OK, UGA is ranked #1; will they make it through the course of the season undefeated?

That schedule at the end of the season looks rough, especially since there are so many road games. I don’t think they’ll make it through undefeated, but they probably will make it to the SEC Championship and a possible BCS bid.

With UGA making the CWS for the third time in five years, has the program surpassed Tech in baseball? Tech is very consistent year to year in wins but it seems like Georgia is making it further in the postseason and tends to beat Tech to advance in many of their head to head battles in the regional/subregionals.

The game is only two days away- any thoughts?

For the first time in my life, I will be cheering for UGAg to win, but purely for selfish reasons. I’ve always contended that the only way I would cheer for GA would be if it somehow helped out Tech in some way. A Tech loss has got to be the final nail in Gay-lee’s coffin. Funny how times change- a few years ago, all of those Tech shitheads were defensive and combative about Gailey but are now championing what i’ve been saying for years- Gailey’s coaching abilities are just plain horrible and he’s gotta go. Consider me a visionary, or more apt, not a blind moron like those Gailey apologists.

Prediction: Dawgs 28-13

I made my way to Nashville last Friday just in time for the UGA/Vandy game Saturday at 5 pm. I bought tickets about three weeks ago thinking the game might end up selling out since so many fans would make their way up 75 for the game. Sure enough, about a week ago, it sold out. Our seats (Scott went with me) were at the 40 yard line 50 rows up. Not bad since the capacity is an ACC-esque 40,000. I’d say the crowd was 55% to 45% Vandy with lots of red around us (Scott said he felt like we were surrounded by used tampons).

The game started out great with Vanderbilt turning the ball over early and Stafford throwing a TD to Sean Bailey on the ensuing possesion. Things turned ugly after that as Stafford started spraying the ball around and Georgia’s defense having huge problems stopping the ‘Dores pitiful offense. The home team ran off 17 straight points to lead 17-7 at the half. My fellow Bulldog fans were certainly hanging their heads at the half as most expected a cakewalk. I told Scott that Georgia would come out and run the ball on almost every play for their first drive of the half since that’s what most college teams do when they are superior physically. Sure enough, Moreno left and Moreno right were the order as UGA passed once on the first drive. They quickly made it 17-14. They tied it with about 10 minutes left. Vandy then drove down the field, getting it inside the 20 with under 4 minutes left. The ‘Dores then remembered who they were and proceeded to fumble. Georgia then drove down for a field goal attempt with 3 seconds left. Coutu booted it through for the decisive score of 20-17. The numbnuts on this team decided to celebrate by stomping on the V at midfield. Classy! Richt got pissed and ran them off. Do you think Tech would do that if they won at Duke a year after losing to them? I doubt it.

Looks to me like every game from here on out will be a struggle. Even Troy could beat this team (I’m not just saying that either, it would not surprise me at all). Oh well, maybe they’ll play in the Music City Bowl this year.

Why did he get this stupid nickname? It’s not like he’s an old man. It seems like “Ol’Ball Coach” should be Paterno or some other fossil like that.

BTW, between watching the Braves and the USC/UGA game, I haven’t seen so many Cox/Cocks since Dave tricked me into that airport bathroom with Sen. Craig last year.

Saturday afternoon, I pried Mike away from his yardwork long enough to convince him to go up to Athens with me for the Georgia Tech/Georgia game. We left Atlanta around 11, stopping at a Starbucks along the way, and we rolled into Athens around 1. The trip up there was mainly spent talking about our time at Georgia, and how neither of us really had an amazing time up there. This was probably related to neither of us being in a fraternity, which is a big thing in Athens. We also agreed that if we were to return to Athens now and enroll, we’d be getting mad chicks.

Last year we went to Athens and were stunned to discover that Guthrie’s, a bastion of chicken fingers with a special dipping sauce reputed to clean pennies, had burned down. We found a parking spot on Atlanta Highway, the main road that leads directly into downtown, and start hiking over to Guthries. We arrived to find that a sparkling new restaurant called Raising Cane’s. Everything about the place was different from Guthries, but the weird thing is that the food was exactly the same as Guthries.

As we walked to the stadium, a convertible drove by with people in the back throwing out t-shirts advertising a condo complex. An asian girl asked Mike, “You want shut?” Mike said sure, and she threw us both shirts. Moments later, in a move that would have made Todd shudder, we left our free shirts behind because we didn’t want to carry them around all day.

From there we visited the Tate Student Center, where Mike and I spent most of our time at UGA (specifically in the game room). Mike was hoping they’d still have the Mortal Combat machine that he presumed would still have his high scores, but it was gone.

We got into the stadium half an hour early and spent some time making calls, then found our seats, in the Eaast endzone upper deck, pretty high up, which were directly in the bright sunlight. I was prepared, with a hat and shades, but Mike started frying up pretty quickly. He ended up leaning back in the shade of my head until the sun went down, around halftime.

