Shortly before my family and I sat down to supper on New Year’s Eve, my wife, Susan, asked me what I wanted to drink with my evening meal. Reflexively, I told her I wanted a Coke.

When we had members of our extended family over for Christmas, however, my in-laws brought some soft drinks with them, including a twelve-pack of Fresca. My son, Thomas, who is five years old and whose status as a mojo savant has been confirmed repeatedly through several successive football seasons, asked me whether I wanted a Fresca instead. Without thinking much about it, I took him up on his suggestion.

After we had finished eating, I sat there at the kitchen table for a few more minutes when my eye spied the empty Fresca can, along the side of which were emblazoned these words: "Original Citrus."

Then it hit me: Thomas intuitively had done it again. Just before kickoff of the Chick-fil-A Bowl---an Atlanta-based postseason game featuring an Atlanta-based rival team---I had chosen the definitive Atlanta-based soft drink until my son talked me out of it, convincing me instead to drink a beverage billed as the original citrus on the night before the Bulldogs were to take the field in the Capital One Bowl . . . or, as it previously was known, the Citrus Bowl.

From that moment forward, I had no doubt that Georgia Tech would lose, Georgia would win, and order would be restored to the universe . . . or, at least, to the Peach State, which is near enough to being the whole cosmos to suit me.

If you buy the idea that Thursday’s game was a referendum on Willie Martinez, you are free to come to one of two conclusions. If you prefer to see the glass as half-full, it is clear that the Bulldogs’ defensive coordinator put together as effective a game plan against Michigan State as he had against Hawaii a year ago. If you prefer to see the glass as half-empty, it is equally clear that, if the ‘Dawgs are given four weeks to prepare for every opponent and Georgia joins the Big Ten or the W.A.C., Willie Martinez is our man. Against S.E.C. opposition with a game every Saturday, not so much . . . although my confidence would be bolstered by a public announcement that Coach Martinez TiVo’d the Chick-fil-A Bowl.

Nevertheless, credit must be given for a stout defensive effort. The Spartans spent much of the first half in Georgia territory but managed only six points before the break. A first-quarter interception thrown by Matthew Stafford set up M.S.U. with first and 10 at the Bulldog 12 and a personal foul penalty halved that distance. Sparty picked up three yards on the next three plays and settled for a field goal.

Later in the opening period, a forced fumble was recovered by Michigan State on the Red and Black’s side of the field. The ‘Dawgs held, turning first and 15 into third and 24, when a borderline roughing the passer call give the Big Ten team a fresh set of downs at the Georgia 36 yard line.

By the way, as many times as Brian Hoyer was put on the ground on New Year’s Day, how could the announcers not use the phrase, "Down goes Hoyer!"? (Associated Press photograph by Michael Conroy.)

It was the sort of situation in which the Georgia D has folded this season; it was, in fact, the sort of situation in which the Georgia D has given up a play that covered whatever number of yards separated the line of scrimmage from the end zone. Instead, Asher Allen threw Keshawn Martin for a six-yard loss back to the 42. Javon Ringer’s second-down carry yielded a four-yard setback to the 46. An incomplete pass made it fourth and 20.

Overall, the Spartans held the ball for exactly 30 minutes of clock time, won the turnover battle, and picked up nearly as many first downs (16) as Georgia (19). Even so, though, M.S.U. was limited to a 25 per cent conversion rate on third down (4 for 16), managed only 236 yards of total offense, and averaged less than one yard per carry (34 rushes for 31 yards). Ringer picked up 47 yards on 20 attempts and never carded a scamper of longer than 21 feet.

There were, as there too often are, foolish penalties (7 for 53 yards) and long stretches in which Stafford simply appeared off his game. (From his vantage point on my living room couch, my brother-in-law opined that the Georgia quarterback was simply trying to get out of being drafted by Detroit.) Knowshon Rockwell Moreno had more receiving yards (63) and touchdowns (1) than rushing yards (62) and touchdowns (0).

Smart second-half adjustments saw the Georgia offense improving significantly, as the ‘Dawgs got away from attacking the middle and began using screens and going after the perimeter. Kris Durham had a moment or two at which he looked like he could be in the passing game what Brannan Southerland was in the running game. With six catches for 97 yards and a touchdown, Michael Moore took up the slack when A.J. Green and Mohamed Massaquoi were held in check.

Bad breaks and dumb luck (particularly in the kicking game) appeared for a while to be conspiring against the Classic City Canines, whose no-huddle attack worked like gangbusters for the first four plays of an eight-play opening drive that looked at the outset like the prettiest initial series ending in three points ever . . . or, at least, since the 2005 Outback Bowl. After that, though, it looked like a typical 2008 Georgia effort, in which the ‘Dawgs looked great in one phase of the game but only intermittently good (at best) in the others.

There is no denying that the Red and Black were lucky to be trailing only by a field goal at halftime. The opening possession of the third quarter gave little cause for confidence, as a 24-yard kickoff return and a 16-yard drive were squandered on a penalty and a punt. It wasn’t that I ever doubted that the ‘Dawgs would win---again, the Fresca on New Year’s Eve and the resulting Chick-fil-A Bowl win for the good guys left me certain of a Bulldog victory---but I had my doubts whether the Red and Black would win any way other than ugly.

Then an Aaron Bates punt went 53 yards and took a favorable bounce for the Great Lake State Gladiators inside the five. Moreno went 10 yards on first down and caught a five-yard pass two plays later. Stafford’s next five passes went to Moore for 16 yards and a first down, to Green for 12 yards, to Durham for 13 yards and a first down, to Caleb King for 11 yards and a first down, and to Moore for 35 yards and a touchdown. After that, the outcome never really was in question.

