Georgia fans have been waiting to see how Mark Richt would react to this week’s arrests, and they got some answers this afternoon. Richt discussed the arrests and announced suspensions for some, though not all, of the players recently arrested.

"I’m certainly disappointed in a few of our players who have made poor decisions during the off season," Richt said. "It is of great concern and we take it very seriously. They will be dealt with accordingly and will pay a price. Each one will be disciplined based on the severity of their actions."

He went on to highlight the positive activities and behavior of the vast majority of the team which included everything from mission work to volunteer activities.

So for those keeping score at home, here are the suspensions and results of the offseason incidents as they stand now (in order of severity):

• DE Michael Lemon (felony battery): suspended indefinitely (per athletic department policy)
• OL Clint Boling (alcohol-related): two games
• FB Fred Munzenmaier (alcohol-related): two games
• DB Donovan Baldwin (alcohol-related): one game
• OL "Bean" Anderson (simple battery): no suspension announced (yet)
• OL Trinton Sturdivant (simple battery): no suspension announced (yet)
• DE Jeremy Lomax (concealed weapon): charges dropped, no suspension

Hopefully none of us have any illusions about the role of money in the modern major athletic department. But what does it say when there’s a pretty good indication that the pursuit of that money puts one of the teams at a competitive disadvantage?

Read here for the background.

By itself this might sound like sour grapes. But grumbles about the Nike equipment isn’t a new issue. Certainly Georgia has had plenty of success despite the bats, and Peisel’s missed grand slam opportunity stands out because of an otherwise outstanding pitching performance by Fresno.

It’s a bigger issue than one series or at-bat. It’s one of the most powerful athletic departments in the nation telling one of its teams that inferior equipment is “good enough” because Nike says so.

We’ve seen Central Michigan on our schedule before. They’ve been named Marshall or Central Florida or UAB or Troy. It’s that team that’s not quite a cupcake, made a bowl the year before, but they’re not BCS material. They’ll have a standout QB or receiver that racks up incredible stats in his conference and will likely have some pretty good numbers against the Dawgs too.

This time that guy is Dan LeFevour, Central Michigan’s junior QB. You’re probably sick of the dual-threat QB, but LeFevour definitely qualifies: only he and Vince Young have thrown for 3,000 yards and rushed for 1,000 in a season. He even caught a TD pass. There’s no question that the CMU offense flows through him, and HeismanPundit has named him a darkhorse if not for 2008 then for his senior season in 2009.

HP has an interview with LeFevour, and it’s worth a read. Georgia and Purdue are the big nonconference challenges for the Chippewas this year, and he discusses the team’s readiness for a game in Athens.

You’ve got a big game against Georgia coming up. How will you guys approach playing a game in such a hostile environment?

We’ve had some experience with that. We played at Kentucky last year. We’ve played at Michigan and Clemson and Purdue. We just need to remember that we’ve been in that situation before and carry it over to this game. As long as we are ready mentally, we should be ready to play.

The closest of those games was at Kentucky where CMU closed to within two points in the 4th quarter before falling 45-36. How about those other games? Michigan (41-17), Purdue (45-22), and Clemson (70-14) weren’t quite as close. There was also a 52-7 loss at Kansas to open the 2007 season.

Central Michigan can definitely be a dangerous team. They pushed Kentucky in 2006, and they came back on Purdue in the bowl game rematch last season once the Boilermakers went to sleep on a big halftime lead. Without breaking them down, the formula seems to be what it usually is against these kinds of teams: take the opponent seriously, jump on a weaker defense to put up some points, and don’t sleep on a lead. If nothing else, it will be a treat for Georgia fans to see someone of LeFevour’s talent competing opposite Stafford, Moreno, and Georgia’s own Heisman darkhorses.

I’ll let the story speak for itself…

Georgia football player Michael Lemon is a suspect in an alcohol-related battery incident Saturday night that sent a University student to the hospital with a severe eye injury, according to an Athens-Clarke County police report.