As for the game, the first half wasn’t very exciting. There was no scoring in the first quarter, and a Tech FG in the second quarter gave them an early lead. Georgia had a field goal to tie, but it was blocked. It’s always really different to watch games in person as opposed to on TV, because without the stats readily available, you rely more on your feel for the game, and it seemed like neither team really knew what to do; I had no idea Reggie Ball was playing as bad as he was until I checked the stats on my Sidekick at the half.
The weirdest play of the game, and probably UGA’s season, came in the third quarter. Georgia Tech had the ball on their own half, driving away from us. Ball ran up the middle and a buzz went through the crowd, with people screaming “Fumble!” The two line judges ran in like they were going to start pulling guys off the pile, and then all of a sudden UGA linebacker Tony Taylor came running out of the pile with the ball and dove into the endzone. Chan ran onto the field all upset, but the play stood.

(Aside: And Taylor got a 15 yard penalty for diving into the end zone, which seems stupid. They even showed a montage on the scoreboard before the game of UGA guys diving into the end zone. Let the kids play!)

Tech got a field goal late in the third quarter, then drove down for a touchdown from Tashard Choice (and missed two point conversion) to make it 12-7 with about 9 minutes left. Tech mainly ran it down UGA’s throat on this drive, and I don’t understand why they didn’t this more often during the game.
UGA got it back and put together a perfect drive, taking 7 minutes and 12 plays to go 64 yards for a TD. Stafford was great on that drive, completing short passes, and Mo Massaquoi finally got rid of the dropsies and made huge back to back catches, one of the TD and the next for the 2-pt conversion.

With UGA up 15-12, the kickoff pinned GT on their 18 with 1:36 to go, and we knew there was no way Reggie was getting them in field goal range. As Tech took the field, the UGA fans were all chanting, “Reg-gie! Reg-gie!”

So Mike and I started booking it out of there. We were just outside the stadium gates when we heard a roar go up, and we knew it meant that Reggie had given another game to the Dawgs. After race-walking through the hills of Athens, we got the car pretty quickly and were on the road fast. After dropping Mike off at home, I was back at Isabel’s mom’s house by 8:35 p.m.

I know Reggie will take the bulk of the blame, and he probably should, but there were some weird plays called throughout by Tech. I didn’t see much of him this season, but Ball seems to have a tendency to hold on to the ball too long on pass plays, so why didn’t they call more quick screens? On that play in the end zone where Ball was late throwing the slant to Calvin, why didn’t they just run four straight fades? Remember the play where Reggie overthrew Calvin on a bomb down the sideline and into the end zone? Why did they run a reverse to Calvin on the very next play? Shouldn’t they have given Calvin a play to catch his breath?

Finally, after a long night, Mike and I went ass-to-mouth on each other to celebrate the Dawgs win.

Todd and I have been debating this week about which is a worse loss- losing to Duke or losing to Vanderbilt. Obviously, you have to look at the history of the two programs when making a decision but I will say that Vandy won 5 games last year (when was the last time Duke won 5?) and, coming into the Georgia game, they had lost their three league games this year by a total of 12 points.

I know the overall picture dictates that Tech losing to Duke a few years ago and UGA losing to Vandy last week is simply a very bad loss but I think losing to Duke at the time Tech did was a much worse loss since Duke’s program hasn’t shown any signs of life over the last 10 years. What do you think?

Where to begin with this gem. Well, Kim and I headed for Athens around 11 am on gameday with the idea of walking around the downtown area and then heading over to tailgate for a little while before the game. We got to Athens around 12:30 and did some shopping until about 3 pm. There was a lot of excitement before the game and plenty of people going hunting as well. At least I think that’s where they were headed. There couldn’t be any other reason to wear that hideous orange.

After lunching at the Varsity (Kim loves that place), we drove over to the Driftmeier building to our usual spot for tailgating. The only problem was the lot was full. I suggested we park along the yellow line but was told to ask the tailgaters if they thought we would get towed. One of the gentlemen I asked said, in a heavily accented voice, “Now I see you have a Georgia shirt on so you should be okay but the license plate is Tennessee so I’m not so sure.” I told him Kim was too scared to ask herself so she made me. Once again, I made a mistake and let Kim mix the way too strong drinks but it did dull the pain of the four mosquito bites I accrued.

The game was great for a half. Georgia’s offense looked either good or lucky as they kept converting long third down plays in the first half. Mikey Henderson returned a punt for a TD, which was really exciting. Momentum seemed to turn when UT scored right before the half making it 24-14. “Legacy” then came out tossing INTs in the second and Georgia was doomed. He gave UT a short field twice and Ainge picked us apart like he was his uncle shooting threes. UGA also had a punt blocked. While everyone is down on Georgia’s defense, there were bigger problems with the offense as they needed a kickoff return for a TD to keep them in the game.

Kim got pissed when we left after Georgia turned it over down by 11. She felt the Georgia fans were giving up too early. By the time we got to the car, UT was up by 18 and we beat traffic so it seems like it was a good decision to me. All in all, it was fun but it was crazy how the energy disappeared from the stadium when Joe T. came back to earth after the first half.

…Both Todd and Steve figured prominently in my recap of the GT/UGA game for SI.com…

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/lang_whitaker/11/28/the.links/index.html