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AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2006 > November
November 2006
Better their pain than ours
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As my daughter and I were walking across the bridge after the game Saturday, I heard a Jackets fan behind us lament, “What a [expletive] end to a great season.”
UGA fans could flip that around.
With wins over two nationally ranked teams (and two of our biggest rivals) coming on the heels of losing to Vandy and Kentucky, Georgia at least in part redeemed its season. Sure, we could fret about the mystery of how the same team that beat Auburn and the Jackets could look so bad against lesser teams, but that would just spoil the feel-good buzz of retaining the Governor’s Cup for a sixth straight year, so let’s not go there right now.
Back in August, when we were hazarding a guess of what Georgia’s won-loss record would be this season (we both said 9-3), my son thought we had a pretty good chance of beating Auburn but felt this year was the Jackets’ best chance to beat the Dawgs. I wasn’t so confident about Auburn, but at that time (before those losses to Vandy and UK), I wasn’t worried about the Tech game. “After all,” I said, “they’re still playing Reggieball.”
Considering the way Ball had played previously against Georgia, it didn’t take a football genius to figure he’d probably play a large role in the Dawgs winning again. As we got closer to the game, I thought Georgia still stood a decent chance against what, on paper, was a better team, if only they could rattle Reggie early. Turned out that wasn’t even necessary; the Dawgs appeared to be in his head from the opening whistle.
I heard quite a few Georgia fans after the game saying they hope the Jackets win the ACC so we can say we beat that conference’s champion. Not me. I hate ’em 365 days a year, and I’d like nothing better than to see that [expletive] end to what was supposed to be a great season extend on through the ACC game and their bowl. Just think, if the Dawgs can win their bowl and the Jackets lose their next two, we’d be 9-4 and they’d be 9-5.
Woof woof.
MORE GOOD, SOME BAD: I thought after he showed up big late last season that Paul Oliver would be something special this year. Along with too many others on the team, he didn’t really assert himself the way I’d expected for much of this season, but Oliver had a career day Saturday. Let’s face it, he owns Calvin Johnson. … Both Kregg Lumpkin and Danny Ware looked good in spurts Satuday, though we never really did get our running game established until that last drive (nice timing). Dawgs receivers still dropped a couple of passes, but Mohamed Massaquoi couldn’t have picked a better time to return to his last-season form (making all those who booed him earlier this season or accused him of deliberately dropping balls look pretty foolish). Looks like the Stafford-to-MoMass connection is going to be a special one for Georgia in the future. … It didn’t end up biting us in the tail, but I’m not sure that strategy of not using our most reliable player, Brannan Southerland, was a wise one. No matter what kind of defense you’re facing, I’d think you’d want a proven playmaker on the field. … What a heads-up play by Tony Taylor on that fumble recovery for a touchdown. The Jackets can moan all they want about the officials not blowing a whistle during the extended scrum before Taylor grabbed the ball and ran, but the call held up in video review. And considering other notorious fumble calls or no-calls in this series that went the other way, I figure we’re still owed one. … Another celebration penalty for needless showboating resulted in a long kickoff return that gave the opponent great field position, leading to a TD. Coach Richt said after the game that Tra Battle set a bad example in the Auburn game, but the real fault was Richt defending Battle’s unnecessary leap into the endzone. That sent the wrong kind of message. Let’s hope now he’ll make it clear to his players that such hotdogging can cost you points. As the old sports cliché goes, act like you’ve been there before. … Willie Martinez’s defense played its second very good game in a row (can’t say great because we’re still inconsistent in stopping the run). And the offense finally put a great drive together after sputtering most of the day (it’s hard enough to overcome an aggressive defense like the Jackets’ without having to also overcome stupid drive-killing penalties by a senior offensive lineman like Daniel Inman). But with the exception of Asher Allen’s 32-yard kickoff return to set up Georgia’s scoring drive, our special teams mostly played poorly and almost cost us the game. Again. Of course, there’s not much that could be done about the kicking game, where the stress of trying to handle placekicking as well as handling punts — combined with everybody sending the house after those blocked punts earlier this season — has obviously hurt Gordon Ely-Kelso’s punting. (If Georgia needs a field goal in the bowl game, maybe Richt should just toss a coin in deciding which kicker to send out there. Better yet would be not to need a field goal.) But, really, can’t we find some guys who know how to stick a tackle for the kickoff coverage team? The tackling on that long return by the Jackets was ridiculously bad. … Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that LSU gets into the BCS. If they do, we’re looking good for the Peach-fil-A Bowl. If they don’t, we still might wind up in the Music City or Liberty. … Another classic Munson call: “Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown! My God, a touchdown! Touchdown!”
