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Saturday, September 15, 2007
Young Florida makes it look easy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Gainesville, Fla. — The basketball team received their rings before the game. Then the football team played its first SEC game as if last season’s title was the start of another trend.
You thought this was over?
“We haven’t gone anywhere,” running back Brandon James said. “We believe we’re this good.”
Again.
Nine starters were lost from the defense. The quarterback was making his first SEC start. You think, “There’s a window this season.”
Not so much. Georgia fans, your nightmare continues.
Florida dumped Tennessee 59-20 on Saturday. Weird things can happen between now and bowl season. But young college teams seldom start this strong and then fall apart. They get better.
The Gators played 46 freshmen and sophomores. They’re supposed to be on this side of the learning curve. So who was learning and who was teaching Saturday in the Swamp?
This was second-year quarterback Tim Tebow’s first SEC start. He threw for two touchdowns and ran for two more. He threw for 299 yards and rushed for 61. In short, he personally outscored Tennessee, 28-20, and outgained the Volunteers 360-298.
“He passed his first test — he’s got 40 left in his career,” said coach Urban Meyer, who seemed determined not to have the postgame news conference turned into a Tebow-for-Heisman campaign. “All he does is he comes in, he works out and he sits in the office all day long. But it’s one game. We’ve got a long way to go.”
Yes, but few could have anticipated this. The Gators already have an improbable basketball-football-basketball threepeat going. Now they have opened the season looking at least as strong as a year ago, winning three games by a composite score of 167-54.
They have won 10 straight since a loss at Auburn 11 months ago. There should be tape of the game somewhere, in case you’re looking for evidence.
Even David Pollack, the former Bulldog in attendance as a broadcaster, had to begrudgingly admit: “They’re good.”
He stood on the field for the final few minutes, surveying the sea of screaming, blue-shirted fans in the stadium. Then he held up his hand with a Georgia class ring, saying, “Still representin’ the G.”
But when asked how he imagines Georgia fans are feeling about more potential Gator domination, Pollack smiled and put on his TV hat: “I’m not supposed to talk about that anymore.”
Talk about this:
The first Gator to touch the ball was James. He returned a punt 83 yards for a touchdown.
The second Gator to touch the ball was Markihe Anderson. He intercepted an Erik Ainge pass at the Florida 9.
Tennessee had three straight red-zone possessions that went interception-field goal-field goal. Florida had three straight possessions that went touchdown-touchdown-touchdown and covered 198 yards in less than eight minutes.
They scored on a punt return.
They scored twice on quarterback keepers.
They scored on a 19-yard reverse by Percy Harvin.
They scored on an 18-yard fumble return.
The quarterback also threw for two scores. How so very boring.
The backup quarterback, Cameron Newton, ran over a Tennessee defender.
Meyer? It was hard to tell if he was trying to get people to forget about Steve Spurrier or remember him. In the fourth quarter, with a 49-20 lead, he elected to go for it on fourth-and-1 from the Gators’ 35. Of course, Tebow gained a yard for the first down. On the next play, he completed a 44-yard pass to Louis Murphy to set up a field goal.
A little piling on?
Get used to it. Meyer is now 7-0 against Florida’s biggest rivals (Tennessee, Georgia, Florida State), and he appears to be stepping on the gas pedal early.
Defense figured to be an issue this season, but the Gators held the Volunteers without a rushing first down. This was the worst loss in Phil Fulmer’s career, the school’s worst in 26 years.
Tebow was near flawless. He completed one pass while falling, and two others underhanded. Overall, he was 14-of-19. He didn’t get sacked. The lone interception was the result of his receiver cutting a route short.
He was Mr. Air and Ground, and Tennessee couldn’t stop either. After the game, he circled the field, slapping hands with fans, soaking it up.
Another celebration. You should be used to it by now.
Permalink | Comments (24) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
Poor, proud old East Lake yields a 60
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
My God, have they no respect for posterity? The image of Bobby Jones? The self-respect of the grand old course where he chiseled out his fate with golf?
All week long East Lake had been victimized, saturated with rain, greens about the consistency of fudge, lying there unprotected against the surge of the 30 highest-rated golfers off the PGA Tour. Saturday, the assault peaked under the guise of the Tour Championship (presented by Coca-Cola) en route to the FedEx Cup, otherwise known as Finchem’s Folly.
General Oglethorpe discovered Georgia in 17-something. Zach Johnson, already the Masters and AT&T Classic champion, lay claim to another third of it. The bright and starry-eyed son of Iowa blew the hinges off the course with a solid round of 60, and that broke the record that Geoff Ogilvy, U.S. Open champion a year removed, had just tied. Not that Johnson has any chance of the big prize, even if he shoots another 60 today, for Tiger Woods is still the man in the lead, safely en route to the first FedEx Cup, and the accompanying $10 million pot he now leaves in the hands of the PGA investment pros.
