For the first time in nearly 20 years, a Steve Spurrier-coached college team was shut out. It doesn’t quite make up for the 51 points in 1995, but it is a nice twist of the knife to have the 18-0 shutout come at the hands of the Georgia Bulldogs.

The Dawgs grabbed control early and built a 15-0 halftime lead on a wild swing of events at the end of the first half. South Carolina missed a field goal that would have cut Georgia’s lead to 10-3. Georgia drove the field and appeared poised to extend their lead before a tipped pass was interecepted on the one yard line. South Carolina ran a slow-developing play out of the end zone which was abruptly ended by Charles Johnson for the safety. Georgia then drove quickly into field goal position and ended the first half by tacking another three points on to the lead.

The game was ugly and tough, but unlike 2002 and 2004 it wasn’t close. The Georgia defense played a magnificent game, stepping up several times at the goal line to deny South Carolina. The linebackers in particular had a wonderful game, and the defensive line was active all night – often applying sufficient pressure with just three or four men. Jarvis Jackson had another strong game in Columbia, and he was responsible for causing the game’s pivotal fumble in the third quarter as South Carolina quarterback Blake Mitchell tried to dive forward for a touchdown on 4th down at the Georgia one yard line.

The resourcefulness and the determination of the Georgia defense could be summed up in a play by Jeff Owens. Mitchell had eluded the Georgia rush and had scrambled forward into Bulldog territory for a first down and much more. Owens, a defensive tackle, tracked Mitchell down from behind and caused a fumble that was recovered by the Dawgs. Plays like that were made all night across the board.

The offensive line also played much better. Velasco, Jones, and Shackleford noteably had good performances. When Georgia was able to bust a nice play up the middle, Jones and Velasco were often out in front. South Carolina’s pass rush wasn’t overwhelming most of the time.

And the quarterback…Matt Stafford stepped in as a true freshman at one of the SEC’s most intimidating road venues and performed as you might expect a talented freshman: lots of glimpses of excellense but lots of shaky play as well. His overall line would get a veteran starter crucified by fans. But his especially strong second quarter was enough to get the job done. The pass he threw to Massaquoi late in the half to get the Bulldogs inside the Gamecock five was a thing of beauty.

He was much less effective in the second half – a nice pass to Ware was the exception. Timing was off on deeper passes, and you’d expect that when Stafford hasn’t worked much with the first team offense. The prognosis on Tereshinski’s ankle notwithstanding, Stafford should have three weeks or so to work on that timing and decision making with the first team before the SEC schedule resumes. He has plenty of work to do. I believe we saw last night why he wasn’t starting outright but also why he will start eventually.

Lots more to talk about later, but this is a great win for the program. The defense did what it should have done against a below-average offense, and the offense gritted out what it needed. With this win and the Spurrier drama behind them for another year, the season and its possibilities begins to open up for Georgia. How much can they improve before their next SEC game at Ole Miss?

WTOC in Savannah is reporting that legendary Georgia and Georgia Southern coach Erskine “Erk” Russell died this morning of a stroke.

There aren’t many more iconic figures in Georgia Bulldog football history. His loss is devastating to the Bulldog football family.

Erk was the head coach at Georgia Southern from 1981 to 1989 and led the Eagles to three Division 1-AA national titles. Prior to 1981, Erk had been Georgia’s defensive coordinator for seventeen years.

He was a great man for many reasons, but the biggest might be because he made those he came in contact with better. His players wanted to play better so as to not let him down. Fans he met in life came away feeling better for having met and spoken with him. Even recent Georgia players who weren’t even alive when Erk stalked the Georgia sideline wanted to be better Bulldogs after hearing a brief motivational speech from the master motivator. In his ideals, actions, and attitude on and off the field he leaves us an example any Bulldog player or fan can only hope to live up to.

GATA, Erk.

