Cocktail Thursday: Tennessee Edition

If your Georgia Bulldogs are headed to Knoxville (a place they struggle in under the best of circumstances) coming off a confidence-crushing blowout, you could use a drink. Allow me to help.

There are plenty of things which the Georgia Bulldogs could (and need to) improve this weekend. Playing the run. Catching the ball. Making better decisions about when to throw the ball. What food to serve at the pre game meal. What movie to watch the night before the game. Really, whatever the Red and Black did last week I hope that they do it better this week. Well enough to win, ideally.

But if there's one thing I would really love to see the Bulldogs improve on, it's offensive play calling. I don't want to sound like a cliche. But I think since Coach Schottenheimer, Coach Richt, and half the offensive line already said it this week, I'm comfortable echoing their sentiments: Georgia should have run the ball more against Alabama. Up the middle. Downhill.

That sounds nuts, but after going back and watching the film it's right there in living color. Georgia's front 5 wasn't blowing Alabama off the line early. But they were doing a generally good job of getting a hat on a hat. With a strong runner like Nick Chubb that's really what you need. He'll do the rest. Chubb is not what I would call a "home run threat" out of the backfield. He doesn't have that lightning speed that a Todd Gurley, for example, does. But there was enough room there for Chubb to have picked up reasonable yardage and force the Tide to play run first.

Greyson Lambert can play better football than he did on Saturday, but the odds of getting better results out of him increase exponentially if he's given more support in the run game. Against a Tennessee team that has good size up front but seriously lacks depth, Georgia should really run the ball until the Vols prove they can stop it. If Schottenheimer inexplicably goes away from that strategy, I'm going to be very disappointed. But I don't think that will happen. I think this game may have been one of those periodic reminders that every coach needs, a chance to re-evaluate what's central to his unit's identity. Schotty's gonna run the dang ball, y'all. He is going to hammer the hill folk into submission, and a Bulldog offense that got pushed around a bit this past week is going to get a chance to turn the tables.

And when that happens, I hope you'll join me by celebrating with a Schotten-hammer. You'll need:

• crushed ice
• 2 ounces of bourbon
• club soda
• half a teaspoon of sugar
• an orange wedge, and finally . . .
• a heaping tablespoon of whole berry cranberry sauce

Muddle the orange wedge and sugar in the bottom of a high ball glass. Half fill the glass with crushed ice. The stir in the bourbon and cranberry sauce and top it with the club soda. It's another one of those twists on the traditional bourbon Old Fashioned that I love to serve up. Plus with the muddled fruit it looks pretty cool, like the kind of thing people will envy you for drinking before they've even tasted it. Share in your own discretion.

This will also be the open thread for this evening's college football action, both the 7:00 p.m. SMU/Houston matchup and the later USC/Washington game (Sark's gonna be tying one on, you might as well, too). Until later . . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!