Georgia’s leading returner in interceptions
in 2002: Boss Bailey (2 interceptions in 2001).

In August of 2002, Georgia’s returning leader in sacks was Jonathan Sullivan, with all of 4 sacks. The defensive unit returned 5 lonely starters, Sullivan and David Jacobs at tackle, Tony Gilbert and Boss Bailey at linebacker, and only running-back-turned-corner Bruce Thornton. We all have concerns about the defense in 2009, but in 2002 there were even more questions. Again, quotes are from a Standard Conventional Wisdom piece dated Summer 2002:

STRENGTHS: Defensive Tackle, Linebacker, Punter. CONCERNS: Defensive End, Defensive Back

The injury bug…had a way of reeking [sic] havoc in 2001 up front as a consistent combination of starters could never really be found. Only a few players return with any starting experience except for some of the hogs in on the inside.

Sound familiar? In 2002, most would be comfortable with the prospect of a Sullivan, Jacobs, Ken Veal & Shed Wynn rotation, and it turned out dominant. But I certainly feel just as good if not better about Jeff Owens, Kade Weston, Geno Atkins, the emerging Abry Jones and other depth at the position. I think here it is safe to say: August 2002 vs. August 2009 comparision: 2009, slightly.

The playing time logged at defensive end is short. Replacing some top-notch talent will be quite a task with the departures of [Josh] Mallard and [Charles] Grant. If the coaching staff has any hopes of pressuring opposing quarterbacks, they may have to look to the linebackers. David Pollack looks to play end in 2002 after garnering some All-American attention from the spot on a few long lists.

Sound familiar? Now of course, nobody would’ve dared hope in August 2002 that we’d have a 3-time all-american defensive end in our midst. Could that be the case in 2009? (Answer: No.) At defensive end it’s impossible to overlook the history of Pollock, Will Thompson, Robert Geathers, et al, and equally impossible to overlook last year’s dismal performance at the position. In 2002 DE was a big question, but not as big as this year. August 2002 vs. August 2009 comparison: 2002, comfortably.

The defense starts at linebacker with two solid senior performers, Tony Gilbert and Boss Bailey. Tony was the leading tackler from last year’s ball club and both bring valuable experience to the heart of the group. Look for a great competition this coming August to find out who figures into the depth chart rotations.

Sound Familiar? The comparison at linebacker is strikingly similar, with plenty of depth, talent and experience to go around. In August 2002 whispers were heard about a great JUCO transfer named Odell Thurman. Would you trade Rennie Curran for Tony Gilbert or Boss Bailey? I don’t think I would, but I might take both of them for Curran and Gamble. Neither unit has a clear advantage to me. August 2002 vs. August 2009 comparison: Push.

If pressure can’t be found up front, passing situations could become quite a task as the Bulldogs have a difficult challenge of finding new replacements for three open spots vacated by some key names from the 2001 squad. Both interception leaders are gone. Only one cornerback, Bruce Thornton, dots the roster with any real playing experience. The corners should be fine if Decory Bryant can continue as a solid cover man. This area has to be one of the biggest mysteries facing the relatively new coaching staff. If the Bulldogs are going to have any success at competing with the SEC frontrunners, this unit will need to learn quickly. Claiming the backfield does not possess any talent may not be suitable; there is just no starting experience.

Luckily for the 2002 team, all of Kentrell Curry, Decory Bryant, and Sean Jones emerged as a solid secondary with Thornton. Depth in the secondary is, compared to 2002, much less of a concern this fall. While 2009 has just as many questions as 2002 (can Reshad Jones be a leader? Will Bryan Evans be effective at free safety? Will we have an effective corner rotation?), I argue that the concerns going into 2002 were greater. In 2002 then-secondary coach Willie Martinez built a strong unit from a very talented group. Here’s hoping history repeats itself. August 2002 vs. August 2009 comparison: Push, if not slightly 2009.

Senior punter Jonathan Kilgo was a finalist for the Ray Guy Award and returns to give the defense a little support in the field position department.

Here’s hoping Drew Butler has an outstanding year. But for our purposes, this position is cut and dried. August 2002 vs. August 2009 comparison: 2002, clearly.

Conclusion: there is simply no way that the stars could align on defense in 2009 as they did in 2002, with the emergence of Pollack as a dominant defender, Boss Bailey as another leader, and a suffocating secondary seemingly from nowhere. That being said, the 2009 defense is crammed with senior leadership (in which I include Curran) within each unit. As an overall defense, I don’t think Georgia has the level of concern that it did in 2002 from a talent standpoint, but with the stench of the 2007 meltdowns still in the air, it’s a hard case to make. Further, in 2002 we didn’t realize who we had in Van Gorder, whereas in 2009 we are all too aware of the abilities of our current defensive coordinator. I think Martinez gets more blame than he deserves (and have written as much previously), but like it or not it is a make-or-break year for the defense.

Will 2009 be another 2002? Here’s hoping. The thing about 2002 was that Georgia got the right answers to all of the preseason questions, along with the lucky breaks and miracle plays that it takes to win the SEC. But looking back seven years, the preseason questions, strengths & weaknesses are virtually identical to today.

Comment at twitter.com/ThinkingBulldog

“Jon Stinchcomb leads the offensive line as a
consistent All-American and All-Conference vote getter.”

I read with much interest VineyardDawg’s excellent post at Dawg Sports this morning, which is a position-by-position rundown of this year’s Georgia squad vs. the 2005 SEC Champion team. The results are disappointing. However it allows me the opportunity to make what I believe to be (how’s that for wordy, T. Kyle King?) a more applicable and encouraging comparison: this year’s team compared to the 2002 Bulldogs. Now, one fault I find with Vineyard’s assessment is that, by and large, he compares the August 2009 squad against the December 2005 squad, which is not a fair comparison. Let’s go back to 2002, and you’ll see this year’s team faces pretty much the exact same problems.

I found what I believe to be a good Standard Conventional Wisdom analysis of the 2002 Georgia Bulldogs (ranked #13 by coincidence), and the quotes are from the piece.

2002 Offense:  STRENGTHS: Offensive Line, Wide Receiver, Quarterback, Kicker.  CONCERNS:  Tight End, Running Back

Last season young David Greene set freshman records in Athens in passing yards and touchdowns, and started all 12 games for the Bulldogs, which earned him SEC Freshman of the Year honors. However, depth at quarterback through the spring has created a heated battle at the position. Redshirt freshman D.J. Shockley was a heralded recruit out of high school and is pushing hard for the job. Cory Phillips is another incumbent in the rotation. Phillips has the edge in experience over Shockley after starting five games in 2000. The cupboard is totally full for second year Coach Mark Richt with his signal callers.

At quarterback in 2002, Georgia brought back David Greene for his sophomore season. Greene had a solid but uneven performance in 2001, partially due to a new coaching staff and offense. Greene was a system quarterback without the great physical tools but made correct decisions, and Richt, then offensive coordinator, called plays that fell within Greene’s abilities. Now, with the benefit of hindsight it’s impossible to say Cox will outproduce Green, but Cox shares virtually all of Greene’s advantages, as well as his limitations.  At least Cox has 4 years in the system and a smattering of game experience.   Logan Gray compares favorably with DJ Shockley as well, and like 2002, Gray will make his first appearances under live fire this year.  I like the comparison of Greene/Shockley to Cox/Gray very much. The key here, in fact the key to the whole season in my opinion, will be whether Cox can maintain his composure on the field and execute within his abilities as Greene did.   I for one believe that he will.  August 2002 vs. August 2009 comparison:  2002, somewhat reluctantly.

The veteran wide receiver group is led by senior Terrance Edwards, who is in line to paste himself inside the Georgia Receiving Record Book. On the other side is returning starter Damien Gary, but the person most talked about seems to be Fred Gibson, who sat out the spring with a separated shoulder. Gibson has all the tools necessary to become a great asset.

And let us not forget the great Michael Johnson; not exactly a lot of preseason buzz about him in August 2002.  AJ Green certainly is an acceptable substitute for a senior Terrance Edwards in my view, but does Michael Moore or the other returners (Troupe, Wooten, T. King, et al) fill the possession receiver role of Damien Gary? The role of Fred Gibson will be played by Marlon Brown.  Can Brown be as good as Gibson? Let’s hope the bar will be set a bit higher than that.  August 2002 vs. August 2009 comparison:   Slight 2002 advantage.

Possibly the most shining group will be the offensive line as the Dawgs return four starters from a 2001 season that only allowed 15 sacks and was a large reason for the success last year in the running game as well. Jon Stinchcomb leads the group as a consistent All-American and All-Conference vote getter.

The 2002 starting five were, George Foster, Alex Jackson, Russ Tanner, Kevin Breedlove, & John Stinchcomb.  In 2002 there was no second string line to speak of (Ian Knight?  Chris Hewitt?).  With all the depth and relative health so far, I think I will take a healthy Sturdivant, Davis/Vance, Jones, Glen & Boling over that squad. August 2002 vs. August 2009 comparison: 2009 comfortably.

