Last month we learned that Comcast would add ESPNU before the football season, bringing the SEC television lineup into focus for many in metro Atlanta. Now the AJC confirms the speculation that Peachtree TV will be the outlet of choice for regional ESPN-produced broadcasts. The deal also includes a lot of SEC men’s basketball on Saturdays and Wednesdays starting during conference play in January as well as eight Sundays of SEC women’s basketball.

The national broadcasts will still be on CBS, ESPN, ESPNU, and ESPN2. Think of it this way – instead of WATL 36 or wherever else you used to look for the regional JP games, they’ll be on Peachtree TV now (only at noon instead of 12:30 – oy). The enhanced basketball coverage is especially welcome. It’ll be a double-header every Saturday during the conference schedule as well as one game each Wednesday (in addition to national games on ESPN as before).

Peachtree TV is available in standard and high definition format on major cable and satellite providers in Atlanta. Keep in mind this is for the Atlanta area only – Peachtree TV is a local channel and not a superstation or national network. Fans in other markets will find the games on different stations or as before on Gameplan. We’ll be happy to post those stations here as deals are announced – just send word.

The Chicago White Sox have called up Gordon Beckham just a week after he was promoted to AAA ball. This time last year, he was preparing to lead Georgia into the College World Series. Now he’s in the majors and will join the circus that is the Ozzie Guillen clubhouse.

Bulldog coach David Perno commented,

“I talked to Gordon and he’s excited. It’s obviously quick but if anyone I’ve ever coached can handle it it’s Gordon. He’s had something special about him from day one. From a maturity and a talent standpoint he is definitely ready, and I am looking forward to watching him.”

According to UGA, Beckham will be the fourth Bulldog to take the field for a major league team this year, joining Jeff Keppinger (Astros), Clint Sammons (Braves) and Mitchell Boggs (Cardinals).

More Bulldogs will start down the path to the big leagues next Tuesday June 9th when the 2009 MLB draft gets underway.

(As an aside, Braves fans will recognize the player Beckham is replacing on the Sox roster: Wilson Betemit.)

There’s not much to add to the discussion about Rex Robinson’s analysis of Georgia’s kickoff woes. He knows what he’s talking about, and he does a good job of laying out the rules changes that make touchbacks so infrequent. We know that, with one exception, SEC kickers couldn’t get a touchback even 15% of the time last year. So it’s correct to assume that you’re going to be covering your kicks more often than not.

Here’s where the Bulldogs ranked among the SEC in kickoff coverage over the past few seasons:

02: 4th
03: 6th – first year after Kirouac
04: 3rd (though the stats here seem incomplete)
05: 4th
06: 9th
07: 9th
08: 11th

If you listen to a lot of fans, the directional kick has been the scourge of Georgia football since Richt and Fabris took over in 2001. For the first several years, it was actually pretty effective at least in the coverage unit’s place among the SEC.

Obviously something’s been different since 2006, and as Robinson notes, the rule change from a 2-inch tee to a 1-inch tee went into effect that year. Does that explain the drop to the bottom half of the conference rankings? Possibly. It’s also possible that the kickers (Bailey, Coutu, Walsh) over that time haven’t been the best at kickoffs.

The staff is hedging towards the belief that maybe it *is* the kicker. They’ve used a valuable scholarship to add a third scholarship kicker solely for what he can bring to the table on kickoffs. Will he reverse the trend that’s headed downward since the shorter tee was introduced?

But is it all about the kicker or even the hated directional kicks? We talked about this during last season. Plenty of attention has been paid, thanks to Robinson’s post, to the actual kicking, but not much has been said about the makeup of the 10 guys heading downfield to get to the returner. If you want your difference between Georgia and the better coverage units, look at the field position where we first engaged the blockers.

If the kick coverage improves this year, I expect a good bit of the improvement will come from a larger and (hopefully) healthier pool of younger defensive players. It’s a point Richt made certain to emphasize during the Road Tour. If you look down the roster at the back seven positions on defense, the number of players unavailable last year due to injury or redshirting could almost make up a coverage team of their own. Robinson, Rambo, Dewberry, Pugh, Commings, and Banks are just a few who could give the unit a shot in the arm this year. Even true freshmen like Branden Smith could help, and I expect you’ll see them out there.

Both the softball and baseball teams wrapped up their seasons on Sunday, but the tone with which the seasons ended couldn’t have been more different.

The softball team fell 9-3 on Sunday night to Washington, assuring the Huskies of a spot in the championship series against Florida and ending an exhausting run of four games over two days for Georgia. Along the way the Dawgs eliminated Missouri, upset Big 10 champ Michigan, and pushed a strong Washington team to the brink of elimination by lighting up one of the best pitchers in the game.

