Dawg Gone Podcast Show 21

Hello again kids. We've got a LONG one on tap for you today (insert obligatory). As I say in the episode, I'm going to be on a short vacation next week, so there will be no show. So, in an effort to quench your Dawgly Thirst, there's almost TWO HOURS of stuff for you guys to listen to in this episode.

Now, I would never give you guys two hours of me talking. You'd never come back. So, here's our own "Dream Team" for this episode:

Gentry Estes -- Writer for Dawgs247.com.
Verron Haynes -- You know who he is, but if you don't (how dare you), here's a hint. By the way, NICEST. GUY. EVER. I can't wait to have him back and feel free to reach out to him via his website to see how you can help with The Verron Haynes Foundation.
T. Kyle King -- The Mariano Rivera of closing a show drops knowledge bombs on your brain stem (as he always does).

Finally, before I give you guys the link, the last show not only broke, but shattered, the previous record which had been the show after the Auburn game. I say this in the episode, but it's worth repeating here, we're either doing something right for you guys to help us grow, or we're doing something so drastically wrong that you're telling your friends so that y'all can laugh at us. Either way, thank you for listening, subscribing and passing along word about the show and the blog. I appreciate it more than you guys know.

Ok, on to the linkage:

You can listen to/download the podcast on iTunes here.

You can listen to/download the podcast in MP3 format here.

You can email me about the podcast or blog in general here.

You can also stream the podcast in flash format at the bottom of the page.

One more thing, Resident Site Girl Olivia Wilde is still searching for a team to root for this college football season (at least in my mind, that's what she's doing). Make sure you contact her and tell her how we'd love to see her in Red & Black.

See? It's a great look for her. The dress that is...perverts.

Until next time kids.

Be safe.

SEC Expansion Gets Giggity

Am I the only one not buying into all this Texas A&M to the SEC hype? I'm not saying that it's not going to happen, because I think ultimately it will. However, when you read things like this, it makes one realize that A&M is doing a lot more of the counting chickens than waiting for them to hatch. It's a pretty dangerous game that they're playing because noticeably absent from this conversation is anyone in an official capacity from the SEC, namely Commissioner Mike Slive.

My guess is, and I tweeted about this yesterday, that Slive is waiting for the whole plan of action to be formed before he goes and extends the formal invite to A&M. It's a given that A&M is the first piece of the puzzle, but they are certainly not the end game. If the SEC invites them, it'll try to achieve balance in the conference by either going to 14 or 16 teams. That means they're going to want to make sure they have a short list of candidates that should be no brainers to want to join. This list would include some teams from the ACC, and then teams from the Big East should the ACC ones all turn them down.

One thing I would suggest you won't see is FSU, Miami, Georgia Tech or Clemson on any list in joining. Tallahassee radio is saying that talk of the Seminoles to the SEC is heating up, but I think that's all speculation. I've heard that Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee have all decided that they'll vote together to keep their in-state rivals from joining. It kind of sucks because I think Clemson is a natural fit for expansion and the SEC, but I can understand the desire not to have your in-state rival now claim that they are an SEC team, which will help them in recruiting against you. Make no mistake, if any of those teams mentioned above join the SEC, they will take recruits away from the four SEC teams I mentioned above.

So, who becomes numbers 14 through 16? Word is names include Virginia Tech (I've read they're the SEC's first choice), NC State, North Carolina (unlikely in my opinion as they don't care as much about football and probably don't want to leave the prestige of ACC Basketball), Louisville, South Florida, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

Yes, you read that correctly. Not only would the SEC take A&M, but it might also take other Big 12 (10) schools, essentially killing the conference and forcing Texas and their pompous attitude that started all this, into being Independent.

Now, this post is already long enough, but if the SEC does add A&M for 2012 and then no other teams until 2013, then the SEC West is the only one affected. If they add two teams, the East & West both get new teams, but whether those new teams are also the new ones to the conference depends on where those teams are located. If both are geographically west, then Auburn jumps to the SEC East and those two western teams go to the SEC West. If you add A&M and then an ACC team, then each division gets its own team and you go forward from there.

