Falling Apart?
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Many talent evaluators around the NFL believe Jalen Carter is the best player available in the NFL draft.
Whether he goes first or fifth or somewhere significantly south in the draft depends in large part on whether: 1) He has a significant turnaround from his current physical and mental state , or 2) a team locks onto his raw talent only.
The best version of Jalen Carter was not on display at Georgia’s Pro Day. NFL personnel officials, coaches and media members in attendance saw an overweight Carter huffing and puffing through drills that were set up for defensive linemen. He did not participate in any other skills tests, nor the 40-yard dash.
Carter weighed 323 pounds, that’s 13 pounds heavier than he was listed at during Georgia’s season. It’s also nine pounds heavier than the 314 he weighed at the scouting combine two weeks ago. It was clearly not nine pounds of muscle. He looked flabby. He looked like a risk for any team that decides to hand him a $20 million-plus signing bonus.
After arriving in Indianapolis to undergo physical exams and meet with teams (Carter had already opted out of workouts), the arrest warrant was issued in Athens-Clarke County, Georgia. Carter left Indianapolis, turned himself in and was booked and released within hours. Then he returned to the combine and resumed interviews with teams.
No, Carter shouldn’t get brownie points for having to leave the combine in the first place. Yet, he returned when others might have stayed away. Which is an additional point for teams to consider in assessing one of the most intriguing prospects in the draft.
Carter is the most dominant defensive lineman in this draft, who had a viral moment in the SEC Championship Game when he lifted LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels with one arm while throwing up the No. 1 sign with his other hand.
Putting aside Carter’s two misdemeanors, the main questions about Carter that have been out there among pro scouts since during the season related to his consistency and work ethic.
Carter’s Pro Day was not a good look. There already were lingering questions about where Carter might be psychologically after the accident, and how he had handled himself in the suddenly negative spotlight.
All 32 NFL teams attended the Georgia pro day, including Falcons Head Coach Arthur Smith, Bears Head Coach Matt Eberflus and General Manager Ryan Poles and Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin and GM Omar Khan.
Carter helped lead the Bulldogs to back-to-back national championships and played at a dominant level despite dealing with knee and ankle injuries.
He has a month before the draft to get into shape and ease concerns. He has a month to realize he is in the midst of a job interview.
Fighting Owls
By: Kenneth Harrison
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The Kennesaw State Owls men’s basketball team made their first NCAA Tournament appearance in school history in 2023.
The Owls (26 – 9) were the No. 14 seed in the Midwest Region. They got there by winning the Atlantic Sun regular season and conference tournament. They faced No. 3 Xavier (26 – 9), who finished second in the Big East.
KSU played well early on, going into halftime with a 43 – 36 lead. They looked like they were to pull the upset. They led by as many as 13 points in the second half.
The Musketeers had a 68 – 67 lead in the final seconds of the game. Kennesaw State point guard Terrell Burden got a shoulder past his defender and drove to the paint. He stumbled and Xavier’s Jack Nunge blocked his shot.
The 7-footer’s block was part of the reason the Owls shot 2-for-15 over the final 9 1/2 minutes, reversing the momentum of the game.
Souley Boum hit four clinching free throws in the final 2.6 seconds for the Musketeers, who ran off 15 unanswered points as part of a game-ending 24-6 run. The final score was 72 – 67.
“In the timeout, we were supposed to switch everything,” Nunge said, adding: “He’s a really good driver at getting to the rim and I just came over and blocked it.”
Burden said everything with the play ran as designed until Nunge’s arrival.
“It was a great play by him to meet me at the rim,” Burden said.
Jerome Hunter scored a career-best 24 points to lead the Musketeers, while Boum had 17. Nunge had 10 points, 11 rebounds, two steals and two blocks.
Burden and Chris Youngblood each scored 14 points to lead Kennesaw State, which appeared on the verge of a signature March moment.
“We did some things early on both ends of the court that helped build that 13-point lead,” Kennesaw State coach Amir Abdur-Rahim said. “But if anybody in that building thought that was going to be how the game stayed, you hadn’t watched much basketball in March — and you probably haven’t watched much basketball in general.”
