1) The average NFL team goes 3-and-out on about 20% of their drives. (Even the best offenses still go 3-and-out about 10% of their attempts.)

2) The chance of recovering an onside kick in the NFL these days is under 8%.

Therefore, there isn't any reason to ever onside kick unless the time remaining in the game is something less than two minutes.

[My actual formula is that the onside threshold should be 39s x (3 - timeouts remaining). But that's a little nerdy.]

The point here being that there is less and less reason to attempt an onside kick, which I think is a shame. If there's no real chance for a team down 9 or more points to score, recover the ball, and score again inside of the final two minutes of a football game (barring an unlikely fumble or head coach looking for a reason to get fired), that disincentivizes the audience to continue watching.

Let's get this fixed, NFL. If injuries on kickoffs are such a problem, let's just get rid of them altogether. Teams could either surrender the ball to the opposing team at the 25 or attempt the equivalent of a 4th and 20 from their own 25 to retain possession. (NFL teams make plays of 20+ yards about, you guessed it, 8% of the time.)

I assure you that solution isn't any stupider than modern overtime rules.

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Mom is participating in her annual college football bowl game pool, where she tries to correctly predict winners against the spread in every bowl game. I never participate myself, but I do always root for her picks.

The first game of the pool was last Saturday's IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl (formerly the Camellia Bowl) and Mom picked South Alabama to cover 9.5 points. They very nearly did, if only Western Michigan (which has one of the country's worst bowl game winning percentages) hadn't kicked a late field goal to cut the difference to 7 points at game's end. Those dicks!

The question I was asking myself late in the game was whether gambling on the outcome actually made the game more fun. Yes, I cheered when S. Alabama kicked an extra point to go up by 10, but I found myself rooting against W. Michigan's kicker late.

This is exactly why I don't play fantasy football: cheering for or against individual players to compile stats is not nearly as satisfying as pulling for a team to win a game. I'm sure I would have been at least equally entertained by W. Michigan's attempt at a late comeback if I wasn't counting points and waving my fists in the air at the football gods.

Mom never does great with her picks, in large part because she never picks against a team she wants to see win. I think that's wise. And I still agree with picking against Western Michigan in a bowl game, especially since they are now 2-10 all time. Those dicks!

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I've been to a lot of Georgia games, but I've really never been to any game like this before.

The forecast for the rare Black Friday night game was for severe cold, so I lost my seat mate. Mom made the right decision. I've never been so cold in Athens, and for more than three quarters of football, the Bulldogs didn't do anything to help. (I didn't feel so cold in the fourth quarter, but that was because I really needed to pee and couldn't worry about both discomforts at once. When I finally went, I felt colder than ever.) It may have be the worst, the most inept football I've ever seen the Bulldogs play in person.

GA Tech led 17-0 at halftime, and I kept telling myself that if they stretched that lead any, I was going to go home. But they couldn't. Georgia finally started scoring, but when Tech scored with less than 6 minutes to restore a 2 touchdown lead, half the stadium gave up. I don't blame them. At the time, it seemed the sane decision. Sadly, that only made the rest of us colder because we lost our windbreak.

And then somehow, very late in the game, UGA came back to tie. So after a bad game, they played one overtime. Then another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. Eight in all. It was the most bonkers thing I've ever seen in Sanford Stadium.

Think I'm exaggerating? This is the ESPN Win Probability graph of the game.

The football was so crazy, I don't know that I have space in my brain for all the other notable things. Poor Uga (whose name is, ironically, Boom) tried to run away from the pre-game fireworks. The 50th anniversary of the Alumni Band played at halftime. Georgia's decision to go for 2 when down by 11. The crowd deciding that GT was faking injuries to slow the game down and booing those players when they were helped off the field. The failure to explain overtime rules to the crowd and their resulting confusion when Georgia didn't attempt a kick for the win in the second OT. The scoreboard gave up on counting overtimes after 5. And have I mentioned the cold?

