The Drizzle

Creeping Death ...

2007-03-01T23:17:00.000-05:00

It's been my general experience that teams that allow their opponents to go on 25 point runs over the span of 5 minutes in multiple games, nay, multiple times in multiple games, often are not a factor towards the end of March.

SRSLY? 80+ points to a Tech team that has roughly one and a half solid offensive players in Crittendon and Young. This was your plan?

Meanwhile that sound you hear is another Carolina free throw rattling off the rim. Getting to the line 40 times in a game really isn't much of an advantage if you're only going to bother hitting 60% of them.

And kudos to Roy for sitting Lawson for the first 8 minutes, for whatever reason. That was a real nice touch when he brought Quentin Thomas in to look lost on offense for 4 minutes while a 5 point lead turned into a 7 point deficit. That bastard should never be in a game that Carolina isn't leading by at least 10.

We're about one more meltdown from devolving straight into gross underperformance. I never thought I'd have to watch Carolina turn into my least favorite kind team, yet here they are, can win a blow out whenever they want but can't win a close game to save their lives. That should serve them real well in about 2 weeks.

We can only hope that we're headed for a replay of '99 when Harold Arcineaux and Weber State precipitated an incident in which I proved that it was in fact possible to break Tupper Ware against a dorm room wall.

In closing, Roy, WTF?

Well that was much tougher than it should have been ...

2007-02-07T23:29:00.000-05:00

Hansbrough played somewhat akin to refried crap. I'm beginning to think that either last year was a huge anomaly for him or they've locked up the kid with the solid hands who got double digit rebounds a game last year and apparently don't want to let him back out. And Ellington looked like he'd never seen a basketball in his life. Thank god for Lawson and Wright though.

Anytime now son

I'll give Paulus a modicum of credit, he wasn't a complete walking turnover machine and he did hit some open shots in the first half. And you can pretty much make a hot sauce to the eye guarantee on McRobert's offensive disapearing act in a big game. Meanwhile, WTF is a Jon Scheyer?

Anyway, that's over with. I can only hope that Carolina continues their renewed commitment to actually playing a type of defense that they rediscovered in the 2nd half and combines that with an offense that doesn't involve Terry randomly plowing people over and Tyler fumbling every loose ball underneath.

D-bags Unlimited ..

2007-02-07T13:12:00.000-05:00

So I've got a few more hours to prepare myself for the first UNC/Duke show down of the year. All in all I'm feeling pretty good about this, as I'm prepared to write off Saturday's NC State game as one of those freakish games where the team with the off beat offense suddenly shoots lights out for 40 minutes straight. And obviously, the chance to send Duke on their first 3 game losing streak within the same season since I'm not quite sure when is always an exciting prospect. About the only unappealing prospect for the evening is listening to a certain someone discuss Duke, Coach K, and especially Greg Paulus for 2 hours tonight.

Astonishing how those APG numbers drop without the leading scorer

I have no problem admitting that UNC, and specifically Hansbrough, gets a media provided tongue bathing during most of their games. Quite frankly, it turns me off a bit at times too. But I at least view it as somewhat justified. UNC is clearly one of the top 2 or 3 teams in the country this year. I don't think there's a more exciting team to watch when their offense is clicking. And Hansbrough, while probably primely positioned to be a very underwhelming NBA player, owing I suppose to the lack of demand for 6'9" white guys who are about half a beat to slow with the ball in their hands in the paint, is a very solid college basketball player. So while I do get tired of hearing it all at times because I feel like announcers are ruining my ability to enjoy my own team and forcing me to defend them to everyone else that's heard enough, I can at least construct a valid argument supporting the treatment they get.

But WTF with Duke?

I think this year, above all others in recent memory, has stretched our friend Dickie V's ability to find ridiculous things to say about Duke and his buddy Coach K to insane levels. This Duke team has pretty much been trash since the season tipped. Paulus and McRoberts, plz.

And let's step back here, take a little bit of a historical perspective on things. With the continual barrage of fawning shit we have to hear about Duke, you'd assume we're talking about the dominant team in the nation in the last 10 or 15 years, but is that really in any way true?

Conveniently enough, it's been about 15 years since the back to back titles in '91 and '92, so we'll use that as the jump off point. Since that time, they've won exactly one National Title, which I still refuse to recognize, mainly because there's no way a team that started Richard Jefferson, Jason Gardner, Loren Woods, and Agent 0 himself should have ever lost a game, and more specifically because if the refs had taken their heads out of their asses long enough to whistle Jason Williams for his 5th foul when he dry humped Gardner with 6 minutes left there's no way that Arizona doesn't run away and win that game by 10 themselves. But we'll lay aside the revisionist history and give Duke their one National Title.

But including that season, they've been to 4 Final Fours over that stretch, which would of course be 2 less than Carolina's 6, and equalled by Michigan State's and Kentucky's 4, so we're hardly talking about any sort of national hegemony over that stretch. Now, I will give them credit for holding sway over the ACC Tournament, and to a lesser degree over the ACC regular season title, over the last 7 or 8 years. But, in my opinion, they've always been greatly benefited by the Duke factor when they're playing in ACC country, as any other ACC basketball fan will quickly corroborate. It's a lot easier to win games when you're playing every game with a free throw and foul advantage facilitated by the Cloak of Invisible Charges that every Duke defender wears. Of course, once tournament time hits, that protection goes away and the results become more indicative.

So that's why I'm no great believer in the overblown Coach K lovefest. He's done no more in the last 15 years that a half dozen other coaches have also done, probably with less talent. In fact, you could argue that in some ways, he's underutilized the supposed wealth of talent that he gets and shows a marked lack of ability to adapt to overcome the same problems that plauge in every year, namely an inability to develop any quality depth, which always come back to haunt him in March.

And what of the current crop of players themselves? By which I mean, how can any self respecting analyst continue to back Greg Paulus as an effective basketball player?

I may have hated Battier and Boozer and Jason Williams and most especially Redick, but in one way or another I would not deny that they were probably all All-American quality college players. Now, Battier may have been the primary beneficiary of the Cloack of Invisible Charges, since at least half his reputation was built on his "defense." And Redick was a world class douche, who I always contended you could negate with an athletic defender, as LSU proved last year with Temple. Say what you will about the ACC, but I think the lack of commitment to defense was at least half to blame for Redick's career numbers. If you drop him in the SEC, his numbers are probably cut in half. But he wasn't, he was in the ACC, where he became very effective at working himself open and hitting shots, so there you go. Point being, I may have grown tired of having these guys shoved down my throat, but at least it made some sense.

But now it's like Duke has reached some nadir of talent, but rather than call it what it is, they're going to try to continually convince me that Greg Paulus is an effective point guard. Have you watched this kid? Can you think of another primary ball handler for a top 20 team that is often completely unable to bring the ball up and initiate an offense against someone playing active defense on him? He has become a bit more effective in the last 10 or 15 games with his shot, but honestly, whenever somebody pressures him, he becomes a 40 minute reminder of last year's NCAA when LSU would send in their white guard and the eyes of the street kids playing for Iona would light up like it was Christmas. Honestly, if making ill conceived passes and diving on the deck for loose balls that you created was a marketable skill he'd be in great shape, but otherwise, they need to start warming up the patented Wojo Asst. Coaching seat for him. In the end, I honestly think I'd feel better if Vitale would finally say, "You know, this kid actually sucks, but I'm just going to tell you that he doesn't because he tries hard. But basically, he's an overhyped Wojo that fooled us into believing that he could run point for a top 10 team."

Working white boys since '06

All of which goes to say, Paulus is a joke (as is McRoberts although I've left him alone for now), and I'm fully ready to kick the shit out of Duke tonight and put their season to bed.

30 Days (plus much much more) In The Hole ...

2007-02-01T17:07:00.000-05:00

Well, given the name of this place and the events of the last two days, I'd be remiss as hell if I didn't lead off with this.

Did you hear what I said Denver? Or should I turn it up for you?

So I promised myself before school started that I'd step away from any posting here whatsoever, with the noble intention of concentrating on my first semester at law school, because knowing myself as I do, if I were presented with any sort of distraction at school or when I returned home in the evenings, my forays into captivating subjects such as the continuing viability of heightened pleading requirements measured against Rule 8(a) or the economic differences between joint liability and joint and several liability would be severely hampered.

Back to back at 2 and 3, everyday on TNT

Of course, that noble sentiment did nothing to stop me from using most of the spare time in the library to scour the internets and still read everyone else or spend 6 hours a night watching TV, or go to Atlanta to watch My Morning Jacket the night before I turned in my open memo. Of course, that was well worth it, that was a kickass show. But, except my the day of death when I had to listen to UGA lose to Kentucky on the radio in the solitary confines of my apartment, I did manage stop myself from doing any posting. And I suppose it worked well enough, one semester down and I haven't been asked to pack my things and leave, so good times all around I suppose.

Obviously any attempt to do anything in the way of catching up with the last 5 months in any sort of comprehensive way would be pretty useless, so we'll just highlight the main things I learned during this past football season.

1. Somehow coming to the realization during the middle of the 3rd quarter that you are going to lose to Vanderbilt, announcing to everyone around you, "F this, I'm not going to sit here and watch us lose to Vanderbilt," leaving the stadium and walking back downtown, and therein raining on everyone's parade during our "comeback" of sorts by correctly predicting that we would still give it away in the last 2 minutes made the whole day strangely more bearable.

2. Listening to your team lose to Kentucky on the radio might be the most debilitating feeling in the world.

3. Apparently I should have come on and made my apocalyptic post of death about a month earlier, since I can only assume it was the main catalyst in us finishing the season with an epic ass kicking of Auburn on the road, a level 1 kick in the nuts to Tech at home, and a truly stirring comeback win against VPI in the Peach Bowl (for that 10 minutes where nothing could go wrong, it was one of the top 3 or 4 stretches of time I've had at a game, only diminished by the fact that the only thing on the line was some sort of vindication of the fact that perhaps we were a decent team).

4. Although I do not have a rocket arm and the attention of several thousand comely co-eds on campus, Matt Stafford and I apparently do at least share a proclivity for eating MexiCali on Friday nights, which I suppose makes us basically brothers.

Beyond that, what else is there to say about the Atlanta sports teams?

The schadenfreude associated with Tech's season deserves several posts of its own. I suppose it could best be summarized by noting that I got to make good on my promise that I would laugh in the face of my Tech friends (and possibly set them on fire) when they ended the season with 3 straight losses and a worse record than UGA, a promise I made after the Vanderbilt game.

The Falcons had the exact season anyone from Atlanta would have projected, so surprises there. All hail the Bobby Petrino era, I guess.

The Braves have now traded their weak bullpen for 3 closers of varying reputation and have shipped off most of their infield in the process. Of course, I'm not saying that's necessarily a huge loss. At least I don't have to watch LaRoche threaten to fall asleep at 1st base anymore. On the other hand, I also don't get to see him grow a Fu Manchu during the year, so everything comes with a cost. Also, I'm pretty sure I heard Bam Bam Bigelow died, so I'm not sure how I feel about making copious Wickman/Bigelow comparisons during the upcoming season. In the end, upgrading the bullpen was obviously necessary since spending 3 months without a closer last year is pretty much 100% to blame for us missing the playoffs last year, and I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that the organization isn't going to spend the money to have a guaranteed winner before the season starts anymore. So I guess my two hopes is that we miraculously grow an offense from somewhere or that Andruw hits a 2 run shot every game, the starter goes 6 innings and gives up 1 and then we use our 3 closers for an inning a piece. 2-1 Braves, everyone goes home happy.

College basketball deserves much more treatment, but I do feel compelled to go ahead and note that this Carolina team has become one of my favorite teams to watch, ever. My only real concern is that I'm pretty sure that Hansbrough has regressed from last year. He looks slower. He puts the ball on the floor everytime gets it underneath, entry pass, rebound, doesn't matter, and he seems too slow to get clear of anyone for a clean shot anymore. And, no that's drawing contact everywhere, he's not dumping in the trash baskets like he was last year when people were hanging on him. Of course, once I drop names like Wright, Ellington, Lawson, and Terry, the fact that Hansbrough is probably playing lower than he was last year quickly seems to become irrelevant.

Anyway, that's it for now, with any luck Aliens is on one of my Cinemax channels again, so probably time to go do that.

In the meantime I'll leave you with a little something that's always brought a smile to my face during any low times over the last couple months.

A Requiem for the 2006 season ...

2006-11-04T17:06:00.000-05:00

DIAF. K Thx Bye.

I had decided to hiatus myself during the first semester of law school, but I thought today deserved a special note.

See you in January.

All My Base Are Belong To Them ...

2006-08-03T22:12:00.000-04:00

I thought after a week, it was fair to finally recap the hurting that the Isle of Capri put on me in Biloxi. Why the Isle you ask? Hasn't your day at the Isle on past trips always been the stuff of nightmares? Well the answer is yes, but considering that they and the Imperial Palace are the only 2 casinos opened back up, coupled with the fact that they're handing out free nights and other inducements like candy, all added to fact that it's been over a year and a half since my last trip leads to the conclusion that sometimes you just have to tempt fate.

And man did fate kick me right in the ass. I'll spare you the hand by hand account at the blackjack tables, lest this flip into a Simmonsesque rambling where suddenly Bish and J-Bug and I are high-fiving over jokes at the blackjack table and drinking vaguely gay drinks while the Ukranian Jonathan Papelbon comes out of the bullpen to close out our hot streak.

The whole trip can really be summed up by two simple situations. A single session included these two statistical slaps to the face. I quadruple split aces against a 6 and managed to reap two pushes and two losses. I later triple split 9's against a 5, including a double on one when he threw a deuce on it and reaped 1 push and 2 losses, and obviously the double was one of the losses. That really cuts right to the heart of the matter. And of course there was the usual bitch slaps of doubling on 11 against a against 5 or 6 and getting dealt a 4, only to watch him flip a combination of a hole face and a 5 on the next card or a hole 5 and a face on the next card. And this happened multiple times, within the space of an hour or two. I also, as one has to do, watched myself sit on 15 against a 5 or 6 from 3rd base, only to watch him flip a face and deal himself a 5 roughly 5 times in one shoe.

In the end, the Rains of Justice were against me as the pockets were emptied, until Tom, the helpful dealer pointed out around 1 the a.m. that the ATM's were giving away money. I felt compelled to tell him that unless they were giving away free money, I probably wasn't going to partake, and that yes, I did get his joke. Much like I was the only one to get his joke wherein he felt compelled to say that, "He hadn't had a match since Superman died," in response to someone's request for a match. Of course, that lead to a strange discussion on the curse of actor's who had portrayed Superman. Weird night.

So some would say things were not meant to be last week. TJ was in fact correct in saying that they could keep busting me up all night. And it was probably time for that, it was the first time I ever left a gambling trip with less than I showed up with, and little surprise that it happened at the Isle, my own personal slaughterhouse.

Now as an aside here, I went back the other day and reread Simmons's earlier articles on Vegas trips that he had up on his page. I noticed something this time that had never really occured to me before. I have no idea what kind of check ESPN.com or Kimmel were cutting 2 or 3 years ago, and he wasn't yet a best selling author with a book (which he may or may not be now after his book, but whatever), but one would assume primary writers for late night TV shows and far reaching websites such as ESPN.com must make some decent coin. And in fact he goes to the trouble of pointing out had they had moved up in the world because they were getting rooms where they had their own beds instead of double bunking, man love style (nullus). So taking all that into account, the fact that he's treating a couple hundred up or down in a day as a big thing, and making a couple hundred in a long session as some serious play, and limiting himself to not even dropping a grand over 2 or 3 days just seems kind of odd to me. Neither myself or any of my friends are exactly made of money, but I've got plenty of them that'll put $500 into play in a day, make over a grand in a session, and drop a grand over a couple days if things aren't running hot. I don't know, just struck me like the big man really isn't putting an amount of money comensurate with his means into play. Or perhaps I'm just in the mood to poke fun today.

-In Braves news, as my last post intimated, we now have a closer in the mold of Bam Bam Bigelow, which is clearly a reason for much rejoicing on multiple levels. And he's been, to the extent we've gotten to use him, pretty much nails since he got here, at least compared to what we were dealing with. And I just wanted to use "nails" in that context. Then we made the move for Baez so that we actually have a setup man too. There's two problems with all this.

Problem the first, and this one is a little less timely now that the Mets sweep is starting to fade from memory. They're pretty useless when your starters are getting handed leads and still getting blitzkrieged out of the game by the 4th or 5th innings.

Problem the second. They can't help us recoup any of those 20 or so blown saves from the first half. Which, had these guys, or at least some semblance of a serviceable bullpen been in place the whole time, you can at least cut those blown saves in half, and suddenly you're leading the wild card by a couple games and still in striking distance of the Mets. But alas, in these days of fiscal restraint amongst Time Warner/Liberty Media/whoever might end up owning the Braves, we've found that even John Schuerholz can't play Angus McGyver to the bullpen indefinitely.

-In movie news, I think we all know that Snakes On A Plane is only two weeks away. How in the holy hell though is this only 3 weeks away and tonight was the first I'd heard of it? My guess would be because Broken Lizard took a hit after Club Dread didn't live up to the promise showed by Super Troopers. Still, I'll give them another chance. Super Troopers is still OMG LOLZ whenever I watch it, and Club Dread grew on me with multiple viewings.

You think Eddie Money has to put up with this shit?

-Lastly, the Sunday AJC had a great article about college coaching turnover. And unfortunately for all who have made it thus far, the Sunday paper has disappeared. So sadly I won't be able to mock proper quotes or use the exact numbers or poke fun at the author by name, but I'll summarize just for the hell of it. The accompanying graphic went something like this (numbers promised to be vaguely correct within 2 or so percent, but trends are upheld):

Year Coaching Turnover (%)
1997 20%
1998 9%
1999 15%
2000 10%
2001 21%
2002 11%
2003 14%
2004 8%
2005 20%
2006 9%

And the headline centered around the drop in coaching turnover between 1997 and 2006. Perhaps I'm wrong, but what I see there is a 4 year cycle, with a weaker two year cycle, where coaching turnover hits a max every 4 years, drops to it's lowest point in the 1st and 3rd years after the max, and has an intermediate high in the 2nd year after the max. So, the beauty of this data, for whoever wants to misuse it, is that they can claim whatever trend they want. This year, you can point to a drop in coaching turnover. On the other hand, you could have written it 365 days ago, started your table with 1998, and decried the huge increasee in coaching turnover. Or at least I think that's what anyone with a passing knowledge of data analysis would see is going on here. And those with the reckoning of numbers would probably write the article and point out the cyclical nature of things.

For the sake of full disclosure here, I will say that due to my busy Sunday, I didn't really get to read the whole thing, so there is a possibility that the author did choose to do this late in the article. But based on what I know about the AJC, I tend to guess that like most newspaper writers, they continue to mold numbers to mean whatever is convenient, as opposed to what they might actually be showing.

We Have A Closer?

2006-07-20T14:53:00.000-04:00

Well the Braves and the Reds are doing their part to make trading for old, overweight closers the chic move this season. Sadly enough, as last night proved, the Braves aren't going to score 12 runs a game for the rest of the season, so any upgrade over Sosa at the closer position (i.e. myself or anyone with two functional arms and a penchant for not giving up massive homeruns), even if it is Bob Wickman, has to be taken as some sort of upgrade? (Question marks implies massive amounts of probably unfounded hope).

At the least his presence at the buffet line should bring a fresh new level of competition that might hopefully spill onto the field.

Hmmmmm?

Face It ...

2006-07-15T16:15:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to lie. My Muse has crawled into a hole somewhere and died. I haven't been able to motivate myself to take enough of an opinion on anything lately to show up here and talk about it. My guess is that it's related to the late summer melancholia when you realize that Memorial Day felt like yesterday but in reality, the 4th of July was almost 2 weeks ago, and you're staring down the barrel of possibly heading back to school or not getting to watch the sun go down after 9 o'clock, which of course allows you to tee off for 18 holes at 4, or hell, whatever it is that makes you enjoy summer. Point is, it's slipping away and you don't know where it went. Of course, that also means that college football is back within spitting distance, so all is not lost.

I will say this though, TJ has gone and drawn attention to a fact that really needed serious hiding, that somehow, the Braves, owner of a 6-21 June are right around 6 games out of the Wild Card at the moment. Frankly, everyone needs to shut the hell up about this for another month at least. I could address a lot of things. I could draw attention to the fact that, based on his new found youth at the plate, one might assume that Chipper Jones has discovered a new Hooters near his place. I could point out that Renteria is waking up after a June where he probably hit around .200. I could point that even though Giles has now reached the point where he'll publicly proclaim his hatred for the leadoff spot, he is slowing crawling back towards respectability at the plate after someone finally reminded him that getting on base is in fact the ultimate goal of an at bat. And I could sing the praises of a proud young man named Chuck James, who actually brought the art of pitching back to the staff for a game or two. And after addressing all those issues, I could talk about the whole scale turn over from the opening day bullpen til today. I could throw out names of a half dozen identical slightly overweight sclubs like Yates or Paronto or Barry or Stockman, who have somehow moved the pen from roughly 25% effectiveness up to maybe 70 or 80% effective.

Of course, if I address all those things, we'll still come back around to the dearth or production in left field and at first base. And I'll be forced to realize that we're still trying to turn Jorge Sosa into a closer even though some of his key ratios might look something like 2BB/inning and 1HR/3 inning. I'm estimating, but hell, they feel worse than that. And then I'll be even more disappointed when I realize that he's probably our best option in spite of that. And then after all that, I'll look at June and say, if those happy assholes could have just played .500 ball for the month of June, we'd be winning the Wild Card right now and roughly 6 games back of a Mets team whose 2nd half pitching staff may well devolve into Glavine (who god knows is due to start to fall apart, you people in New York know it too), Trachsel, and um ..... yeah.

And the point of all this was? I'm not sure, I guess it was to highlight the fact here we are in striking distance of the playoffs, beginning to look better in most facets of the game, after the worst month of all time and the biggest bullpen implosion ever. And then to further point out that everyone needs to do me the favor of keeping any positive prospects under wraps for about another month.

The most important news I have though is that I've recently discovered the existence of a channel called the Sleuth channel which appears to be entirely devoted to showing the A-Team, Knight Rider, and the occasional Miami Vice. So yes, I picked an excellent month to take off between working and heading back to school.

My Mustache Speaks To Me ...

2006-06-29T00:26:00.000-04:00

Roxorz!!11!!1!

My Lost Summer ...

2006-06-22T14:30:00.000-04:00

The time encompassed by the middle of the June to late August is a treacherous time for a sport's fan. Normally I can lean on the Braves plowing through the middle of their schedule on their way to another Division title and eventual playoff flameout. Periodically we get a few special events to carry us through with a little more excitement, a trip to the College World Series, an international event like the Olympics or the World Cup. So, considering the J.J. Redick like U-turn most of these have taken from the promise of a few weeks or months ago to the ugliness I've got staring me down, I think it's only fair to say I've got a real barren wasteland between now and the end of August.

UGA Baseball

These guys don't get much criticism here. The run over the last month of the season, through the regional, and on to the super regional was some good television, not to mention some good baseball. And I think it's fair to say that although it's a bit deflating to go home in 2 games, making it to Omaha in any given year is a pretty solid accomplishment. However, the confluence of events that sent us home were pretty much a solid 18 inning gut punch. Just when Georgia had the first game lined up for the taking, stealing the lead from Rice in the top of 7th, turning the game over to Warren and Fields, Rip has his worst inning in about 2 months. And quickly as that, we've gone from the winner's bracket and the whole side open to us to staring down elimination with our best starter already spent. But Westphal comes out next game and keeps us in it, only to watch the offense die a slow and painful death, including somehow hitting into three inning killing double plays in the last 5 innings. Hell, I don't even know when I've seen three double plays in one college game lately. Much less three by one team in half a game.

Blame should really go to the offense as a whole, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that we would have been just as effective with me in the cleanup spot for those games as we were with Morris. I don't want to crap too bad on a great season for him, but talk about a hell of a time to pull a total disappearing act.

Also, whoever kidnapped the real Rip Warren, we'd like him back now. It's totally too late to do any good, but I'd just like to know he's OK out there somewhere.

Soccer

Bear in mind I don't really know a crap ton about soccer, but hell, I've devoted plenty of time to watching it over the last couple weeks (as I do every 4 years) and concluded that it's really not that hard to figure out. There's basically two ways this Cup will be looked at for the U.S. Either you can say, screw the bad calls, we played like crap and didn't deserve anything. Or you can say, come on, we played liked crap and but for a couple of truly heinous calls, we'd be moving on. But before we decide on that, I've come up with a couple of problems that I see that affecting both the performance of the team and the watchability of the game.

First off, the U.S. team lacks a dominating presence. Of course that doesn't stop the media from trying to create one, but all that leads to is a harsh blowback against guys like Donovan or Beasley when they don't make it happen. I'll give Beasley some credit. He came back from a performance in the Czech game that looked, to me, to be about useless and came off the bench to score what we thought was the go ahead goal against Italy and create the tying goal today. So maybe he wasn't as effective throughout the entirety of the game as people were expecting, but at least he created some moments. Donovan might as well have been watching with me. And that might not really be his fault, that might have been his best, and his best might be just being a pretty good player who can't be the go to guy on the international stage. But ANYWAY, we don't have a dominating presence, so, on the field, the offense devolves into a lot of passing that never turns into an actual attack because nobody can challenge the defense to beat someone or create holes. And after a good bout of possession passing, it devolves into a dump over the top and hope for the best, which especially when you're constantly playing from behind doesn't seem too effective. And this has already been beat into the ground by other people, but that's because I think it's pretty true. Four years ago the long dump worked because everyone was throwing forward against the crappy Americans to score early and often. They weren't too worried about playing back against a team no one expected anything out of, and we capitalized. But there so was no sneaking by anyone this time, we needed to create our own scoring chances, and we couldn't.

Beyond the on field performance though, the lack of a dominating guy for the U.S. side hurts their watchability too. American sports audiences crave dominating performers. Vince Young and Reggie Bush were the talk of college football. You had to see them play. Dwyane Wade's performance over the last four games of the Finals left people talking. It might have been about his transcendent performance. It might have been about how disgusting it was to watch the Duke treatment be heaped on one player for four straight games. Regardless, people were talking. There was no one dominant on the U.S. team to captivate people to watch and pay attention.

American sports audiences are skeptical of officiating. We don't like officiating to play a role in deciding games. Luckily enough, football and baseball and basketball are structured towards keeping this from happening. Over the course of 80 at bats and 200+ pitches, rarely can it be said that an umpire's judgement call substantially influences the outcome of a game. There are exceptions. For the Braves fans, we would point to Eric Gregg calling a three foot wide strike zone for Livan Hernandez for Florida in the NLCS in 1997 and nearly single handedly sending the Marlins to the World Series. But the fact is, these examples are rare, so rare that most Braves fans from the late 90's know immediately what the Eric Gregg game refers to.

There's more of a chance for it to happen in football, but it's still pretty out of the ordinary. In this year's playoffs, you could say that maybe the Denver-New England outcome was substantially affected by the officials. (If you were a Seahawks fan, you'd probably say the Super Bowl was as well, but I disagree with you). But in a game where you're getting 10 or more possessions and running 70, 80, 90 plays, officiating errors have to be pretty egregious to 100% cost someone a game.

Basketball, specifically the end of games, is the most common culprit in American. You don't have to look any further than the last four games of the NBA Finals to see that. I'm in the camp that the calls Dwyane were getting were ridiculous and, sadly enough, detracted from the series as a whole. The free throw disparity is well documented. And there's no clearer example that something is awry than when you've got 30 seconds left in the potentially deciding game, a team up by 1, and a guy turns a corner, lays a forearm shiver to clear off a defender and not only isn't called for an offensive foul, but gets to go to the line to put his team up 3.

And the NBA is damaged by this perception of officiating. It's two days after the Finals and instead of discussing the Miami comeback or the transcendence of Dwyane Wade or even White Chocolate, Shandon Anderson, and Michael F'ing Doleac having rings, 95% of the discussion of the series is about the officiating. How is it good for a League to create impression that the officials are either grossly biased or inherently awful? And can it really be considered positive that most people are calling the WWE and Vince McMahon out to be the closest cousins of the NBA and David Stern? (And yes I realize this sounds a little SportsGuyish, and I'm sure he's touched on it, but damn, it's true).

ANYWAY, knowing what we know about how little officiating Americans want to see in their games, we come back around to soccer. Here's the situation. You have a game where there's roughly two to three scores a game. You have a game where there might be twice that many actual scoring chances. You have a game where one or two hard (or in this World Cup, innocuous to totally phantom) fouls sends you off not only for the rest of the game but the next as well, as your team plays a man down. You add to that odd mixture a handful of prima donna refs with total autonomy on the field, and you wonder why Americans can't stick with soccer.

In many ways, the lasting memory of the U.S. World Cup team won't be the failure to advance, when advancing out of a group this tough would have been international and domestic validation for the growth of American soccer. It will be having to play with 9 men for a half against Italy because the Italians apparently threatened to knee cap the ref before the game. And it will be the penalty kick called against Onyewu, on what should have been the biggest non-call since Wade's drive to the basket in game 5. How can I get excited a game where the subjective (and wrong) call of one jackass gives basically an automatic goal to a team, during the 4 minutes of time you arbitrarily added to the clock, thereby allowing said team to totally alter the way they played the next 45 minutes of the game. I guess the point being, deficits in soccer are nearly insurmountable, so how can I stay excited about a game where I can be put in one or kept in one at any given time by a jackass call that everyone agrees was heinously wrong. Maybe that plays in Europe or South Amerian where they're watching for the beauty of the game, but not here.

Anyway, this has devolved into all sorts of mess, so I'm going to say, we didn't play that well, but it took some Duke level bullshit to send us home. Of course, that just plays into the rest of the world's perceptions if we complain about it, but whatever, Ghana may be moving on, but tomorrow Ghanians will wake up and still live in Ghana and I'll still be living in the U.S.A., so I'll take the larger victory there.

I do think Arena coached like an asshat, from not having them ready for the first game, to pointless overall strategy, and various and other sundry items. And it was awesome to see Wynalda call him out on that, whether you think he was too critical or not, still good to see. I do think Onyewu got markedly better after the first game, where he looked completely lost.

But the final analysis comes down to this, we woke up this morning with a chance to advance and we lost to a team full of guys who've probably never seen a microwave, from a country where everyone watching at home probably doesn't have running water. Anyway you cut it, that ain't nothing to write home about.

Your Atlanta Braves

Wow, I give these guys credit, when they derail, it's not some gentle fade into the good night. They go out on some epic level shit. We're talking a 2-17 June. Even Kansas City and Pittsburgh haven't sniffed that kind of ass lately. There's so many places this went wrong. Smoltz is tapering off a year or two earlier than they planned on. Hudson hasn't been what they thought they were getting. (And coupled with the death of Mulder in St. Louis, makes Billy Beane look a touch smarter than he already did). Giles is a brutal leadoff hitter. Chipper is coming apart at the plate earlier than they thought. Andruw, for all his growth, still isn't cosistent enough to stabilize the middle of a lineup. They get no offense for first base. And the Braves bullpen. My god the Braves bullpen.

At this point I turn on the game to see, not if they're going to lose, but how they are going to lose. Is Hudson going to cruise for 3 or 4 innings before giving up the 5 run inning? Is the bullpen going to turn a 2 run lead into a 4 run deficit before recording 3 outs? You never can tell, and that's the beauty. The words may change, but the song remains the same.

TJ and I confabbed the other day on exactly what this has come to.

As he pointed out, "Guys used out of the bullpen by the Braves last night: Stockman, Yates, Paronto. Who the F are those guys?"

My answer, hell if I know. At least last year when we were playing young guys and calling guys up, I had heard of them and was looking forward to them (Francoeur, McCann, Langerhans, Kelley Johnson, hell even ones that didn't work out like Devine). But these guys, truly, who the F are these guys?

Scotty, an astonishly hard picture to find considering he's starting left field in the Bigs.

Even better, we had someone named Scottie Thurman playing right field. Sadly, as TJ pointed out that, Alex Dillard was not available to pinch run.

Anyway, that's it, if you made this far through those ramblings, I applaud you. Perhaps one day I'll learn to marshal my thoughts and edit things I write, doesn't seem like today though.

In the meantime, time to hop on the Brazil bandwagon. Long live FRED. And only a couple more weeks til the Nathan's Hot Dog Content, anything to get us through to September.

Huzzahs ...

2006-06-13T23:11:00.000-04:00

Well, thank god I've at least got one baseball team to watch for another couple weeks. Noontime of last Saturday feels like a long time ago, and praise jebus for that, because watching South Carolina unload on 5 straight homeruns was one of the most surreal things I've ever seen. I normally scoff at Simmons's cliched description of sports moments that threatened to explode his dome, but this time, I'm going to back off, because I actually started to feel the blood dripping out of my eye sockets and extreme pressure in the frontal lobe, followed by inane mutterings like, "2 outs, ground ball, dear god help me," interspersed with liberal doses of expletives strung together in new and constructive forms.

This Georgia team can be a little nerve wracking, but you just feel like if the starters can keep you in it, the bats will make some noise, and suddenly you've made it to the 6th inning, you're up by 2, and you realize you have nothing to worry about. Feeling confident about a late inning lead is a strange thing in the college game, but with Rip Warren and Josh Fields, it's becoming a lot more normal. I personally prefer Warren since he comes from the left side like I did, throws more strikes than Fields does, and can retire you with two or three different pitches. But I won't lie, there is something intensely satisfying about watching Fields unload to the tune of 97 mph.

What my college career would have looked like, had I been better and, you know, actually had one.

It's a touch of bad luck that Rice made it through, meaning we draw them in the first game while unseeded Miami and Oregon State go at it in the bottom half. But if we can take that first game, that whole side of the bracket busts wide open for us, especially without Texas lurking in the lower half.

And then of course, there's this poor bastard. Not only was he part of the homerun parade, but now he'll be traveling to Omaha on his own dime if he wants to take the games in from the stands. As a man who has knowledge of several similar capers on various and sundry campuses, I do feel for the boy.

As far as the Braves, I think this weekend marked the point where they now become a casual interest for me for the rest of the year instead of destination viewing every night. I'll still take in another 4 or 5 games in person and watch as the occasion calls for, but no longer do I plan evenings at home around keeping an eye on this team. And it pains me in a way because I don't want to be accused of being spoiled by the last 15 years and turning my back on them when it looks like things are ending, but you know what, there's just nothing to watch, there's no spark. I know I'm getting Smoltz on the downhill slope and a Hudson about three notches below what we thought we were getting from Oakland. I still enjoy the young guys like McCann and Francoeur, but I also know I'm going to see Chipper falling apart two or three years before we counted on, LaRoche failing miserably at obvious times, and Andruw (while still producing pretty healthy power numbers) failing to actually carry the team for any length of time. It's just not fun to watch, and I need some time to reconcile myself to that sad fact.