The 2009 Capital One Bowl resembled the 2005 Outback Bowl in ways more profound than the similarity of the Bulldogs’ opening drives in the two Sunshine State season-enders. We knew that beloved players, including an established starter under center, were or probably were playing their final game in silver britches, and we felt a profound sense of disappointment at the thought of what that season might have been.

That feeling has pervaded most of this autumn. It will rear its ugly head anew as I sit down to watch the national championship game in which my alma mater’s football team does not appear. That depressing sense of opportunity lost will weigh me down throughout most of the coming offseason. Even with Thursday’s victory, this will be a cold hard winter in Bulldog Nation. For now, though, I am going to enjoy a game which, however imperfect, ended in a Georgia win. That’s enough, at least---if only---for the moment.

Go ‘Dawgs!

There are several ways of looking at this, all of which presently are vying for the upper hand in my head and heart. These are they:

It’s Just a Game: With the exception of the couple of since-banned Gator trolls whose immediate reaction to the game was to visit this weblog, sign up for user accounts, and post cheap taunts because they’re the sorts of pathetic people who would rather make others feel badly than celebrate events that make them feel well (and who very much represent the exception to the rule, as the Florida fans who have been visiting and commenting here for the past week generally have been impassioned fans yet fine people), we all have much more important things in our lives than football. We have families who care about us; in many cases, we have wives and children whom we love; some of us even have birthdays tomorrow. This is an event that needs to be placed into perspective.

Any Win Over the Gators is a Fluke: 1997 was just one of those days when everything went right. 2004 was just one of those years when we caught Florida at a low point. I thought last year was a turning point. It wasn’t. The Saurians simply own us and any Bulldog win in Jacksonville has to be filed under the heading of "even a broken clock is right twice a day." They’re just better than us and they’re never not going to be, even when we occasionally catch them on a bad day and luck into a win.

It Really Is Difficult to Get Ready for Two Big Games in a Row: It’s hard to remember this now, but, at the time, the games at Arizona State and L.S.U. were big games. Playing your first road game outside the South in more than four decades is a big deal. Hanging 52 points on the Bayou Bengals in Death Valley is a big deal. No team could be expected to be at its best in back-to-back games of such significance. This schedule truly was too tough for any team to tame.

We All Saw This Coming a Mile Away: I told you before that I’d had a bad feeling all week long, but I rationalized my way out of it. My son, who is a mojo savant, gave me all the warning signs and I refused to heed them. Earlier in the week, he and I were playing a game that required us each to check off items on a list, so he had to go get each of us a pen. He reached into his box of markers and pulled out two of them. They were orange and blue. When I asked whether he had one that was red, he checked and replied, "No, but there’s a pink." I knew then it was a done deal, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. When I looked at the numbers, I saw this datum and quickly looked away in denial: the last time Georgia beat L.S.U. in Baton Rouge one week prior to playing Florida (in 1952), the Gators beat the Bulldogs 30-0. It was always going to be a rout. We were never winning this game. We were never even going to be in this game.

This Whole Thing Is Sick, Twisted, and Weird: We’re grown men with real lives. Tying any part of our emotional well-being to what an anonymous group of 18- to 22-year-olds does over three and a half hours on a Saturday afternoon is silly, strange, unseemly, and sad. We tell ourselves it’s for the glory of our state, but that argument holds little water when our favorite players are from New Jersey and Texas. The idea that anyone invests himself in these games is, at best, bizarre, and very well may be utterly indefensible. The fact that we care at all, much less this much, may be a warning sign that we all need professional help.

There’s Always Next Year: Losses in 1992 and in 2000 felt like the end of the world because we came into those seasons knowing this was our shot, and that, if it didn’t happen then, there was no telling when it might all come together again. The beauty of the Mark Richt era is that, while we all hope every year that it will be this year, we know that there’s always next year. Like Florida State under Bobby Bowden, Nebraska under Tom Osborne, and Penn State under Joe Paterno, Georgia under Mark Richt wins consistently enough that, eventually, that special season will happen. Matthew Stafford, Mohamed Massaquoi, and Knowshon Rockwell Moreno won’t win a national title this year, but there’s no particular reason why Logan Gray, A.J. Green, and Caleb King can’t go win one next year.

We Are Not an Elite Team: There are perhaps five really good teams in college football and we aren’t one of them. We’re going to beat a mediocre Kentucky team, a bad Auburn team, a vastly overrated Georgia Tech team, and a middling Big Ten team in a meaningless Sunshine State bowl game to finish 11-2 and ranked No. 10 in the final A.P. poll. We’re going to have another nice successful season to set alongside all the other nice successful seasons and we’re never going to have the breakthrough that makes the Stewart Mandels of the world treat us with respect.

I Need to Find a New Hobby: I hear stamp collecting can be really soothing. I could spend my autumn Saturdays going out into the woods with a gun and hunting a variety of edible game. If I devoted the time I put into writing this weblog to writing fiction instead, I’d have a novel knocked out in no time. Surely, there has to be something less anguishing than this.

The Suck Explanation (Situation-Specific): This sucks.

The Suck Explanation (Team-Specific I): We suck.

The Suck Explanation (Team-Specific II): We suck against Florida.

The Suck Explanation (General Philosophical): Everything sucks. This sucks because it is a part of the larger all-encompassing universal suckage.

The Suck Explanation (Call to Action Edition): Fire [insert object of your blame here]!

