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!

It is August. Today may or may not be the first day of the rest of your life, but today is the first day of the month at the end of which there will be football. As we look ahead to the coming campaign, we see on the horizon many eagerly-anticipated out-of-conference clashes which appear likely to be well worth watching.

Some of these games will live up to the hype; Alabama-Clemson, Ohio State-Southern California, and Arizona State-Georgia all promise to be barn-burners. Some of these, though, will turn out to be clunkers, and, as I did last year, I am taking this opportunity to provide a public service by forewarning you that you may be looking forward to some true turkeys. Here, my friends, are . . .

Missouri v. Illinois at St. Louis (August 30): Last year’s 40-34 Tiger victory propelled the Big 12 North champs to a breakout season and I do not expect a letdown from Mizzou this autumn. Even though SMQ dubbed this one of "the games" in the early season, though, I don’t anticipate much of a matchup. The Illini return 13 starters---in the Big Ten, only Michigan brings back fewer---and none of them are named Rashard Mendenhall. Without his presence in the backfield, how likely is Illinois to replicate its 2007 success with a passing attack that ranked 109th in the country last year? Although my personal experience causes me to respect the ability of a Ron Zook-coached team to win a neutral-site game, the memory of the 49-17 Rose Bowl thrashing absorbed by the Illini has not yet faded, nor has my recollection of the 38-7 thumping the Tigers administered to the Razorbacks in the Cotton Bowl. This will not be a game in the fourth quarter, as Missouri will show us something by pounding Illinois flatter than the prairie in a game that will get uglier than Abraham Lincoln.

Yes, he gets loads of credit for abolishing slavery, but he was, as Lewis Grizzard would have put it, uglier than a bowling shoe.

Fresno State at Rutgers (September 1): You have to love this sort of game; the hard-hitting giant-killers from the Raisin Capital of the World, winners of nine or more games in five of the last seven seasons, open the autumn with their easternmost road swing in the 21st century as they travel to take on the State University of New Jersey at a time when the Scarlet Knights are coming off of back-to-back bowl victories by a combined margin of 89-40, which ain’t bad for a program that’s been playing college football quite literally longer than anyone at the Division I-A level, yet has just four postseason appearances in its whole history, three of which have come under Greg Schiano. As much as we all enjoyed the 9-0 Rutgers run to start the 2006 season, the fact is that the Garden State Paladins have gone just 10-7 since their epic victory over Louisville two years ago. Coach Schiano’s troops come into 2008 without Ray Rice or Eric Foster, leaving Mike Teel to carry the load. I don’t believe the Scarlet Knight quarterback has it in him against Pat Hill’s squad, which is never more focused than when playing a B.C.S. conference opponent in a road game under the national spotlight. This will be the biggest win by a Fresno State squad since . . . um, I can’t think of any recent noteworthy victories by the West Coast Bulldogs. Nope, not a one. . . .

Kansas at South Florida (September 12): This represents the most legitimate regular-season non-conference test for which the Jayhawks have signed up since Mark Mangino’s club took on Northwestern in Evanston in 2004. This also represents the game in which K.U.’s Orange Bowl victory will come back to bite the ‘Hawks, for two reasons. First of all, the validating win over Virginia Tech created expectations as outsized as the head coach for what promises to be one of the year’s most overrated teams. Secondly, the B.C.S. bowl win in the Sunshine State virtually ensures that Kansas lacks an adequate appreciation of the difference between the heat and humidity of Miami in January and that of Tampa in September. The trip to take on the Bulls will mark the season’s first road trip for the Jayhawks, whose outings last autumn on opponents’ home fields yielded successive victories by six, five, eight, and 15 points over teams that finished with seven, seven, six, and six losses, respectively. Against Matt Grothe and 19 other returning starters from a U.S.F. unit that defeated Auburn, North Carolina, and West Virginia en route to a second straight nine-win season last fall, the Jayhawks will learn the hard way that they’re not in Kansas anymore as they fall well short of victory against a team on the cusp of the top ten.

Applaud my pick in the next game all you like, Tommy; I still can’t stand you.

Auburn at West Virginia (October 23): Just thinking about this game starts me twitching with outrage over the two most gut-wrenching losses of Georgia’s 2005 S.E.C. championship season, so, before I start frothing at the mouth over fourth-down fumbles out the back of the end zone and fourth-quarter fake punts to deny D.J. Shockley the opportunity to lead a comeback victory, let me just point out that (a) I hate Auburn and (b) Auburn is going to be good. Both teams should be undefeated heading into this one, since the Plainsmen get L.S.U. in the so-called Loveliest Village to renew a rivalry in which the home team has won eight straight and the Tigers’ first two road games are in Starkville and Nashville, while the Mountaineers should cruise through their first six opponents. Both teams get a dozen days to get ready for one another, but, whereas W.V.U.’s preparations will be led by caretaker coach Bill Stewart, the War Eagle’s game-planning will be guided by Tony Franklin (who will have had seven Saturdays followed by an open date within which to install the offense that worked so well in the Chick-fil-A Bowl) and Paul Rhoads (who may know a thing or two about how to stop West Virginia’s offense). No, the Tigers won’t outrun the Mountain Men, however much we might like to believe in the idea of "S.E.C. speed," but Tommy Tuberville’s coordinators will outcoach the fellows on the other sideline in an attention-getting runaway victory for the visiting team.

Those are my four picks for games everyone expects to be good which won’t be worth watching in the final 15 minutes. If you have any of your own to add to that list, or if you take issue with any of my selections, feel free to share your opinion in the comments below . . . and let us know about your gameday traditions while you’re at it.

Coming Soon: Four Games You Think Won’t Be Good . . . But Will.

Go ‘Dawgs!