1. Autograph sales are basically the smoking marijuana of the NCAA rulebook. Well, one of many examples, anyway. A large portion of the general public thinks athletes should be able to sell their likenesses, for what is generally marginal profit, without risking their NCAA eligibility or changing the status of their antiquated-as-currently-defined “amateurism.”
Previewing Georgia-Missouri in a Todd Gurley-less universe
Georgia’s Todd Gurley likely won’t play against Missouri on Saturday (noon ET, CBS), but the Bulldogs will still have a chance to win and seize control of the SEC East.
Kevin C. Cox
At the same time, you very much know it’s against the rules to sell your autograph, and every time you do so, you risk getting caught doing it, especially since those you’re dealing with aren’t necessarily going to be of the highest moral character, and it only takes one to turn you in.
When someone gets caught doing it, we go through the typical (and depending on your views, justifiable) rage-against-the-rule-and-rulemakers response.
This brings us to Todd Gurley, of course.
2. Todd Gurley probably won’t be playing football on Saturday. He’s suspended while the NCAA and Georgia try to sort out how much money it can be proved he allegedly received for selling his autograph.
In college football, it has become almost mandatory that the Heisman favorite find himself under NCAA/legal scrutiny and/or "suspended indefinitely" at one point or another. It happened in 2010, when allegations surfaced that Auburn quarterback Cam Newton's father attempted to sell his services to Mississippi State. In 2011, Heisman candidate Terrelle Pryor was suspended for selling memorabilia to a dealer. Eventual 2012 winner Johnny Manziel didn't encounter scandal during his redshirt freshman run, but he spent most of the following offseason defending his behavior, including autographs. And in 2013, Jameis Winston dealt with an infinitely more serious variety of allegations that served to both strain this comparison and remind us of the difference between real-life crimes and ... memorabilia sales.
If it can be proved that Gurley indeed received $400 for his services, then he would likely be suspended for two games. With his current rates, that would alter his full-season pace from 2,100-plus rushing yards and 25-plus touchdowns [over 14 games] or 2,000-plus and ~23 [over 13] to more like 1,700-plus and ~20. For those Heisman voters who believe autograph/memorabilia sales prove a player’s lack of character and make him undeserving of such a haughty award like the Heisman, that suspension and the drop in overall stats would probably disqualify him from the running.
He’ll live, of course. If he chooses to go pro, he will almost certainly be the first running back taken and perhaps the highest running back taken in a while; only one has been drafted higher than 28th since 2010. And if he does take that route, he’ll reach the pros having taken two games’ worth of fewer hits. He will make plenty of money at that point, and this suspension will end up having been more of an annoyance than anything else.
It’s also an annoyance for the Georgia football team. And in its quest for an SEC East title, the timing is about as bad as it could possibly be.
3. Gurley would be missing an awfully big game on Saturday. From a Wednesday projections post I wrote at Football Study Hall:
“The East is wide open this year!” We heard that all Saturday, especially in the Florida-Tennessee and Kentucky-South Carolina games, but it’s not particularly true, at least not yet. One never knows what chaos may await in the coming weeks, but the winner of the Georgia-Missouri game will very much have the odds in its favor moving forward, especially if Florida falls to LSU. At 2-1, Kentucky could still have a role to play in the race, but as we’ll see below, Kentucky has a below-30% chance of winning each remaining conference game on the schedule. And while Tennessee has certainly proven salty at times, the Vols are 0-2 and would likely need to finish 5-1 to have a shot. With trips to Ole Miss and South Carolina on the schedule, along with visits from Alabama and Missouri, that’s in no way likely.
So yeah, it’s probably Missouri or Georgia. [...]
If the Tigers pull off a win, they’ll be two clear of Georgia in the loss column, and they might be two clear of Florida as well. Their likely [projected] record would jump to about 6-2, which would be a very difficult bar for anybody else to clear. Meanwhile, if Georgia wins in Columbia West, the Dawgs would become the most likely winner, but with a win projection closer to 5-3 thanks to remaining trips to Arkansas and Kentucky and a visit from Auburn.
So if you’re a fan of any school in the East not named Missouri, you’ll probably want Georgia to win on Saturday. If Mizzou wins, the Tigers are relatively significant division favorites. If the Dawgs win, they’re favorites, but not with the same magnitude.
As the odds stand, Missouri will have a better than 50 percent chance of winning five of its remaining six games after Saturday. Granted, three of those games are in the 56 to 63 percent range (at Florida, at Tennessee, Arkansas), which means the Tigers could be expected to lose one of the three, but only a trip to Texas A&M would be a likely loss.
So a Saturday Mizzou win would put the Tigers very much in the East driver’s seat, especially if Florida also loses to LSU. Florida and Georgia would be two games behind in the loss column, South Carolina would be three back, and Kentucky would still be an underdog in every remaining game.
Georgia really needs to win, and that becomes a lot more difficult to do if you lose one of the best players in the country. And it becomes doubly hard when you've already lost two other players at his position (Keith Marshall, Sony Michel) to injury.