The John Blutarsky Solution: Start drinking heavily.

The Orson Swindle Solution: Start swearing profusely.

One Possible Religious Explanation: Steve Spurrier’s father was a minister. Danny Wuerffel operates a Christian charitable organization. Tim Tebow is the son of missionaries and a professing believer. Urban Meyer was named for a pope and he was Notre Dame’s first choice for a head coach. The game was played on All Saints Day. God is on the Gators’ side.

Another Possible Religious Explanation: Mark Richt is a devout Christian, too. God doesn’t care about college football.

Yet Another Possible Religious Explanation: Mark Richt is a devoted servant of the Lord, just as Moses and David were, but he is being punished for the celebration. It fell to Joshua to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, it fell to Solomon to build the Temple, and it will fall to Mike Bobo to win the national championship.

A Final Possible Religious Explanation: The Gators won exactly nothing for the first 85 years of their football history. They went from being nobodies to being nationally prominent overnight. There was no rebuilding process, no gradual upward incline, just mediocrity, awfulness, mediocrity, awfulness, a good season, probation, mediocrity, mediocrity, mediocrity . . . boom! Incessant sustained excellence! That’s a deal with the devil if ever I saw one. Sooner or later, Satan is going to show up at the end of a Florida-South Carolina game to drag Urban Meyer’s and Steve Spurrier’s immortal souls shrieking into the underworld. With any luck, it will happen on a Raycom telecast, ‘cause I bet Dave, Dave, and Dave could really do that justice.

This Sets Up Next Year Quite Nicely: We are now officially off of everyone’s radar screen. This is 2004 all over again; expectations were high, they were not met, and everyone expected 2005 to be a rebuilding year. Instead, it produced an S.E.C. championship and, but for a particularly ill-timed injury to D.J. Shockley, it might have produced a national title, as well. This year’s injuries will build depth for next year, Stafford and Moreno now have a powerful incentive to return next season, the Gators will pay us no mind next fall after having put us so decisively in our place this year, and we’ll be able to come into the season ranked No. 15 and catch some folks napping.

O-Ver-Ra-Ted!: The preseason No. 1 ranking was completely bogus. One close loss might have been explained away with the injuries to Trinton Sturdivant, Vince Vance, Jeff Owens, and Dannell Ellerbe, but top ten teams simply do not play whole halves of football as atrocious as the first 30 minutes against Alabama and the last 30 minutes against Florida.

It Really Wasn’t as Bad as the Final Score Indicated: Although the margins were dramatically different, Georgia actually was whipped much more soundly by ‘Bama than by the Gators. The former was out of reach early and the second-half comeback was entirely cosmetic; when the ‘Dawgs looked like they were going to claw back into it and the Tide needed a touchdown drive to put the game away for good, they got it without breaking a sweat. In Jacksonville, Georgia trailed 14-3 at the half due to a variety of bad breaks, including two missed field goals, a dropped touchdown pass, a Florida first down which the replay clearly showed was short of the marker, and an interception negated by a bizarre personal foul penalty against a player who was being egregiously held. The halftime score easily could have been 13-7 in Georgia’s favor and the game only really started to get out of hand after an interception that should have been negated by a penalty against the defensive back which went inexplicably uncalled. Bad luck and blown calls set up a blowout in a game in which the Bulldogs moved the ball as effectively as the opposition.

At Least We’re Not Michigan: It could be a heck of a lot worse and this posting could be nothing but pictures of kittens.

Without necessarily renouncing, repudiating, or disputing the validity of any or all of the above, I think the mindset that most closely summarizes where I am now is this:

It’s Still Great to be a Georgia Bulldog: I was Bulldog born and Bulldog bred and, when I die, I’ll be Bulldog dead. My team is my team, win or lose, and, sometimes, it’s just not your day. Mark Richt is still 79-21 after his first 100 games and his all-time record against the five current S.E.C. coaches who have won national championships (Phillip Fulmer, Urban Meyer, Les Miles, Nick Saban, and Steve Spurrier) is 13-11 . . . and that’s not even counting his 4-3 record against Tommy Tuberville, who led Auburn to an unbeaten season, or his 6-0 record against Chan Gailey, who won a national championship in a lower division with Troy. Yes, there needs to be accountability; yes, we lost to two eventual B.C.S. bowl champions (we’ll find out on the first Saturday in December which one will win the national championship game and which one will win the Sugar Bowl); for now, we need to tip our caps to the Gators, who were the better team on Saturday, congratulate them on their impressive victory, and take a moment to relax so that our reactions are measured, prudent, and reasonable even in the face of adversity and disappointment. MaconDawg, SavDawg, DavetheDawg, and RocketDawg seem to have gotten us off to a good start.

Go ‘Dawgs!

I expect a repeat of the Tennessee game, in which Georgia wins relatively narrowly on the scoreboard a contest which was not quite as even on the field as it appeared on the ESPN scroll. As long as the Bulldogs protect the football better than they did last Saturday, they should be able to keep the Commodores in check, although no one who is familiar with Vandy under Bobby Johnson believes the visitors will fold their tents and surrender.

Georgia needs to jump on the Commies early in the contest. Vandy’s stingy defense has given up just 98 points this season, but 57 of those were surrendered in the first quarter. The Bulldogs need to demonstrate their dominance from the outset. Otherwise, it will be a longer afternoon than it has to be for the home team on homecoming.

My Prediction: Georgia 24, Vanderbilt 14.

So I wrote on Friday afternoon, marking a rare instance of accurate forecasting on my part. (MaconDawg, by the way, nailed three of his five predictions, as well, so it was a good day here at Dawg Sports.)