Though the two departing seniors were important pieces of the team, the story you couldn’t avoid over the weekend was that everyone else will be back for at least two more years. Finding a new pitching ace will be critical to the team’s future, but the powerful offense will be more or less intact.

All that is no guarantee that the team will be able to go as far or even deeper in the coming years, but you’ve got to like their chances. There’s no question though the Georgia softball is firmly on the national map now, and the underclassmen have a taste of what it will take to win it all.

At the very least, Georgia softball won themselves a lot of new fans from the Super Regional comebacks through the WCWS run. I’m one of them. They were entertaining to watch, played loose even under the incredible pressure of the moment, and love playing for Georgia – how can you not like a player who knows the significance of wearing #34 at Georgia? Names like Schnake, Schlopy, Hesson, and Goler were on the radar of even the football-only crowd this weekend, and they’ll have a lot more people tuning in to see how they follow it up next year.

The outlook was far less sunny for the baseball team after it fell to Ohio State 13-6 in the elimination game. First was the embarassment of losing to a team that set records for futility its two regional losses. But more troubling was the way in which Georgia lost the game. Three errors. Baserunning blunders. Less-than-acceptable effort from an upperclassman starter. I guess you can credit Ohio State for not collapsing after falling behind 5-0 to a team that routed them on Friday, but the loss is as much on Georgia as it is for the Buckeyes rising to the occasion.

Leadership was a frequent scapegoat in the many autopsies of the 2008 football season, and it sounds as if some of the same themes are coming up around the baseball team. Coach Perno has always been frank and direct with his thoughts, but the postgame comments after Sunday’s loss were fascinating in terms of what wasn’t held back.

During the team’s 2007 CWS run, the team certainly leaned on veterans Beckham, Peisel, and Fields. When players like Massanari, Lewis, Cerione, Poythress, and Weaver turned it up in the postseason, the result was a solid team built for a deep run. But absent those 2007 stars, the returning veterans couldn’t carry the team down the stretch and into the postseason.

Will next year continue the even-year success that Georgia has enjoyed this decade? Certainly there’s a strong core of rising sophomores returning, and there’s another strong recruiting class coming in (subject to the draft of course). But who will be considered the leaders of the team? Poythress is surely going to be drafted. Cerione will be a senior, but can a guy who “just can’t handle his emotions” (according to Perno) be looked to as a leader? After he was pulled from the game and Perno’s postgame comments which accused Cerione of “jump(ing) into the fence just to jump into the fence”, part of me wondered if Cerione had played his last game at Georgia. Joey Lewis looks to be the sole everyday player who you’d feel comfortable about as a senior leader, and he might be drafted too.

David Ching has some thoughts and additional information about next year’s roster. Pitching (and especially the bullpen) is a whole other can of worms. McRee’s disappointing season might make him a less-attractive draft pick this year, but can he find the control to go with his pro-quality stuff and emerge as the ace? Can Weaver shake off a woeful end to the season and reestablish himself as the go-to guy in the bullpen?

per official UGA release…

The Georgia-Oklahoma State football game in Stillwater on Saturday, Sept. 5, will be televised by ABC TV with airtime set for 3:30 p.m. ET.

This will be Georgia’s 69h appearance on ABC all time. Georgia’s all-time record on ABC is 42-24-2.

The Georgia football program announced today that sophomore safety John Knox will be transferring to Georgia Military College for “academic considerations.”

Knox played in 12 games as a redshirt freshman and only recorded 8 tackles, but he was going to be counted on to make a bigger contribution this year as a hard hitter pushing Georgia’s starting safeties. He started against Tech last year as a response to the option, and he had four tackles and even added a reception at G-Day this year.

A transfer to GMC sometimes leads to a return to Athens, but not many of those were academic transfers. Knox was a borderline qualifier to begin with out of HS, and the demands of academic life at Georgia might have proved too much to handle.

Hi. I’m Sanford Stadium.

You visit me six or seven times a year, and I’ve caught you driving past me on the bridge more than once just to peek inside. I’m old, but I’ve aged well and kept up with the times. Your parents or grandparents might have even introduced us.

I don’t mean to brag, but, well, I’m kind of a big deal among college football stadiums. There aren’t many bigger. My symmetrical architecture is as classic as the city I call home. (Oh, I know the new upper deck throws off the symmetry, but who doesn’t get a little out of shape as we get older?) Playing “Between the Hedges” means only one thing to college football fans. ESPN’s Doug Ward wrote,

Sanford could not have found a more idyllic setting for a college stadium; it sits squarely in the middle of Georgia’s campus, as if it were the university’s beating heart.

