We are now inside of 100 days until the joyous return of college football.

{pause for celebratory gunfire}

But 100 days, as anyone who's ever served time in Tijuana for jaywalking can tell you, can pass very, very slowly. Ergo we must still find ways to amuse ourselves. You know, besides sneaking into the Alabama film room and replacing Nick Saban's oatmeal creme pies with mescaline-laced Twinkies. Hey, Steve Jobs said that Microsoft might have done a lot of cool stuff if only Bill Gates had dropped acid. So we figured it was our duty in the name of football science. But since they've now hired more security guards in Tuscaloosa, we present Free Form Friday. It's not just any weekend open comment thread. It's our weekend open comment thread. Maestro, cue the theme music for the basketball staffing news which sent waves of giddiness through the Dawg Sports staff room . . .

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Sure, times are tough. The days are long, the nights are longer, and there's no college football to be found during either. But it could be worse. You could be interim commissioner of the Big East. Which is kind of like being the proprietor of a halfway house, except that Chris Petersen isn't likely to leave behind any good drugs when he rejoins college football society.

In the absence of college football we'll have to find something else to do with our time. Of course we could work, or volunteer in our communities. Or we could discuss the topics found below the fold in Free Form Friday, your weekend open comment thread of dubious organization, entirely unfettered by considerations of "theme" and "message."

Maestro, if you please:

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If you follow college football recruiting, you probably already knew that the consensus top player in the country for the class of 2013 is Grayson's Robert Nkemdiche. Nkemdiche is a 6'5, 260 pound defensive end who moonlights at running back for Coach Mickey Conn's team. Conn is a former Alabama offensive lineman, and it has long been thought that Alabama was the clear leader for his star player's services, though LSU has also made a strong push. Nkemdiche had been set to announce his decision on May 18th, which really didn't make much difference to Georgia Bulldog fans, most of whom long ago assumed that the big guy would be committing somewhere else and that Georgia would only have a chance if something serious happened to shake his faith in his top choice*.

But things may have changed, as we'll discuss after the jump.

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Free Form Friday is committed to educating the youth of the Peach State, and will do so for less than some other virtual university administrators. The crew at Roll Bama Roll, for example, would almost certainly insist on an 8 foot tall bronze statue of themselves after the first big move up in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. So please, write to the Board of Regents. Drop our collective names in the hat. And know that our first move will be to install a course on the geometry of Herschel Walker's greatest runs as an elective in the math department. Because the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but when you have both the speed and mass of a Kentucky Derby winning racehorse, all paths are the path of least resistance.

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First, a word to the gang at Buffalo Rumblings, SB Nation's Buffalo Bills site. Cordy Glenn is a crappy interview. Seriously, when I talked to him last summer at the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame's annual Pigskin Preview I asked him a ton of (what I thought were) interesting questions. Couldn't get an answer out of him if his life depended on it. Polite? Definitely. Articulate? Sure. But about as likely to say something controversial as I am to be named Megan Fox's baby's godfather. What SEC defensive lineman is the hardest to block? "They're all tough, it's the SEC."How is the strength and conditioning program different under Joe Tereshinski? "It's not very different." He did tip us off that Kwame Geathers was going to be "an animal" and that Washaun Ealey might have some motivational issues, but that was about it.

By contrast, I learned in under 5 minutes that inside linebacker Christian Robinson played NCAA 2k12 with Georgia's roster but Mississippi State's play book, that he's a big fan of chicken fingers, no matter which of Athens' 327 chicken finger/buffalo wing eateries they come from, and that people would be very surprised at exactly how good Jarvis Jones and Mike Gilliard were going to be in 2011 (an assertion which proved 100% accurate, by the way).

But despite the fact that he wouldn't give me any great quotes, I can't say anything else bad about Cordy Glenn. He's never been in any trouble. He's been hailed by teammates as a quiet leader. Cordy Glenn is a solid pickup who could become a multiyear fixture on the offensive line. From my perspective, that's about all you can ask from an NFL offensive lineman. Consistency and continuity are the watch words for success up front in the league. Cordy Glenn is 1/5 of a solid NFL unit.

