SB Nation User Blog: AuditDawg

Petrino Hate Week

AuditDawg — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:58:41 -0000

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.

From my online tag, I'm obviously a UGA alum. Everyone should know that UGA travels to Arkansas this week to square off with our favorite coach of all time. I also realize that since the Falcons are based in Atlanta that many Falcons supporters consist of Georgia Tech alums and supporters. My question to my fellow Falcoholics that support the Yellow Jackets is this; Would you consider postponing Clean, Ole' Fashioned Hate for one Saturday in order to see some sort of retribution against this snake in the grass from a Georgia based team? Poll is below and comments as always are welcome.

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?

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

50 votes

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

7 votes

Can a meteor hit the stadium?

7 votes

Absolutely not. To hell with Georgia.

1 votes

65 votes | Poll has closed

There Simply is no Basis for Believing Orrin Hatch Will Succeed

AuditDawg — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 09:41:54 -0000

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.

Let me preface this piece by saying this is not a "pro-BCS/anti-playoff post", but rather my insight into why I think Orrin Hatch is misguided in his attempts to label the BCS as anti-trust. The playoff or no playoff debate is a topic for another day. Senator Blutarsky has covered this very well, but things are starting to heat up based on Hatch's article in the recently released Sports Illustrated as well as the fact that his anti-trust committee is having hearings on the BCS this week. I will break down Senator Hatch's points and point out what is right and what is wrong about each.

Hatch's first argument about why the anti-trust hearings are necessary is because of the unfairness that the smaller conferences (i.e. WAC/MWC) face when being considered for the national championship. Teams like Utah, Boise State, and Hawaii have gone undefeated in recent years, yet they were never considered national title contenders because of the perceived weakness of their respective conferences. Hatch summarizes his point with the following quote:

"It seems every year an obviously deserving team is left out of the BCS due to its arcane and, to put it bluntly, biased nature," Hatch wrote.

This is one point that I agree with Mr. Hatch. I even went on record last season and outright stated that there were four teams that deserve a slice of the proverbial national championship pie. I don't care that Florida held the trophy at the end of the day; Utah certainly deserved some sort of recognition for what they were, a championship football team.

Mr. Hatch's second point about the inequities of the BCS and how it may impact competition in the marketplace is due to the way revenue is handed out. He makes the point that poor teams (i.e. Baylor/Vanderbilt/Stanford) from the BCS conferences still get to share in the BCS money no matter what they do summed up by this quote from his SI piece:

"Every team from a preferred conference automatically receives a share from an enormous pot of revenue generated by the BCS, even if they fail to win a single game," Hatch wrote. "On the other hand, teams from the less favored conferences are guaranteed to receive a much smaller share, no matter how many games they win."

This too is another point of the Senator's with which I agree. Teams like Vanderbilt and Kentucky have for years reaped the benefits of a system that they will likely never participate.

Hatch follows that previous quote with this doozy:

If "those with the power to reform the system" don't do so voluntarily, Hatch writes, then "legislation may be required to ensure that all colleges and universities receive an equal opportunity."

What I gather from this is that if the BCS conferences won't share all that ill-gotten BCS money with the poor little Mountain West and Western Athletic Conferences, then by golly Congress is gonna show them.

It's at this point where Hatch loses me and why I think he will ultimately fail at his anti-trust pursuits. If Hatch is successful at his anti-trust pursuits against the BCS, we've lost a lot more than just a system for determining a national champion for the highest level of college football. This would be a loss for America. We are essentially throwing out 200+ years of free-market capitalism for socialism when there's an unfair system in place.

Let me qualify what I mean when I say "a loss for America". What Hatch either doesn't realize or fails to acknowledge publicly is the economic reality that is the current BCS setup. The reason teams from the SEC, Pac-10, ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Televen, and Notre Dame deserve the money and the teams from the MWC and WAC don't is very self-evident. Once the MWC and WAC teams can consistently sell out 80,000+ seats at every member school every Saturday, sell millions of dollars worth of merchandise, and have TV execs foaming at the mouth to offer ridiculous sums of money just to broadcast their games, then maybe the MWC and WAC do deserve a share of that money.

I had this conversation with a friend the other day and I think I came up with a great analogy for why the notion that the MWC/WAC deserve an equal share of revenue as do the BCS teams and Notre Dame is just asinine. Let's assume that I open a hamburger shack (MWC/WAC) with a couple of my friends. We make what is essentially a great hamburger that our customers love and swear that it's better than McDonald's (BCS Conferences & Notre Dame). One day I and my other co-owners get fed up when after months of trying we can't get the same licensing deal with Coca-Cola (BCS) that McDonald's does even though we only have one location, only about 20 regular customers, and our annual sales are less than a fraction of one percent of McDonald's annual sales. Luckily one of our regular customers is the chairman of the Senate Anti-Trust Committee. So we appeal to our customer in the hopes that we will get the same deal as McDonald's.

Sounds absolutely ridiculous, doesn't it? When you think about it, this scenario is essentially the deal that Hatch is trying to arrange for the smaller guys. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal if you're the MWC. You can have one decent team and put out an overall sub-par product, yet still reap the same benefits that conferences with multiple great teams and an overall great product do. This is why I think that Hatch will ultimately fail because sharing the wealth equally with those that have not earned it violates every principle of free-market capitalism that I can think of. I don't have a dog in this fight, but I believe in America and I think America will win this fight over the likes of Orrin Hatch and Joe Barton.

