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Saturday, November 4, 2006
Georgia’s freefall gathering momentum
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Lexington, Ky. — Eleven months after claiming the throne of the toughest conference in college football, the Georgia Bulldogs sit atop a season of improbable collapse. For the first time since 1973, they’ve lost to Vanderbilt and Kentucky — “Teams most people would say shouldn’t beat Georgia,” said Mark Richt, in a moment of admirable candor — in a single autumn.
When a team loses its homecoming to Vandy, the assumption is that its season can get no worse. Georgia’s got worse here. It became only the second visitor in the 34-year history of Commonwealth Stadium — Alabama was the first, in 1997 — to see its loss punctuated by the razing of the goalposts. Technically, only one set came down Saturday, but that’s what happens when a team falls as far and as fast as the Bulldogs — the upsetter receives only half-credit.
Said tailback Danny Ware: “This is … what? Three, four losses for us? [Four, though it seems like more.] This is not like Georgia football.”
This is, alas, what Georgia football has become. It overrides everything good with something utterly egregious. The Bulldogs punted only once against what is, statistically speaking, the second-worst defense in Division I-A, but managed only 20 points. They made four turnovers, missed two field goals and were blunted on fourth-and-1.
Matthew Stafford, he of the ballyhooed arm, threw three interceptions. The first two came on consecutive first-half series, the first from Georgia’s 1-yard line, the second from Kentucky’s 2. The third occurred with 45 seconds remaining and sent the chilled stadium into paroxysms of rare and unbridled joy.
Said fullback Brannan Southerland: “We’re working toward [improvement]. But to do some improving, you’ve got to cut out your mistakes.”
Stafford’s numbers on the season: Four touchdown passes, 12 interceptions. And you wondered why Richt was reluctant to start a true freshman. “I think he’s getting better,” Richt said. “But there’s something in young quarterbacks that they have a hard time burning the ball.”
The last thing Richt told Stafford before the series that began on the Georgia 1 was, “If it’s clean [meaning a screen to Southerland], take it. If not, launch it out of bounds.”
Stafford threw it instead to linebacker Johnny Williams. “A bad decision,” said Stafford, his forehead purple and his nose gashed from a head-on hit suffered in the first quarter.
But it would be wrong to blame this shocking and shoddy season solely on an imprudent quarterback. Richt did himself no favors by giving Kregg Lumpkin, who gained 83 yards on 10 first-half carries, only two second-half rushes. And the once-resolute defense continues to fail with the game on the line. Kentucky needed just 3:16 to score the winning touchdown after Georgia took a fourth-quarter lead, the Wildcats facing only one third down on their 70-yard trek.
Eleven months after upsetting LSU in the Georgia Dome, the Bulldogs got goal-posted by an opponent that hasn’t beaten Tennessee since 1984 or Florida since 1986. “I’m sure people are enjoying the opportunity to beat us,” Richt said. And then: “What we’re playing for is some respect, and I’m sure we don’t have much in the football world right now.”
No matter how young Georgia is, it shouldn’t have come to this. The Bulldogs still possess more talent than Kentucky and Vandy, but somewhere they’ve lost the ferocity that carried them to those three SEC East titles in four seasons. “I still feel like we’re the best team in the league,” Ware said, but the cold truth is that Georgia, which is 1-4 against its Eastern brethren, has become the worst team in its division.
And that shouldn’t have happened. Georgia should lose to a Kentucky or a Vandy once in a generation, not twice in 21 days. A reigning SEC champ shouldn’t make us forget that this is indeed the reigning SEC champ. “We were, weren’t we?” Richt said. “Seems like a long time ago.”
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Durant’s hot streak continues in Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Let’s see, now that it has been verified, once and for all, that Monsieur Le Tigre will not appear in the Tour Championship this week at East Lake, presented by Coca-Cola, we shall now move on into live action, presented by the PGA Tour of the United States. Davis Love played by himself again and will make it three rounds in a row today unaccompanied. That’s what an 82 in the first round with a 27-man field will do for you. He chose not to have an unofficial companion, known as a playing marker.
“Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to finish in 2 hours and 21 minutes,” he said.
As for the absence of Tiger Woods, I like what Vijay Singh said. “I didn’t come here to beat Tiger; I came here to win the golf tournament,” which he has done once and lost in a playoff another time.
It was another lovely autumn day on Alston Drive. The fairways were lined with devotees of the game, and the main attraction, as it turned out, was the see-sawing match of Adam Scott and Joe Durant, Scott from Australia and Durant from Florida. Scott is a handsome kid from Adelaide who, some of sound judgment suspect, may be the next hot number in world golf. Durant has been up and down the tour ladder, like a yo-yo, 157th on the earnings list one year, two years later 14th, then back to 137th, then sort scuffling along among a bunch just playing to make a living.
Suddenly, as the end of this tour season approached, he surged. Over a streak of four tournaments, Joe banked $1,536,450, bulked up by winning the Funai Classic, a title it immodestly chose for itself, not by popular demand. Joe just charged up out of nowhere, or he’d probably have been rocking on his porch in Molino, Fla., this week, that being somewhere in the Florida panhandle. It had been five years since he last won, and that is not something to be passed over lightly. He won twice in 2001, one was the Bob Hope Chrysler, and Joe didn’t just win, he was 36-under par, which is still the all-time record for a 90-hole tournament.
Saturday, he was hanging in with Scott until they came to the 15th fairway, when the Aussie swung at his ball like Butch Harmon would never have recommended, then laughed all the way to the green, where he found the pellet about three feet from the pin. He eagled, covering Joe’s birdie, then Joe bogeyed 16 and 17, and that’s how you find him three strokes off Scott’s lead, and tied with Singh in second place going into Sunday.
However, for a guy who had been out of the winner’s circle as long as he had, he’s just happy to be looking at the possibility of taking home a million bucks and change for four days’ work. He quit the tour one time and took a job selling insurance. He got his license, but never sold a policy.
“I wasn’t very successful in insurance,” he said. “I just needed to get away from the game for awhile.”
Then he began to feel the need to get back. “It hasn’t been a steady climb. I’ve had some great stretches and some deep troughs.”
Joe’s a personable sort, a rather handsome 42-year-old who’s right much a family man. When he’s home in Florida, he drives his children back and forth to school and calls himself the “bus driver.” By the way, if he hadn’t made it to the Tour Championship, he wouldn’t be rocking on his porch in Molino.
“I’d probably be going to my daughter’s soccer games,” he said. She’s 15 years old and a chip off the old athletic block, it seems. Golfers do have some family life, whether they’re at the top of their game, or in between, and Joe Durant can speak with expertise from both sides. We await breathlessly to see if we have the first Tour Champion from Down Under, or the first one from Molino, Fla.
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