The recent news that Greg McGarity and the Clemson AD have started talks to potentially cancel the planned games between the Dawgs and the Tigers in 2013 and 2014 to accommodate the soon to be nine-game ACC conference schedule has not gone unnoticed by our friends in Columbia.

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Picked up my copy of NCAA 2011 today (I'm 26 and still not over playing video games on daily basis).  They made the Grambling unis from the Florida game last year an option.  I have to say that those might be the ugliest set of unis I've ever seen.  Even Jim Donnan and his Goldberg tactics couldn't top the hideousness of those things.  I say we include those hideous things in our goat sacrifice at the arch.

First off, I’d like to thank TKK for reaching out to me to help hold up the fort while he’s on vacation with his family.  I’ve been fairly absent at DawgSports over the last few months for a couple of reasons; (1) my clients have these ridiculous things called Internet filters that prevent me from getting on any SB Nation sites and (2) I’ve become a full-blown work-aholic.  Nobody ever told me that becoming a CPA would cause my workload to exponentially go up (I blame Dr. Hammersley back at UGA for never informing me how crazy public accounting becomes in your third year).

Secondly, I’d like to take care of a few administrative things.  I plan on coming to the DawgSports get together in Athens, podunkdawg, so add me to the guest list (I also intend to participate in the sacrifice at the Arch if it comes to that).

Ok, now to my topic at hand (I’m purposely going to ignore much of the tumult that has overcome Bulldog Nation in the last few weeks which I believe will be covered quite well elsewhere).  I’ve noticed going around SB Nation that many are discussing about where they come from as a joint advertising motion for the new NCAA Football game (which I will be picking up this week – it’s honestly the only video game I still get on an annual basis).  I put some thought into it and felt I should share with you all where I come from as a Georgia Bulldog fan (hopefully I meet wwcmrd?’s definition) and what my favorite memories are of my time as a Bulldog fan.

 

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Hello fellow Falcoholics.  I'm a long time participant here, but have been pretty quiet lately as I've been focusing more on my own site.  I had a quick question and wanted to see what the general response was.

Poll

As a Georgia Tech supporter, would you postpone some Clean, Ole' Fashioned Hate this weekend if it meant supporting the Bulldogs to beat Bobby Petrino?

76%

I'll be openly rooting for the Dawgs this weekend as I hate that man with all that is unholy inside me.

50 votes

10%

I'll wear red this Saturday, but will be burning it on Sunday.

7 votes

10%

Can a meteor hit the stadium?

7 votes

1%

Absolutely not. To hell with Georgia.

1 votes

65 votes | Poll has closed

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When Kyle asked me a couple weeks ago if I'd be interested in posting while he was on vacation with the family, I honestly didn't know what I could bring the table. Thankfully Orrin Hatch and his crusade against America have provided me with the perfect conversation fodder. I post every now and then over at my site, but nothing as insightful like the fine folks here at Dawg Sports. As such, I realized I needed to step up my game. In doing so, I decided to talk about something that everyone that cares about college football has an opinion about while making my title a nice play on words from some recent articles here. I apologize in advance for the lengthy post, but once I started typing the words just started flowing and this is something that I feel strongly about. I hope you enjoy reading it and dissecting as much it as I did writing it.

Poll

Will Orrin Hatch succeed in proving that the BCS has violated federal anti-trust law?

5%

Yes

7 votes

56%

No

70 votes

38%

I don't care. When does football season start?

48 votes

125 votes | Poll has closed

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I thought I'd ask since you guys are going to have a lot more knowledge about this than me.

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I decided to make a list of the ten most memorable moments for me from the 2008 Georgia Bulldogs season.  Keep in mind this is not the ten best moments, but ten most memorable.

