Happy new year! The first day of the 2008 calendar has arrived, but, more importantly, so has the last day of the Bulldogs' 2007 season. This is, of course, your game day open comment thread, so feel free to share your thoughts on the Sugar Bowl, the New Year's Day college football action, and the postseason generally in the comments below.
Naturally, this is also the time to declare today's Dawg Sports honorary game captain. I inadvertently foreshadowed this selection when mistakenly answering the final trivia question in my interview with NBC Sports, so it will not surprise you to learn that today's honorary captain is D.J. Shockley.
My reasons for selecting Shockley are twofold. First of all, as I noted when defending my aforementioned erroneous answer, Georgia's then-backup quarterback threw the 37-yard pass to Terrence Edwards that gave the Classic City Canines their only offensive touchdown in the Superdome on January 1, 2003 . . . the last time the 'Dawgs played in New Orleans and also the last time the Red and Black won the Sugar Bowl.
Secondly, Shockley's first game as the full-time starter under center was against a Western Athletic Conference squad with a potent offense. The Georgia quarterback completed 16 of his 24 pass attempts for 289 yards and five touchdowns while rushing five times for 85 yards and another score in a 48-13 rout.
The experts are expecting Hawaii to be this year's Boise State, and I hope they're right. It'd be nice to see a similar beatdown in the Crescent City tonight.
Go 'Dawgs!