The question is which fifth. I don't see Cordy as a left tackle in the league, though at various points in his Bulldog career he's played or practiced at every position on the offensive line, including as an emergency center. He just doesn't have the wide ass necessary to sit down on bull rushing NFL defensive ends, however. His feet are also not quick enough to be an elite blindside tackle. I believe guard is his natural position, but his ability to play right tackle if necessary makes him a valuable guy. This season I found myself wondering how good Cordy could have been if he'd had another year of tutelage under UGA offensive line coach Will Friend. Alas, we'll never know.

Cordy's far more mobile than a 340 pound man should be. As Dawg Sports' recruiting analyst, I remember seeing his junior high school film in which he escorted tailbacks to the endzone, stride for stride, at about 320 pounds. You knew the guy could be something very special if he committed to getting and staying in shape and honing his technique. Cordy's done both of those. His great hand technique have helped him become one of the best run blockers in recent Bulldog memory, right behind longtime NFL guard Max Jean-Giles. He still has a tendency to bend at the waist rather than sinking his hips, which is a shame given his strong lower body. If he works on that issue, Glenn could become a premier lineman for years to come.

Best of luck Cordy! Until later . . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!

Oh sure, we could talk about the NFL Draft or barbecue or whatever the hell else you rapscallions come up with, but I think we all know what the 800 pound gorilla of the day is. I could spill 2000 words on the screen about college football playoff proposals the way Jon Gruden spills corny truisms about NFL Draft prospects, but I'll try not to. Let's talk about this thing in a a rational, concise manner after the jump shall we?

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Maestro, cue the periodic reminder that if you missed the opportunity to see R.E.M. live, whether in 1985, 1995, or 2005, you missed out on something special indeed. Not to be a geezer about this, but Peter Buck laughs his FAO at LMFAO:

On to the show. . .

Poll

White barbecue sauce. What's up with that?

19%

It's bbq sauce. And it's awesome.

20 votes

21%

It's a bbq abomination, but a tastey one.

23 votes

11%

It's bbq sauce, but not one that I care to consume.

12 votes

47%

A curse upon your Brinkman custom stick burner for even asking, MaconDawg.

50 votes

105 votes | Poll has closed

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While we generally fill this space with the nonsensical ramblings of Free Form Friday, this is the one offseason Friday on which we flip the switch over to game mode. It's the Friday before G-Day in the Classic City. See, G-Day isn't quite a game day, but isn't not a game day. And since this is the blog which prides itself on helping you prepare for game day, we're gonna make like Mr. French and make a flippin' ruling. This is a game weekend, and there's more pregame goodness below the fold. Enjoy.

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College football's offseason. The final frontier. These are the musings of Free Form Friday. It's mission: to boldly make light of a situation that, when you get right down to it, isn't really very funny at all. [Theremin solo!!!!].

But because tragedy is when I cut my finger and comedy is when you fall through a sewer grate and die, we'll kill some time until the start of football season by examining the pigskin scandal du jour: Bobby Petrino reprising the Kelly McGillis motorcycle ride scene from Top Gun with disastrous results. Enjoy.

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As Director of Minimally Creepy Recruiting Coverage at Dawg Sports it's my responsibility to keep you up to date on what the Georgia Bulldog coaches are doing to secure the chicken from which they will one day make championship chicken salad. While the Georgia coaches have been hitting the recruiting trail hard building the class of 2013, that doesn't mean they aren't also looking farther out into the future. Tangible proof of the staff's long term focus came last night with the commitment of St. Pius X defensive back Nick Glass.

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Welcome to Free Form Friday, where we gather to discuss college football, barbecue, the oxford comma, the storming of the Bastille, the Sound and the Fury, and who knows what else while we wait for the return of actual, by God college football, praised be its name. Below the fold you'll find the topics for the days discussion (at least until the comments take us in another direction, which, sure as you're sitting there getting no work done on a Friday afternoon, they will) and the theme music, which this week is not for the sensitive or especially virtuous. You've been warned.

