I wrote just a few posts below that “our glee over a low attrition forecast has to be tempered with the acceptance of the likely offseason suspension or two.”

As it turns out, it didn’t even take the weekend to get to the “or two” mark.  In separate incidents, defensive back Donavon Baldwin and fullback Fred Munzenmaier were arrested and will be suspended for at least the season opener against Georgia Southern.

Because both incidents were alcohol-related, a second offense down the road could result in a semester-long suspension from the University; that was the punishment for Akeem Hebron for a second alcohol-related arrest while on University probation for his first offense.

Both arrests have an element that makes it a bit tougher to shrug them off.  Baldwin was arrested for DUI, always a serious thing.  Munzenmaier allegedly decided in his late-night drunken stroll (in sub-freezing temperatures) to pop off at the Athens Clarke-County officer and accused the APD of having it in for athletes.  Some misguided fans probably agree with him.  It’s no shock for a football player to think he’s above the law, especially after a few drinks.  But if it’s a common belief among Georgia players that the Athens police are out to get them, one might think that they’d be a little smarter about going out of their way to draw attention to themselves after a bender.

We can hope this is the end of it, but as Carter Strickland notes in the AJC, this is the third consecutive season that Georgia has had a January or February arrest that has impacted the subsequent season.  There’s a long way to go until August.

A former player also was a casualty of the weekend.  Terreal Bierria was arrested for DUI and speeding in Athens.

In what I guess is a conciliatory gesture, President Adams has written writing our vanquished bowl victims and patted them on the head for a job well done.

The University of Hawai’i has much about which it can be proud — its academic program, its successful alumni and, yes, its football team. But what will remain for many of us from this year’s Sugar Bowl is the warmth and graciousness with which UH fans conducted themselves.

You’d think he’s campaigning for something. Did we send a similar note to the Roanoke Times last year?

We started talking about the 2008 season by recognizing and embracing the high expectations awaiting the Dawgs next fall. What are the reasons for those lofty preseason rankings?

» Lots of returning key players. Returning starters are all over the place. Moreno. Ellerbe. Curran. Owens. Stafford. Georgia’s losses are few and occasionally significant, but the list of departing players for whom there doesn’t already seem to be a successor in place is limited to Velasco and Coutu. No one is jumping to the NFL.

Of course our glee over a low attrition forecast has to be tempered with the acceptance of the likely offseason suspension or two. Hopefully the Dawgs can at least avoid a catastrophic injury over the spring and summer, and it would be nice if no Paul Oliver-like academic screwup was an issue this year.

At first glance, it looks as if the roster will be stocked next year. Sure there are a couple of holes; there always are. But you look across the roster and don’t see any positions that really scare you, and several bring a big smile.

» Momentum / exposure / poll position. Georgia is hot. They finished among the top 3 in both final polls, and they will surely start out high in 2008. That’s a big advantage if Georgia can put together another nice season next year.

Once the Dawgs dispatch Georgia Southern in the season opener, the same schedule that presents such a challenge will put the Dawgs in the spotlight early and often. You have clashes against LSU and Florida with direct national significance. Georgia’s trip to Tempe won’t go unnoticed. Even Saban coming to Athens will create a stir. The Dawgs will be performing on the main stage for much of the season, and there won’t be a way to ignore them should they put up wins.

With the 2007 emergence of Knowshon Moreno alongside the established Matthew Stafford, the Dawgs also have a backfield rich in name recognition. Stafford fills the role of the BMOC quarterback, and Moreno is as charismatic a personality as David Pollack was. That kind of star power, not to mention others like Rennie Curran, will ensure that Georgia is a program that gets talked about. They’re interesting, fun to watch, and, above all, pretty damn good.

» Impact newcomers. The depth chart will be bolstered in 2008 by some very highly-regarded newcomers. Tailback Caleb King is at the top of the list. King was an option during 2007 as injuries took a toll on the position, but he was able to preserve his redshirt season. King and Moreno could give Georgia the most exciting tandem in the conference. Besides King, you also hear about QB Logan Gray, WR/TE Aron White, LB Charles White, and S John Knox.