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In today's MMQB article by Peter King, he included a quote from Rod Marinelli (the now disposed Lions HC) regarding the worst season in NFL history; "Rod is a very good man. He thanked us for fighting to the end. But he said to us, 'This is us. We own this. We did this. So man up.' ''  This is the thing that drove me nuts about Willie all season.  His quotes were always "We're in the right positions, just not making plays"....  I know he eventually came forward saying that leadership begins with him and some of the blame can be focused on him, but I think that was too little too late.  I hated that he was so willing to throw his players under the bus during the season and not shoulder any of the criticism until after season end.  I think more people could take that advice from Coach Marinelli above rather than living in a world of denial that seemed to afflict Coach Martinez all season.  I feel better now after getting that off my chest.

215 completions on 352 attempts for a 61.1% completion rate.  3,209 yards through 12 games for an average of 267.4/game, 9.12/attempt, and 14.9/completion.  22 TD's to only 9 INT's for a 2.4 TD/INT Ratio.  An overall passer rating of 153.17 which places him 15th out of 119 passers, behind only Tim Tebow in the SEC.

Asides from the quantitative measures I mentioned above, have you guys seen the games he's kept us in this year?  He played most of the second half of Alabama after getting his bell rung pretty good and helped make the score a little more respectable.  He was the only player on the offense making plays in the South Carolina game.  He was nearly flawless at Kentucky, at Arizona State, and against Georgia Tech.  If he doesn't have the games he had at Kentucky or GA Tech, we get blown out of the water.  He made huge throws in the LSU game.  Dude is 20-5 the last two years, same as Tim Tebow.

My question to what seems like a growing faction of the Bulldawg Nation; Do you honestly believe yourself when you say we'll be better off next year without Matthew Stafford lining up behind center?  That production is pretty difficult to replace (keep in mind he's done this behind one of the greenest and thinnest O-Lines I've ever seen).  Imagine what next year could be like playing behind an offensive line that is more mature and stronger.  I don't think we'll see it as the $$$ are pretty hard to pass up, but Stafford is Damn Good Dawg and anyone who thinks otherwise, please prove me wrong.  Sure, he makes the mind-boggling throw every now and then, but tell me what QB doesn't that isn't Tim Tebow or Sam Bradford.  Keep in mind the O-line issues when comparing those three.  Of the Oklahoma games I've watched this season I don't think I've seen Bradford get touched and Tebow has a more than adequate line.  Put those guys behind UGA's O-Line this year, and I have a sneaking suspicion their numbers wouldn't be so outrageous.  His one bad game this year was Florida, but that was a case of him being the only player on the field that seemed to give a crap and tried to force things because no one else was.

Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Stafford may never win an SEC or national title, but it's not like it's all his fault or our problems are going to be magically solved if he leaves.  If anything, we're going to regress on the offensive side of the ball and have to rely on the defense even more next year.   And we all know how I feel about that...

I've already posted my thoughts about this situation earlier this season, but it's time to follow up.  If Willie Martinez is on the Georgia sidelines next year, the Athletic Association can forget about receiving any checks from me next year.  This has become an embarassment.  Today had nothing to do with untimely turnovers and poor field position.  The defense flat out got gashed.  When your offense scores 42 points, it is inexcusable to lose the game.  Coach Richt needs to wise up and cut ties with Coach Martinez or soon Coach Richt will be the one on the hot seat.  This result is utterly unacceptable.  Once the loss to Tech happened, this season went from disappointing to a failure.  I'm sorry for MoMass, Knowshon, and Stafford who all played their hearts out but were let down by the defense.  Sorry Coach, but it's time to pack your bags and look for employment somewhere else.

Normally, I only talk about the Georgia Bulldogs in online forums, but it's hard for me to discount my first two true sports loves.  Before I got serious about being a Bulldogs fan (and eventually an alum), I was always a die hard Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Falcons fan.  The college game didn't come around to me until I was in the 5th grade or so, so I'd always followed the NFL and specifically the Falcons.  

