Prior to Alabama’s game on Saturday against UL-Monroe:

Alabama leading receiver DJ Hall has been suspended for today’s game against Louisiana-Monroe.
Hall was benched by coach Nick Saban because of a violation of team policy, according to football SID Jeff Purinton.

With the score 14-14 at halftime…

Alabama leading receiver DJ Hall, who was said to have been suspended for today’s game, started the second half for the Tide.

Poetic justice: Alabama loses to Louisiana Monroe, at home.

One’s mind drifts back to the Sept. 22nd ESPN Gameday appearance in Tuscaloosa and all of the signs referencing Auburn’s 1-2 start. “Auburn : it could be worse, (signed) ND.” Bama’s going to have to have one hell of a bounceback just to reach “Saban”-and-five.

Engadget HD reports today that nearly half of Americans would rather watch sports in HD than attend the games.

(In) a recent survey commissioned by Motorola, some 45-percent of Americans would prefer to watch collegiate / professional football games on an HDTV rather than attending — which certainly mirrors the conclusions drawn by a similar survey conducted earlier this year. Furthermore, only 32-percent of those questioned stated that they outright preferred live matches to those shown in HD, while the other segment was apparently indifferent.

Nothing beats the gameday experience for me, but even a fanatic like me can see the appeal of staying home. Football in HD is incredible. Ticket prices keep rising, parking is increasingly difficult to find and more expensive, and you’re out in the elements squeezed in next to God knows who. When you add up the cost of a Hartman Fund donation, tickets, travel, and tailgate expenses over a season, the price tag of a nice HDTV rig isn’t that unreasonable.

I don’t see myself missing any home games anytime soon, but the availability of HD sure did make skipping a road game or two a lot less painful this year.

This weekend’s final home game of the season (is it that time already?) is our annual opportunity to recognize and honor the senior class. Since 2004, Georgia is 37-11 with an SEC title. They have beaten every other SEC team. While the 2002-2005 group still sets the standard these days, it’s still been a very good and successful run for this senior class.

Coach Richt has requested that fans be in their seats 20 minutes before the game on Saturday. It’s kind of sad to have to remind people to be on time and in red, but this week’s Senior Day deserves the extra attention. It’s our last time to enter the shrine until next year, and who doesn’t want to stretch that experience out until the last postgame note from the Redcoats echos around the stadium?

This has been a particularly interesting group of seniors. It’s relatively small, numbers-wise. There aren’t many NFL draft picks among the class. Many of the team’s stars are younger players. Some of the better seniors like Fernando Velasco and Brandon Coutu play positions that are usually out of the spotlight.

On the other hand, you can’t tell the story of this season without acknowledging some very big senior contributions. For some, like Thomas Brown and Sean Bailey, it’s the story of potential and promise realized. For others like Marcus Howard, Kelin Johnson, and Mikey Henderson, this season is about the payoff at the end of a long career of hard work. Velasco’s stabilizing presence anchoring the young offensive line hasn’t received nearly enough billing.

This season also provides some stark reminders that the journey isn’t always smooth or linear with a Hollywood ending. Kregg Lumpkin played well since his freshman season but has battled injuries right up to the end. Brandon Miller was one of the nation’s top defensive prospects but has spent much of his career fighting for playing time.

The senior class has stepped back into the public eye for their role in last week’s black-out. They handled the tough job of keeping the secret with which Richt trusted them back during the summer. Their request early last week got the black-out rolling. But in a way, it might be something that the seniors didn’t do that became one of the biggest developments during this season.

Fans can point to several factors in Georgia’s turnaround during the course of this season, but most will agree with (in no particular order) 1) an improved offensive line, 2) the emergence of Moreno, 3) Stafford becoming more consistent down the field, and 4) Richt’s unprecedented dip into the motivational bag of tricks.

Richt’s breaking point came in Knoxville,

On Oct. 6, in the closing seconds of a 35-14 loss at Tennessee, Richt stood on the sideline at Neyland Stadium and said to himself, "Never again." He never wanted to experience that lack of emotion and energy in a game. So he made a conscious effort to emote those qualities himself from that point forward.

Sensing a vacuum, Richt stepped into a role that had previously been the domain of players. Jon Stinchcomb’s tirade at halftime of the 2002 Auburn game is perhaps the clearest example. D.J. Shockley was another player who exuded presence and was a natural leader as a senior. This time, Richt took it upon himself to be the catalyst for change, and now the team looks to him. As a player said at halftime during the Florida game, "Coach, you are the key. You have got to keep it going."