Gone is the leading rusher from last year in Verron Hayes. His apparent replacement is super recruit Musa Smith, who still continues to have the injury bug follow him around in Athens. Musa really started out strong to start last season and became one of the leading rushers, only to be stifled by lack of durability. If he could stay healthy, people would really see big things from this gifted athlete. In that regards, it is tough to paper stamp the running back position a major need for concern.

Sound familiar?  It would sound even moreso if Caleb had himself a healthy fall camp.  However note the following:  in 2002, our second string backfield was Mike Gilliam at Tailback behind Musa, and Braxton Snyder behind J.T. Wall at Fullback. August 2002 vs. August 2009 comparison: 2009 comfortably.

The early departure of Randy McMichael at tight end is cause for the most apprehension. The spot is wide open and is a battle between a few candidates.

In August of 2002 nobody would’ve dared wish for the production we got out of Big Ben Watson. Was he a JUCO transfer? I can’t remember. Anyway our current crop of TEs look to be an effective bunch, especially if Orson Charles or Arthur Lynch pan out. August 2002 vs. August 2009 comparison:   Slight 2009 advantage.

The kicking game looks good. Kicker Billy Bennet set a school record by hitting six field goals in the win over Georgia Tech.

Here the analogy breaks down somewhat, but again with the benefit of hindsight we know Bennett would be an all-timer for Georgia. Blair Walsh, here’s your shot in year 2. August 2002 vs. August 2009 comparison: 2002.

Outlook: this comparison reveals the essential questions we have about the offense this year: Will Cox be the calm field general? Who will help AJ Green at WR? Who totes the rock? Will an effective TE emerge? Can we count on the kicking game? We got the right answers in 2002.  What gives the 2009 offense the edge to me is a significantly deeper team at running back and offensive line.

Back with Defense later.

Comment at twitter.com/ThinkingBulldog

I don’t know but I’ve been told
it’s hard to run with the weight of gold

It must be nice to be a Florida fan these days. Tim Tebow gets all of the press, but what really must have the Gator faithful resting easy at night is its Charlie Strong-led defense returning basically everybody on the two-deep. In fact, with a defense that stands to dominate every opponent, Urban Meyer would be wise to focus on a more run-oriented attack, as the abounding rumors say. They simply are not going to need that many points to win each game this year.

Only Ole Miss sports a more cream puff schedule than the Gators, and although the talking heads point toward the LSU game in Baton Rouge as the big test for that team, it’s actually the only game on the schedule that they really don’t have to win.  Even with an LSU loss, they’ll probably have victories over 5 teams with winning records (assuming wins over UGA, FSU, and whoever wins the West, and at least two of UT, UK, the Hogs or the Cocks will likely stitch together winning records).   So as usual the pundits have it exactly wrong:  LSU in Baton Rouge is actually the one game on the schedule that the Gators can afford to lose.

Tebow’s biggest asset for the Gators is not his arm or his legs, it’s his superstardom. Because of Tebow, a 12-1 SEC Champion Florida is in the BCS title unless there are somehow two undefeated teams, i.e., USC and the Big 12 Champ, which seems about impossible to me.  With one loss, the human polls will put Tebow in the BCS title game even if the computers dock them for scheduling.

One thin reed upon which to hang any hope of Florida losing two games is turnover margin. Last year Florida had a staggering +22 T/O margin. Surely this will return to more normalized levels (it better, especially on Halloween), and even “average good” turnover margin of +5 or so will mean that Florida will be in more close games.   A thin reed indeed with that defense, but really the stat to keep an eye on as the season unfolds.

The expectations game also works heavily against the Gators. Everybody has them penciled in for the BCS title game, and they will be at least two touchdown favorites in 11 of 12 games on the schedule and possibly the SEC Championship game as well. Just like Georgia last year, focus and discipline will be key.  Unfortunately I have great confidence that Florida, unlike Georgia last season, can act like they’ve been there before, because it ain’t acting.

Absent a true mental breakdown, the only thing that can stop the Gators juggernaut is the little ol’ Bulldogs from Athens. Florida can stomach a loss in the West (and did in 06 and 08), but some team from the east has to manage to not only beat Florida, but also manage to lose only 1 other conference game all season. That would knock the Gators out of the SEC championship, and thereby the BCS title game. No other team in the East has a prayer of accomplishing both of these feats except the Dawgs.  Surely Florida’s coach, Mr. Smilin-Laughin-Jokin-Around Guy, knows this. Georgia’s the only team that can keep them out of Atlanta.  The hopes and dreams of the civilized, non-jean-short world rest upon those little ol’ pups from the piedmont.

On the other hand I’ve heard it said
it’s just as hard with the weight of lead

Meanwhile way up north on I-75 there’s a new sheriff in town who ostensibly has only 1 bullet in his gun, namely Eric Berry.  I disagree.  The Vols will be a good team this year because they have a very talented defense and simply have to be better on offense.  The real problem for Kiffin & Co. is the schedule, where they’ve dropped Mississippi State in the West and pick up Ole Miss on the road.  Also on the road:  Florida and Alabama.  But the key games for the Vols have to be a very dangerous UCLA team, along with Auburn and South Carolina.  With their defensive talent, all three are winnable home games that will define Kiffin’s initial success in Knoxville, not Florida or Georgia or Alabama.

But my how things change.  Recall that Saturday afternoon in October 2007, when the Vols came out and blew heavily favored Georgia away in the first half on the way to a remarkably easy victory.  Fulmer had saved his job it appeared, and in the meantime had pocketed 3 wins in the past 4 years against Georgia.  It appeared there might be a shift in the power structure of the East, as South Carolina, Vandy & Kentucky all found a way to lose and got Fulmer into the Dome.  Fulmer then went on to lose 8 of his last 13 games.

Once the clock starts running, toe meets leather, eta al, I don’t think much can be made of Kiffin’s antics in recruiting and other offseason distractions.  Yes, Kiffin has managed to make himself thoroughly unlikable by virtually all SEC fans and some in his very own base.  I’d like to think he’s just playing this game to keep the focus on him and not his players.  However, once he gets himself into a post-game presser after a humiliating defeat, the guy could well blow a circuit.  I’m not betting on it but wouldn’t be surprised (read:  here’s hoping).

I’m not sure what to make of the Vols this year other than I really doubt they will be home for the holidays again.  I figure they’ll do like most teams with new head coaches:  win a few they have no business winning, and lose a few they have no business losing.  Enough of the former and few enough of the latter can sew up third place in the East and maybe a Peach Bowl trip if they beat Auburn & UCLA, or Shreveport if they lose both.

I certainly hope that UGA won’t be Laner’s season-defining win, but Georgia should be pretty well tapped out by week 7, having played LSU the preceding weekend and already having taken two road trips west of the Mississippi before heading to Knoxville.  The Tennessee trip will very, very dangerous indeed.

Comment at twitter.com/ThinkingBulldog

What gets the most chatter about the past 3 years is obviously the 30 Minute Meltdowns defensively, which showed up in all of the Dawgs losses in 2008 (1^st Half Alabama, 2^nd Half Florida, 2^nd Half of Tech), 1 of the two losses in 07 (1^st half Tennessee), as well as the disastrous 2^nd half vs. UT in 2006.  This is where the coaching ability of Martinez and his assistants come into play, when things get out of hand quickly and order cannot be restored.  Even a team as depleted by injury as Georgia was should not give up 31 points in a half, or 26 points in one quarter, on its home field, and purport to be a top 10 program.  Let us also not forget the complete inability to stop Kentucky in the 4^th quarter in 2006 with the game on the line.

More insidious than the defensive meltdowns (okay, not more, but also) has been the inability of the offense to show up and put the hammer down on opponents when the defense actually did come to play.  Has anyone ever been less thrilled about a victory over Tennessee than last year’s 26-14 slop-fest?  Was I the only one desiring to claw out my own eyes at the 14-7 quaalude of a victory in Columbia?  Clinging to a 4 point lead against a truly bad Auburn squad in the closing seconds?

Instrumental in the Dawgs offensive struggles against bad teams, to me, is Richt and Bobo’s overall strategic approach to inferior competition.  We repeatedly see an effective first half effort from a play calling standpoint returned to the play book when a two-score lead is achieved.  The offensive attack becomes conservative, with an eye towards “milking the clock” via first downs on the ground.  Unless the defense can produce takeaways (not a strong suit lately), this strategy merely keeps the opponent in the game for longer than necessary.