On the upside, Reitsma has now discovered an excuse for his putriscence. I wonder if the numbness in his fingers is in any way related the numbness that overwhelms my entire will to live when I see him coming in from the bullpen.

What else? I won't pretend like I care about soccer more than 1 month every 4 years, so I won't wax poetic on it too much. That being said, I never played soccer. I doubt I know dick about soccer, compared to what I know about say baseball or football. But dear merciful lord gentleman, the game against the Czech Republic yesterday was the worst beating I've seen since Cousin Eddie stuffed a banana down his pants and set the monkey loose. How did the Czech Republic find 10 white stiffs that are apparently speedier than our most elite soccer practitioners? This boggles my mind.

Football previews are starting up, so I can probably start discussing that again now. We are thankfully on the downhill slope, as I gleefully approach my first UGA football season as an actual student there. It'll be nice not having to sneak into the student section for once. Beyond that, there's probably tons of other things going on that bear discussing, but one of the guys on the right is already doing it better than me, so go, read, and be enriched.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Checking in with the Triumvirate of Death ...

2006-06-05T22:52:00.000-04:00

First off, to answer TJ's question, I have not been watching the "Walker: Texas Ranger" marathon on Spike. There's no need really. Any man with a pair between his legs owns "Walker" and has a TV devoted to running it on loop 24/7, interspersed with periodic viewings of Lone Wolf McQuade, Missing in Action, The Octagon, Delta Force, and most importantly, Sidekicks.

The only fight he ever lost or just a carefully orchestrated illusion?

In the meantime I've been feeling like I somehow Zambranoed my right arm since I've been having elbow pains like hell. Apparently too much "chatting" on the interwebs is hazardous to one's health.

Tonight I'm downloading porn at 14.4 kilobytes pers second. I'm just kidding, I got a cable modem back there.

Also, we're about an hour past UGA coming out of the losers bracket and pulling the double gut punch against FSU to make it to the super regional against South Carolina. Hopefully now that we've narrowed it down to 16 teams I can get some better coverage than the lame ass Fox Sports announcers and info on espn.com that doesn't update scores til the next day and gives wrong game times.

And lastly before we crap on the Braves, if anyone could explain to me the purpose behind last night's "season finale" of The Sopranos, I would greatly appreciate it.

So after roughly 60 games, I think it's time to break down the early season Triumvirate of Death (ToD) of Pratt, Jordan, and Diaz against McCann, LaRoche, and Langerhans. We'll take this by position and provide some rough offensive numbers for comparison, namely:

AVG / HR / RBI / OPS

Catcher

McCann (121 AB): .347 / 5 / 21 / .953
Pratt (62 AB): .226 / 1 / 8 / .612

This comparison really isn't fair to Bobby's mis-managerial skills since McCann has been gone for 2 weeks now with an injury. A pretty harsh blow considering all the 1 and 2 run losses in the last 2 weeks. It's a safe bet that McCann's bat could have made a difference in a couple of those games. In the end, we're going to have to live with 1 or 2 Pratt starts a week regardless since Bobby will never start a catcher 6 or 7 games a week.

First Base

LaRoche (168 AB): .250 / 9 / 33 / .836
Jordan (72 AB): .222 / 3 / 9 / .650

Unfortunately this is like picking between the lesser of two crap piles. LaRoche's numbers may not be setting the world on fire, but still, there's no reason for someone with Jordan's anemic numbers to have 45 or 50% of LaRoche's at bats. On the other hand, LaRoche's ability to seemingly constantly ground out to end the inning or game in bases loaded situations, such as in tonight's game, coupled with his periodically unexplainable slack ass play in the field, such as whiffing on Nick Johnson's grounder to kick start Washington's 5 run inning tonight gives plenty of anecdotal evidence as to why it's ok to stick Jordan out there. Of course then you come to your senses and remember it's Brian Jordan and his inning killing bionic knees. I really don't envy Bobby here, at this point I'd like to bench them both and replace them with something robotic, perhaps the AWESOME-O 4000, thereby combining Jordan's knees and LaRoche's total lack of affect in one entity.

Left Field

Langerhans (160 AB): .244 / 4 / 16 / .709
Diaz (79 AB): .329 / 2 / 12 / .861

This one has pretty much reversed itself since the year began. Langerhans has cooled down from his hot start and Diaz has actually shown himself to be a viable major league hitter. Given the numbers I have no problem with platooning Diaz against lefties and Langerhans against righties.

So to total up, Bobby's lost his choice at catcher, although if Pratt gets any meaningful starts after McCann gets back I'm going to place him in the wrong. He's left with a crap shoot of, well crap, at first, although the numbers still bear out that LaRoche should be getting the lion's share of the time. And Bobby has proven me wrong in left field where Diaz has proven to be just as effective (more so really to this point) than Langerhans.

We could also touch on Giles struggles to adjust to hitting in the leadoff spot and the possibility of flip flopping him and Renteria at the top, that way, even if Giles continues to hit .250 for the rest of the year, at least some of his outs might move Renteria along instead of starting games with an automatic out. Plus it could improve his situation, I can't help but think that batting leadoff has gotten into his head a bit. He has upped his walk total, but I'm wondering if it's at the expense of his aggresiveness that was key to his approach. And if we really wanted to think creatively here, we stick McCann in the 2 hole (nullus) after Renteria when he gets back and move Giles down to the 6 spot.

Of course this is all meaningless because right now I boil the Braves down to two key things. First, this appears to be the season where we're cursed to only hit in games where our pitching staff is being battered and only get good pitching in games where everyone is employing the patented Andruw Jones, step-in-the-bucket swing, circa, well every year before last season. The second and most telling metric though is that any team employing Chris Reitsma under the condition that he retire batters without allowing runs is operating under a gross delusion. It's reached the point that now not only can he not save a game, he can't even hold a deficit anymore. We send him out there to hold a 1 or 2 run deficit in the bottom of the 8th and top of the 9th, just to give ourselves a chance to get back with a big shot in the next half inning, and he turns it into a 4 run deficit every time now. The man is complete clown shoes.

Why don't you go back out and we'll try this all over again ...

2006-05-21T22:58:00.000-04:00

Nothing like one of the more depressing sports Saturdays in recent memory to bust me out of silence. I've got Georgia setting their only OT of note, ulcer-inducing as Inman may be, out for the first two games. I've got the Braves getting blanked 13-0 and McCann getting hurt, although today's performance softens the blow somewhat. I've got Bonds unfortunately finally hitting 714. And I've got the Kentucky Derby winner, possible Triple Crown threat, Prothroing himself on the front stretch to the point where he might have to be put down. Banner day.

Lately I haven't found the time to even keep up with my favorite readings, much less post anything substantial of my own. My recent hiatus could share many blames. You could blame it on work and dealing with the mundane details of getting ready to move to Athens and start school in a couple months. You could blame it on trying to get out in the real world for Braves games and concerts and such. You could blame it on the nice weather bringing things like yard work and golf into the equation. But truthfully most of my time is spent trying to decide which situation HBO is creeping me out with the most, Vito and his dreams of johnny cakes on Sopranos or Benny's awkward, largely unsuccessful attempt at the art of love making on Big Love. Currently, Vito is in the lead because, as skeezy as I feel watching attempts of teenage Mormon lovemaking, scenes of Vito and Mustache Jim leave me watching the screen sideways, ready to duck at a moments notice.

Public Service Announcement, Lone Wolf McQuade is on Showtime Extreme tonight, you have been warned.

Anyway, without further ado, the roundtable, courtesy of Burnt Orange Nation, that brought me out of the woodworks after sitting on it for a week.

1. Which offseason story are you most tired of, and, on the flip side, interested in? (e.g. Reggie Bush's house, Jimmy Claussen, etc.)

Sadly my answer with basically pull directly from the old e.g. provided above, but whatever, good suggestions are good suggestions.

God help me, I love salacious stories that don't involve Mudcat's car or public restrooms in downtown Athens. It's great fun seeing how deep the rabbit hole goes at USC vis a vis Leinart and Jarrett's luxury apartment, Leinart skanking himself out, the Bush family's free house and the spurned agent, and various and other sundry items. Of course, this doesn't even delve into the Fulmer material at other schools like Ramonce Taylor proving everything is bigger in Texas to the tune of 5 pounds of cush in the backseat or the Free Republic of Dee Webb incident at Florida. On a human level, it has to make a man somewhat sad that we can't navigate 7 or 8 months of offseason with multiple felony charges spread throught the country, but as I said, as long as the by-line doesn't read Athens, GA, the schadenfreude tastes too sweet to pass up.

By and large, I'm not ready to hear about the class of 2007 yet. I realize that signing day for 2006 is 3+ months past and half the kids are on campus via early enrollment and the other half are about to graduate/graduating, but dammit, it's too early for me to get excited about kids that can't possibly play for at least 15 months. That being said, I will get overjoyed by any OT recruits that commit to UGA at any and all times since they've been avoiding us like we've got the muthafarkin' plague for the last several years.

But the Claussen case is a prime example of something guaranteed to want to make you vomit/gouge your eyes out/laugh hilariously at all the unwarranted hype. This isn't the 3rd Manning or even the 3rd Leak, we're talking about the 3rd Claussen. Get that through your head for a second. And take time to go wherever you need for copious Claussen brother digs. Doug's done plenty. Hell, flip back in time (and I'm too lazy to do it for you), I've poked plenty of fun at Iceman and Mongloid Rick, both on the interwebs and in the real world. The only thing that rivals the confidence I get from seeing the Chan Gailey Equilibrium and Game Ball on the other sideline is seeing a Claussen over there. Of course, to make matters better, Iceman v3.0 is being hyped as the best of the Claussens. Children, this is not high praise. I'm 25 years old with just enough legs and a slightly above average enough arm to be your 2nd or 3rd best QB option in an intramural game, and I'm pretty sure that qualifies me as the best Claussen.

As far as I can tell, the primary fallout of this mess is that Notre Dame has effectively torpedoed their ability to recruit another meaningful quarterback for the next 3 to 4 years after the praise heaped on v3.0 a year before he gets on campus.

2. Your head coach comes down with a mystery illness and has to step aside. You get to hand pick the replacement for the 2006 season. Who gets your vote?

Well, in spite of the losses at DT and in the secondary, my fear for the defense pales in comparison to my questions about the offense. Faces have changed a lot on defense in the last 5 years and, West Virginia game being a notable exception, they've normally answered the bell. We are breaking in a new quarterback of some sort, our most inexperienced O-line since 2003, and a largely inexperienced receiver corps. We should have a strong stable of runners. So I need a guy who can win with a young/inexperienced/possibly ineffective offense as long as he's got a defense behind him.

It's always tempting to take The Ol' Ball Coach. As much as I've cursed SOS in his days, I've always respected him, and I never doubted that I'd love him if he were my coach. However, his quick trigger and machinations with QB's could submarine the seasons of any and all of those guys.

Tressel won a national title with a strong defense, strong running game, and a guy named Craig Krenzel, who according to ABC was wicked smart because he took a class with biology in the title, playing quarterback. On the other hand, I hate the man and his attire, so no deal.

So I'll go with the 2000 version of Bob Stoops, before the big game chokes of recent years. He won a national title with a kickass defense covering up the holes of an offense with a 5'6" running back, a bunch of converted DB's for receivers, and a lefty with arm strength similar to my aforementioned arm strength at QB. Plus I just like the guy, one of my favorite coaches.

As a wild card, I'd rip Saban back out of the NFL.

3. Lastly, we'll mix the football and the blogging together here. If you could have anyone switch allegiances and start covering your team, who you gonna pick?

First, UGA blogging talents are prodigious. You've got guys like Paul and Kyle with wall to wall coverage other schools can't even comprehend. You've got the intelligensia like Realist and LD and Doug that drop knowledge on not only UGA but all other various and sundry matters, sports related and otherwise.

The first easy pull would be to get Secret Agent Swindle, but when you think about it, the fact that EDSBS are Florida fans is incidental to what they do. The largest benefit of pulling them over would simply be to point and say, "Hey those guys are with me."

So, I think if I were going to flip anyone, I'd flip Brian. As a fellow student of the engineering arts, I appreciate copious data accumulation followed by concise dissemination in the form of charts and graphs, especially the interactive type. Who wouldn't want play by play drive charts after the game? Who isn't impressed by the creation and administration of the Blog Poll or the interactive offense/defense graphs for all the teams?

I Love You Johnny Cakes ...

2006-05-15T01:02:00.000-04:00

The sounding of the death knell of my care free youth.

I never really needed to see Vito kiss a gay fireman, followed by an all too symbolic cut to a toy train passing into a dark tunnel.

Are the Braves managed by functional retards?

2006-04-30T18:38:00.000-04:00

Discuss.

I do like Bobby Cox and am a fan of the Bobby Cox Era in the general sense. I do think that some of the postseason troubles can be traced to how he runs the team and how the team is constructed (which I assume he gets a certain degree of input into with Schuerholz). But in the end, he does an excellent job of handling players and engendering a winning atmosphere, whatever the hell that means. However, after taking in the Friday night game in person and suffering through the game last night, I am more concerned than ever that we're being piloted by functional idiots.

I've never really held with Bobby's innate need to platoon at least 1 or 2 positions, not including catcher, normally to the tune of the trite old righty-lefty crap. Nor have I always held with his manipulation of the bench in late game situations. And of course the last 2 days were stunning examples of that.

On Friday night, we somehow "managed" ourselves into this position. After our "closer" came in and miraculously turned our 1 run deficit into a 3 run by doing all the little things like not throwing strikes and giving up homeruns, we come into the bottom of the inning having 3 outs against Billy Wagner to get 3 runs. The real beauty of the situation though is who we were left with to make 2 of those 3 outs. After pinch running with Orr in a previous inning and pulling old double switch to get Brian Jordan and his bionic knees in for LaRoche, we're left with the pitcher's spot hitting in the 5 hole, up 3rd in the inning. So instead of leaving LaRoche alone to run for himself (Orr of course being easily retired on a ground ball to the infield), we've now inserted a hole into the heart of the lineup. Of course, we peer down the bench and insert Matt Diaz to contribute a much needed out to the cause. Then, through some miraculous occurence, we actually manage to load the bases and bring the winning run to the plate, in the form of Brian McCann, who's actually been one of our few effective hitters over the last couple weeks. But of course being a lefty, there's no possible way we could leave him in to hit against Wagner. And I mean who could argue with the logic of taking a guy hitting .300 (and here I am too lazy to see what McCann hits against lefties, but hell, make it a random crap number like .184) to replace him with a guy who won't hit .200, PERIOD. Strangely enough, 3 pitch, game ending strike out ensues. I don't care how badly McCann hits against lefties, it's going to be better than a guy who isn't going to get 20 hits all season.

Of course Saturday was a whole game Charlie Foxtrot where we start the triumvirate of inning killers I like to call Diaz, Jordan, and Pratt. I understand the need to rest catchers. I know Bobby can't help but platoon first base, even if it is with Brian Jordan's lifeless corpse (and yes I know he got 2 hits yesterday, see how many times that happens). But who in the holy hell feels the need to also platoon the outfield on top of that? Isn't it bad enough that we've had a hard time getting offensive continuity with everyone hitting a cold streak simultaneous to injuries at the 1 and 2 spot? Do we really need to add to that by refusing to set a consistent lineup after we get them back? I realize it probably happens with less frequency than it feels like, but I swear to god it feels like these 3 guys are starting every 3rd game. There is no way you can expect to score enough runs to win any percentage of games where you start all 3 of these guys at the same time. If one of these guys hits over .250 on the year, you can kick me square in the nuts.

For a while, I feared I wouldn't find a picture of Jordan's knees in a functional state.

Anyway, there's obviously much more complaining to do about the Braves, but that's all I have the heart for today. Perhaps salvaging the win today to end the longest losing streak I can remember has dulled my edge a little.

Sundown ya better take care ...

2006-04-25T22:32:00.000-04:00

Paul, amongst others, breaks the story of trickeration betwixt the wily mountain folk of West Virginia. But the question remains, how in the high holy hell do you get busted for spying on open practice? I mean, unless he showed up in a coon skin cap and buckskin leggings, this really shouldn't have been too hard to pull off.

This touching tale struck a cord with me though because I almost hatched the same scheme while I was at Tech. My office was directly above the practice field, so come 4 in the afternoon, when there was little to no chance that I was doing any more work, I'd either prop my feet up and watch out the window or stroll outside and take in practice, either solo or with friends. Early on, it occured to me that I could easily take some detailed notes and forward them to some unknown email address somewhere in the athletic department at UGA. Of course, after a few practices you realize that it would be largely useless because your daily description of practice would become a stock email looking something like this:

Reggie fumbles snap.

Chan scratches ass and peers at play sheet.

Reggie throws to no one in particular.

Kenny Scott tries to start a fight.

Calvin makes a badass catch.

Reggie turns the wrong way for a handoff.

Chan scratches ass and peers at play sheet.

Bilbo drops a catchable ball, others watching practice try to convince themselves that this is his year.

Kenny Scott talks trash over the drop and tries to start a fight.

And of course, don't forget to throw in a liberal helping of booming strings of curses fit to make a sailor blush from Tenuta.

And truthfully speaking, I didn't really need my practice notes to know that I can always count of Game Ball to throw the ball away on 4th down or throw away from the best receiver in the nation on the goal line for a game ending pick. A little consistency in this topsy turvy world is a comforting thing.

Given what I've been dropping lately, I envy him ...

2006-04-13T22:38:00.000-04:00

And thus I present to you the early season contender for ALBUM (title) OF THE YEAR ...

Final Fantasy - "He Poos Clouds"

I would think that would be a Peaceful Easy Feeling (apologies Ian)

At this point, a more thorough man might lapse into a discussion on his first album, the Montreal connection, Arcade Fire angle, whatever. Luckily, maturity has not captured me to the point where I think it's more important to be thorough than it is to laugh at the word Poo. Sadly, I haven't had a listen at it yet, but I'll provide a second hand review from a friend of mine that went something along the lines of, "I've only heard it once, but I don't think it's particularly purchaseable, except for the fact that you'll own an album called He Poos Clouds."

Gentlemen, I leave you to form your own conclusions.

Gators and Braves and, wow, this is getting lame ...

2006-04-06T23:00:00.000-04:00

Requisite football related knowledge:

First off, the UGA quarterback race is probably reduced by 1, cast your eyes. In my eyes, this eliminates the guy that was probably least likely to pull a start, so it doesn't really change much. And for all my Auburn friends who always wondered why I didn't mention Blake when they asked who I thought would start next year, even though they heard he looked so good when he first came in, it's because everything I hear is that he hasn't changed much from that day.

Second, Reuben Hooters gets sentenced. I really don't have much to add to this. With a ring that rolled up this many people, Rubes is probably guilty of snitching considering he got out with 9 months probation for lugging around 92 pounds worth of weed.

So what was that Florida team?

I don't really think they were a classic, all-time sort of team. They probably rate somewhere in the middle of the title teams over the last 10 years. I don't really think we're looking at an all-time great run or anything like that. They played who they had in front of them, it's not their fault they didn't get to have an OMG SOO HOTT !!1!!! win. Perhaps if UConn had survived Mason, not only would their win over Nova not lust so much luster, but they would have had the chance to dispatch the consensus best team. But it isn't their fault everyone on UConn over the height of 6'6" pulled a disappearing act. Truthfully their run has a hard time standing up to Mason's run through Michigan State, UNC, Wichita State, and UConn as the tournament's most impressive, not to mention that in the historical sense they're not even sniffing at '97 Arizona's run through three #1 seeds, Kansas, UNC, and Kentucky.

But none of that is their fault. What they are is one of a few very good teams in a year with no great teams. As Ian points out, all the 1's this year bowed out in a predictable fashion, meaning they all had obvious weaknesses to be exploited. I would posit that any team that loses 3 games in a row, as UF did this year, also has weaknesses to be exploited. Luckily for them, through a combination of good team play, good coaching, outstanding athleticism, and some good matchups, their's never were. If you want to know why I discounted them so much, it'd be a tasty combination of two things. First, after watching Donovan teams bow out to lesser competition in the 1st or 2nd round every year since 2000, I wasn't ready to buy into the talk that this team was different until I actually saw it. Which leads to, of the 6 or 7 games I saw them play, 3 of them were losses and another was the 49-47 "title game" against South Carolina in the SEC tourney. So given that data, I was more than willing to continue to buy into my Billy Bias. Not to mention, I do hate UF to the point where I'm willing to set objectivity aside to find a way to pick against them. Actually, UCLA and Duke were probably the only two teams in the tournament I would have felt comfortable with them beating.

Still not the ugliest man in the Finals.

So they're a very good team in a year with no great teams. It's hardly unprecedented and I don't have a problem with a team like that winning the tournament. Hell someone has to. Frankly, I don't think you have to go very far back to find another team that matchs them in youth and quality compared to the overall field. I won't beat Florida into the ground again, every knows about the sophomores and the freshman Collison giving good minutes and some such stuff. So I now present to you Syracuse circa 2003.

Syracuse's top 5 minutes went to:

Freshmen Carmelo Anthony, Gerry McNamara, and Billy Edelin (he didn't ever start but he played starter's minutes after he returned from being suspended for the first 12 or so games for some AAU dust up).

Sophomore Hakim Warrick.

Senior Kueth Duany.

The next 3 guys picking up the most minutes were sophomores Josh Pace (from nearby Griffin High School) and Craig Forth (who was the 5th starter), and junior Josh McNeil.

Your top 3 scorers were Anthony, Warrick, and McNamara.

So for all the talk of this year's UF team being about youth being served, your 2003 championship had 3 freshman and 3 sophomores in the 8 man rotation and its top 3 scorers were all freshman or sophomores. I don't think you're going to get much younger than that.

Both teams suffered most of their losses in conference play, although Florida found a way to suffer 2 and 3 game losing streaks in conference while Cuse spread their's out throughout the year. Florida suffered dual head scratching losses to South Carolina, while Cuse's only repeat losses were to a slightly more understandable UConn.

Come tournament time both had superstars become largely unstoppable, Anthony and Noah. Both had timely shooting, McNamara matching Brewer and Humphrey. Both played an effective defense, Florida switching D's with crazy ass athleticism and Noah to clean up everything on the backside and Cuse with the 2-3 zone that was particularly effective with Hakim Warrick's 9'4" wingspan on the wing, as evidenced by the blocked shot to clinch the game. Both very good teams that found a way to minimize or hide any weaknesses where other comparable teams could not.

His length excites me (nullus). I believe this came from espn.com if anyone is interested.

As far as the repeat talk, of course if everyone returns they'd have to be the prohibitive favorite. However, say all you want about Noah loving Florida and not needing the money and what not have you, if he's the competitor they say he is, the siren song of being a top 5 or top 3 in the draft and playing against pro competition would have to be strong. Also I don't think it's a lock that Crazy Brewer comes back either. And, all that being said, if you want historical context for a national title team that could have returned everyone, consult '97 Arizona where Bibby, Simon, Bramlett, Terry, Dickerson, and Davison were all juniors or less. You will in fact not find them still balling in the Final 4 in '98.

Just to prove AJ Bramlett is still alive.

Braves Pitching

To paraphrase, what can I say about those starters that hasn't been said about Afghanistan; they looked bombed out and depleted.

Realist addresses this already in proper fashion, and that was before Sosa added his 2 cents (and 6 runs) this afternoon.

In ascending order of worry:

Smoltz doesn't concern me that much. Last year didn't exactly start beautifully either, but he rounded right into form.

Hudson concerns me mildly, mainly because I feel like his first start this year reminded me so much of his rougher patches last year and looked so little like his years in Oakland. I was always a big fan of Oakland's big 3 and watched a lot of their games, and I do not remember him having this hard a time throwing strikes back then. He looks like he labors all the time to me. Every strike is an effort, and suddenly it's the 5th or 6th and he's pitched hiimself into a wet rag and then people just start teeing off. Monday was a beautiful (if by beautiful you mean terrible harbinger of death) example.

Sosa concerns me a good deal. He went 13-3 last year by pitching in and out of bases loaded jams 4 times a game. God knows it was great TV, but you can't keep living like that, and if today was any indication, he certainly intends to try. Deep jacking one was nice, but it's going to take 2 or 3 of those a game to make up loading the bases every other inning and then trying to go '99 Pedro style on them, it just doesn't always work.

Growing a jheri curl does not a Pedro make.

Realist covers Ramirez beautifully, so I'll leave it. He also addresses the already incorrect usage of Reitsma.

On the other hand, the offense has looked pretty strong from 1 to 8 so far, minus Francoeur's mammoth cuts at air (which I predict to continue as long as he refuses to wear knee highs). I'm already tired of the possible platoon of Jordan and LaRoche though. I don't know Bobby's deal is with refusing to let left handed first basemen play against lefties, whatever it is, it dates all the way back to Klesko. But at least with Franco, he was eerily healthy for a 56 year old man, Jordan has about 8 bionic joints and hasn't had a clutch hit in about 4 years. He is without a doubt the designated rally killer and last out of the inning. Anyway, I don't know that we quite match what the Yankees can put out there, but we can definitely score some runs. And most impressively, there's even been some timely hitting so far this year. So, hope abounds, huzzahs.

There's more to be said about baseball in general and the Braves specifically, but if you've survived and read this long, I'll mercifully let you leave.

April Fools bitch ...

2006-04-02T23:03:00.000-04:00

And now you see the true depth of my powers. If I wish hard enough against something, it is nearly statistically impossible for it to not subsequently come true. To wit:

"So anyway, chances are we'll be sitting here 7 days from now discussing how Florida took down UCLA in a 41-37 thriller that featured 14 total made baskets. Gotta love it."

Now I realize that we still lack a final score from tomorrow night to make this a totally true prediction, but I think we can all see where this heading. And yes, if you are wondering, I will gladly hire out my negative karma to the highest bidder. If it's going to cause me such angst and disappointment, I might as well make a dime.

If you were curious as to my honest opinion, I think Florida cuts them down tomorrow night. Of course, I've also thought UCLA should have lost their last 4 games in a row, so who am I to ask. But if Noah continues to be largely unanswerable and Crazy Brewer keeps hitting from the outside, you've got to think it will happen. And yes, you can color me uber-friggin-surprised if UCLA finds a way to carve out more than 43 points.

After I started seriously following college basketball around 1990, I never thought I'd see the day where I wouldn't watch the Finals; however, minus a few look-ins for posterity's sake, I think we may see that day come tomorrow. I'll save historical comparisons as to the overall averageness of this year's champs until we actuall know who it is. So til then ...

"Well, my name is known all over the world
by all the foxy ladies and the pretty girls ..."

Our hopes are dropping, the temperature's risin' ...

2006-03-28T19:53:00.000-05:00

And so it becomes time for the first roundtable of the season. I guess that means it really is ok to start counting the days. In fact, a friend attempted to convince me last night during dinner than 5 months really isn't that long of a time. In truth though, I have The Masters weekend after next, unfortunately sharing time with the Spring Game, some excitement for the first month of baseball season, then we have to settle in for the June/July doldrums before things really kick up again.

Then again, 5 months ago, I was in a different job, did not have a kickass mustache, and law school was just a half formed idea, and all that seems like yesterday, so hopefully it will keep flying by. And when one considers that in that time I'm going to have to find a place to live in Athens and undergo the hassle of moving that I have long since pledged to try to avoid like that plague, topped off with the fact that the length of every summer seems to be receeding in a manner similar to my hairline, perhaps it really will be here in no time.

In the meantime, courtesy of Joey at Schembechler Hall:

1) It's early, but thus far, which offseason change or changes in college football are you most excited about?

There's not really a whole lot of program changes in the offing this year. Coaching staff, with the exception of bringing in Tony Ball stays basically intact. No big facility changes or anything. CMR did bring in one of the more exciting recruiting classes in the country, centered around OMG HOTT Matt Stafford. Lot of exciting additions on the defensive side of the ball too.

Of course, one of the biggest changes surrounding UGA are the edicts from on high passed down Chief Jackbag Adams concerning tailgating for this year. The total inanity of most the policies have been bandied about in several places, perhaps most eloquently by Realist. While they won't directly affect me too much, they will affect a lot of people. So in the "first game surprise what the hell is going on out there" kind of way I think it's something that a lot of people are going to get excited about before September comes to an end. Personally I have no problem with telling people not to park on the grass and laying out more trash cans, but the rest of it is pretty much a gigantic turdsandwich that he's trying to serve up, once again proving he has no clue what 95% of his alumni/fan base want.

Fire and police were called to keep him out of the building

Looking at the totality of college football, I think we can all get excited about the departure of guys like Young, Leinart, and Bush. We'll get to approach this new season with a much more wide open landscape on who the national title contenders might be.

Without a doubt, everyone should be excited about the 12 game season this year. Anything that provides me with one more game to get nervous about, discuss into the ground, drink beforehand, experience in all its glory, and then hopefully perform a victorious postmortem over Peppino's is always a plus to me.

2) With spring practice underway, what are the three concerns about your team that are causing you the most anxiety? (USC fans can't just list the departures of Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, and LenDale White.)

Public Enemies 1 and 2:

Mudcat's Car. That POS has taken down more players than Christine this offseason. And yes, god knows someone has to have made that joke already, probably many times over.

Public Restrooms. Here's to hoping we can avoid another Ian Smith Turdgate / Dreamcatcher Shit Weasel situation.

Earl, right before Ian Smith's turd got him

Actually, more offseason trouble would make my list of top 3 anxieties. We've got a good history of low level, head scratching, how the hell do they get picked up for that crap type of offenses built up over the last couple of years. Downtown after the spring game will be a particular concern. It's especially troubling for me this year because, although we should be able to get by Western Kentucky with 7 guys on the field, traveling to Columbia for game number 2 could be taxing if too many guys get busted and sat with 2 game suspensions. It's not like it hasn't happened before.

Strangely enough, quarterback doesn't really make my list of top 3 concerns. Between JT3, Blake, Cox, and Stafford, we should be able to put a serviceable quarterback out there pretty quickly. Other positions actually churn more stomach acid than quarterback.

First off would have to be the offensive line. We're looking at the biggest turnover since the 2002-2003 offseason. Pretty much all we know for sure is that Nick Jones has been pretty good, Valasco looked not bad 2 seasons ago, and Inman will cause me to call down thunder and retribution on him at least 3 times a game. Beyond that, everything is pretty wide open.

Defensive anxieties can be split into two types. The linebackers and d-line are fine on experience, at least on the front line, but experienced depth is basically a non factor up there. I may well be the #2 rush end and not even know it yet. On the other hand, the defensive backfield has grown fairly stocked with some crazy athletic talent, but other than Paul Oliver and poor Tra Battle (who I only hope will be passed by someone, god bless him) no one has started. Given the strength of the defense over the last 4 or 5 years though, I really can't let myself worry about it that much.

First of many King Charles references this year hopefully

3) Care to take a stab at a preseason top five?

Well this is a spur of the moment, hardly any thought at all list, so if I leave out something glaringly obvious, cut me some slack. And this is much more based on people poised to run towards an undefeated/1 loss season, not who I think is strongest, that'll come later with much more thought.

1. Ohio State
2. Notre Dame
3. West Virginia
4. LSU
5. Hell if I know, it's late, I need to go to bed.

Taking Wrongness to an Art Form ...

2006-03-27T21:48:00.000-05:00

Where we try to keep alive the belief that sometimes:
Close ≠ Entertaining ≠ Good.

This will probably be the last great bloviation on basketball before moving back to football and other various and sundry items. I'm also going to lay down a claim of stepping up my posting now that situations allow, a statement that I hope proves to be perfectly cromulent in its truthiness.

One more note before we begin, I usually avoid Scoop Jackson, but I broke down and decided to check out his tournament diaries/journals/whatevers, and dear gentleman, that's brutal. I mean, I doubt I'm any good, but likewise I don't get a platform that reaches millions of people, nor do I get paid. I'm pretty sure after reading these two that his thesis for any given argument must be, black people talk different than white people and women's basketball is good??? Anyway, more avid readers can correct me if I'm wrong. But everything Ian ever intimated about him appears to be completely true.

Obviously I would have been punctilious in assuming that if I did go to the trouble of broadcasting my thoughts on the tournament to all 16 of my loyal readers, what would follow would be the most head scratching, WTF tournament that I've ever been a part of. On the upside, I was fairly sure this would be the case before I ever started, so I guess some bonus points may apply for that. However, bonus points would probably have to be deducted for having 3 Final Four teams alive starting Saturday and none left by 6 on Sunday afternoon.

I should probably go ahead and rake myself over the coals for some things I should have seen coming, to wit:

Kansas and North Carolina, despite their growth during the season and strong runs to end the year would struggle against experienced teams like Bradley and George Mason that would force them into playing a tempo that they were unfamiliar and uncomfortable with. Extra kick in the nuts for not remembering to completely discount Bill Self's tournament coaching credentials.

Not recognizing that Florida's crazy athleticism, combined with the fact that Donovan finally has a team not full of jackbags like Walsh and Roberson who couldn't give a damn about listening, could lead to a run through a weak bottom half of the Minneapolis region.

My weakness in only going halfway through with my LSU call. I couldn't have been happier to correctly predict them to take down Duke, but then I pussed out on taking them over Texas when I felt like they could do it head to head. My reasoning included convoluted thoughts based around LSU being the team more likely to lose before they made it to that game, which is patently ludicrous considering I thought they were 100% lock to beat Duke. So, major detraction for total lack of logic in there. My only guess is that I somehow thought that Brad Buckman's 8 years of experience would cancel out LSU's athletic advantage. Anyway, more on LSU later.

Also, not finding a way to will UCLA to an early round loss. I had honestly forgotten how disgusting I found it to watch a Ben Howland team. At least at Pitt though, the play fit the attitude of the team and the school. It made some semblance of a sense to see such vile, offenseless games coming from those Pitt uniforms, but seeing it transported to the UCLA blues is just sad. Are they not in possession of the memo? If not, someone needs to clue him in on the fact that the Pac-10 is all about free wheeling, high scoring, and hot chicks, regardless of the sport. California is no place for defensive muggings and offensive craptitude of the type that he's bringing out there.

And my other great mistake, I totally missed the chance to disrespect the Big 10, which I love doing, to the fullest extent. Lord knows I went a long way with having all of them but Ohio State losing by the end of the first Sunday, but I went against my heart and my head and threw Ohio State the annual "pointless Big 10 team that makes it 2 rounds further than they should" bone. See '05 Michigan State, '02 Indiana, '00 Wisconsin, et al. Never miss a chance to disrespect Big 10 basketball.

Without a doubt the tournament has been an eye opener and a learning experience as well. Probably most of these thoughts or questions have shown up other places (hell probably all of them), but I do certify that these were entirely formed in my own head before I had confirmation that other people had noticed them or dicussed them (mostly). Heretofore:

-Was the Big East just a gigantic circle jerk this year?

All year long we heard that the Big East was a bloodbath of high competition. They had 9 or 10 teams that deserved to be in the tournament. They had Notre Dame, the best hard luck team in the nation, that struggled to make the Big East tournament but would have probably been a top 5 team in any other power conference. They had dangerous, difficult match up teams like Georgetown and West Virginia. They had Villanova and UConn, who along with Duke were 2 of the consensus top 3 teams all season.

