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.

This is very convenient and sensitive, but there doesn’t appear to be braille on the sign, so how will the blind know?

As the good Dr. said, the worst possible thing about blindness is not being able to see the achievements of Vince Dooley with your own eyes.  I doubt the Dooleys can read braille.  Hopefully somebody was able to slip in “ran off Dan McGill”, “curiously escaped suspicion in Jan Kemp fiasco”, and “hired Jim Harrick setting basketball program back yet another decade” on the braille version of the Dooley achievement panel.

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.

“This team could have been 8-4 or 7-5…We were very, very competitive. The cupboard isn’t bare. But at some point it is performance. You have to be able to win. You have to be able to sell the business side of it.”

New Mexico State Athletics Director McKinley Boston commenting on the firing of Hal Mumme as Head Football Coach

Just Desserts!  The Mumme Poll survives its namesake, at least for this year.  This last Mumme Poll should be interesting.  As for me, mine is the same as last week.

The first five:

Alabama
Florida
Oklahoma
Texas
Southern Cal

The next seven:

Boise State
Cincinnati
Ohio State
Oklahoma State
Penn State
Texas Tech
Utah

Last one in: Cincinnati
First one out: TCU

I’d say that there is a clear breakpoint between the top 5 and the rest, as I don’t think you can yet place Utah or Penn State in the top 5 at the expense of Alabama or Southern Cal.  Somehow the BCS bowl selections ended up great with respect to these 4 teams.  And Texas vs. Ohio State.

So, do any of the second seven stay in the top 12 if they lose their bowl game?  I’d say Penn State would survive, and then only if they play USC close.  The same goes for Ohio State.  And Utah.  Can any of the second 7 other than Utah, Penn State and Ohio State get into the top 5 with a bowl victory?  I’d say absolutely not.  Even a blowout loss in the MNC will not drop UF or OU out of the 5, and any of Texas, USC or Bama will be replaced by the victor in their bowl game.

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.

First a Mumme Update–  Louisiana Tech 35, New Mexico State 31

Hal Mumme’s New Mexico State Aggies fall to 3-8, 1-6 in the WAC.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — Daniel Porter ran for 130 yards on 17 carries Saturday to lead Louisiana Tech to a 35-31 win against New Mexico State in Aggie Memorial Stadium.

Louisiana Tech (7-4, 5-2 Western Athletic Conference) claimed its first-ever victory in Las Cruces against the Aggies (3-8, 1-6 WAC) and tied the series between the conference foes at 4-4.

Phillip Livas delivered a 68-yard catch-and-run touchdown with four minutes remaining to regain Louisiana Tech’s lead, 35-31, after NMSU’s Chris Williams caught a 34-yard scoring pass from Chase Holbrook to go up 31-28 seven minutes before.

Nice season for Dooley the Younger, I’ll say.  Mumme notsomuch.

The first five:

Alabama
Florida
Oklahoma
Texas
Texas Tech 

The next seven:

Georgia
Missouri
Ohio State
Oklahoma State
Penn State
Southern Cal
Utah 

Last one in:  Ohio State
First ones out:  Boise State, Cincinnati, FSU, Oregon, Oregon State

Oklahoma, Texas and Texas Tech have 1 loss to a Top 5 team
Georgia and Oklahoma State have 2 losses to Top 5 teams
Missouri has 2 losses to to one Top 5 and one Second 7 teams
Ohio State has 2 losses to 2 Second 7 Teams 
Florida, Penn State and Southern Cal have 1 loss to a team not in the Top 12 

In the end I decided to leave Texas Tech in the top 5 over USC and Penn State because of their slightly more difficult schedule and their 1 loss to Oklahoma is not as bad as Southern Cal’s loss to Oregon State or PSU’s loss to Iowa.  TT is a good team that had one disastrous outing, and I think a matchup with USC or PSU on a neutral field would be a toss up.  I’d like to see Tech’s offense against USC’s defense.

Boise State’s schedule is atrocious and it kept them out of the last spot in lieu of Ohio State.  The rest had too many losses to overcome the Buckeyes.

