Free Form Friday is back this morning like last night's Barberito's. Hit us with the theme music, Mr. DJ:
It now appears official that freshman football players Sanford Seay and Nick Marshall are off the football team after a "violation of team rules." Rumors have been swirling on this site and others about what those violations were. I don't need to tell you again.
I am saddened by the thought of any young man fouling up the golden opportunity that is a free college education. Because for most an American college education is a lot farther from free than it has ever been. These are rumors. But if the rumors are true, good call, Coach Richt. This is a discipline issue, but it's also a morale issue. It's hard to put it all on the line for a guy you can't really fully trust. It's also (and this sounds incredibly callous, but hey, at least I'm being honest) a branding issue. Mark Richt has done a good job of selling Georgia as the place to go if you're a high character, blue chip recruit like Ray Drew, Chris Conley, Jordan Jenkins or Keith Marshall. You can't have half the team filching stuff from the other half while they're at Bible study. The expectations and the mission have to be consistent, because teenagers do not do well with mixed signals.
You're up class of 2013.
Now that National Signing Day 2012 is in the books, we can look back on the excitement of it all and say . . .weak sauce, guys. Really, other than the suspense of Josh Harvey-Clemons waiting overnight to send in his letter, this year's class of incoming freshman football players really didn't provide a lot of sizzling announcements. I am disappoint, son.
So for the benefit of next year's stud five star recruits, allow me to suggest some ways in which you could better make known your post-secondary intentions:
- Simply show up on campus and dance in front of the athletic offices along with Howie Mandel and a 100 person flash mob.
- Walk into the lobby of the athletic offices of the school of your choice unshaven and smelling of your own urine and announce you chose school X after a 5 day sojourn in the wilderness with Bear Grylls.
- Unveil the logo of your chosen school branded on your chest. Branding: for those who know only wussies get tattoos.
- Have Gayle King and Charlie Rose announce your choice live on the new CBS morning show. You know, assuming you want to keep it quiet.
Again, just a few suggestions. We eagerly await your announcements, über-recruits of the future.
A lot has been made of Auburn commit Cassanova McKinzey's admission that one reason he selecte the WarTigerSlotMachineWinners was that there is a Chik-Fil-A on campus in the Loveliest Little Village.
I can't understand why people are so shocked that a high school boy would choose a college based largely on the dining options. I looked at that as a high school boy because, well, I liked to eat. Let me break down the order of priorities for 18 year old males choosing a college: hot girls, food, video games in players' lounge, hot girls, food, head coach is a cool dude, can win a lot of football games, hot girls, food. That's the single-stream flow chart by which teenage boys make decisions. I'm pretty sure that if we staffed the Chik-Fil-A at Georgia with hot girls and set up a few X-Boxes and leather couches around the place we could sign any recruit we damned well please. Your move, Mr. McGarity.
Perhaps the funniest part of this, however, is that it confirms the long held stereotype among Georgia fans that there's really no substantive difference between the Tigers of Opelika and the Tigers of Lake Hartwell. Really, if McKinzey had been less into fried poultry and more into water skiing and truck stop chachskis, this one could have gone the other way.
That's it for this morning. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves. Until later . . .
Go 'Dawgs!!!