BULLDOG BITES: If you’d like to vote for the Stafford-to-MoMass TD pass as the Pontiac Game-Changing Performance of the week, go to ESPN.com. … I caught the basketball Dawgs in action against Alabama A&M Friday night. Georgia looked really good at times, particularly shooting three-pointers and with some aggressive defense, but got awfully sloppy at other times, turning the ball over way too many times. And our play under the basket needs a lot of work. One promising note: Junior college transfer Takais Brown scored 16 points in 17 minutes when inserted in the second half.
BUM NOTES: If you look up nerd in the dictionary, it has a picture of that caffeine-crazed idiot announcer for the Trade School band. I always get a laugh, too, out of that band’s tradition of playing the Budweiser theme at the end of the third quarter. Makes me feel like I’m back in 1972. How quaint. And what security genius devised the plan to block off a major student-section exit point after the game and keep thousands waiting to get out while the Jackets’ band made their escape. Very. Slowly.
Reg-gie! Reg-gie! Reg-gie!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Damn, we’re gonna miss No. 1 for the Trade School.
And didn’t our own No. 1 finally come up big!
Not forgetting the much-maligned Georgia defense, with its second big game in a row.
Six in a row, how sweet it is!
More tomorrow.
What are the odds?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The surprising fact that the oddsmakers have made Georgia a 2-point favorite Saturday over the Jackets appears to indicate one or both of the following:
a) On top of the fact that the game is in Athens, the folks setting the odds think the Dawgs’ showing against Auburn was impressive enough to counter their dismal play earlier against Vandy and Kentucky.
b) The oddsmakers aren’t that impressed with the Atlantic Coast Conference Coastal Division champions and so have picked an unranked Georgia team that lost to Vandy and Kentucky to beat the Jackets (if only by 2 points).
Of course, the oddsmakers picked Auburn by 14 over Georgia, too.
Still, it’s an interesting commentary on how the two programs are viewed. …
Remembering the Bullpups!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Strong legs will run that weak legs may walk.”
For six decades, that slogan, reputed to have been coined by The Atlanta Constitution’s legendary Ralph McGill, summed up the annual Thanksgiving Day meeting between the freshman Bullpups and Baby Jackets to benefit Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital.
Back in the days before freshmen were eligible to play on the varsity, this game held every year at Grant Field was a really big deal, drawing national attention. In its heyday, it regularly drew crowds of 40,000 people willing to postpone Thanksgiving dinner in order to preview the stars of tomorrow. (More than a few probably spoiled their appetites with a post-game visit to the Varsity.) The game was even broadcast on the radio!
UGA’s first Heisman Trophy winner, Frank Sinkwich, who ran for more than 200 yards in the 1939 Scottish Rite Classic, once said that the freshman game he played at Grant Field was a greater thrill for him than playing in the Rose Bowl for the varsity. That ’39 team was such a high-powered outfit they were dubbed the “Point-a-Minute Bullpups.”
After Vince Dooley introduced the red helmets with the “G” on the side, the tradition was that the Bullpups played their earlier games in plain red helmets, only getting the “G” for the special Thanksgiving Day game.
I only went once, but I remember it well. It was the 1966 game and our Sunday school class came over from Athens because former AHS Trojans star Paul Gilbert was quarterbacking the Bullpups. After we took our seats in Grant Field, we loudly started comparing the venue with newly renovated and expanded Sanford Stadium, and the Jackets fans above us pelted us with popcorn boxes. Hey, when you’re 14 years old, that’s big-time fun!
Athens folks also were very excited about the Bullpups my freshman year of 1970 because another AHS hero, Andy Johnson, was battling Don Golden of Valdosta for the Pups’ QB job. I remember the freshman games earlier in the season that year drew larger crowds than the normal few hundred to Sanford because Athens businessmen were closing up shop early to go watch Andy play.
Back then, the Thanksgiving classic was a major media event, and a few days before the game the players would visit the kids at the hospital, which always made a big impression on both the athletes and the patients. The Shriners, who were involved in fund-raising for the hospital, entertained at halftime of the game. In years when the varsity teams played on Thanksgiving Day, the Bullpups and Baby Jackets usually met the Saturday before the holiday.
