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Dawgs!

I'll be walking around all spring with a boner!

I know it doesn't matter when toe meets leather - but for recruiting (and signing), this is huge (much like my aforementioned boner).

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=schlabach_mark&id=3186264

Russ

Hawaii 5-0?, try Hawaii 41-10

Yes, I am happy with the results.  Yes, we kicked Hawaii's ass all over the field - Brennan may have just moved down to the 2nd round of the draft.  But that is not what is on my mind today.  I want to know why the announcing crew from last night continued to slam GA for doing what everyone in the country wanted to see.  Kick a lesser opponent around for 60 minutes.  Hawaii needed a trip to the woodshed - they needed a reality check.  They didn't come in humble, they came in with their polynesian dancing and their throat slashing, and their "we can run with anyone" smack.  Did the Hellboys take it easy on the Hurricanes in inramurals?  Hell no.  They scored at every opportunity and they slammed it down our throat whenever they could.  Hawaii thought their system would work outside of the WAC, they were wrong. 

After the 90 yard runback, Cox takes over with a backup O-line and Lumpkin it at RB.  e try to run, they stuff it.  4th down rolls along and we go for it.  To me, that is the merciful thing to do - why tack on a guaranteed 3 more - hell we didn't even score and the idiot announcers were questioning Richt throwing on 4th down up 4 touchdowns.  Kiss my ass - Miami in the '80's, FSU in the '90's, Fla for the past 20 years would all have scored 60 on this team and never looked back.  I say, we let them off easy - Brennan is lucky that he was able to walk off, and Hawaii is lucky that we only scored 41.

I just had to vent a little.  One more thing. USC and UGA are the 2 best teams in the country and when it's all done this year, it will only be more obvious.  My predictions: I want to go with WVU, but I'm afraid that OK is just too strong.  Who cares in the Orange, but lets go with VT.  NC game - look for a boring game after the good football of this week.  Go with OSU - but no-one will care because the best 3 teams will have already played.  UGA, USC, OK.  One of those will win it all next year - write that shit down!

All right - Just to clarify

I want everybody's position on this topic:

Option 1.  Let's go back to the old way of college football.  Polls & extensive bowl tie-ins.  #1 hardly ever played #2.

Option B.  The BCS is great. 

Option 3.  The BCS isn't perfect but it's probably better than Option 1.

Option M.  Let's have a playoff already and be done with it.

Me, I'm in the Option 3M camp.  The BCS does a better job than pure voting, which is what we had forever.  But it still sucks because there's too much voting.  Anyone see the coaches' ballots?  From EDSBS.com:

Show me your scruples… If you weren’t quite convinced that this whole BCS system is a giant, steaming pile of elephant dung, you will be once you get through the coaches ballots. Among my favorties:

**Lllloyd Carr - the 4 L version - voted his Wolverines 21st, a full ten spots ahead of their actual ranking. Oregon, the team Lloyd could not stay within 30 points of at home, is not on his ballot at all.

**Dennis Franchione, apparently not content to fuck one football program in the ass, sent a parting shot to Hawaii, ranking them 22nd. Hal Mumme, seeing the team he wished he had, voted the Rainbow Warriors #1.

**Tommy Bowden threw darts at his ballot. Oklahoma landed in the 10 spot, four behind… Missouri. Mkay.

**The lone moralist in college football? Mack Brown, of course. Every coach except the Longhorns’ voted their team higher than their actual finish. As noted at DC Sports Blog: “The most stark moral offenders are: Lloyd Carr (10 spots difference), Mike Bellotti (8), Chris Petersen (6), Mike Riley (5), Randy Edsall (5), Tommy Bowden (5), Mike Leach (4), Ron Zook (4) and Phillip Fulmer (4). Frank Beamer (3) didn’t quite make this cut, but he was the only coach to vote Virginia Tech No. 2, meaning he tried to put his own team in the title game and no one else did.”

**Howard Schnellenberger? Marching to his own beat. USC is ranked behind… Boise State?

 

Herschel No. 3

of the 25 greatest college football players of all time.  OJ Simpson & Barry Sanders are left.  Seems strange ESPNU would give this to them but not make either one of them the greatest running backs.

SugaR

OK - I could fill these pages with my opinion about this crazy weekend and crazy year - but I won't.  Yes, my prediction that began on Nov 17th almost happened and let's just leave it at that.  Yes, I said UGA and Oklahoma, but you get the point.  The real deal is that the pollsters got caught with their Missouri and WVU pants at their ankles and had to fix it.  Fine - I say they probably got it close to right in the end.  Yes, UGA beat KY and LSU did not, but that discussion always turns to talk of UT, and I don't like how that ends up.  Truth is, we lost control at home against SC and gave the pollsters free reign to do with us what they want within 10 minutes at Neyland. 

If you had offered me the Capital One Bowl after the SC game I would have taken it.  If you had offered me the Peach Bowl after UT, I would have taken it.  Give me the SugaR Bowl every year for the rest of my life and I will take it.

