I… I think it’s time to talk about the SEC.

It’s not that good. It’s a shell of its former self.

Sure, it’s strong at the top, same as it ever was. Alabama is still a ruthless, inexorable death machine – churning whichever poor fools are unlucky enough to be in the path of its maw into mulch. This week, they vaporized Ole Miss: 66-3 may not erase the memories of their two losses to the Rebels in recent years, but that Bama gave them a worse whoopin’ than what they’d give an FCS sacrifice suggests they wanted some measure of payback. Does this Death Star have a problematic exhaust port? Maybe. Will any of their regular season opponents be able to find it? Almost definitely not.

Georgia is all alone in that second tier, and with an authoritative 41-0 beatdown of Tennessee in Knoxville, the Dawgs are clearly the best team in the East and should be able to take the division to set up a matchup with Bama in the SEC Title game. Quarterback Jake Fromm pulled a Wally Pipp on Jacob Eason and UGA has been content to play it very safe in the passing game: he threw it just 15 times for 84 yards – and ran for two surprising touchdowns. The Georgia running game was excellent as usual, churning out almost three hundred yards between a cast of talented backs. The offense is functional, if unspectacular, as Smart is content to have his defense win games.

What they did to Tennessee was remarkable – from the first play, an interception by Tyrique McGhee that set up a short field for a field goal, the Bulldog defense was dominant. Some of that surely is due to the general derpiness of the Tennessee offense, which has become even worse post-DeBord, but that alone can’t explain how they got shut out at home with a few talented skill position players. The Vols had seven first downs on the game, had four turnovers, 3.5 yards per pass attempt, 2.1 yards per carry, and zero points. The Bulldog defense was amazing against Mississippi State the week before, and should be similarly excellent against the rest of their regular season schedule.

Alabama is Alabama, Georgia is quickly becoming a store-brand Alabama knockoff, and most of the rest of the league is thoroughly mediocre at best. Who’s the third-best team? It’s probably Auburn: the Tigers acquitted themselves well in a road loss to a likely playoff team in Clemson and revved up the offense on Saturday against a team with a pulse, winning 49-10 against Mississippi State (the Bulldogs are now 1-2 in blowouts over the last three weeks).

[I try to back up my #hot #take after the JUMP]

The artists at UGP have been at work. We call this one “Ball don’t lie, but someone did”:

And this one is called “The Bracket Buster”:

You can trade money for these on the MGoStore, and peruse our complete line of State-beating, Ohio-hating, three-sinking, satellite camping, vitamin-taking, with cruelty winning, wall-building, Everitt ruling, potato-aspiring, ‘89 bandwagoning, always Mike-ing, State beating, Hart hearting, God willing, charge-taking shirts.

Michigan put the finishing touches on an excellent 2018 recruiting class this morning when four-star Daytona Beach (FL) Father Lopez big man Colin Castleton announced his commitment:

Castleton chose the Wolverines over Illinois after taking an official visit to Ann Arbor last weekend. While Michigan made a relatively late push for Castleton, the efforts of John Beilein and new assistant coach Luke Yaklich—who'd recruited Castleton at Illinois State—made a major impression, per Sam Webb. Beilein's no-nonsense approach ultimately won Castleton over:

“It’s kind of like DeLand times 15 or 20,” said Castleton, who averaged 23.3 points, 11 rebounds and 5.4 blocks per game as a junior. “I liked the feel, the culture and the coaching staff. Coach Beilein doesn’t lie; he’s straightforward. He didn’t promise me any playing time or anything like that, but the players are all great.”

Castleton is the fifth commit in the class, which now boasts four composite four-stars and ranks second(!) in the team rankings.

GURU RATINGS

While there's a difference in star rating, Rivals and 247 both have Castleton a little ways outside their top 100, while Scout is more optimistic, placing him at #70 overall. ESPN continues to be useless; Castleton, a composite four-star with several high-major offers, isn't in their database, and they still list Taylor Currie as a 2018 commit. They did just get around to putting up a page for Adrien Nunez, so hopefully they'll add Castleton soon.

Castleton is listed at 6'10", 215 pounds by Scout and 247 and 6'11", 220 by Rivals. Much like Moe Wagner, he projects as an NBA power forward who'll play center in college:

Colin Castleton is 6-11, 215 pounds. I asked him what position he'll play at Michigan ... pic.twitter.com/OgzqrjXdss

— Brendan F. Quinn (@BFQuinn) October 4, 2017

Castleton certainly has the requisite length, and as you'll see he could develop into an impact defender.

[Hit THE JUMP for scouting, video, and more.]

[Bryan Fuller]

Sam Webb reported this morning that redshirt freshman cornerback Nate Johnson has been permanently dismissed from the program:

As I just reported on @michiganinsider, soph CB Nate Johnson was dismissed from the football team yesterday. It is permanent.

— Sam Webb (@SamWebb77) October 4, 2017

Jim Harbaugh wasted little time taking action after Johnson was arrested early Saturday morning for an alleged assault of a woman he'd been dating. Johnson was arraigned on Sunday on one count of misdemeanor domestic violence.

Johnson came to Michigan in the 2016 class as a slot receiver, then moved to cornerback in the offseason; he featured as a punt returner in the spring game but ceded that job to Donovan Peoples-Jones in the fall. He hadn't seen significant snaps this season on defense.

This is all wrong:

Look I have two younger brothers, I am on my fifth dog, and I am a proud graduate of an American public elementary school, so I know a thing or two about the old throwing-motion-fumble trick. First of all your footwork’s a mess, and anyway this isn’t the time or situation for it.

