Interesting Boise/Gamecock Thought

I began thinking something kind of strange today. Obviously, I want to come out of the gate 2-0. We do that and we're set. But I begin thinking about who I'd rather lose to if we go 1-1. It's kind of strange, and you have to think about what your ultimate goal is.

This may sound odd, but if you're goal is first and foremost win the National Title, then you have to say that it's more important to beat Boise. Boise will be higher ranked. Plus, if you beat Boise and lose to the 'Cocks, you could recover and go 11-1 and beat a bunch of good teams. Moreover, it's hard to imagine going 11-1, w/ the 1 loss being to Boise and going to the MNC game OVER an undefeated Boise. Heck, it would even be hard to put us in the game over a 11-1 Boise. I mean, if our records are equal and they won head to head, it's hard to say we deserve to go over them.

HOWEVAH…

If our goal is first and foremost to win the SEC, then obviously beating the Cock's is more important. In fact, the best route to the MNC game is winning the SEC, and it would be very hard to win the East without a win over FakeUSC.

It's just an interesting thought. For the record, I think we win both of them. We have so much on the line. I think we're going to come out swinging like we never have before. And I think our QB is going to be better than we remember. He's going to be a lot better this Fall. And #7 ain't bad.

Newcomer Jersey Numbers

Looks like we might be headed towards the label of "crazy number team". I like most of them, but I'm not a huge fan of the WR numbers in this bunch.


61 David Andrews

58 Sterling Bailey

37 Devin Bowman

31 Chris Conley

1 Isaiah Crowell

78 Watts Dantzler

76 Zach DeBell

47 Ray Drew

43 Quintavius Harrow

52 Amarlo Herrera

6 John Jenkins

16 Christian LeMay

66 Hunter Long

27 Nick Marshall

26 Malcolm Mitchell

39 Corey Moore

87 Jay Rome

8 Chris Sanders

86 Justin Scott-Wesley

84 Sanford Seay

5 Damian Swann

59 Nathan Theus

3 Kent Turene

63 Xzavier Ward

51 Ramik Wilson

First Hand Thoughts On Spring Practice & G-Day

Terry and I went to practice last week and then went to the Spring Awards Banquet on Thursday. Here's a few things I learned:

-Butts-Mehre is unbelievable. It truly is about as good it gets in facilities. The coaches offices are out of sight. The weight room is incredible. It's just remarkable.

From practice:
-Jarvis Jones is a large man, and a good kid

-LeMay is smooth, but in Bobo's words "He doesn't have a clue what he's doing right now." Bobo compared him to Charlie Ward

-Marlon drops too many balls, but we don't really have anyone else, so he's got to play.
-Orson was dominant
-I like Conley. That kid's gonna be pretty good.
-Bruce Figgins and Kwame should be first off the bus
-It's Murray's team.
-Joe T is ready to go and intense, as always
-John Kasay is the craziest man on the planet. However, to his credit (or something like that), he did tell Ben and I that Trinton was the softest OL he'd ever seen. 2 days later…

From the Banquet:
-I sat beside TJ Stripling. What a great young man. He was cordial and talkative. He says he'll be ready to go in the summer. He'll be playing OLB. Kind of the forgotten man, there. He did NOT get a redshirt last year. He says he's put about 20-25 lbs since coming to Athens. He said the S & C program has worked. He pointed to his arms and said, "It works." He said he feels strong and the best he's ever felt.

-I also had Brandon Harton, Parker Welch and a walk-on OL. All good kids. I like Harton.
-Also had Coach Ray Lamb, Mixon Robinson, Lou Perno (former trainer & Dave's uncle), and Jimmy Harper. Harper was a long time SEC ref. He said about 1/3 of the refs in the SEC now didn't even play H.S. Football. He said it used to be a requirement to that you played college ball. Just thought it was an interesting side note.

- Terry struck the jackpot. Had Murray at his table, along w/ Kolton Houston. He will concur that Murray is a great guy.
-Of course, we're apparantly trying to turn Murray into a lunatic because we put Bobby Poss (the craziest letterman in UGA history) and John Kasay at his table, too.

-The banquet was really cool in that they had a video about the history of G-Day and a little UGA football history. Richt is really trying to connect those guys to the past.

G-Day?

-I could've predicted Carlton's performance.

-Kwame Geathers was impressive.

-Alec Ogletree is a beast. He was everywhere.

-Zander Ogletree looks to have beefed up and added a lot of muscle. Looks good.

-Cordy Glenn looked great at LT.

-Jarvis Jones is really athletic.

-Michael Bennett was impressive. Looks to be a little bit thicker than Durham.

-Aron White looked more defined and quicker.

-Shawn Williams was all over the place.

-Bruce Figgins could be a weapon at FB. Looks to be in great shape.

-Derrick Lott had a great game and also caught my eye.