It’s no condemnation of the seniors to talk about a void of leadership. Many of them were (and still are) individually fighting for places on the depth chart, and that has to come before someone can worry about lifting up teammates. The personality traits and presence it takes to push a team of highly-skilled peers has nothing to do with football skills or quality of character. The point here is that a coach has to play to his team’s strengths and adapt to its weaknesses. As Richt’s role in the past month has shown, evaluating those strengths and weaknesses goes far beyond athletic ability.

It would have been easy for Richt to stay the course, and many of us (myself included) would have pulled out his resume to defend him and trust that somehow things would work out. He could have also placed the burden on the players and challenged one of them to be responsible for rallying the team. Instead he took responsibility for becoming the motivational focus for the team.

It’s still a work in progress and a learning process for Richt. After a month of "cutting loose," to use his term, the pendulum might be swinging back in certain areas. For instance, Richt has evaluated his approach to the officials:

Since I’ve kinda cut loose a little bit in some areas, I cut loose a little bit in that area. I probably went a little overboard on that, so I’ve just been convicted (?) that I don’t need to do that anymore, so I will be strictly polite and gentlemanly from here on out….If I do talk to (the officials), it’ll be in the proper tone and I’m just gonna calm down on the official thing.

As Richt refines his personal intensity and motivational approach, there will also be the opportunity for players to take some of the responsibility back on themselves. There is no shortage of young players who will be returning in meaningful roles next year. Stafford will be an upperclassmen, and it will be the third year in the program for players like Moreno and Rashad Jones.

But even if the load shifts back onto team leaders in the coming seasons, hopefully the transformation of Richt will have some lasting effects. "It is just a lot more enjoyable being around here," said Sean Bailey. That’s true not only on the practice field but also in the stands. The Munson-driven worry and negativity is loosening up, and Georgia games are fun. Recruits see Athens as the place to be. I totally see Richt’s reasons for pulling back in certain areas like officiating, but there have been a lot of things worth keeping from this experience.

How has gameday traffic been for you this season?

There was a letter in the ABH earlier this week complaining about conditions after the Auburn game, and it’s the first I had heard of really bad post-game traffic this year.

I’ll admit straight up that I’m rarely affected by traffic. We’re usually in Athens before 9 a.m. and often leave several hours after the game or even later in the evening. We’re also on the downtown side of things, so we’re never dealing with the crowds on East Campus.

I usually gauge the traffic by the time it takes my wife to navigate from her family over at the Georgia Center to our tailgate downtown. To be honest, it hasn’t seemed that bad this year. Even last weekend after the Auburn game we had clear sailing through and out of town just a couple of hours after the game ended.

For those of you with a little more urgency getting in and out of town, how has it been? I’m especially interested in feedback about East Campus and the impact of the new direct on-ramp to the bypass.

Earlier today I was reading Blutarsky’s comments about the whole Michigan/journalism/blogs flap. When you start thinking about some of the things that separate the pros from the unshaven masses, several things come to mind. Thoroughness when it comes to getting the story is one of them. For example…

ESPN’s Pat Forde turns to the people for help this week,

Putting Out An APB For …
… Former Georgia quarterback Eric Zeier (37), who was the Bulldogs’ starting QB for approximately seven years in the 1990s. (Unfortunately none of it was done in the very cool black uniforms coach Mark Richt trotted out against Auburn Saturday. Props to that move from the suddenly motivation-stoked Richt.) Anyone with information on the whereabouts of the Bulldogs’ second-leading career passer, please apprise The Dash.

Now I don’t want to get on Forde’s case too hard because, after all, he’s giving props to the Dawgs, Mark Richt, and Eric Zeier, and we appreciate it.

But still. Google is your friend, Pat. Zeier’s not exactly Jake Scott when it comes to reclusiveness.

(h/t CFR)

I’ve always wondered what it would be like if an SEC team played a true northern football power that took its geographical identity as personally as we do in the South. It might go something like this.

Ordinarily Kansas vs. Missouri is an interesting basketball game or a who-cares football game. Not this year. And with that extra attention, fans of the two schools are going just a little overboard.

Kansas and Missouri are trading Civil War (or WBTS if you please) insults prior to their game that dig at tensions going back nearly 150 years to the days of abolition and states’ rights and are invoking the names of such notorious fighting men as John Brown and William Quantrill.

Depending on the outcome of this game, the folks over at Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC are getting a little nervous. It’s a good thing Gettysburg College is Division III.

The star offensive line prospect from Florida says he has “always been a Cane” but is burning bridges with potential teammates before he even announces his college choice.

Patchan took in Miami’s embarrassing loss to Virginia on Saturday and is ready to make some changes.

“They played terribly,” he said. “That was extremely tough to watch. Guys after the game – there’s too many guys that just it doesn’t bother them that they lost the game. There’s too many guys now at the U that ‘It’s okay we lost, well what am I going to do tonight?’ Like it doesn’t mean anything. They need to get rid of those type of guys.”