It’s easy to forget sometimes that Mark Richt is one of the least-accomplished coaches in the UGA Athletic Association. That’s not a criticism of Richt; it’s a testament to the incredible coaching talent assembled in Athens. Yoculan, Diaz, Landers, Haack…it’s solid all around. But one of the best is Jack Bauerle who coaches swimming and diving. Bauerle’s excellence will be rewarded today when he is named as the coach for the United States women’s swimming team for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. It’s a big job, a lot of work, and a tremendous honor – one that is well-deserved. Many of Bauerle’s swimmers have participated in the Olympic Games, and now it’s his turn as coach.

Celebration or physics experiment?

Talk about a nightmare scenario for Georgia’s season. From yesterday’s Georgiadogs.com practice report:

“Meet you at the quarterback” is a phrase often repeated by defensive ends during practice and games. During an 11-on-11 drill in Wednesday’s workout, Georgia’s Quentin Moses and Charles Johnson did just that except the quarterback saw them coming, stepped up in the pocket, and the two Bulldogs smashed in to each other and then remained on the ground for a few moments.

“We had a real, sickening, frightening feeling at that moment,” Georgia coach Mark Richt recounted after practice. “We thought we lost both of them on one play. I wondered if Coach Fabris was going to go in to cardiac arrest. However, they both got up and we were all relieved. It just shows they were practicing hard.”

In Switzerland, physicists are building a large circular underground tunnel to study what happens when particles collide at extremely high speeds. I think yesterday’s Georgia football practice could have saved them a lot of money. The only worse scenario is the two of them colliding with Stafford and all three obliterating each other in a flash of antimatter.

Much is being made of the decision to sit MoMass and Kenneth Harris in favor of starting Mario Raley and AJ Bryant at South Carolina. The reason given was drops, but there has to be more to it than that (Martrez Milner is still starting after all).

The more important point is Eason’s intent to send a message to Massaquoi. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if this were a one-game thing.

I didn’t make a big deal out of it at the time because it was just the spring game, but I only recall one catch from him at G-Day too. Oliver shut him down for much of the game.

He’s proven he has the hands, and that should make him our best receiver. A drop or two won’t change that; we’ve seen what he can do, especially against Auburn. Because of his hands he’s now drawing attention from defenses. If he can’t make an impact and get open against that kind of extra attention, he might as well be a third-down possession receiver.

The message is much more than a reaction to a drop or two against WKy. It’s more along the lines of "if you’re the #1 receiver, start making plays."

Playing time for and development of other receivers will only help Massaquoi in the long term. If someone – Durham, Raley, Bryant, Goodman, whoever – can turn into a dependable and consistent receiving option, teams won’t be able to focus on MoMass, and he’ll have more room and freedom to make those plays.

I have to give full credit to Paul over at Georgia Sports Blog for a brilliant brief documentary of the “family-friendly” tailgating areas. Watch the video and listen for the wind blowing across the deserted plains. Most of the time these blogs just talk about what other people have done or wrote, but kudos to GSB for creating some original journalism that cuts right to the point.

Tailgating in general was a bit down with the early start and poor opponent; I didn’t notice much traffic when I arrived around 8:30. We’ll see if these areas remain as desolate in coming weeks.

Do yourself a favor and check out these two articles in today’s Red & Black. Some students are pretty ticked about the University parking cars at and on the intramural fields for football games.

• Tailgaters to invade intramural fields, city
• Students blast new Univ. policy

I can understand not wanting to play ultimate frisbee on shards of glass. But we’re not talking about the fairways at Augusta National either; they can deal with parking cars on the grass. What gets me is the palpable hostility of some towards football. Jeez…put down the hacky sacks and get inside Sanford Stadium.

One person did mention something I’ve suggested before.

Travis Storin, a senior accounting major from Marietta, playing football with friends (said…)
“Since we’re making the changes to accommodate family tailgating, they should be the ones forced to relocate.”

That would make too much sense…alcohol-free "family" tailgates would be much less likely to get out of control and leave behind trash and especially broken glass.