What we got was marginal teams like Syracuse (with probably the best excuse of the 4 game run necessary to win the conference tournament), Marquette, and Seton Hall bounced hard in the first round, a next level team like Pitt dominated in the 2nd round by Bradley, and the flagship teams of Nova and UConn absolutely drifting through the first 3 rounds in the about the worst way possible against before bowing out to what had to be considered lesser competition.

Nova needed every break in the world to survive BC before the 4 guards were run off the court by Florida's athleticism and their own poor shooting. What does it say when the only move Jay Wright really had was to tell Allen Ray to keep shooting, shit had to go in sooner or later. UConn on the other hand was well on the way to becoming the first team to win the tournament after trailing in the 2nd half of every game. They made Kentucky actually look like a real team before falling to George Mason, when they found themselves unable to mount any sort of defense in the 2nd half and overtime. I don't have exact numbers, but I'm pretty sure that excepting George Mason's last 3 possessions of the 2nd half where they tried to give the game away, they scored on roughly 137% of their possessions in the 2nd half and overtime.

I did experience a great moment of clarity Sunday right after the UConn game ended when I realized that before the Nova game ever tipped, they had no chance whatsoever. So weird, woke up that morning thinking I was putting two teams in the Final 4, and as soon as Denham Brown's shot fell off, I knew that I was going to have to watch Joakim Noah in the Final 4.

The absolute best I can think to say about the Big East is that West Virginia and Georgetown basically played to their potential and went out fighting with a chance to win in tough games.

Anyway, say what you will about Boone and Armstrong as NBA guys, because their offensive skill set is obviously debatable (by which I mean teh lame), these guys will be drafted. Rashad Anderson will without a doubt find a home launching bombs for someone, and Marcus Williams was, give or take, the best point guard in the tournament. And Rudy Gay, well, as one of my friends said, "You know he's gay because his last name is actually Smith, but they still wrote Gay on his uniform anyway." This tournament was their's for the taking, one of the sadder examples of not playing anywhere near their top line potential that I can think of.

-If it was common knowledge that most Big 10 teams were a joke when not on their home floors, why were they so respected in the seeding?

Honestly I have no idea why, and a lot of people were espousing this idea all season. For whatever reason, outside of the friendly confines, most of the Big 10's reps lost that lock down Big 10 D and couldn't throw the ball in the damn ocean. There's not much more to say about this except that it seems like a common theme to me, noting that I am biased against them. Maybe everyone thought Greg Brunner's 7 years in college had to count for something.

-The tournament is a guard's game?

Well Tyrus Thomas, Glen Davis, Jai Lewis, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, et al would like to let Lowery, Foye, Ray, and Nardi know that perhaps this year that truism wasn't so, well, true. I don't have any strong explanation for this aberration, except for maybe that guard play across the nation this year was down, which allowed teams like LSU and Florida to turn their raw athleticism at the guard position loose to shut down the other team's guard play while relying almost exclusively on their front line for their offensive output. See Garrett Temple shutting down J.J. Redick or Nova's inability to find a mismatch for one of their guards on the offensive end. Of course UCLA is the exception to this entire discussion since as far as I can tell, they have no offensive output whatsoever.

-The Pac-10 and SEC were better than we thought?

Well, 3 out of the Final Four teams from what the RPI considered two of the lower power conferences, which just goes back to the old story of what exactly the hell does the RPI really show? Besides backing UCLA into the Final 4, Arizona and Washington both played above and beyond what people were expecting, with Arizona surviving an expected loss to Wisconsin and giving Nova one of its many brushes with death, and Washington surviving the predicted upset in the 1st round, bouncing Illinois and basically being, I won't say cheated, but pretty much cheated out of sending UConn home a round earlier. Meanwhile, the SEC sends LSU and UF through 2 of the supposed top 3 teams in the nation, Duke and Nova, not to mention LSU dismissing Texas.

Tennessee was set up to fail, I don't think that surprised anyone, they didn't deserve a 2 and they played like it. But Kentucky exorcised the UAB demons and Sparks nearly sent UConn packing. Alabama dismissed a Big East team and tested UCLA. Only Arkansas truly disappointed me. I think they could have given Memphis a run for its money if they hadn't flamed out against Bucknell.

Bottom line, in years like this where it shakes out that there are actually no dominant teams, people have a tendency to underestimate just how successful the athleticism of SEC teams can be, even if they are a bit raw skill wise.

-The Duke and Gonzaga dismissals

These get special treatment for a variety of reasons.

The Duke loss gets special treatment because I hate Duke and revel in the end of their season. I couldn't be happier to have nailed the game dead on, and furthermore, I couldn't be happier about how well I described it 3 weeks before it happened, right down to J.J. being choked out and Shelden getting into foul trouble and being largely dominated on the inside. Now if McRoberts can just go ahead and leave, I can be truly happy.

The Gonzaga loss gets special treatment because it was just so surreal. I know they lacked a certain killer instinct most of the year, letting teams hang around and not closing out games, even against weaker opponents, but I chose to overlook it because I liked that team. The end of the UCLA game was just a 1 in 1000 confluence of events though. I think you could reset that game to 3 minutes left and replay it 20 times and they'd hold on every time. I'll assign some blame to Batista for mentally checking out, missing chippies and offensive rebounds on one side and totally failing to "value the ball" (token Raftery phrase) at the end. How in the high holy hell do you not immediately get it back over to Raivio, and if not, how do you just stand there holding it out as if they're going to give the foul without even trying for the steal? Just unreal. Blame goes to Few/Raivio as well. Mark totally failed to ever get his team back under control in the last 2 mintues when things started to break down. And Raivio, with an eternity of 10 seconds to come down and find a good shot for someone, Morrison one would imagine, manages to take off like he damn stole something and dribble right into a triple team, turning the ball over. For my man Morrison, yeah, if he could have hit any of his last 3 shots, it probably seals the game. On the other hand, he had hit about 10 of 13 up to that point, so maybe he was due for a cold streak and needed someone to pick it up for him. Frankly, I was surprised he didn't hit at least 1, but considering he was shooting off double or triple teams, I'm equally surprised that no one could find an offensive rebound and put back in that situation. On the crying issue, I don't know, I don't blame him, I remember how my last game felt when we lost in the state playoffs back in high school, so I sympathize. And really, I can't blame him for starting to break down at the jump ball call, after watching the wheels come off for the last 3 minutes I figure you'd either need to floor someone with a right cross or just break down and cry.

Farewell dear friend, I'd see you on the other side, but I ain't exactly taking in the League alot

-Close ≠ Entertaining ≠ Good

UConn and George Mason to overtime, with Mason hitting every 3 they took in the second half, UConn tying on a buzzer beating layup (Jai Lewis non defense noted), and Mason scoring on every possession of overtime is close and entertaining and good.

Nova and BC plodding through an entire game and overtime with Ray gunning a solid 3 for 15 (points to Foye for keeping them alive) and the game ending on a goal tending call is close, pretty entertaining, and not really good.

Memphis and UCLA engaged in an eye gouging display of offense that yielded like 7+ minutes without a field goal from both teams and a collective maybe 10 or 11 field goals in the whole 2nd half. Most offensive moves followed the template of: over dribble, take it inside, crazy melee, lame ass shot comes up, or the ever popular, dribble around for 25 seconds, jack up a 3, that may or may not draw iron. I really can't even think of funny metaphors to apply to this utter abomination of a game. Final analysis, not entertaining, not good. So, so far from not good. We're talking, FSU/Miami, Labor Day weekend ineptitude, minus the Cowgirls and creepy Brent Musberger lust. In the last 2 minutes of this game, the fact that Gonzaga isn't coming out of this region boggles the mind, if for no other reason that people really deserve to see a Final 4 team score 60+ points in multiple games.

Other examples abound, but the point is, while this year might have as many close games as last year, don't tell me the games are as good as last year. Last year's Illinois/Arizona, UK/MSU, and WVU/Louisville (minus some questionable end of period possessions) were the absolute truth compared to a lot of the close game vomit fests that were foisted over on us this year.

What's to come?

While I agree that the George Mason story is great, and I couldn't be more excited that Larranaga actually started reciting lines from "Kryptonite" as part of their interview during half time of the Nova/UF game, in the end, I can't get past the feeling that this is one of the sadder Final 4's I've ever been around. I look at these teams and can't find a single one to say, hell yeah, one of these guys should definitely go down as THE TEAM of 2005-2006. In a way, it's a great argument against a playoff format in football. Would anyone have been truly happy if West Virginia has bounced USC in the 2nd round of the December madness and Texas had gone down to Ohio State in a rematch in the semifinals and the National Title game in college football had come down to the 2 loss matcup of Ohio State and LSU or some such shit? I'm just saying both have their downfalls. I love the tournament in basketball, I would defend it to the death, and if the Fulmer Cup is any indication, I'm sure some guys at UF could outfit me for the battle. Like Donovan said, if you pushed the reset button back to 2 weeks ago, you'd probably get 4 different teams, but at least everyone knows what they have to do. And the small roster sizes (among other reasons) lead to a parity in college basketball that necessitates a tournament format. As far as what I think about a tournament versus the bowl structure in football, well, that's another day.

So high we might fly away? Big Boi would be pleased to know he's hitting in the 50+ white demographic.

Anyway, I like this LSU team, it's the only team left that I liked at all at the beginning of this whole ordeal. I think all they lack from being a seriously dominant team is a sniper from the outside. Put Rashad Anderson on this team and they'd be the utter truth. I'd put the obligatory Tyrus Thomas gush fest here, but you've read it, so just recite it in your head and go on.

Given that my predictions are in a neck and neck race with Brian Jordan to see who can get down to .200 first (seriously, I caught some of the spring training game against New York tonight and he is no shit still on the team, I realize he's a great clubhouse guy or whatever, but come the hell on, he's on like his 8th bionic joint), I'll skip out on actually prognosticating an outcome and just tell you what I'd like to see happen.

Somewhere during the UConn game, I got over George Mason beating Carolina and just decided, what the hell, I might as well enjoy this ride. Couple that with the fact that I really do hate Florida, in all sports, and it's kind of a no brainer for me to pull for Skinn to pull one more nut punch, hopefully on Noah.

And like I said before, I actually like LSU, like how they play, like the guys. So considering I find UCLA to be an abomination before all mankind, it's an equal no brainer to take TT and Davis to rain down pain on the spindly inside game of UCLA and watch JugEars Farmar and Afflalalalo try to score against Temple, Mitchell, and Mitchell.

But my toleration of George Mason does not translate all the way to Monday evening, as I wish against all that is to actually see LSU take this thing down and pray that Big Baby gets that tapeworm fed. Apologies to all Raftery lines (especially, "Sing me a song, a sweet kiss, Tony Bennett" during the Bradley game), but that was the no lie line of the tournament right there, quickly followed by TT just letting folks know they want to get fed. Tapeworm in the belly was quickly added to the hopper of possible trivia names. Fantastic.

So anyway, chances are we'll be sitting here 7 days from now discussing how Florida took down UCLA in a 41-37 thriller that featured 14 total made baskets. Gotta love it.

Tapeworm my ass.

Bracketardegy, The Clueless Manifesto ...

2006-03-15T21:53:00.000-05:00

Leading off bitches.

Before we delve into the two and a half weeks of pure joy kicking off tomorrow, a quick recap of what's been going on, which shouldn't take long. I did take in Wilco at the Classic Center last week. Ian brings the timely and complete review. I will add that seeing them at the Fox last time added a bit more ambiance than the high school gym feel of the Classic Center, but Ian is quite right, the Georgia Theater wasn't exactly going to hold that crowd. Also much truth is his point about the bathrooms. Given that most of my concert bathroom experiences could best be summarized as running an obstacle course of vomit and strange pools to get to the urinal overflowing with piss, going in the Classic Center felt like being in an operating room.

Before I divulge my thoughts on the tournament and how Duke is going to lose, I'll point you to several people whose thoughts on college basketball are probably deeper and more well founded than mine. So kudos to Joey, TJ, Mark, and Jerry.

On the whole, I agree that Billy Packer might well be Satan himself, and without a doubt he ruins the national title game for me every year. And he and Nantz went off the deep end with Littlepage during the Selection Show on Sunday. The two of them came off looking like idiots. I also agree that most of this bitching about the MVC getting 4 bids, matching the ACC and the Big XII is just the general punditry (although not all of it) looking for something to bitch about. Five or ten years ago the complaint was that average teams from power conferences got in at the expense of smaller conference teams. Now that it's turning around, everyone wants to bitch about Cincinnati sitting at home. Somehow, I just find it a touch more entertaining to see Bradley take a shot at taking down one of the big boys than to watch Florida State bow out without sniffing the 2nd round. If you're asking me if Southern Illinois or Northern Iowa has better athletes than Maryland, then the answer is no. If you're telling me that Maryland was without a doubt a better team than someone of their ilk this year, then obviously you didn't watch too many ACC games in their entirety.

I considered breaking this thing down 2 rounds at a time so I could come back next week with a clean slate and perhaps look like less of an idiot, but whatever, it is what it is, so why not hit the whole thing at once. So here are my predictions for the tournament that could very well go off without a winner since most of picks end up devolving into the lesser of 2 evils. Be forewarned, you won't find much number crunching analysis or even too many cogent discussions of style here. Trust me, I watched a lot of basketball (probably the most since 2000 when I was able to pick Michigan State out of the muck as the winner) and those were probably taken into account on some unconscious level, but you've already read all that, so all you get is my two sentence, glib and totally unfounded thoughts on the games.

Atlanta-The Duke Beater Sweepstakes

Making it to the 2nd round:
Duke
George Washington
Syracuse
LSU
West Virginia
Iowa
NC State
Texas

The chalk is a pretty easy call on Duke, Texas, Iowa, and LSU. I'm banking on Cuse having enough left in the tank to navigate their way past a Texas A&M team that may or may not even belong. West Virginia-Southern Illinois is a little tenuous too. I've had a fear of SIU ever since they dealt Jarvis and UGA out in the 2nd round a few years ago, and West Viriginia comes into the tournament moving in the exact opposite direction than they were last year. But I figure they got enough in them to outscore SIU. Cal and NC State is a total whatever the hell. Powe is good, NC State will probably burn them with backdoor cuts and such. I'm too lazy to see how healthy Evtimov and Bennerman are supposed to be, but I'll assume they'll be healthy enough to win. Lastly, George Washington deserves at least a first round win for their season, only to be gifted with a 2nd round matchup against Duke, at best with a rusty Pops. Nice reward for a good season.

Making it to the Sweet 16:
Duke
LSU
West Virgina
Texas

Lot of chalk, rusty Pops bows to Duke, Syrcause runs out of gas and can't bang inside with LSU, Texas has way too much for NC State (or Cal for that matter), but West Virginia plays out the last of their magic. Iowa can't score for dick, they can defend, but they can't score for dick. And Iowa makes a lot of hay playing at home. So somehow methinks WVU's modified Princeton and Pittsnogle create matchup problems that allow them to outscore Iowa and end Greg Brunner's college career at the tender young age of 31. Or hell, maybe he's coming back, god knows he's been in school at least 3 years less than Buckman and Kevin Bookout.

Elite 8:

LSU
Texas

The first thing you do when picking up your bracket is to find your Duke beater. You're never going to win a bracket or feel good about yourself picking Duke to win or even make the Final 4, so you pick that thing up and you designate your Duke beater. I rarely hit it dead on, I always either carry them a round more or less than they actually make it, but rest assured, your Duke beater is there and ready to work for you. So this year LSU gets the duty. Of course, this is troubling for several reasons, such as LSU's tendency to flame out in the tournament ever since the halcyon days of Stromile Swift back in '00 and the fact that Duke tends to be beat in rounds where Coach AmEx is outcoached, and I'm really not betting on John Brady to outcoach anyone. But whatever, I'm choosing to buy into the Big Baby hype this year. On the other side, Texas should be just a flat out better team than West Virginia, I don't really feel compelled to explain it beyond that. Plus, has anyone seen WVU play 3 good games in a row in the last 15 games?

Tons o'man girth

And your Final 4 participant from that side:
Texas

And here the lesser of two evils argument starts to come home to roost. Texas is about as talented as anyone out there and carries a fair bit of experience, if they play well, they should beat LSU, so I'll go with that.

Oakland-I guess one of them has to go to the Final 4

Making it to the 2nd round:
Memphis
Bucknell
Kent State
Kansas
San Diego State
Gonzaga
Marquette
UCLA

It seems to be popular to say that Oral Roberts could beat Memphis, but if watching a replay of the '89 Georgetown-Princeton game the other day taught me anything, it's that if a 1/16 upset ever happens, it'll involve a gimmicky offense grinding the game to a halt like Princeton did in that game, and I don't see Oral Roberts pulling that off. I'm tempted to take Bucknell for another ride, but the man who jumps on the wagon the year after they take down Kansas is generally the man who gets to see the wheels fall off underneath him. Kansas, Gonzaga, and UCLA should happen without too much ado. I'm taking Kent State over Pitt largely because I can't stand Krauser and Pitt couldn't score in a Tijuana Brothel with pockets full of green. I was tempted as hell to take Bama over Marquette because the SEC generally has one low seeded team make noise, but I'm saving that for Arkansas this year. I'm taking San Diego State over Indiana because it's been my rule since 1997 to disrespect Indiana in the tournament every chance you get, and the only year it really let me down was 2002. Damn that Tom Coverdale. Damn him straight to the Hell of Upside Down Sinners, and yes, Big Trouble in Little China is on in the background.

Making the Sweet 16:
Arkansas
Kansas
Gonzaga
Marquette

And hence Arkansas becomes my low seeded SEC team to make some noise by being the first team to drop a #1 seed this year. The basis for this pick, I'm skeptical on Memphis and I met Stan Heath outside the Georgia Dome during the Final 4 practices in 2002 right after he took the Arkansas job and he actually stopped to talk to me for a second, seemed like good people. Kansas rolls Kent State. I pray to god Gonzaga ends its run of maddening 2nd round losses against San Diego State, otherwise this Morrison mustache I shaved in especially for this will look downright ridiculous. Marquette takes down UCLA because, hell I don't know, Steve Novak makes like 104% of his free throws and Travis Diener must have left some mojo on that program somehow. Meanwhile, without Kapono and Gadzuric, how can I be expected to believe in UCLA? Truthfully, I just think the Pac-10 was trash this year, so they have drawn my primary ire as the conference to disprespect at every turn.

Snappy dresser? Maybe not. Good people? Seemed like it.

Elite 8:
Kansas
Gonzaga

Kansas is playing really well, they feel like an Elite 8 team. All previous Gonzaga arguments apply. It just seems like time for a Gonzaga team to finally match the performance of the Santangelo/Frahm/Calvary troika. They should score like crazy and hopefully Errol Knight and Heytvelt might play some defense, maybe.

Final 4:

Gonzaga

I stared this bastard down for 20 minutes. Kansas was playing better at the end of the year, but that's a ton of youth on that team a Final 4. This isn't quite a Fab 5 we're discussing here, but next year, off to the races. Meanwhile, I comtemplatively stroke my mustache and pencil in Gonzaga for the Final 4, and preemptively prepare myself for a crushing disappointment. If Kansas does happen to come out of here, I'll give myself the same halfassed pat on the back as when I contemplated having Syracuse win the whole damn thing in 2003, only to back off and let them lose in the Finals. Being half right is something of a job for me.

Washington-The first time I get to pick between 2 teams that I think should both win

2nd rounders:
UConn
UAB
UW
Illinois
Michigan State
UNC
Wichita State
Tennessee

And as the hour grows late, the ramblings grow shorter. UConn should roll, as should UNC. Tennessee has serious problems but should surive Winthrop at least. UAB repeats on Kentucky. Utah State seems to be a trendy pick over Washington but I'm already taking my 5/12 on the other side. Illinois, Wichita State, and Michigan State hold the line.

Sweet 16:
UConn
Illinois
UNC
Wichita State

UAB could actually give UConn troubles with its press since Laptop is basically their only ball handling guard, but hell, if all else fails they should just be able to lob crazy half court passes to Boone, Gay, or Armstrong to put that to rest. Illinois and Washington I had no strong feelings about, so I took the one less likely to lose its 1st rounder, a helpful little rule of thumb in the 2nd round. UNC should roll a Michigan State team that stumbled in hurt and floundering. Hansbrough should leave Paul Davis with a most dour expression on his face, a rare sight. Wichita State is good enough to expose Tennessee's problems.

Just because Reyshawn Terry deserved a mention

Elite 8:
UConn
UNC

Here's a theme, my take on any UConn would be, if they play well at all, they'll win. So that continues. UNC does not have enough problems to be exposed by Wichita State.

Final 4:

UConn

Against any other team in the Elite 8, I would have picked Carolina to make the Final 4. The growth in that team during the year was astounding. I kept upping my predictions from should make the tournament, to could win a game, to should make the Sweet 16, to this team could make the Final 4. If not for who the hell is Tyrese Rice raining 3's and Sean Williams blocking shots, they beat BC and take the rubber match from Duke to solidify themselves a #2 slot. But I guess that's what next year is for. Anyway, somehow I think playing the defending champs will actually bring out some fight in UConn, and UNC doesn't have quite enough to match that this year on that stage.

Minneapolis-So much writing, let it end

2nd rounders:
Nova
Wisconsin
Nevada
NC
Wisconsin-Milwaukee
UF
Georgetown
tOSU

Tons of chalk except of Wisconsin-Milwaukee mercifully ending OU's pointless season and putting a wooden stake to the heart of Kevin Bookout's vampire like career.

Sweet 16:

Nova
BC
Wisconsin-Milwaukee
tOSU

I'm obviously banking at this point on Allen Ray's eye staying inside his head. BC's trendiness tops Nevada/Fazeka's trendiness. Wisconsin-Milwaukee performs the annual duty of giving Florida an opponent to flame out against. tOSU takes Georgetown simply because the Big 10 always has a team in the Elite 8, so they kind of need to make the Sweet 16.

Elite 8:

Nova
tOSU

So much trendiness based around BC and their big men. Well guess what, I watched Nova force UConn, the owner of the most bigs in the country, into playing their game for long enough to beat them, so that pretty much sold me. BC's guard play survived against UNC and Duke last week, but Lowery/Foye/Ray/Nardi are going to throw so much more at them on both sides of the ball, I just don't think they can match up with it. tOSU advances because they meet a low seed that's played itself out and the previous Big 10 rule still applies.

Final 4:

Nova

They'll just flat out outscore tOSU, I don't really have much more analysis on this, Nova is a Final 4 caliber team, tOSU is not.

Indianapolis

Texas takes down Gonzaga because they the athleticism to play defense of Morrison. Gonzaga treats defense as too much of an anathema to make the final game. I mean, I know UNC wasn't afraid to let people score at times last year, but last time I checked, the Zags had 1 lottery player on their team, not 4.

UConn takes down Nova in their rubber match because I don't believe UConn will be forced into playing Nova's game again.

The two ugliest men in college basketball last season contemplating a man kiss?

Finally, UConn wins the whole damn thing. I mean, they have the best passing point guard in Laptop, they have shooters in Denham Brown and Rashad Anderson. They have Rudy Gay's athleticism. They have Boone and Armstrong on the inside. This teams only weaknesses are ballhandling after Laptop and a general apathy and tendency to play down to opponents at time. If I thought this team had the mental makeup and toughness of the 2004 team, they'd be just as big a lock to win it as the 2004 team was. End of the day, when you hit the last 4 to 8 teams, the team with the most pro talent has a tendency to bring things home and without a doubt, UConn wears that mantle this year.

Picking pockets bitches. No seriously, watch your stuff.

So that's that. I'll be take sometime over the next couple days to start dissecting how much of an idiot I am. Let's just hope I can make it past Friday night without losing a Final 4 team, which would put me ahead of last year, damn you T.J. Sorrentine, and damn you Boeheim for letting your team be dragged into a slow down game with a buch of hippies from Vermont.

Losing sounds harsh dude, way harsh.

And then sometimes good things happen ...

2006-03-01T23:37:00.000-05:00

I knew I got out of bed for a reason.

As fark would say, Duke Sucks.

I'd like to somehow think that finally posting my screed against Duke, J.J., and Shelden Williams somehow contributed to this. Notice as my tournament prognistications on J.J's early shooting woes and Shelden's inability to stay in big games has already started to come true 3 weeks earlier than normal. Feel free to leave comments on my genius since I can't guarantee a repeat performance anytime soon.

My favorite part of the broadcast came when Vitale tried to use the fact that Duke got into foul trouble tonight as justification of the fact that the Duke Foul Conspiracy is a bunch of crap. Tell you what, let's turn that on its ear and come up with some conclusions that actually make a little sense. How about Florida State is the more athletic team and forces Duke into fouls by getting them out of position defensively, especially with their athleticism on the inside with Thornton and Johnson. And when Duke loses their usual protect cloak, aka The Shane Battier Cape, and the refs actually call a fair game, as they did tonight, they lose. Weird.

Can you have a triumphant return ...

2006-02-27T21:57:00.000-05:00

if no one ever knew you were gone?

So I'm eating lunch Saturday when I come to the startling realization that I have friends who profess to be not only fans of J.J. Redick, but also of this Duke team in general. How does this even happen? Clearly they have not been watching ACC basketball for the last 15 years. I'm just stunned that it took me this long to find this out, but then again, I have two groups of friends. I have my friends that went to UGA and Auburn, these are my football friends. Then I have my friends who went to Tech and assorted other folks that I've always watched basketball with. Obviously everyone in that group falls into the proper camp of thinking that Duke is douche bag central and every player to come through there is, to some degree, the bane of your existence. And I guess to completely clarify the issue, I'll go ahead and lay it out there, I'm a Carolina fan. To which I say, throw stones all you want, call me bandwagon or whatever, UGA fan in football, Carolina basketball fan, what's that all about, but first off, I got family that went there, second off, it was kind of hard to become a UGA basketball fan in 1989, the trevails of Hugh Durham and Literial Green weren't exactly filling up the airwaves, and lastly, if you were a lame ass bandwagon 11 year old coming up in 1991, you were going to become a Duke fan. So I think the fact that I realized at such an early age that Christian Laettner was a complete jackbag, without even realizing what a jackbag was, speaks volumes.

Anyway, we're sitting there at lunch and during the game and they're discussing how J.J. is the best player in college this year, greatest shooter ever, you'd be foolish not to take him with the first pick, then they lapse into how awesome Shelden Williams is, and then I have to listen to a discourse on the merits of Paulus and how McRoberts is going to be badass. OMG WTF?!? Worst hour of basketball watching in my life. I had no idea actual self respecting human beings could have these opinions. Let's deal with these point by point here.

Paulus and McRoberts

Does anyone doubt that Paulus is actually Wojo's younger brother? Hell, for that matter, has anyone checked to make sure Wojo is still on the bench when Paulus is in the game? Let's just say that we're in for another 3 years of floor slapping, questionably dirty defensive play, and hilariously spotty shooting. Soon followed by the hallowed 4th assistant seat after your obviously deficient skill level remains unimproved by Sooper Genius Coach K.

As far as McRoberts, put an early 90's butt cut wig on him and clearly he'd pass for Christian Laettner any day of the week. Which probably means I'll end up hating him more since he does have some skill. Seriously though, with all the mean mugs I've already seen, you know he's going to make a run at most hated of all time, especially if he stays all 4 years, which somehow, I just know he will, just for my benefit. Meanwhile, to paraphrase Sir Charles:

"The Dream Team, the 11 greatest basketball players in the world ... and Christian Laettner."

Seriously, did they even bother to let him play during practices, or was he just outside detailing cars or running money to cover Michael's bets?

Shelden Williams

One of the more overrated big men of the last 5 years. "The Landlord." Please, if anyone thinks his defensive ability isn't increased by the +5 attributes of his Duke "Cloak of Hidden Fouls" hasn't been watching. If any team out there needs a recipe for creating their own Shelden Williams, slake your thirst on this:

(40%)*(Elton Brand) + (Hydrocephalus) -> Shelden Williams

Shelden Williams, making Corey Maggette look like a genius since 2002.

Let me go ahead and prognosticate his line from Duke's Sweet 16 loss this year: 11 points, 5 rebounds, 1 block, 5 fouls, 28 minutes. Nothing like being neutralized when the season is on the line.

J.J.

Look, Scoop Jackson save me, I understand as a 20-something white boy in the southeast, I'm supposed to back the dying breed of the white scoring threat. But damnation kids, let me introduce you to Adam Morrison, let me introduce you to Tyler Hansbrough.

At least Morrison plays with an old school flair and sensibility of style. At least he's 6'8" and has an array of offensive moves that makes him dangerous from 5 feet behind the line all the way down to the block, with the ball, and without the ball. At least he plays with an edge and throws up nearly 30 a night when every defense is 100% geared to stopping him. At least he has a mustache and uttered the famous words (give or take), "Yeah, people say J.J. is a good looking guy with a clean cut look, but I think long hair and mustaches are coming back."

RESPEK bitches.

And I'm sure there's a contingent out there who hates Hansbrough for his early season Montross like appearance. But I mean come on, he walked into one of the most storied programs in history and, all apologies to David Noel and Reyshawn Terry, had to become the go to guy from Day 1. And so he's shouldered double teams, plowed through fouls, and hung 40 points on Tech. You've got to love the kid, in the year when Sean May was playing 8 games because his feet couldn't support his fat ass in his early days, Hansbrough is throwing up 18 a game.

So Montross/Phelps (ed-Not McInnis, I'm an idiot and lazy to boot) won the national title, while Wallace/Stackhouse and Carter/Jamison could not. Tell me the 90's wasn't confusing for Carolina fans.

Meanwhile, Redick has perpetrated some of the worst poetry known to man on society. He has spent 4 years polishing his offensive skills from spot up shooter to shooter who can possibly shake a below average defender using a variety of push offs to perhaps create his own shot. And as Tech and Temple have shown, you can neutralize him. Deny him the ball, run at his shot, force him to put the ball on the floor, force his ass to come out of the protective shell they hide him in and play defense. And he will get worn out and he will miss a couple of early contested shots and suddenly those 30 footers that he pulls on breakaways start to come up short and you get to laugh as Dickie V continues to defend the decision making.

Guess what, come tournament time, his legs will get tired, his shots will get contested, and he will suffer the same flame out he suffered last year. Goodbye Duke in the Sweet 16, I laugh hilariously. Coach American Express, turning McDonalds All Americans into below avearge pros for 20 years.

And I guess to be fair, I would have to admit that he's not entirely responsible for the talk that surrounds him. He didn't ask Vitale to polish him off for the last 4 years. He didn't ask for numerous stories about how he's been increasing his ball skills the last 4 years to make him a more dangerous scorer when any above average defender can still clamp down on him and force him back into a spot up shooter. Admittedly, he can get plenty of points like that, but don't make him out to be something he isn't. And meanwhile, while we're calling him the best shooter and the best 3 point shooter ever, ummm, reference the old AJC from Sunday. He still isn't measuring up to the 3 point percentage that a man named Dennis Scott posted back in the day. Point being, I didn't asked to characterized as a heartless jackass, but it doesn't change the fact that plenty of people have assumed I am in the past. Likewise, if you don't want 94% of the college basketball watching population to think you're a prick, don't attend Duke, don't play to the Cameron Crazies (aka 100's of Asians, unattractive girls, and assorted nerds with no comprehension of college basketball), don't go by J.J., and don't read your poetry for a touching piece on ESPN. Thus endeth the lesson.

-In other news, didn't everyone who has seen an interview with Vince Young already assume he was dumber than a bag of hammers.

-Kyle has moved, check it out, check it out.

Valentine's Day, it's a small world and I'm reaching out to touch everybody ...

2006-02-14T00:39:00.000-05:00

Ian has a little discussion going that touches on things like the attractiveness of girls at UGA, Melissa Stark, and the contrarian retardation that leads to claims such as, look how hott our curling team is.

And it's normally not my way to bother you with things specifically related to me, because no one gives a crap, but the winds of fate in my life blew in such a direction as to lead to an interesting event that ties in nicely with said discussion. I guess as a recent acceptee to law school at UGA, they saw fit to send me a copy of the latest issue of Georgia Law Advocate, Fall 2005/Winter 2006, available on the internets for anyone who wants to google and look. So I'm flipping through the Class Notes section in the back where I find a picture with a girl, announcing her wedding to a UGA law grad. Nothing too special about that except for the fact that it's a girl I went to high school with and may have, alledgedly, held hands with at some point. I won't say which of the pictures it is to preserve some anonymity for the poor girl in her newly wed state, but point being, what in the holy hell am I going to law school for if I'm going to end up with the same chicks I was getting back in high school? I mean, if all I'm doing is ending up right where I started, wouldn't I have been better served just to stop while I was ahead?

In other news, I hope to finish up an offensive losses/gains/preview for next year in the near future. And I hope that dovetails nicely into me actually putting some meaningful stuff up here. I've been busy ass, but I've done my best lately to at least get in on the discussions at some of my favorite places. Hopefully that'll lead to increased time to actually come up with some worthwhile things of my own to say. We shall see.

Go(ing) to Big Blue (plus a touch of signing day) ...

2006-02-01T22:23:00.000-05:00

I never got that champions of the west thing, maybe a comely young Michigan coed could explain, if they exist.

Well the idea of a UGA-Michigan matchup has been kicking around our little corner of the blogosphere for a couple of weeks now, and after a personal entreatie from the Mayor himself, the originator of the this grass roots campaign, I could no longer feel like an upright and contributing member of the UGA blogger community without weighing in with my opinion/support.

First, it should known that, as always, Kyle has approached this idea with the vim and vigor we've come to expect and has compiled enough anecdotes, stats, team by team comparisons, and historical models to keep you busy for an hour. Likewise, Paul has devoted some space to the idea and Brian has broached the subject from the Michigan perspective. There's also been varying opinions of support and dissent from the likes of Realist and LD. Anyway, methinks the chances that you're a frequenter of my little corner, yet not an avid reader of one or all of those guys are pretty slim, but on the off chance of that being the case, if you are that lone individual, find your way to Kyle and he will link you far and near to all the opinions and latest updates on his quest.

Now, if you know me, you know that minus a couple of pre game previews that I go overboard for, most of what you're gonna get it conjecture, speculation, and inane rambling. So far be it from me to throw a curveball on this one.

Do I think our out of conference scheduling is due for an upgrade? Yeah, of course I do, us and everyone else in the SEC. I largely believe that most years, the argument that playing 8 SEC games is punishment enough and proof enough of a team's worth will continue to be true. But, I also believe that true or not, that argument will not hold water if other BCS conferences continue to schedule out of conference, intersectional series (i.e. Auburn and USC, Oklahoma and Alabama, Oklahoma and UCLA, Texas and tOSU to name a few). We can tell people all we want that Marshall or UAB or Boise State are serious mid major teams, providing challenging games, and capable of upsets, but when Alabama and Florida State are playing in 2007 and our current out of conference games for that year are Troy and Western Carolina, well let's just say that if it comes to a head to head street cred battle with one of them, I won't be expecting to win unless we pull off a serious upgrade in one of the two open dates still out there.