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(Of course, you could question how much odds apply to a Missouri team that, in its last two games, has lost to an Indiana team it had an 82 percent chance of beating and beaten a South Carolina team to which it had a 66 percent chance of losing. The odds were pretty good that Mizzou would go 1-1 in that pair of games, but ... not like that. Regardless, we’re married to odds, and we’ll continue to pretend they mean something.)
4. Georgia will still move the ball. While the Dawgs are likely down to two running backs at this point -- freshman Nick Chubb and sophomore Brendan Douglas, plus perhaps sophomore defensive back J.J. Green, who played running back last year out of similar necessity -- those guys aren't chopped liver. Chubb is averaging 7.2 yards per carry, and while Douglas didn't do much in his 2013 opportunities (4.2 yards per carry over 83 carries), he's gained 47 yards in eight carries this year, and he provided a solid dump-offs threat last year, something quarterback Hutson Mason has leaned on this fall.
Georgia’s run game wouldn’t be elite without Gurley, Marshall, and Michel, but it could still be pretty good. Chubb is a freshman, and his results have been scattershot (16 carries for 182 yards against Clemson, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt; 15 carries for 42 yards against Troy and Tennessee), but the ceiling is high, and the Georgia offensive line does strong work.
Missouri's defensive line has also been strong -- with star end Markus Golden back from injury, the Tigers held South Carolina's Mike Davis and Brandon Wilds to 4.7 yards per carry two weeks ago -- but Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo might still get enough production from his running game to set Hutson Mason up with some easy throws.
Bobo could also think outside of the box a bit. Actually, it would be more like creating a new box. Georgia entered the 2014 campaign with a well-seasoned receiving corps. From my 2014 Georgia preview in August:
The upside of injuries is that Georgia returns ... four wideouts who have served as go-to options at one point or another. If [Malcolm] Mitchell, [Chris] Conley, [Michael] Bennett, and [Justin] Scott-Wesley can all hit 100 percent health at the same time, then ... well, never mind Hutson Mason, I’m pretty sure I could throw for 3,000 yards with that group.
Instead of running to set up the pass, Georgia could attempt to pass to set up the run.
Mason is nowhere near a 3,000-yard pace at the moment, partially because the Dawgs have been running the ball like crazy, and partially because the foursome listed above hasn’t reached full health yet. Since each suffered injuries last season, Mitchell finally caught his first pass of the season last week, and Scott-Wesley has yet to get back to 100 percent.
Both are expected to play more reps on Saturday than they have all season. It would be unfair to expect too much of either Mitchell (who averaged 11.0 yards per target in 2012) or Scott-Wesley (who averaged 12.4 over the first half of 2013) right away, but between those two, Bennett, Conley, emerging tight end Jeb Blazevich, and the running backs, Georgia has more than enough weapons to go with more of a pass-first approach on standard downs. That might keep the Dawgs in run-friendly situations, and it might keep pressure off of Mason, who hasn't done very well on passing downs.
Against Missouri, staying away from passing downs is key; Golden and Shane Ray form one of the best pass-rushing tandems in the country -- Ray is second in the country with 7.0 sacks, and Golden is 26th with 4.0 despite missing the Indiana game with injury -- and the Tigers have been very good at getting off the field after forcing second- or third-and-long.
But without Gurley, perhaps this would be the game where the receiving corps begins living up to the potential it’s already proved it has.
5. This game will still come down to line play. Three weeks ago, Missouri lost to Indiana in part because its defensive line was missing Golden (one of three perhaps indispensible Mizzou players, along with Ray and quarterback Maty Mauk) and because its offensive line lost the plot, lost its left guard, and lost its ability to either keep pressure off of Mauk or open holes for running backs Russell Hansbrough and Marcus Murphy.
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If Georgia’s offensive line wins its battle up front, if it makes Chubb’s and Douglas’ jobs as easy as possible and prevents Golden and Ray from feasting on Mason on passing downs, then the Dawgs will still score well into the 20s or 30s.
If Missouri’s offensive line wins its own battle, if it creates holes similar to the ones South Carolina’s Brandon Wilds or Tennessee’s Jalen Hurd found against UGA, and if the interior of the line isn’t a complete pass-rush sieve like it was against Indiana (signs were encouraging against South Carolina), then Missouri can match or exceed Georgia’s output.
Mizzou receivers Jimmie Hunt and Darius White have combined for 31 catches, 428 yards, and eight scores, and both missed the South Carolina game, which contributed to Maty Mauk's abysmal showing for 3.5 quarters. A healthy Missouri receiving corps can victimize Georgia's shaky secondary if Mauk isn't facing too many second-and-10s or third-and-8s.
***
Gurley’s absence would shift the game slightly in Mizzou’s favor. With Gurley, Georgia was listed as a three-point favorite in Vegas and had the thinnest of projected edges via F/+. Perhaps those edges now shift two to four points in Missouri’s favor.
But Georgia still has experienced athletes on offense, and it still has a pair of lines that must/can win their respective wars on Saturday. The Tigers now have a decent chance at seizing control of the East, but the Dawgs certainly shouldn’t be written off just yet.
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