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Georgia dropped a 28-spot on the nation's #1 defense in a little more than 13 minutes. It was equally good playcalling/execution by the Bulldogs and bad coaching/execution by the Hokies. After being down big in the 1st half, Mark Richt came out and put on a coaching clinic for Frank Beamer. His staff out-coached the veteran Tech staff so completely that the players/coaches on the staff shrunk away from the challenge despite an 18-point lead and completely lost their composure.

Mark Richt's annual base salary is not being increased, but the head football coach will receive more in performance bonuses. . . .

McGarity pointed out that Richt's salary of $2.9 million put him in the upper ecehlon of SEC coaches, but not among the highest-paid. But the performance bonuses for winning the SEC, BCS and other things are being increased.

"We want to reward excellence," McGarity said. . . .

The board was set to vote on an upgrade to Foley Field that will cost $1.35 million. The improvements include basically everything: The press box, the main entrance, ticket booth, dugouts, locker rooms and lounge, training room and batting cages, and other aspects of the field.

In addition, the current outfield trees will be replaced due to age. . . .

Out of concern over a lack of student turnout at football games, a series of changes will be implemented. Chief among them is tickets will be based first on attendance, then on seniority, while an appeals system will be created for students who have "a legitimate, unexpected reason for missing a game, such as a family emergency."

He's a great coach, he's the best thing that's happened to this program since Vince Dooley. We've just gotta go out there and play ball this year. We've still got goals we want to achieve. We want to go to the SEC, I mean we went last year but we want to win. We want to go to Miami, for the national championship.

Georgia's Mark Richt entered 2011 on one of the hottest seats in the country. Despite having won at least nine games in seven of 10 seasons (they had done so seven times in 18 seasons before Richt arrived), the grumbles that began when the Dawgs didn't win the national title in 2008 (after beginning the season No. 1), grew considerably when Georgia fell to 6-7 in 2010. The perception was that things could totally fall apart if and/or when Richt began 2011 poorly. And sure enough, Georgia was picked apart by Boise State and lost via some crazy bounces against South Carolina. Georgia was 0-2, and Richt was supposedly on his last legs in Athens. But anyone who looked at Georgia's schedule knew the Dawgs could go on a major run if they held together. They did, and they did. The defense clicked, and the offense did just enough. Georgia held all but one of its final 10 opponents under 21 points and, when South Carolina stumbled offensively, they not only caught the Gamecocks in the standings, but surpassed them for Richt's first SEC East title since 2005.

Breaking: Richt's beard is gone. "Wasn't much of a beard anyway."

I love my players. I appreciate their hard work and investment in our program. I feel a responsibility and loyalty to protect and stand up for them. Also, I feel it is important to educate them on all areas of life.

While my intentions were genuine, I feel it was unfortunate that things escalated to a confrontation. These actions were not representative of what this institution stands for. However, I will use it as a learning experience for myself as well as my players so that we all become better men.

Which leads to the conspiracy theory for why this might be relevant for SEC fans.

There are two programs, Ole Miss and Kentucky, who are very likely to be looking for new head coaches after this season. . . .

The four-year-old daughter of new inside linebackers coach Kirk Olividatti has been battling leukemia, Richt announced. Olividatti’s wife Keely hasn’t left the hospital for 30 days, the head coach informed the crowd; she spoke to Richt on Monday, and agreed that Richt could make the daughter Kasyn’s fight public.

Well, I’ll say this. If there’s anybody else we need to announce we'll announce it at the appropriate time. This is not the appropriate time. We’ll see.

There's nothing wrong with a mutually agreed-upon grayshirt whether its in the SEC or Big Ten.