The high school student / coach / talent scout continues his evaluation:

“Half those guys in Miami uniforms shouldn’t be there. They physically don’t cut it. A lot of those guys were wasted scholarships. That was Miami’s fault in recruiting. You can’t take a guy who doesn’t know how to play football and ask him to do things that are expected out of University of Miami players.”

On second thought, maybe Patchan is perfect for Miami. I’m sure team chemistry would only improve with him in the locker room.

Coach Richt talked yesterday about the value of bulletin board material (h/t Ching):

Oh we try, yeah. Oh yeah. We’re always looking for something good that can get guys excited or mad or whatever.

Auburn linebacker Quentin Groves did his part this week, discussing Auburn’s tradition of ripping off pieces of Georgia’s hedges after a win in Athens.

"Oh yeah, we want to tear down those hedges."

That news earned a "Golly!" from Richt when he learned of it at his Thursday press conference.

Some of the players are just getting the memo.

By Tuesday afternoon, the idea of the fan “blackout” was filtering down to the rest of the team. Redshirt freshman running back Knowshon Moreno was out of the loop on the blackout and first heard about it when a mob of reporters asked him about it after Richt’s announcement.

Though the players interviewed considered it a good idea, it hardly seemed top-of-mind for most of them. Just as well, as Auburn is having a very intense week of practice, and the Dawgs need to have their focus on job #1. Let the fans be the ones to lose their heads over this “boring” (as Ching put it) blackout story.

Uga’s all set.

I’ve made no secret of my feelings about (insert color)-outs here. I am convinced that some of Kansas’ thrashing of Nebraska last weekend was residual from Nebraska’s disastrous "red-out" for a basketball game against the Jayhawks last season.

Still, when the coaches and players request that Georgia fans wear black this weekend, it’s a bit different than some grass-roots Facebook group. I think the request is important for two reasons:

• By making a public request, the team is sending a message to the fans that the 12th man is really needed in a game like this. Whatever your choice of attire, the team is looking to feed off the crowd in this game.
• Imagine the letdown among the players if this request is ignored. Nothing like heading into a pivotal game knowing that the fans are too uptight or too attached to their lucky red shirt to let loose for one game.

If the Florida celebration and the whole Soulja Boy thing has done anything this year, it’s to remind us and the team that this is all supposed to be fun. So South Carolina got the crap kicked out of them at their black-out. So it’s gimmicky. Who the hell cares? The win in Jacksonville in my eyes gave the team the right to ask something like this.

I’ve decided to go with the team on this one. Just one request of my own to the players:

Do your part. Don’t make us look like South Carolina fans.

UPDATE: "stevenmichael22" on the DawgVent did a great job conceptualizing what a black jersey might look like with the rest of the uniform. Not bad, not bad.

ESPN’s Colin Cowherd will broadcast his nationally syndicated radio show from the Tate Center on Friday. The show will air from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Credit to ladyQdawg on the DawgVent

The AJC ran an article on Wednesday detailing how valuable Georgia Tech considers its Thursday night ESPN appearances.

“It’s just like Monday Night Football in the NFL,” Yellow Jackets coach Chan Gailey said. “You do get the national stage.”

A Thursday night game at Bobby Dodd Stadium is electric,” (Giff) Smith said. “It definitely helps us in recruiting. The atmosphere is what it’s all about.”

After Tech’s most recent Thursday night game, a 27-3 loss to Virginia Tech last night, Tech fans are probably thinking less about the electric atmosphere and more about the electric chair for Chan Gailey.

While the national stage gives you the opportunity to showcase your program, the exposure can also turn on you.  Last night ESPN viewers were treated by the home team to a non-sellout, jerseys stolen from the visitors locker room, a turnover fest, boos, and a stadium that started emptying in the third quarter.

Things got so bad that even the ESPN crew  got into the act of ragging on the Yellow Jackets.  Did you know that QB Taylor Bennett dressed up as Tinky Winky from the Teletubbies for Halloween?  Me neither.  But thanks to Chris Fowler and the rest of the crew, we do now.  As Bennett’s night descended into a living hell, Fowler and company became more and more relentless with the Tinky Winky references.  (Did Fowler really imply something about his state of mind when he watched the Teletubbies?)

The night ended with a still shot of the Teletubbies while the Georgia Tech fight song played over it.  On this night on this “national stage” in an atmosphere that challenged touching a door knob for electricity, Tech ended up being humiliated and mocked.  They are now 9-and-11 under Thursday Night Lights.

The "right or wrong" question about Georgia’s unsportsmanlike celebration has played itself out. It happened, it worked, and any aftermath will be solely psychological now that no additional discipline is forthcoming.

