Why Fans of the Georgia Bulldogs Should be Worried About the Tennessee Volunteers in 2010
by T Kyle King on Jun 8, 2010 6:00 AM EDT
in Football
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PrintLast week, Team Speed Kills took a look at the Tennessee Volunteers’ prospects for the 2010 football season. Among the insights provided by the proprietors of SB Nation’s SEC-centric weblog were three things we know and three things we don’t know about the Big Orange.
There are many more than three things I don’t know, but two things I do know are that I am an unrepentant pessimist and my fellow Bulldog fans consider Tennessee a big-time gridiron rival. (When it comes out, though, buy Fighting Like Cats and Dogs, anyway.) Consequently, it seems only right for me to take this opportunity to get my fears about the Vols out into the open. It is without further ado, therefore, that I present . . .
1. They’ve got Da’Rick. Yes, I know we all got a little steamed when Da’Rick Rogers spurned Georgia at the last minute on national signing day, but that shouldn’t blind us to the fact that there was a reason why we wanted the talented wide receiver in the first place.
Of necessity, the Volunteers will be forced to rely on some underclassmen in 2010. Although no team with Gerald Jones, Denarius Moore, and Luke Stocker on the roster suffers from a shortage of players who can catch passes, Rogers is a prodigy with a chip on his shoulder where the Bulldogs are concerned. If he gets his chances, he will make the most of them against a Georgia defense that will still be trying to implement a new system.
2. They’ve got Derek. At this point, before he’s actually coached a game as the head honcho in Knoxville, the parent of whom Derek Dooley reminds us most is Barbara. Coach Dooley fils shares his mother’s wit, which has blinded many observers to the qualities he shares with his father. The younger man is an intense competitor, and Vince Dooley’s imprint upon his son is obvious.
That is bad news for the Bulldog faithful. Many pundits have been dismissive of the Volunteers’ chances, but we should not forget that Tennessee has posted three winning seasons in the last four years and is just three seasons removed from a berth in the conference championship game. The program Derek Dooley’s father took over in Athens in 1964 was in far worse shape than the one he inherits in Knoxville.
Georgia had suffered through three straight losing seasons when Vince Dooley came to the Classic City, and the Bulldogs had finished below .500 eight times in the previous eleven autumns prior to his arrival. The Red and Black had won one SEC title since 1948, and that had been five years earlier and two coaches before.
Those who are predicting a seven-win ceiling for the first edition of Derek Dooley’s Volunteers need to remember that the first edition of Vince Dooley’s ‘Dawgs went 7-3-1 and won the Sun Bowl under much worse circumstances than those presently extant in Knoxville. Heck, Tennessee won seven games last year despite performing less than optimally. Derek is Vince with prior experience; those who doubt him do so at their peril.
3. We’ll be coming down from the Colorado game . . . literally. While I don’t buy the argument that Georgia automatically struggles one game after facing an out-of-region opponent, there is some wear and tear associated with lengthy road trips, so facing the Buffaloes in Boulder is apt to prove particularly taxing for the Red and Black.
Colorado plays its home games approximately 5,430 feet above sea level, and something like the hangover effect experienced by visiting pitchers in their first starts following an appearance at Coors Field is liable to afflict the Bulldogs on October 9, when Georgia takes on Tennessee one week after visiting the Buffaloes.
Opposing teams unfamiliar with Colorado’s mile-high surroundings tend to turn in lackluster performances one week after paying visits to Folsom Field. In the last five seasons, the Buffs have hosted six Division I-A non-conference opponents from outside the region. One of those six (Florida State in 2007) had an open date the following weekend. Of the other five, only one (West Virginia in 2008) won its next game handily, and the Mountaineers had the benefit of facing Marshall at home nine days after their Thursday night tilt in Boulder.
The other four visiting teams who traveled a ways to get there did not fare so well in their ensuing outings. Miami (Ohio) in 2007 and Wyoming in 2009 survived three-point home scares against sad-sack outfits Syracuse and UNLV, respectively, after returning from road trips to Colorado. New Mexico State in 2005 and Arizona State in 2006 did even worse, going on the road one week after being hosted by the Buffaloes and losing to New Mexico and Cal, respectively, by a cumulative 87-42 margin.