Amir is the younger brother of NBA All-Star Shareef Abdur-Rahim. They both attended Joseph Wheeler High School in Marietta Georgia.
Abdur-Rahim has been the head coach at KSU for four seasons. Things looked terrible in his first season (2019-20) when they went 1 – 28. They were also winless in conference play. Things gradually improved his second year with a 5 – 19 record. Last season they were 13 – 18.
This performance might propel Abdur-Rahim into the conversation for any head-coach openings this hiring cycle. This season was the Owls’ first winning season in the program’s 18-year history as a Division I school.
It looks like the Owls have a bright future. They did have three senior starters this season.
Playing in the NCAA Tournament should help raise the recruiting profile. I also believe higher profile players from the transfer portal will take a look at going to KSU.
I hope they can sustain the progress they made this season.
At The End Of The Rainbow
By: Garrison Ryfun
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Just before Saint Patrick’s Day, Florida State and Georgia Tech announced they would play their 2024 season opener in Ireland as a part of the Aer Lingus College Football Classic.
This will be the 9th college football game played in Ireland, and one of the few times neither school playing in Ireland has had an Irish/catholic connection.
The Aer Lingus College Football Classic started in 2016 with a contest between Georgia Tech and Boston College, where the Yellow Jackets prevailed 17-14.
The Classic then took a five-season break and finally returned in Fall of 2022, with a matchup between Nebraska and Northwestern last season.
Now, The Classic seems serious about bringing a week 0 college football game to Ireland, with games set up to begin the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
Notre Dame, a more fitting brand for Ireland, is set to take on Navy to start the 2023 season at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland for The Classic.
There are pros and cons to the more increasingly common, neutral-site season openers – even ones that take place outside of the United States.
The biggest pros are for the student athletes and brand of college football in general.
The student athletes get to go and experience a different country and different culture, something many of which likely have never done in their lives.
The brand of college football also gets to be put onto display for Irish citizens, who have likely never experienced American college football in their lives.
The cons for a college football brand is losing a home game and the revenue that the local businesses around your school usually get with a home game.
In this case, the home team would have been Georgia Tech, and the game would have been played in Atlanta, Georgia.
This is one case where I do not think local businesses will be as hurt with a neutral-site game. Though there is said to be a large alumni base of Florida State graduates in the Atlanta area.
This kind of classic abroad is also done in the National Football League with five games already set to be played out of the United States in the 2023 season: with the Bills, Titans, and Jaguars playing in London and the Chiefs and Patriots both hosting games in Germany.
This is all done in an attempt to grow the brand of American Football abroad.
Something that may wind up failing, but as long as the governments of these countries continue to advocate for it – American football will be there to show off in all its glory.
Greener Grass
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
In a talk that generated headlines across the ACC, Florida State Seminole athletic director Michael Alford pointed out the difference in projected conference revenue between the ACC, the Big Ten, and SEC once their new media rights deals begin.
It’s true, FSU does not have a viable escape route anytime soon. In the Texas/OU and USC/UCLA cases, the schools waited to leave until their leagues’ Grant of Rights were up. (Two Big 12 schools have since negotiated an early exit.)
The ACC’s deal goes another 13 years. In that board meeting, FSU’s general counsel threw out $120 million as a cost to leave the ACC, but as best I can tell, that’s just the league’s exit fee.
The cost to buy back more than a decade’s worth of your own TV rights from the conference would be exponentially more.
It’s been suggested that FSU and Clemson (or others) could challenge the Grant of Rights in court, but contracts that deal with millions of dollars tend to be pretty ironclad. If they weren’t, someone would have challenged one already.
FSU, as well as Clemson, are posturing for unequal revenue sharing, under the premise they bring more value than the other 12 schools, the implicit threat is lingering: if you don’t pay us, we’ll leave eventually.
This story is similar to USC’s decade of largely behind-the-scenes grumbling, but this time the other schools have no short-term incentive to agree to it. The best case the pair could make might be,
“We’re your conference’s best hope of winning a national championship in football. The 12-team Playoff Model is expected to be more performance-based than presently, if a big money team like Clemson or FSU wins three games in the playoffs en route to the 2026 national title, everyone reaps benefits.”