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SB Nation national recruiting editor Bud Elliott took the time to interview me about the status of Georgia football recruiting, "closing the borders", and what's at stake for Georgia in 2012. Other than the fact that I erroneously stated that Georgia could be returning 9 defensive starters in 2013 (I meant losing 9 starters) I hope you'll find it informative and enjoyable. Unless you're from the greater Muscogee County area, in which case I just hope you aren't too upset about me disowning you. If you choose to bar me from Chicken Comer's barbecue I'll be monumentally disappointed, but not surprised. Until later . . . Go 'Dawgs!

In a world where the University of Georgia football team will not take the field for five and a half months in live action, the basketball team is still licking its wounds while the Mercer Bears are still alive in post-season play, and you're stuck at work on a gorgeous spring afternoon, one man stands alone against the boredom. He is . . .Kyle King. But he's already hit his 35,000 word quota for the week*. So you're stuck with MaconDawg, who has put together a blog post about nothing and everything all at the same time. He calls it Free Form Friday. The Birmingham Bammer Tribune calls it "ROOOLLLL TAAAHHHHDDDD!!! FUNERAL!!! YUR DAWG DIED!!!!!" The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Dawg Sports has now gone 6 years without winning a Nobel Prize, Pulitzer, Peabody, or Grammy, and asks how much longer Bulldog fans will be willing to put up with such mediocrity. You'll pay for the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge.

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First, the PG-13 rated theme music for those of you who had Duke and Missouri in the Final Four:

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The week is done. . . and there you are . . .you're running for your life . . .straight to your car . . .And all friggin' week . . .no one knows . . .just how hard you worked . . .but now it shows...ONE SHINING MOMENT!!! IT'S QUITTING TIME!!! ONE SHINING MOMENT!!! DOS CORONAS CON LIME!!!

Geez. That song always chokes me up. Welcome to your NCAA basketball open comment thread version of Free Form Friday. When it's done I hope you'll all know that you've done your best.

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It's Friday. You've got a job. You've got stuff to do. But one thing you won't be doing is watching college football. It's a poor substitute, nevertheless we present Free Form Friday. As any member of the Auburn basketball team could tell you, it's a sure bet.

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The Georgia Bulldogs received a commitment this afternoon from a nationally prominent recruit who seems like an old friend by now, Goose Creek, SC junior wide receiver Tramel Terry.

Terry was actually among the flurry of pledges the Bulldogs received at last summer's Dawg Nights event. However, he later backed off that commitment and expressed continued interest in the home state Gamecocks. I imagine that Gamecock fans will now say that they doubt that Terry's commitment is really over, and I can't say I blame them. I expect that he'll be hearing from friends, family, teachers, drivethru attendants and others who want him to stay in the Palmetto State. While nothing is final in recruiting until the ink is dry, it would be pretty unusual for a player to commit and then decommit from the same school twice. Also when Terry committed last July he hadn't really spent much time in Athens. He's now had a chance to come back and bring his family along, having spent the last two weekends in the Classic City bonding with his future teammates and actively recruiting for the Bulldogs. Expect to hear about Terry being pursued for the next 11 months, but don't put too much stock in it.

Rivals and 247Sports each rank Terry among the top 150 or so prospects in the nation for 2013, and he's emerging as the consensus top player in the state of South Carolina. The versatile 6'0 180 pounder chose the Bulldogs over offers from Clemson, South Carolina, Southern Cal, Notre Dame and Texas A&M, among others.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from Terry's commitment is that he's the eighth pledge so far for the class of 2013. On March 6, 2011 Georgia had one commitment for the class of 2012, from Florida kicker Marshall Morgan. Suffice it to say that the limited scholarship numbers and looming uncertainty regarding Coach Richt and his staff are no longer hampering the recruiting effort. Welcome aboard, Tramel! Again. And . . .

Go 'Dawgs!

It's time for another edition of the TMI series, in which we here at Dawg Sports provide you with entirely too much information about the young men who will one day take the field for the University of Georgia football team. Today's subject of minimally creepy recruiting attention is Northgate (Coweta County) defensive tackle Deandre Johnson (known since the 7th grade as "Moose") who received his "dream offer" from Georgia three weeks ago and committed to Coach Mark Richt yesterday. More on Moose after the jump . . .