I’m interested to see what role LB Akeem Hebron will play. He was slated as a possible starter in 2007 but spent the semester at Georgia Military College after alcohol violations at UGA. He’s back, but there’s a question how the linebackers might have to shuffle to fit him in next year. The unit had begun to click at the end of 2007.

Then there are the true freshmen. In a class rated among the best in the nation, you figure some will contribute right away. Receiver AJ Green comes to mind first. Kicker Blair Walsh will get a chance to start out of the gate. Preseason camp should be entertaining as these talented freshmen fight for positions against a roster that’s already potent.

» Stable coaching staff. As regional rivals such as Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, and Georgia Tech replace coordinators, several assistants, or even head coaches, the only change in the Georgia program – at the time I write this – looks to be the departure of TE coach David Johnson. While Georgia has turned over all but a handful of assistant coaching positions since Mark Richt arrived, we’ve been fortunate 1) not to have more than one or two in a given offseason and 2) the departures have almost always been career moves with the best wishes of the program.

The stability of the staff gave Richt the luxury of being less hands-on in 2007, and he used that freedom in part to step into more of a managerial role. With Mike Bobo promoted to offensive coordinator, Richt was able to get his head out of the details and look more frequently at the bigger picture. That change possibly afforded him the opportunity to recognize and correct problems during the 2007 season, and a changed team emerged. With confidence in a staff that continues to operate well, Richt can continue to grow in his new role and prepare the team to play at the level required of their ranking.

Known for ending the careers of successful football coaches, the coaching graveyard that is Columbia, South Carolina has now claimed a victim on the basketball court. Dave Odom plans to retire at the end of this season.

Odom shocked the basketball world in April 2001 when he left a successful ACC program at Wake Forest to take over after Eddie Fogler resigned. Odom was actually South Carolina’s third choice after Tubby Smith and Jim Calhoun turned them down, but Odom’s arrival still caused a pretty big splash.

Fogler had led the Gamecocks to consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances in 1997 and 1998, compiling a 47-16 record in those seasons, and he was named national coach of the year after winning South Carolina’s first SEC regular season title in 1997 with a 15-1 conference record. Those two NCAA Tournament appearances (which included a #2 and #3 seed) became notorious though as the Gamecocks were upset in the first round each year. Fogler never had a winning season after 1998, and he resigned after a 15-15 finish and first-round NIT loss in 2001.

Odom arrived with an impressive resume. Besides coaching All-Americans Tim Duncan, Randolph Childress, and Rodney Rogers, he led Wake Forest to two ACC championships, several top 10 finishes, and seven straight NCAA Tournaments from 1991-1997. South Carolina, in the middle of the Lou Holtz euphoria, expected Odom to right the ship and return the program to consistent results like the program enjoyed in the late 90s.

It never happened. Odom’s Gamecocks have never finished better than 8-8 in the SEC, and they have made a single trip to the NCAA Tournament (2004). South Carolina won consecutive NITs in 2005 and 2006, and they were the Cinderella of the 2006 SEC Tournament reaching the finals and nearly knocking off eventual national champion Florida.

Odom was never quite able to get the South Carolina program to the level that was expected in 2001. Though he’ll likely leave with a better winning percentage than Fogler, his teams never approached Fogler’s best.

Though the playoff proposal got tabled, another issue raised by UGA President Michael Adams will get a closer look from the NCAA.

The Division I Board of Directors at its January 14 meeting approved the formation of a presidential task force to examine issues of commercialism and student-athlete well-being associated with athletics, including postseason football.

The Board issued a statement which said in part that, “the NCAA Board agreed the issues of presidential leadership and commercialism, identified in President Adams’ communication, especially deserve further discussion.”

One wonders what the outcome of this task force will be. When most of us complain about the crass commercialism surrounding bowl games, we’re talking about television broadcasts that last until the rooster crows three times the following morning. But “commercialism” can mean many things from corporate sponsorships to the gifts given to participating players.

On the other hand, TV deals fuel the bowls which fuel the BCS conferences, and, as we’ve seen every time this subject comes up, the conferences aren’t in a hurry to get off the gravy train. A conclusion that “less commercialism” means “give us just as much money but be less visible” will probably get the same response from the networks and sponsors as the playoff proposal got from the conferences.

