the vacancy is.
But LSU should be very, very afraid of getting Jimbo Fisher, because he’s young enough to bolt Tigerland like he’s bolted before. …
Of the GHSA and GISA schools in The Sports Report’s coverage area – which doesn’t change week to week – the over-under on coaching vacancies at the end of the year is four new ones, to join ACE, which may have its next head coach on staff.
Polls
Reminder that we split up the polls into divisions, because, well, it makes sense. A so-so record by a bigger school against better competition likely means deserving a higher ranking in an overall poll than a smaller school with a better record.
One game is one game. Polls are big-picture items. Who would beat who right now? If they played 10 times, who’d win more? Tis mere reality.
This is more fair, allows for more teams to be ranked. And there are many more 3A, 2A, and A programs in Central Georgia than larger programs, so they deserve more rankings.
Division I (6A, 5A, 4A)
1. Warner Robins
The Demons are still the best team in Central Georgia, period. They lost on the road to a team they beat at the Mac by only three last year.
3. Jones County
The Greyhounds picked up the tab to have this week’s game move to Gray, another step toward another region title.
3. Baldwin
Don’t read too much into the Braves kind of muddling their way past West Laurens by seven and Howard by 13.
4. Perry
This is a decent week to work on the run game the Panthers will need to make any playoff noise.
5. Northside
The Eagles picked up a clutch win over Valdosta, and the reality is that the Lee County game is likely – likely – to be closer than many expect.
Division II (3A, AA, A, GISA)
1. Peach County
The Trojans are unranked for the second straight week. It’s been a minute since that’s happened..
2. Macon County
Who’s winning games by an average of the 34 points? These guys. Ouch.
3. John Milledge
Two weeks off? Somebody is going to be rusty, rested, and ready to rock.
4. Bleckley County
The resilient Royals. Lose something, call them, because they seem to find a way.
6. Mary Persons
A week off, and now a game with playoff implications against visiting Upson-Lee, who’s in the same boat.
5. Northeast
That the Raiders gave up multiple fourth-down conversions on Bleckley County’s game-winning drive was as surprising as scoring only six points.
7. Washington County
The Golden Hawks are a few fourth-quarter minutes away from being undefeated.
8. Putnam County
Focus is unlikely an issue with Jefferson County this week looking to end an unbeaten season for the second straight year.
9. Dodge County
And here sits Dodge County, again ready to dart through any doors open in the region.
10. Dublin
The Irish are playing the kind of Dublin football that will keep them playing for a few extra games, and moving up in polls.