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Mike Griffith from DawgNation discusses the proposed 24-team College Football Playoff and its potential impact on the SEC championship. He argues that Georgia should have abandoned its rivalry with Georgia Tech years ago to prevent the Yellow Jackets from gaining a recruiting foothold. They also cover spring injury reports and the donor environment ahead of the G-Day game.
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00:00I'm sure you heard Mike talk about that proposal.
00:04Where do you think this is going, by the way?
00:06I mean, if you had it your way, what do you think the perfect number is?
00:10Is it 16? Is it 18? 24? What is it?
00:14I think 24, you know, because I think we're at a point where we want playing games.
00:19You know, to me, because here's the deal.
00:23You've got to figure out a way.
00:25You're going to eliminate the SEC championship game.
00:27You know, I hate to say it, it's been great in Atlanta, it's wonderful, but it doesn't fit.
00:33And it's not fair to the teams that are at the top of the league to play the extra game.
00:36So if you're going to expand the playoffs, 16 or 24, it's a given that you're going to eliminate the
00:43SEC championship game,
00:44especially after the league agreed to go to a nine-game schedule and play a Power 4 outside,
00:50Power 4 conference team outside the league,
00:52something that the last three Big Ten teams that won the national championship did not do, any of them.
00:57So with that game gone, you've got to replace the revenue that you generated on SEC championship game weekend.
01:04And the way to do that is with two play-in games.
01:07I think if you go to 16 teams or 24, as I said, I prefer 24, I think it's a
01:13given the top four SEC teams get in.
01:15And then you have a weekend where you go 5, 8, 6, 7, that gives those teams an opportunity to
01:22maybe play their way in, enhance their resume.
01:24I know last year Vanderbilt wanted to play an extra game if they could.
01:28So that doubleheader, I don't know if it equals the SEC championship game in ratings, but it probably does in
01:34attendance.
01:35And I think it would also fill up the Benz on the weekend.
01:38Yeah, I just, I'm old school, man.
01:41I get it.
01:41I understand the money, the money, the money, but it's just, you just devalue the regular season with this expanded
01:46playoff.
01:46And by the way, I mean, are we going to play college football into like Groundhog Day now?
01:52No, no, listen, let me, listen, I get the old school stuff, but let me tell you where old school
01:57got University of Georgia.
01:59They protected this home and home with Georgia Tech.
02:01They should have ditched Georgia Tech a long time ago.
02:03But they continued, no, this is why.
02:06They continued to play Georgia Tech.
02:08They made Georgia Tech relevant.
02:10Georgia Tech's getting a 10, you know, you want to talk about tradition?
02:12How about giving up your home game with Georgia to play at Mercedes-Benz Stain for 10 million?
02:15They don't care about tradition.
02:17So you want to protect the team that is now competing with you for recruits and NIL dollars.
02:23See, LSU was smart.
02:24They got rid of this Tulane thing a long time ago.
02:27They used to have to play every year, every year.
02:29But then LSU said, why are we doing this?
02:31Georgia didn't say, oh, we want to protect tradition.
02:33Okay, well, here's your tradition right up your tailpipe because now Georgia Tech's viable.
02:38They're good enough to beat you, and they're competing for NIL dollars with you.
02:41My God, this is sacrilege.
02:43Mike Griffin's coming and dropping bombs, Carl, on a Thursday.
02:45No, look, to hell with Georgia Tech, he says.
02:48Well, here's the deal, though.
02:49I kind of vibe on this.
02:51I feel that Mike is kind of on to something here.
02:54Here's what happens.
02:55As college football continues to evolve and change, we've got to get out of this old-school mindset of what
03:01was.
03:01We're still in love with what we grew up with and how things were.
03:04It's not the way things are going to be.
03:06Ten years from now, this thing's going to look completely different.
03:08Hell, five years from now.
03:10So, Mike, I kind of feel you on this, but who has the balls to do it?
03:14That's my question.
03:15Who's going to back out and say, you know, we're not doing that?
03:18I don't hear any Georgia fans jump, oh, all I hear is, oh, Kirby hadn't won a play.
03:22I don't hear anybody going, wow, Kirby Smart hasn't lost to Georgia since his first year.
03:26Hooray.
03:26Nobody says anything.
03:28You just win and move on.
03:29And meanwhile, Brent Key is, you know, these guys are tough.
03:34I mean, look, Georgia Tech, they're going to take a piece of you, man.
03:37They probably should have won.
03:38They were one foot away from it.
03:39They could have made one foot.
03:41They beat Georgia in Athens, right?
03:43They didn't, but talking to guys like Keelan Rattledge, I mean, if they produce more guys
03:48like that guy, let me tell you, that guy's scary.