When I thought I was going to be leaving early, I decided I would post a picture of the stadium at the moment I finally decided to leave. Ultimately, at three minutes after midnight, this is that moment:

Truth be told, I didn't even leave then. I watched the Tech players crawl off the field and waited for the presentation of the Governor's Cup (by the Governor). Then, when the Georgia student section finally left, so did I.

I'm home now (4:32 AM), and I'm still cold.

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I did not attend today's UGA / UMass game, but I am happy to say that my tickets did not go unused.

I gave them to friend James who took his son. I am assured they had a good time, and that's really what's important about football. And everything else, really.

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A year and a week have passed since I last visited Athens, GA, but today* I attended my first football game of the year to see the #12 Georgia Bulldogs play the #7 Tennessee Volunteers.

Things have changed a little in the past year. For one thing, the Bulldogs aren't quite as dominant now as then, struggling to get started in what eventually became a convincing win. For another, the local high school where we have parked for years has become a new unofficial tailgating lot, meaning we had to find a new place to park the car. Third, the stadium now sells beer, though the raucous atmosphere didn't seem too out of place for a Tennessee game. Very late starts always portend a carnival atmosphere in the stands.

Fourth and perhaps worst, the stadium now has fireworks. Those aren't rain clouds in the photo above. There were launchers all around the stadium; fireworks went up after every Bulldogs' score, and ash fell down on the fans. Ick.

Mom was my companion, and she was a real trooper. She doesn't really like cold night games (she prefers to be curled up with a heating pad and a good book by 9 PM), but in recognition that this could be one of the last chances to watch a game in Sanford Stadium with me, she soldiered on without complaint. Thanks, Mom!

* By "today" I really mean yesterday. Technically, I'm typing this at 3:28 AM on November 17, but that's only because I didn't get back to Newnan until 2:40. It was a 7:45 PM kickoff, the game ran the full four quarters, and we didn't even get from the stadium back to the parking lot until 12:08 AM. As I said, Mom was a real trooper.

Additional note: For about a half hour prior to the game, Kirk Herbstreit was on the field with his newest travel companion, Peter, who is apparently the brother of Kirk's late golden retriever, Ben. Herbstreit certainly looked to be a great dog daddy as he let anyone who wanted get a picture with Peter, who eagerly accepted all the head scratches he could get. Go dogs!

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Again, I had tickets to today's Georgia's home football game, and again I did not go. The weather was nice, and I have no complaints about a 4:30 kickoff time, but I just could not get excited about driving five hours through Metro Atlanta traffic to watch UGA play five-touchdown underdog Mississippi State.

UGA hasn't lost a home football game since 2019. While I don't wish for them to lose, I also don't ever really care to watch uncompetitive football games. Where does that leave me? Answer: I worked through the first half and napped through the rest. If I gotta be bored, better to be bored on my own couch.

I know that every year I waffle about whether I'm going to renew my season tickets, but the writing really might be legible on the wall now. There are three home games left on the season, and I might go to two of them, mostly because I enjoy watching Tennessee and Ga Tech lose. That's not a great return on the $1,518 I paid for 2024 season tickets. I'm starting to think I'll be better served to start putting saving that money into, well, just about anything else.

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UGA is playing at home today against Auburn... for Homecoming.

Auburn.

For Homecoming.

That really should excite me... but it doesn't. I just can't make myself care enough to spend a whole day driving to Athens and back for a sunburn.

Last year, I was in a funk in October and still had fun at the Kentucky game. So maybe I should go. Maybe I would have fun. But I just cannot imagine that this game ends up entertaining.

It's not you Bulldogs; it's me. Okay, after the last few weeks, maybe it is a little bit you. But don't take it personally. It is mostly me.

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In 2023, only 22% of all NFL kickoffs were returned. That's boring TV, so for 2024, the NFL revamped the rules, creating a complicated mess they are marketing as the Dynamic Kickoff™ rule. So far, it's working. After 3 weeks, nearly 33% of all NFL kickoffs have been returned. Take that, going to the kitchen for snacks!