Irrespective of whether the Vols are having an up year or a down one, Tennessee invariably plays a physical game against the Bulldogs. Georgia will need to be in peak condition when hosting the Big Orange. The history of squads coming off of dates in Boulder suggests that the Red and Black are not apt to be at their best against the Volunteers. That does not bode well for the ‘Dawgs.
Am I panicking unnecessarily, or does Tennessee cause you concern, as well? Let me know in the comments below.
Go ‘Dawgs!
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2 and 3 I can agree with...
but not so much 1. As you said, Rogers likely won’t be a starter on the depth chart, and while he may have some “show them something” to him in that game, so might our secondary. Recall his twitter battle with Rambo, and the idea that he backed out on us. The fire for that fight probably burns on both sides.
In a way
we should be grateful to the Vols. Aside from the fact that they provide us with hours of entertainment because of the drama that seems to follow this program around from year to year, I think they did us a favor when they pummeled us in Knoxvegas last season. The favor being a slap-in-the face, super jolt of reality that finally (In my opinion) convinced Mark Richt that Willie Martinez’ two-thumbs up and a cloud of whiff defense was never, ever going to get better. Ever. As in Never. If the old saying is true, “it’s always darkest before the dawn,” this was our darkest moment from a defensive perspective. Had Georgia won this game, perhaps Willie Two-Thumbs would still be employed in Athens. Can you imagine what we would all be feeling right now heading into a new season with the same ol’ defensive non-leadership?
The Vols have wrested control away from us in this rivalry, going back to the horrible home loss in 2004. We won in ‘05, spit the bit in ’06, never showed up in ’07, won a game at home that shouldn’t have been as close as it was in ‘08, played perhaps our worst game under Richt in ’09. We are 2-4 since 2004. Folks, that’s bad…the same record during the exact same time period as we have against Florida.
If we don’t win against Tennessee this year, then I’m officially on the “Richt on the Hot Seat” media bandwagon. Personally, I think we’ll whip the zest off their orange unis. Richt knows what is at stake in this rivalry. A Vol victory in Athens would be, in my mind, an unmitiged disaster of Lindsay Lohan proportions.
No way a freshman wide receiver with a huge bulls-eye on his back has an impact in this game. Not with a depleted offensive line trying to block a very motivated defense in a new scheme while trying to protect a greenhorn QB. No way Derek Dooley struts into Athens and pulls off the upset. As far as the Colorado game goes…I hope we treat this as a business trip; akin to what we did in ’08 against Arizona State. Fly out there. Play football. Get the win. Come home. Keep it simple.
We will win this game big. It’s payback time.
"If we score, we may win. If they never score, we'll never lose."
-Erk Russell
"... I hope...
… we treat this as a business trip…"
I, for one, will not be treating that as a business trip. I will be enjoying myself.
by Comin' Down The Track on Jun 8, 2010 9:44 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Not sure I agree with you on the Colorado point.
I understand what you’re trying to say, but you’re failing to account for any outside factors other than the fact that these teams played in Colorado and then played a game the next week.
In 2008, West Virginia (a 9-4 team in 2008) showed no ill-effects after a trip to Boulder, winning their next game by atleast three touchdowns.
In 2007, Miami (Ohio) won a close game against Syracuse. Miami was 6-7 that year, Syracuse a paltry 2-10. Looking at the numbers, it would seem Miami suffered a let-down, but let’s look at who they lost to that year: Minnesota, Cincinnati, Colorado (42-0!), Temple, Vandy, Ohio, Central Michigan. Miami occasionally fields a decent team, but this should show that they were simply outmatched against the larger schools (or schools from larger conferences) they played that year. The game against Syracuse was no different…they almost lost to a 2-10 team.
In 2009, Wyoming had a decent year, going 7-6. They narrowly beat UNLV (a 5-7) team by a score of 30-27. I don’t know the exact odds, but I would imagine that fairly often, a 7-6 team who plays a 5-7 team will wind up with a pretty close win regardless of whether or not they stayed in a Holiday Inn in Boulder the prior weekend.