From my seat, an opponent down less than three scores is desperate to make a stop and get the ball back, and will therefore take more risks, as literally the clock is ticking.  And a defense taking risks (especially with inferior talent) is far more likely to expose itself to big plays.  When a team is down two touchdowns in the second half, does their defense become more conservative?  Of course not.  Therefore, a conservative offense plays right into the defense’s hands, giving them a greater likelihood of achieving their goal of a quick stop and possibly a negative yardage possession.  I’d like to see Georgia exploit the vulnerabilities created by this risk-taking.  The objective here is not to run up the score (though in our poll-driven system it never hurts) but to amass a comfortable-enough lead to pull the starters and allow the substitutes more playing time, which improves depth of experience for the long run.

Eventually the clock situation demands a run-it-and-stay-inbounds attack, but this needs to be reserved for the second half of the fourth quarter.  And even then if I had my way only in close, low scoring games.  I’d like to never hear Coach Richt or Bobo admit post-game that they went conservative too early and let somebody back into the game, as happened all too often in the Stafford Era.

Comment at twitter.com/ThinkingBulldog

Yes, Georgia was overrated last year, as I said at the time.  But the team was overrated by the media and the pollsters, not the fans.  I talked to exactly zero fans in August of 2008 who actually thought Georgia was the best team in the country.  That doesn’t mean being #1 wasn’t a thrill while it lasted, but most fans and the coaching staff, I believe, had realistic expectations of a strong run at the SEC East and maybe the chance to pull off something special with a few lucky bounces.   Perhaps I overestimate my Dawg peers.  By the Kentucky game, I turned off the TV in disgust as Georgia blew a 21 point lead in the first half.  That’s probably the only time I’ve done that in the CMR era.

The injury situation was not predictable, though not unexpected, as any team in a given year can be ravaged by injuries.  But preseason expectations are usually within the parameters of a normalized injury situation, which 2008 certainly was not.  What was not predictable or expected in a Richt-coached team was just how damaging the lack of discipline would be, both on and off the field.  Lack of discipline manifested itself in player arrests, excessive penalties, poor tackling, lousy special teams, poor execution in general, and perhaps even contributed to the injury situation.  So, to put a lid on 2008:  the team that walked off the field Capital One Bowl champs on January 1, 2009, was truly no better than the team that ran onto the field against Georgia Southern.  And what if A.J. Green hadn’t panned out!

Comment at twitter.com/ThinkingBulldog

This is in response to an outstanding discussion of the issues surrounding the Georgia-Florida rivalry and the Jacksonville issue over at Dawg Sports.  I highly recommend reading all of the comments for all of the arguments on either side of the issue, and the particularly cogent commentary of RationalGator.

Professor Sentell, the fearsome Torts professor at UGA Law, always cancelled classes the Thursday and Friday before Florida, because that’s where he was headed. “They’ll be jumping off the balconies of the hotel into the pool by 10 AM” he used to say. Anyway, by and large those who favor home-and-home do not attend the game in Jacksonville, while those who do feverishly support keeping the game at the neutral site.  I fall on the latter side, sporting a lifetime 5-6 record in Jax.

The constant references to the 3-16 record over the past years is just another example of media and intellectual (which are mutually exclusive) laziness. As if Spurrier’s dominance over Ray Gump and Dim Jonnan bears any relevance to either program today. Since the departure of Darth Visor, the series has been achingly close. As TKK pointed out, in the 5 games immediately after Spurrier’s departure, the games were decided by an average of less than 4 points.

There’s really no more compelling argument against the theory of  a Gator “advantage” in Jax than CMR’s very own record in enemy stadiums—the team seems at its disciplined, focused best when away from Athens.  And in odd-numbered years, the Dawgs play a second neutral field game on North Avenue in Atlanta, where the number of fans is roughly even, and Georgia seems to do just fine there.

As opposed to the location of the game and the number of supporting fans in the stands, UGAs recent defeats in Jacksonville might be explained by:

• Dropped passes.
• Ill-timed and poorly executed trick plays (Joe T notwithstanding).
• Consistently lousy special teams play, especially field goals.
• Throwing the football to the guys in the blue jerseys.
• Giving up multiple long 1st quarter TD drives (yes, Mr. Martinez, I am looking at you).
• Putting the football on the carpet at the start of the 2nd half (what, 3 times since ‘02?).
• Do not even get me started on not going for it on 4th and inches on the Florida 1 in 2005.

All of the above are simply the symptoms of an unfocused, unprepared team and coaching staff. The above can also be found in most all UGA defeats in the CMR era, home, away and in Jax. Coach, we have met the enemy, and he is us. And I fail to see how a change of venue would have prevented these errors. 

So why does Georgia consistently play this way against Florida? Because they are in our heads, you moron!

Were I CMR’s sports psychologist (and I should be), I’d tell him this: CMR, my man, Florida is in your head and everyone on the staff and team. You try to avoid it, prevent it, and not admit it, but UF is in your head, and everybody knows it.  You get it all year, from mat drills to spring practice to media days to after most big wins and all through game week:  3-16, 3-16, 3-16.  2-6 against Florida yourself.  You and the team want this one so badly…you resort to the Celebration and onside kicks and halfback passes.  The fans are dying for a win and never let you forget about it.  And Damon certainly has a weed up his rear end about the Gators, too.  That can’t help.  So what do you do?  Work that much harder?  Watch a little more film?  Put Tebow posters in the locka’ room? Get Bill Goldberg to give the team a pep talk?

Actually none of that will help.  Coach, you and the team have a problem, and you need to name it.  You need to EMBRACE the fact that Urban & Co. are in your heads. Welcome Tebow in there. Get an autograph.  Have Mrs. CMR prepare coffee and warm croissants for your sweet little Gator guests and set the thermostat at 72 to make their stay up there as comfortable as possible. Laugh about it.  Be straight with the media: “yes, how could they not be in our heads…they beat us consistently and we always seem to make the worst mistakes at the most critical times against them. Obviously the Gators are up there, how could they not be.  It sucks.”  The first and biggest step is to NAME IT. Shout from the rooftops, ‘yes, the Gators are in our heads.’ Because remarkably, once you name it, it’s out there. And when its out there, it will go away.*

Then you can get back to playing football, tend to your own business, and make the Gators earn every yard and every point. Then I think Jacksonville will be much more to your liking.

*Using this tried-and-true methodology for overcoming fear and anxiety would also have the lovely consequence of driving Urban & Co. absolutely nuts.  There’s nothing more satisfying than being absolutely straight with an enemy, then watching them tie themselves in knots trying to figure out what you’re “really” up to.

Please follow at www.twitter.com/ThinkingBulldog

I was born to Twitter.  Back in the old days when I posted more regularly on the Dawg Vent (my handle was/is Chase Street Package),  I’d make a point to fit whatever I had to say into the subject line only.  At least 95% of the time anyway, figuring that if a point couldn’t be made in the 50-or-so character limit contained in the subject line, it probably wasn’t worth making.  So I feel almost lazy with Twitter and its 140-character limit; it’s truly a fish-meet-water situation for me.

Those of you familiar with Twitter are probably familiar with the concept of “hashtags.”  If a group of people have a particular area of interest, e.g., Georgia football, they all put the same word in every post and precede it with the hash (#) symbol, e.g., #dawgs.  So if a twitterer goes to the twitter search engine and searches for “#dawgs” all twitters with that tag will pop up in chronological order, like a Twitter Dawgvent.  Eventually someone more popular than me will popularize #dawgs and there will be twitters aplenty in the dawgtwittersphere, but until then you’ll be stuck with just little ol’ me.

Hey, I screwed around…guys screw around, there’s nothing wrong with that. Except you got caught, Sport.

Andrew’s Father, The Breakfast Club, March 24, 1984

As always, they (Auburn) were much bigger and much, much deeper than Georgia. They always will be, too. You can count on that, I’m afraid. . . . Two of the (reasons are other schools) recruiting a certain type of athlete that Georgia cannot talk to, and also keeping the athletes in school once they get them there. Those two things are impossible to overcome.

Larry Munson, November 1988 after Georgia’s loss on the Plains

I’d say Jan Kemp took varying degrees of blame from fans for every Georgia defeat from 1986 through about 1996. She died last Friday from complications of Alzheimers. In case you forgot, and I doubt any Georgia fan over 30 has, Kemp sucessfully sued UGA for wrongful termination after she was fired for speaking out about preferential treatment of athletes within the “developmental studies” program in the early 1980s. Testimony in the suit served to drag through the mud the reputation of the university as an academic institution and portrayed the athletic department as a crooked football factory (and basketball, though no actual results were ever achieved outside of 1983).

Jan Kemp was a deeply disturbed woman who led a life to which no rational human being would aspire. Consider: two suicide attempts, once by pills and once by stabbing herself multiple times in the chest with a butcher knife. She spent stretches in psychiatric wards and went to jail for almost a year for contempt of court.  The rumors out there are much, much worse. But really, you don’t need to get into any of the rumor and innuendo to conclude that this woman had serious problems. Actually, given the climate in Athens in the early 80s, you’d have to be crazy to call out UGA on academic preferences for football players. That may be proof enough right there that she was nuts.