Of course, with the addition of teams like Louisville, Arizona State, and Colorado in the next 6 or 7 seasons, the issue is already being addressed on some level. With the addition of these sort of games, you're adding a game against another BCS conference team that on any given year is bound to be bowl eligible. If you call the Directional Louisianas a Level 3 game and call the UAB, Boise State type game a Level 2 game, then I'd probably tag a Lousville or a Colorado as a Level 1B game. And quite frankly, I think an 8 game SEC schedule (plus possible conference title game), a season closing out of conference rivalry game against Tech, and one of these Level 1B games (along with 2 functional bye weeks) is really enough for a team to prove itself.

So what's a Level 1A game? Well it's exactly the kind that's being bandied about with a Michigan matchup. It's going out and getting a Texas or an Oklahoma or a Michigan or an Ohio State or a Miami or a Virginia Tech. The knee jerk, 5 year ago reaction to proposing a game like that went something like, "Damnation dude, biting off a bit more than we can chew aren't we, we begging for a loss?" But that's not really the case any more, UGA can compete with and beat those teams in any given year. And if we want national perception to match up with our own perception of what UGA's program has become, then that has to be the case. But the question still remains, do you really need to prove that twice a year, during the season and in a bowl game? Just because you can win games like that, do you, on average, improve your season by trying to do it?

Well, the upsides include enormous boost in national credibility for going out and winning games like that, measurable boosts in national credibility for just attempting them, and (as evidenced by tOSU and ND this year) boosts in national credibility of varying levels if you can even put up a competitive, "quality" loss. In the purest sense, it's simply a great test for your team. The downsides include the possibility of a season derailing loss (Auburn to USC in '03) on national TV and the possibility of having only 6 or at most 7 home games, even with 2 functional byes in a 12 game season.

Pragmatically speaking, if your goal is to put out a team that wins the most games possible and rakes in the dollars for home dates, it's not a good move. Idealistically speaking, if your goal is to prove the mettle of your team and contribute to the overall improvement of college football as a whole, then it makes good sense. So, while I don't really think games of this caliber are a necessity in proving the mettle of your team, as a football fan, I can't disagree with trying to at least periodically schedule games like this.

And speaking in the abstract, video game realm, I'm 100% behind games like this. When I'm playing NCAA I replace every functional bye with a game like this, culminating in NCAA '04 where I put tOSU on my schedule every year after they beat me for my only national title loss ever in my 2nd season. From then on out, I had to hand them a regular season loss to make sure they couldn't cheat me out of another win in the title game via some ridiculous, Cruisin USA style computer cheating that involved 80 yard bombs into triple coverage with 30 seconds left and me being stopped on 3rd and 4th and 1 on the unstoppable fullback dive. Cheatypants McSweatervest, a bastard in real life and in the game. Anyway.

-Recruiting

It's been covered ad infinitum at places with much deeper resources than me. I covered some of it in my defensive recap and I'll obviously cover more whenever I get around to putting up the one on offense. If you want my day or reaction, read Paul, it basically covers what I feel with a remarkable degree of similaritude. All I'm going to say is, at least we sign guys with style.

With helmet, teh nu hottness. (Thank you ajc.com)

Why Master Shake is the realest man you know ...

2006-01-27T00:21:00.000-05:00

4 eva >u suxor!!!11!!11!

Since Christmas came with its wonderful bounty, I’ve been sitting around with my newest entertainer, Volume 4 of Aqua Teen, Seasons 5 and 6 of Seinfeld, and early seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm and enjoying the hell out of things. And then during the week sometime, I’ll reminisce and trade quotes with a friend, or to stay a little bit more recent, debate the humor in Jim spraying Michael and Dwight with the water bottle in The Office last week. Invariably though, there’s a girl around who’s been catching up on Season 7 of Friends who just can’t understand how you can possibly find those shows funny or how you can’t think that Friends or Sex and the City are just the most fabulous shows ever created. So I asked myself, really, what makes Seinfeld or CYE or ATHF continually funny shows and even cultural touchstones in some cases, while for all their popularity, Friends and Sex and the City and the like are largely throw aways? And don’t be satisfied with the quick, visceral, and stunningly obvious reaction of, “Well hell, Sex and the City just really blew ass, no two ways about it.” So, I pushed deeper and found out what, for me anyway, makes the difference. It’s pretty simple; it’s the characters and their personalities.

I’ll take Friends as the show to deconstruct, because at least it does force us deeper than just saying, “Sorry Stacy, but a show based on an ass load of shitty puns about guys or sex acts just really, well, blows.” “You dated Mr. Big. I'm dating Mr. Too Big.” WTF? This is funny to anything other than a laugh track? But I digress. The problem with Friends and its characters was two-fold.

First, the characters themselves are just empty idealizations. The zany free spirit, the neurotic mother figure, the spoiled princess, the lovelorn goof, the sweet sarcastic, the clownish buffoon, these aren’t real people. These are romantic idealizations ripped from an 80’s movie. (Not that I have a problem with 80’s movies, but they have the advantage of only having to show the character evolve over 2 hours, covering anywhere from an afternoon to maybe a couple months, as opposed to those in a TV show evolving for 8 or 10 years.) The point is that you don’t know these people in real life, not really. And if by chance you do know anyone answering to one of these descriptions, odds are about 90% that they’re stuck acting out their fixation on the Friends character or Breakfast Club character of their choice, a persona they assigned to themselves after convincing themselves how much Ally Sheedy spoke to them.

So the personalities aren’t real. And that can be fine, one could make the argument that there exist no real characters in TV, which I’ll refute in a minute, but we’ll even accept that as fact for a moment to move on to the next problem with the Friends’ personalities. The evolution of the characters didn’t serve to strengthen them. They actually devolved and ended up getting crushed by their own weight. With only these empty idealizations as a basis, the characters were fed into a self reinforcing harmonic cycle that turned them into overblown caricatures of their original selves. Joey became so buffoonish that you expected him to try to buy dinner with Monopoly money and show hilarious shock when the priggish waiter wouldn’t take it. Ross became such a puss that you expected them to have to squeegee him out of the scene after his spine completely disintegrated during another woeful, head shaking scene over a girl. Matthew Perry, during those rare times when he wasn’t on the blow, was probably dying to say, Could I be any less funny right now? And Rachel, the character who supposedly underwent this incredible growth over the duration of the show basically went from spoiled princess to spoiled princess with responsibilities like a job and motherhood, that she occasionally deals with when it suits the story line. Point being, they took these personas and dialed them up to a such a level that I felt like I was being bludgeoned with characters that were becoming increasingly less funny and more cartoonish by the week. Although there was never really a choice in the matter, it was still disgusting to see what these characters had to turn in to.

Shocked that people didn't want more of a moronic Italian?

But walk away from that world now and consider Aqua Teen, if you will. Just to push the example to the fullest, I’ll take the furthest out there case, and I will argue that these are real characters. Have you ever met a misogynistic piece of white trash with an addiction to porn, possibly of the barnyard variety? Do you know a naïve simpleton who’s easily duped into outlandish situations, contests, and schemes? Did you ever run across an egomaniacal jackass who’ll belittle anything and anyone, the kind of guy who if you knew him secondhand you’d describe as a real jackass, but he never bothers me, so …. (and you would finish that with he’s f’ing hilarious, except you can’t say that because the person who brought him up thinks he’s a complete jackass)? Do you remember the guy stuck in the middle, trying to live his life, look out for the little guy and keep the jackass in check? Guess what, you’ve met every one of these people, probably a dozen times over. And these aren’t romantic idealizations that people force onto themselves because Phoebe seemed so fun. People don’t choose to be a Carl or a Meatwad or a Shake or a Frylock. Why the hell would you? But you see them everyday because these characters are the dirty, unkempt, and often hilarious people that you have the pleasure and the misfortune of crossing paths with in life.

And the beauty of these characters and hence the shows like Seinfeld or Aqua Teen is that, absent of an act of heinous malice on the writers part, they won’t, and I would argue, can’t lapse into Friends territory. There’s no room for caricatures because they already inhabit their personas to the fullest. Could Carl possibly hate his neighbors or love diseased prostitutes more than he already does? Could Meatwad be more tricked by the next MC Pee Pants scheme or the next invitation to jump into the microwave to set a world record? Could Frylock get anymore tired of reversing the waves on the microwave to protect Meatwad? And could Shake possibly be more crass, vain, egotistical, and generally insensitive than he already his? No, I don’t think they can, because they’ve always embraced their personalities to a degree that needs no changing. They’re already engaging or sympathetic or disgusting or hilarious in an utterly real way that refuses to be overblown.

But that’s not the final piece of the puzzle. Why, now knowing what we do, do shows like that resonate with me and a considerable number of people out there? And I realized the answer lay right in front of me, in my own life. I look around at the group of friends I’ve had for 5 or 10 or, in some cases, 15 years, and I realize that everything I’ve just said applies to them as well. The ones that I don’t feel compelled to go out of my way to see, the ones that I don’t miss if I don’t see them for a month or two, the ones that I even grow tired of when I’m around them are my Friends friends. They’re the ones that have taken their role in our social structure and turned it into a horrible joke of its former self. They’ve taken their persona and consciously played to it and inflated it in such an unnatural way that I find it hard to even find them funny or engaging anymore. On the other hand though, there are my Seinfeld or my Aqua Teen friends, the ones that I still actively choose to hang out with and always have the best time with. They are as nice or stupid or hilarious or insane as they’ve always been because they’ve always been those things as fully as a person naturally could be. And that’s why years from now, your Friends friends will be remembered like that episode where Joey said something stupid and Phoebe acted spacey and Monica cleaned up socks and Ross was a puss. You remember them being funny at the time perhaps, but you really don’t remember why, because there’s no staying power to it. And in the end, you’re really not even sure you want to lay claim to being a part of it. But the others much like “the two face” or “the master of their domain” or “the high talker” or “the Foreigner belt” or even “The Drizzle” will still be funny 10 years from now, and you’ll always know why.

who's got my back? ....

2006-01-22T22:21:00.000-05:00

So I guess now is as good a time as any to start taking stock on the losses and possible replacements for Georgia for next season. Since I love defense and feel a little bit better discussing it, not to mention it's the rosier side of the ball, we'll start there. All of this is, of course, wildly speculative, as should be expected from someone like me, and will be subject to the vagaries of injuries, trangressions, and even the possibility of the new kids coming in this year (although I consider that a low possibility since the bulk of the losses are in the defensive backfield, and in my opinion, players tend to not really come into their own at CB until there 2nd or 3rd season there at the college level, i.e. Bruce Thornton, Tim Wansley, Jennings and Minter this season, just to name a few). And after that long parenthetical outtake, here we go.

The first happy thought needs to be that, we actually have a lot of experience coming back on defense. We're returning roughly 7 guys I consider starters from last year and the other 4 spots will probably be manned by guys who saw good playing time this year. So, barring injuries there won't be an absolute necessity to break in totally new guys on defense.

So things will probably look something like this.

DE's
Charles Johnson (a de facto returning starter, should have started in front of Thompson last year in my opinion)
Quentin Moses (and thank god he is back, the line would have been an area of concern for me if he had bolted)

DT's
Jeff Owens (played serious minutes and solid contribution last year)
Ray Gant (has played serious minutes and spot started over the last 2 years)

I feel good about the defensive line, or more properly, about the starters on the defensive line. Depth becomes a question here. The only other guys with any real serious playing time would be Mudcat and Dixson who cause me varying levels of head shaking and poor Marcus Howard who's outweighed by most of our linebackers. So we're definitely looking at the possibility of some new names playing serious minutes in backup roles here. We'll get a chance to see if Kade Weston has progressed and if Roderick Battle is ready. I would think Demarcus Dobbs and Brandon Wood from this year's class will get a chance to contribute at end and the lack of depth at tackle will give this year's guys like Michael Lemon and Richardo Crawford a chance to contribute Jeff Owens style if they come in ready. Overall, until the quality depth questions are answered, we probably have to consider this group as being slightly below the group from this season for the time being.

Q, returning to deliver The Drizzle from anxiety

LB's
Sam
Brandon Miller
Mike
Tony Taylor
Will
Jarvis Jackson

Experience and depth wise, linebacker will be the strength of the defense coming back. We lose no one here, every one of these guys started at some point last year. You've also got DVW, who started last year as well. The loss of TKO during the season and the fact that Ellerbee got nabbed for DUI and is indefinitely suspended are the downsides here. Man beast Marcus Washington is coming off a year of special teams though, and we've got a crop of guys coming in like Dewberry, Hebron, and Dent. Odds are, at worst, Dewberry will be ready to contribute, and hopefully all 3 will be seeing minutes before the year is over. Quite frankly if the incoming freshman look good, I'm still strongly in favor of moving Brandon Miller back to defensive end to bolster some depth there. My expectation would be that Tony Taylor will quarterback the defense this year. Overall, this group gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling, although as I said in the post Sugar Bowl wailings, I am looking forward to downsizing and speeding the position up a little.

DB's
CB's
Paul Oliver (solid nickel work this year and start in the Auburn game)
Thomas Flowers (nickel work at times and experience at PR)

S
Tra Battle (returning starter)
Kelin Johnson (solid playing time, start in the Kentucky game)

Unfortunately, the bulk of losses aren't spread across the defense, they're localized at the back, which could lead to many hands on the knees and eyes to heavens poses for me next year. Like I've said, recent past has taught us that it takes guys a couple season to really come into their own at the corner. I do think that Oliver is ready, last year really seemed to be his breakout year. Beyond that though, questions abound. Flowers is the de facto pick here since he was the next guy off the bench last season and he's got serious playing time at PR. Who's the next guy off for injury though? Who plays nickel? Well, we've signed several guys at varying levels of studness between last year and this year (knock on wood until signing day). Last year had stud Bryan Evans and Donovan Baldwin and this year looks to have studs Asher Allen and Prince Miller. At least one of these guys is going to see serious time. A year of experience probably gives Evans the edge, but the numbers on Allen and Miller are serious, and Allen will have the added benefit of his January enrollment.

At safety, feel good story Tra Battle will still be there. I give the other spot to Kelin Johnson because for reasons funny only to me and my friends, he was assigned to be my boy. Truth be told, I'd love if someone stepped up and took Battle's spot, he may have a solid year of starting experience, but the physical skills are nothing like what we'll see from someone like say, C.J. Byrd, who's already wasted one year of eligibility on special teams. I think if we did that without serious plans to give him a chance to start this year, then it was a total waste. Lots of signings at this position in the last couple years, but lots of injuries too. However, considering Martinez handles DB's, I expect to see some good work out of his personal unit. Regardless, it's the biggest hand wringer.

Anyway, we again lost some big names and there are serious questions as to the experience in the 2 deep. Tons of talent, just not a lot of playing time. So, one might assume we may experience some early season growing pains, but short of playing West Virginia again, I still expect this to be a Top 15, if not Top 10 defense, and again, the strength of the team.

-In Other News

Realist most accurately reflects my thoughts on USC and the handling of its "legacy." For all the heritage of college football, it's amazing how quickly teams are discarded. One of my friends, who'd become kind of a tertiary USC fan during their run and who shared my hatred of Texas called me after the game and told me, this really bothers me, I shouldn't care this much, but I do. And I told him, look at it this way, they'll talk about it tomorrow, on Friday they'll discuss it a little more, and on Saturday, the wild card games start and it'll be like college football ended months ago, it'll disappear just that fast. The beauty of the game I guess, good or bad, next season is only a year away.

And now, with victories by Seattle and Pittsburgh, we now have set the stage for the Super Bowl that will rival the Giants-Ravens for the one I couldn't possibly give less of a crap about. Upside, UGA will be represented on both sides, but considering Pittsburgh sports more Georgia boys and Roethslisberger is officially the sports star whose head and facial hair most closely mimics my own studied look, I guess I'll back Pittsburgh. Although, my former boss is a Pittsburgh fan and anything that would bring joy to him, with all apologies to Brian, brings me right to the edge of kitten sniping.

Who knew that a happy Hines Ward and a kitten in mortal danger would ever be so closely linked?

And in the best news of all, according to AMC, Arachnophobia has now achieved the level of an American Movie Classic.

Marissa Cooper graduates ...

2006-01-12T15:15:00.000-05:00

-Just to prove I'm not dead, here I am.

I'll give The O.C. last night some credit, it did contain the moment of the night, where Johnny, upon hearing Marissa will probably get back into Harbor busts into the fake smiling, isn't that great, no I don't feel like I just got kicked into the nuts faces, only to, as she turns away, plummet into the heartrending, oh my life has ended now that the girl who isn't my girlfriend is going to bail on me and my busted ass knee, which apparently is easily walkable again, face. I wonder if people give me faces like that in real life. It's enough to make me want to start doing the quick turn on people at dramatic moments.

On the other hand, the commercials for the last week did indeed pull the predictable cock tease. Probably the biggest dropped story lines from the first season was what the hell happened to Marissa's sister. She wandered through the screen a few times an episode for a while and then suddenly, when all the shit started to really hit the fan, she was gone. I mean clearly the writer's had nothing to do with an 9 year old kid, so after a few months they drop a casual mention that she's off to boarding school, problem solved. Of course now, scraping for story ideas, they've finally taken to listening to intern's suggestions that probably went something along the lines of, damn man, we've already done high school chick on older dude, high school dude on older woman, his girlfriend's mother no less, we've done old man on hot mom, we've done a soft core porn angle, we've done hot girl on girl action, what the hell's left, ah shit, let's bring back Marissa's sister.

Damn you Fox, she isn't but 15, I don't need that kind of self evaluation

So now, we get Kaitlin Cooper back, conveniently aged from a silent 9 year old to a sultry 15 year old (I'm guessing) temptress in a scant 2 years. I knew there was a reason I loved TV. All I know is, she better on the scene in the first 5 minutes of the next episode cause I'm gonna be pissed if they pull back to back cock teases on that.

-In other news, I'm beginning to wonder if Simmons has really gone off the deep end in the last 6 months or if the fact that I actually find myself wincing at a certain percentage of his jokes these days is a product of having found a forum where other people read and critically evaluate him as well. It's an interesting question to suss out, did I finally get tired of 80's joke and off point indie rock references just because there were finally too many or did I need the catalyst of someone else saying, hey man, we loved the guy, but something is afoot here. Anyway, I always held his utter lack of college football knowledge against him, so the Rose Bowl Diary would have been on my crap list regardless.

-In other other news, obviously the ability to blog consistenly on college football has taken a serious hit until the summer, but I intend to do a mention on Georgia's losses and an early look on who might be filling those places sometime soon. And to end, we'll bid a fond early farewell (seniors need not apply) to:

Vince Young, Regggie Bush, LenDale White, Brian Calhoun, Maurice Drew, Leonard Pope, Santonio Holmes, Marcus Vick (but why bother, seriously, just officialy join up with your brother's entourage and get it over with, and while we're at it, has any pair of siblings taken a drop in public perception in the last year like the Vicks, although I guess they are bested, not in overall drop, but as far as absolute lows by the Leaf brothers since Ryan is probably dealing cards to undergrads in Pullman and his brother got booed out of the Holiday Bowl in San Diego). Anyway, there's more to name, but whatever, most of you, I will not miss at all.

Prediction number 1 of next year in CFB, do not bet on a Texas repeat, Mack Brown will never get it done without VY, checking your files re: last 5 years.

i can't help myself ...

2006-01-04T01:41:00.000-05:00

Doug and Ian have incited me to expand just a touch more on this before I can put it to rest for good. This one hopefully promises to be a bit more studied and a little less dependent on the baser language to convey my thoughts. Lord knows I've been known to cuss a blue streak in real life from time to time, but I do try and clean it up for you kids out there when I put things out here for public consumption.

Also, check everyone Dawg related, Ian, Doug, Paul, Kyle, Hamp, Realist, LD, they've all got things to say that fall somewhere in or near the realm of how I feel. Anyway, let's end this.

What's funny about this team or this program at this point is that, even at 28-0, I felt like we were still going to win. I knew if we ever stopped turning the ball over, they would not stop us on offense. I thought anything on the level of a 7 to 14 point deficit at halftime was imminently winnable, especially if we could make some defensive adjustments. That's what this team does to you, you just don't ever really believe they can lose until it's actually over. I really thought we were going to win, right up to the punt. And credit to the guys, especially the offense, they didn't give up at 28-0 and that at least says something.

Now as far as my man Blue, without a doubt Blue is a linebacker in the NFL, much like Davis has become. I love Blue, but he's always been a little cringeworthy for me, it just normally centers around his coverage skills, where I found him deficient even to TD. That's why my favorite defensive backfield was in '03 with TD playing with Sean Jones because it cut TD free to do his bonecrusher thing while you knew Sean John would actually be playing the position like a real safety. Of course, what a lot of people don't know or remember is that we tried to for two years to make TD a linebacker but we just kept running out of safeties and had to keep putting him back there. But he definitely displayed a varied ability to either go blowing by the play or have the play go blowing by him (i.e. Slaton's game winning run where he went by Blue one on one without even having to put a real move on him) last night that was particularly ill timed.

Now for Richt, I love him, but some of his game management, time management and strategic decisions make us look like a monkey trying to get to frisky with a football out there.

This may go more with Martinez too, but whatever offense we were practicing against the last 3 weeks, it couldn't have been there's. As Paul pointed out, the scheme was ridiculous, the lack of substitutions outside of the front 4 was ridiculous, the inability to adjust was bad, and the fact that we kept trotting poor Marcus Howard out there at DE to get tossed like a rag doll boggles the mind.

But Richt "coached" us from a 4th and 1 back to a 4th and 3 by giving them 5 minutes to think about and finally review Pope's catch/fumble when he took a timeout for no apparent reason.

He failed to use our 2 timeouts before the fake punt, so assuming that we'd been intelligent enough to actually put a formation out there to make them punt, we'd have had roughly 2:30 to 3 minutes instead of a minute and a half on the clock.

And the formation on the punt was just complete ineptitude. What's your scenarios there?

Line up normal and force the punt, forgoing a return, either they kick it in the end zone or Flowers fair catches around the 10. Either way, you've already proven multiple times you can drive 80 or 90 yards.

Or line up like a bunch of jackasses to try to set up a super special return, leaving the possibility of a successful fake wide open and leaving your best outcome as being a return to maybe the 30, I mean, they're punting from the 45, you're not going to get that much of a return regardless. It's nowhere near worth the risk.

And the worst part is, his explanation for decisions like that are so against facts, common sense, logic, and events in the game up to that point that it just boggles the mind. 5 years into it and he still struggles with clock management or balancing the risk/reward of losing the game on a fake punt with possibility of an extra 10 yards on a punt return.

So those are my complaints.

On the upside, the offense, when holding onto the ball looked good. TB and Lump had good games. I think all indications would be that they'll be battling for the starting spot next year and probably sharing 90% of the carries between them, and that's as it should be. AJ Bryant finally had something good happen to him, which will hopefully roll into next year. Massaquoi continues to play at a whole different level. So yeah, there's some good.

As far as our linebackers, I've always been skeptical of our scheme over the last few years where all of our linebackers are behemoth man-beasts, finally culminating this year where outside of Jarvis Jackson, the average size of our linebackers has got to be like 6-4 and 240. It's just getting outlandish, and signing Marcus Washington last year just plays into that since I'm pretty sure he weighed 270 by the end of the year. This year's class seems to contain more linebackers with a size to my liking though. I'd just really like to see the whole position slimmed down and speeded up in general. I mean, I realize White and Slaton are going to be faster than most people on every field they step on, but they made us look ridiculously slow at times I thought. I'm really wanting some guys with a little more quickness to get off or get around blocks and make some more plays.

In the end, credit to West Virginia, they didn't do anything special, they just ran their offense as well as they could for 60 minutes and we didn't come in ready for it and didn't make the adjustments to turn things around. They've got a good offense. I think they've got defensive issues that would prevent them from consistently competing on the highest level, but for the night, they were able to score enough to hide them.

Crappy way to end a season though, the defense we've depended on so much for the last 4 years totally crapping the bed on us, leaves a bad taste for the next 8 months. Hopefully that'll be a touch of the old motivation to the one's coming back. And that is my attempt at ending on a positive note.

might as well get it over with

2006-01-03T02:12:00.000-05:00

Forgive my lack of cohesion and any lapses into inane profanity as I go off the cuff here, but damn, there's no way it should have ended like that, that was a good season and a good group of guys, there's no damn way it should have gone down like that. Brian talked about filing away and writing off Michigan's season, to now on be referred to as, well at least it wasn't like 2005, and shit, we shouldn't have to do that for this season, there was too much good in it, but I don't think i'll ever be able to look back on tonight.

A 28-0 hole, 3 turnovers lost and several other fumbles, no take aways, and a complete damn inability to make a single adjustment to the only single offensive play in their entire damn arsenal for 60 damn minutes. Shit. For all that, all we had to do was get them off the field one more time in the second half, but, backed up 3rd and 10 on their own 4 and they can pull out a damn quarterback draw for 16 yards, as if it were going to be any other damn play, i mean, did they throw more than twice in the whole second half, i'm saying no. And then, to top it all off, we put 3 guys on the line to their 6 blockers, and i scream for the end of the world from section 138, dear god watch the fake, it's coming, and then they end my season on a fake fucking punt.

Shock was too good of a guy and too good of a player to watch his chance to come out and play hero in the Sugar Bowl float away into the damn ether while the defense couldn't stop two freshman from running 4 variations on 1 play for first down after first down after first down, and then the punt, my god. It shouldn't have ended this way.

I mean, I could say more, break down the issues, lament the absence of Anderson and the fact that Blue got run by like he was standing in concrete, but who cares, it's all over. I will now go eviscerate myself with the rusty garden shears and then set my remains on fire. I hope you'll excuse my absence for the next couple of days.

you can find me in the ...

2006-01-01T22:10:00.000-05:00

So about 5 months ago someone asked me what this year's Georgia team would be all about. And I told them, to hell with this rebuilding, to hell with this 7-4 and 3rd in the East mess. This team is probably a 1 or 2 loss team and they're an even money bet to be playing in the Sugar Bowl. So congrats to me on being a genius and all.

To me, this team bore a lot of resemblance to the '92 team, not necessarily in personnel, but certainly in results. The '92 offense was probably a bit better, but this year's defense definitely wins between the two. In the end, both solid top 10 teams that lost two games by a collective 5 points. Trade your Heath Shuler and Charlie Garner and 5 turnovers for a Brandon Cox and a Kenny Irons and a 4th and 10 charlie foxtrot. Trade your Chris Leak for your Shane Matthews, toss in a couple missed field goals and it's all as painful and as so close as it was when you were 12.

But, I really liked this team, '02-'04 proved we could be solidly competitive with the same core. This year validated that perhaps this thing has some legs to it and that maybe it's alright to start thinking about UGA as a top 10, top 15 team every year and that they should be making noise about going to the Dome til deep in the season every time out. It does all tend to flow together, but if you look at, basically no one on this team, the seniors of which were freshman at the time, contributed to the '02 SEC and Sugar Bowl Titles. So this a whole new crop proving that they can get the job done too. Of course, if they win tomorrow, that general lack of contribution in '02 still won't stop them from laying claim to 44 wins, 2 SEC Titles, 2 Sugar Bowl Titles, 3 SEC Title game appearances, 4 New Year's Day Bowl wins and 4 straight top 10 finishes, basically your run of the mill best class since about 1983.

So, the game tomorrow. I'll leave the numbers to Kyle, as is our wont around here, and I'll just discuss the generalities. As he points out, the numbers are in many way stunningly equal, but there are a few hidden points at work here, and unfortunately, not all of them break our way.

It's obvious they're going to run right at us, that's what they do, saying that we're going to beat them by making them one dimensional as you'd normally talk about doing to a team is a hilarious joke when talking about WVU because they voluntarily make themselves about 80% one dimensional. Of course they do this with two slick ass, fast bastards named Steve Slaton and Pat White. We're talking, according to what we've seen from them this year, Darren McFadden and Kenny Irons fast, and we all remember how well that turned out. On the upside, they are freshman, of course, they've elected to not play at all like that this year, but the Sugar Bowl stage is a little bigger than what they're used to. And in even better news, big Gerald is hobbling around the sidelines Kirk Gibson style right now with a seized up back. Of course, if my back had to cart around 320 pounds, it'd probably be pissed off to. But, while we won't rule him out, we won't rule him in either, and considering the 3 games he missed earlier in the year correspond to the worst 3 games we've had against the run in a hellaciously long time, we'll just say it isn't comforting. Not that I fear for the Gant and Owens picking up the slack, but they are going to run and run and run at us and the depth would be nice if nothing else.

As far as they're passing game, we dont' really need to discuss that since I'm pretty sure they're still content to run on 3rd and 8 at least half the time and finally, after 3 years, I feel ok with Jennings and Minter patrolling. On the upside, Blue should be cut completely loose on the run game and I won't have to endure any cringe worthy moments, waiting for him to plow through someone in coverage after he gets beat deep.

In the end, we've only let somebody top 21 on us once this year, and although I do expect they'll probably have slightly more succes with the run against us than I'd like, I don't expect them to become the second. They may put up 7 or 10 on the first couple drives while we adjust, but I don't expect prolonged success for them.

Now on the offensive side of the ball. When looking at the numbers, they appear to have a pretty stout defense, until you notice that they only played two really solid teams, Virginia Tech and Louisville, and one above average team in South Florida. Now they did play VPI fairly solid back when that was actually thought to mean something and we all know about the OT thriller with Louisville, but we're not here to look at how they played those games in their totality, just what it says about their defense against worthwile offenses, which is that they gave up 34 and 44 in those games. So if you're asking me if we're more likely to replicate VPI and Louisville's offensive numbers or East Carolina and Cincinnati's numbers, I'm going to go with the former.

The loss of Sean right after what you'd probably consider his breakout game is obviously not good, especially since he's already being conditionally ruled out for all of next year, but what you going to do, Pope and MoMass still exist to throw it to, and gigantic upside, chance for my man Ken Harris to have a little break out of his own on the big stage.

A few more odds and ends on the game.

West Virginia doesn't exactly excel in bowl games, much like Video Ouija, they've lost so many in such a magnamimous way in the last few years, people probably still are wailing on them from the grave. In particular, their last trip to Sugar Bowl in '93 with an undefeated team, fresh off beating BC, who had just ruined Notre Dame's season, captained by the two headed beast of Jake "The Snake" Kelchner and Darren Studstill (and yes, I've been waiting quite a while to make a reference to those 2) ended in a 41-7 epic style beat down at the hands of Florida.

Georgia is sitting on 3 bowl wins in a row, including winning the Sugar Bowl just 3 years ago, which coincidentally means that all the leaders on this team were on the sidelines for that win.

Georgia's senior class is looking to win 44 games, which is some exalted ground to be stepping on, and everyone on that team has played numerous primetime, nation wide, big stage games.

West Virginia's two biggest impact players are freshman. The biggest stages they've played on are the Thanksgiving night game against Pitt and a regional game against Louisville.

And lastly, there's this:

West Virginia, come visit scenic Slaty Fork, where we've been leading the nation in toothlessness since 1871.

Prediction
UGA 27 - WVU 13

Streamers fall from the sky and The Drizzle begins 2006 in a good way, which is good considering I gave 2005 a rating of Alien v. Predator (while you contained a few entertaining moments, you were ultimately unsatisfying and struggled to meet the low expectations already set for you).

Other things we've learned this bowl season.

Chan "The Man" Gailey is a hilarious joke sent by God to make my life more worthwhile. I was talking about this with my Tech fan friend Travis, I think Gailey has no connection to this team at all. You always hear about Pete Carroll jumping in the pile at practice or how much Brady Quinn learns from Weiss or that Mack Brown bumps to Fiddy now because Vince Young says so or that when Richt takes his team to the pool, he'll jump off the high dive with them. Be it emotional leader or master teacher, these guys are involved with their team. You don't get that feeling from Gailey at all. And then, after he underlines the importance of this game by talking about it as a springboard for doing great things next season, his team goes out and gets circles run around them before completely quitting. Meanwhile, Calvin Johnson, who according to every story over the last 3 years is a the quietest, no nonsense guy around is suddenly spouting Keyshawn Johnson style, give the damn ball rants in slightly less words after the game. I mean, how shitty do things have to be to get a guy who lets his mom tell him where to go to school to start opening his mouth?

News flash to Tech, you undermine your right to bitch about being short changed and shipped cross country when you go out there and give a performance that validates everyone's complaints against you.

Sunbelt officials are hilarious, if by hilarious you mean eye gougingly inept in a way that makes you thank god you're not a North Texas fan and you're playing in an important enough bowl that they didn't get foisted on you.

The two biggest beat downs on the bowl season were handed to the OMG NU HOTTNESS of of the south ACC with their OMG defenses. Tech and Miami get an aggregate 78 points pasted in them in beatings I haven't seen since they stuck a banana down my pants and set the monkey loose (to paraphrase Eddie). And by the way, these beatings were administered by a year after the glory Utah team, utilizing their backup QB and 2nd WR running an elusive new route called "the post" and a member of the OMG TEH SUX SEC called LSU, who also, consequently, used their back up QB to hang 40 on Miami, all while running for like 300 yards against the most badass run defense of the year. And thus my theory that, in general, ACC defensive stats are inflated by playing against lame ass ACC offenses, is validated just a touch more.

So yeah, call it a down year for the SEC if you will, but I still see 5-1 or 4-2 being extremely possible against the toughest aggregate opponents that any conference will face.

And a last dig at Georgia Tech, as long as you keep winning 7 games every year and putting Chan The Man out there to coach, you will never be seen as a solid, top 25 program, because programs like that don't lose to Utah by 28, they don't lose to NC State on their home field or lose to Duke once every 5 years. You can keep your Auburn wins or Miami win. I'm sure you'll continue to get rougly one win a year that you probably shouldn't, but that just makes you unpredictable and slightly scary to top programs, but it sure as hell doesn't make you one of them.

Lastly, I have no idea if I'll write about UT-USC before it happens, so I'll say a little now. And it's funny, because I'm going to totally contradict myself. I love defense. Most would say Texas has the better defense, so logic would dictate that if you call the offenses close enough to be roughly a wash and give Texas the edge on defense, you have to go with Texas. But, that's not the way I see it going, for several reasons really. First, I think UT's defensive (and offensive) numbers have been bolstered somewhat by playing in the SUX known as the Big XII this year. (And yes, some of the same argument could be leveled agains the Pac 10, but that doesn't advance my argument, so I'm choosing to ignore it). Second, UT's offense is much more a product of one man that USC's is, and as teams have shown in the NFL this year vis a vis Mike Vick, you can always find a way to stop a team depending so much on one man.

Bottom line, USC just has that, been there so many times, know how to win this game swagger that Texas hasn't earned yet. While I don't necessarily see a epic beatdown like they administered to OU last year, I do think they'll handle business one last time.

don't forget your crazy pills ...

