Monday Morning QB: Kennesaw State's colossal screw up; CFP sermon; Loughdmouthings-UGA’s slump, Beck’s slump, Tech’s Canes pain, ripping a backup? …
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
Congratulations to Kennesaw State.
The school moved up from the Atlantic Sun – a lower mid-major – to Conference USA – a medium mid-major – and into FBS football. That in itself was a remarkably shortsighted, greedy, and incompetent decision.
Less than a decade in, not filling the soccer-first stadium - that’s drivably off-campus – despite winning, and not paying a successful coaching staff competitive wages, and a history of wretched athletics administration, and you want to jump up.
Then you fire in the first season of a misguided decision the only coach you’ve had, who started the program, and won from the start.
And just flat lie about it.
Brilliant.
But already, the PRICKS – People Remarkably In Charge Keep Snafuing – are on an upper level of incompetence. What’s next, signing Jimbo Fisher to a humiliatingly bad contract? As college sports gets mauled by people in charge, Kennesaw State is fitting right in.
Kennesaw State has been making bad administrative decisions since moving up from Division II almost two decades ago. Since 2005-06, the men’s basketball team has had one winning season (2022-23) and is on its sixth head coach. The women’s program has had three winning seasons and five head coaches. Softball and baseball have been pretty tolerable, softball with 12 winning seasons and five head coaches, and baseball with nine winning seasons and only two head coaches.
Milton Overton, the AD who needs to be checking Indeed here soon from just flat lying, is only the fourth AD at KSU, following Spec Landrum, the first boss when athletics began in 1982, and did well on the junior college level, and then NAIA level, and then Division II level.
Times – and competence – have changed.
* Oct. 28 MMQB: Georgia-Florida week? Really?; CFP sermon; area HS stat stuff; Loughdmouthings: Good games, Falcons, hotseats, HS players, new coaches/old coaches …
* Oct. 21 MMQB: A really good - not epic - win in Austin, with silliness; weekly CFB playoff sermon; Loughdmouthings: Dumb Ho orn (this week) fans, really good HS 🏈slate, Falcons are fine, but …
* Oct. 14, MMQB: Monday Morning QB: Which Nation is the most absurd this week?; HS stat stuff, playoffs sermon; Loughdmouthings galore: stats, QB shoving, tackling, Falcons,and Jerry’s happy-for-us birthday
* Oct. 7 MMQB: Saturday like most others (really); the new Falcons? They still need O; Loughdmouthings galore (the wit, the wisdom, the sarcasm …)
* Oct. 1, MMQB: Missing the point - and tackles - on UGA-Bama; Falcons getting there, but about the O …; Loughdmouthings galore (the wit, the wisdom, the sarcasm …)
* Sept 23, MMQB: Two good weeks of football for Atlanta?; Loughdmouthings galore (the wit, the wisdom, the sarcasm)
* Sept 16: MMQB: Another black-n-blue battle in Lexington; Loughdmouthings: Falcons, silly second-guessing (UGA, county records
* Sept. 9: MMQB: Suddenly, we saw Ridder and Smith in Falcons black again; notable numbers, on campus, and Loughdmouthings galore
* Sept.8 Column-Not just yet, but brace yourself to think good thoughts about the Falcons in 2024
* Sept. 2: MMQB: Notes, reviews, Loughdmouthings
* Aug. 28: MMQB: What we know and what we’re not sure about; Loughdmouthings galore
* Aug. 16: Sit down, get comfy, and let’s just babble high school football for a bit
Apparently lying about forcing Brian Bohannon out only nine games into the move up is absurd. Note that he’s the lowest-paid FBS head coach, and is in an area battling Georgia Tech, Georgia, Georgia State, as well as being in an area recruited by bigger programs and similar programs but is hamstrung by the people in charge.
The guy won from the start of the program in 2015, playing in a built-for-soccer stadium. You go 72-38 and are shoved out?
KSU’s release said he stepped down, and quoted the soon-to-be-former-if-they’re-smart AD about it. Then Bohannon clarified it later Monday that that noooo, he didn’t step down, he was fired.
As everybody really knew, despite the lie.
There’s a future in politics for some KSU folks.
This week’s playoff sermon
About *mumble*years ago, I said within 10 years, we’d be having national title games with one- and maybe two-loss teams, that we were about done with undefeated, because of so much talent out there being spread out.
Well, we’re finally there. And it’s not because of NIL, and not completely about the portal, nor about the new playoff format.
The reality is that all of the major contenders have a loss, and can easily have another loss, and we could have so many two-loss teams that the right three-loss team makes the playoff.
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And see how irrelevant the ratings show was last week? Memo: It’s almost more irrelevant this week, but still won’t matter until Thanksgiving.
Just as irrelevant is, as always, ESPN’s blathering about who’s in and out. Ditto the other networks and most web wonks. Clickbait, be it verbal or typed, should be avoided at all costs. Just don’t click.
