It ain't my fault

"Pretty much everybody has been downing the running back corps," King said. "We came together before the game and said we're going to be the playmakers, and if something happens, it's not going to be our fault." - ABH

That's not too good of an attitude to have, but at this point, whatever works.

What to think, what to think

I'm completely torn. I hate Florida.

I can't stress that enough. I hate them, I hate their relatives, I hate people who've meet people who go to Florida. I hate them. If I could make the font drip with the amount of disdain and latent anger I have at everything Floridian, I would.

But do I want Arkansas to win? I know it helps Georgia. If we then turn around and beat Florida, we'd be in the drivers seat again (however unlikely that is, and trust me, I realize it's about as likely as my pants turning into gold spontaneously in the next 3 minutes). But I want to be the team that ruins Florida's dreams. I want to crush their spirit. I want Tebow on the sideline crying after losing to US. I want them to look them in the eyes when 4-3 Georgia beats them. I want to call timeouts in the 4th quarter while we run Dontavius Jackson, "just because he's earned some playing time." I want it.

The question, I guess, becomes whether I hate them enough to not want to win the SEC? I really, really don't know. I'm sure I'll be happy if they lose. In fact, I'll be thrilled. But will I be happy if they win? I'm never happy when they win.

LOSE, Florida. LOSE.

Can't formulate sentences

I am without words angry. Lost to Lane Kiffin and the Vols. Looked worse than my highschool football team.

Sympathy from the Devil? Not likely.

I really, really don't care whether or not the ref feels bad about the call he made on AJ Green. I'm NOT a conspiracy theorist, but I'm starting to wonder about these frequent missed calls against Georgia. I mean, I understand the common argument against Georgia fans right now..."Oh, LSU got the same penalty right after their score, that means stop whining Georgia fans!" Really? The same penalty? Because our team had the same exact makeup that LSU's did. Basically, this gave LSU a boost on one of Georgia's main weaknesses, kickoff coverage. So far in the game, we'd done a great job of holding them off, but there's only so much you can ask those kids to do. They got screwed out of all the momentum gained on what should have been a game winning drive. This is a team that held off the #4 team in the country for roughly 59 minutes, only to have the game given to the opponents.

I cannot stress enough how completely unfair the penalty on Georgia here was. The fact that the refs gave Georgia a sympathy call against LSU after their touchdown is irrelevant, considering how much less time was available, as well as considering that Georgia's return team didn't have what may be the fastest player in NCAA D1 Football returning kicks. It was a significant boost to LSU to get the penalty on Georgia, and it was a "oops, our bad" call that allowed people to rationalize that got called against LSU. Not. The. Same.

To my friends in Mudville

I know I'm tired of being 2nd tier. What is it that keeps Georgia from being the team we all think it should and could be? Is it the coaching? Is it the players? Do we not want to win as bad as other teams? I truly don't know. I can't point to any of those things with any more valid knowledge which would say, "This is the reason we can't get over the hump!" However, I know we're a 2nd tier SEC team. Even in the years we win the championship, we still loose too many games, we give up the big play, we fall on our face when we need to stand the tallest.

I, for one, am tired of this. I don't if Mark Richt's "too nice" a guy to make the changes that seem to fans so blatantly necessary, or if he's "too loyal" to his assistants, but either way, something needs to be done when our teams has blatant failures in all 3 stages of the game in ANOTHER national spotlight game. When our offense looks pathetic for a full half, when Georgia can't run the ball, when we get ONE goddamn first down the entire first half, something's wrong with the offense. Be it the playcalling, the execution, or just the stars aligning, we need to make a change here. When our defense plays a brilliant game, but has the ONE mental brain-fart that ALWAYS seems to occur against the top tier, something's wrong. When Rennie Curran is flexed out to cover a 1st round draft pick WR on a crucial play series while a CB is roaming the backfield, something's wrong. When our veteran D-Line can't get pressure when the team ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY has to have it, that's a problem. When our defense cannot cover a mobile QB in a league full of mobile QB's, we're in trouble. Something's wrong here.

And finally, when our special teams has their customary mental breakdown following a big play by the other two units, something's wrong. When we get penalized on a play that there is NO EXCUSE for making a mistake on, something's wrong. When we give up more return yards than passing yards to the LAST PLACE team in the conference when it comes to return yards, something's FREAKING WRONG. When our inability to tackle on kickoff coverage with under 1 minute left hands the opponent the ball at our own 38, SOMETHING'S WRONG.

When Georgia fans stop looking a Mark Richt as a saint and start EXPECTING things from him, we might see some changes, but at this point I doubt I'll ever see it. I feel like we're a school committed to being 2nd best. What a lovely feeling that is.

DARTH HELMET STRIKES?

“I don’t think we’d do a black jersey or black helmet, we wouldn’t do a blackout of any kind unless we got the fans into it,” Richt said. “I don’t think it’s worth doing a blackout without it.”

Holy shit, does anybody else see BLACK HELMET there? That'd be freaking weird.

Throwin' out the Youngin's

For those of you out there in Dawgville that are interested in seeing Logan Gray or Aaron Murray out on the field for a couple of series each game, let me first say that I agree with you 100% on the fact that at some point this season we have to get Gray/Murray (probably Gray) out there in live game QB situations.

However, let me stress that I understand the reasons this is not happening. When your defense is your team's Achilles heel, you don't have free series to throw the young guns out there and see what happens. This becomes achingly obvious in games like the last two, where Georgia is literally winning by the skin of it's teeth against teams is should (theoretically) be dominating. Our talent level should be high enough where we're winning comfortably in the 2nd half, but it isn't showing up on game day as such.

Next year, it seems that Gray/Murray will be playing in meaningful game situations for the first time, which is scary. At least Joe Cox had the Colorado game to show him he could do it when it counted. Unless (God forbid) Cox gets injured this year, I feel like our lack of defensive play will severely limit CMR's ability to play either of the youngsters.

Does it look to anyone else out there like Georgia may only get a chance to play it's backups in the Tennessee Tech game? Man, that is a late start for the underclassmen. But, unless our team totally turns around, I don't think we're going to see any backups for awhile, unless they're pressed into service due to injury. And I think we can all agree that's an even worse case scenario.