Have to wait until Tuesday night for a replay of the game, but these are a few random things I took from the weekend:

• I love the shutouts, but I view them much the way I do a no-hitter in baseball: they’re as much luck as they are about a dominant performance. A bloop single because a batter guesses right doesn’t take away from a dominant pitching performance. Greg Maddux at his most dominant still gave up three or four hits a game, but there was no question we were watching greatness. It’s the same with a football shutout. Consider that field position, a single blown coverage, or even coaching decisions (such as going for it in field goal situations) can factor into a shutout. Take the game against Western Kentucky. Georgia’s defense eventually gave up ten points, but Western Kentucky didn’t manage a first down until late in the second quarter. Which has been the most dominant defensive performance?
• Who is "Garrison Hurst"? This gaffe has been on the pre-game video since the beginning of the season, and I think one of Georgia’s better tailbacks deserves to have his name spelled correctly. Hurshel would want it that way.
• Why does a pay-per-view broadcast need television timeouts? They’re already charging folks $30 to broadcast the game; they need to show them ads too?
• Very glad to see Ray Goff on the field with his 1976 team. No one was a bigger part of that SEC Championship unit.
• I don’t think you can understand how poignient a moment it was for Bill Stanfill to be on the field Saturday until you realize that Erk Russell had planned to be out there with him.
• Stunning stat of the weekend: Miami has lost five of its last six games against 1-A competition (pointed out during Saturday’s broadcast). That the one win was at Virginia Tech is the most amazing part of it all.
• I appreciate Matthew Stafford’s improvement from a week ago. There were much fewer mistakes (aside from the much-publicized sack and fumble), and he didn’t try to force things against a zone defense. The timing is still off though. Any pass longer than 15 yards was off. Either it’s the receivers and their routes, or it’s Stafford and his delivery, but the deep threat just hasn’t shown itself yet.
• Seeing Chris Leak dive a yard short of the first down marker shows us that he hasn’t changed all that much, but there is no doubt who the better quarterback was at the end of that game. Ron Zook was fired in large part for fourth-quarter collapses and coming up just short, and now Meyer has Leak winning those games.
• It’s bad enough seeing the stadium bathed in orange-and-blue Cingular colors or seeing "Crocs" advertised at the game, but now a stupid in-stadium Chik-fil-A mascot race ad bleeds over into an actual play. Who is asleep at the switch in the promotions department?
• You’d think part of the job requirement for "mike man" would be the ability to distinguish offense from defense. It’s noticable how much bigger of an impact the band, cheerleaders, etc can have when they have a sense of the flow of the game and situational awareness of what is going on out on the field.
• Speaking of the band, can we take the word "marching" out of the name? Lots of standing around. Most fans surely don’t notice (or care) about things like this, but I’ve seen more than one or two Redcoat alums grumble about the direction of the organization. And now they want to hit us up to build a million-dollar practice facility?
• I’m very impressed by the improvement in Georgia’s linebackers, and that’s no small reason for the strong defense. Tony Taylor runs the show. He’s fully back from his 2004 injury, and it shows. Danny Verdun-Wheeler is everywhere. He’s quick, versatile, and makes tackles. Jarvis Jackson is the enforcer in the middle bringing the heavy hits. It’s looking like a great unit, and then you consider that guys like Brandon Miller, Dannell Ellerbe, and now Darius Dewberry are hungry to get in there.
• Southern Cal looked strong again against Nebraska. Even if Auburn or some other SEC team can run the table, I think only an Ohio State or Southern Cal loss could keep us from another 2004 scenario.
• Finally, about UAB. Last week the tone was all about caution. The (-17) spread was seen as easy money if you took the Blazers. They put a scare into Oklahoma. They played us close two years ago. Etc, etc. Now that Georgia won 34-0, the UAB win is forgotten as if Georgia had beaten another 1-AA team. I guess that’s what happens when you beat the teams you should, but everyone (and there are many) who said last week that "these are the kinds of games Georgia struggles with" need to take a closer look at what’s really going on with this program. They’ll start the same drumbeat with Colorado this week…tough team backed into a corner, classic let-down game, and so on.