Alabama’s Ronald Steele, out for the year with a knee injury, won’t be able to travel at the end of tonight’s Georgia-Alabama basketball game.

If there’s one game that keeps coming back when you talk about last season in basketball and coming up just short of the NCAA Tournament, it was the loss at Alabama. Georgia blew a 20-point lead and a rare chance at a big SEC road win, and that buzzer-beater by Steele might have been the single most significant play of the entire season.

The Dawgs and Tide both enter tonight’s game looking for their first conference wins of the season. Georgia has struggled with inconsistent offense, and Bama has really missed Steele. The home court should give Georgia the edge, but they’ll have to play and shoot much better than they did last weekend at Mississippi State.

LSU hasn’t been champion long, but we might as well look ahead to the next season while the previous one is still fresh in memory. Over the next several days we’ll look at the strengths, challenges, and dynamics ahead in Georgia’s 2008 season. The dominant story out of the gate will be the expectations facing the 2008 squad.

The "who’s #1?" talk is already starting for the 2008 season. (As an aside, this is why delaying official polls until midseason won’t change much. The discussion will happen with or without their participation.) Tony Barnhart didn’t wait very long to declare Georgia his preseason #1 team. He’s just one pundit, but it’s reasonable to expect many preseason polls to include Georgia among their top 5.

John Kaltefleiter takes what I think is the wrong approach today in the Banner-Herald by downplaying the expectations. I think he overreacts to what’s been going on. He complains of a "public coronation" and says that making Georgia the "hands-down preseason No. 1 team and booking those Orange Bowl reservations for the first weekend of January of next year is not just premature, it’s presumptuous."

The trouble is that no one is really saying all of that. No one, least of all Mark Richt, is assuming anything about next year. There is simply the recognition that there are several really good teams with a shot at a title run next year and, yes, Georgia is one of them. Beyond that, why not Georgia? While the Dawgs might not be the hands-down favorite (is anyone?), they make as good of a case as anyone at this ridiculously early stage. It’s not Kaltefleiter’s job as a journalist to cheerlead for the Dawgs, but if he’s going to try to temper the enthusiasm, I have to disagree.

Blame Dooley or Munson, but for whatever reason Georgia fans seem to shrink from this position and relish the under-the-radar approach. There’s no getting around it though: the Dawgs (and their fans) are going to have to deal with some very high expectations in 2008. We might as well dive in with both feet. The ranking and the expectations should serve as motivators for a team that, as Mark Richt said, "got a taste of just how close we might be to getting that ultimate goal. Everybody is going to be really working hard towards that end."

It’s likely that Georgia will be in its best preseason position since a #3 ranking to open the 2004 campaign. Though an 11-win season, New Year’s Day bowl victory, #7 finish, and a win over Florida can hardly be considered a truly disappointing season, many fans expected Pollack and Greene to ride off into the sunset with at least a divisional title. It didn’t happen.

Fans might be a little gunshy after high expectations in 2000 and 2004, but that’s no reason to run from the promise of the next few seasons. The story of the 2004 season has another lesson: the best program never put all of their eggs in one season or all of their hope in one player. Georgia’s no stranger to this lesson. While 2004 didn’t result in any hardware beyond an Outback Bowl championship, the Dawgs followed it up with an SEC title in 2005.

There is no reason not to be enthusiastic about the 2008 season. The best part is that even if the schedule takes its toll and the Dawgs drop a game or two, this isn’t a one-and-done shot. With outstanding recruiting classes in 2006 and 2007, the pump seems primed for seasons to come in Athens. Excitement and even a little attitude is justified. Enjoy the ride we’re about to take.

Coming up we’ll look a little deeper at some of the reasons for all of this hype and of course give the schedule and other potential stumbling blocks their due.

Officials at West Virginia suspect former coach Rich Rodriguez of taking the scorched earth strategy to the extreme on his way out of town:

Soon after returning to work after the Fiesta Bowl a little more than a week ago, the staff at the Puskar Center found that most of the files — including all of the player files — that had been stored in Rodriguez’s private office were missing. In addition, all of the players’ strength and conditioning files in the weight room were gone.