I don’t think anyone wants to take in less money than they are currently making. The question is one of leverage. Do Florida State, Clemson and others have actual leverage in today’s negotiations?
They’re locked into a deal with the ACC through 2036 that could cost more than $300 million to break between just exit fees and the grant of rights.
If those schools do not have offers in hand to join the Big Ten or the SEC, can they really force the rest of the conference to acquiesce on this?
For what it’s worth, I’m not sure shuffling around a few million dollars per year actually closes the revenue gaps Alford was talking about with his board.
If FSU gets, say, $5 million more per year than it does now, does that actually close the gap it’s staring down with powerhouses like Georgia? Or is this more of a philosophical conversation?
The ACC should be thinking externally, not internally, and figuring a way to generate more revenue, because soon their schools are going to be sharing it with their athletes
I see the anxiety and hear the chatter from FSU fans every day. Everyone’s worried about revenue, stratification and falling behind. So it may help fans to hear your leaders fighting for more. But I’m also not sure there’s going to be enough of a force to force real change.
My two cents: Though I do recommend making some effort to keep your marquee programs happy, FSU does not have much leverage here. You’re talking about a “threat” that might not come to fruition for more than a decade, by which point the sport’s traditional conference model could be abandoned entirely.
Who knows what will happen in 13 years’ time, programs can only plan for the near future.
The Madness
By: Kenneth Harrison
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The NCAA basketball tournament begins this week. Let’s take a look at teams around the Southeast and predict how they will do.
Alabama (29 – 5) is the number one overall seed in the tournament. They are the top seed in the South region. They will play the winner of No. 16 Texas A&M CC and No. 16 SE Missouri State. They will steamroll whoever they face in the first round.
The Crimson Tide have been making headlines off the court, unfortunately. Star freshman small forward Brandon Miller is accused by police of giving now-former teammate Darius Miles the gun that was allegedly used by another man to kill a woman near the school’s campus in mid-January, according to multiple news reports.
He’s still currently playing but I think the pressure will grow the further they advance. Miller is a projected lottery pick.
The second-round matchup will either be No. 8 Maryland or No. 9 West Virginia. Expect Bama to get to the Sweet Sixteen with ease.
Virginia is the No. 4 team in the region and the first-round game is against No. 13 Furman. They will likely face No. 5 San Diego State in the second round, which will be tough.
Auburn is No. 9 in the Midwest region and they play against No. 8 Iowa. That’s a fairly even matchup. If the Tigers win the next round should be against No. 1 Houston.
No. 5 Miami faces No. 12 Drake. Upsets typically occur in the 12 versus 5 seed games so this should be interesting. The Hurricanes are a very solid team so I expect them to advance and play the winner of No. 4 Indiana or No. 13 Kent State. I think Miami has a real shot of getting to the Sweet Sixteen.
Kennesaw State (26 – 8) is the fourteenth seed in the Midwest. The Owls won the Atlantic Sun tournament and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history. They face No. 3 Xavier in Greensboro, North Carolina. As a KSU alum I hope they can pull off the upset.
I think the East is a very interesting region because they have some lower seeds that are dangerous. No. 5 Duke will play No. 12 Oral Roberts in round one. The Blue Devils won the ACC Tournament, beating Virginia in the championship game. They will face the winner of No. 4 Tennessee or No. 13 Louisiana.
I think Duke is a Final Four team loaded with talent. They’re led by freshman power forward/center Kyle Filipowski. He’s a 7 footer that can handle the ball and he plays hard on both ends.
No. 6 Kentucky plays No. 11 Providence. The Wildcats are led by freshman guard Cason Wallace.
Kentucky recruits well so they have a lot of talent. They have underachieved all season though. If they win, they will more than likely play No. 3 Kansas State in the next round.
No. 8 Memphis (26 – 8) won the AAC Tournament. They upset No. 1 Houston in the championship game. I think the Tigers will beat No. 9 FAU and face No. 1 Purdue next.