The 18 months prior to the beginning of this season were the most difficult 18 months that I believe any professional franchise has endured in the history of professional sports, save maybe the 1919 Chicago White Sox who got ripped apart by the 1918 team that was found to have conspired to throw the World Series.  It just seemed that everything that could go wrong for the Falcons did.  First, your $100M QB gets thrown in jail for making some boneheaded decisions, you have a pretty bad season, and your top-dollar coach flees by the cover of night for the brighter pastures of Fayetteville, Arkansas. 
Then comes the 2008 NFL Draft and the Falcons have a choice about whether to build along the lines (their most pressing need IMO at the time) by taking Glen Dorsey or to take what many scouts think is a franchise QB, but was pretty inconsistent and threw a lot of picks in a less than stellar conference his senior year.  Everyone knows what happened for that one.
I'll go ahead and apologize because I was one of the people very critical of the selection of Matt Ryan at the time.  Let me preface and say that it had nothing to do with Ryan himself, but as I stated earlier, I thought the Falcons were better served to build through the line by taking Dorsey.  Well, this is me eating crow and loving it.  Matt Ryan right now is playing at an unheard of level as a rookie.  People are making the Ben Roethlisberger comparisons, but I think Ryan is better at this point in his career.  Roethlisberger wasn't a vital part of his offense his rookie year, he merely had to hand the ball off to Jerome Bettis and Willie Parker.  Matt Ryan's taken this offense by the reins and the coaches trust him to run it the same as if he were Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.
The Falcons then traded back into the 1st round to take Sam Baker to protect Matt Ryan's blind-side.  Once again, I was skeptical of the pick.  Although he's out now and may be gone for the rest of the season, Baker was a force when healthy and proof that he was deserving of the lofty pick.  So far, GM Thomas Dimitroff is 2 for 2 in the 1st round, IMO.
The next three picks are Curtis Lofton at LB, Chevis Jackson at CB, and Harry Douglas at WR.  All three have contributed big time at one point or another this season, the most recent being Douglas' performance today.  By my count, Dimitroff is now 5 for 5 with his first 5 picks.
The icing on the cake was the shrewd signing of free agent RB Michael Turner early in the free agency period.  Turner, long the understudy to Ladanian Tomlinson in San Diego, is the 1st back in the NFC South this year to rush for 1,000 yards, he set the franchise rushing record with 220 yards in his first ever game, and he currently is one rushing TD away from tying the franchise record for rushing TD's in one season.  Make that 6 for 6 for Dimitroff so far.
This is a team that I didn't expect anything more than a 3-13, 4-12 season.  I figured they might upset a team  along the way, but honestly thought they were a few years away from seriously contending.  Right now, the Falcons stand at 7-4 and  one game back in the division.  No rational Falcons fan would have predicted this at the beginning of the year.  This team is the most pleasant surprise of the year to me and it certainly has softened the blow of the disappointment that is the Georgia season.  Thank you Arthur Blank for hiring the right guys and thank you Thomas Dimitroff and Mike Smith for bringing hope and excitement back to Atlanta at least for this fan.

Not at the end of the season, not tomorrow, not in 30 minutes.  Show him the door right now.  I've long been a Willie apologist in my posts here at Dawg Sports, but the showing on Saturday was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.  No way should an injury-depleted, freshman led Kentucky team put up 38 points on the board against us.  I don't care anymore if it's a matter of the players being in the right spots and not executing.  At some point, heads have to roll.  Willie is completely and utterly incapable of making adjustments during the game to what the other team is doing.  The defense that returned most of its players from last year is a former shell of itself.  During Willie's tenure, points allowed per game have increased each season.  In no way do I think Willie is a bad guy or even a bad coach.  But if you are judged by your performance, then I think it is fair to say that his on-job performance has not been where it should be.

I hate Florida because it's not Georgia.

I hate Florida because it took my water for mussels.

I hate Florida because their QBs cry after big losses.

I hate Florida because it can assemble an army of gelheads, rednecks, and trailer trash that would rival any state in the  union.  

I hate Florida because Disney decided to take a such a pure thing to such a hellhole.

I hate Florida because their coaches score 50 Between the Hedges because no one else had.

I hate Florida because their fans under the age of 40 think football was invented in 1990.

I hate Florida because their coach refers to himself in the third person.

I hate Florida because it's QB can perform circumcisions and be called a hero, but when I do it, it's considered malpractice.

 

In summation...

I hate Florida.

I also love this week, my favorite of the year.