Garrison Ryfun
Practice Game
By: Garrison Ryfun
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
On Monday last week, Hugh Freeze pitched the idea of playing a scrimmage in the Spring against another school: “Allow us to scrimmage somebody on a day.” Bringing up the attention and revenue it could bring, the decrease in risk of injury for both schools, and the benefits to seeing your guys in action against a different group of players.
Freeze even mentioned going against in-state teams like Troy, UAB, or Alabama State, to which new UAB Head Coach Trent Dilfer responded saying: “Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty please.” He saw the benefits of live competition between teams and perceived it to be a benefit for his team as well. Dilfer mentioned the benefits of scrimmaging a team that is seen as superior to yours. Troy Head Coach Jon Sumrall was also on board with the idea saying: “I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I’d go play.”
This is not the first time the idea of scrimmaging against another school has come up in college football.
Dabo Swinney publicly pitched the idea in 2012, with then Michigan Head Coach Brady Hoke publicly jumping on the train not long after. If this is such a popular move with Head Coaches across the sport, then why haven’t we seen it up for vote already?
David Cutcliffe, former Duke Head Coach, lays it out well in this 2012 quote: “That’s an old idea, that’s a good idea, but that’s very difficult to get the NCAA to move in those regards. Your best chance is if you can prove you can make some money, because then you have a chance for the presidents and the ADs to vote in favor of it.”
At the end of the day college football is a business, while it may benefit the coaches to see other teams in live competition with their own, if it doesn’t generate decent revenue then it is likely dead-on arrival for any vote. Something I am sure coaches have thought about in their pitches behind closed doors, but you do not see a lot of in past public pitches for the idea.
Which is why Hugh Freeze’s pitch makes a lot of sense, it may ultimately come to nothing but he is hitting the right chords. The focus on scrimmaging with a more local university, making the organization easier and less costly. The revenue that an in-state scrimmage could drive in for both Alabama and Auburn; Hugh Freeze understands what the pitch has to be if anything will come out of it.
It is a similar pitch to one Mike Gundy made in the spring of 2021, where he pitched a spring game against Arkansas.
Once again, his public comments did not really hit on the revenue generating aspect of the conversation, and it likely went nowhere because of it.
Other coaches, like Mike Norvell, said they were open to the idea during conferences this week. Could there be another major push for spring scrimmages against other schools?
One of the other major roadblocks is that while most major college football coaches seem on board with the idea, there were some pretty powerful dissenters to the push in 2012, namely Nick Saban and Bob Stoops.
The former is now a coach in the XFL, and the latter has adapted and changed his philosophy with his style of offense in more recent years.
Could Saban, and more importantly Presidents and ADs, come around to the idea, or will this die down for another decade before another push happens again?
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.
The New Reality
By: Garrison Ryfun
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
In the upcoming age of super conferences in college football, major brands who are not a part of the Big Ten or SEC are trying to position themselves to be able to compete revenue wise with the brands in those conferences.
Currently, the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners are set to join the SEC in 2024, and the USC Trojans and the UCLA Bruins are set to join the Big Ten 2024. This is coincidentally the same year the 12-team playoff starts in college football, something that other Power Five conferences are likely happy about due to the massive changes happening in the landscape of the sport – with conference realignment.
Florida State’s latest board of trustees meeting gave insight to how teams are going to deal with this landscape going forward: Either the ACC gives more money to the teams that bring in more revenue, or those teams will do everything in their power to find a better situation for themselves.
Teams like Florida State, Clemson, Oregon, etc. will have to work out better deals for themselves. FSU AD Michael Alford pointed out that with the new television deals going into effect for the Big 10/SEC, schools like Florida State would be behind the curve by about $30 million annually.
This kind of gap will prevent these bigger brands from being able to compete for championships regularly, and in the coming months I expect more and more schools will start speaking about what needs to be done to stay relevant in college football.
This will, in all likelihood, create a very contentious relationship within conferences like the Pac-12, Big-12, and ACC. One way these conferences could help themselves out is by trying to create their own super conference.