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It's awards show time again, which means theme music not approved by the Motion Picture Academy Of America, and a passel of offseason awards you won't find on this weekend's telecast, all after the jump . . .

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It turns out that I am still capable of loathing the Florida Gators as a general proposition, even when they are not decked out in that hideous orange and blue, and even when they are bringing attention to a very worthy cause. Sunday the Lady Gators donned pink uniforms in support of breast cancer awareness, then made Bulldog Coach Andy Landers acutely aware of some of his team's shortcomings in a 61-57 Gator victory in Gainesville.

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Free Form Friday

Welcome to Free Form Friday, your Dawg Sports open comment thread for the offseason weekend. It is not endorsed by Vampire Weekend, is generally less entertaining than Weekend At Bernie's, and a helluva lot less anthemic than Loverboy's "Working For The Weekend." More hijinx below the fold . . .

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Sometimes, there's no football. And it sucks. But if those of us here at Dawg Sports weren't driven shrieking for the hills by watching the last 2 weeks of Georgia Bulldog basketball, the 2010 Georgia Bulldog football season, or most of the Nic Cage film collection*, you can rest assured it's going to take more than a football-less Friday to bring us down. We may get a little punchy and start posting musical selections bordering on the absurdist (or which passed absurdist 3 rest stops back), but we will endure. Because we're stuck on you, loyal readers.

Maestro, if you will, the unexpected musical selection that's significantly less odd than Lawrence Welk's High Times moment or William Shatner channeling Elton John:

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The latest edition of the SEC Hoops Power Poll is up over at Garnet & Black Attack and it bears unfortunate news for Bulldog basketball fans. The Fox Hounds have now fallen to dead last in the league on the um . . .strength? . . . of recent losses to Ole Miss and Auburn amidst a four game slide.

Remember that the voting for this week's edition of the poll closed on Monday night, before whatever that was that happened at the Stege last night. And while it remains to be seen whether that was the beginnng of a turnaround or a mere aberration, the fact remains that the Hoop 'Dawgs are a gosh-awful 2-7 in conference play. I'm frustrated about it. You're frustrated about it. Mark Fox is frustrated about it. But (he said, filling his tired cliche quota for the post) it is what it is right now.

Further up the ladder, there appears to be no question that the Kentucky Wildcats are the class of the conference. They've beaten all comers enroute to a 24-1 overall record, a pristine 10-0 conference ledger and a #1 national ranking. If anyone believes there's a better team in college basketball right now I would love to hear that person's argument. I would then dismiss it as the ramblings of a mad man or the delusions of an Ohio State fan.

Florida's only fault at this point is that they're not Kentucky. Assuming a strong finish to the conference slate, a good performance in the SEC tournament, and a slip by one or two other squads, the Gators are a decent bet for a top seed in the NCAA tournament, and should be no worse than a #3 barring some sort of collapse.

Speaking of the tournament, SB Nation's own Blogging The Bracket currently has 5 SEC teams making it into the field: Kentucky, Florida, Mississippi State, Vandy and Alabama. I can't really quibble with that, as there appears to be a large gulf between those teams and the Ole Misses and Arkansases* of the world. It's just not a very deep conference this year, which can largely be chalked up to the likes of Georgia and Arkansas rebuilding and acclimating to new systems. It's just one of those seasons.

Until later . . .

Go 'Dawgs!

*The next time I pluralize "Arkansas" will be the second time. So cut me some slack here.

Free Form Friday is back this morning like last night's Barberito's. Hit us with the theme music, Mr. DJ:

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After some late drama Signing Day 2012 is essentially in the books, and for the Georgia staff it went about like you would expect. We won some, we lost some, we finished with a class ranked among the top 10 nationally. Pretty standard Mark Richt-era stuff. But what's interesting about this class is that while there are stars galore, it's easy to miss out on the really important things that happened today, which we'll discuss in more detail after the jump.

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A lot has been made this recruiting cycle of Georgia's unusual strategy down the stretch of targeting a lot of guys who were already committed to other schools. While Mark Richt and company have missed on a lot of those guys, they hit a real home run today with the commitment of Tucker High linebacker/tight end Josh Dawson.

