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AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2008 > January > 02
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
They don’t call it Big Easy for nothing!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fran Tarkenton got it exactly right when it came to this year’s Sugar Bowl.
“A total mismatch.”
That’s how the legendary pro great and former UGA quarterback, acting as a Fox analyst, summed up Georgia’s total domination of the much vaunted Hawaii Warriors on the postgame show early Wednesday morning.
And after USC’s demolition of favorite son Illinois in the Rose Bowl Tuesday, you’ve got to wonder if the folks in Pasadena were kicking themselves hard (as they should have been) over the fact that they passed up the chance to match the Trojans and Dawgs because of their desire to cling to a traditional but antiquated Pac 10/Big 10 lineup.
I wasn’t alone among Georgia fans a couple of weeks ago when I said amid the nonstop media buildup of Hawaii that I smelled another Boise State overhype, but that didn’t stop ESPN, Fox and, yes, even the local media from portraying the team from the islands as some juggernaut that the Dawgs would be lucky to even slow down. Heck, even with the game in the bag for Mark Richt’s team and humbled NCAA record holder Colt Brennan weeping on the sideline as his backup finished out the game, Fox still kept up the stream of heartwarming anecdotes about the suddenly sainted June Junes and his team. (Sometimes they were too busy with the stories to even describe what was happening on the field!)
Hey, why let the facts and the real story get in the way of a colorful myth? After all, we’d been told that as many as 30,000 to 50,000 fans from the Five-O state were in New Orleans for the game and that they and the team were sky-high and Georgia was hobbled and the Bulldog Nation and its players less than enthused and so on and so on, yadda yadda yadda. The facts: The Superdome was about three-quarters blacked out by the UGA faithful, and even with Knowshon Moreno at less than full speed he had two touchdowns by the time he’d handled the ball five times.
The real story was that Hawaii’s undefeated record meant nothing because they had not played an SEC-caliber defense before Tuesday. Welcome to the big leagues, bruddas.
And then Fox’s Thom Brennaman made a complete ass of himself by lambasting Richt because, with 10 minutes left in the game, our second, third and fourth-stringers were still playing hard. So we threw for the end zone on fourth-and-goal. If we’d taken the gimme 3 points of a field goal, he no doubt would have still accused us of padding the score. What did he want backup Joe Cox to do, take a knee?
If it had been the likes of Steve Spurrier coaching the Dawgs, our starters still would have been in the game and the final result would have been even more embarrassing for Hawaii than it was.
I said here before that Georgia needed to make a statement in this game. Well, they did. LOUD and clear. Let’s hope the folks who vote in the polls were listening.
BOWL BITS: That preening jerk Keenan Jones of the Warriors, who kept losing his helmet to get more screen time, should have been ejected from the game for that blatantly illegal and quite obviously deliberate helmet-to-helmet hit on punt receiver Mikey Henderson, who suffered a concussion. And Thom Brennaman wondered why the Dawgs were still hitting hard in the fourth quarter. … I’ve had problems with some of Willie Martinez’s defensive game plans in the past, but he and his players did an absolutely masterful job against the Warriors. You just know that somewhere Erk Russell was grinning ear to ear. Eight sacks, without even blitzing. Six takeaways (a BCS bowl record). Colt Brennan held to career lows. Now THAT’S Georgia defense. … That was great for Brandon Coutu to close out a stellar career with a performance that included kicking the longest field goal in BCS bowl history. … I guess you can understand Mike Bobo going conservative in his playcalling once Georgia was up 24-3, but even so if it hadn’t been for some DROPPED PASSES, including a couple in the end zone, the score would have gotten even more lopsided. (Too bad no points resulted from Ramarcus Brown’s great long kickoff return.) … Man, that third quarter seemed to last FOREVER! And what with the Fox-mandated late start, the fourth quarter didn’t even begin until after midnight. Ridiculous. … Nice touch letting the soon to depart Blake Barnes kill the clock at the end. Good luck to him at Delta State. … It was entirely fitting that a defensive player got the Sugar Bowl Most Outstanding Player trophy for the first time in many years. Congrats to Marcus Howard on playing a terrific game. … After a day of watching football with me and my family in Decatur (except my son, who was at the Superdome), my brother Tim headed home to Roswell at halftime. As he got there, a dusting of snow was falling. Or, as he put it, look at the sugar falling out of the sky!
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