The Big 12 is trying to lessen the impact of losing brands like Oklahoma and Texas by bringing in Brigham Young, Central Florida, Cincinnati, and Houston in Fall 2023 – a move that will not make up for the brand loss that will come after the 2023-2024 season.
Notre Dame will likely be a big target for those three conferences, as it is the only independent team left with a brand that big.
Teams may even be poached from one conference to the other, something that would mean the death of at least one power five conference. A thing that may be inevitable in the coming years, and may even help some of these conferences stay competitive or become super conferences themselves.
This struggle is not going to be solved overnight and its effects on football will likely not be seen for a few years.
There will be massive restructuring in the way some conferences are run and the teams that are within those conferences. All we can do as fans is sit back and hope your school understands their value as a brand within the sport.
The future of college football starts with changes made today. How will other big brands respond to the inevitable? There will be some fascinating off-seasons in the next couple of years, that’s for sure.
Kickoff
By: Garrison Ryfun
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
At the end of the first transfer period, two teams stand at the top of the transfer portal recruiting rankings according to 247Sports: LSU and Florida State.
Florida State and LSU started the season last year in a Sunday night thriller that ended with an extra point blocked by FSU.
Since that 24-23 win, both teams went on to have great regular seasons and both wound up winning a bowl sponsored by Cheez-It in Orlando. (LSU winning the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl and FSU winning the Cheez-It Bowl).
In an exciting week 1 rematch to start the 2023 season, both teams will pick up where they left off – in Orlando, at Camping World Stadium.
This neutral site matchup is sure to be another classic opening weekend game, with the winner having a great resume-building win for the final four-team playoff in 2023.
But how did these teams, who started the year unranked in 2022, become likely two preseason top ten teams? Good coaching and the transfer portal.
Names like Jayden Daniels for LSU or Jared Verse for FSU, both helped elevate the ceiling of the programs they transferred into in 2022.
Now heading into the 2023 season, with Florida State and LSU sitting on top of the transfer recruiting rankings let’s see who they brought in through the portal:
LSU:
Aaron Anderson (WR) from Alabama
Paris Shand (Edge) from Arizona
Jalen Lee (DL) from Florida
Bradyn Swinson (Edge) from Oregon
Denver Harris (CB) from Texas A&M
Jordan Jefferson (DL) from West Virginia
Zy Alexander (CB) from Southeastern Lousiana
Darian Chestnut (CB) from Syracuse
Jakailin Johnson (CB) from Ohio State
Ovie Oghofu (LB) from Texas
Omar Speights (LB) from Oregon State
LSU went hard after defensive lineman and cornerbacks, grabbing four of each during this cycle to help shore up holes. They also were able to grab a stud linebacker in Omar Speights to have in tandem with rising star Harold Perkins.
FSU:
Darrell Jackson (DL) from Miami (Fl)
Jaheim Bell (TE) from South Carolina
Kyle Morelock (TE) from Shorter University
Casey Roddick (IOL) from Colorado
Jeremiah Byers (OT) from UTEP
Keiondre Jones (IOL) from Auburn
Braden Fiske (DL) from Western Michigan
Fentrell Cypress (CB) from Virginia
Gilber Edmond (DE) from South Carolina
Tyler Keltner (K) from ETSU
FSU looked to add the lines of scrimmage, adding three offensive and three defensive linemen to their roster.
They were also able to plug a big hole at tight end, by bringing in two athletic college standouts.
They were able to secure the commitment from a transfer kicker, creating a competition there this offseason.
Finally, the biggest get for their class was likely Fentrell Cypress, a shutdown corner from Virginia – a piece the Noles have been missing since 2021.
In an age when questions are being asked about the sustainability of transfer portal recruiting, and whether or not it’s possible to win a championship with schools taking ten or more transfers a year – Florida State and LSU, teams using this newer model, will likely start the 2023 season in a top ten matchup that can have serious playoff implications.
Jason Bishop Show w Kipp Branch February 4
Shuffling The Deck
By: Garrison Ryfun
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
With the ACC going division-less in 2023, the championship will now be played by the top two teams in the conference, instead of the winners of each division.
Since the conference is going division-less, teams will now play what is described as a 3-5-5 schedule.