03:50If they get 10 or 11 of him, they're going to beat Georgia sooner or later because Brent
03:55Key knows how to build a program.
03:58You know, Georgia's fortunate, you know, that Georgia Tech didn't come up with the money
04:02to keep these really good coaches or quarterbacks.
04:04You would have thought they would have learned their lesson when they let a Final Four team
04:06get away and Josh Pastner just need $150,000 to keep a couple guys, you know, but it
04:11is an academic school.
04:12They've got to maintain their integrity, and they're just not hungry enough yet to spend
04:16the money, but they're good enough to give Georgia a hard time, recruit some of the
04:21same guys, and now compete for NIL sponsors in the city of Atlanta because Georgia kept
04:26them relevant by giving them the home and home.
04:28It's Mike Griffith, guys from Dog Nation and AJC.com here on the Sweet James Accent
04:32Attorneys Hotline.
04:33I'm not going to play devil's advocate because I understand your point, but I do feel that
04:37it's not, yes, Georgia's job to prop up a bad ACC right now and to prop up your rival.
04:42But there's also the history here, and there's always the feeling of great rivalries when
04:46two good teams go toe-to-toe and each team has a chance.
04:49That's competition, Mike.
04:50You know, I mean, if you want to see them play middle Tennessee State and give them
04:54their $1.5 million and take your...
04:57I don't want to see that if I'm a Georgia booster.
04:59I want to see that game still on the schedule.
05:01Yeah, yeah, you do, but you probably give your tickets away to it.
05:04You only feel good about it for about 20 minutes, and then you look at who you're playing in
05:07the SEC title game.
05:08Let's get real, guys.
05:09All right, Mike Griffiths says, Georgia Tech is now part of the, I guess, the anachronism
05:14that is today's college football world.
05:17I'm laughing because he's not lying.
05:18You want these tickets?
05:19It's Dukes and Bell.
05:20Let me ask you about the injuries.
05:22I just think you should take on all comers.
05:23I get the nine-game schedule.
05:25The SEC is a beast.
05:26And if Georgia Tech continues to get better, you don't want to make it more difficult for
05:29yourself.
05:30But if you've got a 24-game playoff, hell, man, you could be a four-loss team at Georgia
05:33and still make the thing.
05:35So don't be afraid of competition.
05:36Here's what I want you to do.
05:37Just please Google the Indiana football schedule right now, and I want you to read off Indiana's
05:43non-conference schedule.
05:44I want you to do that.
05:45Non-conference.
05:46This is who you're competing with.
05:47Okay.
05:47Non-conference.
05:48I know it already.
05:49You go ahead and read off the list.
05:50Well, I'm sure it's East-West Bumflub State.
05:53I got it.
05:53Just Ohio State does the same thing, too.
05:56West, at least they play Texas home-and-home.
05:58It's Western Kentucky.
06:00It's North Texas.
06:01Howard Bison.
06:02And it's Howard.
06:04That's who Indiana plays outside the league.
06:06And, oh, by the way, the Big Ten has five teams that are ranked lower than the worst team
06:11in the SEC.
06:12And they get to play two of those teams in the regular season.
06:15So this is not apples to apples, guys.
06:17And that's the problem.
06:18You're getting a fresh Indiana or a fresh Ohio State or a fresh Michigan or Penn State
06:23that has not had to play the kind of games that Georgia had to play where they had to
06:27come from behind and win six out of seven times.
06:30They don't play those games up there.
06:31And with the Big Ten, the Big Ten has always had these garbage schedules.
06:36We get that.
06:36And it's top-heavy.
06:37But, I mean, last time I checked, the Big Ten is still – if that's the formula then
06:42to win – the Florida Gators, Mike, did the same thing you're talking about for years.
06:45A lot of teams did that.
06:46And played absolutely – it was bowling green.
06:48It was absolute garbage.
06:49They never played out of conference other than Miami once every 20 years.
06:53Whoa, whoa, whoa.
06:53Florida State.
06:54Florida State.
06:55Florida State.
06:56But I'm saying – but I hate to see these – all the great rivalry games and traditions
07:00go out the window, then college football is not worth watching.
07:03Well, listen, I'm with you.
07:04I want to have the medium.
07:05You know, we all love the tradition and everything.
07:08But, you know, you can't have it both ways.
07:11Because in my mind – and I said this a long time ago – now, Jacksonville right now,
07:15right now Jacksonville makes sense because now you're going to be getting $8 million or $10 million
07:20extra to play that game.
07:21Before, when it was only another $2 million or $3 million, it did not make sense.
07:24It was a home recruiting weekend for Florida every single time.