The notion that Georgia will somehow be seen as a classless program or that Richt’s reputation will be damaged is just silly. As Chuck noted here the other day, "If class were a change jar, then Richt just spent a quarter out of his Duck Tales size swimming vault." If anything, it’s making people finally talk about Mark Richt the football coach. Pundits crank out list after list of the top coaches in the SEC and across the nation, and Richt is more often than not passed over for flashier, though not always more successful, options.

It is noteworthy though to see how a trio of former quarterbacks saw the incident. CBS’s Gary Danielson praised the celebration immediately. Eric Zeier also gushed from the broadcast booth. Kirk Herbstreit likewise had a positive reaction on Atlanta radio. Those three are all veterans of big-time football who recognized exactly what Richt’s motivation was. Meanwhile, the loudest outcries have come from those with – how shall we put it – a little less personal experience with the motivational ups and downs of a college football team.

2-15 was a ridiculous stat for a program like Georgia. Even given Florida’s success over the past 17 years, there was no logical explanation for such a one-sided series. Richt and the team did something equally ridiculous and illogical to address it. I won’t go so far as to say that the past 17 years have been erased, but I suspect that our approach to Jacksonville will be much different in the future than the pucker-fest it has been recently.

What I like most about the ongoing controversy is how Georgia has set the discussion. Florida is responding to Georgia for once. When we saw Meyer and a few Gator players jumping around before the next kickoff trying to show how hyped they were, it was clear that Richt’s tactic had worked. The Gators are a good team and responded immediately on the scoreboard, but Georgia had set the bar for intensity for the rest of the game.

In fact, Georgia’s attitude improvement didn’t start with the celebration. They came out of the locker room with it. The defense sacked Tebow on the opening play. Even after getting burned on 3rd-and-long they kept coming, and Rod Battle caused a rare Florida turnover. Then the offense ran it right at Florida’s highly-ranked rushing defense for nine consecutive plays and didn’t stop until they reached the end zone. The celebration was the most memorable expression of Georgia’s approach to the game, but the Dawgs carried that attitude before and well after the celebration.

Go Gators!

This was Ralphie beating up Scut Farkus. Yes, we know that fighting is wrong. Sometimes you have to do something extreme and unexpected to bring about change. Ralphie stood up to the bully, turned the tables on him, didn’t get killed by his father for it, and the neighborhood dynamics were never the same.

It’s a certainty that the celebration will be agenda item #1 in Jacksonville next year, and that will be a welcome change from hearing about 3-15. The Dawgs have not won consecutive games in this series in nearly 20 years, and that will likely be the storyline heading into that game. Georgia stood up to Florida in this year’s win, and next year’s job will be to begin turning the tide of the series. It won’t be easy immediately after playing at LSU, but that’s life in the SEC.

UPDATE: Tony Barnhart gets the reaction of several coaches and former coaches across the country. It’s especially interesting to hear the nearly unanimous support from the former coaches who don’t have to play politics with their own fans. Add in the opinions of the former quarterbacks named above, and it doesn’t seem to be much of an issue in the football community.

To understand the outrage of Colorado Rockies fans today, picture this scenario:

• The Dawgs make a rare appearance in the national title game. (I know…stay with me.)
• Tens of thousands of tickets are made available by the University to the general public with no priority system. First come, first served.
• The tickets will only be distributed online through a single outlet.
• There are no alternate plans for ticket sales if something goes wrong with online sales.
• When the sale begins, the website is brought to a halt after 8.5 million hits in the first 90 minutes. Only a few hundred tickets are actually sold due to the heavy traffic.
• Georgia officials suspend the sale while they go back to the drawing board. Tens of thousands of tickets remain unsold and in limbo.

I think that the march on Athens would make what’s going on in Denver seem like a pep rally. Though this is a baseball story, I’ve found that online ticket sales have been hit or miss for college sports too. Paciolan, the company involved in the Rockies story, also manages the Georgia Tech system. If you’ve ever bought a football three-pack or Super Regional tickets through Tech, you’ve likely experienced how the Paciolan system saps precious minutes from your life moving from screen to screen. When I read that they were behind the Colorado problems, it all made sense.

There are lots of ways to enjoy the bye week. I’ll be watching games at home and getting things in order for next week’s trip to the WLOCP. What will you be doing with the time?

If you’re stuck looking for something to do, why not stencil your favorite team’s logo on your lawn using professional-grade materials from the same people who paint the real thing?

Decorate your yard with the official logo of your favorite college team. Stencil kits come with four cans of World Class aerosol field marking paint in your school’s colors.

The product is currently available only for Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma & Tennessee. Of course it is – there are only about three other fan bases (all in the SEC) who are bat-$#%* crazy enough to buy something like this.

PS…bonus points to this company for the use of "Georgia Tech University".