After the rule change in 1972 allowed frosh to play on the varsity, the annual Bullpups-Baby Jackets match lost much of its luster, and it became a junior varsity game in 1974.
After becoming a JV team, the Bullpups generally played only two to four games a season, mostly against junior colleges like Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, Tennessee Military Institute and Georgia Military College (aside from the annual meeting with the Baby Jackets).
Those JV teams featured some scholarship players, but they were mostly made up of bench-warmers and walk-ons. Some years in the late ’80s the Jackets didn’t have enough players to field a team and had to enlist volunteers from the student body to fill out their roster.
From 1933 to 1993, the Bullpups-Baby Jackets game raised $6 million for Scottish Rite. Because it was a charity affair, even in later years as many as 50,000 tickets would be sold — even though only about 8,000 to 10,000 fans actually bothered to show up for the game once it was no longer an all-freshman showcase.
Georgia won the first game played in 1933 and the last two games played in ’92 and ’93. The score of that last game was 21-14 with QB Brian Smith leading the Pups before a crowd of 10,142. After that, the game was killed by the two schools because of NCAA scholarship limitations. The overall record in the Scottish Rite Classic was 28 wins for the Bullpups, 30 for the Baby Jackets and one tie. No games were played in 1943-44.
Interestingly, the Governor’s Cup went to the winner of the Scottish Rite game. That trophy was retired in a “legends” alumni game in 1994, the year after the last Bullpups-Baby Jackets meeting, and a new Governor’s Cup was introduced to designate the winner of the varsity game starting in 1995. The NCAA officially designated the varsity game as a “special event,” allowing Scottish Rite Children’s Medical Center (now part of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta) to present the cup to the winner and give commemorative gifts to the players.
I miss the Bullpups. Considering how many incoming freshmen are redshirted anyway these days, it’s a shame that the JV game and all it did for the children’s hospital couldn’t have continued in some form, even if it was strictly the redshirts and scout team players participating.
I think they’d get something more valuable than just playing time from the experience.
(Special thanks to Mark, Tim, Carl, Dan and Joel for reminiscing with me about the Bullpups.)
A signature game?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With most successful college quarterbacks, there comes a particular game where you know they’ve arrived, that the lightbulb has clicked on and the steep learning curve has leveled off.
Sometimes, of course, you get a sort of false-positive in such tests. Remember Quincy Carter against LSU his freshman year? There were a lot of reasons he never lived up to his promise, but let’s not go there. He didn’t. Enough said.
But then there was David Greene leading the Dawgs down the field to beat Tennessee in Knoxville. You knew watching that game that he was something special, and the end result was college football’s all-time winningest QB.
Then last year, we had a pretty good idea after the Boise State game that D.J. Shockley the starter was head and shoulders above D.J. Shockley the backup. But it wasn’t until the Tennessee game, again in Knoxville, that you KNEW D.J. was the real deal.
Did last Saturday’s win over Auburn mark Matthew Stafford’s signature game as Georgia QB? It kinda felt that way, though we’ve been down this road before this season, with people declaring him the Second Coming of John Elway after the South Carolina game. A couple of weeks later, folks were wondering if they’d been wrong.
No, just premature.
Stafford is going to be a remarkable quarterback. But the win over the Gamecocks wasn’t a true measure of where he was in his development at that time. He still had a bunch of learning (and a whole lot of interceptions) ahead of him.
But the Auburn game felt different. He still made a few mistakes, but they weren’t momentum-killers. He didn’t throw any picks and, to his head coach’s delight, he actually threw the ball away when the play wasn’t there rather than trying to force it. As Coach Richt said after the game: “He finally listened to me. That was nice.”
Stafford also showed himself to be more of a running threat than anyone had predicted. (The Athens Banner-Herald summed it up nicely by noting that his rushing output against Auburn was just two yards shy of Shockley’s career high of 85 yards against Boise State last year, and was 12 yards more than Florida’s much-heralded running QB Tim Tebow’s single best game so far this season.)
Yeah, he fumbled a couple of times, leading QB coach Mike Bobo to say he “ripped him pretty bad” after the second one, telling Stafford that after he gets a first down he should go down. Period. “But, coach, I can score,” Stafford protested. “I don’t give a crap,” Bobo told him. “Go down.” And the next time Stafford ran for a first down, he then slid, even with no Auburn player near him, rather than risk losing the ball or getting knocked out of bounds and stopping the clock.