2005-12-28T16:46:00.000-05:00

So things stay busy as leisure time focus at The Drizzlecave has shifted into full scale semi-worthwhile bowl watching and viewings of a little something we like to call ATHF v4.0. Never fear though, the lolz concerning the bowl games continue to be brought by the more hilarious among us.

Why are you not watching this right now? Check out eDork, since it perfectly describes a friend of mine who happens to be the only person I know who owns and uses a Blackberry.

In the meantime, I thought I'd steal a page from Doug and post up the current end of the year, list of however many I put on here. Since the end of the Christmas season and the death of a year always leaves me a bit downcast and introspective, the soundtrack of my car rides tends to become a bit epic, so songs under 7 minutes need not apply (sorry Battle of Evermore).

1. OAR - Crazy Game of Poker
2. Wilco - Spiders (Kidsmoke)
3. Led Zeppelin - Kashmir
4. Coldplay - Everything's Not Lost
5. Something Corporate - Konstantine (no homo, seriously)
6. Wilco - I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (ok, so I gave it 2 seconds)
7. Ted Nugent - Strangehold
8. The Mars Volta - Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)
9. Dave Matthews Band - Warehouse
10. Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
11. Jimmy Eat World - 23
12. Neutral Milk Hotel - Oh Comely
13. My Morning Jacket - Dondante
14. Jimmy Eat World - Goodbye Sky Harbor

And I may never do that again, but whatever.

In other news, it's a safe assumption that if Jeff Reardon gets collared for armed robbery and you take 24 hours to say something about it, Ian will have unfortunately already beaten you to the Steve Bedrosian angle. But I still thought I'd add in my two cents, which basically amounts to a phone conversation I had with a friend of mine yesterday where we decided the best conclusion for this entire scenario involved Jeff Reardon being locked up while in fact Bedrosian was the one who had gone stick up kid and is now sitting at home, laughing over his bags of ill gotten gains as Reardon takes the fall.

Bedrock, crafty at places other than on the mound.

Of course I have a special affection for Bedrock since the end of his career with the Braves in '95 dovetailed nicely into the beginning of my high school baseball career, where I was more than happy to keep the tradition of Bedrock's old school knee highs alive. I have a continuing theory to this day that any player will play better sporting negro league style knee highs than he will with the ridiculous baggy ass pants they wear today. Oh and bonus points, because in my junior year, Bedrock became the pitching coach for Newnan High Scool (they were #1 in the state at the time), down where he lived, so I was able to pitch against the man's team, on their home field, sporting the knee highs just for him.

busy growing the beard ...

2005-12-23T01:27:00.000-05:00

So yeah, my lack of time to even attempt to write anything meaningful continues to curtail my presence on the internets. God knows I don't have the time to write anything vaguely funny about the bowls of mediocritude that are already going, I'll leave that to the pros. Of course, for all their mediocracy, I'm still watching them.

But, just to prove I'm not dead, not yet anyway, I thought I'd drop some sort of mention on how I spent last Friday night. First, the assumptions of the night. Assumption: If you are in Atlanta and you're going to see Iron & Wine and Calexico, chances are you're heading to Little Five Points, to the Variety Playhouse. Assumption: If you're in Little 5 at around 8 o'clock, you're going to eat dinner at the Vortex, and while there, you will notice, even with your half assed beard, 4 months worth of uncut hair, and the fact that you're wearing flip flops when it's 36 degrees out, you'll still be among the most "normal" 10% of the patronage, which I guess technically would make you the outcast in that crew. Which I guess just makes me all the f'ing cooler. Anyway, if those were your basic assumptions heading in to the evening, then rest assured, they were all well met.

As for the show itself, my main complaint would be, there's no way Sam should come out after Calexico. I like Sam, I like his stuff for the most part, but after an hour plus of Calexico playing alt-country-folk-jamrock-with a Mexican flair, or whatever the hell you'd call them, listening to Sam come out and duet with his sister for an hour and a half is probably the biggest come down since Michael Irvin had to rush to get off the yay after his little run in with the laws. Even bringing everyone out to play the In The Reins stuff still doesn't get the energy of the evening back up to where it was. I mean truthfully, two songs into Sam's stuff, I'm finding myself thinking stuff like: Did this Chinaman beside me just die or did he only sit down so I wouldn't see him cry? Does Sam realize that this crazy chick dancing around in front of me apparently just snuck back stage and stole all his blow for the rest of the evening? And god almighty, who just cracked such a rancid fart that the freak in front of me suddenly thought it would be kosher to sidle up to me Brokeback Mountain style just to get away from it? And then who farted like that about 5 more times?

On the upsides, they had some Mexican dude that they let play with them who, I swear to god, I'm pretty sure they said they picked up in Hyatt in El Paso or some shit. He obviously got the biggest plaudits of the night.

And yes, Sam's beard continues to be an inspiration.

Hmmmm, Sam Beam or Stonewall Jackson? Either way, I've got a long way to go.

All in all, a good time, and just for the Calexico portion of the evening, I will say that although I did not totally grab some passed out broad's boobs during Urgent, it was still a kickass show.

Oh yeah, I saw them at the Garden with Bryan Adams ...

Hopefully I'll have more to say soon, I'll have to do something Sugar Bowl related as it gets hear, and although I think Rivals or Scout does more than an adequate job covering recruiting, I'm sure we'll address our losses, our gains, and our expectations for personnel next season in the near future.

Beyond that, who knows. Now that The O.C. has even blown my suspension of disbelief valve by asking me to believe that Johnny's grand scheme was to go stick up kid on the local convenience store to finance his knee surgery to get back on track for his pro surfing career, instead of, I don't know, accepting the money they were offering him or not going to the apparently most expensive doctor in The O.C. (I mean damn, how many ways are there to reattach an ACL, like, if he didn't go to this guy, was Dr. Nick his next best option?), anyway, after that, there's no telling where we'll go, I'm just glad/disgusted that I'll be around to watch it.

And just out of curiosity, what can we say about a man who's friend decides the best gift to get him at the gift exchange at the annual Christmas Sweater Party is to get him a copy of Havoc and thus save him the awkward situation of having to stroll up the counter at Best Buy with Havoc in hand, risking the chance of a cute coed working the register, knowing, if she knows anything about the movie, exactly what he's buying it for. By the way, crappy movie, but you know ....

round table something or other ...

2005-12-10T14:40:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but I thought the questions by TAMBINPO were fairly interesting, so here goes nothing.

Why your school? Did you go to school there? Were you legacy, did you pick it for academics, for the football team, the party reputation?

I probably get asked this question more than anyone I know, since I am a Georgia fan but spent 6 years as a student at Georgia Tech. My answer is always the same. I've been a Georgia fan since I was 7 or 8 years old. I remember Dooley's last couple of seasons and guys like Tim Worley and Rodney Hampton. In the simplest terms, that's what was on in my house, my dad was a Georgia fan, so I was raised on it. A lot of people thought that going to Tech would change my mind on all that. On the contrary, 6 years at Tech only steeled my resolve and really taught me a deeper contempt for Georgia Tech sports. I've earned the utmost respect from my friends and a lot of Georgia people I've met in the last 6 years by sticking to my guns.

Name a player or two who had "THE GAME" against your school. I'm talking about a guy who simply dominated your team and all you could do was tip your cap and say, "Wow."

The easiest answer in the world to this is to play take your pick with almost anyone from Tennessee or Florida during the lean years of the mid 90's. Peyton had some good games against Georgia. I would actually bypass any UF players and just say that Spurrier simply dominated UGA throught the 90's, regardless of who was on the field. In the last 6 or 7 years though, most of the guys that would fall into this category have come from Auburn, and most of those performances helped them earn their place in the Gut Punch Hall of Fame.

You've got the Ben Leard and Ronney Daniels game, which every Auburn friend I have readily admitted there was no logical explanation for Ben Leard having a game like that against anyone, ever. That was a bad Auburn team playing on the road against a UGA team that was supposed to battle for the conference title, much like '98 and '00, hence the demise of Donnan. Anyway, Leard throws for like 400 yards with 250 of it going to Daniels. It was eye gougingly sickening. I mean, to compare it to this season in the SEC, it would have been Michael Spurlock coming out and throwing for 450 for Ole Miss against LSU, at night, in Death Valley. No way it hell it happens.

OMG, WTF?!?

Then there was the season of Rudi Johnson, where after we settled for a field goal in overtime, it was a foregone conclusion that Auburn was going to give him the ball 8 times in a row until he scored. The Kenny Irons game from this year also qualifies. I'd also give Justin Vincent a nod from the '03 Title Game, but I'll downgrade that now that we've got double redemption on that game.

It's been a pretty rare thing in the last 5 years for someone to just take over against UGA's defense, but we were definitely without an answer for Vincent and Irons on those days.

There are games that I have no interest in but I watch simply to see a certain guy play. What players from this season do you do the same for?

That's kind of a loaded question for me since I watch a crap ton of football no matter what. I've watched USC every chance I get to see Reggie Bush. I've watched ND every chance I get to see Tom Brady Quinn and Samardzija. Interestingly enough, I've almost avoided Texas games because I haven't wanted to see Vince Young. But honestly, I'll watch about any game that's going to be even semi-entertaining, and even some that aren't.

A few weeks ago we were asked who the best player to suit up for our school was. I'm curious who your favorite player to ever suit up for your school is? Certainly doesn't have to be a superstar, or even a starter.

In my formative years, guys like Rodney Hampton and then the trio of Zeier, Hearst, and Hastings got me hooked on Georgia football. I was a huge fan of watching Boss Bailey block field goals. Tony Gilbert's hair always gave me a strange confidence. David Greene always made me feel like we could win a game. And I've always had a strange affection for kickers, or at least kickers from the last few years once we got some that were worth a damn, Badass Billy Bennett, GEK, Coutu. But, without a doubt, my favorite Bulldog has been my guy, the recently departed and forever dangerous #10, Thomas Davis. A phenomenal athlete and the original head hunter. I never felt safer than I did with him and Sean John patrolling the secondary.

I had to use a picture of him blocking a kick since photos of him hitting people are considered too graphic for public consumption.

creeping shart ....

2005-12-09T14:11:00.000-05:00

Or just a bad case of the Renteria?

Your guess is as good as mine.

I can't say that I was surprised or overly dismayed at the loss of Furcal. At this point, with the AOL/Time Warner/Whatever The Hell They're Calling Themselves Braves, we're basically going to hold on to roughly 1 or 2 upper tier position players through free agency each decade or so. Right now we're on the tail end of the Chipper Jones Era and probably around the peak of Andruw's time. I think after last summer, everyone assumes that it's guaranteed that we're entering the Franceour Era. Beyond that, I could see McCann hanging around for a while, LaRoche probably has some legs in him for the franchise, and one of the Kelly Johnson/Ryan Langerhans crew will probably hang out in left field for a while. Giles is a trickier question. The world isn't exactly overrun with second baseman who can post a .300 average, double digit home runs, 50 doubles, and steal a handful of bases. I could see him being priced out of our range in a couple years.

On the other hand, at least the Renteria move proves that although we're probably past our days of signing or even retaining most big name free agents, we will still move extra prospects for at least a 2nd tier, slightly sub-All Star caliber player, which 5 or 6 of those with a couple of real stars will still get the job done. Of course, I'd feel a lot better about this move if Renteria was coming off his time in St. Louis instead of his breakdown in Boston last year. Simmon's may slip and slide a bit these days, but his thoughts on Renteria last year ring frighteningly true. The fear lingers that if he actually did have a birth certificate somewhere, that 1975 might look a lot like 1971 if you look beneath the smudge. Regardless, I'll always give a Schuerholz move a chance until it completely breaks down. I mean hell, I even gave Kolb a game or two before I started the change the channel every time he came in the game last season.

I see two gaping holes really. Picking up Renteria to replace Furcal does nothing to address the leadoff role. With guys like Giles, Renteria, and even LaRoche, there's plenty of 2 or 5 hole hitters, but really no one that fits the leadoff role. My best guess is moving Giles up into it since he'll hit .300 and take enough walk to probably see 1st base more than Furcal did, and he is sneaky fast enough to steal a base. The big question is how he would adjust to a move like that though, after a couple of solid years hitting in the 2 spot. And the gaping hole being, of course, closer. We let Farnsworth walk, so what's that leave us? Nothing really. Devine was obviously drafted to be the closer of the future, but unfortunately, when his two or three months of service most suits him for the name of Joey Grandslam, well, let's just say we're most likely not looking at a Huston Street type situation here. I've heard the name Wickman bandied about, which makes sense considering he's 57 years old.

The only things I'm hearing is that we're looking for a right handed first baseman to replace Julio and an experienced left fielder. All I have to say about that is, if LaRoche doesn't start 150 games this year, something is bad wrong. But then again, Bobby has never been able to stop treating first base like Oliver Stone. And, I don't really see the need for an experienced left fielder, considering you now have two guys who have an entire season and post season experience. But again, Sgt's Elias and Barnes would be proud of Bobby's work in left field as well.

Elsewhere around the East, New York has escalated its drive to ruin Fantasy Seasons all over America as they sign or trade for front line players and then ruin their careers. And yes, you are talking to a man who had his fantasy baseball team submarined by a first round choice of Carlos Beltran. As long as New York keeps turning All Stars into .270, 20, 80 guys, I won't be too worried about what's happening at Shea.

In other news, AMC has decided to get The Drizzle in the holiday spirit by running a double feature of Halloween 4 and Halloween 5 tonight. Apparently the programming guys took off early and just decided to run the lineup from 6 weeks ago. Nothing says Christmas Spirit like pitchfork impalements and Bruce Willis's daughter from The Last Boy Scout in a blood covered clown costume with a pair of scissors. I understand 25 days is a lot to fill up, but at least use something vaguely Christmas related. I mean, would anyone be upset with 7 straight days of National Lampoons Christmas.

Definitely not Clark W. Griswold

percolating, getting ready to bring the LOLZ ...

2005-12-08T01:36:00.000-05:00

I only wish I could say I've spent the last 4 days in some stuperous afterglow of thrashing LSU in the Dome and that I've been too busy laughing at the memory of sending those inbreds in purple back to the Sticks in embarrasment to turn anything out.

Instead I have to blame it on things like rejoining the work force during the day, but unfortunately without the benefit of a computer in front of me for the time being, and spending nights trying to teach my friend's little sister an entire semester of math in 3 nights.

On the other hand, I still have been able to piece together an entire viewing of The Ref and I'm trying to carve out some time tomorrow night for the double feature of Above The Law and Chain Reaction, only on AMC.

In the meantime, I have designs on posting about the game, posting my last ballot, with actual comments this time, answering the roundtable, and addressing the SI On Campus article about the girl from UGA (it's linked on Kyle's site) that mentions a certain Athens cover band that could really use its own post, addressing the Braves lingering case of Renteria, and doing a marathon viewing of ATHF v4 to help get me motivated to bring the LOLZ. My most realistic guess is that this will happen Friday.

ROTFLMMFAO

or ...

2005-12-04T18:01:00.000-05:00

Perhaps we'll just kick the crap out of them.

More to come.

my apologies ...

2005-12-02T14:11:00.000-05:00

I've been remiss around here lately, not much said, but I've been crazy busy in the last couple of weeks. Hopefully next week it'll start to get back normal and I'll come back with a vengeance of analysis and humor to rock the world, or perhaps not.

On top of all that, this game has got me all unsettled. Of our 3 SEC Title Game appeareances in the last 4 years, this is the only one that has been up in the air. Arkansas trying to take us on in '02 was a horrible joke. And after Lump dropped that early crossing pass that might have gone for a score in '03, well we dropped from about a 5% chance of taking down LSU to about a 0% chance. This one though, much like the whole damn SEC this year, is wide open. I don't think we've played a team definitively better than us this year, and I don't think that'll change this Saturday. Hell, I don't even know that they'll be the best team we've played, that may well rest with Auburn.

Their offense is definitely a step back from Auburn, JaMarcus Russell has finally progressed away from being a complete mistake machine, but I still get the feeling he's a mistake machine waiting to get cranked back up. Their running game has been largely hit and miss with a dinged up Joseph Addai and Justin Vincent having yet to build on the 200 he hung on us back in '03. Their receivers are often uncoverable, but if there's one team in the SEC with more of a propensity to drop open passes than Georgia, it's LSU. So yeah, I expect the defense to do well enough to give us a chance to win.

So it comes down to the offense. Can we maintain the run enough to achieve some balance? Can the receivers have, hell not even a breakout game, but just a solid enough game to not make me want to throw myself from the upper deck of the Dome? These are the two questions. If we can generate somewhere between 100 and 150 on the ground, wherever it may come from, TB, Shock, Lump, I don't care, things are looking ok. And I don't fear for Pope or Mass hauling in most of what comes their way, but we really need BMac and Sean to step up too. Young receivers for both teams though, who knows how the nerves will be running. I'm basically going to lay down the key stat as being dropped passes though, the team that catches the ball will be the one that comes out on top. So yeah, wide flippin open, should be exciting.

Prediction

UGA 23 - LSU 17

Nerves abound.

Dawg Walk - SEC Championship

2005-11-29T20:24:00.000-05:00

Regards to Paul, if you read this, you've probably already seen this on his, but just in case.

Per Georgiadogs.com

ATHENS - The University of Georgia Dawg Walk prior to the SEC Championship Game Saturday at the Georgia Dome will begin at 3:55 p.m.

The team will arrive and depart the buses at the West Plaza near the Gold Parking Deck off Northside Dr. They will proceed to Stairtower Four at which point they will go down stairs to the players' entrance.

In other words....Gate B.

GameBalls (and not the kind that throw goal line interceptions) ...

2005-11-28T13:41:00.000-05:00

An all around good day at Historic Grant Field at Bobby Dodd blah, blah, whatever. Could they have possibly thought of a longer name for a crap stadium that looks like 3 separate pieces of different stadiums placed next to each other, begging questions like, "When they expanded this thing, why the hell didn't they just connect this endzone around to that grandstand?" Guess what, no one knows. Oh, and it only holds 55,000, of course, 15 to 20K of those have to come from the other interested party for the day.

But it's hard to argue with a day that begins with bacon, eggs, biscuits, elk sausage, and the smoker being lit by 8 in the morning. Oh, and the first crisp, cold Budweiser of the day. First two signs that everything was going to be ok, as I trucked past the airport at 7:20 or so, doing 75ish like the 3 cars in front of me, the GSP hiding in the fog rolled out and decided to corral the car in front of me, leaving me to keep on trucking and meet the true tailgaters start time of 8, without the added benefit of a $200 ticket, also, the Budweiser was particularly quaffable that morning, both good signs. What else to say about the tailgate, we saw the sun rise and the sun set. Venison and ribs were smoked, wild boar was consumed, a turkey was deep fried. I somehow stepped in a broken sprinkler head which had created a 6 inch deep cesspool that ate my foot and my flip flops, necessitating an early morning foot wash in the fountain by the student center, feet were a little chilly for a few minutes, not gonna lie. What else happened? Who knows? Stealing instruments from the band, a stereo setup with roughly 8 speakers, tripping, falling, and general cross rivalry hijinks.

I think the game could be summarized thusly, Tech couldn't have hoped for things to go much better, and yet, still isn't enough. Ah well.

Anyway, we're here for plaudits and accolades, so here we go:

-A gigantic kiss my ass to the entire GTAA and the ticket takers for Saturday's game especially. After standing in line for 5 minutes at Gate 10, the gate I've used for every game I've been to there for the last 3 or 4 years, regardless of where my ticket was, I was told that mine was a Gate 7 ticket and I'd have to go around. After explaining how stupid that was, especially given that kickoff was now in 15 to 20 minutes and every gate had 1,000 people backed up at it because of the shitty job they were doing, I was told that she wasn't going to have no argument on that with me and that I was holding up her line. Of course, I told her she was holding up her line by being a dumbass, but strangely enough, that didn't get me in either. Long story short, 20 minutes later I finally get in at Gate 7 which had 2,000 people waiting and 2 people taking tickets. So congrats to the BDS crew, 55,000 person stadium and you can't even get everyone in without a f'ing debacle.

Now for the good ones:

-Martinez and the defensive gameplan. Anytime you hold someone to 7 points, and scoreless for the last 55 minutes of the game, something went right. I'm not always a fan of keeping it in front of you, but given Tech's propensity for self immolation and the fact that probably 70% of their scoring drives happen because Calvin hauls in a 50 yarder and then someone busts a 20 yard run, forcing Reggie and The No Effect to sustain drives was the way to go. There was just enough blitzing and pressure to keep me satisfied, and for the most part, the tackling was sure and the hits were definitely solid. I doubt Calvin has seen hits like that all year.

-Special defensive plaudits to Minter and Oliver. Minter got beat on a pretty much unstoppable catch and Oliver gave up one catch when he slipped. Other than that, The Greatest Receiver in the Nation was a non factor other than serving as a target for some vicious licks.

-Semi game ball to CMR for staying more patient on offense than I probably would have been. The second, third, and most of the fourth quarter was an offensive morass like I haven't seen lately, but he stuck with it and didn't force it, even after McClendon's once in a lifetime goal line slip to start the second half. In the end, it was enough to win, and truthfully if the receivers have a better day catching the ball, we probably by at least 14.

-A welcome back one to Kregg, hopefully that's just the beginning of the return of Lump.

-A game ball of respect to DJ. That was his worst game since South Carolina, not sharp with the ball and basically a non factor with is legs. But he hung in there, didn't make any gross errors and made the two best reads and throws of the night with the throws to Raley and McClendon on the last drive.

-A Corey Allen gameball to Bryan McClendon for once again taking victory right in the face of those yellow painted douche bags in the South End Zone.

If you're going to catch one, it was a good one to catch

-Gigantic accolades (and a wish for him being just a step faster) for Thomas Flowers. Those punt returns that left us playing downhill in the 4th quarter made all the difference in the world. If he wasn't the only punt returner in the national who can't take the punter one on one, he probably scores two of those returns.

-Big ups to Tim Jennings for you know, icing the game and all that. He's been the cause of some serious heart burn in the last 3 years, but all was right with the world on that play.

-Gigantic accolades and copious plaudits to my two favorite guys, without whom none of this would be possible, Chan the Man and Game Ball. Between Chan's decision to not go to Calvin with the game on the line and Reggie's decision to telegraph one straight to TJ, they confirmed my theory, with those two on the other side of the line, you're always going to have the chance to win. Those last two and a half minutes of the game is the perfect microcosm on their entire time, flashes of brilliance as they fly down the field to tie the game, gut wrenching (or hilarious, if you're on the other side) agony as they both end the game with brain farts of Thanksgiving proportion.

And yes, I did see these d-bags coming up Techwood after the game.

And yes, I did inquire to make sure that they'd learned how to count to 5 in all those classes that people apparently don't attend.

guerilla warfare ...

2005-11-25T14:13:00.000-05:00

I would have to say I am unique among the Georgia bloggers. I doubt any of the rest of us covering the the Bulldogs, Paul, Kyle, Doug, Realist, Hamp, or L.D. have done what I have done. What have I done you ask? I've hinted at it, but I'll drop the dirty secret all the way out here. The Drizzle spent 6+ years conducting operations behind enemy lines as a student at Georgia Tech, with two whole degrees to prove it. So yeah, I probably have a perspective on, and a loathing for, Tech that few can understand. And since I was not asked to participate roundtable style by Nathan over at Golden Tornado, I thought I'd take the bull by the horns and interview myself, the life long Georgia fan Drizzle trading questions with the Tech student Drizzle. But before we get to that, a short rollercoaster history on the games I've been in attendance for.

1997, my senior year of high school, my first Georgia-Georgia Tech game, taken in from the Upper West stands of Bobby Dodd. Watching David Frakes hook field goals out of the side of the endzone as I laughed, the slip screen to start the last drive, Bobo to Allen in the South Endzone. All was right with the world, 7 in a row and no signs of change. Expectations for watching games like this as we ran it to 11 in a row were high.

1998, the beginning of the Crackhead Quincy years, the Joe Hamilton uncalled fumble on their last drive. I question how UGA can win 7 in a row until I get to college and suddenly crap like this starts to happen. I explain it away as an aberation though.

1999, the game where defense died and Jasper encapsulated his entire career in one afternoon, so much promise, so much potential, and ultimately, an inexplicable, gut wrenching, soul questioning ending (except his career didn't end with nearly that much fanfare, and if you lived in Polo Club in '98 where he was smoking daily, you knew what was coming anyway). The Sanks fumble call was a cruel joke. The blocked field goal in overtime recovered by the Goose was a crueler joke. This game leads to serious questioning of what sort of negative karma is following me. I later realize I've had my boxers on backwards all day, never do that again. Upon returning to school Sunday night, I go out onto Grant Field (since it was open 24 hours a day back then, even for nightly pickup football games) and return to the scene of Jasper's no fumble to try to find some meaning. None was found.

2000, what does it say about the Crackhead QC Era that I felt we had a better chance with Cory Phillips starting that game. Meanwhile, the Goose rumbles 30 yards for a touchdown and I come to the stark realization that for the first time, they flat beat the hell out of us, we had no answer for Fat Ralph, and for the first time ever, Tech may have well had better players on the field as well. This is a scary realization. At this point I begin to wonder how I've stayed alive 20 years with luck this bad.

2001, the day of redemption. I was retardedly nervous this day. I didn't even tailgate with my friends, I just spent 5 hours before game time wandering all over campus, from the Varsity to the IC and back. I was staring down the barrel of probably being the first ever Georgia fan to attend and preside over a 4 year losing streak to Tech. At this point, I didn't know I was headed back for grad school, so I was in serious danger of going winless, awful day up til gametime. I was down by Bobby Dodd when Georgia got off the bus. I have never in my life, before or after, met Tony Gilbert, by I walked up to him when he got off the bus and just told him, Tony, we have to win this today. Something about his glorious dread locks inspires confidence, I begin to feel better. I feel much better when CMR lets Verron run and run and run all over the Tech defense. Order is restored, and now on a 1 game winning streak, I decide to come back for grad school to try to improve my record.

2002, 51-7. That's really all that needs to be said about this game. I remember turning to Frank at one point and just saying, dude, it's 44-0, 44 to flippin nothing. My friend Travis is a Tech fan, he's sitting in the UGA student section with us, I actually feel bad for him. We're on a winning streak.

2003, the beginning of Game Ball acting like a prick as he gets himself benched for taking a cheap shot on a trainer. I missed the majority of the tailgate because all my roommates left me stranded there as more and more people I didn't like continued to show up and do things like vomit off my front porch and look capable of stealing shit. The Drizzle is not pleased, decides his anger will be released on Tech this day. Lumpkin, in his freshman year, scores coming straight towards me in the south end zone as if I was calling him home. I begin to think this streak has some legs. As long as Game Ball and Chan the Man are on the other sideline, we've got a fighting chance no matter who we put on the field. The coldest day I ever spent at Grant Field, it was cold as a witch's tit in the shade in that south endzone, I spend the entire halftime standing by myself on the ramp in the sun to thaw back out.

2004, the day that wouldn't end and the second coldest day (behind Ole Miss in 2000 I guess it was) I ever spent in Sanford. Greene gets hurt, DJ looks like a deer in headlights, Greene comes back in, Tech fans deflate, he leads scoring drive to cushion the lead. I nearly lose it when I see Game Ball is going to clock it on 3rd down and long, I'm screaming at everyone as he walks up to the line, "jesus, watch this, the dumbass is going to spike it." And he does. He then breaks the comedy meter by running for his life on 4th down and throwing it out of bounds as if it were 3rd down, which apparently his ignorant, MATH 1711 skipping ass thought it was. Travis loses a good hat that day as he chucks 30 rows down after the 4th down play. I once again feel slightly sorry for him that he's cursed with such a jackass for a coach and a quarterback.

Counting down the minutes to the post game oatmeal

So, in my college career (up to this point since I'm probably going back next year), I'm 4-3 against Tech, but most importantly, right in the heart of a 4 game winning streak.

Now for the interview portion of our show.

TD (UGA): Now that the ACC has added BC, VPI, and Miami to upgrade themselves from a basketball conference plus FSU to an actual football conference, Dave (questionable) Braine has come out and said that at this point, it's unrealistic to expect Tech to be more than a 6 or 7 win team with occasional flashes of a 9 win season. Do you buy this? With Georgia Tech being in basically the 4th state in the country for high school recruits, even having to recruit against UGA, shouldn't their "rich history" and location in "Black Hollywood" allow them to land the kind of athletes they need to be a 8 or 9 win team? Or is a string of barely winning seasons and a long bowl streak of meaningless bowls really your glass ceiling?

TD (GT): I think there's basically a tenuous satisfaction with the performance over the last 4 or 5 years. There's been just enough big wins, Auburn twice, Miami last week, that it seems like there's light at the end of the tunnel, and there's been just enough pointless losses, Duke a couple years ago, NC State this year, to make you think we're never going to get over the hump and never be more than the 4th to 8th best team in the conference over and over again. Clearly it's never good to hear your AD say that excellence is an unrealistic expectation though. No one would admit to or say they are happy with the status quo being the glass ceiling, but it probably is, and as long as they accept it as such, they'll always be the lesser program in the state, in spite of their "rich tradition."

And since you mentioned recruiting, that's a slightly scary situation too. Basically Tech is living off of Calvin Johnson's mother forcing him towards Tech, and a bunch of 2 star and a handful of 3 star recruits panning out as well or better than could have ever been expected. Things are improving slightly, but they're still nowhere near where they were 5 years ago when GOL was actually threatening to outrecruit UGA in state. You have to wonder what level of success can be maintained when your players come from culling the leftovers that UGA (and surrouding schools) leave in Georgia and picking up overlooked players from throughout the country.

TD (GT): What does the Tech game mean to UGA, as a win? Or loss?

TD (UGA): The Tech game, especially for fans under the age of 30 or 40 is looked at as a should win. It's necessary to maintain an air of disdain for Tech and its fans. It's all well and good to sneer at Tech's program and the fact that they've been on the wrong side of, well after last week, every game since 1990 or to belittle them for not being able to fill their own stadium until we come and fill it for them, but all of that is meaningless if we don't dominate them on the field. They can lean on their stringent academics, but last week put a chink in that armor, not to mention, as TD (GT) can attest, there's plenty of room for the football players in the management program, trust me, nobody but the kickers are engineering anything other than which juicy dime they're trying to cut next. They can lean on the old jokes, what does a Georgia grad call a Tech grad? Which is a flawed joke since 90% of Tech grads move to the Carolinas or Texas or California or go back home to countries where English ain't exactly conversational while UGA grads, as Kyle pointed out last week, run the state of Georgia. They can lean on all those, but as long as UGA owns the field, we get to look down our noses at them regardless. So a win is a win, it's necessary. A loss in an inexplicable debacle because it means 365 days of Tech fans acting like they actually mean something, when they don't. There is at least some honor to be had in losses in the last 10 years to UF, UT, or Auburn. We're talking about teams that have all won conferences titles and won (or like to pretend they've won) national titles over that time. The best Tech can boast is using Little Joe "I was probably ineligible" Hamilton to steal 2 games from UGA. That's why a win over Tech is a matter of course and a loss is unacceptable.

WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN?

I don't know, Tech's offense is good for roughly 10 to 14 points probably regardless of what happens, not much more, not much less. But are they good for a couple of inexplicable Game Ball turnovers? He's shied away from that this year, but if you don't believe it's lurking, especially once he starts trying to jaw and show his ass out there, you're crazy. Beyond that, Calvin will probably catch a few, but as Kyle said, we just need to scatter them, 8 catches for 90 yards won't kill us, if we limit him to one a drive and if everyone else's numbers totalled together only match up to his, we'll be fine on that end.

Is Tech's defense good? Yeah, they are, but they've also had their two biggest games against Auburn and Miami, which as I said early was Tenuta making hay against inexperienced (at the time in Cox's case), immobile quarterbacks. Shock is neither. Of course, that won't stop Tenuta from blitzing, which means Shock should get a chance to make some plays with his legs and should have free rein with some intermediate passes, so Mass, Pope, strap your hands on. And frankly, anyone else that wants to volunteer to catch the ball, damn you Sean Bailey, feel free to step up. Basically, if Shock can lead the offense to 20 to 28 points, everything should be fine.

It comes down to a few things.

Shock's performance in last year's Tech game lead to serious questions about his ability to lead the team. You think he isn't ready to go out there and put all of those to rest for good as he wraps up the regular season?

When was the last time Chan Gailey lead a team, any team, to two meaningful wins in a row?

When was the last time Tech played well in two meaningful games in a row?

Doesn't Tech and Reuben Hooters himself deserved to be burned for about 3 scores after putting a guy under federal drug charges out on the field?

I'm going to stick with what I've said for three years running, a little math for the Tech grads:

Chan the Man + Game Ball = Excellent Chance of UGA Victory.

UGA 27 - Tech 10.

And if we lose the game, I can't promise I'll be back.

lock up your kids ...

2005-11-22T15:32:00.000-05:00

Beating my friends at EDSBS to the punch. I present to you, not only the mustache of the week, but the mustache of the year in college basketball, Basketball Jesus Jr. himself, Adam Morrison. You're looking, you're wondering, is it there, is it not? Well trust me, it is, and it's molestastic. The pictures out there aren't doing it justice, so check ESPN at 7 and watch them play, you won't regret it. And if you think I'm cutting my hair again in the next 6 months after seeing this, you are sadly mistaken.

Coming soon to a school yard near you

BlogPoll 13 and musings and such ...

2005-11-22T15:00:00.000-05:00

A couple of notes before the Poll.

First off, this voting thing is tougher than you'd ever get it credit for. We're supposed to cast off the shackles of retarded media voting, but it becomes difficult. Do you vote off of performance, scores you can point to, or do you only lean towards your feelings on team matchups. Do you give more weight to a single game or a body of work? It gives rise to situations like Notre Dame, where I believe they could and probably would beat most of the 1 loss BCS conference teams, but they've got one more slip up on the books. What's a more accurate representation? Penalizing them for the loss to MSU or putting them ahead of the teams you believe they'd beat? And, after you hit around 15, the whole thing becomes an impossible morass of average teams that won't give you a consistent performance. But anyway ...

These are based on bias, innuendo, supposition, hearsay and conjecture (which are types of evidence, thank you Lionel Hutz), a few articles I've read, and occasionally watching a game.

This week I watched Fresno State-USC, Miami - Georgia Tech, a small touch of Bama - Auburn, and Georgia - Kentucky, live and in boring person.

One more note, after the USC-Notre Dame game, if you didn't think Reggie Bush was the Heisman winner, you were foolish. After the USC-Fresno game, if you don't believe it now, you're just f'ing deluded. I have never seen such an athletic rift between 1 guy and everyone else on the field. You had two top 15 teams out there, one of them one of the most prolific offenses we've seen and he was head and shoulders and just about everything else above everyone else on the field, including his own team. Some of those runs were like redonkulous Noel Devine runs (go on Rivals and watch his tape), you just don't see stuff like that. 11 guys know they're going to run a sweep to him and no one can do a single thing about it. I mean, I think he's kind of a prick, but there's no way you can deny he's the best player in college football and the key to the best team in the country. Their two closest games, who do they look to? Exactly. Anyway ....

