All That and a Bag of Mail

It’s Friday, time for the mailbag. 

Our beaver pelt trader of the week is Mark Richt. God bless him for this line when he entered the Georgia locker room with his players for the last time. 

Wow, Richt really is the anti-Saban. 

I really think firing Richt is Georgia’s biggest “Georgia-ing” moment to date. Yes, I cried reading. Judge me. pic.twitter.com/IT7j3vIPFv

— Mattie-Lou Chandler (@MattieLouOKTC) December 4, 2015

On to the mailbag. 

Lots of you on Twitter and Facebook and email have asked a similar question:

“How would you rank the coaching hires so far?”

1. Mark Richt to Miami

I absolutely love this hire. If Mark Richt stays six or more years at Miami, I think he’ll win an ACC title and it wouldn’t surprise me if he makes the playoff. 

In fact, I can make you an argument that Richt from Georgia to Miami will be a bit like Urban Meyer from Florida to Ohio State. Primarily because Richt is going from a situation where he had very good talent, but not a substantial talent gap over everyone else he played in conference, to a situation where Richt plays nine or ten games a year where the other team has nowhere near the talent he has. 

Why can’t Richt win the ACC Coastal next year? He’s dominated Georgia Tech for years, going 13-2 against the Yellow Jackets during his time in Athens, and all he’ll have to do is beat North Carolina, who will likely cycle back down after this year, Pitt, Georgia Tech, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Duke. 

Couldn’t you make Miami the favorite in this division for next year? I think so. 

Plus, with Brad Kaaya — and potentially additional recruits he’ll add including Jacob Eason — Richt’s team is actually pretty talented for next year already.

I absolutely love this hire.  

2. Justin Fuente to Virginia Tech

If Fuente can find a quarterback anywhere as good as Paxton Lynch he and Mark Richt will be dueling for the ACC Coastal for the next five years.  

3. Scott Frost to Central Florida

Love the hire. The only downside is if Frost can teach Oregon’s offense well enough to get things rolling at UCF, he’ll be replacing Mike Riley in two years at Nebraska. 

4. Matt Campbell to Iowa State

In assessing coaching hires you have to consider where a program ranks. I’m not even sure that Iowa State is a better job than Toledo. So the fact that Matt Campbell left for Iowa State is a total coup. 

5. Barry Odom to Missouri

The team is clearly thrilled with the hire, but it’s always hard to assess when a team promotes from within. 

6. Mike Norvell to Memphis

Can Memphis get lucky with two straight hires of young offensive coordinators? We’ll see. 

7. Bill Cubit to Illinois

I know nothing about Bill Cubit. That still makes him a better hire than Clay Helton and Kirby Smart. 

8. Clay Helton to USC

I ranked USC as the fourth best job in the country and they have now hired the following four coaches in their past four searches: their sixth choice Pete Carroll, their fifth choice Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian, and Clay Helton. 

Do any of those hires demonstrate that coaches are climbing all over each other to take this job? Now you can argue that the past three searches have been conducted by Pat Haden and so are necessarily representative of the job’s status, but doesn’t it seem like the best job outside of Texas west of the Mississippi River should have better candidates?

9. Kirby Smart to Georgia

Trading a coach with 145 wins and a 74 percent career winning percentage for Nick Saban’s typist seems like a real gamble.

Even if Kirby Smart’s a “good hire,” it’s unlikely he matches Richt’s success. Plus, he could totally bomb. 

Good luck, Dawg fans. 

Todd writes:

“My friends and I disagree on the following and I’d like to know your take:

Who would win a game between a mediocre college football team (Kentucky, for example) and a mediocre NFL team (the Chiefs, for example) if the NFL team had to play all of their defensive players on offense and all of their offensive players on defense? The NFL team would also have to use their deep snapper on all kicks and punts, with the punter deep snapping on punts and the kicker deep snapping on kicks. The deep snapper would also do the kickoffs.

I think the college team would win, just because (1) the NFL team would have a cornerback playing at the quarterback position, and (2) the college team would have 100 guys to choose from where the NFL team in limited to 52. I think it’d be close though. Several of my friends think the NFL team would win, based on the facts that (1) the NFL would have superior athletes and (2) many NFL players played on the opposite side of the ball in high school. Your thoughts?”

