Thursday Morning Dawg Bites

Good mornin’, y’all. I hope you had a restful night with the knowledge that there are only 2 days left until we get this whole thing going again. It’s really almost here, isn’t it? Pour yourself another coffee or grab that Atkins shake (yeah, right) and jump right in.

Before we dive too deeply into the foosbally things, how about a quick check on the weather for Saturday evening’s kickoff? The biggest threat for any significant precipitation appears to be waning as that son of a bitch Harvey finally gets caught up in a steering flow - the very thing that has been absent for the better part of a week causing the cataclysmic flooding - and begins to exit the Gulf coast and move northeastward into the Tennessee Valley and then points north fairly rapidly. Earlier in the week, it looked like the rain chances on Saturday night were fairly high, but the forecast for kickoff is much more positive as the remnant moisture and “dirty” side of what’s left of probably the most destructive tropical system in U.S. history moves away. So, by game time temperatures should be in the upper 70’s and a pleasant evening is on tap, and any residual rain should have ended very early in the day.

Appalachian State will surely arrive fired-up and ready to give Georgia a tussle in a few hours, and why not? They’ll just look to the game they honestly should have won against Tennessee last year to know that they can compete, if not win. Our pal Phil Steele thinks this one will not be decided until late. He may be right, but I don’t think this game is close in the 4th quarter...uh, in favor of the good guys. If it is, will you be disappointed?

Is losing former 4-Star prospect Chauncey Manac a blessing in disguise? Brandon Adams (podcast) thinks it could be an indication of how solid Georgia’s pass rush is. Read: We’ve got enough Jimmy & Joes. I have no doubt that Manac is talented, but the fact that he might still find trouble seeing the field this year must mean that some of the guys ahead of him - even some really young guys - just might be better. That, my friends, is not a problem.

I don’t have a link, but I did see that ESPN has pegged Georgia as the number 5 defense in the nation coming into 2017. Number 1? ‘Bama, of course...despite losing 6 starters to the NFL draft.

You tell me: Is there a culture problem at Florida? Two more Gators are now suspended due to the Great Credit Card Scandal of ‘17. Losing their #1 running back is going to be a problem for the newly ordained starter, red shirt freshman Felipe Franks. McElwain chose to announce this during the same press conference on Wednesday that he announced the most recent suspensions. This is interesting timing, but I suppose he needed something to brighten every Gator’s day. Rainbows and unicorns.

(Oh, and the Number of the Day? I’m glad you asked!)

I did watch Jim McElwain’s press conference yesterday. Yeah, my reaction was about the same as this:

Cry me river. A credit card fraud scandal is a bit more serious than getting dinged for some doobage. There might be more to this as the story unfolds, too. Stay tuned.

(Of course, all this schadenfreude ain’t going to be worth a flip if we lose on Saturday. Be we aren’t, amirite?)

Another day...another tweak on the offensive line. I hope this is more of fine tuning than anything.

That’s all I got. Enjoy your day, everyone.

Go Dawgs!