I don't want a playoff, I don't want another system, I don't want to change a thing.  I just want to go to the SugaR Bowl and beat Hawaii.

Oh, and one more thing - I don't want to talk about how close we got to winning a National Championship this year - a rebuilding year.  Not today, and maybe never.  I'll let you know.

Herschel Now Guaranteed Top 5

In the Top 25 College Players of All-Time.  Jim Thorpe is No. 6.  Dorsett No. 7.  Seriously, can anyone think of player who might be ranked ahead of Herschel?  What about Manning (Peyton, not Eli) as the greatest college quarterback?  Yeah, I know, no Heisman, but still.  Notable running backs not yet to be named - Barry Sanders, OJ Simpson & for really old school Billy Cannon.  I presume that even though it's sponsored by IBM, any running back order is going to follow ESPNU's ranking a few years back. 

Man, this happens to me a LOT...

I swear, honey, I did not order that.

Medical Problem

My only problem is that I have been walking around with a boner since we beat Tech.  I may need to contact my physician, because I'm sure that it may last until at least next Fall.  There's just something that makes life sweeter when the Dawgs are good - not Jim Donnan decent, but damn good.  We suffered through Goff, and watched pretty much every team in the SEC have good years.  Just a list of some of the teams with NCs since 1980 - Clemson, UF, UT, LSU, Notre Dame, Tech (a technicality, but they hung a banner), and Alabama.  Let's see how they look this year:

Clemson - beat SC to maybe hold onto their coach

UF - all I can say is that they will be finished with their bowl when the good teams start to play

UT - they may want to call Peyton Manning for directions to the Citrus Bowl - he spent many January's there

LSU - blew it this weekend and may lose their head coach and will certainly lose their Def Coor.  ergo, they are screwed moving forward

Notre Dame - hee hee

Tech - see "Notre Dame" above

Alabama - too bad they spent all that money on Saban - that doesn't leave much to pay their players - not a great outlook for the Tide.  BTW - they were 3-0 and ranked #16 when we came into town.  How did they respond to the AW that we put on them?  Try a 3-5 finish with wins over Houston, Ole Miss and UT (that was a nice one - I'll give them that)

Does anyone want to trade places with anyone else in the country?

Saban Keeping It Real

Losing to Louisiana Monroe is like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor (Saban: "which got us ready for World War II, or whatever...") 

Who's glad we've got Richt?  Besides my mom, who I think wants to do him.

UGA National Champions

OK, here is how it plays out from here.  First of all, let's just assume that UGA wins the rest of it's games - after all, we are all Dawgs.

Here is the current BCS, but after this weekend, the polls will look a little different (let's just talk BCS for now).  We know that with just the Oregon loss, we are no worse than #8 going into the KY game.

1. LSU   2. Oregon   3. Kansas   4. Oklahoma   5. Missouri   6. WVU   7. Ohio St   8. Ariz St   9. UGA   10. Va Tech

Now, I don't think Oregon will be the only loser this weekend - consider the kind of year we have seen so far.  Kansas should be fine, OK could get a scare against Tex A&M, Missouri is playing what ESPN calls a classic trap game at K State, WVU should be fine in Cincy, Ohio State goes to the Big House where we all know what can and usually does happen.

So, going into the final week of the season all it takes is 2-3 of the 4 of the upset/trap games to play out.  I predict this after this weekend:

1. LSU   2. Kansas   3. OK   4. Missouri   5. WVU   6. Ariz St   7. UGA   8. Va Tech   9. Oregon   10. USC (setting up a showdown on Thurs 11/22 with Ariz State - more on that in a minute)

OK, the last weekend.  First of all KY beats UT which clears the way for UGA to win the east and moive into the SEC Championship Game (I know, we do better if we don't go and grab an at-large BCS bid instead of playing LSU - just stay with me).  Ariz State gets USC and probably gets embarrased.  That sits UGA at #6.  Missouri beats Kansas and earns a trip to the Big 12 Champ game against OK (who, we will assume wins out - though they have a few traps along the way as well).  So, UGA at #5.  Here we are after Nov 24.

1. LSU   2. OK   3. Missouri   4. WVU   5. UGA   6.  Kansas   7. USC   8. Va Tech   9. Oregon   10. Az State

OK, let's now look at the fallout from the Champ games.  First of all, UGA comes out for pregame warmups with no pants on, and rides that emotion to an upset in Atlanta.  WVU loses to Uconn or Pitt (payback for 1981 - screw you Marino).  Doesn't matter who wins the Big 12 game, but lets assume it's OK.  Here is how we look on BCS Selection Sunday (Dec 3)

1. OK (12-1)   2. UGA (11-2)  (it gets cloudy after this, but does it really matter?) 3. LSU (11-2)   4. Kansas (11-1)   5. USC (10-2)

6. Missouri (11-2)

And that is how an 11-2 team with a home loss to a 6-7 win South Carolina and an ugly loss to Tenn can climb back into the Nat'l Championship race.

Russ