In the aftermath Iowa fans are all “eh, let’s go beat up on the Big Ten West.” That leaves us with the mess. A Spartan loss would have kept the bad news train rolling and the foils from getting hopeful. They’re coming.

APPDATE! ITUNES VERSION A GO?

Also coming: my app I keep plugging that will let you sell tickets to each other after finding each other on a map. The good news: iTunes just has to approve that version and then Apple phone users can test it out—if you’ve signed up we’ll let you know when it’s live, hopefully before the MSU game (it’s in iTunes’s hands now).

(click embiggens)

The bad news is the Android version is still too buggy to risk rolling out right now. That bums me out because I don’t have an iPhone. I’ll try to find somebody to try it out live on Saturday, and if I can maybe we’ll throw a prize in there for the testers or something. If you haven’t done so yet, go to www.tidgetapp.com (lead photo by Patrick Barron) and sign up pre-launch so you can use the app for free We’re at about 850 total but I don’t know how many are Apple vs Android. Goal is at least 1,000 of you by pre-launch.

BEWARE MICHIGAN VS. MICGIGAN

Make sure you can spell 'Michigan' if you're buying tickets for the Wolverines-Spartans matchup — Fakes are being sold

(: @TreeTownSound) pic.twitter.com/8CpuI6xFuq

— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) October 3, 2017

Those are some bad fake tickets but there are others people have spotted that aren’t so easily detected. The real tickets don’t have a timestamp on them. Be careful whom you buy from when the scammers are out there. If you’re nervous, try to stay within people you know, or at least people you can track down, or use the ticket resellers—I can tell you from experience that security is most of the ballgame.

MICHIGAN STATE SEATS: TELL ME YOU DIDN’T BUY AT $250

Right, dammit Iowa. Actually they didn’t do that much damage except to the “get me in the building” line. It’s still an expensive ticket, but other nobody seems that particular about where they sit:

For not much more than the get-in price you can get a pretty good seat. Those who were trying to recoup Michigan’s high PSD for the midfieldish are going to be out of luck. SeatGeek had a $323 ticket (just one) in Row 58 of Section 2.

And it’s going down. One reason is the market is finally opening up. While worriers on the bye week got some trading done at $250-ish when they announced the start time, and as of Sunday the “let’s get this taken care of” responsible types were buying at $240ish, the “I just realized I don’t want to take my daughter anymore” folks started realizing they have to offload those seats starting yesterday.

By Thursday it’s likely they’ll be joined by another group: the “I don’t want to sit in the wind and rain”-hairs:

My advice here is figure out what you want to pay, and then wait until a good seat opens up at that price point. The get-in should get down to about “$200 but I’ll only sell them to other Michigan fans” in a few days. Be patient, work your contacts, and don’t be afraid to walk away. A buddy and I were haggling on Sunday with a guy who kept trying to bump us to $270 each (direct) for decent corner seats. I bet he’d leap at $240 right now.

OTHER GAMES

Let’s go to the board!

For the Maryland seats I stopped counting the low seats behind the Maryland bench after readers reported they can’t see from there. The Wisconsin seat was just one but I thought about buying it. Playing Northwestern close and losing more important players to injury soured some Wisconsin fans, but they’re bound to perk up after they trounce Nebraska and remember they’re 5-0 and that last year’s game was (thanks to some wild kicking) really close. Sometimes you come across an angry dude who wants to sell his ticket I guess?

Ohio State’s get-in price leapt up past $300, which is to be expected. The stable prices for better seats suggest that’s an early market bereft of sellers; I wouldn’t buy now, but I would consider an offer from a friend to buy them for face plus half of their PSD.

I added a line at the bottom with my thoughts on when to buy. Rutgers is a dog. Maryland and Minnesota can only go down. IU nobody has ever had problems getting tickets to, and they’re emboldened right now from playing Penn State tight. As for PSU, they think they’re on a march to the playoffs—that fast defense might in fact get them there, but they’re still relying on guard types at the tackles and James Franklin is running the clock. That was just announced as a night game officially so stay the hell away until the excitable PSU fanbase calms down from its Generic Football Abstrate Experience AT NIGHT!!!!! moment.

[Fuller]

One of the more difficult aspects of preparing for these one-on-ones is finding a play where there’s enough to go through that a natural set of questions emerges; without multiple questions, these interviews would just be “whoa dang,” “yep,” fin. It’s always worth going through the entire game to make sure the right play wasn’t overlooked in favor of the one that stood out on the stat sheet. That said, we’re all human, and sometimes we get caught in the tractor beam that is talking about the “whoa dang” play. This is one of those times.

What are some of the differences between playing defensive line and playing the line on punt return?

“I think on punt return you kind of just get a running start for things. You’re not really keying a guy for the most part. And especially when we’re in our safe punt formation, more so just to fair catch a ball and not trying to do anything intricate with a return.”

On this particular play, did you expect that guy lined up a little outside of you to at least chip you as he releases?

“Yeah.” [laughs] “I think that’s normally what they want to get done and he ended up doing that and I was able to run free for the most part.”

Once he does get past you and see the open field in front of you, what else are you seeing?

“I’m just seeing the punter and their shield guy and I know from previous years that a lot of the times that we’re in our safe punt you try to blow up the shield guy, and that’s what I did on that play.”

With that shield guy, what are you thinking when you see that he starts to drop his shoulder and break down?

“Just to run over him.”

After you have that collision did you think about doing the belly rub or is that reserved just for sacks and tackles for loss?

“That’s just for sacks and tackles for loss.”

I gotcha. Not a special teams thing.

“Yeah.” [laughs]

[Ed. A- Props to Gfycat for coincidentally nailing the naming of this GIF. (Open in a new tab if you’re curious.)]