Hardwood Shambles
By: Steve Norris
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The date was March 16, 1996.
Tubby Smith, Georgia’s head basketball coach in his first year at the school, had just beaten Gene Keady’s number one seeded Purdue Boilermakers 76-69 to advance to the Sweet Sixteen.
This was rare air for the Bulldogs. They hadn’t been this far in the NCAA Tournament since their magical run to the Final Four in 1983.
Unfortunately for Dawg fans, Georgia would lose six days later in overtime to Jim Boeheim’s Syracuse Orangemen in one of the most exciting tournament games in history. At the time, the loss stung for Georgia fans, but we knew Tubby had the program on the right course.
Unfortunately, in May of 1997, the one school that could lure him away, Kentucky, came calling. Smith accepted the job and immediately led the Wildcats to the National Championship the following year.
As for Georgia, the long NCAA Tournament nightmare was just beginning. Little did Dawg fans know that the upset of Purdue would be the last Tournament victory for at least the next 27 years. A streak that is still active to this day.
Yes…you read that right. The University of Georgia, one of the most powerful schools, not only in the SEC, but in the nation for decades now, has a basketball program that hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since the previous century.
You’ve heard of the NCAA Tournament, right? The one that basically lets just about everyone in?
When other schools in the state of Georgia like Mercer University have more NCAA Tournament victories (2014 over Duke) in the last quarter century than UGA, there is a serious problem in Athens.
You know the University of Georgia, right? The one whose football program has won the last two football national championships, which means they’re basically printing money due to the influx of donations just from their big time donors alone?
You know, the one who’s also getting over $50 million dollars per year in TV rights money from the SEC right now? And that amount is expected to double to over $100 million per school by 2028.
How could a school this powerful, with this many resources, that is an hour down the road from Atlanta, which is one of the most talent-rich high school basketball cities in the nation, possibly be this mediocre at basketball for this long?
One can only come to one conclusion…
The powers-that-be at Butts-Mehre in Athens simply do not care about basketball.
Well, not for at least 20 years, anyway.
In 1999, then athletic director Vince Dooley hired Jim Harrick to be Georgia’s head basketball coach. Harrick came with major accolades, including leading UCLA to the 1995 national championship.
Unfortunately, Harrick, who had been fired from UCLA in 1996 for allegedly falsifying receipts and then covering it up, got in more trouble at Georgia in 2003 due to an academic scandal just before the NCAA Tournament.
Dooley was so incensed with the situation, that he pulled Georgia out of the tournament and vacated all of Georgia’s wins for the 2003 season. Harrick was subsequently fired five days later.
Since then, Georgia’s coaching hires have been underwhelming, at best: Dennis Felton, Mark Fox, Tom Crean, and now Mike White.
The only coach on that list with any real accomplishments coming in was Crean, who had taken Marquette to the Final Four in 2003 and was the Big Ten Coach of the Year in 2016 while at Indiana while winning the regular season championship. Even with those accolades, Crean went a very disappointing 47-75 over four seasons at Georgia and was fired a year ago.
Now we have Mike White, who just led Georgia to a 16-16 record in his first year, missing the NCAA Tournament yet again. Unfortunately for Georgia fans, this is considered a banner year! After all, the Dawgs only won six games last year, so a ten-game improvement should be seen as a good sign, right? Don’t bet on it.
According to Dawgs247, White’s first recruiting class (2022) was ranked 50th overall.
His 2023 class isn’t much better as it’s ranked 40th overall. So, unless White suddenly becomes Mike Krzyzewski overnight, I don’t see things improving on the hard court for Georgia anytime soon.
Oh, and speaking of the hard court…Georgia’s is falling apart. Literally.
In what can only be described as a perfect metaphor for Georgia’s basketball program, Stegeman Coliseum was closed down a couple of weeks ago because of hazardous conditions due to pieces of the ceiling breaking off and falling onto the court.
This is the same building that is going on 60-years-old and has been mocked by opposing fans for years for being outdated. While UGA did make improvements to Stegeman in 2017, it’s not the kind of stuff that’s going to impress recruits.