Dawson had been committed for months to Vanderbilt and looked set to play defensive end in the Commodores' 4-3. He has a great burst off the line, long arms that allow him to fight off offensive linemen and really good instincts for the ball. He needs to work on his pass rushing technique, as he only seems to have a couple of moves. But Todd Grantham has done a great job helping our linebackers perfect their quarterback attacking skills. Dawson has the motor you look for in a defensive player. He's a smart player who I believe will put in the work required to blossom in the Bulldog 3-4.

While Georgia looks great at outside linebacker for 2012, Jarvis Jones and Cornelius Washington are both likely gone after next season. There's a very real chance that Ray Drew and Sterling Bailey could grow into defensive ends, and we're still waiting on T.J. Stripling, Dexter Morant and Chase Vasser to become every down players. The time is now to rebuild depth at a critical position for our system. The addition of Dawson is another step toward doing that. Plus we snatched him from James Franklin and that makes me happy. Glad to have you, Josh!

Join in the Dawg Sports National Signing Day open comment thread!

Go 'Dawgs!!!

Mark Richt and the Bulldog coaching staff just got some great news as Lowndes High linebacker Josh Harvey-Clemons, the top ranked prospect in the state of Georgia and the top prospect left on Georgia's board, announced he'll be matriculating in Athens.

Harvey-Clemons had offers from literally every major football program in the country and ultimately chose the Bulldogs over Florida and Florida State. Rumors had circulated for a while that Georgia was the leader for the accomplished linebacker/wide receiver and licensed bail bondsman. But you can never quite rule out the Seminoles for a player from Lowndes, and Will Muschamp worked hard to sell Florida's appealing depth chart at outside linebacker (which is a good bit thinner than Todd Grantham's roster in Athens).

As with most of the top players from this class, we'll be doing a TMI showcase on Harvey-Clemons in the coming weeks. For now, suffice it to say that he's the prototype of what Todd Grantham looks for in an outside linebacker: a long, fast, aggressive defender who can rush the passer, drop into coverage, and play tough against the run. With a depth chart leaning heavily toward seniors and juniors, Harvey-Clemons was the best available player in the state at a critical position with a looming need. Until later . . .

Join in the Dawg Sports National Signing Day open comment thread!

Go 'Dawgs!!!

As you probably know, National Signing Day for prospective college football players is a mere 6 days away. Traditionally Mark Richt and his staff have had the hay in the barn, so to speak, for weeks by now. 2012 however has been a little different, mainly for 2 reasons.

One is that the uncertainty (whether real or perceived) surrounding the Bulldog coaching staff's future during the spring and summer of 2011 put us behind the eight ball with many recruits. It's likely that many didn't want to get too attached to our coaches when there was a chance they wouldn't be around in 2012. Additionally, this time last year it appeared that Georgia would not have that many scholarships to offer. So the coaches began with a smaller set of prospects to work on. They were fairly stingy with offers inside the state of Georgia, not wanting to have to come back later and withdraw an offer from a kid at Calhoun or Sandy Creek or Warner Robins. That kind of thing is bad for business, even if only in the short term. But then Marcus Dowtin, Caleb King, Nick Williams, Washaun Ealey, Jeremy Longo, Brent Benedict and others cleared up some roster room.

Georgia now has 16 verbal commitments and is looking to sign 22-24 players. Who will round out the class? I don't know, but I've got some guesses, and I want to hear yours as well. We'll look at some of the contenders after the jump, and talk about your chance to claim bragging rights over your fellow Dawg Sports readers.

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Once a generation a writer comes along who shakes the very conventions of his craft, a writer who unhinges the doors of the reader's conceptual dungeon and thereby reveals a world of possibilities previously unkown, unseen, and unimagined.

Sadly I'm not that guy. I'm the guy who writes the things that fill the time during the interminable 8 months between New Year's week and Labor Day weekend which is obscenely bereft of college football action. These things I write go by the name "Free Form Friday." Why? Because the names "melophone", "Gerry DiNardo" and "Lester Bangs" were already taken. Consider this your open comment thread of dubious coherence, and have a great weekend:

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