Catching up gets taken home down country roads

Georgia receiver depletion: Michael Bennett is done for the year:

Georgia wide receiver Michael Bennett is out for the season after tearing the ACL in his right knee during Tuesday's practice.

Bennett leads the fifth-ranked Bulldogs with 24 catches for 345 yards and four touchdowns. The sophomore from Alpharetta, Ga., will undergo reconstructive knee surgery at an undetermined date.

OH THE IRONY:

Addressing reporters Tuesday morning, Georgia coach Mark Richt had discussed the Bulldogs' good fortune up to that point regarding injuries.

"We have been very healthy," Richt said. "We have been blessed without question. Going into the season, we were pretty healthy. Now we are probably healthier at game six than we were when we started the season. So that is a good thing."

Guh. Bennett is/was a pretty effective outside guy with an ideal 6-foot-3 frame and pretty good hands; he was no A.J. Green but had become a proverbial go-to guy and was one of Georgia's three clearly established starting receivers, with Marlon Brown being the other outside dude and Tavarres King being the slot guy. Nobody on the team other than those three guys has more than six catches; howeva, one of the guys with six catches happens to be Malcolm Mitchell, a crazy-good athlete who's been playing both ways (mostly at corner) after finishing second on the team last year with 45 catches as a true freshman. Richt said about seven seconds after Bennett's injury that Mitchell will be playing mostly offense this week, which makes sense given that 2011 starting corners Branden Smith and Sanders Commings are now both back from suspension. That's fine from a talent standpoint (Mitchell probably represents an upgrade in that regard) but might not be so fine from a comfortability standpoint seeing as how Georgia has one of its two most meaningful games of the year in three days.

Alabama depth depletion: Alabama will be without wideout DeAndrew White and backup running back/punt returner Dee Hart for the rest of the year due to Perry the ACL-ephant transferring from Purdue to Bama last week.

White's loss is probably the more significant one since he was a starter and the fourth-leading receiver on the team; he was averaging about two catches a game, which is pretty indicative of the run/pass distribution in Bama's offense (for the record, it's about 65/35 right now). Interestingy, the guy who's next in line for White's spot is Amari Cooper, a nominal backup who's easily Bama's leading receiver this year with 17 catches for 222 yards and three touchdowns, with about half of each of those numbers getting added last week against Ole Miss after White blew out his knee. Given that performance, the drop-off from White to Cooper would seem to be negligible.

As for Hart, he was a one-time mega-recruit (who also missed all of last year with a torn ACL) who was fourth on the depth chart behind Eddie Lacy, T.J. Yeldon and Jalston Fowler (also done for the year with a torn ACL) and the backup punt returner behind Christion Jones. He didn't have a meaningful carry this year but could've become meaningful in a hurry in the event of a Lacy/Yeldon injury; alas. Bama will probably be fine but, as noted in the previous sentence, is an inconvenient injury away from having a serious depth problem.

Something about jean shorts: This was pointed out in a tweet that I can no longer find: Florida's remaining schedule includes the teams currently ranked third, fourth fifth, sixth and maybe first (pending an SEC title game appearance). That's ... like ... I don't even know, man. Somebody needs to consult the internets and find the most ridiculous schedule in the history of schedules; that one's gotta be comparable.

Stop the bad man: Ohio State wasted zero time filing an official complaint with the Big Ten regarding the Michigan State eye-gouging thing, probably since that's the only way anything will get done seeing as how Mark Dantonio is Mark Dantonio and Michigan State is Michigan State. I'll still be a little surprised if anything comes of it but wouldn't be totally shocked if Jack Allen ends up with a one-game suspension since that's been the Big Ten standard for punches and whatnot. There'll presumably be a decision by Friday that won't really matter to anybody since Michigan State is playing Indiana this week. Regardless, it's not just a Michigan thing: Michigan State is the dirtiest of the dirty.

Tangentially related injury update: Ohio State's Jordan Hall -- who just came back three weeks ago from a pretty serious (and weird) offseason foot injury -- has a partially torn PCL and is doubtful for this week's game against Nebraska (and maybe others). That might be problematic for Ohio State seeing as how Hall is unquestionably the No. 1 running back (not counting Braxton Miller) and is second on the team behind Miller with 224 yards on 40 carries, giving him a pretty healthy 5.6-yards-per-carry average. Miller's legitimately terrifying but can't handle 40 carries a game; Hall's a guy who can take 20 of those and be a plausible threat to do something meaningful with said 20 carries, which can't be said for the other guys on the roster (Carlos Hyde has been OK this year but would probably be a short-yardage back in an ideal world in which truckers were aristocracy and Columbus were something other than a hellhole). Anyway, Hall will reportedly be "evaluated" each week; that's worth keeping an eye on depending on your interest level in Ohio State.

Woo John Denver: This video was taken several minutes after the completion of the West Virginia-Baylor game (note the still-almost-totally-full stands):


You just moved up a notch in my book, West Virginia fans. That puts you at notch one.

ACC scheduling shenanigans: The ACC won't be going to a nine-game conference schedule:

The ACC has decided to stay with eight league football games for the foreseeable future instead of transitioning to nine conference games in 2013 as originally planned, the conference announced on Wednesday.

The decision was made at the ACC's recent fall meetings in Boston as a result of the new agreement with Notre Dame, in which the Irish will play five games against the ACC annually.

This move was made in large part to help Florida State, Georgia Tech and Clemson, all which already have built-in SEC rivals.

That pretty much says it all; blame Notre Dame. Or blame the ACC for making Notre Dame a member but not really a member and thus giving its actual members no scheduling flexibility in the Notre Dame-is-on-the-schedule years. Whatever.

FYI, the Big 12 and the Pac-12 are the only major conferences that have already implemented nine-game schedules; the Big Ten and SEC both talked about it and said, "ehh maybe but not right now," which basically means "ehh more money's better." 

Obligatory black uniforms: BYU has them.

Sigh. It's BYU. BYU can't wear black; it's BYU. /shakes old-man fist at sky

Etch-a-Sketch Freek? LSUFreek has won the internets so, so many times. Srsly. The guy is an artistic genius. He's also a bellhop in the French Quarter who actually is an artistic genius via the lesser-used medium of the Etch-a-Sketch. Who knew?