The new kickoff return rule: Who benefits?

There has been a lot of discussion about the new kickoff rule in the SEC, which moves the kickoff back from the 35 yard line to the 30. What we plan to do here is examine the statistics from last year, and see who may benefit the most.

Yahoo Sports thoughtfully supplies us with some statistics to help us out. Last year, the kickoff return leaders in the SEC looked like this:

Team		G	KR	Yds	Avg
Auburn		29	36	934	25.9
Arkansas		37	38	944	24.8
Kentucky		28	44	1033	23.5
Mississippi		25	43	976	22.7
LSU		27	18	384	21.3
Georgia		35	41	868	21.2
Mississippi St.		21	39	801	20.5
South Carolina		29	38	728	19.2
Vanderbilt		31	40	732	18.3
Alabama		27	31	564	18.2
Florida		27	26	455	17.5
Tennessee		36	36	594	16.5

So from the above stats, we see that the top 4 kickoff return schools were Auburn, Arkansas, Kentucky and Ole Miss. After examining their rosters, each of those teams should return their top 2 or 3 kickoff returners. Kentucky should have the injured Rafael Little available for kickoff returns this year, which increases their profile on this statistic.

According to this article, Urban Meyer predicts that the average kickoff will land around the 9 yard line, versus the 4 yard line last year. Mark Richt thinks that the additional space created by moving the ball back will be a factor, and he is likely right -- longer kicks will be fielded outside the end zone.

Assuming Meyer is correct, that would place the ball for the leading return teams, on average, between the 32 and 35 yard line. What this means is that there will be a temptation now, especially against teams who have very dangerous receivers and are having a hot season returning the football, to kick the ball out of bounds and concede the return to the 35 by penalty, rather than risking a much deeper return.

It has also been suggested that squib and pooch kicks might be used to minimize the chance of a big return, which is certainly a possibility. However, my feeling is that teams who are very concerned about their opponents kick returners will be inclined to kick the ball out of bounds and concede the 35.

In any case, never in college sports history has special teams been more important. I can imagine some extreme creativity will be seen in the kicking game this year, and it will provide for some very exciting plays. Mark Richt of Georgia says he expects to return 75-90% of kickoffs versus the 25% they returned last year.

One other negative impact this could have is on the skill players. Kickoff returns at a 75-90% clip will increase the possibility of injury. That will impact the season if that happens. Let's just hope it doesn't.

Blogroll and bleg

The blogroll is now complete as far as I know.

If any of our readers knows of an SEC blog I have missed, whatever the school, please let me know via comment or email.

Friday's best of the SEC blogs

So what we have here, ladies and gentlemen, are the very best of the SEC conference blog posts of today. Of course, you can sort through and read them all yourself, if you want, or you can take my advice, and have a look at these:

• Gamecock Central reports that the people at the USA Today Coach's poll are unhappy with Steve Spurrier.
• MaconDawg at Dawg Sports:
  

  How absolutely batcrap crazy is the SEC East this season? A Georgia blogger (yours truly) and a Tennessee blogger (Aerobab of Rocky Top Talk) agree that we both covet the starting quarterback at Kentucky. When was the last time you could have gotten that consensus? Probably when Bear Bryant was in Lexington coaching up George Blanda and Babe Parilli.

• Gatorpilot at Orange and Blue Hue says that Florida State can't sell season tickets. He thinks maybe the schedule is a problem.
• Mergz at Saurian Sagacity says Notre Dame is increasingly irrelevant, and provides the statistics to back that up.
• Further to my earlier post on the subject, Swamp Ball's ejruiz says that Florida's basketball schedule could come back to haunt them.
• Outside the Sidelines analyzes home field advantage, and concludes ... well, read the post!
• The Tide fans at Roll 'Bama Roll have a favorite SEC road destination. Try to guess it before you click the link.
• The Tide Druid has this excellent post about the SEC teams affected by the subpoenas from Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General of New York State.
• The Hotty Toddy Blog asks this question about Ole Miss: "How do we compare?"
• Travis at Hail Dear Old State has seen enough letters, and would like to solve the puzzle.
• Arliss at the Mississippi State Basketball blog looks at where MSU is, and where it is going.
• Rob Gidel at Sports Talk on KentuckySportsRadio has a mid-afternoon football update, and it is a doozy.
  

