Commentary by Jay Greeson
Let the games begin, please.
For more and more fans, college football has become a year-round obsession. The joke around these parts goes that there are three seasons – regular season, recruiting season and preseason – and it makes sense.
But as the numbers of preseason casualties continue to mount, the start of actual games cannot arrive soon enough.
Think about it. If a team loses a player to a broken leg, fans bemoan the bad luck. If a team loses a player to broken rules and/or laws, fans just groan.
Ask South Carolina fans, who have been forced to wonder how many projected starters will be projecting fixed payments in back rent to the Whitney Hotel.
Ask North Carolina fans, who have watched their program and its star-studded defense turn from dark horse national contender to black sheep national example.
Ask Georgia fans, who have to wonder if a driver’s education instructor needs to be added to the payroll after Washaun Ealey’s early-morning arrest in the latest legal mishap that included a suspended license.
Ask Alabama fans, who have been left in limbo by the offseason shindig known as Agent-gate that has left the status of defensive linchpin Marcel Dareus in question.
And it’s not just the power hitters of major conferences, either. Ask Middle Tennessee State fans, who are unsure whether their dreams of another 10-win season have been folded with the gambling debts of quarterback Dwight Dasher.
The attrition of this offseason has been alarming, and it has spared few programs. In fact, the hazing from rivals that almost always follows embarrassing happenings has been all but silenced out of fear. Now heckle at your own risk, because a foe’s follies today easily can become your program’s arrest of tomorrow.
In fact, off-the-field incidents are the great variable heading into this season, and the situation at South Carolina could greatly affect the SEC East.
Florida is the division favorite, with the winner between Georgia and South Carolina looking like the main challenger. Whether Ealey – Georgia’s top rusher as a freshman last season – will play in the Sept. 11 game against the Gamecocks is unknown. Ealey was arrested on hit-and-run charges and driving with a suspended license early Friday.
The Gamecocks could be without as many as six projected starters, all of whom lived at the Whitney for reduced rates. Coach Steve Spurrier said earlier this week that the NCAA normally suspends players for a couple of games for violations involving receiving extra benefits. We’ll see, but six starters sitting means the Gamecocks may be behind the curve from the start.
Injuries are part of the equation in football. It’s a violent sport that rewards teams with depth as well as talent. While injuries are expected and even planned for in some instances, there is no game-planning for stupidity: Seriously, the Gamecocks didn’t think there was anything suspect about living in a nice downtown hotel in Columbia, S.C., for what amounted to $15 a day.
Now there’s a week left before the games begin and the real drama returns. It’s a welcomed relief, too, when the question becomes who’s going to step up rather than who’s going to be locked up.
E-mail Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com