The sight of a student athlete learning is a wonderful thing.
Obviously, Stafford still has a lot to learn and a lot of room for improvement. But watching him in the Auburn game, I got a feeling that the worst is behind him (and I don’t just mean the Kentucky game).
Whether or not he leads the Dawgs to a victory over the Jackets, you get the feeling he won’t be responsible for Georgia beating itself.
Nice thought, but let’s not get carried away …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Start Joe T. against the Jackets?
OK, nice gesture. Classy gesture. And as long as it’s for JUST ONE PLAY (and that preferably is a handoff to Kregg Lumpkin or Brannan Southerland), it probably wouldn’t do any harm.
A whole series at the start of the game? I don’t think so. The Dawgs need to get off on the right foot against their in-state rival, and the first offensive series is too important to be messing around with sentimental symbolism.
No offense intended to Joe T., but Matthew Stafford is our QB now, and he’s finally getting in the groove. Why would we want to mess with that in an important game like this?
A day for believing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s amazing how improvement in one area can provide the foundation for a team’s overall performance, as we saw Saturday in Georgia’s upset win over fifth-ranked and heavily favored Auburn.
The key to Georgia’s turnaround from losing to a perennial conference doormat the week before? Our receivers held on to the ball when it was thrown to them early on. Simple as that.
That forced Auburn to play differently, as defensive coordinator Will Muschamp noted. “We gave up the deep balls early in the game, and that got us back on our heels,” he said.
And it was like a domino effect. The threat of Dawg receivers catching the ball downfield eased the Auburn pressure at the line of scrimmage somewhat, allowing our inconsistent offensive line to play its best game, and opening up our running attack, especially the quarterback draw. Our receivers catching the ball also took some of the pressure off freshman QB Matthew Stafford, meaning he didn’t feel he had to try and force the ball into bad situations. Result? He threw no interceptions that left the Georgia defense with its back against the wall. The Dawgs did turn the ball over three times on fumbles, but unlike earlier games this season, they didn’t fold and wilt after that.
Likewise, the key to our defensive showing was the line getting pressure on Auburn’s quarterback, starting with Ray Gant’s sack of Brandon Cox on the Tigers’ very first play from scrimmage, the first of four times the Dawgs got to Cox. It appeared Georgia got inside Cox’s head, and the pressure also forced the slightly gimpy QB to rush throws, resulting in four picks, three by Tra Battle, who redeemed himself for getting victimized by opposing teams earlier in the season.
Richt said after the game that the coaches didn’t do anything different this week (though he did suffer a severe bout of self-doubt the night before the game). So what was the difference? Why were receivers hanging on to balls that they’d dropped against lesser opponents? Why were blocks held that were missed before? Why did Matthew Stafford finally start thinking before throwing?
It was between the ears. It appears that with most of their season goals out of reach after the loss to Kentucky, the Dawgs played like they had a point to prove. And rightly so. Let’s face it, any program that wants to be considered in the SEC elite has something to prove when it loses to Vandy and Kentucky in the same season and barely escapes the Mississippi schools.
So they set out to prove that still belong up there with Florida, Auburn and Tennessee and not beneath Kentucky. That they can play like defending conference champions. As QB coach Mike Bobo put it: “We believed today.”
Auburn believes now, too. It doesn’t erase the sorry showing the Dawgs made for much of this season, but it’s the first step in reclaiming Georgia’s rightful place in the SEC pecking order.
THE NATURE OF FANDOM: One of the more ridiculous statements I’ve heard in recent weeks is this idea that anyone who criticizes the Georgia coaches or players is not a true Dawgs fan.
So says a little clique of sanctimonious Red & Blacker-than-thou zealots who assert that they’re the only “true” believers, and that everyone else is a “fair-weather” fan or “bandwagon-hopper” who doesn’t deserve to enjoy the surprise win over Auburn. What a bunch of garbage.
Who appointed these see-no-evil, hear-no-evil bullies as guardians of the Bulldog Nation? Nobody, and they need to get over themselves.
This reminds me of other factions in religion, politics and nonsports fandoms that arbitrarily declare that theirs is the only true way, and then proceed to throw insults at anyone who differs. The truth is that being a fan doesn’t require mindless acceptance. Anyone who sat through the Ray Goff years and continued to contribute money to the program and buy season tickets certainly deserves to express any opinion they have regarding any aspect of Bulldogs football.