What is supposed to make the Dynamic Kickoff™ dynamic is that teams are forced to return the kicks. Assuming the ball lands in the newly designated Landing Zone™ (between the 20 yard line and the goal line), the new rules say you have to try and advance it. (Well, you have to unless the ball rolls into the end zone where you still cannot fair catch it but can surrender yourself to move your starting position out to the leading edge of the Landing Zone™. Oh, the technicality!)

However, if you are the kicking team, why would you ever willingly give your opponent the opportunity to return the kick? If a ball lands in the end zone or deeper, the receiving team gets the ball at the 30 yard line. This season NFL teams are averaging 26.8 yards per return (which is a smidgeon better than the 23 yards teams averaged in all of 2023 and a smidgeon worse than the 28.7 they averaged in 2022). Therefore, putting the ball on the 30 yard line is only a marginally worse outcome than the expected average return and has the added bonus of never surrendering a kickoff return touchdown.

As a matter of fact, even when touchbacks only brought the ball out to the 20, kicking it out of the back of the end zone was always the better strategy. A 0% chance of giving up a touchdown is always the best play, and the Dynamic Kickoff™ hasn't changed that calculation. I suspect that the 11% increase in returns is some combination of teams testing the new rules and kickers who are not capable of reliably hitting the end zone from 65 yards away. The first group is made of coaches who trust their guts over math; the second is a bunch of players who should be replaced with stronger legs. I expect both will get whittled down as the year goes on.

If it's not clear yet, I think the Dynamic Kickoff™ is a lousy rule. It does little to encourage teams to attempt returns and does nothing to repair the long-broken onside kick that has decimated the drama of late game come-from-behind attempts. It's a "solution" instituted by traditionalists who recognize a problem (danger of injuring players + boring mandatory change-of-possession plays) but are unwilling to take real steps to fix it. What it has given us is 11% more returns to the 26 yard line. Anyone need anything from the kitchen while I'm up?

UPDATE 10/1: Though 4 weeks, 18 of 32 NFL teams have a better kickoff touchback percentage than they had in 2023. Boy, that new Dynamic Kickoff rule is really doing it's job!

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"LIMITED EDITION! UGA BOBBLEHEAD SERIES," yells the headline in my inbox. The picture of 3 bulldog bobbleheads is accompanied by the number $300, which seems a bit expensive for three bobbleheads. The good news is that the fine print assures me that if I buy a whole bundle of 11, I can save $30!

That email, from "Georgia Athletics" (which spends most of its time begging for more money) links to the website for the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame*, and, as it turns out, they aren't offering me a bundle of 11 of the same bobblehead, but 11 different bobbleheads, one for each of the 11 Uga bulldog mascots of the Georgia football team over the past 70 years. Oops. I probably should have realized that. Maybe my reading comprehension skills could use some polishing.

That breaks down to buying 10 bobbleheads for $30 each and getting one free. That's not the worst deal, but does anyone really need 11 bobbleheads of white bulldogs wearing read sweaters? Only a couple of the Ugas are differentiable at a glance: Uga IX, "Russ," has a brown ear and rump, and Ugas I and II had narrower faces. And how much demand is there for a bobblehead of Uga VIII, who I'm sure was a great dog but didn't survive a whole football season before dying of cancer?

I'm inclined to ask "who really needs bobblehead dolls, anyway?" But I'll restrain myself. I've never kvetched about PEZ dispensers (because I like them), so I'm in no position to rain on the parade of any UGA fan who wants an entire kennel of nodding Ugas. It's your $300, spend it however you want to.

Besides, not bitching about bobbleheads frees up my time for complaining about my neighbors who have already set out their Halloween decorations six weeks early. Apparently, Halloween is no longer a holiday; it's a whole season! Arrrrgh!

*Hall of Fame and Museum, specifically "a one-of-a-kind museum with the world’s largest collection of bobbleheads from all genres and periods" with a mission statement that "seeks to provide access to the world’s largest collection of Bobbleheads, to advance an understanding of the historical role Bobbleheads play in American culture, and to celebrate the fun and quirky side of collecting." And also, it seems, to sell, sell, sell. Want bobblehead dolls of the Golden Girls, a jackalope, or Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue? They've got 'em!

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