The long hot summer of the offseason finally truly is upon us; the University of Georgia will not be sending students into intercollegiate athletic competition again until the women’s soccer team takes on UNC-Greensboro on August 17. Fortunately, while we are counting down to football season, we have the college gridiron preview magazines, which we buy, because, frankly, what we have is a sickness.
Unfortunately, these magazines aren’t always bastions of accuracy or sterling examples of proofreading precision. Here, therefore, are the glaring errors that leapt out at me the instant I opened each of these publications:
Athlon’s 2012 SEC preview has the Georgia Bulldogs ranked eighth in the nation, but, clearly, the Classic City Canines are overrated by the authors, as Athlon credits Aaron Murray with throwing “for 3,0149 [sic] yards and 35 TDs last year.” I’m pretty sure Murray wouldn’t have passed for 30 thousand yards and change, even if he’d hooked up with his receiver on every first and bomb.
Phil Steele’s preview magazine, which is part of the reason my optometrist wants to prescribe me bifocals, contains what I acknowledge is a technical error, but it’s a pet peeve of mine, so I’m insistent upon making at least something of a deal about it. Regarding the Bulldogs’ conference opener against the Missouri Tigers, Steele states: “The last and only prior meeting took place in the 1959 Orange Bowl.” While Georgia last met Mizzou at the end of the 1959 SEC championship season, the game was played on New Year’s Day, so it was actually the 1960 Orange Bowl.
Finally, the biggest gaffe of all was committed in Lindy’s college football preview, which contains a list of the country’s twelve hottest coordinators. At the top, predictably, is University of Georgia alumnus Kirby Smart, but, just four spots behind him, we find a fellow graduate of the oldest state-chartered university in the land: Mike Bobo, who is said to be more highly sought after as a head coaching candidate than the likes of Bud Foster and Mark Stoops (and, for the matter of that, Todd Grantham). If that’s so, my question is simple: Why aren’t employers banging down Coach Bobo’s door? As Henny Youngman would’ve put it, take my offensive coordinator . . . please!
Go ‘Dawgs!