-If we're going to use Branden Smith on offense, we've got to get the jersey thing figured out. I've come around on the number thing. I hate it and if was the coach I'd find a way around it. But, I'm not the coach, and if it is putting us at a recruiting disadvantage, then we've got to compete. Bama, Texas, OU, USC, & Florida have double numbers. We might have to, too. BTW, it's not unprecedented at UGA. Gordon & Jeff Owens both wore #95 while in Athens. But, if we don't play Branden on offense when Crowell is in there, it will be terribly bad coaching. I suspect the answer will be for Branden to put on another number while on offense. That seems like a lot of crazy work to me -- but to each his own. Personally, if I was a player, I'd want my own identity. But we gotta get it figured out. If Branden Smith changed his number, he'd be my new hero and one of my favorite Dawgs of all-time.

-If Stafford had not won the skills competition, Detroit should be worried.

The SEC vs The other "big time" programs - Statistically

Very interesting post from the Dawgvent. Post originally made by Auburn fan.

This year, Auburn joined the 700+ win club. We are the 13th program to win 700 or more games.

After looking over the post Seraph posted earlier this week, I decided to go back over all the numbers and gather the info again.

I took the 13 members of the 700-win club and looked at their performance against the Top 30 programs on the All-Time Wins list, as well as their performance against each other.

I'll post a lot of different looks at the information over the next couple weeks. One of my favorite things to do with this info is to see what the all-time numbers would look like if the competition had been more even. For example, Auburn has played 597 games against Top 30 programs. Ohio State has played 304. USC has played 361. Tennessee has played 417. See, when you're Auburn, and you've played hundreds of more games against top programs, it obviously effects your winning % and your overall win total.

For today, I thought I'd show the 13 members of the 700-win club and what their numbers look like against the Top 30 programs on the All-Time Wins List.

* I also added 4 teams this time around. There are four teams that have played fewer than 1000 games, but have a winning % of .620 or greater. That would be top 20 all-time on the winning % list, but they haven't played enough games to be in the Top 30 All-Time Wins list. They are: Miami, Florida St, S. Florida, and Boise St. So I included them in these numbers.

MOST GAMES VS TOP 30 PROGRAMS

1. 598 - Georgia
2. 597 - Auburn
3. 528 - Alabama
4. 445 - LSU
5. 437 - Texas
6. 417 - Tennessee
7. 392 - Notre Dame
8. 382 - Penn State
9. 381 - Oklahoma
10. 366 - Nebraska
11. 361 - USC
12. 326 - Michigan
13. 304 - Ohio State

MOST WINS VS TOP 30 PROGRAMS

1. 305 - Auburn
2. 304 - Alabama
2. 304 - Georgia
4. 266 - Texas
5. 243 - Notre Dame
6. 223 - Penn State
7. 213 - Tennessee
8. 211 - USC
9. 207 - LSU
10. 206 - Oklahoma
11. 204 - Michigan
12. 180 - Nebraska
13. 173 - Ohio State



This is a good one.

This is a list of the % of a programs total games played against Top 30 programs.

For example, Oklahoma has played 1169 games, 381 of which were against Top 30 programs. That's 32.6%.

1. 51.6% - Auburn
2. 50.3% - Georgia
3. 45.4% - Alabama
4. 38.5% - LSU
5. 36.0 % - Texas
6. 35.2% - Tennessee
7. 33.2% - Notre Dame
8. 32.6% - Oklahoma
9. 31.8% - USC
10. 31.3% - Penn State
11. 29.7% - Nebraska
12. 26.5% - Michigan
13. 25.5% - Ohio State

This list is even better. It's a list of the % of a programs' wins that have come against Top 30 programs.

For example, Oklahoma has 809 wins, 206 have come against Top 30 programs. That's 25.5%.

1. 43.0% - Auburn
2. 41.2% - Georgia
3. 37.9% - Alabama
4. 31.3% - Texas
5. 28.8% - Notre Dame
6. 28.7% - LSU
7. 27.4% - USC
8. 27.2% - Penn State
9. 27.0% - Tennessee
10. 25.5% Oklahoma
11. 23.1% - Michigan
12. 21.3% - Nebraska
13. 20.8% - Ohio State

That's pretty insane if you think about it. Over 50% of all of Auburn's games have come against programs in the Top 30 all-time. Even more impressive is that 43% of all the wins we've ever had have come against programs in the Top 30 all-time.

It's no wonder Michigan has racked up 880+ wins when less than 27% of their games have come against Top 30 programs.

All I can say is..."Wow." Pretty remarkable. There's an easy explanation for this: SEC & Tech. We play in the toughest conference in the land and we've been playing tech for 30+ years as a non-conference game, and it's an extra game each year vs. a top 30 program.

This clearly explains the insanity of the SEC. 5 of the top 9 in wins vs. the top 30 teams come from the SEC. The missing member? Florida. And Florida has been the most successful program in the nation the last 20 years. That's what makes the SEC so crazy and that nobody gets. There are 6 teams that start each September who believe it is their birthrite to win the SEC and compete for a national titile. Why? Their history tells them that they can compete w/ the best because they've done it time and time again, and through the generations.