I’m blushing. But I’m empty for the next 106 days or so without much to do but read the news, and I have to admit I’m feeling a little jealous and unappreciated this morning.

I know the Georgia Dome is attractive, especially after its recent makeover to replace the color scheme with good ol’ red and black. There are plenty of days this time of year I wouldn’t mind some air conditioning myself. A lot of teams seem to want to play there these days, and I really hope the Dawgs get a game there in early December. I could use some more SEC championship bling.

If there’s one gripe I have, it’s that I don’t get to host a lot of interesting nonconference games. Sure, there’s been the occasional Clemson or even BYU, and I’m looking forward to seeing Arizona State this year. Yale was cool back in the day. But those are few and far between, and it’s usually the same old Directional Louisiana or cupcake teams to open the season. You and I know there’s nothing better than the UGA campus on a fall day with a big late-afternoon or night game in town.

So when I read talk about Georgia and North Carolina playing in the Dome, I have to wonder what it has that I don’t. A neutral game in Atlanta would split the tickets for a smaller stadium, so over 10,000 of my own season ticket holders would either have to scalp or stay home. Teams want to play in Atlanta to help their recruiting in Georgia, but you have an advantage they don’t. You can’t host recruits at the Dome. When Georgia plays a game here at Sanford you get to show off the whole package – stadium and all – to this state’s prospects.

Is it the home-and-home thing? I don’t mind – really! I can appreciate a good-looking stadium, and Kenan Stadium – in its own way – is supposed to be a great place to catch a game too.

Somehow the coaches’ poll survived for years without transparency, and I imagine that it’s not exactly going to be the Wild West doomsday scenario now that the transparency has been taken away. It’s not a move in the right direction of course, but it’s not the end of the world either. If bias is a concern, and it probably should be, maybe the two highest and lowest votes for each team could be discarded.

Anyway, the coaches’ poll isn’t the only imperfection among the BCS components. The Harris poll has its own problems, and the various computer polls operate under their own shroud of obscurity. The idea of a selection committee to seed the BCS has been floated before, and that might be the best solution to put polls back into the trivial role they play in other sports. A selection committee would have its own affiliations and biases of course, but they’d at least be sorting out the teams face-to-face.

I understand why Mike Slive wants the SEC football coaches to play nice. His product is the SEC, and real dollars are at stake these days. But as much as “we’re all in this together,” the livelihood of those 12 coaches depends on their ability to outperform the other 11. The pressure to find and exploit an advantage is tremendous, and self-preservation can be a powerful motivator. Slive’s threat of a fine might drive the sniping out of the public eye, but it will just continue to simmer underneath the surface in the underworld of recruiting where negative recruiting is a way of life.

I kind of liked having the tension bubble up into the public eye. Of course it was good fodder for fans, but on a more serious level a peer calling out another coach brought to light some of the tactics and outrageous behavior that goes on in recruiting and elsewhere behind the scenes. If transparency is good for the polls, it can also counter and shame coaches behaving badly. The “pumping gas” row was a great example – it forced a coach out from the shadows to address and defend his recruiting methods in a way the media never could. Those derogatory comments will still be made to recruits, but the ability to confront something like that in a direct way has been diminished.

If there’s one lesson from this Memphis cheating scandal (other than Calipari’s ability to stay one step ahead of trouble), it’s the absolute mockery made of the one-and-done rule. In order to become eligible and get that one year of college at a high-profile program, Rose allegedly not only had someone take his SAT but also had grades changed at his Chicago high school. It might be to the detriment of the college game, but these one-and-done guys have no business in college, and it’s ridiculous that the NCAA – with all of its PR about the “student-athlete” – would be a party to it. Let them go pro, head to Europe, or commit to a college for three years.

Every time I see an article about a “Rooney Rule” coming to college sports, I ask myself, “don’t these colleges already have hiring procedures in place?” Our institutions of higher learning pride themselves on their diverse faculty and student bodies. If anything, they’re sometimes criticized for going too far in the interests of promoting diversity. So to me this seems like an issue of capitulation on the part of college administrators. If diversity in the coaching ranks is a priority, administrators should hold their athletic departments responsible for following the same hiring process as the academic side where you hear much less complaining about a lack of minority representation. Or maybe it’s easier to wait for action to be taken at the conference or NCAA level so that the administration doesn’t run the risk of being seen as meddling in athletics.

It’s been a good week for Knowshon Moreno. The Broncos’ crowded backfield was culled by one when J.J. Arrington failed a physical and was released. But the highlight of his week was winning the touchdown celebration competition at the Upper Deck 2009 NFL Rookie Premiere Photo Shoot.

