Pat Dooley’s Back Nine July 19

The Back Nine comes at you after a lazy weekend of watching a lot of golf and playing a little, but mostly thinking about how much I am going to miss SEC Media Days.

10. Look, if someone has said they would pay for my hotel rooms and rental car, I’d be in Hoover right now. Of course, I would then regret my decision, but I will miss seeing all my buddies and, to be honest, this is the first time I’ve felt like I am no longer in the media. I’m still writing and still doing radio, but I believe there is a difference between working at a newspaper and just being credentialed. At any rate, I will be sitting there like a dummy watching the coaches get up there and not say anything significant. But it was that time up on the second floor in a separate suite when we had the players and Dan Mullen alone that we would get some good stuff. Robbie Andreu and I are going to do a “Not Necessarily The SEC Media Days” on Another Dooley Noted Podcast today. Should be fun.

11. Also, I get Jeff Cardozo back on The Tailgate today. For a day anyway. And then next week, I’m gone. We need to squeeze everything in before we get to the most wonderful time of the year – the start of college football season. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – summer went so fast when I was a kid and now it seems like it takes forever. That’s how much I didn’t like school and how much I now love college football.

12. With Mark Emmert’s statement last week about how the NCAA needs to minimize its power and basically needs to be deregulated, you can’t help but wonder how that is going to affect programs that are in the middle of an investigation. Like, for example, Tennessee and LSU. They may have picked the right time to do things the wrong way. Since it appears as if the NCAA is just going to stick to running championships that are not football and leave the sheriff’s duties to the conferences, there is no telling what programs will do in terms of following rules they weren’t following anyway.

13. So, maybe I am happy that I’m not knee deep into Media Days right now with all of the non-football stuff going on in football. The latest – two Texas A&M players will be paid by TexAgs.com for exclusive interviews. This is troubling for the media and may be a trend that would have driven me out of the business if I hadn’t already retired. I would mention who the players are, but I don’t want to have to send a check anywhere. I was worried about this when the NIL stuff started. Imagine if you are working at the Gainesville Sun and you cannot interview the player who scored the winning touchdown for the Gators. Yikes.

14. Collin Morikawa put on a show at the British Open (it’s not simply The Open and he said as much in his victory speech). One would think that he’s going to win a lot more of them. But remember that there are only four opportunities a year and three of the four are played at different courses each year. Also, we remember that we thought Jordan Spieth might break the Jack Nicklaus record for majors before Tiger Woods did. Spieth’s game went south for a few years and it was great to see that he has it back. But golf is a fickle game. I’m not trying to rain on Morikawa’s parade at all. He was amazing, composed and polished and showed great maturity. It’s just that there are going to be a lot of players with a chance to win at every major.

15. There was also this sobering thought Sunday from Jason Sobel on Twitter – “We just had six men’s major championships within 304 days. The next one doesn’t begin for another 263 days.” Personally, I could live with two Masters a year and not have to watch the pool coverage of the British. It was a combination of not seeing whether a putt went in the hole, the cliché machine that is Paul Azinger and incessant commercials that actually drove my wife out of the house and into the front yard to do some planting. I don’t know if we realize how lucky we are to have the Masters with its limited commercial interruptions.

16. Now that the Bucks won Game 5, it’s over, right? You know better than that. It’s the playoffs where anything can happen. The TV talking heads are gonna light up the Suns again today without realizing for the 8 millionth time that someone wins and someone loses every game.

17. The “Florida Four” is about the No. 1 this week since it has been bestowed on Jacob Copeland for this season. Dan Mullen considers it to be something a player earns and that says a lot about the work Copeland has put in. Hopefully for Gator fans, he lives up to it because the history of No. 1s is pretty impressive. So here are my top four:

1. Percy Harvin
2. Reggie Nelson
3. Keiwan Ratliff
4. Wayne Fields
You knew I’d have to go old school there. I’ll give you the next four.
5. C.J. Henderson
6. Vernon Hargreaves III
7. Tony George
8. Jon Bostic

Just one man’s opinion. I know I left Kadarius Toney out. Sue me.

18. I appreciate all of the people who sent me playlists for the Back Nine. I’m going back to doing it myself, but we will do it again soon. So, here is the playlist today:

* “Come Spy With Me” by Palmyra Delran and the Doppel Gang. And thanks to Little Steven and his Underground Garage show on Sirius for this beauty.

* “Inside Out” by The Blips.

* A different song with the same name, “Inside Out” by The Traveling Wilburys.

You can’t go wrong with a Wilburys song. Especially with this awesome video. I miss so many people in it, Tom and George and John (Candy).