So it was certainly a plausible defense when the University claimed that Kemp was fired because she was mentally unstable and unable to work with fellow faculty members. That may be true, but consider the outcome:

Georgia’s treatment of student-athletes changed immediately after the trial with the new admission and eligibility policies.   In the first year after the trial, an investigation by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed that 23 football and basketball players had become “academic casualties.” The newspaper reported that 11 had been refused admission after accepting scholarships because they did not meet the requirements. Eleven others, including several prominent players, were dismissed from school for failing to advance from the developmental studies program in the fourth-quarter limit. The other athlete, basketball player Toney Mack, was ruled ineligible because he did not pass enough courses.

(Aside: ahh, Toney Mack…the epitome of the Durham-era Georgia basketball player) So, given that when the then-current academic standards for students were applied to the football team, Georgia lost nearly a quarter of its players, yes there was something rotten on Herty Drive. And Jan Kemp was just crazy enough to call them out on it. KIA in the crossfire included Fred “The Head Fred” Davison, UGA President. Virgina Trotter, absolutely tarred in the press and on the witness stand, was demoted from VP of academic affairs, as was Leroy Ervin, director of developmental studies.  Both left the University shortly thereafter.

Also a casualty was the football team, which voluntarily gave a competitive edge to its opponents by equalizing academic standards for athletes and refusing admission to any partial qualifiers. The higher standards were most deeply felt with the disastrous 1989 and 1990 campaigns, as well as the Era of Mediocrity, 1993-96.

The Kemp affair was a particular triumph for those faculty and staff that always resented the football program. If you have lived in Athens for any period of time, you know these types. These folks fall into a few disparate groups: (a) those who see a strong football program as detracting from the academic reputation of the University, (b) those who feel a certain superiority (i.e., snobs) over those yahoos, particularly the rich boosters, that invade Athens 6 weekends a year and actually have a really good time, and/or (c) those who hate football and football players in particular because they get their butts kissed by everybody just because they’re dumb jocks while us serious academic types couldn’t get a phone number from much less bed a cheerleader or gymnast or that smokin’ Alpha Chi Omega.

However despite the fact that what happened made a lot of extremely annoying people happy (that’s not even counting extremely annoying fans of other teams), Georgia got what it deserved. Times had changed by the mid-80s. The social change that swept the country in the last half of the twentieth century, in particular civil rights protections for women and minorities, was bound to catch up with some college football program eventually. And there sits Georgia, the top program in college football in the early 80s, with the biggest target on its back. These kids, with God-given athletic talent, primarily dirt poor minorities, usually from substandard rural or urban schools, were used and discarded by the football program. And rather than clean up the mess, the University worked either overtly or by knowing omission to keep this system in place for the sake of winning more football games, more booster money, and more football prestige, whatever that is.

Does Georgia Football and its fans still feel the impact of the Kemp scandal to this day?  I think so.   Hey, we should feel lucky we didn’t get the SMU treatment, but still the impact of the lean years of 89-90 and 93-96 can still be felt, and some of the credit goes to Kemp.  Not so much because of the stigma of the Kemp affair on the football program and the University (because all of our opponents lived in the same glass houses), but because a decade of second-tier status in the SEC is extremely difficult to overcome, and Georgia is just now returning to the level of respectability it enjoyed in the 1970s (i.e., not quite yet the early 1980s).  So I don’t think, as Mark Bradley implied at the time, that because of Kemp we are permanently on the outside looking in with respect to elite college football programs.  That’s where the program presently is, I am afraid, but CMR and Damon Evans still have a fighting chance to change that, and I think they will.  If they are lucky. 

One of the strangest things about the whole affair was how in the world Dooley was able to tiptoe away from the entire fiasco with nary a scratch, but that topic is above my pay grade.

But what’s equally strange about the whole Kemp affair was how in the years that followed, the other football powers in the South, and nationwide I suppose (SMU excepted), were never nailed to the extent Georgia was. Is there anyone on Earth who doesn’t think the exact same thing was going on in Baton Rouge, Gainesville, or Tallahassee?  Why was there was never a Jan Kemp at Auburn, or Oklahoma, or Arkansas? Nearly a decade after Kemp was fired, the rest of the college football universe was just coming around to the standards that were self-imposed in Athens in 1986. What took them so long? I guess there just wasn’t anybody as nuts as Jan Kemp in Austin, Tuscaloosa or Clemson. Dead at 59. R.I.P.

Contemporary articles here.

More reader mail:

While we all were hoping for better things this season, we were over-hyped last summer, lacked on the field leadership that we got from Kelin, Cheese and Velasco, had too many injuries for even a talented roster of athletes, and finally missed out on some coaching in some areas. Obviously, we are not a sound football team this year and it certainly doesn’t require an ex-coach to see that we have giant voids in our special teams play. On the other hand how much better would our kick-off coverage be if we had not had approximately 15 crucial injuries to players who were either starters or second on the depth chart whose places were taken by walk-ons who have neither the speed nor the athleticism to really get down field and cover?

My doubts about Georgia’s national championship contention are well-documented.  That being said, I really was glad to see our humble little band of brothers ranked #1 in the pre-season.  I think it was due mostly to the strong finish of 2007.  It certainly made the Georgia Southern game an electric atmosphere.  In retrospect I am still glad that we were preseason #1.  If Moreno and Stafford stay, we might be up there with at least a few #1 ballots if we were to prevail in convincing fashion over the Slide Rule Jockeys and beat Ohio State in the Citrus Bowl (I hate corporate sponsorships of bowls…it is still the Peach Bowl, just with little parachuting cows, the coolest promo ever).

I’m not sure how many guys that would ordinarily be on kick coverage were out due to injury, but the writer makes an excellent point about senior leadership and this year’s team, particularly on defense, lacking the same.  I’ll be truly despondent at the loss of Jeff Owens if he decides not to return, and Asher “Most Definitely” Allen will be a senior leader next year, most definitely.  Injuries to Ellerbee were a blow to senior leadership, and I don’t know if C.J. Byrd quite fits the bill for defensive leader, though I haven’t given it much thought.

More thoughts:

On the other hand, I think that any reasonable man could be expected to correctly conclude that at least some intangibles and a few tangibles left town with BVG. The question is: Did we go from top-five really rare defensive genius who brought mental and emotional toughness and ensured a perennial championship contender and drop off to a DC who is simply average, or slightly above? As they say in the military, some officers are outstandin g performers at the division level and total failures at the corps or army level. Maybe CWM is a top-drawer position coach handling the DB’s, but not top-drawer as the DC. Personally, I think this is a fair statement, but our overall problems this year are so varied and nebulous that it is hard to get a grip on this stuff.

I recall back in the heady days of the early 00s knowing that we’d eventually lose Van Gorder, probably sooner rather than later, and that whoever was selected as his replacement would be a step down.  Turns out I was right on both counts.  That being said, BVG was one of those rare DCs that come along once a generation, and in the current coaching carousel environment their moving up to a HC position is virtually a guarantee (except Charlie Strong!!! @!#$%!@#@#!$##!#$%$@#!%!@#!!!!!!!!!).  So I enjoyed it while it lasted.

However I think CWM gets too little of the credit when things are going well, and too much of the blame when things aren’t going well.  In my opinion a good DC must be a good motivator, but more importantly should put the defenders into schemes that give them a chance to make a play.  And I think by and large CWM does a good job with the scheme, but this year we just haven’t had guys on our team making big plays, and things like that awful busted coverage against Florida aren’t his fault.

My beef with CWM is that he spends the first half deciding if we can get sufficient pressure without blitzing, and in those instances when the front 4 can’t pressure the QB, Georgia often gets behind early.  The perfect example is Florida 2005, where the defense spotted UF 2 TDs on their first two drives.  Throw in a few turnovers by the offense and a half dozen personal fouls, and you get this year’s Alabama and Florida debacles, and West Virginia, and Virginia Tech, and Tennessee last year.  But on the other hand, when the game has been close and it gets down to nut-crackin’ time, the Defense has come through in the 4th quarter.  Usually a bit later into the game than we fans would prefer, mind you, but they tighten up late.

In conclusion, I think CWM is a very good DC, but not one of the greats, and I don’t know who could be an available defensive coordinator that would surely be a step up.  

I am very, very interested to see how Georgia’s defense plays in the first half of this Tech game.

From July 15, 2008:

I can’t imagine any thinking Bulldog out there who could buy into this Georgia National Championship hype. I am as excited as anybody about this season and think CMR will have a very good team, but our friends in the media are setting up the Bulldog Nation for a fall. Articles like Mark Bradley’s in the AJC over the weekend and Tony Barnhart’s today are typical setups that I’ve seen time and time again from media types in all sorts of endeavors. Set expectations unrealistically high, then declare the season a failure when these totally unrealistic expectations aren’t met.