That, by and large, was the size of it. Georgia led in first downs (25-14), total yards (425-245), passing yards (194-131), rushing yards (231-114), yards per pass (8.4-4.1), yards per rush (5.8-4.4), time of possession (32:26-27:34), and, as predicted, points (24-14). Although the turnovers were even---each quarterback threw two interceptions and neither squad lost a fumble---that was one of the phases of the game Vanderbilt consistently had been winning, so the Bulldogs did well to give the ball away only as often as they took it away . . . especially since there must have been literally half a dozen missed opportunities for the Red and Black to pick off Commodore passes.

Those were not the Classic City Canines’ only squandered chances, however. The ‘Dawgs did well by having to run only eight third down plays, but they moved the chains only on one of them. (Am I reading the stat sheet correctly? Can that be right?) Blair Walsh missed a pair of field goals, either of which would have kept the game out of doubt in the fourth quarter. While the penalties were down overall (5 for 47 yards) and one or two of them were arguable, a pair of pass interference penalties preserved the touchdown drive late in the second quarter that kept Vandy in the game.

Any game that doesn’t end in a 49-0 win with neither injuries nor penalties lends itself to second-guessing, but, with the next four Saturdays sending the Bulldogs to Baton Rouge, Jacksonville, Lexington, and Auburn, it’s hard to resist asking whether such an effort as this was good enough. Extenuating circumstances (injuries chief among them) have caused Georgia’s clear potential for greatness to emerge only intermittently, but the Red and Black are moving in the right direction.

Kickoff coverage, once a glaring weakness, is improving. The offensive line issues, while by no means eradicated, have been addressed to an extent you would have thought impossible had I told you in July that we would lose two starting left tackles by midseason. The fullback position has become a distinct strength.

Knowshon Rockwell Moreno earned 172 yards on 23 carries and was spelled capably by Caleb King (11 carries for 40 yards). A.J. Green had another stellar day (7 catches for 132 yards and a touchdown), including an outstanding first quarter. Matthew Stafford quietly threw for 194 yards and a couple of touchdowns.

It is quite true that the Bulldogs’ losses to season-ending injuries mandate that Georgia mix it up offensively, although the ‘Dawgs did a nice job of adjusting. Unable to run it up the gut against Tennessee, the Athenians used the toss sweep to good use; when the ‘Dores came prepared with a plan to neutralize that weapon, the Red and Black quickly adapted to take advantage of their newfound opportunities to run it between the tackles.

Tankertoad said it best when he noted during this afternoon’s comment thread that, last year, Mark Richt "did things to ‘amp up’ the team. Somehow, this year, he needs to do things to get the team ‘in the zone’, in sync, on the same page." Depending upon how one is inclined to view glasses in which the waterline is at the midpoint, this Georgia team is either a play or two away from greatness or a play or two away from mediocrity.

I tend to think that this Georgia team is an injury or six away from being the team we thought they would be, but, the breaks being what they have been and the realities being what they are, this fact remains: Georgia is 6-1 overall, 3-1 in the league, in first place in the S.E.C. East, and in a position to have the division crown come down to the winner-take-all showdown by the St. John’s River we all have expected since January.

Style points count in the polls, but not in the conference standings (and, not for nothing, but ESPN portrayed today’s win in a pretty positive light). A double-digit win over a ranked division rival is a good day’s work and I, for one, feel like a Bulldog this Saturday night.

Go ‘Dawgs!

Now, that was more like it!

It’s not that last week’s performance was bad; quite the contrary. It’s just that the win over Georgia Southern seemed to fall somewhat short of the hype. Saturday’s victory between the hedges, though, represented both a step up in the weight class of the opposition and a step-up by the Bulldogs, who looked yesterday like what they will be on my BlogPoll ballot tomorrow . . . namely, the No. 1 team in the nation.

From the booth, Mike Bobo called one of the best games of his brief career as his alma mater’s offensive coordinator, methodically building a 21-0 lead before Demarcus Dobbs’s 78-yard interception return appeared to break the game wide open. After the Chippewas clawed back to within two touchdowns on their first drive of the third quarter, Georgia did not hesitate to go for the kill; two plays, 62 seconds, and one 52-yard Knowshon Rockwell Moreno run later, the Red and Black had resumed a comfortable 35-14 lead.

From there, it was all Bulldogs. Central Michigan managed only a 30-yard field goal as the Classic City Canines pounded out three more touchdowns. An inopportune fumble on a poor center-quarterback exchange to second-stringer Joe Cox probably deprived Richard Samuel of his second score of the game, but that was one of few flaws exhibited by the ‘Dawgs on this day.

On the other hand, one of the flaws exhibited by the officials was their apparent ignorance of the fact that this is holding.

Much-ballyhooed double-threat signal-caller Dan LeFevour got his passing yards because Willie Martinez gave them to him in a swap the Georgia defensive coordinator was happy to make in the course of holding C.M.U. (Coach Martinez’s last stop on the road to Athens, incidentally) to 59 rushing yards and 2.7 yards per carry. Matthew Stafford, not hitherto known in these parts as the second coming of Fran Tarkenton, ran for more yards (25) than LeFevour (19), including a 22-yard scamper on third and long deep in Bulldog territory to sustain a scoring drive.

Stafford’s run produced one of 25 Red and Black first downs and represented one of the nine conversions the Athenians managed on a dozen third-down tries. The Chips, by contrast, saw their high-powered offense limited to 17 first downs and a mere half-dozen conversions on 15 third downs. Four of Central Michigan’s first five drives failed to produce so much as a single fresh set of downs.