The last two I will sum up together. New Mexico St. was 0-12 in 2005. I think we can throw them out of the discussion of having a hangover…I’m not sure they were ever sober. Arizona State was a 7-6 team in 2006, while Cal was 10-3 and the Pac-10 Co-Champion. Again, this is a result that one would expect.
I’m not saying there is no correlation with leaving Boulder and playing poorly the next week, I just haven’t seen enough evidence here to make me believe such a correlation exists. The majority of the results from games played in weeks following OOC trips to Boulder were results one would expect to see in any weekend the teams might’ve been playing, not just the week after a contest in the High City.
Blowout
I think this will be one of the few times that CMR runs up the score on an opponent. If there are two conference games I’m not concerned with next year they are Vandy and UT. They should be putrid on offense and they lost their best 2 defenders. We need to bury them and retake control of this series, plain and simple. This is a statement game IMO.
It won't be a blowout
Unless my recollection fails me, I don’t believe the Dawgs have blown out the Vols in the Richt era. In fact, I can’t recall the Dawgs every blowing out the Vols, though I’m certain it’s happened at some point.
Not that the history noted in the above paragraph is dispositive. I tend to be dismissive of historical arguments because ever year you’re looking at different teams. Yes, there is some overlap. But they’re still different teams.
That being said, I think the reason the ‘10 version of UGA doesn’t put a blowout on the ‘10 version of UT is because UT’s defense will be pretty good and will keep the game, if not close, then at least within reasonable parameters of respectability. Yes, Eric Berry and several other key contributors are gone. And yes we will certainly miss those guys (especially Berry, whose impact can be* neither replaced nor easily overstated), but we’re still looking at a talented group of defensive players and no glaring weaknesses at any one particular spot.
But yall will still win the game. And this isn’t an attempt at a reverse jinx. Yall have the better team across the board.
I don’t know enough about your returning defensive unit to make a thoughtful detailed comparison between the respective defensive units. So for the sake of argument let’s assume that there isn’t an appreciable difference between the ’10 version of the UGA and UT defensive squads.
I don’t have to know enough about your returning offensive unit to be substantially confident that it will be a better unit than the one clad in the delightfully unique shade of orange that causes my retina to send happy signals to my brain**. UT’s offense should struggle this year.
It’s one thing to have a new QB barking signals behind an experienced group of offensive linemen who have worked the trenches and communicated with each other in such a manner that they’ve formed a cohesive unit operable to do such things as (a) temporarily fend off all the players who wish to do mean things to the QB, and (b) strategically move forward in a manner that causes gaps to be formed, which allow RB’s to pick up yardage, which in turn allows pressure to be taken off the QB.
It’s quite another to have a new QB — and not just new to playing in the games, but brand spanking new — calling out plays (plays that he’s probably not sure are even gonna work) behind a completely new and untested collection of offensive linemen.
I don’t know how to put a positive spin on that. Yes, UT has good receivers this year. But several steps must be successfully accomplished before a gifted receiver can end up with a football in his hands. It’s those several steps that are the biggest concern in the minds of many Vols fans, myself included.
In sum:
Because UGA has the better offense, UGA will likely score more points than UT. The team that scores the most points wins the game. Thus, UGA is likely to win the game.
KB
____________________________
( * )To sometimes split infinitives is okay. I just decided not to do it there. Or right there either.
( ** )Or however that process takes place. I’m no doctor, but I know what a warm fuzzy feeling is.
...just apologize for not thanking me.
I think the 41-14 final margin in Neyland Stadium in 2003 probably qualifies it for blowout status . . .
. . . but, otherwise, your points are well taken.
I even agree about splitting infinitives, even though I go to great lengths to avoid doing it myself. As a “Star Trek” fan from way back, I certainly would not deny William Shatner the right “to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
Thanks, kidbourbon. That was a well-reasoned exegesis. Good luck in the other eleven games next year.
Go 'Dawgs!
Thanks
And, yeah, 41-14 qualifies. That one somehow got erased from the ‘instantly retrievable memory’ portion of my brain.
...just apologize for not thanking me.
The same thing happens to me all the time.
Also, you could be dyslexic and think it was a tie! :)
Go 'Dawgs!
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