The following, a weekly feature of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, allows our reporters to open their notebooks and provide even more information from our local teams that we cover daily. We think you’ll find in informative, insightful and fun.
Several Falcons have shown up in Flowery Branch recently wearing heavy sweatshirts in near 100-degree weather. One player was even bundled up outside in the heat.
Long sleeves, heavy shirts in the South? In the summer?
It’s turns out their meeting rooms at the franchise’s headquarters are cold.
“It’s like 50 degrees in there,” safety Richie Grant said. But why the heavy Central Florida Citrus Bowl hoodie? “It’s needed, I promise it’s needed,” Grant said.
Grant doesn’t know where the thermostat is located.
“You can’t touch the thermostat,” Grant said. “I don’t even know where it’s at. If I knew I would have changed it.”
Defensive tackle Grady Jarrett had a thick sweatshirt, and rookie Clark Phillips III was bundled up outside in the heat.
“The meeting room is a little cool,” Jarrett said. “Also, I’m just getting out of the cold rub, and you’ve got that chill on you for an extra 15 to 20 minutes once your leave. It’s a cold meeting and post-cold tub, you don’t want to be in there freezing.”
But if the coaches’ raised the temperature in meeting room, they probably would lose some of their students.
“If they make it too comfortable, guys will be in there nodding off,” Jarrett said. “It’s all good. You have to keep the temp down. Keep us nice fresh, rolling.”
That’s some long-lasting confetti!
The Rams-Chargers exhibition game last weekend was the first at SoFi Stadium since Georgia walloped TCU in January’s College Football Playoff Championship game. And it turns out there was confetti remaining from the Bulldogs’ celebration – a welcome discovery for Rams rookie offensive lineman Warren McClendon and quarterback Stetson Bennett, both of whom were starters for Georgia.
“When we walked into the locker room, there was still confetti,” McClendon said. “Anything like that found confetti and in their coolers. Yeah, some of the old coolers there was still some confetti in them. So they you know, they put it in our locker.”
More from the West Coast
The Rams have four Bulldogs on their roster, second most among NFL teams behind the Eagles (six). Los Angeles waived safety Richard LeCounte this week, but it still has Bennett, McClendon, starting quarterback Matthew Stafford and cornerback Derion Kendrick on its roster. Bennett, McClendon and Kendrick played together on the 2021 championship team, while Stafford led the Rams to a Super Bowl victory in the same season.
McClendon offers his take on Georgia’s quarterback situation:
“I think any of the three quarterbacks they have – Carson (Beck), Gunnar (Stockton) and Brock (Vandagriff) – any one of those three can lead them,” he said. Asked about Beck, the perceived front-runner, McClendon continued: “When I was leaving, Carson was stepping up major and being a leader. If it is Carson, I have total faith in him.”
Remaining on the West Coast
Georgia soccer coach Keidane McAlpine certainly doesn’t fool around when it comes to season openers.
In his second year with the Bulldogs since coming to UGA from Southern Cal, McAlpine scheduled an opener on the road against UCLA followed by a match three days later against his former school. The Bruins are the defending national champions in women’s soccer and the nation’s top-ranked team for this season as well.
Georgia arrived in Los Angeles with a team that returned six starters and 14 letter winners from last year’s squad, including all-region defender Madison Haugen and SEC all-tournament goalkeeper Jordan Brown. The 2023 Bulldogs also include graduate-student midfielder Croix Bethune from USC, an Alpharetta resident who was one of five transfers added to the roster by McAlpine.
She was joined by former USC teammate Hannah White, who scored five career goals and is the stepsister of Georgia senior forward Tori Penn, midfielders Aly Akers (Notre Dame) and Summer Denigan (Florida State) and midfielder Nicole Vernis (Florida). The Bulldogs’ transfer class was ranked third in the nation by the WoSo Independent.
McAlpine, who himself won a national championship when he was at USC, stands only five wins from 200 in his career.
Georgia is seeking the soccer program’s first victory over a No. 1 team. The Bulldogs fell in its three previous attempts, including a 3-1 loss to Florida State last season. Overall, the Bulldogs are 3-16-0 all-time against top-five teams and 8-53-2 against top-10 programs.
Meanwhile, back in Athens ...
In a not-so-subtle marketing release last week, Creature Comforts was announced as “the official craft beer of the Georgia Bulldogs.”
The Athens-based brewery made the announcement via a video skit circulated on social media. Creature Comforts co-founder Chris Herron, dressed in football-coaching attire, did his best impression of coach Kirby Smart giving his team an inspirational pregame speech. That was followed by red- and black-T-shirt clad associates of Creature Comfort busting out of the Bulldogs’ locker room at Sanford Stadium onto Dooley Field and engaging in a game of touch football. It actually was well-done and entertaining.
Now what, exactly, does it mean to be the official craft beer of the Bulldogs?
Mainly, it allows Creature Comfort to use UGA’s official marks and logos on all its retail packaging and marketing materials. It also allowed the company’s marketing team to launch a brand campaign they’ve labeled, “Go Dawgs, Sip ‘Em!”
For those unfamiliar with the Georgia traditions, that’s a play on the fans’ battle cry for their beloved team, “Go Dawgs, Sic ‘Em!”
“Pretty clever, huh?” Rob Kremer of Kremer Communications said of the campaign’s tagline.
The press release called the Athens company’s arrangement with UGA a “multiyear deal,” though neither UGA nor Creature Comforts officials responded to the AJC’s request for the actual terms of the agreement.
On Thursday, Creature Comforts provided lunch for the team at the Butts-Mehre football complex, catered by a local restaurant called “gusto! Athens.” That restaurant is owned by former Georgia Bulldog – and Oklahoma Sooner – Nate Hybl.
“This partnership is about more than putting a ‘G’ on the packaging, but a natural progression to all the ways we have worked with the university through the years,” Herron said in the marketing release. “We are fans, friends and graduates of UGA who look forward to linking our brands across the state.”
Creature Comforts, founded in 2014, is the largest independent craft brewery in Georgia, according to Kremer Communications. It is best known for its award-winning brands of beer Tropicalia and Classic City Lager. Its downtown Athens brewery will be hosting events throughout the football season.
-Staff writers Gabriel Burns, Chip Towers and D. Orlando Ledbetter contributed to this article.
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