Okay, so you’re saying the defensive linemen would all become offensive linemen, the cornerbacks and safeties would become wide receivers and the quarterback and the linebackers would become tight ends and maybe running backs. Flipping the script, the wide receivers become defensive backs, the offensive linemen become defensive linemen, your running back is probably a linebacker and the QB has to play somewhere in the secondary, probably. 

First, the NFL team would never attempt a field goal. So that’s out the window. You also might never punt either. (By the way, how about once every team is eliminated from the NFL playoffs, they have to replace their punter with an offensive lineman? This would encourage them to go for it on every possession, but it would also lead to the greatest gifs ever. If you wouldn’t love to see a lineman fielding a punt and punting, just x out the mailbag right now and leave Outkick forever). 

The real key here would be how good could the NFL quarterback be? And I think there would be a great deal of variety. Some NFL teams would have great guys at QB, others wouldn’t. The other problem is that the cornerbacks would have awful hands. By and large that’s why they play corner instead of wide receiver. So I think the offense would suffer much more than the defense.  

I don’t think your line play would suffer that much either way. 

But I think the average college team would probably win more often than not because they’d have more expertise at running their plays than the NFL team would. The offensive failure of the NFL team would be the difference maker. I just don’t think they could score or sustain drives.  

Clay Travis writes:

“Hello Clay, I’m Clay Travis.

First of all, I would like to say that I have been infrequently receiving misplaced hate mail in your name for the past 4 years. It hit an all-time high when time came for the anniversary of your tweet about DeMarcus Cousins. My instagram (which for some reason gets the most tags in posts about you compared to my other social media accounts) was busy for more than a day. Due to tags in hate posts about you (and one positive post praising your Mizzou article), I frequently read what you write, at first to understand why I received such odd hate mail, and then later because I found it hilarious.” 

I’m so sorry.

I wasn’t even willing to name my own son after me. You poor bastard.  

Paul writes:

“Good morning Clay, as the expert on all things involved in child rearing. I had a question about Star Wars and young boys. We have 2 boys aged 3.5 yrs and 16 months. My oldest (3.5 yr) has recently become “obsessed” with Star Wars. I use “obsessed” because the only thing he has seen on Star Wars is the commercials on Disney Jr. for Star Wars Rebels and my wife and I have shown in some YouTube videos with the Theme Song and the Vader March but nothing on the actual movie.

My question, I guess, is when do you start introducing your kids to the more adult, i.e. violent movies that are so incredible awesome. Both my wife and I are excited that he pretends to have light saber battles and marches around the house humming the theme music but is a 3.5 yr old ready to experience Star Wars. Our generation did and we turned out GREAT. I mean Rambo in Kindergarten and Friday the 13th in 1st grade….that was okay for us.”

I’m sure this is a decision lots of Outkick readers are facing now because so many of you would like to take your sons and daughters to the new Star Wars movie in the theater. My two oldest boys are seven and five now so this movie is coming out at the perfect time for us.

We started them on Star Wars at ages five and three. That might have been a bit young for my three year old, but good luck keeping a younger brother from doing something his older brother does. Especially if light sabers are involved.  

They loved Star Wars episode 1 and we watched them all in order 1-6. So for all of you Star Wars snobs out there, you need to think about Star Wars from your kids perspectives as opposed to your own. Kids love young Anakin. And even though episode one is pretty crappy for adults, my kids loved it the most of all of the episodes. Now the part where Anakin turns evil is tough, but it also, interestingly, makes Darth Vader a bit less scary to them in episode 4. Unlike you and me when we were growing up kids know that Darth Vader isn’t all bad. They also know that he’s Luke’s father, but they kind of forget that too because they’re kids and because that scene where the twins are born and named matters more to you if you’ve already scene the later episodes. 

Watching episode six with your sons will make it awfully dusty in your house when Darth Vader picks up the emperor and throws him over the railing. And the final scene where Luke is carrying his dad to the space ship? Come on, if you’re a dad and you’re watching that scene with your sons, good luck holding it together. My point is, you watch these movies a lot differet when you’re a dad than when you were a kid growing up.  

I’d think you could start most kids around four years old, but every kid is different. 

As for my family — we’re going to be in theaters for Episode VII on the night of December 17th and we can’t wait. 