07:28It was 300 miles away from Georgia, 70 miles away from Gainesville.
07:32It was not equitable.
07:34Yeah, you made a few people in South Georgia happy.
07:36But Kirby lost a recruiting weekend.
07:37It was a dumb move that cost Georgia a national pedal for how many years?
07:42From 1980 to 2020, 2021?
07:44Okay, now it makes sense.
07:46That game makes sense now in Jacksonville because there's going to be enough money
07:50to make it worth your while.
07:51Now, but the game now is about national titles.
07:55I know that because I'm sitting here and Kirby Smart – I'm trying to – you know,
07:59Paul Feinbaum's telling me what a terrible job Kirby Smart's done.
08:03He's only the fourth coach in history to win back-to-back SEC titles.
08:07I don't hear anybody talking about that.
08:09How many games – it won't be Tennessee nine times in a row, Georgia Tech eight times,
08:13eight or nine times.
08:13Nobody's talked, so you tell me how important tradition is, but I don't hear people talking
08:17about that.
08:18All I hear is the Sugar Bowl loss.
08:20That's all I hear.
08:21Yeah, I mean, look, you're supposedly one of the elite teams.
08:24You know, you take on the best, but I get it.
08:25The moving landscape of college football now requires you to perhaps – and it sucks.
08:30It does re-evaluate how you approach your game.
08:33If Indiana and Ohio State and Michigan are playing crap out of conference, except for
08:37the one time they played Texas, Carl, back in the day, maybe that's the way Georgia
08:41has to go.
08:41But I just think it stinks for boosters because who wants to watch that?
08:44Yeah, Ohio State goes to Texas this year because that's where they started last year,
08:47and it is a good early matchup.
08:49I think, though, this has kind of always been the formula to protect yourself early
08:52because you knew your conference games were going to be tough.
08:55You can go back 25 years and go look at these schedules.
08:57But the end of your schedule, the history part of it goes out the window.
09:00No, it does.
09:00It's Dukes and Bale, guys.
09:02Listen, hey, and while we're on the topic, that may be the formula that, as I recall,
09:07Georgia played Clemson, a top five Clemson in Charlotte, to start the 2021 season.
09:12And I believe that was the top ten Oregon that they played in 2022.
09:15So not everybody's dodging people here.
09:17Yeah, and that's true.
09:18All right, but real quick, time out.
09:19I've got to ask them about this injury because it's a big deal.
09:22Torn ACL that happened yesterday.
09:24It's a big deal.
09:25So we've got to get to it because we've been talking about it.
09:27How do they replace Williams, the transfer from Auburn, one of the top defensive lineman
09:33transfers in the portal, a non-contact situation?
09:36What's your take on this, Mike?
09:38Yeah, you don't.
09:39You don't.
09:39You know, I don't know how much you guys are worth at least a million bucks a year.
09:43You're just out.
09:44You're done.
09:45He's out.
09:45You hope that Gabe Hall comes back 100%.
09:48You've got some young talent you've been developing.
09:51But, yeah, that stinks when you're one of your two or three priority free agents.
09:55I guess Isaiah Canyon, he's got the high ankle sprain, the receiver from Georgia Tech.
10:00We don't really know too much about him.
10:01He didn't really go too much sprain.
10:03Now, Khalil Barnes from Clemson has really panned out, the North of Coney kid.
10:06So, you know, you know that safety's coming on.
10:09He's going to play next to KJ.
10:10He's probably got the best secondary in the country.
10:12You need Canyon to come on from, you know, Georgia Tech because he's not going to be
10:16as good as Eckerdad Branch.
10:17But, you know, you've got to hope he brings something because that was your priority wide
10:20receiver.
10:21But, yeah, you lost that rush.
10:23And there is no replay.
10:24You can't go to the – there's no free agent market here.
10:26You can't make a trade.
10:27I mean, that's at least another year or two off for us to figure out how to do that.
10:31That's just the next evolution of it.
10:33Talk about a Maris Williams car, right?
10:34Correct.
10:34With the injury.
10:35All right, man.
10:36We are going round and round.
10:38Last question on this.
10:39Because we don't have any guardrails other than the B, I guess, the College Football Playoff
10:43Committee, if the strength of schedule never gets valued like it used to be.
10:47I mean, was it ever truly valued the way the SEC played their schedule?
10:50I don't know.
10:51So, to wrap it up, in toto, you're saying that Georgia Tech should be off Georgia's schedule
10:57because it doesn't reward you and you basically should just be all patty cake when you're not
11:00in your SEC schedule, your nine-game schedule.
11:04Well, for years, they were patty cake and that's when you should have ditched him.
11:07But now Georgia Tech is legit, okay?