Read the whole thing. It’s not a favorable account.

It gets better…Trinton Sturdivant and Justin Anderson were apparently booked on “simple battery” charges. (hat tip to Steve Patterson of UGASports.com) It’s unknown at this time whether those arrests were related to Lemon’s incident. Way too early to make heads or tails of this story yet, but for those of you keeping score at home that’s over half of Georgia’s projected starting offensive line (when you include Boling) that has been arrested over the offseason.

UPDATE: It seems as if the incidents are not related. More information on the Sturdivant / Anderson incident is available from ESPN. Still doesn’t look good for Lemon, but I wouldn’t be surprised if charges are ultimately dropped against the two offensive linemen.

A big hint that you’re not that far up on the ol’ recruiting board: all of the coaches - even your position coach - are on vacation during your recruiting visit.

Justin Jones will commit to Kentucky following a disappointing recruiting visit to South Carolina. “Justin went to South Carolina on Wednesday and everybody was gone,” Heritage coach Chad Frazier said. “They had a [graduate assistant] showing him around campus. That’s what sealed it for him.”

According to the Savannah Morning News and Josh Kendall, Georgia’s mascot Uga VI died last night. He would have turned 10 in June, and that’s pushing the life expectancy for a bulldog. There was some speculation last summer about his retirement, but Uga VI remained in place for the entire 2007 and went out a winner. He presided over 114 Georgia football games and 87 wins - records for both wins and longevity for a Georgia mascot.

Georgia under Uga VI

• 87-27 (76.3%) career record
• Made a bowl in each of his nine seasons, winning seven
• Three sUGAr Bowl appearances, winning two
• Two SEC titles
• Three SEC East titles
• Five AP Top 10 finishes

Dennis Felton will now be replacing both of his starting backcourt players after Billy Humphrey was dismissed from the team on Friday.

Humphrey’s dismissal stems from a Tuesday night arrest for DUI on top of two previous incidents. Coach Felton said,

“I am disappointed in Billy,” Felton said. “We’ve worked really hard with him in the past to see that he succeeds, but I feel that it’s now best for our program to move forward without him.”

Initial reports stated that Humphrey blew a .02 (still trouble for an underage drinker), but additional details from the ABH correct that error and paint a much more serious picture:

When Humphrey was stopped on Georgia Highway 316 early Tuesday morning, his blood-alcohol content tested at .082 on the road and .129 later at the county jail, where he was booked on DUI and other charges, according to the officer’s report. The Banner-Herald previously reported in error that Humphrey blew .02.

Police found a half-full bottle of Bacardi rum on his back seat, and jailers tested Humphrey’s blood alcohol level at more than one and a half times the legal limit.

With that new information and with his earlier (though minor) incidents in mind, Felton really had no choice here.

Jeremy Price and Terrence Woodbury are now the only returning starters. Coach Felton got a new lease on life with the SEC Tournament title, but he’ll have to identify a new shooting guard to avoid slipping backwards. Obviously this is bad news for the program and Felton (not to mention Humphrey).

Earlier this morning, Steve Detwiler’s thumb was removed by surgeons in Omaha and replaced with a prosthetic. The thumb is currently en route to Lubbock, Texas where it will be featured next to the monument already in place at the College Baseball Hall of Fame.

We’ve seen individuals break Georgia’s heart before. Dan Marino. Mark Prior. Ronnie Daniels is still running. And of course there’s John Wallace.

But few have had such a dominant individual performance against a Georgia team with so much on the line as Fresno State’s right fielder Steve Detwiler. Fresno posted six runs against Georgia, and every single one of them was knocked in by Detwiler. His performance was so incredible and so unlikely that it overshadows a clutch pitching job by Justin Wilson. Under any other circumstances, the ability of Wilson to come off of three days’ rest and contain a Georgia offense that had scored 17 runs in two previous games would have been the story of the night.