Thursday: Best of the Blogs So Far

• The Capstone Reports says that the fun has returned to Alabama. As a UK fan, I can totally relate, although from the perspective of a different sport.
• Cock -n- Fire reports on misdemeanors and allegations of misdemeanors "From point-shaving to leg-stabbing."
  
• Dawg Sports also covers the New York attorney general investigation of colleges. There are some SEC names on there.
• Jon at Fulmer's Belly blogs basketball -- with video!
• Hey Jenny Slater tempts the wrath of a vengeful god -- namely, the OBC. But it's a nice look at the Gamecocks from the perspective of a Georgia fan.
• Looser with Socks takes a jaded look at Tennessee this year. He blames the o-line for his lack of enthusiasm.
  

Random Tidbits

Just some random tidbits from the (mis)Information Superhighway:

• The ban on text messages to recruits begins today.
• Vandy beats Tennessee in one SEC category -- Hot coeds. At least, according to the Nashville Scene. No bias there, I'm sure ...
• Some people think Rutgers will leave the Big East to go to the Big 10. Dick "Hoops" Weiss thinks that's nuts.
• From the Bleachers tells us Ivan Maisel from ESPN was on the plains today to check out the Auburn freshman class.
• The Hog Blogger has this weird, really weird post from Gilbert Arenas' blog. He quotes the whole thing, because ... well, anything less would be uncivilized. Maybe Gilbert should stick to his day job, and leave the blogging to the experts. I'll take the tongue out of my cheek later.

The weird. The odd. The under-covered, overlooked or outright ignored, brought to you at the end of a busy day.

Down in Mississippi and up to no good ...

Time to head down to Mississippi and see what the Dawgs and the Rebels are up to.

MSU blogger Gregg Ellis tells us that eight Bulldogs failed to qualify academically. I hate to see that. They are (according to Rivals.com):

SIGNED LETTER OF INTENT	Pos	Stars	Ht	Wt	40	RR	Hometown
Korentheus Bailey	DT		6-3	248	5.5	5.4	Gainesville, GA
Maurice Crutison	LB		6-2	210	4.5	5.4	Port Gibson, MS
Antwon Dixon	DB		6-1	200	4.49	5.6	Terry, MS
Jazzmen Guy	DE		6-5	265	4.8	5.8	Hazlehurst, MS
Mike Hunt	DB		6-2	204	4.75	5.6	Meadville, MS
Colton Jenkins	OL		6-6	280	-	5.5	Winona, MS
O'Neal Wilder	WR		6-5	200	4.5	5.3	Carthage, MS

He also names linebacker Antoine Walker, who doesn't appear on this list, as academically unqualified.

Hail Dear Ole State gives us an updated depth chart for MSU, but doesn't seem to be aware of the academic non-qualifiers in his notes.

Kyle Veazey has a conversation with MSU coach Sylvester Croom, and talks about it on his blog.

World Class Glass, an Ole Miss blogger, has this story about former Ole Miss player Patrick Willis, who has signed with the San Francisco 49ers.

The Hotty Toddy Blog continues with his series about how Ole Miss is perceived in the Big Ten.

Can the Czar at Jason's Jumbled Jargon takes a look at Ole Miss' non-conference basketball schedule. It isn't as laden with frosting as Florida's schedule is, I'll tell you that.

SEC vs. Pac-10: The "Weak Non-Conference Schedule" Debate

Like most SEC fans, I have spent much of the last week listening to Pac-10 apologists attack the SEC's tendency to schedule a weak non-conference slate.