It basically amounted to putting lipstick on a pig. It’s far past time to knock Stegeman down and build a state-of-the-art facility.
Kirby Smart showed when he took over the UGA football program, that you have to be willing to spend a lot of money if you want to win championships. For Smart…mission accomplished.
If the powers-that-be at the University of Georgia are not going to step up and make basketball a priority right now, then when will they? What’s the right time if it’s not now?
I wonder if Kirby can coach basketball.
You’re Fired
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The Florida Gators football team began their second spring practice under head coach Billy Napier last week.
With new players and coaching staff, there are many storylines and position battles to watch this spring.
The Gators have big questions in a lot of position groups entering spring practice. Who will replace Anthony Richardson at QB is a huge question mark.
Florida lost all three starters from 2022 at linebacker, who steps up there? Questions abound across the board with this program.
Here is the main question in my mind and it is one that Florida does not have a great track record in regards to. Will Florida be patient and allow Billy Napier to build this program the right way?
Florida was one of the founding members of the SEC in 1933. It took Florida 58 years for them to win their first SEC Football Championship in 1991. Florida has won 8 SEC Football Championships overall and none since 2008.
It has been 15 years since Florida has won anything of significance in football. In the same time frame Florida has had 5 head football coaches. Doing the math Florida hires and fires head football coaches every three years.
Florida is never going to be successful again until they give a coach a chance to build a program.
Napier went 40-12 at Louisiana in four years prior to taking the Florida job, which included a 7-7 season in year one.
Florida is a huge step up from the Sun Belt Conference, and in many ways Florida was in much worse shape than Louisiana was when Napier took over.
Napier had to improve his overall talent at UL which he did, but that isn’t the case at Florida.
Florida always has elite talent in football. Did you watch Anthony Richardson at the NFL Combine put up the best performance for a QB ever?
Talent is not and never has been an issue at The University of Florida. Vince Dooley used to say that Florida was the most talented team in the SEC annually when he coached at UGA from 1964-1988. Dooley’s teams went 17-7-1 against more talented UF football teams during his tenure.
Steve Spurrier was hired in 1990 and he came in with his innovative offensive mind and made Florida the best football program in the SEC while going 122-27-1 in a 12-year run that is the best in school history.
During that window Florida won 6 SEC Championships and a national title in 1996.
Urban Meyer came in and recruited Tim Tebow and won national titles in 2006 and 2008.
My point is that Florida’s entire football history is compressed into a 19-year window from 1990-2008. Other than that Florida football has been nothing special.
Billy Napier inherited a culture problem at UF that he has been working to improve since he walked on campus.
SEC coaches privately tell reporters that Florida has consistently been one of the most undisciplined teams in the conference over the past 5 seasons.
I believe Napier is the right man for the job in Gainesville. He just had a top 15 recruiting class and hit the transfer portal hard to address position groups like LB and QB.
Florida just opened an $85 million dollar football facility last summer that is state of the art.
The money, talent, and facilities are in place for Billy Napier to get UF back among the elite programs in the country.
Napier needs time to fix the culture and build the type of program that all associated with the University of Florida will be proud of. Billy Napier is the right man for the job at UF.
Will Florida give him the time needed to accomplish? Back-to-back 6-7 seasons while UGA is winning back-to-back National Championships makes the Gator nation impatient.
They must realize that it took Kirby 6 years to build Georgia into that status. Florida will not be elite anytime soon unless they stop firing head football coaches every 3 years.
Bad Rep
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Star defensive tackle Jalen Carter became the third member of Georgia’s 2022 national championship team to be charged with reckless driving.
A fourth bulldog was charged with a DUI and the fifth was reported to have gone 34 miles over the speed limit at the time of arrest.
In total, nine Georgia players have been arrested in the last 13.5 months.
These arrests don’t have to be blamed on Georgia. There’s nothing that’s come to light that suggests it is. With that being said, these incidents still reflect poorly on the program’s image, as a charge reflects poorly on all five player’s criminal records.
