Thursday busy sports day open thread: We have football, both kinds, and track and golf and stuff for communists and not-communists to enjoy and discuss

Let's recap before we begin.

Mark Richt had a great camp this week, landing a CB out of Miami, and a "jumbo athlete" type (most likely an OLB/DE) out of Cuthbert. The Lady Sportswriter has a good summary on both new commitments.  Oh, and Florida lost a Joker, perhaps under unseemly circumstances.

Other quick bits before we get to the good stuff: The NCAA is also dealing with a big legal battle you can track.  Volleyball has announced their 2014 schedule. And golf announced the field for the 2015 Liz Murphey which includes almost every national champion program since 2001.

Speaking of golf, the U.S. Open is underway in Pinehurst, NC, and 8 former Dawgs will be on the course and 9 Chris Haack recruits if you include transfer to Augusta State (now Georgia Regents) Patrick Reed.  As the USGA apparently told Scott Michaux of the Augusta Chronicle, "this very well might be a record."  Erik Compton, Harris English, Russell Henley, Chris Kirk, Kevin Kisner, Hudson Swafford, Brendon Todd, and Bubba Watson join Reed at the 114th version of the USGA event.  Henley, Kirk and Todd are all paired together today and tomorrow, and are already on the course. As I type, Todd is at even par, Kirk and Henley 1 over through 7 (starting on the 10th tee), Compton is 2 over through 10 holes and Kisner 5 over through 11 (they also both started on the 10th tee).

And out in Oregon, three Dawgs scored points yesterday with junior Nick Vena finishing third in the shot put, sophomore Chanice Porter fifth in the long jump, and Freya Jones ended 6th in the javelin after winning the event last year as a freshman. Action begins again today, and can be followed on ESPN3.  Maicel Uibo and Garrett Scatling are half-way through their 10 events in the decathlon, which begins again this afternoon.  While Kendall Williams and Quintunya Chapman begin their 7 events of the heptathlon today at 4.

Also on the track yesterday, senior Megan Malasarte qualified for the 800m finals late Friday, while Elizabeth Tepe ended her career in 13th place but the former Marine could earn second team All-American honors for her efforts. Also seeing their seasons end yesterday was the 4x100 relay crew thanks to a bad handoff, senior Johnathan Smith missed out on the final run of the 100m by one spot for 16th.  Junior Drew Branch will focus on the 4x400m relay after missing out on the finals for the 400m hurdles, and SEC Male co-scholar athlete of the year in track Brandon Lord finished well off the pace for 17th in his first NCAA Championships in the 10,000m.

And finally, because I love to make the Mayor roll over in his grave, we can talk about arguably the biggest sporting event on the planet beginning at 4 p.m. today (on ESPN) when host nation Brazil takes on Croatia in the World Cup.