Video highlights from the competition are below. Stafford and Massaquoi and about a dozen other rookies also make appearances. It’s worth it just to see Stephen McGee’s awkwardness.

But what else would you expect from the man who made celebrating an art form at Georgia…

Welcome to the countdown…it’ll be here before you know it!

I’ve said that the Georgia Dome offers very little to Georgia even when it comes to the Georgia-Florida game. But Mark Richt has come up with the only scenario I’d go for to bring a regular season Georgia game to the Dome: if the opponent is willing to sacrifice a home game.

“We have a neutral site game (against Florida) already, so every other year we’re losing a home game,” Richt said. “If you have another neutral site situation, you’re losing another home game, and I don’t think we should trade a home game for a game in the Dome. But if they want to trade a home game to play in Atlanta, that would be great for us.”

That sounds like exactly the right approach. And it’s not without precedent – even for conference games.

After learning that Georgia wouldn’t host a regional in this year’s NCAA baseball tournament, the only question was the destination. Georgia will be the #2 seed in the Tallahassee regional hosted of course by #1 seed FSU. #4 seed Marist and #3 seed Ohio State are the other teams taking part in the regional. Georgia will open play against Ohio State at noon on Friday (ESPNU).

If the Dawgs emerge from the Tallahassee Regional, the bracket has them playing the winner of the Oklahoma regional (hosted by the Sooners if they win their regional).

Georgia and FSU have played twice this decade in the postseason. FSU was sent to Athens for the 2006 regionals. The Seminoles beat Georgia 6-4 in a winner’s bracket game, and Georgia had to win two straight over the ‘Noles to advance. Georgia handled FSU 7-1 in the second game the Bulldogs played on Sunday, and they wrapped up the regional with a tight 3-2 win on Monday night thanks in part to a great pitching performance by Trevor Holder.

The most infamous series between the two teams was the 2001 Super Regional in Athens. Georgia advanced to their first College World Series since the 1990 title season, but the big story of the weekend was the arrival of Kudzu Hill and the Georgia crowd as a real advantage for the Diamond Dawgs. FSU coach Mike Martin commented,

”Georgia deserved to win. They played outstanding. The atmosphere was unbelievable. This environment was as tough as I’ve seen in 22 years of coaching. We don’t ever want to come here again.”

Georgia’s homefield advantage came through over the Noles again in 2006, but they’ll need to find their own motivation heading into a tough place to play at Tallahassee. The Seminoles were the top seed of the ACC tournament last week, but they fell to Virginia in the championship game, possibly costing the ‘Noles a national seed. FSU was 42-16 on the year and ranked #12 by Baseball America entering the postseason.

The Dawgs split a pair of games in Tallahassee in 2008.

The Dawgs weren’t one of the top eight national seeds of course, but the SEC is still well-represented among the national seeds:

1. Texas
2. Cal State Fullerton
3. LSU
4. North Carolina
5. Arizona State
6. UC Irvine
7. Oklahoma
8. Florida

Eight SEC teams received bids: LSU, Florida, Ole Miss, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, and Vanderbilt.

It was a rough start for the softball team in the opening game of the Super Regional. The starting pitcher struggled with control and had to be replaced in the first inning. Ohio State was limited to a single run, but they added three more on a 3-run home run in the 3rd. A 4-0 deficit is usually trouble at this level of softball, but the host Bulldogs exploded for five runs in the 5th and added an insurance run in the 6th for a 6-4 win.

Georgia and Ohio State will play again at 4:30 on Friday afternoon (ESPN2) in Athens. If Georgia wins, the Super Regional is over, and it’s on to Oklahoma City and the WCWS for the first time in program history. If Ohio State wins, the two teams will turn around and play a deciding game around 6:30.

Thanks to an extra-inning win, the Diamond Dawgs will have plenty of time to tune in to the softball games if they wish. Georgia earned a valuable day off with a tight 2-1 win over Arkansas, and they advance through the winner’s bracket into Saturday’s semifinal.

The game was a showcase of pitching and defense. Bulldog starter Trevor Holder was masterful in his hometown. Holder allowed just three hits through eight innings and at one point retired 15 batters in a row. With Georgia up 1-0, Holder was given the chance to close out the game in the 9th but allowed a pair of cheap singles and was replaced by closer Dean Weaver. Weaver inherited runners at first and third with no one out and retired the next three batters, but a long flyout was enough to plate the tying run.

