Sunday Morning Dawg Bites: The Long Climb Back.

Well, that wasn't a lot of fun. Today is the first day of the rest of the 2014 season, however. So let's get started with a few links and then never speak of this again.

Georgia notes: Georgia's been here before: 'It's a long season' | Georgia Bulldogs blog | Columbus Ledger Enquirer
Cue the annual first loss speech from Coach Richt: "We still have got a wonderful opportunity to win a lot of games and get back to Atlanta. So we know there’s a lot of football to be played yet. That’s the one thing about our league, it’s such a great league that if we can get back on track we can get back to where we want to go.” He's not wrong of course. With South Carolina already having their annual SEC West loss and still yet to travel to Auburn and Gainesville the 'Dawgs are not out of the divisional picture. But it sure would be nice to be the front runner and not the stalking horse once again.

Georgia Sports Blog: Sunday Morning Comes: South Carolina
Tyler Dawgden's observations largely mirror my own: this is the defense we should have expected, neither of Morgan's missed kicks was really that ugly, and Hutson Mason has somehow become the Tara Reid of play action fakers. Overacting to the point of unintentional comedy.

Georgia secondary returns to old form against South Carolina - The Red and Black : Sports
The No. 6 Bulldogs’ secondary was once again the weak link of its defense in Georgia’s 38-35 loss to No. 24 South Carolina, says Connor Smolensky of the Red and Black. I'd add that the lack of an effective pass rush didn't do them any favors. It's also worth noting that the presence of a strong rush against Clemson also made the young secondary look a lot better against the Tigers than it is at this point. Those guys will get there eventually, but it won't be tomorrow.

Football notebook: Georgia falls within inches of potential comeback - The Red and Black : Sports
"It’s just so hard to tell,” Richt said. “Nobody really had a good vantage point, even where I was standing, it was just such a big scrum in there, I couldn’t really tell. I think a lot of it had to do with where the ball was on his body. Was it his chest? Was it down by his belly? Was it by his waist? I just couldn’t tell where the ball was. If you had a credit card we may have been able to slip one in there. “

Post Game Quotes - Georgia vs. South Carolina - Georgia Official Athletic Site
Lot's of good stuff from Richt, Hutson Mason, Ramik Wilson, Todd Gurley, Damian Swann, and Marshall Morgan. To me the money quote is from Richt on Morgan's two misses. Really you don't count on the top kicker in the league breaking the SEC consecutive field goals record then missing two makable ones. But you also shouldn't be in a position to need your kicker to nail four field goals to win a conference road game. Touchdowns: better than field goals since 1869.

Shoot yourself in the foot until you run out of bullets. | Get The Picture
Short, sweet, and to the point. Also 100% accurate.

That's about all I can stomach for now. I'm going to go grab a cup of coffee and put on some Morrissey, but Dave should be along in a little bit with 15 Thoughts. Until then . . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!