They have a ways to go to catch up with East Cobb schools, but with over 100 applicants to the University of Georgia this year, Highland Park High School is turning Red and Black. Over 20% of the senior class has applied to follow Matthew Stafford 850 miles east to Athens. That puts UGA third in number of applications behind Texas and TCU and ahead of such in-state options as Texas A&M.

In a statement probably not quite endorsed by UGA admissions, Stafford explains, “I think people realize Georgia is a good school to watch football and have a good time, just like in Highland Park.”

Exams are over, bowl practices are about to get going, and thankfully the lull in the news is about over.

I’ve been able to watch Hawaii several times this season thanks to their late starts. One thing that has struck me about them is their ability to pull out wins under any circumstances. In five of their games, they trailed in the second half. Four times they’ve required either overtime or last-minute heroics for the win. And yet in each game they’ve found the resiliency to bounce back and win. Their comeback against San Jose State was good background noise on a Friday night in Nashville – even a two-touchdown deficit with four minutes left wasn’t enough to bury them.

I understand the level of competition we’re talking about. Still, this is a team used to being able to turn games around. In short, assume that no lead is safe.

This game could go a lot of ways, but if Georgia finds itself with a second-half lead of any size, there is almost no appropriate time to let off the gas either on offense or defense. We can debate the best way to defend their attack, but I think we can all agree that a prevent-style defense that gives Brennan all day to pick apart the coverage isn’t going to be effective.

I’m not the biggest Bobby Petrino (or even Atlanta Falcons) fan, but am I the only one who finds all of the hyperbolic hand-wringing over his latest career change a bit much? I must admit I find it amusing how all of the Falcons players who have mailed in this season are now instant authorities on "being a man." If only they played that way.

It seems as if this new concept of loyalty when it comes to coaches is decidedly one-way. Owners and schools have no problem cutting a contract short even in the middle of a season. The difference of course is that a team is usually still on the hook to play the coach when the coach is fired. Teams could certainly build such clauses into the contracts when a coach decides to bolt, but that’s up to them. With fans and teams increasingly impatient for results given the big dollars involved, I can understand (though not necessarily admire) when a coach tries to stay ahead of the game. It makes you appreciate guys like Mark Richt.

When you have someone like Sean Salisbury more or less imploring prospects not to consider Arkansas, it’s clear that the reaction has long since become overreaction. Last year the Hogs got burned by players and coaches bailing on them; now they benefit from a similar move. Just don’t be surprised when Petrino installs a revolving door in his office.

For once, I would be fascinated to see if Lou Holtz weighs in on this once the bowl season punditry gets cranked up. If anyone knows about leaving a 3-10 pro team to coach at Arkansas, no one else is more qualified.

But it is SEC-related. Hey, you can always apply for the job yourself.

As I had hoped, Bobby Johnson’s interest in the Duke job was fleeting.

Now the Blue Devils are talking to Tennessee OC and former Ole Miss HS David Cutcliffe. Tennessee has had moderate success (particularly against Georgia) with Cutcliffe since he returned from Oxford, and he’s credited with the development of Erik Ainge.

The ACC is hoping that a change of scenery will make a difference in slumping championship game attendance. After consecutive disappointing crowds in Jacksonville, the game will be moved to Tampa in 2008 and 2009 and then to Charlotte in 2010 and 2011.

The ACC just needs to accept that if two out of FSU, Clemson, Virginia Tech, and maybe NC State aren’t playing in the game, they’re better off playing it at Paladin Stadium.

ACC commish John Swofford said, "For the first three years we had one superb year attendance wise in the inaugural game and then the next two were not what we would have hoped," Swofford said. "And what we’re after is simply to find the best mix, and I think it does take a mix of local sales with the sales from the participating schools."

Local sales? Tampa, home of the Big East’s USF, is an odd choice. The additional distance south of Jacksonville should be great for traveling fans too. Charlotte is a much more central location, but it’s still going to come down to which two teams are playing.

A lot of popular Web sites are driven by what’s called "user-generated content". YouTube, Digg, even sports message boards – they all derive their value from the content generated by their users. Think about the folks at the BullDawg Blawg who put a ton of work into creating great highlight videos. While highlights aren’t original content, the editing and packaging does add value, and they drive traffic to YouTube.

A site like YouTube has thousands or millions of users happily adding content. It costs nothing to use, and if you’re good/lucky/quirky enough, you might even get a little fame or notoriety out of it. But when it comes time to cash in, the community of people through which these sites have become so valuable often see little or none of the payout.

Put another way, "user-generated content" is another way of saying "free labor." You do the work, the site’s owners make the money. That’s a simplification of course. The site’s owners still have an investment in technology and bandwidth and have provided the platform for all of this content. For most of the people providing the content, a little notoriety is more than enough reward. Free storage and bandwidth at our disposal isn’t a bad deal either.