If I were the football God, the SEC Champ would get one spot in the championship game unless Alabama loses to Auburn but beats Florida.  The Big XII South Champ would get a spot if they beat Missouri.  If one of the SEC/B12S champs do not get in, then USC would get a spot, but only if they win the PAC-10.  And if Oregon State wins the PAC-10, then Penn State should get in.  And if Auburn beats Bama, Bama beats Florida, Mizzou beats the Big XII South champ, and Oregon State wins the PAC-10 then Penn State should play Utah and why the hell not.  I’m going to lie down for a while.

A fan writes in:

I have read your blog on UGA football with considerable interest for several reasons. First of all, UGA football has consumed me since January 1, 1942 when Sinkwich and company waxed TCU 40-27 in the Orange Bowl. From then on it has been a devilish passion. In addition, I became a recruiting nut in the early 50’s when it was next to impossible to get information ahead of signing day. I went through the days when all I could get my hands on was the Joe Terranova recap stuff, then progressed through the Max Emfinger mailouts from Texas, 900 number calls almost every night from November through signing day, and now the wonderful but imperfect world of the internet.  Lastly, as one who fancies himself an informed and serious observer of what is really going on, I find you to be in that small and exclusive group of astute and insightful raconteurs of college football whose opinions have some real legitimacy. Keep up the good work!

This is all a bit too kind. First of all I had no idea dentists could type.  While obviously recruiting has a vast following among almost all of college football raconteurs, it’s really not my cup of tea.  My first exposure to recruiting (other than Herschel’s) was watching Larry Munson’s call-in show on local access cable in Athens as a student in the late eighties. The constant focus was Larry’s lament of lack of legitimate lineman (alliteration of the day, if you will) and Dooley’s inabiilty to recruit the same, as Pat Dye raided the state’s best linemen, year in, year out, and made us pay on the playing field.

Larry’s TV call in show was hysterical, mostly because the majority of “recruiting” calls were larks from people (like my friends) calling in asking about how Dooley should be pursuing so-and-so, the great punter at Deerfield-Windsor in Albany who had a 86 yard punt against Presbyterian last week.  The “recruit” in question was usually someone else in the fraternity watching the show in another room.  Larry: “I have no idea who you are talking about.  Let’s take another call…go ahead…’Larry, you need to tell Hugh Durham to go after that point guard out of Strattford Academy……..”

I became more interested in recruiting in the Ray Gump/Dim Jonnan era, which ultimately had the effect of turning me off of the enterprise. Ray and JD brought in outstanding classes in their first few years.  Then as these ostensibly great classes went on to be soundly defeated in every big game (and some not-so-big) throughout their tenure, naturally the quality of the recruits fell off steeply.  I guess that is because early on, you can recruit the tradition of the school, but as a coach builds a record, the record will take precedence over tradition.

So, when Donnan went two years and only recruited one offensive lineman, it was clear that he would be done, and I not only gave up on JD, but also following recruiting entirely.  In retrospect, the 2000 debacle against Tech, in the cold wet rain, was one of the more significant losses in Georgia history.  I don’t think it was by any means a done deal that Donnan would go until that game, and another poor recruiting class and disastrous 2001 season under coach Donnan could very well have set the program back far longer than the 2 seasons that it took CMR to get Georgia to the Promised Land.

Some bad coaches are great recruiters, and some great coaches are bad recruiters. But great coaches always get great recruits. In my view talent does not matter so much in college football, only the quality of the head coach and his ability to focus the team on his vision and philosophy, to wit: look at what Paul Johnson has done for the Northerners’ Engine Rebuilding and Distributive-education School. Think Tech will have any recruiting trouble this year? Great coaches always get the best talent out there (the University of South Carolina is the exception that proves the rule).  Run a poor program, and you won’t fool recruits for long.

So I tend to follow the coaching carousel much more closely than recruiting.  I don’t need to follow recruiting blow-by-blow to know that on signing day Florida will have a top 5 recruiting class chock full of the fastest guys on the planet.  Nor to find out Georgia will recruit one of the nation’s best classes, half of whom will never play a down between the hedges.  On the other hand, I’m absolutely fascinated to know who will be fool enough to take that Tennessee job.

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.