The reason this happens is simple: a team meeting its realistic expectations isn’t news! So we’ll just have to live with it in the media. It will get worse. Much worse.

Jeff Schultz’s Sunday column is only the most recent of the woe-is-Georgia media types proclaiming their disappointment, or rather Georgia’s disappointment, in how this season has turned out.  Has it been a less than successful season?  No doubt.  Has it been a disappointing season?  Perhaps, taking into account that the team and its fans have absorbed two of the most bitter defeats in the history of the program (the Florida loss supplanting this, and the Alabama loss supplanting that).

But I realized Saturday after the Auburn win that what we’re dealing with is simply a team that has a definitive playing personality.  They go out there unprepared, fool around, make a few big plays, give up a lot of yards, idiotic penalties, abysmal special teams, and then somehow pull out a win against any competition that’s not in the Top 5.  That’s just the way it is.

I, like you, figured that at some point, a la 2007, the switch would come on and the team would commence running all over everybody, but that didn’t happen for one particular reason, which I’ll get into shortly.  But back to July 15:

Personally, I really would be surprised if Georgia makes it through September undefeated. One of Steve Spurrier, Arizona State, or Alabama is going to slip in and beat Georgia unless the team is ready for 60 minutes of hell in all three games….

October looks to feature another loss among Tennessee, LSU, or Florida. If you have given our boys a better shot at LSU because of their situation at quarterback, read SMQ’s somewhat obligatory assessment and rethink. And if the team emerges unscathed from September, and they have an off week to read about how great they are, a letdown against Tennessee is virtually assured, the only question will be whether they can win despite the letdown (see Kentucky, 2007). Florida needs no introduction.

Really, these were very un-bold predictions for anybody who has been paying attention.  South Carolina ended up being a pretty good team, as did, uh, Alabama.  Arizona State got caught looking ahead to Georgia and paid big time, and the ASU game was, unfortunately it turned out, the best effort the team put forth all season.  Georgia played just good enough to start believing their press clippings and, as it always goes when that happens, expected to win via showing up despite a team across the field with bigger, deeper lines of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and a senior QB.

Florida did this year what Georgia did in 2007 and what we expected Georgia would do after the Alabama debacle.  Florida put it all together after a shocking defeat and will win the national championship this year, no question.  But as we kicked off the Tennessee game we didn’t realize that the team that slopped through the South Carolina game was the team we’d get all year.  It is plausible, though not probable, that after the Alabama defeat the team, after so much hype, started mailing it in because the MNC was off the table.  I completely disagree–the die had been cast weeks before Bama.  Back to July 15:

November looks to be easier, but with Auburn you never can tell, and every July any thinking Bulldog puts this game as 50-50 at best no matter what.

Any win on the road in the SEC is a big win.  Any win over Auburn is a big win.  Jeff Schultz, for one, and anybody else with any familiarity with the Georgia-Auburn rivalry, knows that the game is the most throw-out-the-recordbooks rivalry in the SEC, possibly in all of college football.  The goal every year is to do exactly what Georgia accomplished Saturday:  escape with the win, no matter how ugly, and by any means necessary.  That, in my mind, makes the win over 5-5 Auburn the biggest win of the year so far.  Bigger than LSU, bigger than Arizona State.  However:

I for one am glad to see seven very losable games on the Dawgs schedule. Losing 3 of these 7 is a definite possiblity and would be a respectable campaign (depending on exactly how the Dawgs go about losing those games). Winning 5 of those 7 would yield a great season and a New Year’s Day bowl bid. Heck, if they lose the right two, they could still end up on top of the East. Winning 6 would virtually assure a spot in the Dome, but winning 6 (or 7) will require one (or two) of those Belue-to-Scott, Greene-to-Johnson miracle plays that go down in history. Usually though, it takes at least one miracle play to simply make it to the Dome from the East.

So forget about national championships. The only thing that matters is whether Georgia can beat Steve Spurrier after taking care of business in weeks 1 & 2. Then, and only then, will Thinking Bulldogs concern themselves with the most important goal for the team this year: winning the SEC East. That is the true, and realistic, goal for the season. 

So, with the SEC East out the window, we’re looking at either a less-than-respectable campaign (blowout losses to Bama and UF, loss to Tech), or “a great season and a New Year’s Day bowl bid.”  Anybody should be happy with 10-2 against the toughest schedule in the country, bragging rights on Steve Spurrier, Tennessee, LSU, Auburn & Tech, and a win on the road against a PAC-10 team, and the 2 losses coming against top 5 teams.  So, the difference between beating and losing to Tech is mammoth.  The Tech game this year is much more important to Georgia than it is to Tech, without question.

So, what happened?  Pay no attention to the noise.  It was not penalties, or poor kickoff coverage, or a decimated offensive line, or a letdown after the Alabama loss, or Willie Martinez.  We’ve gone 9-2 despite all of these factors.  The reason Georgia is scraping by teams that fans expect to beat handily, and the reason Georgia was not competitive against Bama and Florida, is the lack of takeaways on defense.  The reason for the lack of takeaways is the inability of the defensive line to pressure the opposing quarterbacks and blow up running plays at the line of scrimmage.  Losing Jeff Owens, the heart of the defense and especially the d-line, changed the entire complexion of the defense, and thereby the team, and thereby the season.  The play where Jeff Owens was lost for the season was the most important play of 2008, win or lose vs. the Humble Bumbles.

Bulldog in Exile.

This is something I’ve long believed to be true:  College Football Fans are More Likely to Vote:

According to a paper published in this month’s Journal of Sports Economics, entitled “Pigskins and Politics: Linking Expressive Behavior and Voting,” residents that show overt support for their favorite college football team, in the form of displays like flags on the front yard, are nearly twice as likely as non-fanatics to hit the polls on Election Day. To reach this conclusion, a group of economists at Auburn University used that football-fueled college town as a laboratory. The researchers trolled a county database to find the addresses for nearly 4,000 residences in Auburn, and then last September, with football season in full swing, they drove through the city to observe which of these houses displayed front-porch support for coach Tommy Tuberville’s Tigers.

Some 7% of the houses scouted by the researchers had at least one visible display of affection, which the authors cataloged in the paper’s most entertaining paragraph. There were six different ways fans expressed their feelings for Auburn football, they noted. They were: “1) flying an AU flag, 2) affixing an AU pom-pom on one’s mailbox, 3) affixing an AU sticker on one’s mailbox, 4) placing an AU sign in one’s yard, 5) placing an AU windmill in one’s yard” and, in words that, sadly, will likely never appear in an economics research paper again 6) placing an inflated figure of Aubie [AU's school mascot] in one’s yard.”

…

Laband and his crew crunched the numbers, and found that those with the football paraphernalia were almost twice as likely to vote. “I was very, very surprised,” Laband says. Up to this point, most behavioral research has focused on the correlation between the likelihood of voting and displays of political expression – membership in a party, or “Vote Smith for Congress” signs on the porch. “These results show that different kinds of expressive behavior, voting and football fandom, are linked somehow, even if they don’t have the common thread of politics,” he says.

What can possibly explain this connection? For starters, it makes intuitive sense that a person who pledges allegiances to the local football team would be more willing to back a favorite politician. “In many ways, politics is a spectator sport in which you get to rank the teams, or the candidates, through a vote,” says Clemson University economist Robert Tollison. Also, politics and sports are both ideal outlets for those seeking a communal experience. “If everyone knows you’re an Auburn fan, you can talk about the games with other people, and argue about tactics and the like,” says Tollison. “It’s easy to join the conversation. If you vote, you can talk about your choices with other citizens, connect with people who share your preferences, and debate those who don’t. You’re also part of the conversation, the network.” 

First of all, it makes sense that an SEC school would fund a group of economists to perform such a study.  Also keep in mind the tag line of this blog, that people think that if they watch a football game, that they have taken part in it.  Politics and sports are both spectator sports, and virtually everyone forgets that.  In the grand scheme of things, the macro impact of a given vote, or a given volunteer, in a political campaign, contributes about as much to a politician’s victory as you dressing up in black and screaming your head off on third and six contributes to your favorite team’s victory on the football field.  But with politics and college football, people get emotionally dependent on things over which they have no control whatsoever.  This can be extremely entertaining for twisted people like me, which is one of the main reasons I’ll be pulling for McCain next week and the Vols on Saturday.

I thought of another classic Larry call that did not make the original list:  1990, Georgia vs. East Carolina.  Garrison Hearst scored the tying touchdown.  

“Georgia finally caught ‘em on the first three seconds of the 4th quarter and it’s 9-9, and it is very much like impacted wisdom teeth.”  

IIRC Georgia held on to win 10-9 after East Carolina’s game winning field goal bounced off the upright.

