Monday, April 19, 2010

Bad year for long named QBs in Georgia

Florida basketball picked up a nice transfer over the weekend in Mike Rosario from Rutgers. He's not a short term answer because he has to sit out the year, but he'll give them really quality backcourt options in 2012 and 13 while being a challenging presence to contend with in practice next season. The bigger questions are ahead. The Gators clearly need at least one guard who can play this season as well as potentially another forward. Without a definitive answer on whether Alex Tyus is coming back or not, it's hard to know just how many more they may sign. He has no shot at the NBA, but may be looking to play in Europe. If so, goodbye and good luck. Florida will do better with someone who actually wants to be there playing as opposed to enduring another year of Tyus's regular disappearing acts.

Georgia's quarterback situation wasn't going to get resolved before the fall, but then Zach Mettenberger took care of it for them. He was kicked off the team yesterday afternoon for thus far unspecified reasons, meaning the Bulldogs have two scholarship QB options going forward. The one they're expected to go with is Aaron Murray, a redshirt freshman who's under six feet, suffered from some arm soreness issues last year, and didn't have an especially good spring game. When the other option is Logan Gray, a guy Mark Richt wanted to move to receiver who doesn't have accuracy on his passes or skill at reading defenses, Murray looks pretty good. UGA's D better make giant steps quickly, because teams will take away the run and dare their pass game to make plays and right now there's plenty of reason to believe they won't be able to do that.

Jason Cole of Yahoo Sports reports that Ben Roethlisberger is going to be suspended either today or tomorrow, with the QB not expected to fight the punishment. That tells me it's going to be four games or less, because I suspect any more lost income and playing time than that would prompt a battle from his legal team. If you've read the reports on what happened on The Smoking Gun, it's impossible to not come away feeling that at minimum he deserves a month suspension for being a churlish drunken imbecile. That this episode happened with multiple law enforcement officers serving as Roethlisberger's protectors as it was going on is perhaps the creepiest part of the whole thing. Roger Goodell's hammer has to fall hard here.

With the draft three days away, people are making their final evaluations of last season's college stars. While plenty of scouts clearly aren't buying in on Tim Tebow, some teams are sold on him as a first rounder at this point. That's better than another of last year's elite guys, Alabama's Terrence Cody. Some scouts are on record describing him as a "big fat blob" who's a "media creation". Also getting harsh treatment in that piece is Carlos Dunlap, who was voted most likely of any DL in the draft to be a bust. ESPN's draft gurus repeatedly said Dunlap was a high pick despite his lack of consistent productivity. Think they'll apologize to his family if he's not selected until round 3?

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