According to multiple sources, several people in the Puskar Center reported seeing Rodriguez and at least one member of his inner circle, video coordinator Dusty Rutledge, in Rodriguez’s private office shredding paperwork on Dec. 18.

This is on top of a $4 million dispute between Rodriguez and West Virginia over breaking his contract. The ill will was already bad enough, but now one has to wonder what he was hiding, especially in the area of player development.

While the files in Rodriguez’s office held a wide range of information, those that were discovered missing from the weight room office were more specific. Those included every aspect of strength and conditioning progress made by players under former strength and conditioning coordinator Mike Barwis, who along with most of his immediate staff followed Rodriguez to Michigan after the Fiesta Bowl. Those files included the progression made by each player in every specific area, from bench-press totals to 40-yard dash times. The files even included pictures of the players at different points in their careers.

Now the world may never find out how Owen Schmitt was transformed from a walk-on into a mohawk-wearing cyborg that still had the capacity for human emotion.

The NCAA held an educational session called "Crisis Communication Planning Strategies and Tools" at its annual convention in Nashville over the weekend. Two of the discussion leaders were from Virginia Tech and Bluffton. "Crisis" doesn’t begin to describe what those schools went through last year; Virginia Tech had a massacre on its campus, and Bluffton lost members of its baseball team in a bus accident in Atlanta.

There was a third member of this panel: a representative from Rutgers. What crisis did the Scarlet Knights deal with last year that’s in the same ballpark as a mass murder and a fatal bus accident? Oh, that’s right. Their women’s basketball team was insulted on a national radio show.

I give full credit to the Bluffton and Virginia Tech representatives for not asking Rutgers’ senior director of media relations Greg Trevor, "are you lost?"

The Knoxville News-Sentinel reports that two Tennessee football players were arrested over the weekend for marijuana possession. That might seem like just another offseason arrest (and early Fulmer Cup entry) until you read that they were showing a visiting lad a night on the town.

Also in the car were Jameel Owens of Oklahoma, a recruit in Knoxville for his official visit, and UT player William Brimfield. Neither of those two were charged.

The appeals process began last summer, and the NCAA Board of Directors decided to uphold the proposed ban. The process gave the membership the opportunity to vote on it at this week’s annual meeting, and, with only 21.3% of the Division I membership voting in favor of overturning the ban, the appeals process is over. E-mail and fax will be the only approved methods for initiating electronic communication with prospects. (Of course a prospective student-athlete may initiate contact using any means he or she chooses.)

The voice of the student-athlete carried a lot of weight in this decision. Speaking as the voice of the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, Kerry Kenny told the membership, “We believe that text messaging and instant messaging are both highly unprofessional in the recruiting process,” Kenny said. “You wouldn’t use text messaging to contact an employer when searching for a job, and it’s unlikely that an employer would contact you with a text message to offer you the job.”

The Division I membership also upheld a proposed restructuring of baseball financial aid. Squad size will be capped at 35 players, and the minimum share for a partial scholarship is 25%. Georgia president Michael Adams voiced support for the plan.

After surviving the appeals process, both proposals go into effect in August.

Georgia has its share of meddling boosters who like to pull a power play every now and then, but even we have our limits.

Says Josh Moon in the Montgomery Advertiser,

In case you missed it, numerous reports, including one from the Montgomery Advertiser’s own Jay G. Tate, have stated that Muschamp left the Tigers after a mixup with his contract and learning that Tuberville wasn’t exactly on very solid footing at Auburn.

A group of powerful AU boosters made a power play and orchestrated plans to remove Tuberville after the Alabama game this year. I have no idea what they planned to say to Tubs when firing him, other than, “Sorry, Tommy, but six straight wins over ‘Bama and the best four-year record in school history just isn’t good enough. This is Auburn, after all. We’re used to far less.”

Anyway, Muschamp saw all of this and decided it was a headache he didn’t need. So, he caught the first plane out of town.

At least a plane trip to Louisville wasn’t involved this time. Then again, Tuberville followed up the first attempted “coup” with an undefeated season. Maybe these self-important boosters are batshit crazy…like a fox.