“We were scratching and pecking any way we could.”

Herewith another stab at the Mumme Poll (teams arranged alphabetically):

The First Five:

Alabama
Penn State
Oklahoma
Southern Cal
Texas

The Next Seven:

Florida
Georgia
LSU
Ohio State
Oklahoma State
Texas Tech
Utah

Comments:  Yawn.  This is unchanged from last week except for dropping Missouri and adding LSU back in. On the margins, at the present time the safest 3 in the top 5 are Texas, Oklahoma and, Southern Cal. Oklahoma sports a loss to Texas but has a trio of wins over Kansas, Cincinnati, and TCU and pretty much kills everybody.  USC has beaten Ohio State, who looks better every week, and also the wins over Oregon and (now 4-3) Virginia.  Their loss to Oregon State is looking better as well, as the Beavers have responded from the disastrous loss at Stanford to a winning record, and their other two losses are Utah and Penn State, who are a combined 16-0.  USC also has 3 teams left on the schedule who currently have winning records (Arizona, Cal & ND), so I’m not totally convinced that USC is out of the BCSCG picture if they win out.

Alabama beat Georgia convincingly, of course, but their other victory against a team with a winning record is Kentucky, who sports one of the worst nonconference schedules around (second in the SEC to maybe only, say, Alabama), and have struggled against Tulane and Ole Miss, and the win over Clemson has not aged well.  Ominously for the Tide, right now only two teams left on their schedule who have a winning record, LSU and Auburn.  Penn State, meanwhile, has beaten a 4-3 Oregon State Team and a 4-3 Illinois team, not as impressive as Bama’s win over Georgia, but at least the Lions have had the common decency to utterly destroy pretty much everyone else on their schedule.

Knocking on the top 5 door are Georgia, Ohio State and Oklahoma State.  Each has 3 wins against teams with winning records, and UGA and Ohio State have suffered losses to top 5 teams.  This weekend should clear up all kinds of things between UGA v. LSU, Ohio State v. Penn State, and Oklahoma State v. Texas. 

Last in the pool for me was Texas Tech and LSU.  Tech continues to drop with the strength of their schedule, beating only Nevada and two Big XII North teams with winning records primarily because of the lameness of their schedules.  LSU gets a win on the road at night against South Carolina, and Auburn still has a winning record, and further despite the wake-up call in Gainesville, LSU still looks more impressive to me than a Boise State team with only a win over Oregon and 5 other dreadful opponents, or maybe Pitt (with wins over South Florida, Iowa, and The Navy, but the inexcusable loss to Bowling Green). TCU also got a look, but other than the statement win over BYU and New Mexico, there’s not much else there.  Next week LSU will either be easily in, or easily out.

So now Texas is #1, and deservedly so.  Six convincing wins including Oklahoma.  Penn State, Alabama, and Oklahoma State form the second tier.  Penn State sports convincing wins, including decent Wisconsin, Illinois, and Oregon State teams.  This puts them ahead of Alabama in my view because Bama has struggled in games that they shouldn’t have if they’re to be considered the top team in the country.  I’ll be very interested to watch their performance against Ole Miss this weekend.  It was a near-run thing to place Bama ahead of an Oklahoma State team that defeated Missouri in gritty fashion on the road.

Oklahoma has delivered TCU and Cincinnati’s sole defeats this year, so with a loss to #1 Texas, I don’t think they drop below Georgia and Ohio State.  Sure, Georgia’s victory over South Carolina looks better by the week, but they may be a bit overrated (LSU and Florida will decide that question).  Here’s the thing about Georgia:  there seemed to be some sort of coalescence of the offensive line against a fine Vol defense as the game unfolded last Saturday.  The penalty issue is a diversion; the real determining factor for Georgia is whether the offensive and defensive lines come together midseason as they did last year.  Their dominant-everywhere-but-the-scoreboard win over Tennessee allows them to jump over Utah, whose schedule hurts them (40-7 over 2-4 Wyoming).  Likewise, I docked winners Ohio State (16-3 over 2-4 Purdue), Boise State (24-7 over 2-4 Southern Miss), and BYU (21-3 over 3-4 New Mexico) as their strength of schedule falls.

Florida vs. Missouri was a tough call because Florida has wins over LSU, who may not be as good as everybody thought, and Hawaii and Miami, who may be more decent than everybody thought.  Meanwhile Mizzou has wins over Illinois and Nebraska, who are looking to not be as good as they’d hoped, but a loss to a very good Oklahoma State.  In the end Florida’s loss to Ole Miss costs them.  But let’s see how the Rebs do this weekend on the road again!

Michigan State clearly has a better resume’ at this point than Virginia Tech, but I think VT is coming on strong, and their resume’ looks better week by week.  All Michigan State needs to do is knock off Ohio State and that quandry will be solved.

The next tier is the grouping of LSU, North Carolina, Wake Forest, and Cal.  These four will shake out in their proper direction as the all have important conference games on the road against good teams (LSU @ Steve Spurrier, UNC @ Virginia, Wake @ Maryland, and Cal @ Arizona), so pay no attention to the order at this time.  I would predict that South Carolina is going to put it on LSU this weekend if I made predictions, which I am specifically not predicting here. 

All of the above are clearly superior to the Humble Bumbles, who struggled against a 1-AA team, but their resume’ still keeps them ahead of Minnesota, who can only point to Bowling Green as their sole victory over a team with a winning record.  The Golden Gophers will pass Tech if they win at Purdue this weekend.  But at least they beat Bowling Green, which Pitt was unable to do.

I decided to let TCU back in the top 25 this week after I realized that they haven’t given up more than 14 points in any of their 6 victories, and their only loss it to Oklahoma.  Finally, Kansas gets in and bumps Tulsa after Tulsa struggled with a bad SMU team and Kansas is doing okay in conference play so far.

Vandy is the only other team to fall out of the top 25 after losing to Mississippi State, which I specifically did not predict would happen.  The rest of the clowns who are waiting either don’t have a win on the resume’ to jump up and down about, or are Steve Spurrier, a 2-loss team that looks to be heading in the right direction.

Dropped Out:  Vanderbilt, Tulsa

Also Waiting:  South Florida, South Carolina, Ball State
Cincinnati, Florida State, Boston College, Northwestern

An interesting exercise, drafted without consulting the past week’s poll:

 
A closer look at Utah’s wins causes me to put them ahead of the trio of one-loss teams in the top 10.  USC and Ohio State benefit from strong victories against decent teams, and a closer look at the Texas Tech schedule (abysmal) causes me to dock them, and BYU in the polls.   Virginia Tech’s strength of schedule keeps looking better and better, and Florida’s look worse and worse.  I finally decide to give Vandy, Tech and Cal their due, and Michigan State also.   But don’t worry, Vandy will get beat by Mississippi State unless I actually predict they will lose, which I am specifically not doing.   Every week it seems that the bottom 5-8 is shuffled entirely.

I already feel bad about not giving Pitt more credit for beating South Florida.  Still, Bowling Green?  And yes, still no Kansas.

This will be totally different next week:

Oklahoma and Penn State jump over Missouri (off) and LSU (struggled with a Mississippi State team that was blown out by the Humble Bumbles), and while I was tempted to put the Nittanys #1 on the basis of resume’, Oklahoma has shown simply no weaknesses this season.

And while I appreciate the ol’ fashioned whuppin’, like Grandad used to give, that Alabama put on Georgia, the Clemson victory has certainly lost its luster, and I don’t think one team deserves overwhelming credit for a victory when the other team simply fails to show up.  Sorry.  Just keep winning though, Tide, because as you know Alabama is any thinking Bulldog’s second favorite SEC team.  As Dr. Saturday, I think it was, said (or perhaps Orson Swindle), if a Bama fan finds a $20 bill on the sidewalk in Montgomery, at the same instant an Auburn fan in Mobile stumbles and falls down a metal stairwell.  Got it?  BYU, Texas Tech and South Florida advance via a path of little resistance.

It could be that this poll punishes Wisconsin too much, and Florida too little.  Perhaps Ohio State should be ahead of the Gators.

As a lifelong Georgia fan and frequent road game attendee, there’s nothing in the world I love better than hearing that “all of the intangibles” favor the Dawgs’ opponent.  Saturday against Alabama we had it all:  #1 team in the country goes down on Thursday, blackout, GameDay, night game, two top 10 teams in Sanford for the first time in ages, Bama winning a total blowout the preceding week, a rainbow over Athens on Friday evening, even Corso did his part by putting on the elephant head, and then a ghastly loss by Florida at home to Ole Miss.  Therefore I was very concerned about a victory.  

Still, no “intangible” can really provide a true picture as to the team’s readiness for battle to the average fan. The team lives in a completely different world and can almost always be counted on to say “all the right things” to the media, thus masking an unprepared team with an aura of seriousness and preparedness…of course the team will be ready, look at all the fans tailgating at 11 AM.  By every logical process, the team would be ready.  