The Bulldogs racked up 552 yards of total offense and demonstrated impressive balance in the process, throwing for 289 and rushing for 263. Moreno could do no wrong, averaging over nine yards per carry, collecting 168 yards and three touchdowns in 18 rushes, and at one point causing me to wonder whether Larry Munson was up in the booth yelling, "He’s jumping over people!" Moreno added 30 receiving yards on three catches for good measure.

Samuel made the most of his eight touches, racking up 44 yards and a score . . . which, based upon the third-string tailback’s reaction to the late turnover, was one touchdown too few in his book. When Caleb King’s 4.0 yards-per-carry average brings up the rear among the Bulldog backs, the ground game has had a good day.

Let’s not slight the passing attack, though. Cox came into the game late and the offense barely missed a beat. The backup quarterback threw five passes for five completions and 76 yards. Aside from a drop by Kris Durham over the middle, the ‘Dawgs looked sharp through the air all day. A.J. Green and Mohamed Massaquoi lived up to their billing and both Michael Moore and Israel Troupe had good games.

No, the game wasn’t flawless. Georgia was set back 70 yards on nine penalties, although much of Central Michigan’s limited success came on some questionable no-calls by the officials. The special teams were not as strong as we have come to expect, as the directional kicks Blair Walsh has been instructed to make yielded more and bigger returns than are acceptable. I agree with the always insightful SG Standard: if we can put it out the back of the end zone, why don’t we?

These, though, are decidedly minor quibbles. Georgia closed the deal in dominant fashion, producing a game which was fun not only for the fans but (judging by the dancing on the sidelines during a T.V. timeout and by the good-natured ribbing dished out by Dobbs during the postgame show) also for the players.

On a day on which Southern California and Louisiana State both took the afternoon off (the latter, by necessity; the former, by design), Ohio State struggled mightily with overmatched Ohio (Ohio) in the national game of disinterest, and Florida led depleted Miami (Florida) by six points after three quarters before classlessly leaving Tim Tebow in the game to tack on trash (and trashy) points at the end, there appeared to be no genuine challengers to Georgia’s standing atop the sport outside of a couple of strong performers in the Big 12. (No, Texas and Texas Tech, I’m not talking about you!)

Nothing personal, coach, but . . . a 28-13 halftime lead over U.T.E.P.? Really?

Beyond that, here are a handful of other random observations regarding the Saturday just behind us:

• I have attended both games this season as one-half of a father-son outing, but, because I went to the Georgia Southern game with a five-year-old and to the Central Michigan game with a 65-year-old, I was able to stay all the way to the end this time. When the Redcoat Band struck up "Krypton Fanfare," I was reminded how right my wife is when she says that, rather than own the fourth quarter, she would rather own the first, second, and third quarters and leave the fourth period to the scrubs. Better that than sleepwalking through the first 15 minutes or more and needing to turn it on late like some teams I could name.



• Speaking of the Saurians, does Tim Tebow not see the cognitive dissonance between being the sort of football player who writes Bible verses on his eyeblack and being the sort of football player who plays for Urban Meyer? Can the Gator Golden Child quote me chapter and verse on the part where Jesus said, "Blessed are they who leave their starters in during the final minute of the fourth quarter so they can run it up, for they shall inherit the earth"? Who knew that Florida would one day hire a coach that made us long for the graciousness and dignity of the Steve Spurrier era?



• While we’re on the subject of running it up, I hope no one thinks Georgia did that by hanging half a hundred on the Chippewas. As I pointed out earlier, breaking 50 on C.M.U. is hardly novel for a B.C.S. conference team playing at home and the fourth-quarter offense was pretty much straight up the middle; it only got out of hand because Samuel came to play (which is to his credit) and there’s only so long Michiganders can be expected to hold up in Georgia humidity. Here’s how much the ‘Dawgs weren’t trying to run it up . . . by the end of the game, we had a white guy "possession-type receiver" out there returning punts!



• Here’s how the postseason coaching dominoes are going to fall: Tommy Bowden will be fired; Bobby Johnson will replace Coach Bowden at Clemson; Skip Holtz will replace Coach Johnson at Vanderbilt; Steve Spurrier will replace Coach Holtz at East Carolina. Hey, it’s bound to yield better results than the last time he replaced a Coach Holtz at a directional Carolina.



• No, I’m not talking trash to South Carolina. The Gamecocks always bring their best game to the confrontation with Georgia, and they will have two extra days to prepare, a strong incentive to right the ship after losing to Vanderbilt, a very stout defense, and a home field advantage that no Bulldog fan could deny is genuine and daunting. The good news is that this is likely to be a defensive struggle in which the first team to 20 wins. The bad news is that, the last time the ‘Dawgs scored 100 or more points in a two-game span was against Vanderbilt and Kentucky in 2002. The next week, Georgia lost to Florida by a 20-13 final margin. The Red and Black will have to be extremely wary heading into Columbia.



• I always enjoy seeing national championship Georgia squads from other sports being honored at halftime of a football game, but it’s a little odd to see what other Bulldog teams look like. The men’s tennis team looked like any eight guys selected at random from a fraternity block of seats in the student section and, as a guy sitting in front of me pointed out, the equestrian team must be second only to the football team as the Georgia squad having the most members. "There’s 40 girls out there," the fellow in the row before me noted, "and that means there’s got to be 40 horses, too."



