There are some topics we generally don't discuss here at Dawg Sports.  Our focus has always been first and foremost on University of Georgia Athletics and there are some topics that as civilized people we just don't discuss in public or polite company.  Unfortunately, events have taken place this week at Pennsylvania State University and subsequently received much media attention and so they bear addressing.

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Maybe I’m missing something, but, in my book, it ain’t news if everybody knew it already.

Stephen Garcia’s non-suspension "suspension" has inched another euphemistic unit down the slippery slope no one ever seriously doubted would end with him taking the first snap of the season under center for Steve Spurrier’s defending SEC East champion South Carolina Gamecocks. We’re pretending to believe Steve when he says of Stephen that he "is returning to the team on a probationary basis and still has to do some things here for the next two or three months to prove himself worthy," but why? We didn’t believe him before when he said Garcia was off the team. Why are we engaging in the pretense today that the "reinstatement" is newsworthy when we never thought he was off the team, anyway?

Likewise, we are treating as somehow meaningful Kevin Ware’s latest verbal commitment, for reasons passing my understanding. He signed with Tennessee, and it didn’t stick. He either signed with or committed to Central Florida, and it didn’t stick. So now we are treating his commitment to Louisville as the real deal . . . why, exactly? The best argument I can come up with is the notion that the third time’s the charm, which is not exactly a firm reed upon which to rest one’s certainty. I’m not saying Ware won’t end up playing for the Cardinals, but, at this point, my response to a commitment by Ware is straight out of "The Princess Bride": he keeps using that word; I do not think it means what he thinks it means.

Finally, what about Jim Tressel’s resignation warrants breaking into daytime programming to announce? Who among us has not known he was a dead coach walking since word of the coverup became public? Who among us was surprised by a litany of violations that looks suspiciously similar to everything we heard about his Youngstown State days during the Maurice Clarett brouhaha? If any part of this caught you off guard, you probably were stunned by allegations of Auburn paying players.

Strictly speaking, none of this is news; all of it merely confirms what we knew already, filling in details but shedding no light upon what had been crystal clear before. You know that thing we all knew? Well, now we know that we know it. Film at eleven.

It’s a slow news day, folks, and, after last offseason, that’s just the way we like it. Move along; there’s nothing to see here. . . .

Go ‘Dawgs!

Here, for your information, are a couple of points you may wish to bear in mind on this, the first Monday of the new year:

• I am scheduled to call in to John Frary’s ESPN Radio show on 1420 AM out of St. Augustine during the 7:53 commercial break this evening to discuss the Liberty Bowl. No, I’m not looking forward to it, either, but listen in, just the same.
• On the left-hand sidebar of the main page, beneath the SB Nation Atlanta fan confidence poll box, you should see a section marked, well, "Sections." Please note that this list has been updated to include multiple sports related to Georgia specifically. This is both for SEO purposes and for your convenience; consider it a Dawg Sports new year’s resolution. While the tags are not yet in use, they will be used going forward, which we hope will make it easier for existing readers and new readers alike to find what interests them.

Happy new year!

Go ‘Dawgs!

This is a busy time of year, personally and professionally as well as athletically, and that set of circumstances lends itself to random half-formed thoughts. Sometimes, this causes me to make dated references and mathematical errors in the midst of instantaneous reactions; other times, it leads me to share a collection of nuggets such as these:

• It is no secret that I am no fan of the Heisman Trophy, but college football’s most overrated award occasionally lurches uncontrollably into the correct result by anointing the student-athlete who actually has a credible claim to being the most outstanding player in the sport that year. It appears this will be one of the years in which the Heisman Trophy actually goes to the person whose performance on the field merits the accolade. That being the case, why are we engaging in the pretense that there are four "finalists" for this award? LaMichael James, Andrew Luck, and Kellen Moore have front-row seats to see Cameron Newton win the award he deserves to win. The only drama will be whether he breaks O.J. Simpson’s record for biggest landslide victory in the Heisman Trophy balloting. Cam Newton is the most outstanding player in college football this year; his receipt, vel non, of this award will not make the foregoing statement any more or less true, but ESPN’s silly hyping of this sillier award is unseemly. Recognize the guy for his achievements, but cool it with the dog and pony show, all right, Worldwide Leader?
• An inconsequential math error in the final BCS standings has caused a bit of an uproar, resulting in descriptions of the situation as "dumbfounding," questions whether the computer polls could "be intentionally manipulated," and this claim by the fellow who caught the mistake: "The BCS owes us an entire system that is open, accountable and verifiable." Why is this so? The deliberations of the NCAA Tournament selection committee are not open, accountable, and verifiable; neither are the deliberations of trial juries, grand juries, or the U.S. Supreme Court. Plenty of widely accepted and implicitly trusted results come to us from systems that lack openness, accountability, and verifiability from start to finish; in fact, rare is the system that provides those features throughout the process. Many perfectly reasonable college football fans dislike the BCS; I am one of them, in fact. The notion that we are "owe[d]" a wholly open system, though, is ludicrous, and the claim that we are entitled to any such thing is utterly hypocritical coming from anyone who does not make similar claims about much more important matters, or even about other NCAA-sanctioned sports. It was a minor math error that affected absolutely nothing. Fix it, forget it, and focus on the actual matter at issue.
• In games decided by seven or fewer points, Central Florida went 1-2 in 2010, whereas Georgia went 0-3. In games decided by ten or fewer points, Central Florida went 2-3, while Georgia went 1-3. In the last four Liberty Bowls, the SEC representative has beaten the Conference USA champion by eight or fewer points, as the margins have gotten closer year after year. Something’s got to give.
• Finally, friend of the blog Josh D. Weiss sent me some of his photographs from Tuesday night’s Georgia-Georgia Tech basketball game, three of which are visible below and the rest of which may be seen here:

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If you didn't already get your fill from Too Much Information, or if you're more of an auditory learner than a visual learner, please tune in to Kit Kitchens's podcast, which once again features me in a segment now known as "That Thing with the King." It was recorded on Monday night, so the Caleb King conversation is slightly out of date, but you get to hear me quote Lewis Grizzard, if that's your sort of thing.

In basketball news (no, really), Rush the Court has identified six impact players in the Deep South . . . and guess which coach has two of them? (I'll give you a hint: he knows many little things.)

Go 'Dawgs!

(Author’s Note: Prior to proceeding further, please set your sarcasm detectors to "high.")

Athens, Ga. (Sept. 9)---The day after officially completing his first week on the job, University of Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity appeared before reporters at a late afternoon press conference to announce that the Georgia Bulldogs will be disbanding all sports programs, effective immediately.

"We announced before that we were doing something similar, as an April Fool’s Day joke," McGarity explained, "but this time we mean it, for real."

The final straw came earlier during the day, when news broke of yet another incident involving a Georgia athlete. While the player’s name has not yet been released, details have been made available to the media, and the events unfolded as follows:

The unnamed player was riding his scooter the wrong way down a one-way street when he emerged from an alley and was stopped by an Athens-Clarke County police officer. The officer noticed that the player was wearing a scooter helmet with a full name, presumably that of the owner of the helmet, written on the back. When questioned by the officer about the ownership of the helmet, the player attempted to convince the officer that the helmet was his, but, although the player was able to spell the first and last names of the helmet’s actual owner, he repeatedly misspelled the owner’s middle name.

The officer then asked the player to provide identification, and the player produced a driver’s license. The officer called in the license number on his radio and learned from headquarters that the license had been suspended. The officer then placed the player under arrest and asked the player to get off of the scooter.

When the player got off of the scooter, two articles of clothing that had been in the player’s lap fell to the ground. One article of clothing was a pair of red panties, which the player said he was "just holding" for someone who was "just a friend." The other article of clothing was a game-worn jersey, which the player said was his, but only until the money from the collector who bought it on eBay showed up in his PayPal account.

"As you can see," McGarity explained to reporters, "this ongoing rash of problems with ticky-tacky nitpicky clerical-administrative minutiae poses so great a threat to the safety, security, and well-being of those who deserve to live in a world in which no one emerges from an alley, misspells his middle name, forgets to pay a parking ticket, or, Heaven forbid, attempts to obtain a little ‘walking around’ money while away at college without the opportunity either to receive a stipend or get a job, that we have no choice but to shut this program down for the good of humanity."

"I am particularly disappointed in Mark Richt," the athletic director continued. "The example he has set has been an embarrassment to the University. From his requirement that incoming freshmen take mandatory character education classes to his scheduling of regular team meals at which the players see their coaches modeling responsible adult behavior as husbands and fathers, from his decisions to kick such players as Jasper Sanks, Montez Robinson, and Zach Mettenberger off the team for their transgressions to his adoption of Ukrainian orphans through his church, Coach Richt has shown what a lawless mercenary with low class and lower standards he truly is."

Asked what the University of Georgia student-athletes who came to Athens to participate in sports are expected to do now, McGarity replied, "In the words of Colorado Buffaloes head coach Dan Hawkins: ‘Go play intramurals, brother!’"

Go ‘Dawgs!