Pittsburgh all-pro receiver Hines Ward had knee surgery on Wednesday and will be out of commission for about six weeks. The Steelers’ season ended with a playoff loss to Jacksonville last weekend. Of course Ward still recorded 10 catches for 135 yards with the bum knee – that’s just Hines.

By the way, does seeing the phrase “ten-year veteran” in a story about Hines Ward make anyone else feel old?

The Georgia hoops program isn’t exactly on the national radar these days, so outside perspective can be hard to come by. This mention on a Duke site caught my eye:

…no great surprise that Tech lost to Georgia. The Bulldogs are more disciplined and, overall, a better coached team.

The observation is probably more of a comment about Hewitt’s program than Felton’s. “More disciplined” and “better coached” are relative after all. Felton has his own problems, but the criticism is really starting to pile up on Hewitt. Tech fans have noticed how they replaced a football coach with a consistent, if not lukewarm, record of bowl wins and conference success while a basketball coaching with a losing ACC record remains.

It’s said that a conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged. After “this year’s experience with the BCS,” UGA President Michael Adams wrote this week how his opposition to a playoff has melted, mailed his not-quite-95 theses to the NCAA, and made the heads of many Georgia fans explode as they reconciled their support for a playoff with the fact that Michael Adams might be the man to get the credit for it.

NCAA President Myles Brand responded to Adams’ letter on Thursday, saying

In a letter to me dated January 8, 2008, University of Georgia President Michael Adams requested that a discussion committee to the Division I Board of Directors be appointed to explore options related to postseason football. I will bring to the board that request at its meeting in Nashville on January 14. The structure of postseason football in the Football Bowl Subdivision rests with the presidents of those institutions.

That’s a long way of saying, “we got the letter,” but at least the item is now on the agenda at the annual NCAA convention.

There’s been a lot of griping in the wake of Adams’ proposal about the timing. How dare Adams try to steal LSU’s thunder before they can even enjoy their championship. But Brand’s addition of the request to the Board of Directors’ agenda shows how the date of the NCAA Convention forced the awkward timing. Making this proposal during the season or even during the bowls would have seemed even more inappropriate. As it is, the proposal will have less than a week to bounce around before it’s brought to the Board of Directors. If all of this outrage is over Adams waiting another day or two, that’s rather petty.

Even if the issue is raised next week, it might be DOA anyway. Adams faces quite an uphill fight even among his peers (h/t Get the Picture). Of a sample of 30 university presidents, 14 – including four other SEC presidents (including LSU, natch) – were opposed and remain committed to the BCS. 11 others were either undecided or didn’t want to commit to a specific playoff plan. Only five were on board with the idea. We saw similar opposition when Florida’s Bernie Machen tried to raise the issue over the summer.

Unfortunately the timing and the urgency of Adams’ proposal means that a lot of things haven’t quite been thought through. Rather than asking these questions, playoff proponents are just giddy to see that the subject is again in the spotlight. Conceptually a playoff seems right to me. It’s just that a lot of us look at playoff proposals the same way we would a fantasy football league. Pick eight teams, draw up a bracket, and go. For example, Adams proposes to use the four BCS bowls as the first round of the playoff. What do the bowls think of that? Do you think the Rose Bowl would be cool with just being a #3 vs. #6 quarterfinal?

That’s why the involvement of the NCAA in the college football postseason is central to any serious playoff proposal. As Brand said, the structure of the postseason is up to the presidents. In the case of a playoff, the task is to drag certain conferences away from the comfortable tie-ins and bowl relationships that seem beneficial enough to all parties that neither the bowls, the conferences, or the networks seem very willing to end. Adams notes the power of “conference and bowl commissioners,” but those conference commissioners already serve at the direction of their conference’s presidents. Is the steadfast opposition to a playoff from Jim Delany or Mike Tranghese contrary to the wishes of the Big 10 or Big East presidents?

The Football Bowl Subdivision has lots of schools who are not in BCS conferences. Their support of a playoff is key if the strategy is to have a majority of the FBS membership force change on the stubborn conferences comfortable with the current system. Will that support come easily? Likely not without 1) a cut of the pot and 2) better access to the playoff system than just “make sure you’re one of the eight seeded teams.”