There's a ton of stuff going on around Bulldog Nation tonight, and with kickoff approaching you cannot afford to be football ignorant. Please accept this as your nightly dose of red and black hued news:
Sophomore offensive lineman Jonathan Owens will be giving up football because of a chronic knee condition, patellar instability. For those without orthopedic expertise, that means that his kneecap continuously pops out of place. That's not the worst thing that can happen to someone, but it's damned sure not the best, either. We here at Dawg Sports would like to wish Jonathan and his weimaraner all the best in their future endeavors.
The initial Rivals recruiting rankings are out and Georgia occupies the 9th slot. Unfortunately that places us 4th in the SEC behind Florida, Alabama and LSU for those who are acutely concerned with that sort of thing. In this blogger's opinion, if you continue to recruit in or around the top 5-10 year in and year out you're bringing in enough talent to compete for SEC Championships. That's about the extent of my concern with such rankings. #9 is really just as good as #4 to me. The difference is basically inconsequential so long as we're getting our share of the best players in Georgia and filling positions of need. Georgia is also in on a slough of highly ranked players who could easily improve that ranking. Even if we do move up, however, we will not catch Texas, as Mack Brown already completed an unbelievable class. Props also to Jim Harbaugh, who somehow has Stanford occupying the #6 slot. That's impressive.
And perhaps most important, the Bulldogs completed their final scrimmage of fall camp today with, in the words of Mark Richt "nothing earth-shattering." Aaron Murray turned in a workmanlike 9-17 performance with no interceptions and one touchdown. Now if we can just get some of those veteran offensive linemen who were supposed to keep his jersey clean back on the field, I might allow a tiny sliver of optimism in. But, taking my cues from our fearless leader, it's not likely. Washaun Ealey and Caleb King continue to average around 7 yards a carry in scrimmage work, which may be an indictment of our second string defense, may indicate a strong running back corps, but probably points toward a little bit of both.
That's not all the news tonight in Bulldog Nation. But it's all I've got for the moment. Back tomorrow with some recruiting coverage. Until then . . .
Go 'Dawgs!!!