But there is one way to see through the haze of lucky underwear and Corso’s choice of headdress.  All other intangibles can be swept away.  There is the most intangible of all intangibles, an intangible so intangible that it’s easily unnoticed but for the most discerning eye.  But once you know to look for it, this intangible carries with it such an uncanny predictive element that it gives pause to even the most authoritative pre-game indicators:  Flip Flops.  

Exh. “A”:  Flip Flops.  Presager of Bulldog Unpreparedness for the Task at Hand.

If the hot babes and cute coeds will not go to the effort of putting on a decent pair of shoes for the game, you can rest assured that the Dawgs are woefully unprepared for the day’s contest.  I’m sure it takes a heck of a lot more effort to tromp across campus and through the crowds in pumps than just throw on the ol’ comfy flipflops waiting at the foot of the bed.  

If the babes are in high heels, they are serious about their appearance at today’s game.  If the babes are in high heels, the football team will be serious about their performance likewise.  

And I’m not talking about the packs of dateless/undateable sorostitutes in their flipflops and ugly red sack-lookin’ dresses to hide their freshman 15 25:  those girls are out because it’s an excuse to get drunk during the daytime.  As if they need an excuse Monday through Friday.  I’m talking about the honeys who put on the FME pumps and tight jeans and turn heads just as the football lands in the middle of the buffet.  

If the hotties are ready, the team is ready.  If the hotties are in flipflops, ponytail and visor, they don’t care about the game enough, and neither does the team.  If the hotties just throw on a t-shirt and flipflops and go just because their investment banker pizza delivery guy boyfriend is going, take Bama and the points.

I first noticed this phenomena at, you guessed it, Tennessee 2004.  Girls who even bothered to attend the game were in t-shirts and you-know-whats.  Result:  a Georgia team obviously unprepared and executing poorly in a critical loss.  My suspicions were confirmed the next season, when Boise State came calling.  Everybody was running scared about Boise State, but the babes had it all going on that day.  I knew it would be an easy victory. Fast forward to the following week against South Carolina that same year:  Athens was Flip Flop City, and Georgia was barely able to escape with a victory.  Two years later, Oklahoma State, heh, Steve Spurrier, same deal, worse result.  

In fact the really fetching babes never find South Carolina worthy of a decent pair of shoes, which is why we usually struggle with the Cocks at home.  

Anyway to the point, early indications last Saturday were positive.  But as the day wore on I became increasingly concerned’ sure, the ladies who were ready for the game by 11 a.m. wouldn’t dream of disgracing their game outfit with  flip flops. 

But as the day unfolded, specifically around 2:30 on North Campus, a friend who is in the know stared out into the quad, was silent for a moment, looked down at his bourbon and ice, and then suddenly blurted out the painfully obvious:  

“Lots of flip flops out there.”

And there were.  Too, too many flip flps.  Far too many flip flops.  No pumps, no strappy high heels.  Even the most attractive women in Athens that day were clad in their black dresses and comfortable flip flops.  So much the better to be wearing comfortable shoes while enjoying the Dogs’ victory, sure, right?!  Gents, we have a serious problem.

And also note:  the babes always dress up for the Tech game.

“If we can just keep winning the game that’s in front of us, the polls will take care of themselves.”  –Willie Martinez

I’ve never been more proud to be a Bulldog fan than I was on Saturday afternoon.  What a display of spririt by the fans tailgating and pregame in the stadium.  And for the fans to not get down too hard on the team after the first half, and for most of the folks to sit tight until the bitter end…we have the fan base that any thinking Bulldog has longed for and waited the past 20 years….back when the alumni stands would get on their feet and roar for the defense when they came off the field after another third down stop.  I didn’t talk to a single friend pre-game who thought the game would be anything less than a slugfest, black jerseys, pink pants, or otherwise.  The fans were ready.  North Campus was jammed at 11:30 a.m.  

On the other hand….some jack leg in the row in front of me kept telling me to “stop being negative” when I was calling the penalties on Georgia before the officials…(Announcer) “pass incomplete, marker down on the play” (TB) “personal foul hands to the quarterback’s face on us” (Jack Leg turns around) “I’m sick of you being so negative shut the F up” (TB shrugs)  Official: “personal foul, roughing the passer, defense….” (Jack Leg’s wife looks at me) “he wuz riiiite agin….”  Then of course Mr. Self Righteous booed the players as they left the field at halftime and was gone himself mid 3rd qtr.  Hey you, Section 131, row 51, you know who you are, you NTAC, stay out of my section.

Okay, so anyway, make this the 4th year in a row where the favored Bulldogs neglected to show up for the day’s contest (2007 Tennessee, 2006 Virginia Tech, 2005 West Virginia) and found themselves 20+ points down early in the first half.  The magnitude of the humiliation visited upon this team easily eclipses the 1998 disaster against Tennessee and, depending on how the team bounces back from this defeat, could end up as one of the top 3 most bitter defeats I have ever witnessed as a Georgia fan.  Can the legislature pass a law prohibiting GameDay from broadcasting from this state?

Meanwhile, back in Tuscaloosa, the athletic department has already procured this Faberge-style carrier (in black, of course) in which to display the egg laid by the Georgia Bulldogs on Saturday.  Passing that must’ve hurt the new Uga the first time…get used to it, pooch, I hate to say it is an annual event.

HOWEVER, by the Grace of Ole Miss the road map for Georgia is unchanged:  sweep the SEC East, and split vs. Auburn and LSU, and we are in the SECC Game (this assumes, safely, that UK and Vandy lose an additional conference game).  So, coaches, burn the game film and start fresh today with a “Gentlemen,-this-is-a-football” practice.  I would like to see Georgia wear the black jerseys at home every game from now on until we win again.  We fans have all have the gear now.

Other topics I’ll discuss later:

Mumme Poll First Ballot

The Flipflop Curse (or, “not ALL of the intangibles favored Georgia on Saturday”)

Why it is the University’s Fault that North Campus Gets Trashed

1.  Here’s an interesting statement that I came across this morning:

USC gets my vote because they are simply the most dominant program this century, and despite questions at QB and all through the offense, the state of the program is such that I could not deny them a spot in the championship unless they prove otherwise on the field. 

–Thinking Bulldog, May 15, 2008

Thanks Trojans!  I turned off the game when it was 7-0 and went to bed very early last night.  When I woke up this morning, I had a text message that said only “OSU!” sent at 10:52PM.  I started trembling from head to toe and sprinted out of the house to get the fishwrapper.  Alabama is still one of the three (with ASU and LSU) games that we actually can afford to lose this season and still win the East, but the stakes just went through the stratosphere, which is not an insightful comment.  Although I thought Georgia would be very lucky to get out of September without a loss, it would be better to win tomorrow (really), get back to #1, and thus be in position to absorb a loss later in the season without being knocked out of the MNC picture.

2.  I seem to recall after the first blackout how we were told that the black jerseys would be worn occasionally, every once in a while, etc.  After Saturday, we will have worn the black jerseys 3 times since Auburn, the red jerseys twice.  I certainly am as excited about the blackout as anybody, believe me.  But I hope is is somewhat of a fad that goes away for at least a couple of years after Saturday.  I have to go buy a black shirt today.

3.  Georgia has not beaten Alabama four straight times since the Dawgs 5 game winning streak in……..1916.

4.  Worried about Terrence Cody, Alabama’s bulldozer nose guard against a young Ben Jones who is 60 pounds lighter?  Remember Kevin Johnson!  Paleo-Dawgs will recall he was our center who handled William “Refrigerator” Perry all day (i.e., night) in the 1982 Clemson game (Could I be thinking of the 1984 game?  I know the Fridge was drafted by the Bears in 85).  UPDATE:  I see BubbaN’Earl have also made the refrigerator connection here.  Perhaps someone over there can remember whether I’m thinking of 82 or 84.

5.  I have no idea how the game is going to unfold tomorrow, but I do know that tomorrow afternoon will be the most incredible pre-game in Athens ever.  Mrs. Thinking Bulldog and I are going to do it all:  park downtown, tailgate on North Campus, hit the Hull Street lots, and meet up with a crew at the South Campus parking deck pre-game.  Score prediction?  Who the hell knows, but a loss tomorrow may replace this loss in the pantheon of Georgia’s most bitter.

6.  Like most Thinking Bulldogs, I have never been able to actually watch Game Day for more than 5 minutes.  Those TB readers (if there actually were any) who have been paying attention know my position on these idiots.

