Upset of No. 1 USC super-sizes game

Athens —- It’s the big game that just keeps growing.

Having loomed large all along, Georgia-Alabama got bigger each week as the two football teams won their first four games, bulked up some more when ESPN chose Athens as the site of the network’s “College GameDay” preview show, and got super-sized when No. 1-ranked USC lost Thursday night.

So here’s the latest measure of tonight’s game at Sanford Stadium: two unbeaten top-10 teams, playing under the lights on national television, before a crowd clad in black at Georgia’s request, with a No. 1 ranking possibly in the offing for the Bulldogs if they beat the Crimson Tide.

Big enough yet?

“It’s a convergence of all the factors to make it a huge game,” Georgia associate athletics director Alan Thomas said Friday.

“It’s just going to be a wild atmosphere all day,” said Georgia fan Chip Folendore, a Watkinsville real estate agent.

Folendore graduated from Georgia in 1983, a quarter-century ago, which is how long it has been since a higher-ranked set of opponents met at Sanford Stadium than will meet there tonight.

On Nov. 12, 1983, No. 3 Auburn beat No. 4 Georgia. And of the 149 games played at the facility since, not one has involved two teams as highly ranked as tonight’s collision between No. 3 Georgia and No. 8 Alabama.

“I think it’s going to be one of the easiest games to motivate for since I’ve been at Georgia,” said Mark Richt, in his eighth year as the Bulldogs’ coach. “If the guys’ blood doesn’t boil, if they don’t get riled up for this one, they probably shouldn’t be wearing red and black.”

Or, in this case, black.

At the behest of the team’s senior players, Richt started the week by calling for a “blackout.”

He announced the team would wear black jerseys, rather than their traditional home red, and called on fans to come to the game in black clothing as a show of support.

A reprise of a psychological ploy first used for a 45-20 victory over Auburn in Athens last year, the blackout put yet another stamp of bigness on tonight’s game, as did ESPN’s decisions to televise the game nationally and to air the popular “GameDay” show from the Georgia campus this morning.

But the game’s quantum leap in magnitude came late Thursday night from Corvallis, Ore., almost 3,000 miles away, where Oregon State shocked USC, which had been ranked No. 1 in both The Associated Press and USA Today coaches’ polls.

That clears the way for Georgia to move up to No. 1 or 2 in those polls if —- big if —- it beats Alabama. Also, a third poll —- the Harris Poll, one of the elements in ultimately deciding which teams play for the national title —- will announce its first rankings of the season Sunday.

“If Georgia wins, beating a top-10 team, my inclination before seeing the game would be that Georgia would go to No. 1,” Ray Melick, a Harris voter from the Birmingham News, said Friday.

Former Nebraska linebacker Trev Alberts, a sportscaster and Harris voter, is even firmer about the Bulldogs as No. 1: “No question from my perspective, and no matter how they win, if they win they are No. 1.”

But another voter, Tom Luicci of the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger, said he would keep Oklahoma —- No. 2 in both polls last week —- ahead of Georgia if the Sooners beat TCU today.

And Mike Kern of the Philadelphia Daily News said he “could go either way” if Oklahoma and Georgia win. “Let’s see how they do.”

Georgia-Alabama will have to be a mighty good game to justify its buildup, which has featured banter between the two sides this week.

One day, an Alabama strength coach showed up in an Internet video telling Crimson Tide players that the Bulldogs will wear black because they’ll be attending their own funeral. The next day, Richt wore an all-black outfit and said with a sly grin: “I’m going to a funeral.”

One day, asked in Tuscaloosa about Georgia star Knowshon Moreno’s penchant for highlight-film plays, Alabama cornerback/kick returner Javier Arenas said: “What about it? Have you seen some of my highlights?” The next day, asked about Arenas’ game, Richt replied: “He’s very good. Have you seen his highlights?”

Then, on his blog at MarkRicht.com, the Georgia coach listed some comments from Alabama’s side that seemed to discount the significance of the blackout. “Alabama doesn’t think that Georgia fans can make an impact on the game,” Richt wrote. “I know that you guys will be the difference in this game.”

It’s time to play.

“They’ve got a ton of momentum,” Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford said of Alabama, “and I feel like we do, too. It’s going to be a battle out there. It’s going to be fun.”

The game will draw the routine capacity crowd of 92,746, hopefully with enough gas in their tanks to get home afterward. Georgia said security will be beefed up as it always is for night games. University police warn fans to be on guard against folks hawking counterfeit tickets.

Although the game has been sold out for months, Georgia’s athletics office continues to get calls seeking tickets. “The answer,” said Thomas, the associate athletics director for external operations, “is a polite, ‘Thanks for your support, but we can’t give what we don’t have.’ “

By Friday, seats available via online ticket re-sellers were going for $284 to $642 apiece.

The game seems to have everything going for it except this: Larry Munson. The voice of the Bulldogs for 43 years, Munson won’t be at Sanford Stadium after announcing his retirement for health reasons Monday. Munson turns 86 this weekend, and the Georgia crowd will sing happy birthday to him at halftime —- “extra loud so he can hear it on the radio,” Thomas said.

Everything about this game is extra loud, extra large.

—- Staff writer Tony Barnhart contributed to this article.

 Illustration by MICHAEL DABROWA / Staff
Sanford Stadium's heavy metal will be rockin' tonight (special thanks to AC/DC for the inspiration).