Zach Mettenberger always wanted to play a big SEC game in a packed Sanford Stadium. He looks forward to doing so on Sept. 28, even if it’ll be against – rather than for – the home team.
“It’s going to be great … a game in front of the Georgia fans,” said Mettenberger, who grew up near Athens as a UGA fan but is now LSU’s starting quarterback. “I always dreamed of playing between the hedges. Now I actually get that opportunity – just wearing purple and gold.
“The dream has changed a little bit, but I still get to live it.”
Mettenberger — who was speaking at SEC Football Media Days on Thursday — is a former Georgia player who was dismissed from the team shortly before pleading guilty to misdemeanor sexual battery in May 2010. He never appeared in a game for the Bulldogs and played the 2010 season at Butler (Kansas) Community College before transferring to LSU. This will be his second season as the Tigers’ starting quarterback.
And how does he expect to be greeted by Georgia fans?
“They’re going to boo the crap out of me. I might get a brick thrown at me, who knows?” Mettenberger said. “I mean, it’s going to be like anywhere else when we play on the road.
“I’m anticipating the worst, for sure. But it’s still going to be fun because I’ll be home.”
The Oconee County High School graduate recognizes that he’ll have to keep his emotions in check that day.
“I mean, I don’t know anybody else who has had to go back and play the team that they got kicked off of,” he said. “It can be easy to want to go out there and throw for 500 yards and eight touchdowns, but you can’t force that. You’ve just got to play within yourself and put the ball in the play-makers’ hands.”
Mettenberger will be playing against the football program for which his mother, Tammy, works as an administrative assistant.
“She can be a Georgia fan her whole life. But (as a parent) it doesn’t matter who your favorite team is, (you’re) rooting for your son or daughter,” Mettenberger said. “Me being at LSU, it changes her into an LSU fan. She even wears purple and gold to work. Coach (Mark) Richt definitely doesn’t enjoy that, but she’s just a fan of her son.”
Mettenberger signed with Georgia in the same 2009 recruiting class as Aaron Murray, who is entering his fourth season as the Bulldogs’ starting quarterback.
“I know the media is going to have a great time with it,” Mettenberger said. “But going against a guy who was your roommate for a full year, it’s going to be fun, and there’s going to be a lot of trash talk, I’m sure.”
Mettenberger, who last season threw for 2,609 yards and 12 touchdowns, said he is working this year to improve his speed, passing accuracy and “a lot of little things” under LSU’s new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, Cam Cameron.
“Nothing totally dramatic,” Mettenberger said. “It’s not like I’m Tim Tebow and have terrible mechanics.”
Saban on survey: After Alabama was picked to win the SEC, coach Nick Saban noted the media's preseason survey has forecast the conference champion correctly only four times in the past 21 years. "If I was 4-17," Saban said, "I'd be back in West Virginia pumping gas at my daddy's gas station."
Schedule complaints: LSU coach Les Miles said "there's a repeated scheduling advantage and disadvantage" for various SEC teams "based on tradition and traditional match-ups." His complaint is that LSU plays Florida every year, while some other Western Division teams draw easier cross-division opponents. Saban favors keeping the cross-division rivalries, such as Alabama's annual game against Tennessee, but expanding to nine league games. Saban: "I understand where Les Miles is coming from. I coached at LSU. We played Florida every year, too. So if anybody understands it, I understand it, you understand?"
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