Friday Morning ‘Dawg Bites is Drying Out

Down here in the Swamps of Broward, after this latest rain event, some locales have topped over 100” of rain for the year. It’s a record. And we’ve still got about 6 weeks to go. Now, there ain’t no high ground down here in south Florida unless you want to call the Pompano Beach landfill a hill. But I can promise you one thing: No matter how much it rains and how fast the water rises, you’ll never find me seeking refuge on Rocky Top. I hope Dolly forgets the words (Not really. I love Dolly. Okay, maybe really a little bit).

Yesterday, Lugnut Dawg provided some Georgia-Tennessee history with a look back at the 2003 Georgia team that stunned the Vol Nation in Neyland Stadium. I’m sure there were some impressionable young Dawg fans that remember exactly where they were and who they were with on that Saturday night 20 years ago.

An important game for me was the 1973 upset in Knoxville. I remember this game very well, where I was, and who I was with.

The late, great Andy Johnson

I had just moved to Watkinsville from San Antonio a few months earlier. One of my best neighborhood friends, Jon, and I listened to the entire game on the radio at his house while we shot some basketball in his driveway. My Georgia fandom probably wasn’t quite as feverish at that point in my young life as Jon’s, but this game put it on another level. In the YouTube clip, Andy Johnson actually fumbles, but a lucky bounce from ‘ol Lady Luck gave us the score and the win. I believe the big tackle wearing #74 who hugs Andy was the late Craig “Sky” Hertwig. Anyway, that was a special game to me from a long, long time ago. Jon and I drifted apart as he moved up to Gainesville, but we reunited in the mid-80’s and went to a few Braves games together and had some laughs (mostly at the mid-1980’s Braves). Sadly, he passed far too young in 1986. This one is for you, Jon.

Anyway, sorry to get all sentimental, but football tends to bring back these kinds of memories - win, lose or draw. Georgia football (or, whatever your team is that you root for) is just special.

How we feeling out there, folks? I’ve been doing polls pretty much all season long on these posts and why stop now? We’re battin’ 1.000!

I cannot argue with USA Today’s assessment of tomorrow’s matchup. I believe that Georgia will prevail, perhaps in comfortable fashion, if they show up with the same joie de vivre as they did last week and against Florida. But I’m a little bit nervous because no matter how much talent we have and what the point spread is an enduring truth shall remain: Winning on the road in the SEC is tough. The Knoxville news doesn’t feel as if the Dawgs will be looking ahead, either.

Kirby Smart’s ability to focus and re-focus his team is probably the most impressive thing about our coach - at least to me. That, and his epic pre-game and/or halftime “speeches.”

Anyway, enjoy your Friday everyone. I’ve got to go drain my pool now. It’s full of Everglades mud and I think a chupacabra is still in the deep end doing the back stroke. Better save the little fella.

As Always, GO DAWGS!