This game is HUGE for Georgia Football

Are you like me and you're just glad that it's going to be over on Saturday. Not the game. Hopefully that will be 60 minutes of pure joy that I'll never want to end. But, no matter what, the drama will be over. Lose, and the Mark Richt era is probably officially coming to a close. Win, and he'll probably be here as long as he wants. I, for one, am glad to be getting an answer to that question on Saturday.

The more I think about the game, the more I want to throw up. Good Lord, it's huge. It's huge not just for Richt, but for our program and the national perception of our program. This isn't just about this year's team. This is about can Georgia finally take advantage of a poor Florida and some momentum to seize control of this series and recruiting. Win this game and you've got an uber-experienced Murray coming back against Driskel the next 2 years. I like my chances there. Win this game and #11 has the legitimate chance to be a UGA QB that leaves with a winning record vs. the Gators. That is, as we say, unheard of. The last QB to do that? Wayne Johnson was 1-0 and James Jackson was 2-1. Yes…the mid-eighties. It's time to stop it. If Mark Richt can't do it in 11 years, it's time to find someone who can. This year is a good place to start.

And, hopefully this will be the beginning of something to prove for the remainder of the season. 2009 vs. Georgia Tech is still the last time we beat a ranked team. That's a looooooooong time for a program like UGA. We haven't had many shots this year, but we'll get some down the road. Auburn will probably still be ranked when we play them. And, despite all their flaws, every team they've lost to is in the top 10 and either undefeated or their only loss is to one of the undefeateds.

And a scheduling note, Auburn will probably be a 3:30 game at home (finally) if we win. The other games that week are Bama @ MSU, UT @ Arkansas, and Florida @ South Carolina. If we win, ours will be the only game pitting two ranked teams. And, given the history of the series, they'd be crazy to pass it up. Bama will be a snoozer, and Arkansas might beat UT by 80. Depending on what the Cocks do, that could be a battle for 2nd place in the East.

Grantham-gate: It deserves nothing more than a slap on the wrist

Can I just say that if any disciplinary action other than a slap on the wrist is taken against Grantham and Kwame it will push me to another level toward being done with SEC football. It won't be lack of sleep, long drives or ticket prices that ever push me away or make me end the streak or stop going…it's this nonsense. I'm not an old-timer, but I am just about sick and tired of the sissy-fication of American football. It is a collision sport. They are gladiators. That's why I come to watch, and I could care less is the coaches get in a cage match after the game. I thought Fairley was dirty, but dirty in a way that I wanted him on my team. The UGA fans crying about him last year were just being babies. Tackle till the echo of the whistle, my coach used to say.

And, if something were to happen to Grantham and not Mus-chump, then we have serious problems in our league. Kwame's action was a retaliation off a really dirty, possible career threatening play. It's 2 boys being boys. Separate them and move on. Good lord, we've turned into girls.

Well, here we are...5-0 after week two

Hey, after walking out of Sanford Stadium on Sept. 10, you were begging to be 5-2 heading into the off week. If I'd have told you that I'd give you 5-2, with South Carolina toting a loss into the stretch of UT, Arky, and Florida and Garcia and Lattimore are gone for the year and Florida has 3 losses…you'd have taken it quicker than you can say "James Fraklin's a punk." So, take it. Don't whine about how ugly it was or the teams we've played. So what? The thing I think about this team is that we're going to get a lot better each week and as the season continues to progress. If we do, we'll get our shot against one of those monsters from the West and we'll see how we measure up. All we can do is play who's in front of us, and Lord knows we've had enough trouble with those guys since Lil Bit has been alive.

Having said that, if we can get our act together down there and play like we should, beat those lizards into submission, we'd be 3-5 over the last 8 years. Now, that's not great, but it's a heckuva lot better than we've fared recently. If we do that, I will no longer accept any arguments about our 20 year history with them. I will simply refer to those years as "The Dark Ages of Goff and Donnan". We'd be 4-18 over the last 22 years, but Richt would have 3 of those wins, so we'd be talking apples and oranges.

On Oct. 29, after we secure a victory, the Vols and Cocks come on at 7:15 that night. I don't know where my crew is watching that game, but we're watching it somewhere. No driving back this year!!!!! Hopefully Dooley can pull one out for the old Classic City home team. It really does all set up perfectly for us…it's scary. Off week (rest players), play guts out and beat Florida, Patsy game (i.e. rest injured players), play guts out and beat Auburn at home, Worst SEC team in ages [UK] (i.e. rest injured players and thank God it's not in Lexington), play guts out and beat Tech. Get ready to shock the world in the Dome.

Upon further review of the game, Aaron's late INT was bad and he missed a few guys, but when you look at the stats, it's hard to say he played bad. I wonder if we've become too much of perfectionist from that position and I wonder if our memories of Greene, Shock and Matthew are better than reality. The truth is, All-SEC QB is a 2-man race between Tyler Wilson and Aaron Murray. If we win the East, it's almost a lock it's Murray. You wouldn't trade a single QB in the league for him. Thinking nationally, what QBs are better? Luck, Moore, Landry Jones, Weeden from Okie St…who else? And those guys simply don't play against the kind of defenses we play against in the SEC week in, week out. We wouldn't take Darron Thomas over Aaron. No one in the ACC is on his radar. Is the kid form Clemson playing good? Sure. Is he better than Aaron…probably not. He's gotta clean it up a little bit, but 1 1/2 into his sophomore season, he is already ranked 4th in career TD passes for a UGA QB behind some guys named Greene, Zeier, and Stafford. He'll shatter Greene's TD record probably by the end of next year.