1. Southern Cal – They get #1 over UT for one reason. How many big games have they won over the last 2 years? How many has UT won?

2. Texas – We’ll see, OSU meant a little, but in reality USC is the one and only chance this team has to show what it’s about.

3. Louisiana State – Mistakes seem to be becoming less prevalent?

4. Notre Dame – I fly them in the face of the next 3 teams simply because I think they’d beat them, it’s purely debatable personal opinion.

5. Penn State – I guess they’re good, I don’t know.

6. Virginia Tech – Georgia Tech does them the favor of getting the best team in the ACC back into the title game.

7. Oregon – Keep plugging along

8. Auburn – I’m honestly tempted to rank them ahead of Oregon or even Virginia Tech. No one hotter right now, thanking god UGA probably won’t have to see them in the Dome.

9. Georgia – I reserve comment except to say everyone seems down on this team for reasons beyond me.

10. Ohio State – Thanking Michigan

11. West Virginia – Still impossible to know how good they are, but I feel like they’re pretty good, although sadly boring.

12. Miami (Florida) – I hate myself for voting them 3rd for a couple weeks, I gave credence to the VPI win even though I thought all season the offense and Kyle Wright were suspect and Tech proved that against a functional offense, having Charlie Jones running the ball and Kyle Wright running the team is not a good thing

13. Alabama – Poor bastards, injuries start to set in, then they have to go into that Auburn game, I’ve hardly ever seen a team look less ready

14. Fresno State – A pretty solid team with no answer for a guy most teams would not have an answer for

15. UCLA – Good as place as any, we now officially enter the realm of teams I don’t particularly want to rank and have no idea what would happen between them, as such, comments will be sparing to non existent.

16. TCU

17. Louisville

18. Florida – Probably beats FSU, where does that leave their season and Meyer?

19. Texas Tech

20. Boston College

21. Georgia Tech – Hmmmm.

22. Clemson – Ultimate ACC team, up, down, impossible to predict.

23. Wisconsin

24. Iowa State

25. Michigan – Or FSU or whoever, someone has to go last I guess, can’t believe they ruined my prediction of winning out, it’s like they don’t want to win a game, just like every other Big 10 team outside of PSU

Dropped Out:
South Carolina, Oklahoma, Minnesota

New:
Georgia Tech, Clemson, Iowa State

So that's it, laugh with and disagree with it.

IN OTHER NEWS

My claim that OSU-Michigan was the only other game of interest was a touch of the old sarcasm since the only outcome of that game that would interest me is the stadium falling in on them. But I didn't have time to post thoughts on the 3 or 4 games that I did actually care about, the road had to be hit.

As far as UGA wrapping up the East, I summarized my feelings on the walk out as stunningly underwhelmed. And it was totally true. I couldn't get excited about that game or what it meant. Being back in that stadium was like returning to the scene of the crime way too early, the wounds still far too fresh to get any enjoyment out of that day. You don't walk back into that bar the day after you got cracked in the head with a pool stick during the brawl, had your wallet stolen, and caught herpes from that chick whose face you can't quite remember and expect to have a good time.

As far as Tech beating Miami, obviously I was surprised, but actually not shocked. As I said on Paul's site the other day, that game was the perfect setup for Tenuta to make hay. I won't say much more now because it'll be studied more later in the week, but that was the best setup Tech could have hoped for.

Sadly I won't get to say as much as I want though, a busy week and the Tech game coming in the same week makes for much less blogging than it deserves, so head to Paul, he'll have much more humor than I'll have time to muster. However, I will try to get at least one solid one where I tell anecdotes from my 6 years there.

In the meantime, 2 reasons I'm not as scared by this weekend as others:

1) Name the last time a team coached by Chan Gailey won back to back meaningful games?

2) Is any team ready for more karmic backswing than the one that just put a guy under federal drug charges for carrying around 100 pounds of weed out on the field 3 days after he was reinstated against the wishes of the administration, who obviously aren't seeing eye to eye with the coaching staff on this issue?

keep the wheels attached to the friggin' bus ...

2005-11-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

So now we come to our annual late season breather against Kentucky. Except this time, it means something. Thankfully enough, and it sounds so strange to say, gone are the days of Mumme Ball and J Lo. It's almost frightening to admit, but that made for some nervous afternoons for me in the last 6 or 7 years. Not because I actually feared losing to them, but it was flippin nerve wracking to watch Couch throw 47 screen passes and know that Mumme was going to go for it on every 4th down and less than 10 when he was between the 20's. (First clue that Couch wasn't going to be worth a damn, typical line, 34 for 58, 235 yards, 1 touchdown, I'm pretty sure I could post those when I didn't have to throw a pass longer than 5 yards). And then we come to Fat Lorenzen, he spents 4 years on and off the bench, scaring opposing teams into worrying that this might be the day that playing against a 320 pound quarterback who threw passes behind his back and had linebackers bounce off him like a damn super ball might actually bite them in the ass. Of course, it never did.

Forever surprised that he didn't just eat the ball

And now we have Rich "We can't do any better, nor are we apparently even going to try" Brooks, and we have the worst defensive team in the SEC, the one giving up 450 yards and 34 points a game. The one that gave up 49 straight points to a Florida team that struggles to score. The one that nearly gave away a 34-3 lead on Vanderbilt before holding on 48-43. And they turn the ball over like crazy, while we tend to take it away. So, there's the story right there.

The Georgia offense looked great coming out in the no huddle last week and word is we plan to stay with it for the rest of the season. Shock looked full speed with his arm and legs and the running game was actually effective against a good Auburn defense. So I expect a ton of the same. I'm tired of saying TB is going to run for 100 like I did earlier in the season, only to see the opposing defense key the run and the running game mire itself in mediocritude, so I won't say that. But he should.

On the other side of the ball, the defense is still banged up. We're still shuffling linebackers in and out, with only a couple of them at full speed. Ked still breaks something new every week, and we'll be without Tra "Which Way Do I Go" Battle, but I'm happy to see Kelin Johnson start in his place. Point being, defense has taken it on the chin a few times in the last few games, but this a good one to get their feet back under them because we shouldn't be leaning on them at all this game. Kentucky has a few skill players to trot out there, Rafael Little for instance, but it shouldn't be near enough to even think about making this one scary.

For the full numbers breakdown, as always, see Kyle.

But to me, this one boils down to a couple things. We've got a lot of seniors playing their last home game. We've got a team that should be hungry after not winning a game for a flippin month. And most importantly, we're 60 minutes of just keeping the car on the damn road from heading to the Dome to play for the conference title, which should start to be a decent salve for the pains of the last 3 weeks.

They on the other hand are? I don't know, trying to string together a 2 game winning streak to justify keeping Rich Brooks? Does anyone on that team even care about that? Did they fly in Herm Edwards just to tell them that, "You play to win the game." Would it matter?

Prediction: UGA 38 - UK 17

Then we start getting ready to put the final nail in Tech's coffin. Speaking of which ....

There's so much to say about all this, but truthfully, Paul feels even more strongly about this than I do, so check him out. My feelings are vaguely summarized as:

Were the violations purposeful and malicious? Probably not, although it's impossible to say for sure. But even if it were just ignorance and stupidity, it was so rampant that it should have been caught and rectified long before it was, instead Braine instructed everyone to turn a blind eye. And the contingent trying to blame it all on the quarter to semester switch doesn't hold water, by 2004, anyone involved in that should have been long gone, you'd have to be a 6th year senior still taking classes at that point.

And now they look all the more foolish because the NCAA crapped on their lame ass self imposed sanctions.

The amount of belittlement and finger pointing which they now receive is a foregone conclusion when the a large portion of the fan base tries to hang their hat and justify their performance based upon the high standards and clean living of the institution, which apparently don't exist so much these days.

Short personal anecdote, I TA'ed management math during the time a lot of this happened. Somehow, I had a lot of basketball players, baseball players, volleyball players, even cheerleaders, but really no football players. Not taking math for those two years? Anyway, back then I TA'ed a class in the IC and every Tuesday and Thursday I'd go in there, and I'd walk in to class to start teaching and one dude would still be hanging out in the halls after everyone else headed on, Joe Burns. Every time. Of course, he was already my hero for his overtime fumble that cost them the Maryland game in 2001. Anway, let's just say when he got removed from the team before the bowl game that year, I was not surprised. Nor am I ever surprised when stories like this finally come out, even at "bastions of academic integrity" like Tech.

Busting tackles, but not the books

Anyway, the only other game of any real interest is pretty much Ohio State - Michigan, to which I will be the first to admit to having no idea what the hell will happen, but since I predicted Michigan to win out and finish in the top 15 3 weeks ago, I guess I'll stick with them.

So that's it I guess, up to Athens one last time for one more lame ass early game. Then back to The A next week where the Tech baiting will be in high form after the last couple weeks.

the night of the uneven haircuts ...

2005-11-17T22:06:00.000-05:00

So you have certain expectations when you go to Athens to see Bright Eyes at the the Theater. I expect an attitude of ambivalence. I expect a guessing game as to the attractiveness of most of the females in the crowd. And, I expect some flippin uneven haircuts.

All in all, I wasn't disappointed. Conor tried an anti-war speech somewhere in the middle but lost his train of thought somewhere in the middle of all the blow from earlier in the evening. I saw undersized sweaters. I saw blazers and sports coats with elbow patches. I saw plenty of man bags. I saw more nut hugging jeans in one place than I've seen in quite a while. And the haircuts, by god, the uneven haircuts. I saw chicks that may have well been hot, but with their face framed by such as backasswards haircut, I can't be sure, not to mention I was too busy noticing their jeans tucked into the boots and their 8 foot scarfs to check out the rest of the business. And the dudes who look like they cut their hair with a weed eater and then slept on it for 4 days. Not that I give too much of a damn, in the last 5 years I've had everything from no hair, to a frat mop (no frat), to a mohawk, and shoulder length hair that I had to wear in a ponytail (no homo). But, I mean damn, how do you even get a haircut like that, what do you ask for when you walk in, the dumbest f'ing haircut imaginable?

Bringing the tears to your town

In the meantime, does hipster attract thinness or do you have to be thin to be a hipster? Or do they just go into a provisional phase where they up your cigarette intake to like 3 packs a day until you have a 26 waist? Damnation children, it can't be comfortable to wear jeans that you can't bend your knees in. Of course, when you're than unaffected, I guess you don't have to get anywhere in a hurry.

Of course, they somewhat belied that fact by not only clapping for the two opening acts, but actually clapping to the rhythm during several songs, and actually applauding Conor to the point where he pointed out that it was the first time a crowd in Athens had clapped for him. So I guess some more normal people snuck in, or perhaps it's deck to clap now, I don't know. At least the dude standing next to me got excited when he played Lua, cause that's what he thought the show was supposed to be all about, then he preceeded to make out like crazy with his fat lady friend during it, so congrats I guess.

And if anyone was concerned, the No Where Bar at 9 on a Wednesday night still peddles cheap PBR and scary townie skeeze. So all is well.

IN OTHER NEWS

Paul is already well into the fun on the news handed down on Tech today, I'll probably say more about it in the weekend preview tomorrow, but go here now and start the fun.

TJ, hell yes I'm expecting a check from AMC after the pimping we've been doing of their nightly lineup in front of all 17 of my moderately loyal readers. I'm wondering if the comedy theme is still going strong next week or if we're on to something else, I need to check.

And since someone using the fine moniker of Smooth Jimmy Apollo did inquire about why everyone from south of town knows Reuben as Reuben Hooters, it's actually a pretty simple story. Reuben is known around these parts and in "The A" as being a bit of a ladies man, multiple ladies. If you remember, when he was carrying the 94 pounds of weed, he actually had his kid with him, I think he actually has 2, but I digress. Anyway, he was banging this waitress from Hooters, which is a thing in and of itself, but then 9 months later, or so I'm pretty sure everyone assumes anyway, she became the baby momma to the poor young'un he was carrying around on his mission. Or that's the story anyway, it's alledged, it's all alledged, we'll give it a mohawk and a wheelchair, I'm not getting sued.

BlogPoll Week 12 - the one where it was hard to give a crap (obviously) ...

2005-11-16T00:23:00.000-05:00

I don't even known if these are based on bias, innuendo, supposition, hearsay and conjecture (which are types of evidence, thank you Lionel Hutz), a few articles I've read, and occasionally watching a game.

This week I watched Fresno State-Boise State, South Carolina-UF, and obviously UGA-Auburn, which took up so much of the afternoon that that's all I got to see.

A warning, which will be apparent in about 7 seconds, I was primed to write something instructive or witty about the next 25 teams, but as I looked at them, I realized I had maybe one or two and didn't have it in me to think of anything else, so as a substitute and to show that humor still abounds round these parts, a funny excerpt from last Friday.

Lunch Friday at Agua Linda.

The John has been having some mild intestinal distress, so he makes the observation, "Taco Bell keeps ripping me a new asshole."

To which Randy replies, "Dude, why do you keep calling him Taco Bell?"

(No homo)

Blow Out

So yeah, I'll keep some other in reserve for later, but as you can see, at the least the weekend has some high points. Anyway, without further ado.

1. Southern Cal

2. Texas

3. Miami (Florida)

4. Louisiana State

5. Penn State

6. Notre Dame

7. Alabama

8. Virginia Tech

9. Oregon

10. Auburn

11. Georgia

12. Ohio State

13. West Virginia

14. UCLA

15. Fresno State

16. Michigan

17. South Carolina

18. TCU

19. Wisconsin

20. Florida

21. Louisville

22. Minnesota

23. Oklahoma

24. Texas Tech

25. Boston College

Dropped Out:
Georgia Tech, Florida State, Northwester, Colorado

New:
Boston College, Oklahoma, Minnesota, South Carolina

IN OTHER NEWS

Vote or Die was not only a horrible failure but also illegal?

Reuben Hooters (and if one single person asks why we call him that, I'll tell the story) might be back on Tech's squad. My favorite line:

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Gino Brogdon heard the case Monday and ruled Tuesday that Tech's refusal to allow Houston back on the team was "arbitrary and strikingly dissimilar to the school's treatment of other similarly situated athletes who have been accused of breaking the law."

Um, how many other athletes are similarly situated to the tune of being 94 pounds worth of someone's weed carrier?

The new hotness in lock down coverage

And in the biggest, and most predictable news of the last couple days, last night's Laguna Beach season finale was as overwrought, totally predictable, and utterly boring as I might have expected given most of what happened this season. Everyone said goodbye, cried a bit, and then said, Oh yeah, I'll see you in 2 days in L.A. since every one of us is moving there to try to cash in on this shit.

I think probably the biggest opportunity I missed out on this season was to chart Jessica's boob growth and self esteem decay as a function of time.

But, silver lining in this crowd, not only are they bringing it back for a 3rd season, in which the previews indicated that almost every chick looked like she had at least one mild deformity to keep her from being hot, but, LC is also getting her own show.

Which is funny, since of all the main cast members from this year she's the one that needs it the least. As far as I can tell, her two main skills are dropping out of school and being boring as hell. I mean, Jason may have been a douche, but at least if you follow him you get to see him hit on and then crap on hot girls in succession. Sad fact is, I'll watch at least 3 episodes of both of them before I give up on them. Ah well.

And tonight on AMC, Office Space and The Jerk.

and then things took a turn for the surreal ...

2005-11-14T22:54:00.000-05:00

Happy times, soon to be crapped on.

Yes, that would be the best way to encapsulate my thoughts around 11:45 on Saturday night. Five minutes before kickoff, there is no way I would have believed we were about to lose that game. Everything all day was building towards a memorable win, the stage was set. Spurrier had gone and pulled off the biggest lock of an upset there ever was, no way he loses that game. And thus, he cleared the way for us. LSU had gone 90% of the way to closing the door on Auburn's chances to return to the Dome. And, if Tech losses make you chuckle, UVA yet again turned Tech's season towards the vomituous up in C-ville (which is roughly as regular as the setting of the sun). Take all that, then add in 5 paratroopers sailing in through the south endzone to thunderous applause (minus the boos for the poor bastard stuck with the Auburn flag), then add in the normal pregame festivities, especially the ovation on Shockley's return. To all that, add a capacity crowd, people in aisles and on the benches in the student section, poor bastards outside with bum tickets getting turned away. Combine all those, the hand of fate pushing towards a Georgia victory all day long and tell me how that possibly happened. Well, here's how.

THE DEFENSE

I did not expect to hold Kenny Irons under 100, he's too good for that, the best we'll see all year. But I damn sure thought we should be able to hold him under 180. Now I give him all the credit in the world, he's fast as a sonuvabitch and I haven't seen anyone run harder. He was not down til he was piled by 3 guys. But, his secret was not a tough one. Everything came on the cut back. Sweep, inside, didn't matter, the line would stretch, the play would go horizontal, and then the linebackers or the safeties, usually the linebackers, would take one step too far, and boom, jump cut back, at least 5 yards, or in the case of the first score, 30 yards. Battle overran him so far on that one, it was disgusting. Unfortunately, that was not to be the worst of his transgressions that night. I mean at what point does Martinez, or hell the players themselves say, let's stretch this guy, keep him in front of us and quit giving him ready made lanes to bust for 5 extra yards every run.

And in the same vein of not making adjustments. How many times do you have to see a team line up in a bunch formation, boot leg one way and then come back to the tight end for a free 10 yards before you recognize that play? We stopped that what, maybe one out of seven or eight times?

However, I won't crap on the D too bad. Auburn is a really good team, the best we've played and perhaps the best we will play. Without a doubt the best offense we've played. Once Irons came on line, they are so far removed from the team that lost to Tech it isn't funny.

So our D, they got pressure on Cox at some key times. They generated a couple of turnovers, and truthfully, they played pretty well in the second half. Got a turnover at a key time, only gave up 10 points, a touchdown on a short field and a field goal after the worst disaster of my life. So ...

THE WORST DISASTER OF MY LIFE

That's probably an overstatement, to put things in perspective, this is still just a game. But, for about 5 minutes there around 11:15 Saturday, I think I would have rated this the worst disaster of my life. Defensive breakdowns like that happen what, maybe a couple times a season? I mean of all the times in the world to have 10 guys playing a cover 3, and 1 guy, the guy responsible for the most crucial portion of the field, the dead f'ing middle, thinking you're playing cover 2, how does that possibly happen? And then, Paul Oliver pulls a hero's duty, trucks Aromashadu down from behind, knocks the f'ing ball loose no less, at which point there are three possiblities:
1)UGA recovers, game over
2)Ball rolls out of end zone, game over
3)Auburn recovers
And hence, I look to the sky and am left to question why God has blessed me in so many areas but continues to curse me again and again and again on the football field. At times like these, I question what grave transgression exists out there that the whole of the Bulldawg Nation has to continually pay for?

I mean, in how many situations where there is a ball loose on the ground and two guys hauling ass towards it does the first guy recover it cleanly? How did Courtney Taylor not roll straight over it or flub it out of bounds? I will never know. Honestly, if you snap the ball in that situation 50 times, they might get a first down maybe 10 or 15 times, but a busted coverage going for 62 yards down to the 3 yard line, that would never, ever happen again, it just wouldn't.

NOT SUSTAINING MOMENTUM

Two situations in that game where we have the lead and have a chance to build on it, get a little cushion, and take control. Great teams get it done, we did not.

Time the first, take the opening possesion of the second half down for a score. Defense holds on ensuing possession. We look to get the ball back in decent field position with a chance to finally extend the lead to two scores. The result, Flowers fumbles after dancing around to no where in particular. Next play, 30 yard reverse, right back behind the 8 ball, needing a score just to get ahead.

Time the second, sitting on a 27-21 lead, defense is getting pounded backwards, looks like Auburn is primed to take the lead. Defense somehow forces an absolute rarity, an Irons fumble (which, god bless, on 37 carries, you'd think he'd do it at some point). Offense now has chance to run crucial minutes off clock, extend lead to two scores. The result, two plays later, Southerland inexplicably fumbles on a simple one on one tackle in the flat. Not only recovered by Auburn, but returned for a score. Once more behind the 8 ball, 10 minutes left and behind.

OUR HEAD COACH

I still like Mark Richt. I'm still glad we have him. I'm glad I'm in a position to have something to bitch about when I'm staring at another possible 10 win season and 3rd trip in 4 years to the title game. But 5 years down the road, there are still problems that a good coach should have put behind him that continue to rear their ugly heads. Namely, horrible in-game lapses of organization, total misunderstanding of the time situation, and a tendency to play to not lose when the situation exists to try to take control of a game.

First, you score to go up 26-21. One would assume that given the game situation, going for 2 had already been discussed and decided upon. One would assume that a play or a short list of plays was ready to be accessed. One would apparently be wrong, as the place didn't make it in the huddle til there was roughly 13 seconds left on the play clock. Team breaks the huddle with less than 10. To compound matters, offense somehow doesn't notice and fails to call time out. Delay of game, you've pissed away your chance to extend the lead to a situation where the worst you can do it trade ties by matching scores. And of course, they then take another inexplicable delay of game. That is piss poor organization and piss poor coaching. Plain and simple.

The second, and really about 5 things all lumped together in the last 5 minutes. But first, an aside. Primary reason behind losing the Florida game? In my opinion, the play calling shackling the offense in the latter half of the game. Yes, the play conservative card worked to keep you in the game, but at some point you have to throw off the chains and say, shit boys, here we are, let's go try to win this thing. And we never did.

Fast forward two weeks to Saturday night. I love the playcalling for the first 55 minutes. We're using the no huddle, fantastic. We're mixing run and pass, great. We're taking shots down the field, I love it. We're putting the game in Shock's hands and he's responding like a damn All American. And then it stops.

It begins with the pass interference call on Pope, which by the way was completely heinous. Not only did I not see him do anything, but how the hell do you call an opposite side of the field offensive pass interference call in the last 5 minutes of the game after the refs had largely, and intelligently, left them in their pockets for most of the game? Anyway, it puts us in a rough situation, 1st and 25 from the 40, very back edge of field goal range.

I have no great problem with the run call on 1st down. They were playing back and it was bound to get 8 or 10 yards, which it did. Even on 2nd down, they're still playing back, we're got another chance to get another 7 or 8, and we do. But now you've done the best you can, you've got it to 3rd and makeable, you're well within field goal range. Now let's assess the situation. Do you?

1)Run a typical dive, pick up no yardage, run a measly 30 seconds off the clock and kick the field goal, leaving 3:30 on the clock with the other team needing a field goal to win? That's the safe bet, no disasters possible on the play call, you have confidence in your field goal kicker and your defense. But it's also the call of someone trying to not lose as opposed to taking control of the last 3 minutes of the game and choking the life out of the other team. You still give the other team the ball back with their destiny in their hands where one slip up (which then f'ing happened) can lose you the game.

The safe bet, probably works 80+% of the time, but in my mind also reflects a lack of confidence in your offense and the mentality of someone afraid to take chances to end the game on their own terms.

2)Ok, you want to run, at least spread out the field with 4 wide, and call the number of your QB, the most athletic guy in the backfield, give him a chance to run in space. Still low chance of negative play or turnover, increased chance of picking up first down.

At least this is a step in the right direction.

3)Call a pass downfield? Possible downside, take a sack or a holding call, only one of each all game and with an escapable QB, low probability of happening. Possible upside, get the flipping first down, run 2+ minutes off the clock and either kick a shorter field goal or go into the end zone and win the game.

Now there's ton of times when I'm screaming, don't get fancy, just run of the f'ing ball, but there's also times when you've got to say, screw you fellas across the line, we're about to whip it out and win this game and we don't think there's anything you can do about it, and I feel like this was one of them.

With a first down, you run at least another two minutes off the clock. Even if you only settle for a field, you put Auburn back on the field with 1:30 or less to go at least 50 yards. Irons is largely neutralized. Pressure swings to them to, best case scenario for them if you only kick a field goal, drive 50 yards plus in short order and trust the game to a field goal kicker with problems on the road from medium to long distance.

You've been trusting Shock and the offense to throw all over the place all day. Guys are continually open, he's got over 300 yards, confidence is high, you have Pope, you have Massaquoi, why not give these guys who have been moving you all over the field all game a chance to end it on their terms?

And then the toughest decision. Do you let them score with 1:52 left and give up the lead and put the game back in the hands of your offense to win? It's tough to do. First problem, I think once again, much like the Auburn game in 2001 or Boston College in the Music City Bowl that year, Richt shows a total lack of understanding of time in a game. With UGA having only one timeout, Auburn could play as safe as they wanted. They didn't even need to hand off if they didn't want to. They could have kneeled the ball in the center of the field 3 times in a row and kicked a glorified extra point with less than 20 seconds left for the win. They were not going to turn it over there, so are you willing to bet the game on John Vaughn, problems and all, missing basically an extra point? Because that's what you're doing and it only takes about 30 seconds to do the math on that.

It is tough to tell your defense to lay down? Hell yes it is. But if I walked up to you and said, which situation do you like better?

1)Your defense is backed up inside the 5, 1 timeout, other team only needs a field goal to win, 1:50 on the clock.

2)You're down by 5, 1:50 on the clock, you have 1 timeout and your offense has over 400 total yards and is headed back on the field to try to win it.

Situation 2 is a shit ton better. Doesn't matter that you had to lay down to let them score to get there. The alternative is completely untenable, your only possibility for victory lies in two near impossibilities, a fumble in a situation where they don't have to advance the ball or a missed extra point. Is situation 2 scary? Yes. Is the probability of winning in that situation probably less than 50%? Quite possibly. But 6 years of engineering taught me that that's still a lot higher than a 0% chance.

But in great news, in typical Richt fashion, he's come to the conclusion two days later that perhaps he should have acted differently. I said it after the Florida game, a million and a half a year, and probably about to go up, is a steep price to pay for someone who always learns his lessons a game too late.

Bottom line, great teams and great coaches don't lose back to back games, especially after a bye week, especially in that atmosphere. So, I guess I was wrong early in the year, this a good team, even a really good team, but it isn't a great one. Nothing has really gone right after Shock went down in that Arkansas game, I guess that's the day where fate turned on us. I still think this is a really good team, I think they can win the SEC, but the chance to be a truly great team left the field with Shock during that Arkansas game.

THE FUTURE

So strange, if you had told me 3 months ago that all we needed to do to go to the title game was to beat Kentucky, I would have told you all was right with the world. Truthfully speaking, every conceivable goal for this team, win the East, win the SEC, play in the Sugar Bowl, they're all still there, but I am completely nonplussed by them at the moment. Strange what a glimpse at greatness that then disappears will do to your expectations.

I'm sure if we beat Kentucky Saturday, and once I start gearing up for Tech and the Dome, my mood will take a turn for the better, but god, it is a nasty funk I am stuck in right now.

I won't do too much predicting of the future here, but one can hope and assume that getting revenge on LSU for 2 years ago in the Dome and laughing and waving at Auburn and Florida sitting at home while we play for the conference title will heal some wounds. Still, conference or Sugar Bowl titles be damned, I have another 365 days of The John (one of the biggest football idiots in the world) and Robbins telling me about how Georgia can't get it done against Auburn, and all I can do til next November is agree with them.

To end on a positive note though, 3 more years of Massaquoi, that should excite anyone.

That's it, with all I said, there's probably more to say that I forgot, but there is my great unloading. There's still light in the tunnel, it's just damnably hard to see right now, but next Saturday will start to turn things right.

In Drizzle news, maybe I'll find a way to be funny with my Ballot tomorrow, but more than likely there won't be much humor or much of anything for a couple days around here, but check back anyway. And as always, check with the rest of the Bulldog Blogosphere contingent, Paul, Kyle, Realist, Doug (the future name of reference for HeyJennySlater), for how they fared Saturday and in the aftermath.

P.S.
Happiest news of all, MNF just ended and apparently Super Troopers is on AMC, how can things be all bad when Super Troopers has reached the status of an American Movie Classic?

Shots? Shots?

it's not revenge he's after, it's a reckoning ...

2005-11-10T23:32:00.000-05:00

Definitely packing a little bit of hell

I'm not even sure what to say about this game, how to approach it. Even in situations, such as this one, where I feel like we should beat Auburn, it still tends to make me nervous, and I hate admitting that.

I guess I'll start by saying you should read the usual suspects. You don't need to tell you where they are, Paul, Realist, JennySlater (an interesting take on the last 8 in the series), and especially Kyle and his numbers. Truthfully speaking, Kyle hits numbers so well he's made it almost useless for anyone else to address them.

It's hard to believe, 2 weeks since I wrote one of these before I headed down to Jacksonville. It feels like a lifetime ago. I guess an off week is a good thing for a fan too. And honestly, it feels like a different team we're putting out there. And I'm not just talking about having Shock back, which, on top of the immediate on field improvement of the offense, gives us a shot of confidence that you can't even quantify. But I'm talking about the defense too, the first time we've had Ked and Gerald and Tony all out on the field at the same time since what, like Tennessee? And the improvement just isn't in the front line defense, it's also in the added depth we'll have throughout what probably promises to be a hard fought game.

I have a special loathing for Auburn. I may more disdain for Tennessee. I may have more bile for Florida. I may laugh more after a win against Tech. But I guess the difference is, among my group of friends from school, we sent about half of them to Auburn, half to Georgia, (and me to Tech to wage years of guerilla warfare while sneaking out every weekend). So for me, more than any other school, Auburn has a face I can hate, friends I have to listen to. And god knows, the Auburn fan carries some sort of strange inferiority complex towards Georgia and Alabama that just makes me alternately sad and disgusted. Oh, everyone stole the Tiger Walk. Oh, they stole our chance at a National Title. Oh, no one knows just how good we are. I spent 3 years hearing about Caddy and 3 All Americans in one backfield (back in the Brandon Jacobs days, god you'd have thought he was going to be the second coming), of how they were going to run USC and Tech off the field in 2003, on their way to the National Title. And the funniest thing was, when I asked what would happen if they lost to USC, how they would react, and if that would ruin their season, all they ever told me was that it was impossible, so why worry about it. Needless to say, 2003 was a fun year for me.

At the end of the day, we're still talking about a team that, minus last year's lightning in a bottle season, has lost at least 4 games in the 4 years previous to that. A team that, until last year, the best they could hang their hat on since Terry Bowden left (yes, Terry Bowden) was that they had managed to sneak into the SEC Title game to lose to Peyton during the run of ass in the mid to late 90's where the West couldn't field a worthwhile team. (And yes, that discounts Bama in '99, that was a good team).

And that's what makes the fact that they hold a slight advantage in the last 8 or 10 years all the more irritating. Hell, probably half of their important wins in the last 10 years have been games against Georgia that they shouldn't have won. It irks me that we could have dealt this program another step lower and haven't done it.

So that's my bile and a bit of invective.

We all know what's at stake. Much like 2002, we have a chance to wrap up the East with a win against Auburn. More than that, with a win, we basically cement ourself as the best team in the East of the last 5 years, and earn a chance to stake a claim for best team in the conference in the last 5 years, and probably agains the other contender for the crown, LSU. I may complain about Richt at times, and I think I have reason to do so. But at the end of day, who would thought back in 2001 that I'd be able to write something like I just did. It's a good thing, and we have a chance to go out there and validate it.

And I think we will. It's been documented over and over, to borrow and paraphrase Craig T. Nelson for a moment, we lost the names last year but we kept the bodies, we kept the bodies. This team is full of leaders, not guys that are necessarily all over SportsCenter or guaranteed to grace the front page of the College Football section on Saturdays (although some do), but full of guys that everyone on the team respects and believes in and follows. Guys like D.J., like Jordache Jean-Gilles, like Ked, like Gerald, like Blue. In 2002, I believed that there was no way that DGeezy or the defense would let us lose that game. Well in 2005, with everything at stake on Saturday, I don't believe those guys will let us lose. Whatever kind of play, whatever kind of sacrifice it takes, I expect that it will be made.

With new improved bionic knee brace

So that's it, I can't write anymore. Not a lot of analysis, not a lot jokes, just all the things that have been running through my mind the last 4 days. I'm just nervous and all I want to do is get to Athens tomorrow, speed up time to get to Saturday night, and then get out there and finish this. Then I can joke about Kentucky and Tech and enjoy myself again, but right now, there's business to attend to.

UGA 20 - Auburn 13.

Keep the faith, the next Michael Johnson could be right in front of you

THE REST OF THE END OF DAYS OF THE SEC

Well the only two other games I'm going to touch this week are the other two deciding games in the SEC. I can't decide if I'm happy or not that they both happen earlier. I think in the end I'm happier. No matter what happens in USC-UF, we can spin it as positive. Either USC wins and we can go out and play loose because we know it's basically wrapped, or UF wins and we know it's on us, so we just go out there with a purpose and get it done. And I'm really hoping for a LSU win, which should demoralize Auburn, leaving them knowing their chances of defending their title are basically over.

USC-UF

The old genius versus the new lameness. Losing to Florida back in the day always hurt, but it didn't carry the sting of a loss to Tennessee, because at least when you lost to Spurrier, you felt like you were losing to a better man. And now he's back and some people thought they were going to get their revenge, but he's already been foiling that, and I don't think he has any intentions of letting Urban get a shot in at all. Bottom line, I said I thought USC had a better chance of dropping Florida for us than Vandy did, and they took them to double overtime. So if my supposition from last week is correct, then things should turn out well Saturday. I just really feel like Steve got a real taste of blood once he got to beat up on Phil 2 weeks ago, and he's not looking to let it go. Screw it, Carolina wins. I made fun of Blake Mitchell to start the year, but I'll be riding the Lagrange band wagon like crazy come noon thirty Saturday.

Random score: USC 27 - UF 17

Bama - LSU

It hurts to say because Bama is the team in the SEC I have the highest toleration for, and it pains me to see that injuries are taking a toll on the best starting 22 in the SEC. But they are, and it's not just Prothro anymore. It's been a beautiful season, and I love the defense, but you can lean on something just so much and it's bound to crack. That being said, and I thought I'd never say it, you almost have to like Shula as compared to Les Miles. And although LSU might be the most talented team in the SEC, the greatest talent they've shown is turning the ball over, repeatedly. So maybe fate follows Bama a week more and LSU lays it on the ground another 4 or 5 times, but I don't think so. Karmic upside though, Bama recovers to beat Auburn in Iron Bowl.

Another random score: LSU 17 - Bama 10

So that's it, I'm gone. If you need me Saturday, I'll be around Athens somewhere. And pray that everyone paces themselves to make it to a 7:45 game, it's a been a while since we've had to keep the fire burning that long, could be an interesting day. Jameson and water all around.

you hear what i ordered there fryman? ...

2005-11-09T22:14:00.000-05:00

And keep the ranch coming.

And if that line doesn't mean anything to you, then all I can say is that you're not watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and you should be. Anyway, the next line involves flatulence and it'll all make sense at the end.