This means that from at least 2023 to 2026, ACC teams will have three primary opponents and a rotation of the other ten teams in the conference.
The ACC guarantees that through this new scheduling format, each team will have a home and away game against all 13 other teams in this four-year window.
Though not all that common, this will prevent a championship game played by a 7-5 or 6-6 winner of either the Coastal or Atlantic division.
Once again, the divisions will not exist anymore but every team will be locked into three specific opponents.
Here are the primary opponents for each team in the ACC:
Boston College: Miami (FL), Pittsburgh, and Syracuse
Clemson: Florida State, Georgia Tech, and NC State
Duke: North Carolina, NC State, and Wake Forest
Florida State: Clemson, Miami, and Syracuse
Georgia Tech: Clemson, Louisville, and Wake Forest
Louisville: Georgia Tech, Miami (FL), and Virginia
Miami (FL): Boston College, Florida State, and Louisville
North Carolina: Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia
NC State: Clemson, Duke, and North Carolina
Pittsburgh: Boston College, Syracuse, and Virginia Tech
Syracuse: Boston College, Florida State, and Pittsburgh
Virginia: Louisville, North Carolina, and Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech: Pittsburgh, Virginia, and Wake Forest
Wake Forest: Duke, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech
Notre Dame, though not an official member of the conference for football, will still play their contractually obligated five ACC opponents under this new system.
This move just makes sense for the health of the conference.
In the upcoming age of super conferences, with Texas and Oklahoma moving to the SEC and USC and UCLA making their move to the Big Ten, having the two best teams in your conference title game will only help with national perception for the top of your conference.
It will already be hard enough to convince teams like Florida State and Clemson to not look elsewhere during this era. Super conferences will only create more revenue, especially in the television space for their member teams.
This is a step forward, albeit small, for the conference, and could give fans some fun in-season rematches in the championship game for years to come.
The biggest problem the ACC has left is figuring out how to navigate college football in this upcoming era.
Convincing Notre Dame, whose contract with NBC expires in 2025, and another high-profile team to join the conference is the next big step the ACC has to take to remain relevant in the football space.
Claw Sharpening
By: Garrison Ryfun
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
At the end of the 2022 season, things seemed to be trending downward for the Clemson Tigers. After a 31-14 Orange Bowl loss to Tennessee, which never looked all that competitive, there were real questions about the future of the program.
The beginning of this perceived decline started with the 2020 season when Jeff Scott, one of Dabo’s Co-Offensive Coordinators, took the head coaching job at the University of South Florida.
This move helped Tony Elliot become the singular Offensive Coordinator for the 2020 and 2021 seasons.
Going into the 2022 season, Dabo lost both his stalwart defensive coordinator in Brent Venables and offensive coordinator, Tony Elliot to head coaching vacancies at Oklahoma and Virginia respectively.
Instead of going out and hiring big name coordinators, Dabo decided to try to keep continuity within the program and promoted from within for both positions; promoting Brandon Streeter from Passing Game Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach to the Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach role, and on the defensive side promoting Wes Goodwin to Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers and Mickey Conn to Co-Defensive Coordinator/Safeties.
In terms of total offense, Streeters coordinating would be seen as an improvement over Tony Elliot’s 2021 efforts, as Clemson went from the 99th total offense to the 48th in 2022.
Though Streeter did seem to help elevate the offense from season to season, 48th in the country is still well below the standard for a Clemson offense in the modern era.
The blame for their offensive struggles, perception wise, ultimately rested on Streeter’s scheme, which was similar to Elliot’s and Scott’s.
Firing Streeter was not an easy move for Dabo to make. He was a former player at the university and was a longtime assistant under Dabo, coaching at the school for six years before he became the offensive coordinator.
He also was a big part of the success Clemson had at quarterback, helping to develop Deshaun Watson and recruit and develop Trevor Lawrence. The two quarterbacks who led Clemson to national titles in 2016 and 2018.
The firing of Brandon Streeter meant that Clemson had to hit on a big-time candidate for the offensive coordinator position. Enter TCU offensive coordinator Garrett Riley and former Clemson offensive coordinator Jeff Scott.
