A different breed of UGA opener

By TIM TUCKER

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Stillwater, Okla. — By any measure, this is not your typical Georgia football opener.

It’s on the road, just the second time in 15 years the Bulldogs have opened a season away from Athens. It’s outside the Southeast, the first time in a half-century the Bulldogs have left the region for an opener. And it’s against the nation’s No. 9 team, the first time in 40 years the Dogs have started a season against a top-10 opponent and the first time in 20 they have opened against an opponent ranked higher than them.

Some 925 miles from the hedges, No. 13 Georgia this afternoon opens a season of uncertain potential against Oklahoma State in the lavishly renovated Boone Pickens Stadium.

“Probably the toughest opener we’ve had since I’ve been at Georgia, going into Year 9,” coach Mark Richt said.

The game is a product of UGA athletics director Damon Evans’ desire to build the Bulldogs brand by venturing beyond the program’s geographic comfort zone. And it is a fitting introduction to a formidable schedule that includes, in addition to the eight SEC games, three non-conference games against BCS opponents.

While both Evans and Richt say that’s one more such opponent than they want to schedule in any given year — “it really is a little much,” Richt said — the players seem to embrace the challenge.

“I don’t think they overdid the schedule at all, man,” defensive end Demarcus Dobbs said. “One of my mottos is that you have to beat the best to be the best. ... It’s a strenuous schedule, I think one of the toughest in the nation, but I like pushing myself, and I think our team as a whole likes pushing ourselves.”

Said quarterback Joe Cox before coming down with flu-like symptoms late this week: “It would be a sweeter victory to play some of the teams we’re playing and come out with a win. We’re not, like, ‘Man, why did they schedule that many tough games?’ ”

The players say their offseason focus was sharpened by having a nationally televised opener looming against Oklahoma State, an offensive powerhouse, rather than facing a stereotypical opener at home against a lightweight opponent.

“Going all the way back to January, we have known we’re going to have this big game and big stage and big challenge,” fullback Shaun Chapas said. “It’s something we’ve been looking forward to all offseason.”

As many offensive weapons as Georgia lost off last year’s team — Matthew Stafford, Knowshon Moreno and Mohamed Massaquoi to the NFL — Oklahoma State returns just as many from a team that averaged 41 points per game: dual-threat quarterback Zac Robinson, who passed for more than 3,000 yards last season and ran for more than 800 the year before; running back Kendall Hunter, who rushed for more than 1,500 yards last year; and All-America wide receiver Dez Bryant, who had almost 1,500 receiving yards last season.

Georgia counters with a fifth-year senior quarterback, Cox, scheduled to make his second collegiate start; a sophomore tailback, Richard Samuel, making his first; and a defense trying to redeem itself after allowing 38 or more points in four of the final five regular-season games last year.

“I’m curious. That’s maybe the best word. I’m curious to see what we got,” Richt said. “You get a pretty good taste in Game 1, although this game is different than a lot of other season openers we’ve had in years past.”

Indeed it is.