Georgia is still alive. Alabama and Mississippi are alive again. LSU isn’t out, but won’t get that needed win in time to stay alive.
But Georgia could be dead by midnight Saturday with a loss to Tennessee, which would make a jump. The Bulldogs just aren’t that good. You can’t do a half here and a half there, and you can’t ever get manhandled like they were Saturday night be considered all that good.
Few of the two-loss teams can handle a third loss, considering how many one-loss and two-loss teams there are:
Loughdmouthings
Football weather is returning.
Cough up the money and go to a high school football playoff game this weekend. You can hit up Perry, Jones County, Peach County, Baldwin, Upson-Lee, Westside, Dublin, Northeast, Lamar County, Jasper County, Wilkinson County, Macon County, FPD, and Brentwood.
Anywhere you live in Central Georgia, you’re within 30 minutes of playoff football. Give it a shot. …
Sources say that plans for a statue in Athens have been put back into a filing cabinet for awhile.
Is there a chance that the stalkers – aka recruiting people – were wrong a whole lot? Yes, because, just because.
And that they’re not going to name some recruiting award for anybody in Athens? Yes. One reason is that Georgia doesn’t seem to have a quarterback to put in just to let Carson Beck have a break, watching from the sidelines, watch and talk with a coach.
CENTRAL GEORGIA’S BEST HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL COVERAGE
This week
* Macon Touchdown Club players of the week
* GHSA playoffs are set: Who’s at home? What Central Georgia teams play each other? Who’s seeded where?
Last Week
* Scouting Reports: This week’s GHSA and GIAA games, coming Friday
* Maxwell Predictions
* Who’s going to win this week’s games
* Central Georgia state composite rankings
* Tuesday’s Roundup
* Central Georgia rankings
* Monday Morning Quarterback Safe to hop on Falcons bandwagon; CFP sermon; Westside's Iverson & Northeast's Woodford; Northside news; Loughdmouthings-Cowboys/TV tiff, GHSA playoffs ...
* GIAA playoffs are set, GHSA picture much clearer but still has some fuzzy going on
* The schedule
Two weeks ago
* Roundup, Warner Robins wins thriller; Upson-Lee dumps No. 5; Dublin finishes perfect regular season; Spoon Risper gets milestone win; Washington County edges ACE
* Scouting Reports: This week’s GHSA and GIAA games
* Maxwell Predictions
* Who’s going to win this week’s games
* Central Georgia rankings
* The GHSA and GIAA football playoffs are here, and almost here. Breaking things down, it's complicated
* Monday Morning Quarterback: Georgia-Florida week? Really?; CFP sermon; area HS stat stuff; Loughdmouthings: Good games, Falcons, hotseats, HS players, new coaches/old coaches …
* Macon Touchdown Club players of the week
Granted, that’s a wise thing to do regardless of struggles or not. Learning never stops.
But, believe it not, Mike Bobo is not calling plays for bad passes, for inferior blocking, for poor routes or dropped passes. No play works if players don’t execute.
That’s a very simple concept, except for the huge faction of simpletons, with a grudge or agenda and an allergy to common sense.
Folks pay way too much attention to the hype and hyperbole, and forget how wrong they were for years up until a recent run. Good teams are getting good players. But the BS handed out by the stalkers to the goobers that love them is taken way, way too seriously.
And teams don’t genuflect like fans do. …
Thank you, Miami, for coming through in Atlanta Saturday as expected for a few weeks.
Note: Georgia Tech is on a two-game winning streak against Miami.
The on-air criticism of Miami head coach Mario Cristobal was pretty harsh, about clock management – do football coaches use some sort of ancient Chinese system of time? – and general play-calling in some situations.
Miami was about a 6-win team with 9 wins, pulling out a number of games and not looking all that much like a legit national championship contender.
And note that Cristobal is only nine games over .500 as a head coach. …
A reminder: AMERICA HAS A CRAPPY TACKLING EPIDEMIC. All levels. It’s worth about two touchdowns a game, made or saved. …
All these issues the Georgia football team has faced the past few years, and a kid who doesn’t play was surprised to see high school kids on the field after the game in Oxford gets ripped as being an idiot and stupid by Smart?
Really? That’s the situation you go strong on? Sure, you don’t expect to see a player laughing amid the massive egg just laid, and you publicly rip the backup – while defending otherwise keeping secrets - and then explain the situation, without pulling back?
A lotta overreaction and some petty and double standards in there. Plus he’s not making 14 million bucks with 117 assistants. He’s played in three games this year, and saw some buddies and got excited, and gets blasted like that? …
Good news: Those going to a high school football game this Friday won’t be anywhere near as moist and damp and foggy as last week, when humidity hovered around the 90s or worse all night. …
From David Hale of ESPN.com on the Yellow Jackets upset of Miami: “Georgia Tech fans then stormed the field and tore down both goalposts, ultimately dumping them into the water, which is different from how this many engineers typically celebrate a big victory -- with nachos at Dave & Busters before getting back to the office to code for a while.”