Georgia couldn’t answer in the bottom of the 9th, and Weaver got out of a little trouble in the top of the 10th. The bottom of the 10th got off to a positive start with a Cerione single. Cerione advanced to third on a Poythress double, and Massanari was intentionally walked to get to Joey Lewis who had struggled so far in Hoover.

Lewis needed to make contact of some kind, and he delivered with a sharp grounder that was fielded by the third baseman. The throw home was wide though, and Cerione scored the winning run.

Though the final play earned Georgia the win, it was very nearly a disastrous blown call that would have added some controversy to the outcome. After spearing Lewis’s grounder, replays showed that the Arkansas third baseman touched third base with his throwing hand while the ball was in his glove. That should have retired Poythress on the force at third but removed the force on Cerione running home. The Arkansas catcher should have been required to tag Cerione. But the call at home plate seemed to be that the catcher’s foot was pulled off the plate. That’s only a call you make if you believe the force was still in effect at home. Cerione was safe regardless; the catcher was pulled off the plate, and no tag was applied. It would have been interesting though to see how the call was handled if the catcher was able to keep his foot on the plate – I think everyone from the umps to the TV broadcast missed the 3B touching the bag.

Most Bulldog hitters struggled against the Arkansas pitching, but the bright spot was Rich Poythress going 3-for-5. Poythress has seen his average drop by nearly 50 points over the last month to “only” .378, and it hasn’t helped the struggling Bulldogs that their biggest bat was also slumping. Hopefully he can keep this up and be the catalyst that sparks a run through the postseason. Georgia’s experienced players from last season’s amazing postseason came through in the 10th with Cerione’s leadoff hit, Poythress’s big double, and Lewis’s hot shot that won the game.

Georgia gets the day off on Friday waiting on any one of three teams to emerge from the loser’s bracket. They’ll play at 2:30 ET on Saturday with the game televised by Fox Sports South. If they win that game, they’re on to Sunday’s championship game. If not, they’ll play the same team again in a rubber game Saturday evening.

The athletic board today approved almost $40 million to begin expansion of the Butts-Mehre facility this summer. The project could take as long as two years to complete.

For preliminary plans of the expansion, download this PDF that the Georgia Sports Blog posted last year. What’s Georgia going to get for $40 million?

A new 12,000 square foot strength and conditioning area, a training room of 8,500 square feet, new football coaches offices and a multipurpose room with a turf field that will be used for both drills and walk-throughs by the football team and be converted for receptions and other hosting functions.

To be clear – this is not an indoor practice facility. If you look at the plans, the “turf field” described above isn’t but about 20-25 yards deep. It’ll just be an area where the team can duck inside on a bad weather day and still get something done. As Marc Weiszer reported in early 2008, any attempt a proper indoor practice facility would likely happen down the road at the sports complex on South Milledge Avenue beyond the bypass. We’ve known for some time that Coach Richt prioritized this project above an indoor practice facility, and Damon Evans indicated that other projects will still maintain priority over an indoor facility.

The biggest impact of this expansion will be in the additional weight room / training / conditioning / rehab areas. The added space for sports medicine will be very welcome.

Funding for the project is expected to come from a mix of private donations and new debt. The Athletic Association will reach into its deep pockets to get the project underway, and they’ll be repaid as the private donations come in. It’s noteworthy that even in these tough times the Athletic Association plans an 11.2% increase in revenue for the 2010 fiscal year. Hartman Fund contributions are down a few million dollars, but income from the new SEC television deal will more than cover the projected drop in donations.

No word yet on the biggest question – what’s the temperature setting going to be for the turf practice space?

Last year I called the SEC baseball tournament the world’s most meaningless playoff. Sure enough, an early exit had zero impact on Georgia’s national seed. Can you name another postseason event where the top four seeds losing on the first day is just a nice bit of trivia instead of big news?

Georgia was one of the bottom four seeds that emerged from Wednesday with a win, and they’ll face Arkansas on Thursday evening. Credit Cerione with a big game, and it was encouraging to see the bullpen hold the lead. It’s still tough to find meaning in the tournament for Georgia – their spot in the NCAA tournament is pretty much set, and it’s unlikely that a tournament championship would put them back in contention to host a regional, much less earn a national seed.

But a good showing in Hoover is more important than usual for a few reasons. First, the Diamond Dawgs are still seeking their first SEC Tournament title. That would be nice to pick up in a year in which they faded from the race for the regular season championship. Bigger though is the need to get back into the mindset of winning heading into the NCAA tournament. Georgia finished the year on shaky ground and confidence waning. Even the hitting that carried the team for most of the year faded down the stretch. The team needs a few wins in a big way, and getting them with a tournament title at stake is a nice bonus. It might also get them into a more favorable regional if they are forced to hit the road.