All of these are misdemeanors, but Georgia’s program is at their highest media coverage nationally in the history of college football. The microscope is more zoomed in than ever, and narratives will be longer if these habits continue.
The car crash that took the lives of Devin Willock and Chandler LeCroy is a terrible tragedy. The other parts of the story have always seemed irrelevant: I don’t care about staffers socializing with athletes. I don’t care very much about a university car being used. I don’t care that they were at a strip club.
I do care what directly led to the crash. Now, Kirby Smart should talk with his program and take a leadership role in athlete risk aversion.
Smart needs to get a handle on street racing and reckless driving. Police report the cause of the car crash to street racing and reckless driving.
A coach can’t take away anybody’s ability to drive, but they can take away a starting roster position. An athletic director may set an example by suspending or dismissing players for criminal offenses while eligible.
Smart has indubitably built an athletic powerhouse in seven seasons in Athens, going for his third consecutive National Championship next season. However, after their latest title win, the team has been marred with bad morale and criminal news headlines.
The one thing that could bring down Smart and the Bulldogs’ dynasty is legal actions and a criminal reputation. Anybody remember the facelifting SMU and Miami have been doing after their debacles?
University of Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks stated that neither Willock, nor the driver of the car was on “athletic department business” at the time of the accident.
Brooks added that his department “[conducted] a thorough review, in coordination with appropriate legal counsel, to fully understand the circumstances surrounding this tragic event.”
This sounds like Brooks is trying to minimize sue damage. In a wrongful death case involving a motor vehicle accident, it is sometimes possible to hold an employer responsible if their employee’s negligence was responsible for the fatal accident. This is a vicarious liability under Georgia law.
Georgia follows a “comparative fault” standard in all personal injury cases, which includes wrongful death claims. Basically, this means that when the negligence of multiple parties led to an accident, a judge or jury must apportion the blame accordingly. The judge will then reduce the victim’s damages to account for their determined percentage of fault.
Willock’s family has not filed any legal action arising from his death. High-profile accidents like this one often raise a number of questions regarding the law in this area. Dave Willock, who is the father of the late Devin Willock, said that he was not planning a lawsuit at this time.
“Georgia is working with us,” Willock told the AJC. “We have no reason to do that (sue Georgia), because they are compensating us 100 percent.”
I have a feeling that in the near future lawsuits will be filed, but until then, Smart and Georgia’s athletic department have to clean up their public image.
In scenarios like these, a little bit of prevention is worth a whole lot of cure- Georgia got lucky, but it won’t matter if these incidents keep happening.
Feather Change
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
In professional sports, a salary cap is an agreement or rule that places a limit on the amount of money that a team can spend on players’ salaries. It exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team’s roster, or both.
Several sports leagues have implemented salary caps, using them to keep overall costs down, and to maintain a competitive balance by restricting richer clubs from entrenching dominance by signing many more top players than their rivals.
That could also explain why the Dallas Cowboys haven’t won a Super Bowl since Bill Clinton was President.
The NFL has set its salary cap for the upcoming season. Teams are expected to have $224.8 million in cap space, which puts the Falcons’ 2023 cap space at more than $56 million.
So, in other words the Falcons have money to spend in Free Agency. Gone are the big cap hits for Matt Ryan, Julio Jones and a couple of others.
NFL teams have until 4PM on March 15th to get under the Cap. The NFL Free Agency period begins on the same date.
The Falcons could free up additional cap space by restructuring some current contracts and after the release of Marcus Mariota that could put the Falcons near the $70M mark in cap space. Only Chicago has more cap room than Atlanta.
By releasing Marcus Mariota, the Atlanta Falcons have freed up an additional $12 million, giving them the second-most available cap space to pursue someone like Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens.
The NFL is a QB driven league and the Falcons have not been very good at the position for a couple of seasons now since the departure of Ryan.
Lamar Jackson wants a deal like what Deshaun Watson got in Cleveland. Rumors out of Baltimore suggest the Ravens do not want to fully guarantee a long term deal with Jackson.
The Ravens could place the franchise tag on Jackson and force him to play at a designated salary, but that hurts the possibly of Jackson agreeing to a long term deal in Baltimore moving forward.