Ideally, whether you add two or four teams, you want to add an even number from the Big 12 and the ACC. That way you make the divisions as even as possible and don't screw too much up with traditional SEC East/West rivalries like Auburn/Georgia, Tennessee/Alabama and LSU/Florida. If you don't overload the West with western Big 12 teams, then Auburn doesn't have to slide over and the same goes for overloading the East with eastern ACC teams.

Ultimately, if you're an SEC expansion fan, you want to root for the conference to expand to 16 teams, include A&M, Oklahoma (or Oklahoma State), Virginia Tech and NC State. If that happens, revenue increases greatly, the best conference in the nation becomes the first super conference in the nation and no one is drastically hurt in their traditional recruiting grounds.

Sorry for the long post, but I had a lot a wanted to get out about this.

Until next time kids.

Be safe.

Letters to Boise State

Hello again, kids. I've had some things rattle around in my head that I needed to get out regarding the Boise State game, and I figured that it'd be best to just put them down in a series I'd like to call "Letters to Boise State."


Fair warning, they may be cheesy, long, and there may be multiple ones. Truth be told, they may all say the same thing, but if I don't get them out, it'll drive me crazy. It's like someone gave me this little idea through Inception, but not at all like what I just said. Make sense? It's OK. I don't get it, either.

Dear Boise State,

Hi. We haven't met and we never will. The reason is because although I may meet a few of you leading up to September 3rd, I won't meet all of you and this letter is to everyone. So, try as you might to find me and set me straight in what I'm about to say, just know that very few of you will actually do it.

I have a problem with you, BS. I hope you don't mind me referring to you as "BS" for this letter. Surely you trust that the shortened version of your name isn't some kind of suggestive play on initials on my part. I'd venture to say NO ONE thinks of "Bull Sh*t" when they see BS in this post. They're thinking "Boise State...that's the team we play in September." Yep. That's it.

The reason I'm writing you today is because I saw this piece detailing your strengths heading into 2011 by your one team blog "One Bronco Nation Under God." While I agree with OBNUG that you're a good team, there's no point in me going further than that. If you want me to break it down clearly for you, you're high off your collective asses if you think that there are no weaknesses on your team.

Let's just take a look at what College Football News says about your team. I picked them out randomly because Pete Fiutak puts a positive spin on BS and there's some nice statistics for me to pull from there as well. I figured if I can find flaws in a positive article, then the flaws do indeed exist.

Fiutak swears up and down that it's time for America to believe BS is a good team and I think he is exactly right. In fact, us Georgia folks could learn a thing or two about respecting what your coach has done with the talent he has on hand. If there's a better coach in America that puts guys in the places they need to be in order to be successful, then I'd love to have him pointed out to me.

However, it's the ON PAPER stuff that's killing me. Let's take a look at your Offensive Line. It's projected as a strength, but you have ONE guy tipping the scale at 300 lbs. ONE. Just as a point of reference, we run a 3-4, meaning we'd have to put two linebackers on the line to go hat-for-hat with yours. If we did that, we'd still outweigh the line by 23 lbs. That may not seem like much difference, but remember, there are two LINEBACKERS that go into that equation. If  you'd like another point of reference, every single one of our front three guys outweigh the man they'll be going against. The Nose Tackle (whether it be Jenkins or Geathers) will at least outweigh anyone on your line by 50 lbs.

Let's look at the other trench. The combined weight across our Offensive Line outweighs your front four plus your heaviest linebacker (Senior Byron Hout...a very good player) by 312 lbs. If you want to look at it another way, you could add your biggest offensive lineman at 300 lbs. and still be short.

The size difference between us and you guys is ridiculous. Now, I know that you're going to scream about scheme for a second, so let me go ahead and address that, too. Our goal is to play grind it out football with you. We don't want to get tricky. We have full confidence that if we go hat-on-hat with you, that we'll beat you. Why? Because Volvos don't beat Mack Trucks. They just survive the crash. We know that being smaller means being faster. What we're hoping on is that we're quick enough to get hands on you, because if THAT happens, you're be getting out of our way, whether you like it or not.

Didn't you also lose your two best Wide Receivers in the offseason? Yep. You did.