So, apparently the most sure fire way to quadruple your daily traffic is with a much appreciated mention by Paul and addition to the College Football Resource. Onward and upward I guess.

Meanwhile my new guests were left with nothing to look at but a stale, day old BlogPoll Ballot because I spent the entire day trying to craft my personal statement to fool the admissions personnel of all the finest law schools in the land. Of course, by "spent the entire day," what I really mean is watched Law & Order reruns on TNT. Anyway, the best I came up with is, personally, I believe whoever it is in the admissions office who spends days reading 2 pages of drivel from 2000 applications about why people think law is so cool should probably be angling for a better job.

Jack McCoy is hungry and he will eat your afternoon.

But later on in the afternoon, I did find out that there has been some good action in the blogosphere today.

Paul jumps into prep for the Auburn game by discussing some of the biggest home games and best home crowds we've had lately. I was there for every one of the top 3 and I'd agree with all of them. I would however switch Auburn in 2003 up to #1. I have never heard the stadium any louder than when Odell took off running like he stole something on that interception. Perfect situation, on the goal line, trying to preserve the shut out, and the crowd had 99 yards for everyone to get up and going, by the time he hit the end zone, the place was shaking, crap was flying from the upper deck. I'm pretty sure 80% of the people in the stands that day didn't even notice that Badass Billy Bennett missed the extra point because the celebration was still going on (ed - I checked the box score out of curiosity later on and it said he missed the kick on the score before, I don't remember it like that, but I guess that just proves that every score was like f'ing Christmas that day and that even the memories of the most observant are a little cloudy on the proceedings).

In other news, EDSBS started something big with their discussion of team entrance songs. So big it needs two entries. I tried to think about this for a while and I don't know, there's different ways you could go with Georgia, but I'm not sure if I like anything. If I were the opposition and trying for snark and belittlement, I'd definitely suggest "Stuck in a Moment" from U2 for the certain group of Georgia fans still holding so strongly to the Herschel Days. Of course, luckily I'm not, so I don't have to do that. Beyond that, nothing really beats The Lone Trumpet for The Battle Hymn, so it doesn't really matter.

Anyway, that's about it, I'll drop the full weekend preview tomorrow before heading off for Athens on Friday.

If you found Darth Vader's immortal scream of anguish in Revenge of the Sith to be hilarious, then you should look at these, NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

And finally back to Carl and his order of 50 hot wings, a pitcher of beer, a nachos grande, and an order of fried jalapenos. Kyle asked me what wing place I was referring to, so this is for him. I'm talking about Wing & Things, (just ask the waitresses what the H.J. in the name stands for) you can find the Fayetteville flagship between Jeff Davis and Highway 85. But as you can see, they got places more out your way. The wings are big, no piddly ass things where you can eat 20 and still have room for dinner. I normally get the Hot or Scorchers, but I hear some of the flavored ones are good too. Either way, they can all cause the condition which Carl so eloquently alludes to. Anyway, that's where I go for wings. It's old school Fayette County, by which I mean, run and populated by white trash, at its finest.

BlogPoll Week 11- the week of embarrassment and near misses ...

2005-11-08T17:56:00.000-05:00

As always, this is largely based on bias, innuendo, supposition, hearsay and conjecture (which are types of evidence, thank you Lionel Hutz), a few articles I've read, and occasionally watching a game.

This week I watched what, West Virginia-UConn, ND-UT, a bit of South Carolina-Arkansas, FSU-NC State, The U-VPI, UF-Vanderbilt (after The U-VPI derailed, which was quite early), and a touch of USC before closing up shop. I tailgated at Tech for the Tech-Wake game, but then went back to my old apartment which is roughly 300 yards from the stadium to watch games I actually was interested in.

Of course I knew I was back at Tech when at roughly 10:20 in the morning, 3 hours before kickoff, I crossed North Avenue onto campus and had to go halfway across campus, passing empty streets, empty parking lots, and the nearly empty grass area in front of the Student Center (there was one family setting up) before finally finding people tailgating. I did however pass several of the fine international students on bikes with bookbags on a Saturday morning, heading to?

That being said, I won't completely crap on the tailgating that goes on at Tech, there is some good action out there, including the mess put on by my friends and former roommates, which often involves cooking wild game and stealing instruments from the band, but I digress.

1. Southern Cal – Natch.

2. Texas – Equal Natch.

3. Alabama – Probably going to need to start scoring on offense if they want to win the next two. I still think they lose to LSU, although a 5 turnover day from LSU could sink that prediction.

4. Miami (Florida) – One big win on the road doesn’t get you past an undefeated team, especially when you’ve been underwhelming on the year. Still not sold on the offense, now injuries added to it.

5. Georgia – I do have to give The U’s win enough credit to get them past Georgia during a bye week.

6. Louisiana State – Can beat Alabama and take hold of the West if they can hold on the ball. Sadly underwhelming against Appalachian State though.

7. Penn State – I’m still not as sold on this team as everyone else, that being said I haven’t seen them a lot. To me the Big 10 is still a lot of above average teams, but I do credit them for largely navigating their way through it.

8. Notre Dame – Solid win over Tennessee, offensive numbers keep piling up and I think the defense has gotten better over the course of the season. I honestly believe they could beat every team ahead of them, but the 2nd loss gives them a bit of a glass ceiling until SEC teams ahead of them are forced to beat each other.

9. Virginia Tech – Rude awakening on their home field, found out Marcus is in fact not better than Mike. Took a punch to the face and couldn’t recover. They basically went from trying to finagle a way in to the national title game to missing out on their own conference championship game.

10. Oregon – Apparently they can win without Clemens, all the way down to Ryan Leaf Jr.

11. Ohio State – If nothing else, I appreciate someone hanging 40-2 on the Zooker.

12. West Virginia – Looked solid against UConn, by which I mean boring to watch, but I do think this is a pretty good team.

13. Auburn - Giving up 27 to Kentucky and a crap ton of yards through the air not overwhelming, still frighten me this weekend though. I still feel like they’re primed to break loose, but that could just be nerves talking and they could actually just be the 4th or 5th best team in the SEC

14. UCLA – Well, everyone knew a total lack of defense would catch up with you sooner or later. I actually think this ups their chances against USC, no way they win that game as an undefeated team, but with a loss out of the way, who knows.

15. Florida – Really deserve to drop after the gift they got handed, largely thanks some of the worst officiating I’ve ever seen. But losses in front of them prevent them from dropping.

Probably rethinking that sonuvabitch cussing policy.

16. Wisconsin – Seems like an appropriate place for a team that’s roughly the 3rd best in a conference where 2 through 5 could take turns beating each other

17. Texas Tech – I guess one loss keeps you here, I do like to see Coach Fran lose anyway

18. Fresno State – Single loss to Oregon looks better as Oregon continues to hold up. Interesting game against USC, truthfully even a close loss could move them up, total lack of data keeps them from breaking top 15

19. Florida State – I’m almost tempted to drop them completely. I’ve been waiting all season for this team to be exposed. I think it actually makes me sick that this team backs into their conference title game. Did Bobby ruin Drew Weatheringtonford The IV for the rest of the season by the crunch time benching?

20. TCU – Again, no real data keeps them mired around 20, win over Colorado State not bad though, decent statement

21. Michigan – As I said, at this point, probably wins out and gets back in top 15

22. Colorado – Solid win against Missouri, I pray that they’re dreaming something up for Texas

23. Louisville – I don’t really want to move them into the top 20 on principle

24. Georgia Tech – Well they finally climb back into the top 25, just in time to possibly plummet to 6-5 or 7-4. I actually think they have a better chance against The U than people think. Miami’s offense is unimpressive enough that I think Tenuta’s defense can keep it close, but will they score? Or for that matter, will they get past UVA in C-ville?

25. Northwestern – What can I say, I like them, could just as easily be Boise State or maybe Oklahoma or even a South Carolina

Dropped Out:
Cal, Boston College

New:
Georgia Tech, Northwestern (or should I say returning)

The top may have gotten clearer with VPI's loss, but now you have a mess of pretty good 1 loss teams and Notre Dame to cram between 4 and 10. So basically this week I decided to break them up as teams who had a close loss, then Notre Dame, then teams that got blown out in their only loss. Thus VPI and Oregon at 9 and 10, while The U, UGA, LSU, and Penn State get 4 through 7. It's debatable, but it's the way I went this week. Say what you want.

Coming soon to? I don't know, but there's always room for fighting bisexual cheerleaders.

someone check that man's pockets ...

2005-11-06T22:13:00.000-05:00

Because when you throw up 8 for 22 for 90 yards and 6 turnovers, son, you are entering the rarified air that I save for Crackhead Quincy's 5 turnover debacle against South Carolina in Columbia in 2000, which left me forever questioning whether he was on the take or just high that game.

The only question is why. I mean, when you see stuff like that going down, you figure either the kid needs his pockets lined, needs to finance his blow habit, or got down 20 large to the local book. But in this case, when Big Bro is sitting on $100 million and already let you come crash in his mansion for a year after you got booted out of school for delinquenting some minors and making the mistake of taking the dank in the car with you, well you figure Mike would bail him out in any of those circumstances.

Of course, all that being said, I'm not here to disparage a young man or throw baseless accusations. It would just appear that young Marcus finally ran up on a real defense, which settled one question and raised another.

No longer, I think, do we need to participate in the discussion of whether or not New Mexico is better than his brother right now.

However, the question of whether or not Marcus is adopted might well be up for discussion again.

Meanwhile, I wonder if Mark May still likes Marcus's "headiness" now? I mean what the hell, Mark May is trippin to moe. now? Or perhaps he's a P-Groove man?

Truthfully speaking, we should have seen this coming, since it was time for the annual VPI meltdown, but I allowed myself to believe that with another Vick back there, that didn't apply. Which was completely foolish on my part and I hold myself completely accountable. It's even more mystifying how I got to this point considering I was down on him when the season started.

Credit to Miami though, they shocked the hell out of me. I did think they were better than Florida State back in September, but since that day, they haven't done much to impress me. But when your starting running back goes out and you send in a guy named Charlie Jones to run for 100 and you lose your starting quarterback and send in a guy named Kirby Freeman to finish off a drive, all in Lane Stadium against Virgina Tech's D, there is some reason to be impressed. I think they were playing a bit over their heads last night, but still, they are much better than I gave them credit for. I definitely think they earn best 1 loss team status in front of Georgia for now, but I still wouldn't put them in front of Alabama like the AP, being undefeated after 8 games in the SEC still has to take precedence over one breakout win.

Really looking forward to that Miami-Florida State rematch (wow, I was even right in some of my predictions and heinously wrong in others) in the ACC Title Game now. Maybe they'll top 20 points this time. If for this reason and no other, Georgia now has to win this weekend to ensure that I'll be at the Dirty Dome and not forced to watch this again.

In other news, sonuvabitch Vanderbilt got my hopes all up that Georgia could back into the East title like Florida State (thank god they finally got exposed yesterday, so much more to say about that) yesterday, but it wasn't to be apparently. After watching that game though, it just boggles the mind more and more how Georgia finds ways to lose that game.

PIRATE NEWS

Pirating is alive and well off the Somali coast, so you know where to find me.

teh gheyest name game I ever hit ...

2005-11-04T23:42:00.000-05:00

Ben Roethlisberger and Jason from Laguna Beach.

It came to me like a thunderbolt as I watched the ESPN pregame on Trivia night on Monday at Wings. Two things surprised me about this little revelation. First, that it took me this long to make this connection. And second, that I said it so flippin loud in a restaurant where a large percentage of the patronage works in close contact with motor oil and might be tempted to kick your ass just for knowing who Jason from Laguna Beach is. On the other hand, they've got the best wings in Fayette and the surrounding counties and as you might guess, I tend to win trivia a decent amount of the time.

In other news, Kyle, another excellent UGA blogger that I've mentioned before has had an excellent week, culminating in tonight's post on keeping things in perspective.

He's also pushing for a little national exposure for the college football blogging capital of the world, of which he and I, as he kindly points out, are a part. Now considering I'm at this just under 3 months and get maybe 50 folks a day on here, I wouldn't really say that necessarily applies to me, but it is hard to deny the good work that he, or Paul, or Realist, or LD puts in.

And as Brian was kind enough to bestow upon me the title of NKOTB, I'd kindly request to be Donnie. At the end of the day, who could turn down a movie career that includes the chance to shoot Bruce Willis, play a shape shifting alien in disguise, and be the biggest name in Saw II.

what the hell's going on out there ...

2005-11-04T15:27:00.000-05:00

So, except for the two days of Leo news, I don't think I've written about anything besides football for two or three weeks. But I thought about it and I realized, I haven't done anything. I mean, what the hell am I going to write about? What have been the highlights of the last 3 weeks?

I watched Batman three times since I bought it because Christian Bale is badass and Katie Holmes still had boobs when it was shot.

But I also think Phil Collins works best within the confines of the group, than as a solo artist, and I stress the word artist. This is Sussudio, a great, great song, a personal favorite.

Speaking of which, is Genesis going to do a reunion tour? I don't even know where to go with this, so do what you will with it.

Anything good in Jacksonville? After the game, I drive us to Don Pablo's off Southside Boulevard to eat cause I'm the only one who's coherent, which leads to the interaction where the Jones pours refried beans on Rob's head, but instead of instigating the kind of trouble you think it would, Rob just continues to eat with beans on his head. Of course, he then ups the ante by accusing one of us being an anal raper later in the meal, meanwhile Jones is referring to the fine Indian family in the corner as Ganeesh throughout the entire evening. And that's just the two of them. And yes, the minimum age at this table was 23.

Last night's Survivor had probably the most up in the air, somewhat tension filled, in-game vote that I can remember. And to top it off, for once, the fools finally acted with a little common sense. For once, a group actually acted to preserve their numerical superiority by keeping a polarizing figure in their own group, who coincidentally will be easy to remove later. It seems like common sense, by god almighty, seems like there one time every season where the group in power just goes over the edge a week too earlier and screws themselves. Of course the list of careers left includes a water ski instructor, a doorman, and a fishmonger, quite a brain trust.

And yes, when one of the highlights of the last few weeks is manufactured drama and tension, Tonight On Survivor, Jamie makes fun of Alabama Trash Bobby Jon. Rafe, the gay outdoors guide is driven to tears. Well, you may be in a mild funk.

Anyway, no Georgia game, so no in depth, painstaking, and ultimately wrong pregame analysis to write, but here's what might happen tomorrow.

Notre Dame - Tennessee

Well I've been predicting this one for over a month, so no reason to jump off the Tom Brady Quinn train now. Should be semi-interesting to see if Tennesee can at least muster some offense against a Notre Dame defense that is gettable. Should be even more interesting to see whether or not you can actually tell that Randy Sanders has finally been castrated on the sidelines. Either way, people talk about Tennessee climbing up off the deck, but honestly, there's not much left to play for and I don't think Fat Phil can motivate them for this one either. I'd take Notre Dame to cover and Samardzija to catch 9 for 164 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Penn State - Wisconsin

Well not much to say except that I'm overjoyed that someone else noticed the resemblance between Colonel Kurtz and Barry Alvarez. Top marks for that. Beyond that, apparently Joe Pa was very popular in the "Coach you'd want to have a drink with poll" and Penn State has looked, all in all, better in the Big 10 than Wisconsin and it's in Happy Valley, so I'd have to take Penn State. 11 is an awfully big line for this and Kurtz was known to cultivate insane devotion among his followers, so if I had to bet it, which I wouldn't, I'd probably take Wisconsin and the points.

UF - Vandy

Kind of an odd one to address, but Florida is due for a bit of let down off of last week and I still don't think their offense is anywhere near fixed. Plus, I'd like to believe that Vandy has one more big gasp in them this year. All that being said, I still think South Carolina has the better shot of taking Florida down. But 19 points is a huge line for a team struggling to score. I'd take Vandy and the points.

VPI - The U

The game of the week and not a whole lot to say. I think Tech runs them off the field. I think they are basically unbeatable in Lane Stadium. I think Miami has serious offensive issues that they've been able to dodge against middle of the road ACC competition lately. I think they are tougher than Miami and Miami will not know how to deal with a swift kick to their platinum grill. And I think New Mexico is getting better every week. I think they double the 6.5 points and justify being in the top 2.

Seriously Miami this year, has been like the girl you run into at the big party at the beginning of the year, things aren't quite right for her, clothes are a little off, makeup needs a touch up, she's acting a little crazy, but you see potential, you want to know what's going on under there. But for the next few weeks, you just bump into on the street, pass her in a restaurant, see her walk out of the bar as you're going in, just enough to keep you intrigued. Then you finally set things up for the big night, the lead up is good, the meal goes well, she's saying all the right things, but then you get her home and find out there's 10 extra pounds around the middle, dinner plates for nipples, and she's got the moves of a dead fish. (And perhaps smells of one too?)

Lock up your daughters, Marcus is going to be passing it out like candy.

Mighty ACC, WTF? ...

2005-11-03T13:54:00.000-05:00

Well, after I went to all the trouble to write this on EDSBS, I figured what the hell, I probably won't have time to write much else today, might as well post it here too.

When I read Terence’s column yesterday, which is a rarity in itself, I normally can’t stomach anything he writes, I thought basically the same thing. He does point out one or two things that are basically true, offense is statistically speaking not pretty in the SEC this year and you could consider this a down year for the SEC.

But from there, his whole thing falls apart, which in my opinion is a forgone conclusion when a large part of your argument is based on information and opinion from Bill Curry, who I never forgave for referring to Ron Dayne as a ball peen hammer on a nooner of the deuce 8 years ago. Seriously, WTF? A ball peen hammer?

Bill Curry for the defense. Never a solid witness to have on your side.

Honestly, how down of a year is it though? Low scoring football and good defense aren’t necessarily an indicator of losing football. If you grant UGA a provisional spot for the brutal and somewhat unwarranted beating they took after the UF loss, that gives the SEC 3 top 10 teams. Auburn and Florida give them 5 in the top 25. Perhaps the best 3 teams in the country lie outside of the SEC, but perhaps not, unless we see it happen, there’s no way to know what a Bama or Georgia or LSU would do to USC, UT, or VPI. But even if the best 3 teams did conclusively lie outside of the SEC this year, if 3 of the next 4 or 5 teams play within it, does that really mean you’re having a down year?

At the end of the day, it’s just a hard claim to make. Except for a few interconference rivalries and the bowl games, there’s no way to know whether the supposedly brutal SEC offenses would do against other conference’s defenses. Likewise, there’s no way to know how much Alabama or Florida or Georgia would choke out a PAC 10 offense.

And to call South Carolina, Arkansas, and Ole Miss brutal over the recent years is a little short sighted. It wasn’t but a couple years ago that USC put together a couple of 8 and 9 win seasons, and I think everyone would admit things are looking brighter with Spurrier there. Nutt, until this year, normally has Arkansas in the mix in the West, and I do believe Ole Miss was going to bowl games with Eli there, including a New Years day game and a 10 win season. Now out of the 3, South Carolina is the only one doing much positive this year, but I fully expect Arkansas to be on the way back up next year.

And in my mind, this whole mighty ACC thing is a load of crap. They haven’t done anything to prove that they’re much more than Virginia Tech and 11 other teams ranging from bad to above average. I’d say head to head it looks something like this:

And bear in mind, these are based roughly on current standings, which could be rearranged, feel free to arrange them in any way that gives you the outcome you want, just like ESPN.

VPI > Bama (ACC)

UGA (shock back) > FSU (SEC)

LSU = UM - I’d call this a draw, LSU’s turnover problems keep it from being a straight win

AU > BC - Way too much speed for BC (SEC)

UF > GT - Florida may not score much, but Tech has proved it can’t score against anyone lately (SEC)

USC > Wake/Maryland - USC gets better each week, do you really see Spurrier not finding a way to beat Wake or Maryland (SEC)

Wake/Maryland > Vandy - Vandy has come back down enough that I’d conditionally give this one up (ACC)

UVA/UNC draw UT - everyone of these teams has hung some ass games out there this year

UVA/UNC > Ole Miss - (ACC)

Clemson > Kent - (ACC)

Arkansas draw NC State

Miss St > Duke - Anyone beats Duke (SEC)

End of the day, I’d say it looks roughly 5-4-3 for the SEC, in the year of the downtrodden SEC and the might ACC, that ain’t saying too much.

All this being said, I will admit to being largely an SEC homer, but I've never had trouble giving credit to other conferences where it was due, and I don't think I'm horribly off base here.

BlogPoll Week 10...

2005-11-01T23:10:00.000-05:00

Once again, this is largely based on bias, innuendo, supposition, hearsay and conjecture (which are types of evidence, thank you Lionel Hutz), a few articles I've read, and occasionally watching a game.

I caught UGA-UF live and in person in the swirling winds of the south endzone and somehow managed to get home without tossing myself into the St. Johns River. Afterwards, I flipped between USC-UT and UT-Ok St. I also caught Virginia Tech-BC under the Thursday night lights.

I guess the big change would be rotating VPI into the 2 spot and dropping Texas one. Also, bias be damned, I don't understand where the gigantic negative backlash on UGA is coming from. Anyway, without further ado:

1. Southern Cal – Natch.

2. Virginia Tech – I’ve been contemplating this for a while, we’ll see if they can justify it against The U this week, but point being, I think Virginia Tech is just the toughest, punch you square in the mouth and dare you to keep coming back team in the top 3, and I think Texas would completely fold against it.

The uniforms may be the new lameness, but I wouldn't tell that to Darryl Tapp or Jimmy Williams

3. Texas – Watching the comeback against Ok St actually made me like this team less. How could they even be behind against that team? I really can’t watch more than 10 minutes of any Texas game because the glaring ineptitude of their competition tends to upset me.

4. Alabama – I give them the nod over UCLA because I tend to favor defense. I expect them to lose to LSU though.

5. UCLA – Still undefeated, proved once again they own the 4th quarter.

6. Georgia – Call me horribly biased, but I think with Shock back, Georgia is the best one loss team in the country.

7. Louisiana State – Functional Bye Week 1 of 2. Constant targeting of their own foot in big games is the only downfall of this team (along with a completely bewildered coach).

8. Miami (Florida) – Uniforms bad enough that I should drop them just for that.

9. Notre Dame – Bye week before they get the chance to finally put Tennessee’s season out of its misery.

10. Penn State – Handled Purdue before showdown with Wisconsin

11. Florida State – Struggled with Maryland probably than was necessary, still not sold on them.

12. Wisconsin – Healthy win over Illinois. Have to go on the road to Happy Valley for Battle of the Worthwhile Season in the Big 10

13. Ohio State – Defense didn’t exactly set the world on fire against Minnesota.

14. Oregon – Appears to be probably the best team in the Pac 10 after USC and UCLA, but we’ll have to see if that holds true without Kellen.

15. West Virginia – Will probably just keep floating around here without a solid team to play.

16. Auburn – Keeps on accumulating wins against the lower half of the SEC, hard to tell how for real that offense is until Georgia and Alabama.

17. Florida – I guess I have to give them some credit for beating UGA, even though with Shockley that game is probably 14 points different the other way. I do think there’s a very realistic shot of them dropping a game to either Vanderbilt or even more so to South Carolina. This offense is not good.

18. Boston College – Powerful, but doesn’t have the speed or athleticism to compete the top 5 or 6 teams, especially in a place like Lane Stadium.

19. Texas Tech – Well, they’ve got one loss and they’ve got to go somewhere.

20. Fresno State – A win in Hawaii is a decent win, functional bye with San Jose State this week.

21. TCU – Unimpressive against San Diego State, good test against Colorado State this week.

22. California – Now I’m really hitting the realm of teams I’d rather not rank.

23. Michigan – Like Michael Myers, just won’t die. At this point I have to begin to assume that they’ll win out and push the top 15 again.

24. Louisville – At this point they’re really stuck in limbo here.

25. Colorado – Sure, why not.

Dropped Out:
Northwestern (they really let me down this week), Tennessee (finally gone for good)

New:
Michigan, Colorado

Feel free to curse me as a mental deficient, it wouldn't be the first time.

Check out Brian's fresh new hotness, The Collective of Six.

And hell, maybe I'll try to write something non football tomorrow since I haven't done that for at least a cool minute.

everything's not lost ...

2005-11-01T00:51:00.000-05:00

Well, no better way to end your carthartic post on the weekend's debacle that to find out that Shock is back on the field. Not overly surprising since he was right next to JT3 before the game and at halftime, on the field, throwing passes, god I prayed that he was going to pull a Superman at halftime.

Anyway, perhaps tomorrow I'll be clear enough of it all to see if I can remember any funny occurrences from J-ville to post.

Also, I was delighted and slightly skeezed to find that I'm getting at least 3 or 4 visitors a day from people googling Tijuana Brothel after my post on Dez White. Whatever pads the numbers I guess. Just wait to wait til my exposition on hot naked college coeds.

the sound of settling ...

2005-10-31T23:23:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago, I had a girl ask me, "Are you one of those super obsessed fans whose week is ruined when their teams loses and all they do is sulk?"

And I told her, "I don't think so. I might have been, 10 or 12 years ago, but all things are more dramatic when you're 13. (The time out game against Florida in '93 was definitely a lowlight of the year). But I think as with most everything else you learn to put some perspective on it as you get older. That being said, there's two kinds of losses, the kind you somewhat expect and you can walk away from and the kind that still leaving you looking to the sky and wondering why the hell."

We've had a few of the former over the last couple years, LSU in the title game in '03, Auburn last year. These were games against teams that were without a doubt playing better football than us at the time. These were games where extreme circumstances would have needed to be invoked for Georgia to win. Games where if both teams played to their average performance at the time, you would have expected us to lose. And we did, and while not happy, I contented myself that sometimes you play a team that's just better than you, and you take it and move on. A shake of the head and screw it, next week is 7 days away.

Then there's the other kind. And though I have may have matured, they still leaving me staring at the sky, questioning, wondering what I did wrong. Did the blow out in my repaired flip flop work against us? Did I curse myself by not starting the morning with a Public Service Announcement from The Jigga, Best Rapper Alive just because it wasn't a home game and I wasn't with my normal wake up crew? What could I have done differently? And why do I ask these questions? Because you just lost to a team that there's no way you should have. Florida in '02, Tennessee at home last year, and god almighty, 2 days ago are the latest in the All Star line up of the swift kick to the nuts games.

I don't want to get into numbers on this, the only interest I have left in this game is the emotional impact and where to lay the blame. Kyle or Paul or Realist have some numbers and actual take on the gameplay if you want. My opinion lies somewhere in the range encompasses by all of theirs.

The point is though, it shouldn't be like this anymore. In the late 90's there were 2 stumbling blocks between the perception and the reality of Georgia football. Donnan was telling everyone he was coaching the team of his life, yet every year we're standing at 3rd, looking up at Tennesse and Florida. Well the Tennessee stumbling block has been removed to the point where a loss to them last year was shocking. But Florida remains for some reason. The talent gap has long since ended, we should have at least been playing .500 ball against these guys since 2000. I mean, what does it say when a Georgia win with their backup quarterback, making his first start with 23 career passes, against a Florida team with 2 weeks to prepare, wouldn't be considered a shock. In fact, judging by the beating Georgia has taken in the polls, falling to 11th or 12th, it appears most voters are punishing them pretty strongly for not coming through with that win. I mean honestly, I don't want to play the what if game, it goes nowhere, but does no one think that game wouldn't have ended 10 to 14 points in the other direction if Shock plays? Does no one think that Georgia becomes the best 1 loss team in the country as soon as Shockley steps back on the field? Maybe I'm biased, but hell, I sure do.

I think I was realistic about expectations at the beginning of the season. I saw this as being a legitimate one loss team. I think expecting an undefeated season in the SEC is just wishful thinking these days. The lightning in a bottle season like Auburn enjoyed last year is just difficult to attain in a conference this strong. I thought realistic expectations were to lose a game somewhere, but still win the East with an excellent shot of winning in the title game and playing in the Sugar Bowl. And these goals still exist. If we come out in 2 weeks and take care of business against Auburn, we've basically wrapped up the East and we're right back on line. So I ask myself, how can I be upset?

Well it's for two reasons. First, you never expect the undefeated season, but as you get further along in to it and begin to realize, hey we aren't going to play anyone we can't beat as long as we play our game, you start to let yourself believe that maybe it's your year to catch the breaks and do something special and you start to feel it. Then you watch the heart of your offense go down in a worthless game the week before the Tipping Point of the season. But you allow yourself to think, you know what, it doesn't matter, we can still do this. And you watch a game where your team had every chance in the world to win it and they just couldn't break through. So you ask yourself, why couldn't lightning strike for us once? Why are we the only top 10 team that's been forced to play the biggest game of the season without their starting quarterback? Why would it be so bad for me to get a little luck for one whole season? And you get upset, maybe you're asking too much, but still, you do.

And then there's the second reason. Sure all the goals are still attainable, so you can't feel too bad. But, I figure you have X number of chances in your life to be at one of those games. The games that get remembered for a long time. And hell, we've had a decent share the last couple of years, Greene to Haynes for The Hobnailed Boot in '01, Greene to Johnson, He Caught the Ball, against Auburn in '02 to wrap up the East. And Saturday was another chance for one. To go down there with out Shock, with the chance to wrap up the East, with a chance to alter the balance on the Florida series, the chance to remove the last stumbling block, to get down 14-0 and come scratching back. You're sitting there and you realize, god we're a play away, one play, one pass, one kick from it being on of those games, one everyone remembers. And to see it fall just short, it's just, I don't know, debilitating, deflating. And you start to understand why Red told Andy that hope, is a dangerous thing.

So, where to lay the blame?

Surely not on Brandon. That was a brutal day to be kicking and quite frankly, I don't think it's fair to rely on a kicker like we have the last 4 or 5 years. Sooner or later it'll bite you in the ass, like it did Saturday or in Death Valley in '03. We shouldn't have been settling for field goals Saturday. And frankly, something was aligned against him anyway. I was sitting in the south end zone directly behind the uprights and I have no idea how that 52 yarder didn't get in, I really don't. He was kicking 60 yarders going that way at halftime. How that one found the upright I will never know. Just another sign that fate was against you that day.

For me, the blame lies with the coaches. Yes, we did adjust after the first two drives and basically shut them down after that, 120 yards on the first two drives. 140 for the rest of the game. But, despite the changes Meyer made to the offense with his 2 weeks, I still don't think it should have taken two scoring drives to get a handle on what he was doing. And beyond that, we missed the cardinal rule that Alabama and LSU followed in harrassing Leak to no end. He was threading passes to guys that were pretty well covered those first two drives like he hasn't all year, but he had the time to do it. We didn't force him into the turnovers that we needed to. And our softness on defense served to put us in bad field position the entire game. But still, on the total blame that I'll assign to the coaching staff, the defense gets about 10% of it, tops. I claimed we'd hold them to 14 or less and we did, that should have been enough to win.

The balance of the blame goes to the offense, therefore it goes to Richt again. I like the man, I think he's done, doing, and will do great things at Georgia. But I swear he has the ability to irritate the ever loving shit out of me when he's calling a game. It is time for him to give the role of coordinating and calling the offense. I don't fault the overall plan of leaning on the run and the defense, being conservative and keeping the game out of JT3's hands as much as necessary, but there comes a time when it becomes necessary and you have to let it fly. And he by and large missed the boat on those moments. When there is under 8 minutes left, you are down by 4, you are on your opponent's side of the field, and your run has just been stuffed for an 8 yard loss, it's not time to run up the middle and then call a QB sweep to try and shorten in up to a 52 yard field goal for your kicker. It is time to put the ball in JT3's hands and let him try to find Massaquoi, who has yet to drop a catchable pass, or Pope, or if it's 3rd down, (apparently his only safe down for catching the ball), McClendon. Hell if you're scared, try a damn screen, but for god's sake, try something that has a chance. Likewise when it's under 2 minutes and it's 3rd and 10, you don't call another QB sweep, netting -1 yard and forcing you to burn a crucial timeout. That designed QB draw or sweep (unless you've got Shock or Vince Young running it) is basically a novelty, be glad you caught them sleeping once and then put it the hell away. I mean, short of the opening pass that Milner dropped and the trick play from Brown back to JT3 (which was one of the all time, what the hell, oh shit, oh my god never mind that f'ing worked plays) I almost had the feeling that Richt was throttling down the offense past the "play conservative" stage and into the "preventing us from winning" stage.

I just think, especially once we got it to 14-10 and are a play away from taking the lead, it's time to say, ok, the game plan got us here, there's 15 minutes left and we've got a chance, that's all I could ask. Now let's cut this thing loose and see what my guys can do. I don't know, like I said, there's maybe 2 or 3 guys I'd trade him for, but I swear, in the last 4 years, Richt has authored some all time, head scratching, eye gouging, what in the holy hell are we trying to prove moments with his playcalling. I mean, you claimed the offensive stagnation in the Arkansas game was because you didn't let the kid loose and that things would be different. Then after the Florida game, you're making the same excuses, maybe I'm reined him in too much. I mean shit, for a couple million a year, you'd think he could learn a lesson well enough once to not make the same mistake 7 days later.

But anyway, there it is, over and done. Now we've got the 2 weeks to get everyone healthy, brush up and find some new wrinkles for Auburn and then come out and take care of business to wrap up the East again.

A Couple More Notes

I'll hit more when I get the ballot up, but a couple of things I wanted to address now.

Urban Meyer officially entered my douchebag hall of fame Saturday night. Did you see him with the gameday crew on the late wrap up, his whole, "not to be whatever, but I don't think any team has been through what this team has been through" bullshit. What an egotistical prick. Let's name a couple. Seriously, umm how about Tulane or LSU? They went through a f'ing hurricane. Or even a lesser one. How about Alabama? They lost their biggest playmaker in the most cringe worthy injury since McGahee's knee went pop, lock, unlock, pop the other way, I hide my eyes to keep from vomiting. I mean honestly, what the hell has Florida gone through? They lost Caldwell. Congrats, I doubt I'd rank that in the top 5 even in the SEC of painful personnel losses. They lost a tough one to LSU and everyone cried? WTF? Welcome to the SEC, it ain't the Mountain West anymore jackbag, you're gonna lose a game like that pretty much every year, hell maybe more than one. You gonna cry after every one and then act like your team overcame the greatest adversity in the world in recovering from it?

Meanwhile, he's officially taken Leak from one of the top QB's into the country and turned him into shit in half a season. Seriously, Gators all over the country rejoiced at Leak's peformance which included 108 yards and a touchown, basically his best since the Kentucky game. Back when Florida had a real offense, that constituted a good quarter for him. And in that vein, you had 2 weeks to make changes to your offense and worked for all of about 10 minutes before you were right back where you started. If I'm a Florida fan, I'm obviously happy with the win, but it really can't make me feel any better about where the offenese is headed.

By the by, watch out for the South Carolina game. If there's anything Spurrier would probably enjoy more than embarrassing Fat Phil again, it would be proving beyond a shadow of a doubt to all the Florida faithfull that things will never be the same without him.