Admit it…you’re wondering what toli is.

Georgia freshman cornerback Asher Allen is the focus of a USA Today story on the trend of freshmen graduating early from high school to enroll in college early. They spend the spring semester settling in to the college routine, taking classes, going through spring practice and summer workouts, and are more prepared to begin the football season as true freshmen.

Georgia always has a couple of these freshmen, but this year they have an NCAA-leading six early enrollees. It’s to their advantage – Allen is a possible starter at nickle corner and will certainly see playing time.

There are two sure signs that the season opens this week. First is that players are slowly but surely coming back from injuries. Fans wring their hands over the day-to-day injury reports during preseason camp, but the truth has been that the Dawgs (seriously knocking on wood here) are relatively healthy. Besides the knee injury to Coates, there aren’t many long-term injuries on the squad. You have guys like Gant and Elmore and a few of the offensive linemen fighting nagging, sometimes chronic injuries, but most of them should be ready for action soon.

The second sign that the season is right around the corner is the last-minute shuffling and solidifying of the depth chart. Some positions have been set since the end of last season, but many others continue to be up for grabs. We heard about the quarterbacks weeks ago, and now the final few pieces are coming together.

• The guys over at UGASports.com told us yesterday that Danny Verdun-Wheeler had earned a starting strong (SAM) linebacker position over Brandon Miller. Everyone in the world seems to think that Miller is a better fit at defensive end, but so far the coaches haven’t made that move. Whether he’s a linebacker or defensive end, he’ll be starting the season on the second team. It should be noted that he was injured a good bit last year and has also been banged up this preseason, so it might just be a consequence of Verdun-Wheeler being more prepared at this point.
• Ching reports that Asher Allen and Prince Miller are both candidates for nickle cornerback – a very key position in passing situations. Both have ridiculous talent and speed, but they are still freshmen and prone to the occasional freshman mistake. It’s really up in the air which will start, but each will see time on Saturday. So two true freshman are battling for a rather important position. Interesting. Bryan Evans will also see time at cornerback. Oliver and Ramarcus Brown are the starters of course.

So we’ll have a starting defense of Moses-Owens-Dixson-C Johnson, Verdun – Taylor – Jackson, Oliver-Battle-K Johnson-Brown. Great lineup there, especially when you consider that there are names like Byrd, Miller, and Weston coming off the bench. About the only real question marks as far as the depth chart goes are at the return positions – kickoffs and punts. Flowers’ suspension has put the punt return job up for grabs, and there are still several likely candidates for kickoff return.

A recap of the Athens Touchdown Club meeting from last night also has some interesting tidbits. Among them: the true freshmen who will surely play are Durham, Atkins, Dewberry, Allen, and Miller. Others might play too – Crawford seems most likely. It was surprising to see the harsh words about Moreno at tailback. All indications we had to this point were that he had really worked his way into the mix. As an aside, this is more or less a repeat of something we see every year: ans drunk on recruiting videos are certain that 15+ true freshmen will play, and it always ends up that only 6-8 do.

Finally, Ching mentions something really interesting:

But I will say this: Joe T was throwing the ball a lot of places in the early part of practice we watched, when he and Cox were working on pass routes with the receivers. One of those places was rarely the receivers’ hands. He didn’t look too good. And of course, my opinion on the subject means very little. I’m just saying what I saw.

You might write that off as one guy’s opinion, but the UGASports.com writers posted the exact same observation on the DawgVent last night. Scary stuff. You’ve got to wonder what the plan is.

I know it’s football week, but I like to acknowledge Dawgs at the top of their craft. Deanna Nolan, Kara Braxton, and Kedra Holland-Corn are headed to this week’s WNBA final with the Detroit Shock. They will face defending champions Sacramento. Nolan is consistently one of the most exciting and highest-scoring guards in the league, and Braxton’s post play was a big reason why Detroit was able to win yesterday’s conference final.

