6 ACLs in one season? Yeah, we really won the lottery this season. IEveryone gets some bad breaks, but sometimes they can be overcome if you have the right personnel.

it’s pretty bad, too

though it very well may be. I looked at it more as Reshad being Reshad. He saw Asher decide to leave, saw that Rolle was going to go to Oxford and Taylor I’m-More-Impressive-Than-The-Fox-Football-Robot Mays wasn’t going pro, and decided it wasn’t worth it to stay. I really don’t think the coaching had anything to do with it. Believe me, there are plenty of people who saw Reshad get embarrassed by Auburn and GT. From an interview with TotalUGA.com:

After watching Asher Allen opt for the NFL, Georgia safety Rashad Jones is now leaning heavily toward leaving early for the NFL. In fact, when contacted by TotalUGA.com, he said he thinks he’s going to go. When contacted Wednesday night, Jones said he thinks the time is right for him to end his college career with the Bulldogs. “I’m leaning more towards leaving,” he said. “I just feel like it’s a weak safety class and that this would be a good time for me to leave.” When asked about whether or not he’s gotten feedback from his family or coaches, he said yes. “My family is going to support me no matter what I do because it’s my decision and it’s all on me,” he said. “As far as the coaches, they know, but I’d rather not talk about what they had to say.” Most draft experts think Jones is a second-day pick somewhere around the fourth round, but no higher than third. “Injury plays a big part in all of this,” he said. “You just don’t know what’s going to happen.”

From that, it seems like the coaches told him something to the extent of “You’re nowhere near NFL ready and you need to come back to school. You’re not going to be drafted on the first day and you’re making a huge mistake.” Honestly, if I were his coach (even though I know it’s his decision), I would sit him down and show him all the plays this year where he was absolutely embarrassed by guys much inferior to the running backs and receivers he’ll be seeing in the NFL. Prove to him that he’s not ready. I hate to feel like I’m jumping ship on a guy who has represented Georgia well, but at this point, it’s hard not to feel a little bit of resentment. He basically said that his family supports him doing it because they can’t really tell him not to (insert Mike Gundy reference here) and he was too embarrassed to even say what the coaches told him. That means this is all on me, I don’t care what anyone else thinks, I’m doing it because Asher did it and I can’t be one-upped.

I’ll add to T. Kyle’s post that Pat Dye’s personality was a factor in making Auburn eminently hatable during the 1980s—the guy had all the charm of a hammer-head shark, and generally played a hammer-headed style of football.

But it does go deeper than that. I spent much of my childhood in LaGrange, Georgia, just over the line from Auburn, and an Auburn hotbed (at least back in the day). The Auburn fans then were truly insufferable: they never really lost a game, were always being robbed, and seemed to feel that checkbook recruiting was okay because Bama did it. I do, however, think their program became much less objectionable under Tubs.

This is, of course, generational. My relatively low level of hate for Florida (though I’m catching up) definitely flows from my memories of the era when the Dawgs pretty much owned the Gators, who were in turn (before Spurrier) the most consistently underachieving program in the SEC.

Everyone has their own reasons for hating the team they hate most. As for me, I spent most of my childhood in south Georgia, and a couple that were my parents’ best friends were avid Florida fans. Therefore, I learned early in life about the obnxiousness and general low-class attitude of many (most?) Gator fans on the odd occasion in the ’80’s when Georgia would fail to fell Florida.

In addition, I started attending the Florida game annually in 1992, which was the memorable “timeout” game, when Florida was credited with a fortuitous timeout that resulted in Eric Zeier’s game-winning TD pass being disallowed. So, it’s a combination of factors that have brought me to the place where I would not root for Florida if they were playing Al-Qaeda U.

I’ve always considered the Auburn rivalry to be a “brotherly” rivalry… you beat each other up and don’t like each other while doing it, but in the end, you’re still brothers. As for Tech… well, it’s hard to really hate your geeky cousin who can only beat you when they get lucky or get a fluke call from the refs.

I fully respect the right of every Georgia fan to hate who they want, as much as they want. As for me, though, Florida will always have that special place in my heart for which no kind feelings can be found.

I hate Florida.