• I was disappointed in the presentation of the football lettermen holding their reunions. The groups were introduced by team year without further embellishment. Between the 1998, 1988, 1983, 1978, 1968, 1958, and 1948 teams, there were some accomplished squads out there, but only the "Wonderdogs" received special mention. There were two S.E.C. championship squads, a ten-win Cotton Bowl championship squad that narrowly missed out on a national title, and Vince Dooley’s final team out there. Those guys deserve more credit than they were given on Saturday.



• I was mildly nonplussed that the televisions in the Tate Center were showing Boston College-Georgia Tech and Auburn-Southern Miss before the game. At the time, Ohio State was locked in a real battle with a M.A.C. team nowhere near as good as the one the ‘Dawgs were getting ready to throttle. We need to start thinking of ourselves as a national program. The Tate Center televisions ought to be showing us the Buckeyes’ and the Trojans’ struggles. Do you think U.S.C. fans are following U.C.L.A. games more intently than, say, L.S.U. games?



• In week one, the preseason favorite to win the A.C.C. was manhandled by an average or slightly above-average S.E.C. squad on a neutral field. In week two, the successor squad to take over the position of A.C.C. frontrunner needed a last-second 41-yard field goal to avoid being upset on its home field by a below-average S.E.C. squad. Is the S.E.C. that good or is the A.C.C. that pitiful? Is it fair to treat the A.C.C. champion as this year’s "B.C.S. buster"?



• If you even thought about being impressed by Florida’s 26-3 home win over Miami in a game in which the Gators managed seven offensive points in the first 45 minutes of play before cheaply pouring it on at the end, I would remind you of the following outcomes from the Hurricanes’ previous dozen outings: Oklahoma 51, Miami 13; Virginia 48, Miami 0; Virginia Tech 44, Miami 14. Pouring it on in the fourth quarter to beat the ‘Canes at home by 23? Please. The only thing remotely impressive about last night’s game in Gainesville was Erin Andrews.

It’s great to be a Georgia Bulldog.

Go ‘Dawgs!

Where actual defeat is all but unthinkable, what constitutes victory? On August 10, I answered that question in this manner:

From where I sit, a win, all by its lonesome, will prove nothing; I will need to see four of the following five things occur before I am willing to call any victory over Georgia Southern on August 30 an encouraging sign:

• Georgia scores at least 45 points



• Georgia Southern scores no more than 17 points



• Georgia scores on the Bulldogs’ first possession of each half



• Georgia Southern does not score on the Eagles’ first possession of either half



• Georgia’s offense has at least four plays covering 20 or more yards

Well, Georgia scored exactly 45 points, but Georgia Southern scored four more than 17 points. (Credit MaconDawg with correctly predicting the margin of victory, if not the actual final score.) The Bulldogs’ first drive of the first quarter covered 57 yards in five plays for seven points and their first drive of the third quarter covered 71 yards in two plays for seven points. The Eagles’ first possession of the first half was a three-and-out that lost four yards and their first possession of the second half was a three-and-out that gained seven yards.

Finally, the Red and Black had four plays of well more than 20 yards---namely, a 36-yard completion from Matthew Stafford to A.J. Green, a 61-yard completion from Stafford to Kris Durham, a 37-yard completion from Stafford to Knowshon Rockwell Moreno, and a 47-yard completion from Stafford to Mohamed Massaquoi---ere the opening minute of the third period had elapsed.

All right, that’s four out of five. Mission accomplished, right? So why do I feel as (relatively) badly as I do about what was, according to every indicator, a fine day for the ‘Dawgs?

It certainly isn’t that I had a rough day; far from it. My kindergarten-age son, Thomas, and I left at an early but not unreasonable hour, made the trek to Athens, and were in our seats in time for the initial festivities of the 22nd consecutive home opener I have attended between the hedges. (I am proud of that record; in 1996, I had to leave a friend’s wedding reception early and change clothes in the car in order to get to Sanford Stadium in time. Don’t get me started on weddings that take place during football season. . . .)

As father-son outings go, this was one of the best, just the boy and me, there to see Uga VII anointed and the top-ranked team in the land on the field. As on-field efforts go, this one was pretty solid. Stafford had what was statistically his best day ever in a Bulldog uniform, hooking up on 13 of 21 attempts for 275 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions. Despite a disastrous early series that was as inefficient in its execution as it was premature in its timing, Joe Cox was passably effective in the backup role, completing four of six passes for 48 yards and another score.

Offensive line issues aside, the Georgia ground game’s production (212 yards) more than doubled up the Eagles’ rushing output (102), with Moreno making the most of his eight carries by tallying a trio of touchdowns and Caleb King living up to the early hype by racking up 95 yards on a dozen rushes for a higher per-carry average (7.9) even than that managed by the fellow whose jersey (or, at least, a replica thereof) I was wearing (7.4).

Blair Walsh, the true freshman placekicker whose position was the subject of so much preseason angst, got off to the best start of any Bulldog, burying the opening kickoff deep in the end zone for a touchback and making good on a 52-yard first-quarter field goal attempt that would have been the stuff of Kevin Butler-like legend had it been tried from ten yards farther away (and it certainly had the distance to have been good from that much farther out) and against an actual rival. More than half of the third quarter had passed before Georgia Southern scored its first points of the contest.

Except under the most extreme of circumstances, I probably err on the side of being overly positive rather than needlessly dour, at least where football is concerned. Nevertheless, I came away from this outing feeling that the glass was half-empty rather than half-full. (I freely concede that this may be attributable to the fact that Thomas didn’t last quite as long as I had anticipated, so I listened to the second half in the car on the way home. Short of the occasional miracle---the aforementioned Butler field goal; Buck Belue to Lindsay Scott; Verron Haynes’s touchdown catch in Knoxville; etc.---no Georgia game ever seems to be going as well in a Larry Munson play call as it is in person.)