Anyway, I have now officially come to the conclusion that Urban is a jackbag of the first degree, and in the immortal words of Silky Johnston:

I hate your guts. I hope all the bad things in life happen to you and only to you.

Anything else. I was going to raise the question of how the hell longer can it possibly be before moves are made at Tennessee, but it's already happening.

Also, I'll say more about this with my poll, but Virginia Tech is officially the toughest and scariest of the top 3 teams.

we didn't get all dressed up for nothing ...

2005-10-27T11:27:00.000-04:00

Still hoping nobody recognizes him as Ogre

When the optimism finally takes over.

Before we get into the Cocktail Party, a little mutual back scratching is in order. Hey Jenny Slater was kind enough to drop The Drizzle a mention, highest commendations for predicting my soliloquy on the (hopefully 1 game loss) of Shock.

You can check them out, as well as Paul for some excellent UGA - Florida musings. Paul has already linked to plenty of good articles, so go there, read them.

While we're at it, Realist and Gunslingers have excellent thought on Stewart Mandel's latest crapfest and the trouble with punditry in general.

So now we come to it, the feel good edition. I've been staying down on this game all week, starting at about 2:45 last Saturday afternoon. As I walked out of Sanford, I was fully convinced that the Florida game had just been stolen right out from under my nose. But starting on the car ride home that night, I started to settle down, to reconcile myself with what had to be done. I started to develop a little hope, because after all, as Andy said, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things.

Throwing out numbers for this game became somewhat pointless last Saturday. It's like saying, hey, my Charger gets 340 hp and 390 ft-lb of torque with that Hemi in it. Of course we replaced the Hemi with a total question mark, so god knows what we're going to get out of it. Doubtless though, the offense loses a certain dimension. But I for one am choosing to have faith in Joe Tereshinski The 3.

We may be missing our main #3 this weekend, but we replaced him with another one. This kid wasn't a water boy that we threw a jersey to because his dad and his grandfather played here. (Now go back, read the articles Paul linked too again). At this point scholarships are a little too valuable to throw away on a guy that you don't have faith in to perform. He was recruited to play in the SEC. He beat out Blake Barnes and Joe Cox for the backup spot. He earned where he's at. And Richt shouldn't have to put the entire game in his hands Saturday. We have a solid defense, we've been as good on punt team as we've ever been, we've got a solid kicker, and we should have an offensive line and running game to take some of the pressure off of him. That being said, there's a part of me that wants to see us come out and just throw 10 straight passes to start the game. I don't think anything would surprise and rock Florida more than to come out there, let Joe take shots at them, and if it hits, god watch out. Point is, I choose to have faith in JT3. Here's a kid who's just been handed his dream, and maybe only for one week, so let's hope he's ready to take full advantage of it.

So what about a little analysis that's a little bit more grounded in fact. The Georgia defense agains the Urban Trash Dump.

Fact, CUM's offense has been a disaster against any sort of a solid, SEC defense.

Fact, Chris Leak is probably one solid hit or one more dropped pass away from having a complete psychotic break and instead of running the play, just breaking down into a pointing and staring contest with CUM.

Pointing his way to another 4 loss season

Fact, we get at least 2/3's of the center of our defense back as Tony and Gerald come back.

QED MF'er. I still expect the defense to hold Florida to 14 or less.

The blue print has already been drawn up, especially by Alabama. Get in Leak's face, get in his throwing lanes, get your hands up and start knocking down passes before they can go anywhere. Force the underneath throws and then come up and punish those receivers before they can even get turned. Translation, step up Blue, no better way to make up for last week than to jar a couple loose come Saturday.

So point is, I expect a win now. The monkey was thrown off the back last year. Every player on that Georgia sideline knows what it is to beat Florida now. Mark Richt knows what it is to beat Florida now. And, wonder of wonders, all the pressure that would have been on Georgia has now shifted to Florida. Now with Shock gone, the nation expects us to lose. All the pundits out there that haven't actually watched a Georgia game this year just reverted back to their predictions from 5 years ago. Suddenly it's Florida's big chance to reclaim a season that's going by the wayside. Suddenly the pressure is on them to prove that they're still relevant in the East. It's beautiful.

I don't want to get any further ahead of myself here. But if we win Saturday, it blows the ceiling off this season as far as where it can go. We can walk out of this game with a lot of things that haven't been seen for quite a while, back to back wins over Florida, perfect record after the Florida game. This one is The Tipping Point, certain to be admired and revered amongst the white boy set. And if we win Saturday, look for another run of hegemony over Florida that hasn't been seen since the Vince Days.

We're going to hold onto him by the nose and we're going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we're going to go through him like crap through a goose.

Prediction: UGA 20 - UF 10.

OTHER GAMES THAT ARE DREADFULLY LESS IMPORTANT

VPI - BC
Tech is poised for its late season melt down that perpetually occurs when they start the season highly ranked and reel off 7 or 8 wins to start the season. Their better finishes come in years like last year when they start under the radar. The only season where they kept the momentum was '99 when they were quarterbacked by Mexico. So, since New Mexico is there now, perhaps that renders everything I just wrote pointless. Add Lane Stadium to that and BC really shouldn't have a chance. So, I'll fly in the face of all of that and say Williams tackles someone by the facemask midway through the 2nd quarter, BC snaps like Bruce Banner and pulls this one through.

God there's really nothing else overtly important or that many chances for upsets.

Strangely enough the oddsmakers do think that Northwestern over Michigan will be an upset, and I'm definitely taking Basanez to mercifully put Michigan's season down for good.

Also, in my continued quest to bring about the implosion of the Big 10, I'm going to take Purdue to right the ship for a single week and bring down Penn State another notch.

ROAD TO JOY

Where a simple man meets his fate

So I'm finally heading for Jacksonville, a minimum of 24 hours late because I have a bunch of jackbag friends who do things can't get their shit together and do things like feigning illness after probably dropping 5 large in Vegas last weekend to the point where they really do wish they were dead.

I was about to refer to J'ville as an asshole of a town, but I realized I've already done that to basically everywhere Georgia has tripped this year, so I guess I'll refrain. But it bears mentioning it is the worst smelling town I've been in. Once you get down around the stadium you get the tantalizing coffee funk from the coffee factory there, mixed with the rancid ass water from the St. Johns and crotch sweat brought on by the jean shorts of 60,000 Florida fans. Anyway, it stinks down there outside on the West side of the stadium.

Words would only detract

I'll leave us with some words by the famous Russ Tanner.

“Do I have any Joe T stories?” center Russ Tanner said. “Probably none that should be in the newspaper. Joe’s definitely got personality. He’s just a lot smarter than most of us when he’s talking to you guys.”

Which I take to mean he gets hammered, chases tail, takes a leak in the alley, and then tries to get into fights with inanimate objects, just like everyone else. We couldn't be in better hands.

stickup kids ...

2005-10-27T00:06:00.000-04:00

Dye, Ozzie, at least former Braves are finding somewhere where they can win it all (courtesy of espn.com)

Good early start to the weekend.

Houston kicks things off proper by going down in the painful way that I wished upon them like a plague of boils.

Lose game 1 in a pedestrian 5-3, no big deal.

Game 2, the pain begins, give up the 2 run lead on a grand slam. Turn around and tie it back up. Then give it back when Podsednik, a guy without a home run all year, goes walk off against your lights out closer. (At this point, it's 90% over, nobody would be surprised with a De Niro in Meet The Fokkers, mailed in style performance once they get home).

Game 3, the pain intensifies. This time tie it up late, only to go through 5 extra innings where not a single person in the lineup could even sniff a hit. Haven't seen an offense that punchless against quality competition since?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Florida Gators, 2005 (mild foreshadowing). Finally ends when Blum, a guy with 1 home run all season, also goes deep, then you walk in an insurance run for the hell of it. (At this point, they're 99% done, debatable as to whether Roger will even be in the dugout for Game 4 or whether this is one of the games he gets to skip since he's not playing)

Game 4, the embarrassment game. Shut out for the sweep on your own field. First team to lose a 1-0 game to end the series since Glavine did it to Cleveland in '95. Again your lights out closer gives up the winning run.

Truthfully, I didn't see Phil Garner necessarily do a lot good in the whole series.

The White Sox though, that was a hell of a postseason run. 11-1 including sweeping out the defending champs, taking 4 in a row from the other best team in the AL, then sweeping out the hottest team in baseball since June. Truthfully, it's kind of strange, everyone kept waiting for them to fall apart, but they were the most complete team in baseball this year, nobody deserved it more, especially when your closer is a 270 behemoth.

And on that happy note, I'll be back with the Cocktail Party Preview in the morning, before heading for Jacksonville.

I leave you with this quote by Urban Meyer about preparing for Shock, it's too good to wait til tomorrow.

“I haven’t been told (Shockley is not playing) yet,” Meyer said. “I guess when I hear that, it’s a different deal. Until then, you’re making a major mistake if you don’t prepare.”

Pointing like he knows how, perhaps requesting a phone to confirm information that's been common knowledge for 3 days?

It's the little things that make you feel better.

TKO'd ...

2005-10-26T19:59:00.000-04:00

Well, it looks like the Tavares Kearney Era has fizzled out, after beginning with the promise of a nuclear meltdown.

Take a good look

From a football standpoint, it's an unfortunate but not overly damaging loss. We're stretched pretty thin at linebacker this year, but we don't stand to lose anyone that's currently playing, and we're going to add Darryl Gamble, Akeem Hebron, and Darius Dewberry. Plus, who knows, maybe Josh Johnson will pull an Odell and come back from his year in exile ready to bust heads. Still, it's a bit sad, because this kid apparently would straight up murder people on the field, like to the tune of knocking 6 or 7 quarterbacks out of games last year.

From a program standpoint, probably better off this way. From his performance on the field, the kid had a mean streak a mile wide, but it appears that unlike a guy like Blue, who's apparently very laid back off the field, he couldn't turn it off as well. I'm not here to pass judgement on an 18 year old kid, but the thing with the TA was messed up. I mean, where are you coming from that you can ever think, hey, this chick is accusing me or cheating, and she's probably half my size, the best thing to do would be for me to lay hands on her, cause that won't go horribly wrong. And according to what I've heard about it, if Will Thompson hadn't been there to talk him down, things could have gotten worse.

I realize that's no guarantee he's going to pull knife on someone in front of Last Call next week, but damn, with the off season Georgia had last year in terms of discipline, maybe this isn't such a bad one to lose to attrition.

Anyway, hopefully I'll be back in a couple hours to say that the White Sox just won the World Series and use that a positive sign for the weekend. Here's a little math equation for it:

Clemens - World Series Ring = ROTFLMAO SUXOR!?!

And Oh My God, and yes, that deserves to be typed out, they've trotted out Edward James Olmos to talk about Latin Legends before the game. Did we just officially give baseball away? Is he also going to teach AP Calculus? I'm enthralled.

I'm afraid I just can't take him as seriously without the 'stache.

Roundtable X+1 (the stopped counting edition) ...

2005-10-25T13:49:00.000-04:00

Show me another man who's mastered the gridiron and chicken wings and I'll change my vote.

1. The Envy Poll
Name the five teams, other than yours, whose accomplishments you respect / envy the most. Use whatever criteria you feel is appropriate (wins, titles, consistency, academic integrity, competitive integrity, NCAA violations, general thuggery, mascot intimidation factor ...).

Notre Dame – You may hate them, but I think it’s the best tradition of any program throughout history, and they’re about to start adding to it again.

USC – Strong tradition as well, plus anyone would kill for the last 3 years, plus the best fight song in college football.

The U – I definitely hate them, but I mean, dominance in the last 25 years, athletes than everyone else would kill for, and they’re definitely winning or contending for the lead in violations and general thuggery.

LSU – Death Valley, the food, and I love anybody that actually uses a live tiger as their mascot instead of a totally unrelated animal (LSU – 1, Auburn – 0).

Bama – They’ve got crazy fan devotion and a solid tradition to match it, and I’ve always been a fan of the understated uniforms like Bama or ND.

That’s about it, I’m pretty content with being a Georgia fan, but if you told me, hey asshole, you’ve got to switch this year, these would probably be the top 5 I’d want to get to choose from. Not a lot of integrity picks there, ah well.

2. Admissions
With regard to Question #1, what is the most damaging criticism of your program that you will admit is a legitimate criticism? That is, what negative trait does the most damage to the overall respect level of your program (in your eyes, or to others, interpret as you will).

Without a doubt the criticism I’ve had to answer the most in the last 7 or 8 years is that UGA’s overall program success is completely overstated. And in a way, without a single conference title between 1982 and 2002, there was some truth to that. The Crackhead Quincy Years with Donnan coaching the teams he’d been waiting all his life to coach which sent basically every defensive starter to the NFL but struggled to win 8 or 9 games definitely set us up for some major criticism in that area. Luckily we’ve finally started to bring the product up to match the perception since 2002.

3. Unrelated Discussion Question
Who do you think is the best player in the history of your program? Tell us a little about him (especially if he's not a household name). Feel free to pick someone from 50 years ago that none of us has seen play.

Umm, Herschel Walker, chances are if the best college player of all time played for your program, he was also the best to come out of your program. Plus, considering I wear a Herschel jersey, circa 1980 on gamedays, I'd be a bit of an ass if I didn't endorse him here.

BlogPoll Week 9 (my first foray into the party) ...

2005-10-24T22:38:00.000-04:00

So this is basically based on bias, innuendo, supposition, hearsay and conjecture (which are types of evidence), a few articles I've read, and occasionally watching a game.

I caught UGA-Arkansas live and in excruciating person this week. I also caught all or major portions of ND-BYU, Bama-Tennessee, LSU-Arkansas, UCLA-Oregon State, and Virginia Tech-Maryland.

I think my favorite thing about this ballot is how 11-17 is a refuge for 4 Big 10 teams that I don't have any particular idea what to do with. I mean, a couple of these teams are going to finish the year with 1 or 2 losses, but I still can't bring myself to like them too much (with the exception of Northwestern, who comes in last out of the 4, go figure).

Anyway, without further ado ....

1. Southern Cal – Beating Washington isn’t much to talk about, but Texas Tech isn’t enough to change things for Texas.

2. Texas – Beating Texas Tech was nice, but it was still more proof of their being overrated than anything else, not enough to pass Southern Cal.

3. Virginia Tech – Win over Maryland was solid, but I still see don’t see a clear reason to bump them to top 2, after Boston College though?

4. Georgia – Alabama’s troubles at home with a team Georgia dominated on the road kept them here. What do you say about Tereshinski in the Cocktail Party though?

I'm hoping familiarity breeds comfort or at least tacit acceptance.

5. Alabama – Survived Tennessee, but the offense of the last two games won’t run the table against LSU and Auburn.

6. UCLA – At this point, 7-0 is 7-0, offense can play with anyone and has shown ability to come from behind.

7. Louisiana State – Auburn definitely did their best to give LSU the win, but doesn’t change the fact that they won the first head to head of the Big 3 of the West.

8. Miami (Florida) – Too bad they didn’t get to beat up on Georgia Tech this week.

9. Notre Dame – Got right back on the horse against BYU, staring down the barrel at 9-2 and a BCS game. Truthfully I think they would beat LSU or Miami, but 2 losses have to carry a little weight.

10. Boston College – I like this team, I think they would beat Florida State if they played again.

11. Penn State – Always glad to see someone embarrass Ron Zook.

12. Florida State – Still questionable, but with BC out of the way, shouldn’t lose again on the way to Jacksonville.

13. Wisconsin – Exiting the realm of teams I know are good.

14. Oregon – Not exactly a pretty win against Arizona, but I’d probably pick them to beat any team after this, so I guess this is where they go.

15. Ohio State – Makes me kinda sick.

16. West Virginia – Haven’t really gotten to see much of them, unfortunately Virginia Tech was their best chance to prove themselves against a worthwhile team.

17. Northwestern – Offense can score like Texas Tech and they’ve actually beaten a worthwhile team or two.

18. Texas Tech – Seems an appropriate drop, could still outscore the teams after them and probably some of the ones ahead of them.

19. Auburn – Good luck of last year all gone. Kenny Irons blew up this week. Special teams count in close games you’ll play in the SEC. Fact remains they’ve lost 2 games at home against a good team and a passable team.

20. Florida – Would get outscored by Auburn, but perhaps would beat teams below them just on talent.

21. TCU – Seems like an appropriate place for them, haven’t seen much.

22. Fresno State – Seems like a good place for a team whose only loss was a tough game in Autzen Stadium.

23. California – Fallen a long way the last two weeks. Close win against Washington State not a good lead in to Oregon and USC.

24. Louisville – Really any of these last 3 could go unranked, but I’m not ready to put Michigan or Colorado back in here.

25. Tennessee – Really don’t belong but I’m running out of teams, offense is just abysmal. Defense can keep them in most games.

Dropped Out:
None, this is my first time out.

New:

Feel free to accuse me of brilliance or idiocy, my pride died long ago.

is there no one else (aka everyone on Georgia dies)...

2005-10-24T10:14:00.000-04:00

Well I guess it's time to purge myself of Saturday's filth. That could not have gone more completely wrong and different than I predicted or wanted. That was without a doubt the most agonizing, painful and utterly unenjoyable win I have ever sat through. I had plenty of moments Saturday, but I think the entire game is best summarized by me lifting hands and screaming to the heavens in the middle of section 110, "Please God, quit dying out there," when BMiller went down. I have never been more ready for a Georgia game to just end.

Trying to review this game is kind of pointless, but I'll do it a little anyway.

While Shock was still out there the offense was off to its normal halting start. The running game was sputtering at best, but I would like to emphasize that I'm not 100% convinced that it wouldn't have turned around if we could have run our offensive plan for the whole game. Arkansas was basically blitzing every play, which if you watched them play Auburn, was to be expected. Then the one thing that we all dread happens, Shock goes down on a useless 3rd down play. Why does this happen? I mean, we're already not exactly the paragon of health out there, but we had managed to dodge the one hit we couldn't take. Seriously, Vince Young is out there still scrambling when Texas is up 45-17, and he walks through unscathed. Where the hell is the justice in all this? All in all, I'm a good guy and according to every article I've ever read, so is Shock, so I really don't think we deserve this. For a time, Sanford Stadium died Saturday. The managed to get back up for the defense in the 2nd half, but for the rest of that 2nd quarter everyone was in shock. I spent the entire time on the phone trying to find out what the hell was happening.

The last picture a UGA fan wanted to see, right after Bea Arthur nudes.

Anyway, fast forward a couple hours, 82 total yards, and an offensive performance as disgusting as the Tech game last year and I've never been more ready to leave. Where to throw the blame? Who knows? Richt didn't do Tereshinski any favors by basically shutting the offense down and stranding him out there. 9 passes in 3 quarters. Arkansas was already just assaulting the line like crazy, after any fear of defending the pass went away it was like a headhunting expedition out there. Of course, JT3 didn't do himself any favors with a couple of poorly thrown balls. The pick to Grant probably shouldn't have been thrown and was thrown on the wrong side on top of that. And the wide open route to Southerland that would have been good for a first down was thrown 5 feet short for no particular reason. On top of that, the O line gave away any good will they'd built up this season by pulling a complete disappearing act. They were completely dominated up front by Arkansas. Meanwhile, if they did open a hole at all, Southerland would turn the corner and find 3 guys still there to block, which I guess goes a long way to explaining 1.7 ypc. Lord, enough of that.

What to say about the defense? They're a large reason we won the game, but god they were brutal doing it. As if the injuries up the middle coming in weren't enough, pretty much every other player of importance spent time on the bench, Dixson gone, King Charles gone, BMiller gone, Battle gone, god, I think I'll stop now.

Gouged for the longest run since SEC Championship where Justin Vincent ran wild and 190 yards by one guy. Which by the way, McFadden is the real deal, once Mustain shows up, they'll make some noise in the West for the next couple years. Between McFadden and Michael Grant, Arkansas had the two fastest players on the field Saturday.

I mean, let's call Arkansas's plays, hand off off tackle, bounce it outside, run like crazy, sweep wide, run like crazy, screen pass, run like crazy, repeat, and we couldn't do much with it. Add to it that there wasn't a clean tackle made on first contact all game and you've got the recipe for eye bleeding disaster that happened Saturday. I'll make some allowances considering the defense was about 8 guys short and it felt like they stayed on the field for 56 minutes, but any way you put it, Arkansas pushed them around. Thank god for a couple of big sacks that put Arkansas in some untenable situations.

And everyone knows I love Blue, but he might as well have not shown up Saturday. Missed tackles, horrible angles, especially on a couple of McFadden's big runs, dropped interception, without a doubt the worst game he's put together in the last 3 years. All right, I'm done with the defense, this is painful.

Game ball to Coutu, Ely-Kelso, and special teams in general, the main reason we won the game.

So one of my Tech friends told me to stop being so depressed and bitching after the game because we were 7-0, but that was a classic won the battle, lost the war game. Of course, I should have known it was coming when I blew out a flip flop on the way in to the stadium and had to spend the rest of the day going one footed around downtown Athens, looking for a rusty AIDS spoon to step on. Anyway, not to get into a full Jacksonville preview, but a quick minute on the coming game.

We are about to head to Jacksonville for one of the more important UGA games in recent history (wrap up the East, first back to back wins against Florida since the 80's, first 8-0 start since '82) with Joe Tereshinski III as our quarterback. I'm not ready to give up on him or the game. I think at least part of the horrible offense on Saturday was dependent on Richt shutting the offense down and the fact that it's always harder to come in and pick up the pieces than to start a game (Shock against Tech last year). He did win the backup job over Barnes or Cox and there has been good talk about him since last spring on a lot of the boards. We'll see how true it is. Meanwhile, we get some defense back, Taylor back, Gerald back, hell maybe Ked will strap it on and find a way back out there. But any way you cut it, for Georgia to have a chance, the defense is going to have throw out a dominant performance and we're going to have to make some plays on special teams again. Anyway, enough about that, we'll save the Florida preview for later in the week. I'll say this though, if Georgia finds a way to win this game, it'll be the most important Georgia win in a long time (especially if Shock gets put back together and comes back and runs the table from Auburn on out, but right now this is all just forced optimistic thinking).

Tennessee-Bama (the 1962 edition)
Ok, now it's for real, Bama's offense is completely toothless without Prothro. I think they probably split AU/LSU, losing to LSU but getting some revenge on Auburn. Meanwhile, Tennessee needs to wrap it up and go home, what an abysmal season for them. Mahelona looked like someone shot his dog in the last seconds on the side lines.

Auburn-LSU
Auburn's lightning in a bottle from last year has finally run out. After last year's season, they were due to start losing some games that they probably should have won, such as this one. 5 missed field goals, I'm not sure I'd even show up at practice on Monday. On the other hand, you can give LSU plenty of credit for trying to give this game away as well. I've never seen a stable of uncoverable receivers with more brutal hands. Truthfully if they could catch, the 5 missed field goals wouldn't even be an issue because LSU would have closed the game out. And I'm pretty sure if I ever met Les Miles I wouldn't be able to help myself but to say, "So, you've got no frame of reference here Les, you're like a child that wanders in in the middle of a movie." This guy couldn't look more lost out there.

Current SEC West odds:
LSU/Bama/AU - 50/30/20

ND-BYU
Well that was one way to cure yourself of a brutal loss hangover. Stovall and Samardzija both busted any sort of projections I could have possibly put up for them. ND definitely wins out, including poor Tennessee. Is there any way Brady Quinn isn't the Heisman frontrunner going into next season?

UVA-UNC
Wow, 7-5, that was probably actually more painful to watch than the Georgia game. It did give me a brainstorm though. Safeties should take 2 points from the offense. That way instead of this being a high scoring baseball game at 7-5, it would have just been a run of the mill, Tuesday night special 5-3 game. Are the bottom 8 or 9 teams in the ACC serving any purpose whatsoever at this point?

Other Notes
I've been added to the BlogPoll, so now I get the opportunity to foist my unfounded opinions off on dozens of people, all over the globe, so look for my first ballot later on.

Between that and the Georgia-UF preview, that may be about all I get up before I head to Jacksonville on Wednesday, but we'll see.

Mark May heralds the 2nd sign...

2005-10-20T23:02:00.000-04:00

Well comforting fact number one of the week would have to be we've pretty much pwn3d Arkansas since the 1991 Poulan Weedeater Bowl and their subsequent decision to saddle up with the big boys in 1992, only losing to them in 1993 when we went 2-6 in conference.

But to be technical about all this, we'll do a quick perusal of the numbers.

Their strength is obviously their running game at 263 ypg. Of course, they're completely one dimensional, coming in last in passing offense at only 136 ypg. The strength of their running game gets them to 3rd in total offense with 400 ypg and scoring a respectable 27.3 ppg to come in 5th. Strangely enough with the strength of their running game, they're still only holding onto the ball for 28 minutes a game only good for 8th in the conference.

So we're going to throw a defense only give up 91 ypg and 12.7 ppg against that. Normally when you throw a one dimensional offense against an upper level defense like Georgia, it's about as one sided as Max Jean against a pile of hardboiled eggs. Of course, some would point to the fact that we're missing Ked and Gerald and Tony Taylor up the middle. And I agree, this gives a moments pause. But Gant, Dixson, Swain, Owens and Elmore were recruited to play at UGA for a reason and it wasn't just to eat all the food at the pregame meals (although judging by Swain's fat ass over the years, you might think so). Point being the difference between being 6-0 and #4 in the land and being 2-4 like Arkansas isn't just the front line guys; it's also the fact that your 2nd and 3rd string can still come out and give you quality snaps. And I don't expect any less this weekend. Gant, for all the trouble he stays in with Garner, has played good enough to start over the last season and a half. Owens has looked solid in his freshman season. Swain, god bless him, may still not be able to play more than 2 snaps in a row, but he knows how to take up space. Apparently Dixson has looked good enough in practice this week to come out of nowhere and steal the start. And Elmore, well his nickname is Mudcat, so that's cool, and he's kinda living the dream of being a 6th year junior.

Point being, with no passing game to defend against we can cut Blue and Battle even more loose than usual against their running game, and I look for the front line to hold serve well enough for us to control the game defensively. Of course, god forbid anybody else go down or we're gonna be asking Jordache Jean Gilles how he feels about playing nose tackle.

So what about on the other side? Well, Georgia's number one or two in rushing, passing, total, and scoring offense. Arkansas gives 31 ppg and 424 ypg. Of course, these are slightly inflated by the fact that USC hung 147 points and 1475 yards on them in 8 minutes a month ago, but still. The numbers say we should match our average offensive output pretty easily.

I'd again look for trying to control the ball and keep the thin defense off the field. Probably 2 to 1 running to passing again if possible. Again I'll pray that we run more out of the I form. With a little commitment, I think we can rush for a solid 200 to 250 out there.

On the other hand, CMR is apparently getting to the point where he trusts the receivers enough to let Shock actually capitalize on the fact that he can throw it 60 yards flat footed and air it out downfield a bit. I'm actually looking forward to seeing this, have been since I saw him do it in his senior year at North Clayton against Fayette County. He's rolling, to his left mind you and just flips it out there, 65 yards in the air. There also exists a video of him placing his nuts on my friend Slim's forehead as he dunks on him in a basketball game, but that's a different story. Anyway, it's a dimension we'll need once we hit the stretch run of the season. I hope he'll stay committed enough to try it 6 or 8 times in the game and to call Massaquoi's number when he does it. I understand that Bailey gets open. I also understand that if he pulls T-rex arms on one more ball someone will be cussing a blue streak in Section 111.

See, I had to go back to spring to find a picture of him airing it out

All this being said, it'll probably be a typical offensive output for us, we'll have a couple of dominant drives, a couple of drives halted by CMR turning over the playcalling to Chan Gailey for a few plays, and Shock will yet again find a way to overthrow Leonard Pope even though he is 8 feet tall.

-A little intangible

Much like the state of Mississippi, we've pretty much held sway over the state of Arkansas lately. This of course excepts last year's 20-14 victory at Arkansas, which was so flippin indicative of our vomit inducing roller coaster ride of an offense last year that we won't go back into that.

Houston Nutt, after squandering all his goodwill in Fayetteville by openly showing interest in the Nebraska job and then starting 2-4, including that embarrassing loss to USC that gave rise to the 100 point legends that we had to listen to on Gameday for the next month, should be fighting like hell for his job at this point. Got to be sad for him knowing he's just months away from getting to coach Mitch Mustain. All he had to was bridge the gap from Matt Jones to Mitch, and he may not do it.

Better turn that watch up a minute

-Prediction

UGA 38 - Arkansas 6. Got to get Brandon that field goal to keep hope alive for the records. And I think with the doubts about the run defense, the defense actually throws its best game of the year and keeps Arkansas out of the end zone.

-Odd and ends from me

Sad day for me with no Matt Jones. I loved that bastard. He was the king of overtime, 3 longest overtime games ever I think, and he was in all of them. And of course, by overtime, their offense just turned into him. His overtime stats would be like 6 OT, 78 yards rushing, 54 yards passing, 3 TDs rushing, 1 throwing, and they'd have to prop him up for the postgame interview. Meanwhile, he shows up compound looking like he just came back from Phish's last show and smokes everyone. What a badass. Barton and I had a good 30 minute argument about who would get to draft him for their fantasy team, just for the priviledge of having him.

Wrong Jones jackbag, but honestly, isn't Mike always going to be the funnier picture

What a shitty year of start times for Georgia home games. Two 5:30 games, this is the second 12:30 or 1:00 start, Kentucky will definitely be 12:30 or 1:00 for Senior Day, hopefully Auburn will be 3:30. You have to assume CBS will keep it instead of passing it on the ESPN night game. Really makes you long for the 2003 schedule loaded with 3:30 games. We've got 4 years of drinking practice geared for 3:30 starts and we're floundering in this schedule.

What a holy shit moment I just saw on ESPN, picked as a Contender in Contender/Pretender by both Desmond Howard and Mark I F'ing Hate UGA and will pick them to lose any game possible May. Great Odin's raven children, board up the windows cause Wilma must be swinging north to Athens.

-Other games

UVA, fresh off of exposing Drew Weatheringtonford The IV gets rewarded by being a 1 point dog to UNC, who was last seen trying valiantly to revive Louisville's season. God the middle of the ACC is a disgusting mess. Sadly enough, I think they've got it right, combine post win hangover with bad road team with UNC playing the 1 off, 2 on schedule (as far as showing up) and UNC probably takes this one.

Notre Dame straps it back on and covers against the Mormons. Truthfully speaking if there were any justice in this world, a school based on a crazy cult would never win in the land of touchdown Jesus. (apologies to my Mormon readers, who probably don't exist, I've been skiing in Utah and they'll are nice folks, although a little weird). Samardzija catches 7 for 128 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Was Bama's offense exposed last week? Maybe. But their defense wasn't, and Tennessee's offense and Randy Sanders have been exposed about 3 or 4 times and counting this year. So I'd have to take Bama to roll on and cover 3.5.

Some say Auburn's been under the radar, which I take to mean nobody gave a crap about how they padded their record at home after losing to the only vaguely skilled team they've played, also at home. So now they get their first real road test against a highly talented LSU team, who has one thing in common with the Big 10, they try to run and hide from a win like it was a damn alimony payment. Les Miles against Tommy Tuberville. Wasn't the SEC once home to the legends of coaching? Is this what we get now? Ears, The Riverboat Retard against Les Cheauxonlead. Wow. Anyway, I guess I'll take LSU to win at home, the 6.5 cover is a stretch, but what the hey, I hate Auburn. That being said, if they win, the Auburn game just went from a concern level of around 6.5 to about 9 in a cool second.

The battle of the "unbeatens." I am dying to see Texas lose. I don't think they will this week. I'm still putting my money on the A&M game. Perhaps Tech can expose something on their defense, but I'm not even counting on that. Vince Young probably gets like 400 yards of total offense this game and accounts for 6 TDs, NFL scouts get ready to make a gigantic mistake looking for the next Vick.

Sadly, I don't get to see Georgia Tech get run by The U this Saturday. Happily, I get to watch them play UVA, The U, and Georgia 3 weeks in a row in November. Delayed gratification.

-Wrap Up

I'm done and somehow this whole thing disappoints me, but that's what you get when you get engrossed in the TV all night and your plans for the next day involve leaving for Athens before lunchtime. First home game in a month. If anyone needs to find me in the meantime, I'll be at O'Shea's 8 a.m., Saturday morning. Look for the fool sporting the month and a half old unbeaten beard and ordering Jameson and water by 9.

Next week, recaps of football, Stephenie dodging the elbow of death on Survivor, and AMC, the best channel that I wasn't watching.

And that's when the attack comes. Not from the front, but from the side, from the other two 'raptors you didn't even know were there ...

2005-10-20T12:40:00.000-04:00

The end of an era

And thus as we were all looking at the Yankees bid falling apart yesterday afternoon, Baltimore and Sam "The Turk" Perlozzo comes in with the whole, "Hey remember when I was best man in your wedding, well how about you leave a team that reveres you and has 14 straight division titles and head out here so we can keep fighting for 3rd in the East every year with cast offs like Sosa and Javy Lopez." And it somehow works.

It's a sad day. The first real chink in the armor. Some people, like Jeff Schultz, will say that Bobby is still here and that's all that matters, that Leo while important, wasn't as important as we all thought. I don't buy that for a second. Clearly Bobby is the more important of the two, but Bobby didn't develop the training and the concept behind Atlanta pitching, he left the pitchers to Leo. I don't think we'll find anyone who could find a good season or two in the retreads (Denny Nagle, John Burkett, etc, etc, etc) that we picking up to fill out the staff like Leo could.

Ah well, not much more to say, if we didn't make this deal because of money then it's a sad commentary on the Braves. If it was a losing cause from the beginning because Leo wanted to go work with his friend, not much to be done about that except wish him well and remember how great it was to have consistently the best staff in baseball for 14 years.

Back this afternoon with the weekend football preview.

couldn't catch the clap in a Tijuana brothel ...

2005-10-19T22:28:00.000-04:00

-It looks as if the Dez White Era might be mercifully drawing to an end in Atlanta. I couldn't deal with watching his hands anymore, flat brutal, and always have been. His time at Tech happened to overlap some of my time there behind enemy lines, so I've got a long history of watching him muff the ball. Of course back then it delighted me, now I have to watch him drop sure first downs while the Falcons are struggling to win important division games. It's long past time to put Finneran out there in his place, and one would assume we drafted Roddy White and then signed Jerome Pathon for a reason.

I loved his effect on Tech fans back in the day though, the ultimate cock tease of a receiver. For every slant that he caught and outran the defense for a 60 yard score, he dropped at three 12 yard outs for first downs.

Rare footage of Dez coming down with the ball

Of course, the most hilarious and simultaneously scary thing about this story is Jim Mora quoting Jerry Glanville. While that may be everyone's favorite NFL Films line, most Atlanta fans would still rather not see any of their coaches sharing anything with the Man in Black (all apologies to Johnny Cash).

-If you want to enter a neverending loop of circular back scratching, head for Gunslingers, who graciously dropped The Drizzle a mention. And make you check constantly for the weekly Gameday updates and Football Wonk.