UGA supporters (including me) who have expressed their disappointment in Georgia’s underachieving performances this season are no less fans than these self-appointed ayatollahs. Dawgs fandom doesn’t need any litmus tests. Even if you’ve never been to Sanford Stadium but you root for UGA, you have just as much right to call yourself a fan as those of us who spend thousands of dollars and countless hours on the road supporting the Dawgs. Likewise, those who think a player should be benched or a coach should be fired are just as much fans as the blind loyalists.
We’re here to share our devotion to the Georgia Bulldogs, and sniping at one another over whose style of fandom is the “true” one is a waste of time and, frankly, looks really stupid. I mean, is that any way to celebrate a great win, casting aspersions on fellow fans?
That’s almost as pathetic as those fans who get off by spending time on rival teams’ blogs, trash-talking. And that goes for Georgia fans who engage in such childish behavior on the Trade School blog and elsewhere. How about acting like grown-ups for a change, OK?
Un-bleeping-believable!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Finally, a 60-minute effort out of the Dogs! Finally, consistent pressure on a quarterback and a resulting four picks by the Bulldog defense, three by Tra Battle! Finally, no dropped passes! Finally, a consistent ground game led by RUNNING quarterback Matthew Stafford, who showed why football observers have said all along that he’s going to be special.
37-15!!!!
More tomorrow.
Which game matters the most?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bulldog fans have pretty much nothing but questions as we wait for Saturday’s renewal of the South’s oldest football rivalry.
Will Mark Richt finally try to take some pressure off his battered freshman quarterback by committing more to the running game? Will Georgia alum turned War Eagle defensive guru Will Muschamp counter that with more men in the box to try and force Matthew Stafford to throw the ball to his banged-up and not very reliable receivers? Will Richt immediately abandon the running game the first time the blocking fails and we get stopped for no gain? Will Georgia’s defense play like it did in Jacksonville or like it did in Lexington? Can the Dawgs finally make a key fourth-quarter stop? Can the Dawgs hold on to the ball? Is this the game where Auburn’s underperforming offense finally gets it together against an SEC foe (just our luck)? And what about Gordon Ely-Kelso giving placekicking a try for the first time since high school? Any chance he could end up the hero?
While we ponder those questions, another came up recently when a Bulldog pal at work and I were discussing Georgia’s football woes. A co-worker who went to another school asked us if we could have JUST ONE win out of the remaining games, which would we choose? We didn’t even hesitate. We’d rather beat the Jackets, we both said. With the Dawgs out of the SEC race, the home-state rivalry means a lot more, even if Auburn does sign much of its team in Georgia. Life in “the envy of the nation” is always happier when the Trade School types have been put in their place.
So what do you think? If we could only have one of them, would you rather squash the insects than beat the former Alabama Polytechnic Institute?
BULLDOG BITES: I see where the basketball Dawgs will be honoring teammate Kevin Brophy, killed in an auto accident last summer, by wearing a “Do It for Broph” patch with his No. 3 on it this season. They’ll also wear “Do it for Broph” spirit bracelets that will be sold in order to raise money for the Kevin Brophy Memorial Scholarship Endowment. Let’s hope all fans attending games at the Steg buy one and help out! … Hard to believe it’s been 10 years since that wild and woolly Georgia-Auburn game where Uga took a lunge at an Auburn receiver (resulting in one of the all-time great UGA sports photos that many of us have framed) and the Dawgs came back from a 21-point deficit and won it in overtime 56-49. I just wish we’d seen even the tiniest sign that this year’s team was capable of such a comeback. A showing like that in Auburn would certainly ease the bitterness over the Vandy-Kentucky losses this season. We can dream, can’t we?
Whatever happened to “reloading�?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Blawg’s been in a pretty dismal state lately, but that’s reflective of the Bulldog Nation as a whole, I think. You’ve got the folks who reflexively launch into “Fire Richt!” mode at one extreme, and at the other extreme are the folks who think a discouraging word should never be heard, and that anyone who criticizes the program or the coach is a “fair-weather” fan.
Most of us are in the middle. We’re University of Georgia Bulldog supporters, win or lose, but we quite frankly thought we’d gotten past the days of losing to the Eastern Division’s bottom-feeders (sorry Dores and Cats fans, but that’s the way it is).
