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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > October > 25
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Georgia sends Gators a warning
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Baton Rouge, La. — Alert the Urban Crier. The Georgia Bulldogs’ final act of a giddy day in Death Valley was — you guessed it — to dance in the end zone. Only this time they waited until the final horn had sounded and the refs had departed to do it.
“Just spontaneous,” said Knowshon Moreno, the lead dancer among the chorus line of Dogs. “Just having fun.”
What we witnessed here was a team that spent seven games playing under pressure remembering how sweet it feels to be the aggressor. Georgia hung half a hundred (plus two) on the reigning national champ at the absolute proper moment — seven days before the World’s Largest Outdoor Grudge Match.
“We’ve been hearing about [the celebration penalty] since that [Florida] game was over,” said Rennie Curran, the linebacker. “We know [the Gators] are going to use that play to get fired up.”
And you know what? Let ‘em.
Because when Georgia plays the way it did here, Georgia is — pause for effect — the class of the SEC. Yes, Florida beat LSU by 30 points, but that was in the Swamp. Nobody comes here and does what the Bulldogs just did. And what the Bulldogs just did was what we’d been waiting for them to do for two months.
They attacked from the first snap. Heck, they scored on the first snap, and LSU did the snapping. Darryl Gamble, the linebacker starting only because Dannell Ellerbe is hurt, read Jarrett Lee’s eyes and took a short pass the other way. (Gamble would do the same thing three hours later, thereby rendering him Lee’s most productive receiver.) In between Georgia did everything we’ve waited, not entirely patiently, to see.
A.J. Green separated from Jai Eugene for a 49-yard touchdown one play after dropping a pass. Moreno outran Darry Beckwith, LSU’s best defender, at the end of a 68-yard burst. The maligned O-line yielded one measly sack, and Matthew Stafford threw the ball and managed the game like a No. 1 draftee-to-be.
“With our age and the injuries we’ve had, we knew it would take time,” Stafford said. “We weren’t disappointed that we weren’t winning by that many points — but maybe some other people were.”
A week ago this correspondent conceded that he might’ve overrated Georgia, but this 52-38 thumping changed a changing mind. (OK, I’m fickle. Sue me.)
If you can do this to LSU in frothing Tiger Stadium, you need have no fear of Florida or anything reptilian.
Said Curran: “The way we’re coming together as a team, we feel we definitely can hang with any team in the nation.”
We knew coming in that the LSU game wouldn’t write the story of Georgia’s season: Either way, it would only drop a hint as to what will happen in Jax. We now have reason to believe the Bulldogs will meet Florida’s ire with fire and — might as well say it — will win.
And if they do, this much is certain: The Bulldogs will dance again at the Gators’ expense. Said cornerback Asher Allen: “It would be lovely to be able to do that.”
Asked Saturday about last season’s scripted penalty, Mark Richt said: “We’ve got a release — a text — of what I said in Birmingham [in July] that we’re going to give anybody who asks explaining what happened.”
“Call me,” said Claude Felton, Georgia’s helpful publicist.
By Sunday, Richt said, he’ll “have coached [the players] up on what to say” about the celebration, but as of Saturday his message of muteness hadn’t been imparted. So here was Curran, when asked if the Bulldogs had something new planned for Florida.
“Not that I know of,” he said. And then, smiling: “Maybe the seniors have something up their sleeve.”
Urban Meyer, you have been warned.
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