Congratulations to Fresno State. A team that beat Long Beach, San Diego, Arizona State, Rice, North Carolina, and Georgia to get to this point is as legitimate as a champion gets.

There’s no use breaking down the game. The season is over, and the second-best season in Georgia baseball history deserves the focus now. This team rebounded from a rough early stretch to win the SEC, end Georgia Tech’s season, take the season series over Tech yet again, and roll to the program’s best postseason finish since 1990. There was individual excellence and key role players. There were dominant performances and clutch comebacks.

If history is any indication, the good news was that this title run probably won’t be a one-shot deal. Georgia baseball is competitive nationally and has been that way for most of this decade. The personnel losses will be significant just as they have been after each of Georgia’s three previous trips to Omaha since 2001. Recruiting is strong, and coaching is solid, so the safe bet is for Georgia to be back in this position sooner than later.

The immediate challenge for Coach Perno is to smooth out the valleys. A return trip to the NCAA Tournament, even as a lower at-large seed, is what we’re talking about here. With guys like Poythress, Cerione, Allen, McRee, and Weaver due to come back, a strong an experienced core is there. Georgia must replace not only gloves and bats but leaders also, and finding the guys who will challenge their teammates to demand better of themselves as Ryan Peisel did earlier this season will be as important as finding a new leadoff man or closer.

If there’s any kind of silver lining in the constant attention to the "Cinderella" storyline this week, it’s this realization: Georgia teams are expected to play for titles. Georgia being in Omaha is dog-bites-man. Situations where we are the great underdog story are rare (see: men’s basketball), but that’s what happens when you have one of the nation’s strongest athletic programs. After Hawaii and Fresno you might be getting a bit tired of being the foil to the media darling, but remember that the story of the underdog is great because it is the exception. This loss stings, but Georgia teams will be back competing for titles in just a few months.

Senior guard Billy Humphrey was arrested in Gwinnett County and was charged with, among other things, DUI because he is underage and a breathalyzer showed a trace amount of alcohol (0.02).

Note that this is Humphrey’s second alcohol-related incident within the past year. He avoided suspension after that incident and an earlier weapons charge, but the University’s alcohol policy will now come down hard on Humphrey.

It’s very likely that Humphrey will miss fall semester, and who knows what that would do to his status with the Georgia basketball program. With the status of the starting shooting guard now up in the air, Dennis Felton’s chances of building on the SEC Tournament championship have been dealt a significant blow.

What can you say about a 19-10 loss? Georgia had the momentum, the pitching matchup they wanted, and even a 5-0 lead, and it vanished in an inning. Within the span of three innings, Fresno State scored 15 runs and made Georgia fans put away the champagne and start biting fingernails.

Georgia’s been in this position before during this tournament. They won the first game of the Super Regional, but N.C. State struck back against Georgia pitching to take Game 2 going away. Georgia bounced right back in Sunday’s game with a 9-run first inning. They’ll need that kind of resiliency against a Fresno State team that has proved to be no fluke and every bit the team that sent some very good clubs packing earlier in the tournament.

Simply put, the championship comes down to Georgia’s pitching. Georgia has plated 17 runs in two games against Fresno. Though Fresno will be able to start a regular starter in tonight’s game, so will Georgia. The Dawgs have hit Fresno’s better pitchers during this round, and there’s no reason to doubt their ability to score a fair amount of runs.

The question then lies with some experienced Georgia pitchers. Moreau. Weaver. McRee. Fields. Georgia doesn’t exactly have to piece together a staff tonight if the guys they send out there can give a decent performance.

You’ll hear all day that Fresno has taken momentum, and the Cinderella talk will be in overdrive (do we need to come up with a drinking game for this?). Forget that. Georgia is throwing Moreau, an experienced Sunday starter. The same toughness that has been with this team from Arkansas through the regional and Super Regional and in three comeback wins already in Omaha is still there. Georgia has come too far to let one setback sink them, and I think we’ll see a fired up and focused Georgia team ready to bring a title home.