Tyler writes:

“Dear Gay Liberal Muslim Lawyer,

The recent string of shootings, by both religious zealots and simple minded psychopaths, seems to be attributed to the gun more than the person. I feel this is because it’s an object we can vilify because we know what it is. We don’t truly understand WHY these people take these actions so we don’t understand how to stop them. What makes a crazy person turn into MURDEROUS PSYCHO or a law abiding Muslim into jihadist hell bent on destroying everyone that believes differently than he does? Do you know?

Given your constitutional law knowledge and the fact you’re from the south, how do we quell these rampages without locking up every Muslim, zealot, rebel flag waver and bi polar postal worker that could possibly turn terrorist? Or without ripping up the 2nd Amendment? I know you’ve been a democrat in the past and now radical moderate fence rider (like myself.) And everyone doesn’t need a gun but it’s their right, so how can our incompetent government fix this shit without trampling the individual liberties worse than we already have.

P. S. I bought my first Glock from my Grandma.”

I don’t think anybody can argue with this statement: if there were fewer guns in the hands of crazy people there would be less murders. 

I also don’t think anyone can argue with this statement: law abiding gun owners and NRA members aren’t committing the vast majority of crimes.

So how do you reconcile gun rights with gun safety?

I think there has to be a radical moderate solution here that protects gun rights while also leading to gun safety, but everything about this issue has been hijacked by the two political parties. What we need is nonpartisan common sense. 

 

And let me use something that is less fraught with imagery and politics than guns — cars. 

We have made cars infinitely safer over the past hundred years without in any way restricting your ability to go buy a car. Look at this graph of how much safer driving a car is now than it was in the 1920’s. That’s because we put really smart people to work designing a better way for us to drive. At some point in the future I think all cars will be self driving. I fully expect for my grandchildren to find it insane that someone could die driving to work in the morning or heading to the grocery store. By 2050 I think we could have almost eliminated all car deaths.

So why can’t we put the same energy into making guns safer that we did to making cars safer? 

That seems like an entirely logical and non-partisan solution to me. 

John writes:

“Now that the campus protests (or at least of coverage of them) has died down, has there been one tangible positive result of them? Some people have lost their jobs, but has anything changed?

And also, is there not a danger in constantly telling someone (who is clearly not, or certainly isn’t intentionally) racist (or bigot, homophobic, ect.) where they essentially become that? At what point does a movement (such as the BLM, and there are plenty of others, both liberal and conservative), do more harm than good by pissing off those that might be sympathetic to their cause?

And if we are going to champion the cause of any “marginalized” group, haven’t Native Americans been screwed over the most? Those that weren’t killed ended up with the crappy land we could find and the only concession they get is that they can have casinos?”

This is a great point. There has been zero actual benefit. 

Moreover, I think that the protests are actually hurting our country and undermining moderate support for minority protesters for this exact reason — it’s like the boy who cried wolf. If you scream racism all the time and when we all look there’s nothing there, eventually people stop caring. Hell, I think we’re almost there.

The protesters on college campuses are some of the most privileged people in the history of America. I’m sorry if some people occasionally say mean things to you, suck it up and move on. You’re doing more harm to race relations than you are good. The same is true of these protests in general. 

I mean, look at Baltimore. The citizens went to war with the police, charging several with murder in the Freddie Gray incident. As a result the police pulled out of aggressive policing and hundreds more minorities have died than would have died if no protests had ever happened. Yet no one is pointing this out because it doesn’t fit the narrative.

Cops shoot and kill more white people than they do black people every year and every year you’re more likely to be struck by lightning and die or be killed by a dog than you are to be unjustifiably be killed by police. Yes, some cops are bad at their jobs, just like some people are bad at every job. Some cops commit murder every year. Just like some doctors and lawyers do. But cops save far more black lives than they ever take. It’s not even close. If black lives matter, then cops are more necessary than ever before in their communities. The rony of black lives matter protests leading to more black deaths is mind boggling. 

But that truth isn’t as salacious and so hardly anyone will point it out.   

Go back and read my break down of police shootings that I linked above. 

This paragraph is eye opening:

“So based on our numbers an unarmed, innocent person of any race is more likely to be killed by dogs or lightning strikes in America than they are by the police.”

HOW IS THIS NOT A BIGGER STORY! Everyone in the country should know this fact. 

Context is everything and the media has done an incredibly awful job of telling the truth when it comes to police shootings. Partly because most media is afraid of being called racist by actually pointing out facts. But when you’re a gay Muslim racist like me, you don’t care what people say about you. Especially when we’ve reached a point in our society when people say facts are racist.