Johnson isn’t eligible. Only five are, and four, Steve Stricker, Phil Mickelson, Rory Sabbatini and K.J. Choi, all are left in Woods’ fumes. Today, though, Zach Johnson was the story, for all the birdies that Woods could slap on the scoreboard. The man from Des Moines was taking most of the bows, flirting, as he did on this magic soil, with the elusive score of 59.
“When you start thinking about a number, it’s not a good thing,” he said. “Shooting a 59 or winning at Augusta are two totally different things. I have no idea what I shot at 18 in Augusta, but I had a pretty good idea what I shot today.” It hit him, he said, about the time he eagled the 15th hole, a par-5.
Johnson has won three tournaments in his PGA Tour career, all in Georgia, peculiarly: The AT&T when it was BellSouth in 2004; of course, the jewel in his crown, the Masters last April, followed by the AT&T in May. “I don’t know what it is about Georgia,” he said, “maybe the land, the grass, the people.”
He fell into a sort of a summer slumber thereafter. “I guess it was just the whirlwind life. I was just getting used to the clutter and chaos that goes with winning a major. All good stuff, I mean.”
Setting a record at East Lake is by no means a ticket to the winner’s circle here. Birdies and eagles started popping up on the leaderboard like popcorn in a popper. Out of nowhere came Mark Calcavecchia, 47, a sleeping giant whose game came awake. Right behind came Sergio Garcia, all in a line of pursuit. But Woods, taking note of all the pursuers in his wake, turned on the juice himself on the back nine. You talk about a “chase,” this was what this was supposed to be all about, I’d suppose.
Spectators have rarely, if ever, had a more roaring afternoon at a Tour Championship. Johnson was already in with his 60 when Woods birdied 11, 14, 15 and 16, and missed another on 18 with one of his infamous lipouts.
Thus, the field charges into today with Calcavecchia three strokes off Woods’ 191, Garcia two behind Calcavecchia, and finally, at 197 comes Johnson. Ogilvy’s 61 left him tied at even 200 with Padraig Harrington.
Poor, proud old East Lake was left in tatters. All the skills of designers Donald Ross, George Cobb, Rees Jones and intermittent tweakers had no defense for these lustful attackers. The course record of another day once was a 63, set by Bobby Jones himself, now left in the cobwebs of time.
And for all the fears and wringing of hands about the state of the greens, suffering from summer drought and broiling sun, there has yet a complaint to be filed.
East Lake lies there a helpless victim, and in parting, let me leave you with the nomination for surprise gamer of the week, the portly Calcavecchia, who, comparing his fitness to Woods the other day, said, “He could run from here to downtown. I couldn’t run out of a burning house.”
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Furman Bisher
All in all, brilliant and brutal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Athens - No such thing as nitpicking regarding Georgia football with a little trip to Tuscaloosa on the horizon. So let the nitpicking begin. For instance: After Matthew Stafford was a mighty part of the South Carolina disaster the week before, he needed a lot of things on Saturday to help scrape his ego off the floor of Sanford Stadium.
As a result, this was either a brilliant move by the offensive brain trust or a brutal one.
Try both.
With Western Carolina already breathing heavily to start the third quarter, and with Georgia preparing to face mostly real teams the rest of the season, the Bulldogs’ offensive brain trust asked Stafford to run a draw that he cut to the left while everybody else went right.
Actually, this was more brutal than brilliant. You don’t put your key guy in a position to have something snap, crackle and pop in a meaningless situation. Fortunately, for the Bulldog Nation and that offensive brain trust, Stafford slid away from danger at the end of his 22-yard sprint.
Sounds like the Bulldogs’ offensive brain trust got a little carried away. Or did it? Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo forced a laugh after the Bulldogs’ 45-16 rout, and then said of his third-and-4 call for Stafford, “Well, you know, us offensively, we need something good to happen, and that was the best play in that situation. We were not coming into this game thinking we’re going to hold anything back. We’re in a situation where we need to build confidence offensively.”
No question there, especially after Stafford helped Steve Spurrier extend his smirk Between The Hedges with a lackluster evening (completing 19 of 44 passes for 213 yards and an interception). This was a few days after Georgia coach and accomplished quarterback guru Mark Richt declared Stafford the most talented quarterback he’d ever coached. You can understand Richt’s giddiness, because Stafford spent Georgia’s opener against Oklahoma State completing
18-of-24 for 234 yards and two touchdowns.
Thus the bottom line: Stafford could become the SEC’s next significant quarterback, but right now he is that only in spurts.