You're still a very good team, though. You have a great QB and everyone raves about your scheme, but they forget how good you are at running the ball. You're pretty decent at it. You do have an athletic, albeit smaller, Offensive Line. That works for you, and that's great. You have a quick, swarming Defense that's been really good the past few years at getting after the opposing teams QB.

You also hang half a hundred on everyone you play because of two reasons (and they're counterproductive to one another). The first reason states that you have to blow them out because if you don't, you won't get the respect nationally from people who don't watch football at 11:00 PM on Friday nights. The second reason you put up 50+ on everyone is because the teams you normally play suck. That's why one loss (Hi Nevada!) drops you from Champ to Chump. But let's not talk about schedules, because that has no bearing on this game, right? Right.

I'm sure I'll get more writing in later about this, BS, in the coming days as you talk more smack over and over again. You're getting mighty confident for a team that still hangs its hat on beating Oklahoma. You do know that was five years ago, right? The unfortunate thing is you can't seem to remember when we beat you like you stole something six years ago. Here's the video. My favorite part? Go to about 3:00...






And don't give me that crap that "Oh that was Dan Hawkins! We have Chris Peterson Petersen (H/T to commenter DVac for pointing that out) now!" Well just "blahbiggityblahblah." You should thank your lucky stars for Dan Hawkins. If he hadn't built BS up to begin with, you'd never be where you are now.

See, BS, we HAVE to beat you. We're doing it for ourselves, but also for the SEC. You think you'd be Alabama? Florida? LSU? Arkansas? Maybe even Tennessee? I don't know if you could. So it ain't about you. It's about us having to do it so no one else tells us that we should have. Losing to you is like getting a curable STD. It doesn't matter if the antibiotics took it away, you still got it at some point and you'll always be labeled that way. It's WAY worse to lose to you than it is to beat you. We get nothing for beating you. No one gives you a high five when you didn't sleep with the girl that had an STD. Why? BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SLEEP WITH A GIRL WHO HAS AN STD.

You're an STD. A big potato STD. Poterpes. Spudmydia. I don't care what you call it. That's what you are and that's what you have. Even if we lose to you and run the table, you can bathe in AJAX and not take off the stench of the loss.

We'll communicate more in the coming weeks, but for right now, just remember one thing. You're the girl with the STD and we don't want to sleep with you.

Until next time kids.

Be safe.

Slive puts NCAA on notice

By now, you've undoubtedly heard about the statement SEC Commissioner Mike Slive made at the beginning of SEC Media Days. The long-short of it is Slive wants to raise academic requirements and create a system that gives the student athlete multiyear scholarships, and opens up their options instead of hindering nearly every aspect of their personal life.

I agree with a lot of what Slive said today. It seems to be a very proactive move that should win rave reviews from the same media (and B1G Ten officials) that take so much pleasure in blasting the SEC for oversigning, low academic requirements, etc. Slive dropped a PR bomb on the journalists in attendance and, as of this moment, many are still trying to wrap their head around all the information.

What may go under the radar though, is how Slive basically put the NCAA on notice. He mentioned NCAA president Mark Emmert by name many times but his tone was never one of the SEC being a part of the NCAA as much as it was the SEC flexing its muscle to the NCAA. Slive knows that the SEC is its own brand and he knows he's the head of the ruler of NCAA football. What he said today to the NCAA was "We're going to work on our house, but you have to work on yours. If not, we're changing neighborhoods." He never mentioned ever leaving the NCAA or even hinted at it, but the tone was clear and his frustration was noticeable.

Slive is not a dumb man. He knows that the NCAA has spent so much time shooting himself in its own foot that IF (and that's a big if) the SEC wanted to jump ship and create its own amateur sports league, it would probably have two or three conferences join as well. Remember, the NCAA didn't craft that SEC Television contract with ESPN. The NCAA didn't draw up the specifics of the CBS one, either. The SEC has the power, and it'll have the money for the next decade. The ball is firmly in their court.

Kudos to Slive to standing up to the boys in Indianapolis. Talking about change is the first step in getting it started.


Until next time kids.

Be safe.