ESPNU is hopping on the user-generated content train by launching their Campus Connection program which enlists students, professors, and athletic departments to provide content for distribution. Initially ESPNU will help coordinate assignments and provide guidance as students produce coverage for games including play-by-play, production, photography, and so on. Eventually, the operations should become pretty self-winding, and ESPN will have over 20 "bureaus" feeding them content. The University of Georgia is among the schools participating in the program, and that makes sense given the reputation of the Grady School of Journalism.

If you look at it in terms of a traditional unpaid internship, it looks like a great experience and exposure to the industry for these students. But of course ESPN isn’t doing this completely out of altruism. An ESPN VP notes that "There’s no question that some big advertising opportunities will come out of this."

The program gets underway in January.

PS: I’m glad to see that YouTube is now offering to share advertising revenue with users who pass an application process. (The content must be original, so those of us in the highlights biz needn’t apply.)

Bobby Petrino has resigned as Atlanta Falcons head coach and will accept the vacant position at Arkansas, according to ESPN.

Petrino leaves the trainwreck of the Falcons and a 3-10 “career” NFL record for the greener pastures of Fayetteville. No offense to Will Muschamp, but the picture looks a lot sunnier for the Hogs than it did this morning.

The move will add yet another great storyline to the SEC as Petrino put in time at Auburn and very nearly became Auburn’s coach after the 2003 season. Now Auburn fans will either see what could have been or what they were lucky to avoid as Petrino takes over Arkansas.

I do have a suggestion for the Falcons – someone with NFL experience and the support of a lot of Bulldog fans across the state.

South Carolina defensive coordinator Tyrone Nix is heading back to Mississippi to join Houston Nutt’s staff in Oxford. Nix had a long stint at Southern Miss and was briefly considered for their vacancy.

Spurrier’s choice for a replacement will be worth watching, but this news could also have an impact on the future of Jasper Brinkley. The standout Gamecock linebacker has said that he will likely return next season, but a change in defensive system might cause him to reconsider.

Auburn is looking for a new offensive coordinator after Al Borges resigned. Borges had success with an offense that mixed play-action and bootlegs in with a heavy dose of the running game, but the formula had become less effective.

If you believe the rumors, Auburn is looking at Troy assistant Tony Franklin in order to bring a little spread flavor to the Plains.

I’m glad to see CFR jump back in to the playoff fray with this comment yesterday:

Maybe — just maybe — it’s possible there’s a link between a postseason tournament in a sport and its regular season being treated as nothing more than seeding? Maybe that’s why college football’s the only sport with a truly compelling regular season, hmmmm ???

Nothing more than seeding? Maybe I’ve misunderstood what’s so compelling about the college football regular season. When people talk about how great the regular season is, I take it they’re not celebrating South Carolina’s quest to become bowl-eligible. The compelling part is how games across the nation each week affect the polls and the teams in the national title chase.

You know – like seeding. If the positioning and jockeying for a spot in the BCS and national title game isn’t what drives the regular season, what does? How would that be diminished by a playoff?

The playoff vs. bowl debates are just getting going again, and we’ll endure another off-season of passionate status-quo defenses and pie-in-the-sky what-if playoff schemes. In the end, I think what makes the college football regular season so compelling is that the drama and meaning of 162 baseball games, 82 NBA games, or even 30+ college basketball games is reduced down to 12 football games over just three months. One loss to a baseball team isn’t even noise. One loss – especially a conference loss – to a college football team is a serious blow. I really don’t believe that the format of the postseason would change that.

There are few 1-A football head coaching jobs that could be considered a step down from Vanderbilt, but Duke is certainly one of them. So it’s a little strange to read that Vandy’s Steve Martin Bobby Johnson is interviewing at Duke.

I’m holding out hope that Johnson is taking this opportunity to get a better deal at Vanderbilt. But most people use the Arkansas vacancy for that strategy.

St. Mary’s, a possible second-round opponent for Georgia in the Rainbow Classic later this month, has just entered the Top 25. With their season to date which included a convincing win over Oregon, the Gaels seem the early favorite to win the Rainbow Classic. If this matchup does materialize, the Patty Mills vs. Sundiata Gaines battle should be worth watching.

Thomas Brown, Knowshon Moreno, Dannell Ellerbe, and Brandon Coutu were among those honored Friday night at the 2007 football gala.

Fernando Velasco was named the team’s overall permanent captain. Brown was the offensive captain, Kelin Johnson was the defensive captain, and Coutu was the special teams captain.

For a complete list of honorees, go here.

The big news from the gala was the $10,500 bid for Knowshon Moreno’s black jersey. Damn.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Georgia have its way with Wake Forest on Saturday. In what I’d consider the Dawgs’ first significant win of the year, they used a run early in the second half keyed by six consecutive points from Terrence Woodbury to open up a close game.