If Jackson is franchised and eventually leaves when he is an unrestricted free agent, then the Ravens are left with nothing.
For 2023, the Ravens can place the exclusive franchise tag on Jackson, worth $45 million, which is essentially a one-year deal.
Jackson can either accept it or stage a holdout to force a trade or extension. Baltimore can also use the non-exclusive franchise tag, worth $32.4 million, which allows Jackson to hit the market but gives the Ravens the right of first refusal.
If another team offers and Jackson signs the contract offer, Baltimore gets to match that deal or let Jackson go.
In return for Jackson’s hypothetical departure, the Ravens would receive two first-round draft choices. The Ravens must apply that tag to Jackson by March 7th. Expect them to do so to buy time to work out a long-term extension or a trade before the NFL draft or possibly sooner.
Atlanta has long been rumored to be a landing sport for Jackson in a potential trade.
The offensive scheme in Atlanta is a great fit for Lamar. The city would be energized with Jackson leading the Falcons. The Falcons have the cap space to sign Jackson to a long term deal, and with the releasing of Mariota it appears the Falcons are in the market for a QB.
If the Falcons can’t pull off the blockbuster deal for Jackson then they must address the position in the April draft.
Will Levis from Kentucky could be a target. The Falcons have needs at OL, WR, and CB that could also be addressed during free agency and the draft.
Lamar Jackson in Atlanta would be Christmas come early for Falcons fans. The last time Atlanta had an MVP QB they were in the Super Bowl and he is only 26 years old.
Under Achievers
By: Kenneth Harrison
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
In previous years the ACC has been the premier basketball conference.
Blue blood programs like Duke and North Carolina routinely make the Final Four and win national championships. Both teams played in the Final Four last season and UNC played in the national title game. Both programs are struggling this season.
The Tar Heels were the No. 1 team in the preseason. They have not lived up to those expectations. They currently are 18 – 11, 10 – 8 in conference play.
They did defeat No. 6 Virginia over the weekend. That was their first Quadrant 1 win, which is crucial for an at-large team. They were previously 0 – 9 against those teams.
“His ability to stretch it, and then he can also go inside – he’s tall, man,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said of Pete Nance. “He filled in the way (Brady Manek) did last year. When they can stretch you out and all of a sudden the floor opens up, that changes their dynamics.”
The Cavaliers (21 – 6) are the highest ranked team in the conference at No. 13. They are currently third-place in the ACC behind Pitt and Miami. They also lost to lowly Boston College earlier last week, scoring a season-low 48 points. UVA is going in the wrong direction less than a month before the NCAA tournament begins.
The Blue Devils (21 – 8) are fifth in the conference. They were No. 7 in the preseason poll. It looks like they are coming together at the perfect time. Star freshman forward Kyle Filipowski is the leading scorer (14.8 points per game) and rebounder (9.2 per game) this season. He should be a lottery pick in the NBA Draft and if he plays well Duke can win any game.
Duke won four consecutive games and they are trending in the right direction as the season is winding down. They have two regular season games remaining against NC State and at North Carolina. The ACC Tournament begins March 7th.
No. 16 Miami (23 – 6) has changed the culture of their program. They used to be known as a football school but over the last few years they changed that. The Hurricanes are coming off of a bad loss to in-state rival Florida State (9 – 20) over the weekend. They blew a 25 point second half lead to lose, 85 – 84.
“We played as well as we could in the first half,” Miami coach Jim Larrañaga said. “But it appeared to me to start the second half that our battery died. We didn’t have the energy or juice and it showed most of all with our defense.”
The loss ended Miami’s seven game winning streak. It also knocked them out of an outright lead in the ACC standings and a perfect home record. They have one game remaining against Pitt.
Clemson (21 – 8) is having a surprisingly good season. They are currently fourth in the conference. In previous years this would be more impressive. They should make the NCAA Tournament and they have a chance to win a game.
This is a down year for the ACC but they should get 5-6 teams in the NCAA Tournament. I would be surprised if they have a team that can advance to the Elite Eight.