You’ll notice that the live blog stops abuptly during the 4th inning. I was reminded that the championship is no time to start screwing around with the routine that had taken us this far.

So, anyway, what a game. What a comeback. It’s what we’re used to from this team - Georgia had to come from behind against Miami and Stanford - but it’s still amazing every time they get back off the mat. In Monday’s game, they broke through against the best pitcher they had seen all evening after struggling to scratch out runs against guys with ERAs north of 6.75.

Two plays before the pivotal bottom of the 8th stand out as game-changers:

• Lyle Allen’s catch. Otis Nixon was reached for comment and said, "daaaaaaamn." Between that catch and the one at Turner Field, Allen has stepped nicely into the "did you SEE that catch?!" void left by Joey Side. Allen’s leaping catch in the 4th saved a run, and we know how important a single run proved to be.
• Steve Susdorf getting doubled off of second. Susdorf doubled in Fresno’s first run of the 8th, but he was caught leaning towards third on a line drive hit to Gordon Beckham. Beckham won the race to the bag. It looked as if Susdorf was bailed out after Fresno tacked on two more runs, but that out had two big implications. First, the subsequent home run plated only one run instead of two. Second, the out and the batter order meant that Susdorf - with a double and triple to his credit already - was left in the on-deck circle in the 9th.

The little things got Georgia in trouble. Leadoff walks. Big hits by the bottom of Fresno’s order. Even Georgia’s offense was so close. The Dawgs hit the ball hard, but great Fresno defense kept them in the game. Those hits fell in the 8th. Olson’s bloop started it, Cerione found the right side of the foul line, and Lewis played pinball with second base to drive in the winning run.

Fresno lost a heartbreaker, but you can’t expect them to fold. They lost a game this way to UNC on Saturday and bounced back nicely. Still, the stress of another elimination game coupled with their depleted pitching staff has to weigh on them. For Georgia the win couldn’t have been better. It gave them a huge shot in the arm, but the game served notice that they can’t relax and take anything as a given against a quality opponent. Postgame comments seemed to show that Georgia was well aware that nothing was settled yet.

The first few innings could be huge tonight. If Georgia can keep the fire going and score some runs against some tired pitching, they’ll be set up very nicely with Montgomery on the mound. On the other hand, a close game will only serve to restore Fresno’s confidence.

The college road trip is a right of passage, and some writers for the Red and Black have taken to the highways to watch the Diamond Dawgs in Omaha.

Highlights:

11:23- Tyler: Is it blog worthy if I run down this Tennessee fan in front of us ?Me: sure it is, I was thinking the same thing. Although, weren’t you a Tennessee fan growing up? Tyler (regretfully): Yes

Side note- Tyler LOVES pretzel sticks, they are apparently really good with beer. Since I’m not 21 and have never drank underage, I wouldn’t know.

12:21: Tyler once again points out the mind-blowing realization that we are driving to Nebraska. Damn, 1,043 miles is a long way. My over/under for someone saying that we are driving to Nebraska is five, and we already at two.

4:39: Mile 434.2. Insanity may finally be broached, as we all join in a terrifically harmonized and falsettoed rendition of “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” (you know, that commercial from the 70s). And then we, of course, each enjoy a Coke. And keep it company. In perfect harmony.

6:41: Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping” raises morale.

Highly recommended. I hope they keep it up and make it to Omaha.

I’m going to try liveblogging tonight’s game. Someone has to keep track of the number of times they show Lauren Massinari or tell us that Fresno State was a #4 seed in their regional. I doubt they mention that Fresno was a preseason top 20 team.

Title IX is 36 years old today. For some football fans, it’s the law that is the root of all that’s wrong with the world. But without it, the Georgia campus probably never would have been graced with Teresa Edwards, the Gym Dogs, Kristy Kowal, or any of the other outstanding female student-athletes we’ve known.