We'll begin this examination by looking at this post by The Band is Out On The Field, a USC Cal blog. TBIOOTF presents to us what it calls an "objective" analysis of conference schedules by, you guessed it, a Pac-10 supporter. If you read the piece, he ranks the SEC 4th among the BCS conferences for non-conference scheduling. He comes to this conclusion:

The SEC seems to be doing the minimum necessary to be respectable. Each team plays about one BCS team outside the conference, with a few playing two, so you can't say they played no one. The SEC teams seem content to claim they're the best conference without going too far out of their way to distinguish themselves. That isn't to say that the SEC teams play bad schedules. Five of the top 15 teams are in the SEC and some teams do have good non-conference math-ups, so even with an 8 game conference schedule each team plays 3 very good teams over the course of the season. But there are also a lot of bad teams in the SEC and on their non-conference schedules, so top to bottom the SEC schedules aren't any harder than the conferences ahead of them. It's more difficult to go undefeated in the SEC than anywhere else, but hard to go undefeated doesn't equal great schedule. It will be hard for any team that plays USC to go undefeated, but that doesn't mean every team that plays them has a great schedule.

Obviously, my main problem with this conclusion is his assertion that the SEC schedules aren't any harder than the teams ahead of them. Then, in the very next sentence, he says that it is a lot harder to go undefeated in the SEC than anywhere else.

Does anybody but me find this inconsistent? If going undefeated is harder in the SEC, it logically suggests one of two things:

1. The teams in the SEC are, top to bottom, tougher than anywhere else;
2. There are several very tough games on every SEC schedule.

I assume for a second he is picking door #2 here. But when you look at reality, you find that virtually every SEC school, including the top teams, have at least 3 games that they absolutely cannot count as wins. That number tends to go up as you go down the league, obviously. But that is arguably true for the Pac-10 also.

The difference comes in the lower part of the league. The lower part of the Pac-10 is arguably uncompetitive with the top part. But that is patently not true in the SEC. Even traditional SEC doormats like Kentucky and Vanderbilt are legitimate bowl threats this year. The Pac-10 has no such situation. So the bottom line conclusion is, his assumption is wrong. The SEC is tougher, top to bottom, than any league in the country. Therefore, the SEC section of the schedule is tougher, on average, for every member.

TBIOOTF doesn't really argue this, they are trying to look at the problem from the vantage point of only the top-tier of SEC and Pac-10 teams, which would certainly make their position more defensible. But you can't do that -- you have to look at all the teams in the conference, and that is where their logic falls flat.

Kyle King of Dawg Sports has a typically ironic response, noting that back in 1910, the Bulldogs played against a high-school prep team early in its season, then after an out-of-shape youngster nearly perished chasing a Bulldog All-American, the Georgia AD pledged never again to play a prep school team.

But Kyle gives a more robust defense here, asserting that SEC non-conference schedules are improving. I totally agree with him, by the way, that no SEC school should be playing a Division I-AA school -- that seems indefensible to me.

But let's get to the heart of the matter, shall we? What we have is angst from the Pac-10 top-tier over all the attention being paid to the SEC in the sports media this year, in spite of USC being widely deemed as the best team in the nation. Cries of "East coast bias" are somewhat understandable, as LSU blog And The Valley Shook points out, but he also suggests (correctly, in my view) that a lot of this is left-over malaise from 2003's LSU/USC shared national title.

Anyway, my conclusion is this -- taken together, neither the best of the Pac-10 nor the best of the SEC get any particular breaks in scheduling if you look at their schedules in toto rather than dissecting them into component parts. The Pac-10 defenders correctly point out some indefensible acts of cupcakery by the SEC, but given that over half their conference is about as intimidating as the Pillsbury® dough-boy, I would recommend to them the old adage about throwing stones from glass houses.

UPDATE:

I erroneously referred to The Band Is Out On The Field as a USC blog. It isn't, it is a Cal blog. Conquest Chronicles is the USC blog for the Sports Blog Nation. Apologies to both Conquest Chronicles and The Band Is Out On The Field for getting that wrong.