The most fascinating play of the game to me, looking back, was the blocked punt. Richt no doubt made the right call. Butler is a 5th year senior, and All-American, the son of a guy that understands situational special teams better than probably anyone in the history of the sport, and I can't ever remember him getting a punt blocked. What if there were only 5 seconds, what would you do? Basically saying, we could run around for 5 seconds. What do you do with 15 seconds. Assuming we get a touchback, they've got the ball with 6-7 seconds on their own 20 w/ no timeouts -- game over. However, the block is the risk. Holy smokes, I have no idea how Drew tackled that guy. In the future, I wonder if you think about putting Boykin or Smith in shotgun or maybe even in punt formation to get a deeper snap and having them run straight for the endzone, maybe even run around for as long as you can. You might burn out the whole 15 seconds. It would take at least 5-6 seconds just to get to the endzone in pads and with the snap. Then, you just run around till they get close and you step out of the back or side of the endzone. So, you end up getting the free kick off the safety up 33-30 with no more than probably 5-6 seconds left and they have no timeouts. You squib it and the games probably over right there. You have to cover the kick, obviously, but is covering the kick a riskier play than getting the scoop and score off the blocked punt? It would certainly be worth a thought the next time around. That's a play you've got to practice over and over to see how much time you can actually run off from different places on the field.

On a side note, on the last week of the regular season, 2 undefeateds OU and OSU will be squaring off, and we could be playing an undefeated West team. Boise could be sitting at #4 in the BCS rankings that day. They'll certainly be cheering for their week 1 opponent then.

We can officially start thinking about better days

I've said today that if we go 10-2 I won't care if we win the East or not. Of course, I want to win it. But, the ship of controlling our destiny sailed a few weeks ago. What we can control are the next 6 games. Let's just win 'em and see where the chips fall. 10-2 in the dome would be great. 10-2 and ending up in New Orleans or Orlando would also be outstanding. But… I really tihnk we're the favorite for the East now. There's almost no way Florida wins it. They'd have to just about win out, and they've still got games against Auburn, Georgia, and South Carolina, and only one of those is at home. Those guys could only win 6 if things go down hill. South Carolina could win it with 1 or 2 losses. I don't think they get by Arkansas. The next month will tell the tape on them. They go @ MSU, open date, @ UT, @ Arky, UF I just don't see them winning those 3 straight road games. The question for them is 'What will UGA do?' If we win out, it's going to take a large effort for them to win the East.

Interesting scenarios would be us losing to Florida, but Florida losing to Auburn and beating the Cocks and the Cocks losing to Arky, too. I'm not sure how I'd feel about winning the East losing to Florida and South Carolina, but that scenario isn't even all that far fetched. I think it's going to get crazy in our conference in the next month. What I was thinking about today, though, was, what if we do win the East? What does that mean for Richt and our program? That would mean this during Richt's tenure:

SEC East Champs since Richt took over in 2001:
2001 - UT
2002 - UGA
2003 - UGA
2004 - UT
2005 - UGA
2006 - UF
2007 - UT
2008 - UF
2009 - UF
2010 - Fake USC
2011 - UGA?

That would mean 4 Division Titles in 11 years. 4 for UGA, 3 for UT, 3 for UF, 1 for Fake USC. That's about as good as you could hope for, right? What's happened on the other side of the conference during that time?

SEC West Champs since Richt took over in 2001:
2001 - LSU
2002 - Arkansas
2003 - LSU
2004 - Auburn
2005 - LSU
2006 - Arkansas
2007 - LSU
2008 - Bama
2009 - Bama
2010 - Auburn
2011 - Bama/LSU?

Assuming Bama wins, that would give LSU 4, Bama 3, Auburn 2, Arkansas 2. If LSU wins, that would give LSU 5, Bama 2, Auburn 2, Arkansas 2. It hasn't been a fun last couple of years but a division title sure would put us in some pretty elite company during Richt's tenure. You'd no doubt take that over the next 11 years. On that pace, if he coached here as long as Coach Dooley, he'd win 9 division titles in those 25 years. In this league, you're simply not going to dominate. That’s about as dominating as you can get.

Just for kicks and giggles, what if we shocked the galaxy and won on the first Saturday in December?

SEC Champs since Richt took over in 2001:
2001 - LSU
2002 - UGA
2003 - LSU
2004 - Auburn
2005 - UGA
2006 - UF
2007 - LSU
2008 - UF
2009 - Bama
2010 - Auburn
2011 - UGA?

That would make the 11 tally: UGA 3, LSU 3, UF 2, Auburn 2, Bama 1. People could say what they wanted to about whatever they wanted to, but that's as elite as elite can get in this league. It's funny. This is why I sort of like LSU. I feel a kindred spirit with them. I feel like they don't quite get the respect nationally that they deserve. Bama and Florida both get all the media love, but the truth is that LSU has been the most consistently great team in the league in the last 10 years. And the Dawgs ain't been far behind. You can talk about a lot of things, but those championships are what matter. Of course, I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but that's what fans do.

Let's beat Vandy, get healthy, take care of business in Jax, pound those cheaters, score 100 points vs. UK, punch Paul Johnson in the face and see if Malcolm Mitchell can get open deep against all the man coverage LSU or Bama is going to play against him.

It's at least fun to start thinking about games that matter again!