 For your consideration:

Rank		W-L	Delta
1	Southern Cal	2-0	0
2	Missouri	4-0	0
3	Louisiana State	3-0	+3
4	Florida	3-0	0
5	Georgia	4-0	0
6	Oklahoma	3-0	-3
7	Penn State	4-0	+1
8	Brigham Young	4-0	+2
9	Wisconsin	3-0	-2
10	Texas	3-0	+2
11	Alabama	4-0	+3
12	Texas Tech	4-0	+3
13	Ohio State	3-1	0
14	Utah	4-0	+2
15	South Florida	4-0	-6
16	Boise State	3-0	+6
17	Oklahoma State	3-0	+3
18	Nebraska	3-0	+3
19	Wake Forest	3-0	+7
20	Connecticut	4-0	+5
21	Colorado	3-0	+5
22	Clemson	3-1	+4
23	Oregon	3-1	-12
24	TCU	4-0	0
25	Minnesota	4-0	+1
Dropped Out:  Florida State, Auburn, East Carolina, West Virginia
Also Waiting:  Vanderbilt, Tulsa, Northwestern, Kentucky

Oklahoma and Wisconsin drop for open weeks while other teams either beat quality opponents or blow out bad ones.  Ohio State stays put for an unimpressive win over Troy, and South Florida drops for an unimpressive win over Florida International.  The last 10 is a shotgon approach to the remaining undefeated teams, though I have let Clemson back in because Alabama looks better and better, the same with Oregon vis-a-vis Boise State.

1.  Any other year, Georgia fans would be grateful to escape any SEC road game with a win no matter how messy, unimpressive, or lucky.  I spent Saturday afternoon in Columbia being ridiculed by other Dawg fans for saying that we’d play terribly and would need some breaks in the 4th quarter to pull out a win.  Okay, sure, easy for me to say now, but Georgia has an extremely difficult time with Steve Spurrier about 75% of the time.  It seems about every four years or so the Dogs win a yawner, e.g., 2006, 2003, 1997, etc.  Late turnovers in the red zone have saved them three of the past four trips to Columbia.  As one prescient Georgia fan I know said before the season:

Steve Spurrier worries me the most, especially if the team blows the doors off Southern and Central Michigan to open the season…..   So forget about national championships. The only thing that matters is whether Georgia can beat Steve Spurrier after taking care of business in weeks 1 & 2. Then, and only then, will Thinking Bulldogs concern themselves with the most important goal for the team this year: winning the SEC East.

2. Further to the point:

Every year the national champion can look back at its season and pick out at least two, usually three, and sometimes four plays that made the difference between victory and defeat. Georgia has a great team and an awesome program headed in the right direction, but getting into the national championship game is much more a matter of sheer luck and happenstance due to matters completely out of the control of the team. Take 1980. But for a UT fumble on the Georgia 2 and Belue to Scott, we have a great 9-2 season. Also George Rogers’s fumble deep in Georgia territory sealed a near loss for the Dawgs. The Cocks punch it in there instead, and Georgia is 8-3 and playing Minnesota in the Tangerine Bowl in 1980.

Rennie Curran’s play on the Georgia 1 yard line and Asher Allen’s recovery will be one such play if this does in fact turn out to be a miracle season.  I’m deeply concerned about this Arizona State trip.  However I am comfortable predicting that Georgia will play much better this week.  This is not a bold prediction:  there is simply no way ASU will be as successful as South Carolina in containing the Georgia offense, and I really don’t know how ASU is going to be able to move the football on the ground any better than the Cocks did.  ASU will still be a tough out, but the line of 7 on this game sounds about right to me.

3. Looking forward to a year when the schedule isn’t so daunting?  Don’t look forward to next year then.  Look at Georgia’s first 6 games:

Sat, Sep 05 Oklahoma State at Stillwater, Okla.
Sat, Sep 12 Steve Spurrier * Athens, Ga.
Sat, Sep 19 Arkansas * at Fayetteville, Ark. 
Sat, Sep 26 Arizona State Athens, Ga.
Sat, Oct 03 LSU * Athens, Ga.
Sat, Oct 10 Tennessee * at Knoxville, Tenn. 
Sat, Oct 17 Vanderbilt * at Nashville, Tenn. 
Sat, Oct 31 Florida * at Jacksonville, Fla. 
Sat, Nov 07 Tennessee Tech Athens, Ga. 
Sat, Nov 14 Auburn * Athens, Ga.
Sat, Nov 21 Kentucky * Athens, Ga. 
Sat, Nov 28 Georgia Tech at Atlanta, Ga.

My guess is that Georgia has never played two regular season games west of the Mississippi in consecutive seasons.

4. Arkansas is getting 9 1/2 points at home this Saturday against Alabama.  Hmmm, Steve Spurrier was caught looking ahead to Georgia and lost to Vandy; Arizona State caught looking ahead to Georgia and loses to UNLV…….  I do think that Gameday is a lock for Athens next weekend if both Georgia and Bama pull out victories on Saturday.

5. More often than not, a highly touted team that suffers an unexpected upset at the start of the season will turn things around while spending some time under the radar and finish with a strong campaign.  Therefore, I expect that Clemson, West Virginia, Tennessee, and even Steve Spurrier will turn out a lot more successful than know-it-alls and these teams’ suffering fans expect right now.  Arizona State too.  Ouch.

6. Trust me;  100 degrees in Arizona is NOTHING compared to 90 degrees in Columbia.  Seriously, it will be downright comfortable in Sun Devil Stadium.  See you there.

This week’s stab at a Top 25:  Wisconsin, South Florida and BYU get bumped for wins over legit opponents.  Otherwise there is just some shuffling in the bottom 5.  This week Missouri’s #2 spot may be in jeopardy as Nos. 3-7 all face legit opponents.  It is going to be a heck of a weekend of football.

I wrote this up from a clean sheet of paper, not looking at the prior poll, and the results are interesting (to me, not you, I understand).  I considered moving Missouri ahead of Southern Cal after Mizzou’s blowout of mighty Southeast Missouri State (not really).  Ohio State pays the price for not dispatching a mid-major opponent at home with ease, but it doesn’t matter because they are #1 if they win on Saturday.  Where they go after a loss is anybody’s guess.  I am somewhat convinced that now that they are totally written off, they will play very well against USC.  Oklahoma advances with a convincing win, and Florida, though they struggled, did as well.  I did not want to drop or advance LSU because of their off week, which was not their fault, but I felt Georgia deserved to move up considering they were more impressive in their victory over the more difficult cupcake in their early September slate.  Georgia seems to be trending right.  I considered ranking Penn State ahead of Ohio State, but OSU’s placement is really irrelevant this week.

Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin make big moves because they earned their second significant victories and advance with the loss by West Virginia and less than impressive efforts by Alabama for a pitiful effort vs. Tulane, Texas Tech for a relatively poor showing against Nevada, South Florida needing an overtime victory to dispatch Central Florida, and Brigham Young’s questionable victory.  Utah heads up 3 spots despite an unimpressive number against UNLV (35-21) because of WVU’s loss, Auburn’s unimpressive showing against rebuilding Southern Miss, and the fact that they appear to be the MWC front runner with BYU’s struggles.

Florida State’s rather large move is surprising, but they pass BYU, Fresno State who did not play, and losers Steve Spurrier and West Virginia.  Arizona State also makes a large move after beating Stanford, a bad team, but they pass the above 4 and Wake Forest, who could manage only a 2 point win over Ole Miss.  East Carolina, Kansas, Oklahoma State, and Cal get their time in the rankings this week.  Clemson fades out despite a victory over 1-AA The Citadel, Boise State is just outside the Top 25 with their off week, and Wake Forest’s struggles against Ole Miss force a drop.  Steve Spurrier is right out.  But can get right back in on Saturday.

Waiting you have a group of undefeated teams and Tennessee.  Convincing wins this weekend by any of these teams will make it hard to keep them out of the top 25.

(Back to the Chicken Shack)

Personal trevails kept me from the computer last week, but they did not keep me away from Saturday’s blowout of Central Michigan. I tend to buy into the post-game chatter that the Georgia defensive pass rush was more effective than it seemed and also that we only used a few basic schemes (with the exception of Curran’s excellent sack). I have high hopes for the Dawgs as they travel to Columbia, but rest assured Steve Spurrier will be a hurting, hungry, desperate team when Georgia visits. This will be a very difficult game and would be under any circumstances, but a team with their backs to the wall, staring into the abyss of an early season collapse, is the last team I want Georgia to face (2007 Tennessee, anyone?).  However the loss of their primary receiver makes me feel a bit better about our chances.  It looks like the latest hurricane will be going into the Gulf and won’t affect the Georgia game.

Missouri, Oklahoma and Georgia continue to live up to their pre-season billing, and it is hard to know what to make of Florida and Ohio State’s performances over the weekend, except to say that a lack of an effective rushing attack was the culprit on Saturday. It’s not clear yet whether this is a real concern or if it was one bad game. I will say this, though, that Ohio State is now in an excellent position vis a vis Southern Cal with the expectations now set so low. Penn State also took care of its business in style this weekend.