11:09I'm just saying, you can't get rid of him now.
11:11Brent Keyes built a program.
11:12They were smart enough to hire him.
11:14It took him long enough.
11:15But that was a fantastic hire.
11:17He's legit.
11:18He's a fantastic coach.
11:20Georgia Tech's lucky to have him.
11:21It's his destination.
11:22He could easily get another job paying more.
11:24They're very fortunate to have this guy.
11:26And now you can't get rid of them because Georgia Tech is legit.
11:30But you had an opportunity and you didn't.
11:33When you had your chance, you should have ditched him and you should have played a rotation of
11:36the in-state schools in your stadium.
11:39Not somebody else's stadium.
11:41Not build up your competition.
11:42That's just dumb.
11:43That's just dumb to build up your competition.
11:45But, oh, tradition, whatever.
11:47Okay.
11:48Good for your tradition.
11:49Put that in your pipe and smoke it and be happy with that.
11:52And don't be complaining about, well, Georgia hasn't won a title in three years.
11:55Well, my goodness, I mean, three teams out of 130 and Georgia's not one of them.
11:59But as far as I can recall, I do believe Georgia's the only program that's had a bye each of
12:05the last two years.
12:06Did Ohio State, maybe Ohio State.
12:09I'm trying to remember.
12:10Georgia and Ohio State, I think they've both been ranked in the top 10, like some 10 years
12:13in a row.
12:14I mean, so when people are complaining, which just seems crazy that they complain about
12:19Georgia and me, when you look at the success, it's unprecedented.
12:22And you need to remember that you've made some decisions over the years for the sake
12:26of tradition that has probably postponed or made it harder for your head coach to win.
12:32And this is, I guess it's just part of it.
12:35I mean, unless the state government makes you play that game, I wouldn't have kept going
12:41home and home.
12:42I just wouldn't have done it.
12:43But now, hey, good for Georgia Tech.
12:45You know, they were smart enough to keep the game, talk Georgia people into it, make them
12:49feel good, free hamburgers on game day.
12:50I don't know, but they don't play at their field anymore.
12:53You know, so on one breath, you're telling me about tradition.
12:56The next breath, Tech's not even playing Georgia at home anymore.
12:58They took that $10 million check from the Benz and said, thank you very much.
13:02It's a great point.
13:03Mike Griffith, it's always a pleasure to talk with you, man.
13:05Great stuff today.
13:06Make sure you check him out.
13:07Dog Nation and, of course, AJC.com.
13:10We're getting ready for the spring game.
13:11And is there one last question?
13:13Is there something specific you're looking for on Saturday or watching for in the spring
13:17game?
13:18Yeah.
13:19You know, I want to see the attendance, right?
13:20We've got a story up right now on AJC.com.
13:23It's about, quote, unquote, donor fatigue.
13:25And, you know, you call it fatigue, but somehow they've raised $300 million in the last four
13:29years.
13:29A lot of programs want that kind of fatigue.
13:31Let me tell you.
13:32UGA boosters continue to step up, even though we're in an era where, you know, you throw money
13:36into the wind and watch Carson Beck drive away with it in his Lamborghini, right?
13:39I feel good about that, feel good about giving your grandkids education away so Carson can
13:44have a Lamborghini.
13:45So it's trying time for the donors.
13:48You can read that story.
13:49There's some donors talking about the challenges.
13:51You can see what Josh Brooks said about corporate sponsors.
13:54I mean, my goodness, thank God for Delta, Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.
13:57We're so fortunate, right?
13:59Got to tap into that.
14:00So many great corporations in Atlanta, Chick-fil-A, Coca-Cola.
14:03Gosh, I sound like I'm propping these guys up.
14:05Yeah, you do.
14:06Yeah, you do.
14:06That's scary.
14:06Check out that story on AJC.com.
14:09Don't subscribe.
14:10Tony, that's what you want to do if you want to feel better about yourself.
14:12All right.
14:12Good stuff, Mike.
14:13Thanks again, man.
14:14We'll talk to you next week.
14:15Appreciate you, brother.
14:16All right, guys.
14:16Have a good one.
14:17All right.
14:17We've got to take a break.
14:18We're going to come back and talk about this.
14:19He brings up a lot of valid points.
14:21And by the way, those games in Indiana that he's talking about, all at Indiana.
14:25Indiana's not going to North Texas.
14:27They're not going to Howard, and they're not going to Western Kentucky.
14:29Come to us.
14:30Three home games.
14:31We fluff up our schedule before we get into the Big Ten.
14:34That is what he's talking about.
14:35All right, we'll get into it coming up on Sports Radio 92.
14:38Now the game.
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