As a friend said a couple of weeks ago after the Vandy loss, a lot of UGA fans had thought Mark Richt had elevated the program to the level of the superprograms of the ’90s (like Richt’s former employer, FSU), where we simply “reloaded” every year and maintained our position as one of the SEC’s top two or three teams, rather than having to “rebuild.” Many fans expected Georgia to be a Top 10 mainstay.
It’s been painful to realize that isn’t the case, and that despite the high national ranking of recruiting classes under Richt (for what that’s worth), the program has slipped back this season below the good-but-not-great Jim Donnan level to the sorry, inconsistent play of the Ray Goff days.
Is it, like so many fans are saying (with more hope than conviction) simply a one-year hiccup? Let’s hope so. After all, Tennessee went through this last year (with plenty of “Fire Fulmer” rants), and the Vols managed to turn it around this year.
Of course, Phil Fulmer, like so many other coaches in the past, was willing to fire someone to get things back on course.
Many of us have doubts Richt is willing to do that, though it seems to be close to a consensus view (among all except the rose-colored glasses set) that the Georgia coaching staff hasn’t done a very good job (even going back to last year, when we had to back into an SEC championship, needing for other folks to lose when we couldn’t clinch it outright ourselves).
The personnel recruited either hasn’t lived up to expectations or hasn’t been developed properly. Game plans have been inflexible. Players haven’t always appeared motivated. Bottom line: The Dawgs have underperformed, and when that’s the case, the coaches usually shoulder at least a sizable portion of the blame.
The two spots that appear to be most in need of a change are defensive coordinator (where Willie Martinez has shown only brief spurts of competency) and offensive line coach (where Neil Callaway’s recruiting and player development have been abysmal).
Much has been said already about Martinez, who seems in over his head. Callaway’s methods have left us with hardly any offensive linemen, and the ones we do have are inconsistently effective at protecting the passer (which is what Callaway seems most concerned with) and aren’t very good at blocking for the run. The fact is that ever since the Donnan linemen graduated, the OL has been the weak spot of Georgia teams. Even last year’s veteran line played inconsistently.
Wide receivers coach John Eason also seems to have a knack for taking promising players and making them mediocre.
It doesn’t appear to be in Richt’s nature to clean house after the season, and perhaps it won’t be necessary. Maybe with the maturing of Matthew Stafford next year and the addition to the mix of the redshirts and incoming freshmen, the Dawgs will be able to turn it around quickly, without a staff housecleaning and without the program having to suffer through another “rebuilding” year.
Maybe Uga will start talking, too. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
POOCH KICKS: It’s encouraging that in his post-game comments a bruised and battered Stafford was willing to take the blame for Saturday’s loss to Kentucky (though it certainly wasn’t solely his fault). After previous losses, he seemed oblivious, sounding as he thought he’d played pretty good and his turnovers weren’t all that important. It appears he’s starting to grow up. … Again, kudos to Tony Taylor, the main bright spot this year on the Georgia defense. He plays like Georgia defenses of the past were known for playing. … There’s much more to be said about Richt’s playcalling and offensive strategy, but the main questions I wish someone would ask him about the Kentucky game are these: 1) Why, on Georgia’s first drive, after Kregg Lumpkin had led the team down the field, did we pull him and put in Danny Ware, who got stuffed, leading to a field goal attempt that failed? Why would you pull the hot hand in the middle of a drive? 2) With Lumpkin having run for 83 yards on 10 tries in the first half, why did he only get the ball three more times in the second half? 3) OK, you’ve made it clear that on that pass that was intercepted when the Dawgs were on their own 1 yard line, you think Stafford should have just thrown it away. But why were you calling for a pass in that position in the first place? Why put that kind of pressure on your freshman quarterback? … Richt said after the game that if he’d needed to use a placekicker again after Andy Bailey’s missed PAT, punter Gordon Ely-Kelso would have gotten the call. But the coach was still dancing around the question of whether Gordon will be the placekicker against Auburn. What’s the hesitation? He couldn’t do any worse than Bailey, and from what I’ve heard he was a better placekicker than punter in his days at Clarke Central. Just as he needs to come to terms with having to fire someone, Richt needs to quit worrying so much about hurting players’ feelings (see the whole Joe T. fiasco). … I realize that even if the Dawgs fall to 6-6, they aren’t going to turn down a bowl bid, no matter where it is. But I still don’t think ANY 6-6 team belongs in a bowl. I know, I know, that’s a quaint, old-fashioned notion.
