Saturday, July 19, 2008

Bulldog Bites

Dawg Sports has a ranking of the upcoming season's toughest games, from top to bottom. A fine and thorough (as usual) assessment of the schedule. However, I would order them a bit differently:
  1. Jorts: In a lopsided series in which the Jorts had begun (rightfully) to think of victory as a birthright, we surprised them last year with a sound ass-kicking. I think our (brilliant) "celebration" is going to be played over and over and over in the Jort locker room leading up to this one, and the Coctail Party is the game they will be working toward all year. Plus, as much as I hate him, they still do have the baby-Heismaning, croc-wearing, melon-loving "superman."
  2. Auburn: Last year, the "Blackout" was one of the best fan (and game) experiences in my two decades plus of woofing. Given that, this is another one that will amp up the revenge factor, and those fucking "spread" offenses (which the Aubbies have fully implemented for '08) always give us trouble. Also, this game is at Auburn, after a hellacious stretch of games (the old "home team loses" paradigm notwithstanding).
  3. ASU: Despite a reputation for pussyball, the PAC-10 does play some decent ball, and the Sun Devils are definitely in the mix this year. I'd like to draw on our past experience taking care of bidness out west, but, uh, we don't have any. Plus, they have a senior QB and I'm sure Dennis Erickson will have some convicts suited up and ready to shiv.
  4. Cocks: It's hard to make a legitimate X and O case for the poultry here, other than last year's bedshitting and a history of the chickens playing us tough early in the season.
  5. LSWho?: Yes, their presumably talented and juvenile delinquent QB got booted, but last time I checked, they were holding a big glass trophy.
  6. Tide: We catch them early in the season, before the expected late season implosion.
  7. Vols: It's 'tween the hedges, and Phat Phil's only claim to decent coaching has left for the greener pastures of Duke.
  8. Vandy: Yoiks, that was close last year. But the 'Dores winning consecutive games on our turf? Ain't happening.
  9. Kentucky: I have no idea if they will still be a tough out, sans Woodson.
  10. "Someone teach me how to kiss" trade school: Perhaps we should put an ad on Craig's List for "how to effectively stop a gimmick offense."
  11. Central Michigan: Chippewas, huh?
  12. Georgia Southern: Speaking of gimmick offenses.
What do you guys think? What games worry you most?

The AJC's Mark Bradley has 10 reasons why UGA will win it all next year.

I don't think I'm going to like Deadspin's new college football writer that much
. And of course, he's a Vols fan.

Not a good time to be getting in line for season tickets, unless you're Bill Gates. Even then, there were only 800 available? Holy shit. And what were those 800 thinking? Although there's probably a one to one correlation between unrenewed season tickets and local Georgia obituaries. (of course, when life finally catches up with me in a couple of years, I'm sure I'll still be getting tickets Weekend at Bernie's style).

Here's something I didn't know. Did you realize that UGA (along with Oklahoma) is the reason there's so much TV money available for college football, and that all our channels can feature wall to wall episodes of the world's greatest game? From a Stewart Mandel column on SI:
Notre Dame's right to sign a contract with NBC -- just like the Big Ten's right to sign with ABC, the SEC's right to sign with CBS, etc. -- was established by the United States Supreme Court in 1984. Prior to that, the NCAA strictly regulated how many times a school could appear on TV and how much it could be compensated for those appearances. Georgia and Oklahoma sued the NCAA on the grounds that those policies violated anti-trust law, and ultimately, the highest court in the land agreed. As a result, technically, all schools are free to negotiate their own network TV deals; it's just that all but Notre Dame, Army and Navy choose to do so within the confines of a conference.
'Til next time, woof woof, y'all.

2 comments:

  1. My schedule rankings:

    1. Auburn. TT will be gunning for us, given the beatdown we've put on the War Eagles the last two years.... and this could be a big game for both teams. Tradition would indicate that Jordan Hare favors us, but I never really buy into that "road field" advantage, although it does frequently seem to be the case in this series.

    2. Arizona State. How will UGA react to our first big regular season road game outside of the South since the 60s? Hopefully, in the same fashion we usually play on the road under Richt.

    3. Florida. I think their defense is still suspect, and losing two of their starting DBs this summer to injury won't help it. Its going to be a huge game because Urban Crier is pointing them toward it. I would feel much better about it, if not the week after LSU.

    4. LSU. If the Tigers find a QB, this game probably moves up to #1. We've usually played pretty well in Baton Rouge, although we don't always win... however, Death Valley definitely a tough place to play.

    5. South Carolina. This game will set the tone for the season,as it usually does. Unfortunately, the Chickens reserve their best for this game (Before the weight of the SEC beats them down).

    6. UT. Thank God Cutcliffe is gone. He put the points on us the last couple of years. I feel pretty good about this game, but you have to leave this high on the list given the importance of the game as an East Division contest.

    7. Alabama. The Tide is definitely on the way back....I'm glad they won't come back on the schedule for a few years. However, this team did lose to Louisiana Monroe last year. so they still have some work to do. We've got them at home, at night, and they have Arkansas on the road the week before. Sets up well for the Dawgs.

    8. Tech. I wish we played them earlier in the season. They will have some time to get accustomed to Paul Johnson's triple option before our game. Luckily, we do have an extra week off to prepare. This offense, when executed, will run up some yards and points on anybody, so we can't overlook the bugs.

    9. C. Michigan. This is not a bad team, and they are supposed to have a pretty good QB. However, I've got to believe we can take care of business against the MAC.

    10. Kentucky. Ahead of Vandy, simply because its a road game. Ky and the Dores should both be down this year.

    11. Vandy. These are not the best dores since Jim Morrison. A lot of losses from a pretty talented team last year.

    12. Ga. Southern. A good 1AA team, but we should be able to avoid an Appalachian State like disaster.

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  2. Excellent comments, Junkyard. I hope you're right about the Jorts and their defense, though it's their offense that scares me more (remember, we got Tebow when he was banged up last year). Any way you look at it, this is a murderer's row of a schedule.

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