Right about the time I started thinking about my preseason predictions, MaconDawg reminded us what a wacky last few weeks it’s been, which got me thinking. Here is what I found myself wondering:
What if, instead of offering preseason predictions, I offered postseason predictions? Imagine, if you will, that I had made the following forecasts on Thanksgiving Day 2009 and assured you that each of them would come true before Labor Day 2010:
- Urban Meyer will resign abruptly as the head coach of the Florida Gators. After his wife has assured the media that there is no chance that he will change his mind, he will change his mind.
- The Auburn Tigers will get the bowl bid that everyone expected to go to the Tennessee Volunteers instead. The Plainsmen will win a thriller in the game most observers believed they didn’t deserve, while the Big Orange will lose a blowout in the game most fans thought was beneath the Vols.
- After the Georgia Bulldogs play their best defensive game in recent memory in a victory over the BCS bowl-bound Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on the road, Mark Richt will fire Willie Martinez. A pair of graduate assistants will shoulder much of the load for running the defense in the bowl game, in which the Red and Black will hold high-octane Texas A&M to 20 points.
- Lane Kiffin will bolt Knoxville virtually on the eve of national signing day to take over the USC Trojans.
- John Chavis, Bud Foster, and Kirby Smart all will be candidates to succeed Willie Martinez as Georgia’s defensive coordinator. None will take the job.
- In the wake of Coach Kiffin’s departure, the Volunteers will hire a WAC coach with a losing record. Vince and Barbara Dooley will become Tennessee fans as a result.
- Mark Fox’s first Georgia basketball team will not win a conference road game, will not win back-to-back conference games, and will not make it into postseason play. Bulldog basketball fans will end the season with a feeling of confidence.
- The spring quarterback battle between Aaron Murray and Zach Mettenberger will end when one of the two signal callers is dismissed from the team following an incident in a bar.
- The Gym Dogs will lose to Auburn for the first time ever and be eliminated in the first round of the NCAA playoffs, also for the first time ever.
- Michael Adams will position himself carefully and shrewdly to become the new NCAA president, yet his efforts to ascend to that position will fail.
- The Diamond Dogs will give up 25 runs twice on the way to posting the worst baseball season in Georgia history. Afterward, David Perno will hire himself to be the team’s new pitching coach.
- The Colorado Buffaloes will join the Pac-10, the Nebraska Cornhuskers will join the Big Ten, and the Texas A&M Aggies will come close to joining the SEC.
- Neither Georgia nor LSU will represent the SEC in Omaha, where the South Carolina Gamecocks will win the College World Series.
- A former Georgia tennis player will set a new record at Wimbledon by winning the longest match in history.
- Approximately five minutes before beginning his new five-year contract as the athletic director at his alma mater, Damon Evans will be pulled over by a state patrolman and arrested for driving under the influence following a traffic stop during which he reportedly attempted to use his position to evade the consequences of his actions and tried to explain why he was holding in his lap the red panties belonging to the female passenger who was not his wife.
- Dontavius Jackson will be revealed to be the peacemaker in an incident in which Bulldog football players are falsely accused of misconduct. He later will be arrested on multiple charges, after which he will transfer to another school rather than sit out a six-game suspension.
- Bobby Johnson will resign abruptly as the head coach of the Vanderbilt Commodores, stepping down one week before SEC Media Days for reasons involving neither a scandal nor health considerations.
- After "Lost" ends, David Hale will get married, get a new job, and move to New England.
- Chick-fil-A will introduce a new spicy chicken sandwich.
You know as well as I do that, if I had posted even half of those prognostications last November, MaconDawg would have downloaded this .pdf form, filled it out, and filed it with my local Probate Court. Accordingly, the moral of the story is that, no matter how far-fetched our expectations, reality will trump our imaginations every day of the week, and twice on Sunday. (Oops; I forgot: Mark Richt canceled two-a-days.)
So, while I am trying to come up with a set of predictions that undoubtedly will pale in comparison to what actually happens, we have another matter to which to attend: Southern Dawg suggested "that it would be an awesome idea to have regular posters write up a ‘Dawgography’ once a week, so we could get to know each other a bit better," about which he dutifully reminded me (per my request). AuditDawg already set the standard for this sort of posting, and my story is pretty well-known, so this comment thread is your opportunity to volunteer to author a "Dawgography" fanpost.
Once all those wishing to have a say have had their say, I’ll make individual contact with everyone who signs up and we’ll set up a schedule, hopefully one that will carry us all the way until football season. While we’re at it, we need to figure out what day would work best. I don’t want to interfere with Free Form Friday, but pretty much every other day is open from a content standpoint. Let me know what day of the week would be best, and we’ll try to make that the standard Dawgography day. My thanks, of course, go out to Southern Dawg for the most excellent suggestion.
Go ‘Dawgs!