Which brings us to more nitpicking, starting with early in the first quarter when Georgia spent its opening drive reaching the Western Carolina 20-yard line against a defense noted for stopping nobody. That defense didn’t stop the Bulldogs, because the Bulldogs stopped themselves. They settled for a field goal after Stafford delivered consecutive incomplete passes to Sean Bailey. The last one featured Stafford throwing one way and Bailey running another.
Then came later in the first quarter when Stafford tripped over running back Knowshon Moreno in the backfield for a
7-yard loss.
Stafford fumbled before that, but only because he was overpowered when a Western Carolina defender zipped untouched across the line of scrimmage.
“For whatever reason, we didn’t start out the way that we should have, because we were kind of sluggish, and going into next week [at Alabama], we can’t do that,” Bailey said. “We came back and regrouped on the sidelines, and we said that we have to start playing our game.”
Georgia’s offensive game begins and ends with Stafford, the true sophomore who completed a slew of passes on the Bulldogs’ final two drives before halftime to produce touchdowns. Suddenly, a 10-6 lead was 24-9 at halftime, and Stafford was only a few minutes into the third quarter away from finishing the afternoon with 14 completions in 20 attempts for 174 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.
Oh, and about Stafford’s slide after his long run. He eased into a smile, saying, “[Western Carolina safety Chris Collins] kind of hit the back of my leg, and that’s what kind of threw me into that slide out of bounds.”
Did we say brutal?
Permalink | Comments (36) | Categories: Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
Tradition meets tradition on a soggy football field
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
With a hint of brightness on Friday night threatening to interrupt the dark clouds over Brookwood Stadium, Bill Boswell squirmed next to his wife in the home stands. “I was hoping it would rain, because I hear Valdosta has a good passing game,” said Boswell, an Atlanta accountant and proud father of the Broncos’ No. 82, studying the heavens.
This was before tradition met tradition on a soggy high school football field.
Nobody south of Massilon in northern Ohio has more national championships than Valdosta (nine to six). In addition, Brookwood has done enough since its state championship in 1996 to challenge Valdosta, Lowndes, Parkview and others among the lordly as Georgia’s program of now.
Well, maybe Brookwood isn’t Georgia’s program of RIGHT now, because the Broncos were 0-2 when Valdosta’s buses rolled into Snellville. It’s just that those losses were by a total of four points, and Brookwood began exactly the same way last season before streaking into the playoffs. Remember, too, that the Broncos are months removed from the horrific news of Daniel Peek, their starting quarterback who was killed in a vehicle crash before the start of spring practice.
So tradition is grieving these days in cardinal and Vegas gold. The bottom line for Brookwood: There is tradition. That tradition involves more than just winning frequently before a large and giddy following. That tradition involves the Broncos rubbing a specially placed horseshoe on their trip from the fieldhouse to the field. That tradition also involves the Broncos eating the same pregame meal that consists of a hamburger patty, a baked potato, a piece of bread and a cookie.
Keeling Harrell shook his head on the other side of the stadium, where tradition wore black and gold while screaming for the Wildcats. “Hey, man, I’m going to tell you something,” said Harrell, 40, a maintenance worker for the Valdosta school system. Before we continue, to say Harrell is an ardent Wildcats backer would be the understatement of the early millennium. He has attended “as many Valdosta games as possible” since his sister took him to his first one when he was in the sixth grade.
This time, Harrell was on the road in the midst of Brookwood’s state-of-the-art facilities, complete with a perfectly manicured field and something called a Broncovision scoreboard. You also had Brookwood’s enthusiastic fan base that became even more giddy when the school band marched into the vicinity playing the Florida State fight, which has become Brookwood’s fight song.
Said Harrell, “This atmosphere here ain’t got nothing to do with Valdosta. Valdosta is on a different level. That’s always on the minds of everybody. The Wildcats. What them Wildcats going to do? I understand Brookwood has a fine program, and I don’t put nothing past them, but it’s just not the same.”
An eavesdropper nodded a few seats away, before saying, “Back home, they’d have the stadium packed by now, 15,000 strong.”
And tradition? So you really want to know about tradition? Harrell laughed, then said to the eavesdropper and his visitor, “Look. When they come out of their locker room in Valdosta, they bang their helmets against an old tin roof that’s been there for, oh, what — 50 years? I don’t know how long. Other than that, we just come out and play football. That’s all that it’s about.”
If so, Valdosta’s tradition just slid behind that of Brookwood.
Big time.
The Broncos kept scoring, and their visitors kept doing nothing worth mentioning. Before long, a 17-0 lead for Brookwood in the first half became a 37-6 blowout.
Brookwood did all of that during an occasional drizzle. So, with apologizes to Boswell, the only thing that dampened Valdosta’s passing game was Brookwood’s defense.
Either that, or the mystical powers of that horseshoe.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: High School, Terence Moore