These facts indisputably are facts:

• Georgia Southern matched Georgia score-for-score in the second half. Yes, it was against the scrubs, but if the Bulldog reserves are merely the equal of a Division I-AA team---even a good Division I-AA team (and it has yet to be established that G.S.U. is much more than average)---then the ‘Dawgs are not the equal of Auburn, Florida, or Louisiana State, much less Ohio State or Southern California.



• For all his statistical proficiency, Stafford was less sharp than he seemed on paper. Georgia Southern’s obviously intimidated receivers had the fear-induced dropsies; Georgia’s receivers weren’t failing to catch the ball, but the Bulldog quarterback overthrew open receivers on more than one occasion and the only reason the two-play scoring drive that opened the third quarter wasn’t a one-play scoring drive that opened the third quarter was that Massaquoi had to slow down to bring in the ball. Had Stafford hit him in stride, it would have gone 71 yards for six points.



• Jeff Owens was lost early in the outing, and, evidently, not just for the short term.

Get well soon, big guy. (Photograph by Kelly Lambert for Athens Banner-Herald.)

• Although Green and King undeniably had solid games, they also made freshman mistakes. Green incurred a false start penalty on second and three that caused a drive to stall, forcing Georgia to settle for a field goal when the ‘Dawgs were nine feet away from a first down at the G.S.U. 31. King’s subsequent failure to pick up a blitz could have gotten his quarterback killed had the opponent been from the Southeastern Conference rather than from the Southern Conference.



• Following a hot start, Walsh cooled considerably. His first kickoff went 70 yards, but his second went 50 (and was returned for four), while his third went 67 (and was returned for 45). His next five kickoffs set up the Eagles on the 24, 27, 30, 30 (before a 15-yard personal foul penalty against Georgia), and 32 yard lines, respectively; none made it into the end zone.



• Speaking of the 15-yard personal foul penalty, the Red and Black drew eleven flags, many for flinches at the line of scrimmage, as the offense incurred its share of false start penalties and the defense received more than its share of offside penalties.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not displeased with this afternoon’s effort. I’m not even not pleased in any meaningful way, if that makes sense. Arguably, this was Georgia’s best effort ever against a Georgia Southern squad, inasmuch as the Bulldogs neither allowed a 40-yard option run by the Eagle quarterback to give the visitors a 7-0 first-quarter lead (as in 1992) nor registered an underwhelming 29-7 victory (as in 2000) nor surrendered four touchdowns (as in 2004).

This was a fine game by a fine team. If Georgia had taken the field ranked No. 9 in the Associated Press poll, I might actually have been happy with this result.

However, Georgia didn’t take the field ranked No. 9 in the Associated Press poll, and, at this level, style points matter. Truly elite college football teams take on in-state opponents from lower divisions in their season openers and trounce them 43-0, or they beat the defending Division I-AA national champions 41-13, or they beat the defending W.A.C. champions 56-10, or, at a minimum, they shut out somebody from the Sun Belt. Some truly elite college football teams even travel across the country to face B.C.S. conference opponents that attended bowl games last season and thump the home team 52-7 in a trouncing so utterly routine as to be uninteresting.

On the plus side, my daughter, Elizabeth, had her game face (or, at least, her game outfit) on today.

The question is a stark and simple one, and it was stated plainly by Quinton McDawg: "So, was that the performance of a No. 1 ranked team?"

I have to state, in all candor, that it wasn’t. It was the performance of a top ten team, certainly. It was the performance of a team that is capable of finishing first in the land, undoubtedly. At this exact moment, early in the 2008 campaign, though, I cannot conscientiously claim that the Bulldog team that took the field in Sanford Stadium today would have beaten either the Buckeye team that took the field in Columbus or the Trojan team that took the field in Charlottesville.

Georgia will be in my top five, but, when I cast my BlogPoll ballot after all the gridiron action this Labor Day weekend is done, the Bulldogs no longer will be ranked No. 1. They will occupy that position in my heart, always, but, at this instant, my head knows better.

Go ‘Dawgs!

The season is getting close and time is getting short and there are preseason predictions to make and games to preview and outcomes to predict and I am being bombarded with posting ideas when along comes Doug Gillett with his season-opening BlogPoll roundtable so here goes:

1. In his "visiting lecturers" series posted on Every Day Should Be Saturday over the past few months, Orson Swindle asked each participant to explain which country, during which historical period, their team most resembles. Let’s bring everything up to the present day and ponder: Which current sovereign nation is your team? Or to look at it another way, how does your team fit into the "world" of college football?

Given Doug’s truly disturbing affinity for communist iconography, he’s going to love this answer, but Georgia is North Korea, for the following reasons:

• North Korea has nuclear arms and one of the five largest standing armies in the world. The Bulldogs are loaded with talent and feature a deadly tailback tandem in Knowshon Moreno and Caleb King.



• North Korea is led by the fanatical Kim Jong-il. Georgia is led by Evil Richt.



• South Korea, a rival to the south that has outperformed North Korea in recent decades, accused Kim Jong-il of ordering the 1983 bombing in Rangoon that killed four South Korean cabinet members. Florida, a rival to the south that has outperformed Georgia in recent decades, is still whining about last year’s celebration in Jacksonville.



• In 1994, Kim Jong-il became leader of North Korea. In 1994, Mark Richt became offensive coordinator at Florida State.