Let me know what you guys think. I've added a poll to see where you think this fight is headed. Comments, as always, are very welcomed.

Poll

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

Yes

7 votes

No

70 votes

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

48 votes

125 votes | Poll has closed

Braves Fan Needs Bar/Restaurant Recommendations Around the Ballpark for this Friday's Game

AuditDawg — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:09:18 -0000

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

I'm a Braves fan that will be in town for the game on Friday night (my company has me in Owings Mills a few times a year). I've been to a game at Camden before, but we just drove in from Owings Mills and left after the game. I'll be staying downtown not too far from the stadium on Friday night and was looking for some suggestions of some cool places to hit up. Any bars/restaurants that I should definitely make an attempt to enjoy as well as maybe some places I should avoid are welcomed.

Thanks in advance for your ideas.

Chipper Scratched from Philly Finale

AuditDawg — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:36:47 -0000

Chipper Scratched from Philly Finale

Okay, we really need 150 games from Chipper this year. Hopefully this is a one game thing.

Dogs release top LB signee from scholarship

AuditDawg — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:44:54 -0000

Dogs release top LB signee from scholarship

I don't know what he did, but I'm just glad it happened and was resolved before he set foot in Athens. Good luck to the kid, but after last season we need to have as few off-field problems as possibl.

Them's fightin' words

AuditDawg — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:50:19 -0000

Them's fightin' words

Oh Timmy, you had to go and do it. Pride is the downfall of man and I'll enjoy seeing your downfall delivered by the hands of Rennie Curran come Halloween 2009.

More Furman Bisher nonsense

AuditDawg — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:58:36 -0000

More Furman Bisher nonsense

When is Cox Communications going to wise up and just cut ties with this man like they've done with everyone else that works for their newspaper? What does he possibly bring to the table anymore regarding journalistic insight or thought-provoking reporting? There's a reason we made my 83 year old grandfather stop driving after he reached a certain age.

Top Ten Most Memorable Moments from 2008 Season

AuditDawg — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 06:18:03 -0000

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.

1. "Ladies and Gentleman, make some Sanford Stadium noise for your #1 ranked Georgia Bulldogs."

I was in the stands for that promising opening day before Jeff Owens went down for the year and I can't remember another gameday weekend in Athens quite like it. There was a buzz around this team that I'd never experienced before. It was great to hear those words coming over the PA.

2. Alabama turns the Blackout into a "motherxxxxing funeral" going up 31-0 in at halftime.

This was the game that put 'Bama back at the top of the SEC echelon, and ultimately crushed the Bulldogs dreams of dancing in Miami on January 8th, 2009.

3. Knowshon's leap against Central Michigan.

I was in the stands and my first thought was "did I really just see that??". Knowshon set the bar that would be copied by many across college football and the NFL this year. It was one of those plays where you have the Bo Jackson moment and realize you're watching a truly special athlete.

4. Knowshon's leaping touchdown against ASU.

Not to be outdone from two weeks before, Knowshon took off from the 6 yard line and leaped into the end zone for one of the most impressive TD's I've ever seen.

5. Hello, freshman. AJ Green's emergence at ASU.

This was AJ's coming out party. He had Brent Musburger hyping him for the Biletnikoff award after his 8 catches for 159 yards and a TD.

6. Urban's timeouts.

After Georgia imploded in the second half en route to losing to the hated Gators 49-10, Urban Meyer made sure Georgia knew what he thought of "the Celebration" from the year before by calling two timeouts with less than a minute remaining to make the Bulldogs suffer even longer. Meyer's response "Moody deserved some extra carries".

7. Hello, freshman #2. AJ Green's game winning TD catch versus Kentucky.

In an unexpected shootout, the Bulldogs needed to drive down the field to score the go ahead TD and Matt Stafford while rolling to his right threw a ball up in the back of the end zone where only his receiver could get it. And get it, AJ Green did. In one of the most impressive catches I've ever seen, Green caught the game winning TD to defeat the Wildcats.

8. Darryl Gamble's two pick sixes versus LSU.

On the first play of the game, Gamble took Jarret Lee's pass back to the end zone for a score and set the tempo for what might have been the best game of the year for Georgia.

9. GA Tech scores 26 unanswered points in the 3rd quarter leading to a 45-42 victory for the Yellow Jackets.

The Bulldogs headed into halftime with a 28-12 lead and seemed to have the game well in hand. A few broken tackles and Reshad Jones shoulder bumps later and the Bulldogs found themselves downed by the Yellow Jackets for the first time since 2000.

10. Matthew Stafford ends his season (maybe career) on a high note in Orlando.

After struggling for the first half against Michigan State, Stafford caught fire in the second half throwing for three TD's with the denouement being the final TD pass to Knowshon Moreno which may be the last hookup between the two future NFL stars.

Well, there's my list. Let me know what were the most memorable moments for you in 2008, good or bad.

This is the point Willie was missing all year

AuditDawg — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:40:51 -0000

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.

Epic Fail

AuditDawg — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:07:28 -0000

Epic Fail

Is there anything left to defend Dennis Felton with? This is the second time we've lost to a team with a hyphen in its name this year. Coach got a reprieve with the miracle that was the run in Atlanta last year, but that was blip on the radar of failure that has been the Dennis Felton era. I don't ask for a lot from our basketball team. I only have this one request. Please don't lose to Kennesaw.