I wish no one ever died of anything — I HATE MURDER AND CANCER AND RACISM MORE THAN YOU — but if the media covered every person who gets killed by a dog like they cover every minority who gets shot by police, dog ownership rates would plummet and we’d all be sitting around debating whether dogs were anti-human.  

Paul writes:

“With it now being December, i think you would do a service to your male followers with significant others to inform them that now is the time to make a New Year’s Eve plans to ensure they will be able to watch the late NYE football game (with audio if they’re greedy). I think the best plan is to try to host a party so then you can control the tv (and audio). Now for me, my fiancé will be on call so she will either be in a hospital or on our couch. I know she will probably push me to be the 9th wheel at a couples party but “unfortunately” I already made plans with some old college buddies an hours drive away where we will watch football and get drunk in a man cave then make a short walk to a dive bar where we will get more drunk.

So, anyways, my question to you is, how would you get out of couples parties this nye or any other time when there is a big game on?”

So many of you all over the country are going to end up in fights over the playoff games taking place at the exact same time the ball drops. 

The college football playoff committee refusing to play these games on New Year’s Day as opposed to New Year’s Eve is an unmitigated disaster. 

Do you know why they can’t play them on New Year’s? Because the goddamn Rose Bowl refuses to move its game. 

So fuck the Rose Bowl. 

And good luck making your plans. 

Anonymous writes:

“I went to a Pac-12 college, specifically in a warmer climate and had a blast there. My question is about a girl I met in college and why she won’t visit me post-graduation. This girl and I had casual sex on and off for about two years before we both graduated and moved to different states. I’m living in Texas, she’s living on the east coast now. This girl and I weren’t exactly close, or intimate, or even kept in touch that often, but it’s not like we didn’t get along or didn’t enjoy each other’s company. Plus the sex was really good.

Fast forward to 6+ months after graduating (we did not keep in touch) and I randomly decide to send her an explicit picture of myself. I was new to my city and was feeling somewhat lonely. She appreciated the picture, and we played out our fantasies with each other via texting over the next few days. To get to the point, she has since sent me several explicit pictures of herself and always entertained the idea of playing out our fantasies together in person, ie, her visiting me. I of course send pictures back to her and always ask her to visit me. This happens every few months or so.

She’s always said she would book a flight…but she never has. I’ve offered to pay for her flight back home as well. So basically I’m left with these pictures of her saved on my phone, wondering what could have been. My question to you is, why won’t she visit me? Or what should I do to improve the chances of her visiting me? Or should I abandon ship, delete the photos, and move on with my life…the thought terrifies me, but at some point the ship has sailed, right?”

So you just randomly sent her a dick pic after six months of no contact? This is like a total dick pic hail mary. What was the text before you sent her a dick pic? How does this happen? Having never taken or sent a dick pic, I’m fascinated by the dick pic phenomenon that has just swept across the country. I would have never believed there would be a time when just about every guy between the ages of 16 and 30 would be taking pictures of his dick with his own phone and shooting them to people across the country. 

I’m not surprised that guys love naked pictures of girls, but the female body is beautiful, it’s designed to be gazed upon and appreciated, the male body, especially our sex organs, are so utilitarian. I mean, a dick and balls looks pretty ridiculous, right? The only thing more ridiculous than a picture of a dick and balls is a close up picture of dick and balls. 

Anyway, there are two easy hypotheses here:

1. She has a boyfriend.

2. You’re fun to text with, but she doesn’t have an interest in actually making your fantasy relationship real now that she’s left college.  

Both are equally likely. 

Offering to play for a flight is also a bit awkward because that can make some girls feel kind of like you’re paying them for sex. (Of course, to be honest, every male financial decision he makes with a woman involved is “kind of like paying for sex” but we just have to pretend that isn’t the case.) Moving right along it sounds like you want something more from her than just pictures where she may be very happy just getting pictures from you. (Why she wants your dick pics, I have no idea. Congrats on the dick pic hail mary paying off.)

Here’s a simple question for you — why can’t you go to her city instead of trying to bring her to yours? Don’t tell her that you’re specifically making a trip to see her — make up a story about being there for work. Tell her you’d like to hang out and get dinner. If she can’t make time to see you when you’re actually in her city then you have your answer — she’s just not that into you in real life. 

…

Hope you guys have spectacular weekends and thanks for reading Outkick.