Let all the Bulldog faithful rally behind the men who now wear the red and black with two words, two simple words which express the sentiments of the entire Bulldog Nation: Auburn Sucks.
All that money, maneuvering, and lawyering and their starter sounds like a guy who would be leading the Sons of Anarchy, not the Commodores. Methinks Curtis will be getting some playing time in the earlier part of the season and they’ll hand him the reins gradually, or maybe Blaze is the next Diego Pavia. Who knows…who cares.
Meanwhile, the Bobby Hillbilllies have anointed a true freshman as their starting quarterback:
He’s the first true freshman to start at quarterback for the Vols since Brent Schaeffer in 2004, when the Vols went on to play for the SEC Championship only to lose to Auburn. I think 2004 might have been one of Auburn’s mythical national championship years, so there’s that.
Let’s take a quick trip in the WAYBAC machine, not too long ago when Georgia was beaten by Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl, and all the talk was about Kiffin and his appearance in the broadcast booth or his spying on the team or players being pissed at him leaving. Here’s a quotable notable:
NEW: Ole Miss DL Zxavian Harris took a shot at Lane Kiffin after beating Georgia in the College Football Playoff Quarterfinals:
“That’s what Kiffin tried to do. He tried to be a damn announcer … trying to be a troll. We were going to troll him. We got something for him. He was… pic.twitter.com/cGQFkIf4Hw
Good for him. After all, only a man with integrity would stick with his program and spurn the pay raise and big dump trucks of money to see the playoff run through. Thats the kind of coach you want to play for, and Zxavian Harris took a rightful stand against it!
Flash forward a few months and crappy NFL preseason camp later:
Georgia professor debates that Georgia is once again cursed, and it’ll be 2062 before we see another National Championship.
From Knox’s bio:
I study the wind: why it blows, where it blows, what it blows around, and how to protect people from it. This subject is called atmospheric dynamics…
As the wind blows…maybe he knows something the rest of us don’t.
So it’s a bit of two parter debate here…on one side, the “what we don’t know” stemming from the deaths of a Georgia player and staffer after the 2022 Championship celebration is cause for a karmic ban from success for another 37 years. On the other, is the odd take that Kirby missed on Fernando Mendoza and can’t handle the NIL era.
I’m not arguing that there was some shady stuff surrounding the drunk driving incident, so that’s not the point of this.
But if you’re going to get moved by a story from Mendoza that somehow Kirby was sleeping on the job and “that made all the difference” then you’re a bit touched. Mendoza made some spectacular plays in Indiana’s championship run, but you could’ve slid Beck or Stockton into that roster of semi-pros and likely had the same result.
Hell, that’s the commoner’s take on Stetson Bennett, right? Didn’t matter who was under center, it was an All-Pro team and we couldn’t lose? Sheesh.
No, the greater thing I have at issue here is that a person who has three letters after his name and is clearly a person who does research and studies would actually be under the impression that Kirby would’ve started ANYBODY other than Gunner last year. You really think Mendoza had that much of an upside over Stockton where Kirby would’ve broken his traditional commitment to the veteran, Doc?
If further research is required, please look up Justin Fields. Beck and Van der Griff experienced the same.
Anyway, what’s your Sunday take on the professor’s thoughts?
Look, it’s not like any one out there is really believing that Sark is a top flight coach and has his collective shit together. It’s been apparent for a while that he doesn’t.
What is becoming grossly apparent is that all the money in the world doesn’t guarantee anything, and it’s still very possible to take a $40+ million dollar roster and turn them into Auburn with a lack of team management skills.
And he still calls the offensive plays.
While we lament Bobo and wonder about Kirby’s dedication to quarterbacks and his thoughts on flashy offense, it’s a damn far sight from what’s going on in Austin, Texas, or even in Baton Rouge.
With stuff like what’s posted above out there, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine Justice Terry coming back to Athens at some point, not for better NIL money, but to have even the slightest chance at making the pros.
But hey, at least they don’t have to play Georgia this year.
Vanderbilt comes to town on October 3rd, and what would be a normal Homecoming game against a (formerly) SEC weakling is somewhat more interesting chiefly because of a recruiting saga gone south (or gone north?) that involved Jared Curtis.
Getting our first five start quarterback to Georgia since Justin Fields and Brock Van der Griff seemed like a big deal at the time, although most of us were skeptical. One, we know Kirby’s history with five star quarterbacks. Two, we know our history with five star blue chips on the offensive side of the ball since NIL. It seemed impossible, and, it probably was.
He committed to Georgia, though, then de-committed, and committed again.
And then, something amazing happened. Amazing, not in the awesome sense, but more in the amazingly WTF way.
“Diego goes to one of his games on a Friday night,” Tim Beck recalled. “Diego calls me that night, and he says, ‘Hey, man, you got to see this kid’. I go, ‘Yeah, we know about him, we know about him, Diego’. He (Diego) didn’t think we knew about him. It’s like, ‘yeah Diego, we know about him, but he’s not interested in us, he’s committed to Georgia’. And he goes, “Well, I talked to him. I think he’s interested’.”
As for that next morning, after the late-night call from a stunned Pavia, Beck would come to find out that not only was Jared Curtis interested in the Commodores, he made it a priority to pay attention to what Vanderbilt was doing on the field.