In Garrett Riley’s three years of being an offensive coordinator, he has never been outside of the top 15 in points per game and has only been outside of the top 15 once for total offense.
Even in the context of an embarrassing 65-7 loss against Georgia, the problem for Riley’s offense was not the scheme.
Now entering Clemson, Riley has a better talent pool to work with that can match a more physical SEC team if they make the playoffs.
Riley will have a chance to not only coach better talent, but also recruit better talent at Clemson.
In a time when some were starting to perceive Dabo as losing his edge, he made an important move that changed the trajectory of the program before it was too late.
The move of bringing in Garrett Riley is an important one, but bringing in Jeff Scott to learn underneath him is the more underrated aspect of this whole deal.
This is Dabo positioning himself to not only revolutionize his offense, but be able to keep continuity on that front when Riley eventually takes a head coaching position elsewhere.
This kind of move is one that Clemson needed going into a divisonless 2023 in the ACC, with a rising Florida State team, and others, trying to knock them off their throne.
Glynn Academy Wins Region
By: Garrison Ryfun
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
This October was all about region play and the Glynn Academy Red Terrors are now 8-1 with a game left in the regular season.
This month the Terrors have took on Wayne County, Brunswick High, Richmond Hill, and Effingham. They won all those games and are now Region Champs.
The first game of the month took place on September 30th against Wayne County.
The Yellow Jackets came into this game winless and with an offense that was occasionally productive.
Deejay Dallas and Kendall Cross again put on a show in the matchup against Wayne. The squad for Jesup was never able to get in the End zone against the Terrors stout defense and Glynn won in a Shutout 34-0.
Up next was the Effingham game but due to Hurricane Matthew and the mandatory evacuation, the game was postponed until October 25th.
That start of region pay became the City Championship and it had to be moved a day because of the hurricane. So, we got to witness Saturday Night Lights in Glynn County Stadium against the Brunswick High Pirates.
Brunswick High and Glynn Academy has always been a great rivalry. This night was no different as Shawn Smith took the opening kickoff back for a touchdown.
Glynn was without their starting kicker but the depth behind him shined in a lot of places.
John Henry Butler became the PAT kicker and didn’t miss a kick. Andrew Delaney, the starting Tight End, also had a 45-yard punt that pinned BHS inside the 5.
The defense gave up a lot of points to a talented BHS squad but this high-powered Glynn Academy offense has been hard to stop. Glynn won in a close one 35-28.
Up next Glynn had to face an Undefeated Richmond Hill squad at Richmond Hill. Now I must say this game worried me a little bit. Before this game, 17 points was the most anyone had scored on Richmond hill.
Glynn ended up winning the game 57-27. The most points scored under Rocky Hidalgo and almost the first time that we have had three 100 yard rushers.
Glynn, as a team, rushed for 517 yards and passed for 166 yards. That’s 683 total yards, believed to be a school record.
The final game of the month was against Effingham. The hurricane-rescheduled football game took place on a Tuesday night.
It almost felt weird doing a game on Tuesday night at Glynn County Stadium. This Glynn team didn’t seem to mind though. The Terrors picked up where they had left off!
After a 4-day turnaround, the Terrors still looked fresh and dominated this game from the first snap. Glynn again almost had 3 100-yard rushers. We even got to see Randon Jernigan at quarterback.
The Terrors shut out another team this month with the 48-0 win over Effingham.
This Glynn Academy Red Terrors team somehow keeps improving every week and looks to be a state title contender in 6A football.
The option offense has become so deadly and consistent for Glynn Academy and the defense has played their hearts out all season long.
They have one regular season game left against Bradwell. After that game starts the playoffs and what looks to be a deep playoff run for the Terrors.
The Terrors have wrapped up their second region title in a row.
Glynn to Terrorize State
By: Garrison Ryfun
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The Glynn Academy Red Terrors are now 4-1 halfway through the season, and after the early loss to Benedictine they are starting to look like state title contenders.
Over the past month, the Terrors have taken on Pomona (#1 Team in Colorado), Camden County, and East Jackson. They won all of those games and won them all very convincingly.