• North Korean schools deify Kim Jong-il in a cult of personality. Mark Richt’s decision to make Mike Bobo offensive coordinator was divinely inspired.



• Still not convinced? Try this on for size: Kim Jong-il’s birthday is February 16. Mark Richt’s birthday is February 18. Coincidence? I think not.

2. Every preseason roundup has to have some discussion of who's overrated, but let's go beyond that. Which team do you think is poised to crap the bed in the biggest way this season relative to high expectations, and which game do you think will begin their slide into ignominy?

Easy: Kansas.

Last year, K.U. grew fat and happy off of a steady diet of cupcakes. Gosh, I wonder where that idea originated?

The Jayhawks are among the most overrated teams in college football and we will see that fact confirmed in Tampa on September 12. While Derek Dooley’s Louisiana Tech Bulldogs are liable to score some points on K.U., they won’t be able to stop Mark Mangino’s team enough times to get the win, much as they couldn’t quite slow down Hawaii enough last year to earn the victory. Against the Bulls, though, the ‘Hawks will be exposed and they will stumble in a big way down the stretch. Kansas’s last seven games are against a Colorado squad the Jayhawks beat by five points last year, at Oklahoma, against Texas Tech, against a Kansas State club the Jayhawks beat by six points last year, at Nebraska, against Texas, and against Missouri in a neutral-site finale. There’s no way K.U. is getting through those seven games with fewer than three losses.

3. On the flip side of that coin, which team do you think is going to burst out of nowhere to become 2008's biggest overachiever -- this year's version of Kansas '07, as it were -- and what's going to be the big upset that makes us all finally sit up and take notice of them?

It’s hard to call Missouri an overachiever in a season in which everyone expects great things from the Tigers, but anyone who has the defending Big 12 North champs ranked behind conference coevals Oklahoma or Texas isn’t giving Mizzou its due.

The Tigers will open a few eyes by thumping Illinois the weekend after next, but, since I believe a loss at Austin on October 18 will deprive Missouri of the opportunity to play for the B.C.S. championship, I believe the win that gives the Tigers the validation they deserve will come in their Big 12 championship game win over the Sooners.

If it happens that Georgia and Mizzou hook up in Miami, there will be vengeance for the black stripe incident.

4. Here's an "I'll hang up and listen" question. I put Ohio State and Oklahoma #1 and #2, respectively, despite their recent high-profile BCS face-plants. Where did you rank those two teams, and did those BCS issues have anything to do with it?

I ranked Ohio State third and Oklahoma sixth. In one sense, of course the Buckeyes’ last two national championship game performances affected my vote, because, although I’ll buy them getting into the title tilt, I have yet to be given a reason to believe they’ll win it . . . or even be competitive enough to retain the No. 2 ranking after losing it. All of this could change in Los Angeles on September 13.

In another sense, no, O.S.U.’s championship game woes didn’t influence me, because I resisted the temptation to rank the Bucks fourth or fifth. As for the Sooners, their placement outside the top five was in no way influenced by their struggles in recent B.C.S. bowl games; rather, I dropped O.U. out of the top five because (as alluded to above) I believe Missouri is the class of a stacked Big 12.

5. Last season was a statistical outlier in countless ways, not the least of which was the fact that we ended up with a two-loss team as national champion. Do you think anyone plays a strong enough schedule to get MNC consideration as a two-loss team this year? Conversely, do you see anybody managing to sail into the national-championship game undefeated?

It is always dangerous to conflate single instances with established patterns; Louisiana State was the first two-loss national champion of the era in which the final poll votes occur after the last bowl game has been played, so it is unlikely that this anomaly will be repeated just one autumn removed from the wackiest college football season since 1990.

The 2008 schedule features too many games between top teams for there to be any realistic chance of two unbeatens meeting in Miami. While I want to believe the ‘Dawgs can run the table, they face a tough slate and my friends are realistic, even if I sometimes dream the impossible dream.

Well, O.K., actually, it’s only improbable . . . by which, of course, I mean probable . . . by which, of course, I mean it’s going to happen, baby! S.E.C.! S.E.C.! S.E.C.! Whooooooooooooo!

Assuming the Red and Black do not go through the regular season and the S.E.C. championship game without a blemish, I believe that any team that goes into the B.C.S. title showdown without a loss will have gotten there for reasons having less to do with the contender’s quality than with its opponents’ lack thereof. If Ohio State catches Southern California during a brief downcycle brought about by question marks at quarterback and goes on to finish without a scratch, or if West Virginia survives the Big East gauntlet unscathed, it most probably will be because the teams they played were overrated, not because they were underrated.

Accordingly, if a once-beaten Big 12, Pac-10, or S.E.C. champion goes to the B.C.S. championship game to play an undefeated A.C.C., Big East, or Big Ten champion, I believe the battle-tested one-loss team will beat the comparatively untried undefeated team.

6. OK, time for some Olympic fever. Which athlete from the Beijing Olympics -- any sport, any country, with the exception of USA basketball since those guys are already pros -- would you most want to add to your team's roster this season? No worries about age, eligibility, or even gender; we'll worry about that crap later.

Oh, for crying out loud! It’s bad enough that I can’t get this celebration of the wonderful ways in which a totalitarian regime can force its freedom-deprived subjects into putting on a really nifty opening ceremony off of the side of my Coke cans; now I have to tolerate questions about it in a college football BlogPoll roundtable, too?

Do I look like a commie-coddling we-are-the-world idealist? I am officially boycotting this last question.

As always, take those answers for what they’re worth and feel free to share your own views in the comments below.

Go ‘Dawgs!