“He really didn’t have a favorite team that he was. He really didn’t have a favorite player that he watched,” Beck told OutKick. “And so, I called Jared the next morning, on a Saturday morning, and I talked to him a little bit, and one of the first things i said is, ‘Hey, I know you, you haven’t been really been watching much ball, but I was just curious’.
“And before I got through my sentence, he stopped me and said, ‘Coach, I got to be honest with you, the only team I’ve watched this year has been Vanderbilt’.”
So Curtis was brought to Vanderbilt by a wandering Diego Pavia who didn’t even know who he was. Amazing. But wait…there’s more…
So, when noted attorney Ryan Downton and his highly regarded, successful wife, Pearl Downton, decided it was time to invest their time into the NIL space of college athletics, they needed to know Curtis was first making the decision to attend Vanderbilt for the right reasons.
There were no monetary offers when the quarterback started to engage with Vanderbilt on a more consistent basis, which came when the Commodores hosted Missouri last season, which also brought “College Gameday” come to town.
In fact, the Downtons had not even thought about starting an NIL IP entity that could help Vanderbilt athletes, even though they were fully-engaged as donors and fans of the program.
But, once they knew this wasn’t just a ploy from Curtis to drive up the price and that the five-star actually wanted to stay in Nashville to create his own legacy like the one he was witnessing Pavia put a bow on, it was time for the family to start making calls.
Nate Bargatze speaks during ESPN’s College GameDay at Vanderbilt University on Oct. 25, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (Getty Images)
First, it was Jay Cutler, who just happened to be their next door neighbor. Once the former Vanderbilt quarterback was in, then it was time to call noted Nashvillian Nate Bargatze. It just so happened that Bargatze was already in, having mentioned on “College Gameday” that Curtis would be invited to have a small role in a movie he was starring in.
For what it’s worth, the Downtons represented Pavia in his litigation against the NCAA. Shocker.
In other words, Jared Curtis was brought to Nashville by the worst of modern college football…star-power NIL money, attorneys who argue for it, and an athlete who benefitted from it all.
If you didn’t have enough reason to pull for an all-out massacre of Vanderbilt on October 3rd, hopefully this helps.
From the NFL to College Football, a new pathway has emerged.
NEWS: A judge in Louisiana has granted a group that includes 16 football player –including several in NFL training camps this summer — a restraining order to allows them to return to college sports this season, per me and @DanMurphyESPN. pic.twitter.com/fUMzBolvbp
Former Ole Miss starters Dae’Quan Wright, Zxavian Harris and Wydett Williams, all of whom signed with NFL teams this summer, are among a group of athletes who were granted a temporary restraining order Wednesday to return to college for one more season.
The trio of former Rebels standouts joined 30 other athletes from a variety of sports in a lawsuit filed against the NCAA in Louisiana state court Wednesday.
The list of plaintiffs includes 16 football players, several who signed with NFL teams and participated in training camps earlier this month. Three of the players — Wright, Williams and former Oregon State running back Anthony Hankerson — are currently listed on NFL rosters for the Browns, Cardinals and Seahawks, respectively.
Those players have expressed an interest in being released from their NFL contracts, according to attorney Ryan Downton, and if their NFL teams release them by Sept. 1 they will be allowed to join a college roster under the restraining order.
“Courts across the country granting relief to ineligible athletes who already had every opportunity to compete in college – sometimes without even having a hearing – are failing to appreciate the destabilizing effect their rulings are having on college sports,” NCAA senior vice president of external affairs Tim Buckley said in a statement. “The lawyers bringing these cases seemingly won’t be satisfied until every professional athlete can treat college sports as a fallback option, regardless of the opportunities it strips from those who will never have a chance to begin their collegiate sports experience.”
So, it’s not just guys who didn’t make a roster, but it’s now guys who made a roster, already received their signing bonus, and decide that they don’t like the pay grade and want to go back to college for one more NIL payout…question is, how would any NIL money be available if it’s already been divvied up among the current college roster?
And as if Ole Miss needed any additional power on their roster from transfers.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back Cole Speer.
Can confirm earlier report by @RustyMansell_ of UGA adding Cole Speer back to their roster…
If you’re going to bring someone back from the 2022 class then it’s smart to have someone who can add experience in the youngest room on the team and bring value on Special Teams
I wonder if Flo will become part of the game day experience to repulse engage fans?*
If other insurance behemoths were a sponsorship choice, the “Mayhem” guy from Allstate would’ve worked well with Kirby’s desire for havoc on defense. Of course, Jake from State Fromm was a natch match. The Geico lizard is too closely related to the Handbags for my taste, so they’re out.
It’s also interesting to see the hodge-podge of lucky 13 schools are that Progressive is sponsoring:
Ole Miss, Boise State, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas State, Oregon, Purdue, SMU, Syracuse, Texas Tech, USC, Wake Forest
Fellow GTPR’s: How do you feel about Vince Dooley Field being sullied for filthy NIL luchre?**
Discuss….
*I tried to get ChatGPT to get more of that “creepy hot” Flo look, but maybe that’s an area all this recent corporate expenditure on A.I. can be put to good use
**I love our traditions and traditional looks to things, but I kinda lean towards winning, too. YMMV
What happens when the blowhard of one program with the softest schedule in college sports talks crap about the other program with the softest schedule in sports? The geniuses are unleashed.