The unvarnished truth …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Folks have been saying for some time now that Georgia isn’t a very good team this season.
Wrong.
Georgia is a VERY BAD team.
And just think, if it weren’t for Tony Taylor, it would have been worse.
Anybody in the UGA student body able to placekick a football? The position SHOULD be open after this game.
Other than that, it was your typical UGA 2006 game: poor throws, dropped balls, no blocking, interceptions and fumbles, and a defense that couldn’t get the job done.
We may have six wins, but frankly, unless fate somehow intervenes and we end up somehow upsetting one of our last two opponents, we DON’T BELONG in ANY bowl game.
More later.
Getting ready to go Cattin’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Five reasons to be optimistic going into Saturday’s game with Kentucky in Lexington:
Kentucky is last in the SEC and 115th in the nation in passing defense (yielding an average 269.75 yards per game) and has given up a SEC-worst 18 touchdown passes. And Georgia’s much-maligned (deservedly so) receiving corps is way overdue for a big game catching the ball.
Martrez Milner is finally out of the starting lineup (though Coach Richt reportedly says Milner still will get about half the playing time — hopefully only the plays when we’re running the ball or throwing to someone other than the tight end and can benefit from Milner’s blocking talents).
The Wildcats’ overall defense ranks No. 118 out of 119 in the nation in yards allowed, surrendering 455.63 yards per game, and they rank 102nd in scoring defense (30.75 points per game).
Kentucky’s No. 1 tailback, Rafael Little, is out with a knee injury and their second-leading rusher, Tony Dixon, is questionable with an injured hamstring. (Of course, their third tailback, Alfonso Smith, rushed for 92 yards against Mississippi State, which is 12 yards more than Kregg Lumpkin got against the Maroons.)
It’s Kentucky! And we’re not playing basketball!
Five reasons to be wary going into the game with Kentucky:
Georgia teams traditionally come out flat for a game against a lesser opponent and also have been known to be down immediately after a big game, even if their effort in the big game fell short. And we don’t appear to have a senior team leader or a fire-breathing motivator on our coaching staff.
The big change in our ineffective offensive line this week is replacing the gimpy Chester Adams with the underperforming Michael Turner, who a couple of times last week waved rushers on past him like a Wal-Mart greeter, resulting in two of the Gators’ four sacks. Of course, thanks to our poor recruiting on the OL, there’s not really any choice but to start Turner. Said Richt about protecting the QB last week: “At times we got physically beat. … As far as doing anything about it, there’s not enough depth to do anything about it.”
If defensive coordinator Willie Martinez falls back on that lame soft zone of his, Kentucky’s passing game could have a big day. Second-year QB Andre Woodson is ranked No. 25 nationally in passing efficiency, and the Cats’ passing attack is ranked 22nd.
Nobody in the SEC fears the Dawgs this year. Even the league’s chump teams smell blood when Georgia comes up on their schedule. Mississippi State believed it could beat Georgia and damn near did. And Kentucky beat MSU by the same 3-point margin as the Dawgs.
… OK, I couldn’t come up with a fifth one. It is Kentucky, after all. And we’re not playing basketball!
POOCH KICKS: My friend Herb, a UK stalwart, predicts, “Bud, you’ll take us by at least two touchdowns. Your guys played better in the second half against the Gators. Take away all the mistakes and you’ve got a different ballgame.” Of course, Herb would make Vince Dooley look like an optimist. He always downplays Kentucky’s roundball prospects, too. … A familiar sight on the jumbo screen at Sanford Stadium and in telecasts of Georgia games is the bald head painted with a Georgia Bulldog belonging to Mike “Big Dawg” Woods, one of my classmates (Class of ’70) at Athens High School. I’m told that Mike is one of the finalists in Aaron’s Super Fan Contest. You can vote for him starting Thursday, Nov. 2, at SouthernSportsAwards.com. … AOL Sports NCAA Fanhouse blogger Ted Kian presents the case against OL coach Neil Callaway and his recruiting at http://georgia-football.aolsportsblog.com. … ESPN.com’s Ivan Maisel and Mark Schlabach (remember him?) did their bowl forecast this week, and both see Georgia in the Peach-fil-A against Boston College. If we don’t make it to Atlanta, it’s likely to be the Independence, Music City or Liberty. And while we’re talking bowls, which one wins the worst-name award? It’s between the Meineke Car Care Bowl and the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia — neither of which we’re in the running for, thank goodness.
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