And then there are places like Arkansas and Ole Miss. Programs that have tasted greatness, just not as often. And places like South Carolina, where the fans believe in Black magic.

But when the big 6 get together, it's a blood bath every time. You can see how adding Nebraska really helps the Big 10. That gives that conference 4 of those teams, with places like Wisconsin and Iowa that are a lot like Arky & Ole Miss and South Carolina.

But having so many teams means that in the SEC, almost every week features a must-see-TV game between 2 of these crazy schools - AND - the little 6 spend all their effort trying to knock one of the big boys off.

Fascinating information.

2011 Schedule is Beautiful

Good gracious that thing sets up. If we can somehow defy the forces of evil in the universe and come back up I-75 w/ a victory over the Gators, we could really wrap that thing up. We'd finish out at home versus:

New Mexico St.
Auburn
UK

Then go on the road to play Tech. We should never look ahead. We went 6-7 for goodness sakes. But that's as easy as a schedule as it can get for us. Beat Boise and this thing gets on a roll. If you were rank the best teams on our schedule I'd rank them in this order:

Florida
Boise St.
South Carolina
Auburn
Miss St.
Tennessee
Kentucky
Tech
Ole Miss
Vandy
New Mexico St.
Coastal Carolina

So, we play the best 2 teams on our schedule at neutral sites. We play the other best 3 conference teams on our schedule at home. We only play 3 true conference road games, and 2 of them are against what were the 2 worst teams in our league last year, the only 2 SEC teams that didn't go to a bowl, one of which has a new coach, the other has a new QB. Beat Boise, beat the Cocks at home, win in Knoxville, and beat Florida and we got this thing wrapped up. Sounds easy, right? I mean, it's only been 30 years since we beat UT and UF in the same season. Why not do it now? We're gonna beat UT and be leading Florida in the 4th and CBS is gonna put that graphic on the screen and people are gonna go…"That can't be right!?"

Ealey and Swagger

Let's hope Ealey gets his act together and rejoins the team. If nothing else, though, it seems like Joe T. and CMR are throwing down the gauntlet on this team, and that is a good thing. I wonder if you can see a perfect storm before it comes? Everyone new Cam Newton would be good, but not THAT good. We knew Tebow would be a great player, we didn't know he'd be a once in a generation kind of team leader. We heard reports all August 2002 about this Pollack that we'd moved to DE, but we didn't know he'd change the conference for 3 years. But maybe…just maybe…this is what that is like. The swagger (and the good, confident, but hard working kind) seems to be oozing from this signing class. Richt sounds more like the guy from 2002-2003 rather than the excuse maker from the last couple of years. And it sounds like T is making these guys' lives miserable, which is good to hear. And all reports are that Jenkins is, in fact, wearing #6. I can't wait.

Recruiting and Numbers

After a few of the recruits have aparently chosen numbers and signing day is officially over, I had some thoughts of numbers and stuff. If I had MY WISH, this is how the numbers would shake out:

1 - Isaiah
5 - Swann
6 - Big John Jenkins
8 - LeMay
16 - Nick Marshall
25 - Mitchell (Mitchell wore 26 in H.S, so I'm just guessing he'll choose something close)
38 - Herrera
42 - Branden Smith (Oh yeah, if he let's IC take #1, I'd love him to switch to a powerful number in UGA history…John Brantley, Godfrey,

43 - Turene
47 - Drew
48 - Rome
80 - Scott-Wesley
84 - Conley

It's nice to be running out of skill numbers for scholly players and not have a bunch of walk-ons in them. Check this out, you know one of my favorite things about CFB is oddball numbers. We could have this lineup in the front seven at some point in the season:

D-line
56 G. Smith
6 Jenkins
85 Lott

LBs
47 Drew
22 Samuel
29 Jones
83 CornWash

Boy, do I love that! We're going to get better immediately. I love what I'm reading about using Jenkins at fullback and playing Swann, Marshall, and Mitchell both ways. Maybe we're about to enter into a creative season at UGA, using Marshall in a WildDawg (in which we actually throw the ball!), using Smith, Mitchell & Swann on reverses and sweeps. And, man, this class seems to be saying ALL the right things and has a different kind of swagger, and because we stink so bad, our guys know we need it. As Trinton said when he announced he was returning, "I hope we get some good recruits." We know that the off season often offers a lot of smoke. Something feels different about this. We really WEREN'T that far off last year. When you look at it, we were just an emotional basket case. We lost 7 games and could have easily won 6 of them. We had so little intestinal fortitude. That's what I like about these guys. This group coming in doesn't sound like they're coming in expecting to lose. They're not hoping to turn this thing around. They're going to. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Go Dawgs!
Beat Boise!