The best-of-five WNBA finals begin on Wednesday night at 7:30 and will be televised by ESPN2.

The big news is that DJ Shockley looks to have made the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons released Bryan Randall leaving Shock as the third quarterback. Josh Mallard remains on the Falcons’ roster, but additional cuts are still to come.

The news wasn’t so good for two other Dawgs. Will Thompson was cut by the Falcons, and Bryan McClendon was cut by Chicago.

Andy Landers has announced a typically challenging schedule for the Lady Dogs. 14 of the 29 scheduled opponents were in last year’s NCAA Tournament. The SEC schedule rotation again places both Tennessee and LSU on the schedule twice. The Lady Dogs will again open the season with a big challenge. Last year it was defending national champ Baylor and this year it’s perennial power Rutgers. The home schedule is highlighted by a game with Stanford on the Sunday following the Georgia Tech football game.

I’ll have much more to say about this schedule and the team as the season approaches, but the schedule guarantees that we’ll know very quickly what kind of team this will be.

UGASports.com reported from the practice field this afternoon that Mark Richt has continued an unofficial tradition by rewarding a walk-on with an “extra” scholarship. NCAA rules limit the Dawgs to 85 scholarships, and they entered camp with 84 scholarship players this year.

Richt announced today that junior running back Jason Johnson has earned the remaining scholarship.

“Johnson has been honored with a scholarship and it was very well earned by him,” said Richt. “We know he can play tailback, he can play fullback, he can play special teams, and he is just a very productive guy. Johnson is a hard worker and it is kind of a joy to give that aid to him. He has done extremely well as a student and I am really happy for J.J.”

Welcome to August.

No news is usually good news in the month before the season.

Suspensions, injuries, and generally bad news dominates the preseason coverage. Fans are just dreading each additional update, peeking with one eye to see if we survived this afternoon without losing another lineman. We’re so accustomed to the bad news that even good news can get turned around. Are the wide receivers looking good? Oh no! The secondary is toast!!! Is the offensive line playing like a brick wall? Noooooo!!! We have no pass rush!!!

The life of a football fan is a roller coaster of emotions, and there aren’t many ups in the preseason. We crest the hill during the first week of August and enter a freefall as the updates and bad news and potentially bad news and the good news that we’re sure is somehow bad comes flying past faster and faster until the season begins and we get that rush that makes us come back for the ride every year.

Injuries are an inevitable part of this time of year and the news we dread the most, especially when the injury is serious. The Dawgs seem to have recorded their first serious injury of preseason camp – UGASports.com reported today that redshirt freshman safety Antavious Coates is out for the year with an ACL injury. Coates also missed last season with an injury to his other knee. It’s really tough to see a promising career derailed like this two years running. Just one knee injury is enough to alter some careers, and he’s now dealing with two. We hope he can recover from this setback, because you can almost hear in his voice how much this hurts.

“I worked my butt off this summer and came here ready to play,” Coates said. “It’s hard.”

You’ve probably already heard that Picture Day is Saturday August 19th at Sanford Stadium. UGA has released some additional details. Some highlights:

• Picture Day will take place between 1:00 and 5:00 p.m. The football team will be there between 3:00 and 5:00.
• You may only bring in one item to sign.
• Team locations: The Georgia offensive unit and Coach Mark Richt will be located throughout the North side concourse of Sanford Stadium between Sections 109-101 while the defense will be located on the Gate 6 Plaza between Sections 125-121. Other Georgia sports teams will be located between Sections 119-113 and the interactive games, concessions and merchandise will be located throughout the event. All activities associated with Picture Day will take place only on the 100 Level between Sections 125-101. Everyone must enter through Gate 6 on the southeast corner of the stadium.
• (Free) tickets are required for a photo with Coach Richt and UGA, and those will be available beginning at 9:00 a.m. at the East End Ticket Windows located off East Campus Road.