The law itself is pretty simple:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

The current landscape of intercollegiate athletics is, for better or worse, built on the sturdy shoulders of that law. Various judicial and executive interpretations have combined to give us the current guidelines, and it’s still very much a politically active topic. Teams and scholarships have had to be added, removed, and balanced in this modern nod to the Missouri Compromise. Though the opportunites opened for women have been tremendous, Title IX hasn’t come without its costs or friction.

It’s interesting to read that "NCAA President Myles Brand (suggested) that unisex teams could be the wave of the future for intercollegiate athletics." You’re starting to see more and more of this measuring against the men, and we’re not just talking about Michelle Wie. The WNBA’s Atlanta Dream is running an ad in which a young girl in a playground game shows she belongs by throwing an elbow at a male opponent. But when it’s still big news that a 6′4" woman can dunk a basketball, the idea of unisex teams still seems a little ridiculous, doesn’t it?

Yes, it is Dawg vs. Dog. The College World Series has gone to the dogs.

With that out of the way, we now know that it’s Georgia vs. Fresno State for all the marbles at the College World Series. Fresno State has definitely had a tremendous run, and the fact that they were a #4 seed in the regional makes the “underdog” label applicable.

You’ll hear no end to the George Mason comparisons, but that’s hardly fair to a Fresno State squad very familiar with postseason play. The Bulldogs have won three straight WAC titles and are in their third straight NCAA Tournament (a claim even Georgia cannot make).

Let’s get it out of the way: Georgia looks to have everything on their side. They’ve had the better season against stronger competition. They are hitting well against good pitching. Their rotation is set up perfectly for the best-of-three series after copious amounts of rest over the past week. Our own Bulldogs are a great story in their own right. They have come off a losing season to play for the national title. For some, it’s a chance at redemption for a missed opportunity in 2006.

But Fresno has beaten some pretty big odds just to get to this point, and they probably won’t blink twice at Georgia’s advantages. Fresno State has solid, fundamental defense, timely hitting, and they have had some great pitching in Omaha, though it’s yet to be seen how much is left as they play their third game in as many days on Monday.

So, yes, the Bulldogs will win the national title. Will it be Fresno’s first or Georgia’s second national title? Monday’s first game will be critical, and Georgia has to feel pretty good handing the ball to Trevor Holder.

Here is the finals schedule:
Monday, June 23
Game 1 — Fresno State (45-30) vs. No. 8 Georgia (44-23-1), 7 p.m., (ESPN2/ESPN360)

Tuesday, June 24
Game 2 — No. 8 Georgia (44-23-1) vs. Fresno State (45-30), 7 p.m., (ESPN/ESPN360)

Wednesday, June 25
Game 3 — No. 8 Georgia (44-23-1) vs. Fresno State (45-30) (if nec.), 7 p.m., (ESPN/ESPN360)

Rain hit the Omaha area Thursday night, forcing the postponement of the loser’s bracket game between LSU and North Carolina. The UNC-LSU game will resume at 7:00 p.m. ET on Friday.

The shuffled schedule means that Stanford and Georgia will not play until Saturday at 2 p.m. ET (ESPN2) If Stanford beats Georgia on Saturday, the two teams would play again on Sunday.

Basically, everything is pushed back a day.

Why is this less-than-good news? Two reasons. First, it gives Stanford another day to rest. The historical disadvantage of the loser’s bracket was quick turnaround. Now any pitcher Stanford used on Monday against Georgia should be just fine for Saturday’s game, and it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that Stanford could call on a pitcher used Wednesday.

Second is looking ahead a bit to the potential championship round. If Georgia must play on Sunday, they are looking at no fewer than four straight days of action should they prevail over Stanford. Saturday’s game now becomes extremely significant. Win on Saturday and Georgia can rest on Sunday while their championship opponent might have to play on Sunday. Lose on Saturday and brace yourselves for some pretty interesting personnel decisions. Getting through Stanford is of course the priority, but you also don’t want to arrive at Monday’s championship game with nothing in the tank.