Wake isn’t going to challenge for the ACC title this year, but they are a decent team that beat Iowa and nearly knocked off Vanderbilt in Nashville earlier in the week. Georgia was able to play good defense and pull away from a quality opponent. After surviving a scare from Division II Augusta State a few days ago, it was relieving to see the team play towards the upper end of its abilities. Woodbury in particular had one of those games that reminds us why everyone is so high on his potential, and his level of play will have a lot to do with Georgia’s success this year.

The newcomers continue to impress. Swansey looks more and more comfortable on the court, and he’s a solid sub for either Gaines or Humphrey now. In fact, given Humphrey’s streakiness, Swansey might be considered a steadier option at times. Big Jeremy Price continues to make the most of his minutes. It’s unfortunate that Jeremy Jacob will be out for several weeks with a stress fracture, but the return of Albert Jackson helps keep the frontcourt depth up.

Turnovers remain a problem, and it’s to Georgia’s good fortune that they were able to limit Wake’s ability to convert so many turnovers into points. When Georgia reduced the frequency of turnovers in the second half, Wake lost any opportunity of coming back. 16 of Georgia’s 26 turnovers came from the starting backcourt – these are veteran players who should be better with the ball.

A second area for emphasis is on the defensive glass. Though Georgia outrebounded Wake Forest by a comfortable margin overall, the Deacons managed 19 offensive boards. That’s not a blip – the Dawgs are giving up over 16 offensive rebounds per game over their last four contests. Offensive rebounds mean second-chance points and fewer possessions for Georgia. Fortunately only Wisconsin has proven capable enough to make Georgia pay for such generosity on the glass. Gaines shouldn’t lead the team in rebounding, but he did on Saturday.

After a week off for exams, Georgia at 6-1 will head to Hawaii for the Rainbow Classic. The Dawgs start play on Thursday December 20 against ETSU. Looking over the rest of the Rainbow Classic field, Georgia has as good of a shot as anyone else at winning this event, and we should expect them to have a good showing. It would be interesting if Georgia and Hawaii faced off on the court before the schools meet in the Sugar Bowl. The hometown teams are known for getting every possible break in these Hawaii tournaments.

Lady Dogs

Andy Landers’ team is 9-0 as things begin to wind down for the semester. After a comfortable win over Davidson on Sunday, the Lady Dogs have a single game against Mercer between now and a year-end tournament in Florida.

Though the team is undefeated and in the top ten, they’ve hardly looked dominant. Near-misses against unranked Temple, Southern Cal, and Georgia Tech have raised some questions about Georgia’s ability to challenge better teams for an SEC title. Unlike recent seasons where the team has faced national powers such as Rutgers, Stanford, and Texas, the non-conference fare is relatively light this year, and the Lady Dogs have yet to be tested by a ranked opponent. A game against FSU should be the last significant challenge before the team begins SEC play in January.

The biggest concern so far is bench production. In some of Georgia’s closest contests this season, they’ve gone the entire second half with just a single substitution. One consequence of this development is that some of Georgia’s most explosive scorers are out of the game. Christy Marshall, who proved to be a spark off the bench last year, has struggled so far and only recently showed signs of life with 12 points against Davidson. Heralded freshman Brittany Carter hasn’t seen more than spot duty so far.

We’ve become used to the Lady Dog backcourt being full of playmakers and scorers, but that really hasn’t been the case this year. Ashley Houts is a fine point guard of course but usually doesn’t look for her shot. Senior wing Megan Darrah can be streaky. Landers is starting freshman Angela Puleo as the shooting guard, and her offensive production has been sporadic. As a result, the Lady Dogs have been in a number of tight games where the totals are closer to 60 points than the 80 points that Georgia typically prefers. To their credit, Georgia has won every one of them so far, but the quality of competition hasn’t been close to what they’ll start seeing in a month.

It’s our first football-free weekend in over three months. It’s supposed to be in the 70s here in Georgia, so get out there and get reacquainted with things like your yard (and spouse).

The main event in Athens this weekend is a basketball game against Wake Forest (2:00 Saturday, Fox Sports South). The Dawgs will try to get their first significant win of the season against a Wake team that took Vandy to the wire earlier in the week in Nashville.

In other news, it looks as if Paul Johnson is Tech’s man. Though we won’t see as much of the triple option as personnel forces him to use at Navy, Josh Nesbitt is still probably a very happy quarterback. As with most college coaching jobs, his success will ultimately come down to recruiting. Tech still has the question of Jon Tenuta in front of them. Does Johnson convince Tenuta to remain on the Tech staff, or does the defensive mastermind head for LSU or other pastures?

Johnson’s deal is reportedly worth $2.3 million per year. Mark Richt, by comparison, earns about $2 million per year and isn’t actively seeking a raise. Will Tech get the same return on investment?

Otherwise, have a great weekend.

Paul Johnson continues to be the consensus favorite, but he’s being pursued by several schools.

If not Johnson, will it be Tenuta or Terry Bowden? Bowden himself is mentioned with a few other job openings.