CFN has their Georgia preview up (written by Pete Fiutak), and of course the message boards are all over it. It’s not a bad read actually. There are a few things I’d take issue with, but many of them come from being waaaaaaaay too familiar with the team. For someone at the 30,000-foot level, he’s got it more or less right.

I appreciate that he remembers the rebuilding challenge that Richt had in the 2003 season. At some positions, the issues in 2003 were even more severe than they are now. No one can deny that Georgia is turning to some inexperienced players to fill needs, but at least there are talented players we expect to step in there. In other words, I don’t think any of these positional situations are as dire as the running backs in 2003. I’m also glad to see the national recognition starting for Quentin Moses.

One opinion he has that I question is a common one, even among our own fans. We talked about this on the DawgVent the other day in fact. It’s the notion that the three running backs “have to carry the load” this year. It’s easy to forget in hindsight, but that was the line last preseason too. It’s actually a testament to the transformation of DJ Shockley over the past year. At this point a year ago, Shockley was seen as a talented guy who had shown some flashes but was still shaky and had never shown enough consistancy to make people think he’d be anything but a dropoff (however slight) from David Greene. While Shockley got adjusted to the starting role, the trio of young backs were going to have to be the strength of the offense.

Never happened. Oh, of course the backs were a key part of the offense last year (though, as Fiutak points out, not as productive as you might think), but there was no question that this was DJ Shockley’s team from the season opener. We got a Georgia offense that was similar in scheme and flow to the 2003 and 2004 units (with the occasional Shockley run of course).

I think we’ll see more of the same in 2006. Richt’s not afraid to use a good tailback – see the explosion of Verron Haynes at the end of 2001 or the 1,300+ yards of Musa Smith in 2002. But until we see otherwise, he just doesn’t seem to trust this current group of backs to be the focus of his offense. Will that change now that they are upperclassmen? I hope so. It would make life much easier for a new quarterback. Until they show otherwise though, I expect that the new quarterback will have a much larger role in the offense sooner than many seem to think. For that reason, I hope that we settle on someone before the season starts and get him adjusted to that role as soon as possible. It might also make the receivers and the ability of Mohamed Massaquoi to become a serious playmaker much more of an issue than this preview indicates.

I say “trust” above with Richt and the running game, but it might be something else. With one clear established tailback, you know whom you want in the game. You have almost no choice about playing time. With the three capable tailbacks not really separating themselves, it’s more difficult to push the right button. There were several examples last season. In the Florida game, Danny Ware had been on a tear, and the Dawgs were moving. We put in Thomas Brown who lost eight yards on the next play, and a promising drive was over. In the Tech game, Kregg Lumpkin was playing well early and had some nice runs on the first scoring drive, but he disappeared in the second half.

My point isn’t to second-guess Richt or criticize the backs. But the trio makes the decisions more difficult. If you have Garrison Hearst or even the senior Musa Smith, the decision is made for you. Run him, run him some more, and take him out of the game only if necessary. Substituting Brown for Ware against Florida might seem like a reasonable case of interchangable fresh legs perfectly suited for the three tailback rotation, but put another way, Musa Smith or Verron Haynes probably don’t come out of the game at that point. Lumpkin and Brown seemed to be moving into a class of their own during the spring, and that’s helpful. Fewer options might be bad if the emerging choice is a poor one, but that’s not what’s happening here. One running back emerging as the best option from a good group makes it more likely that the coaches will trust that guy to “carry the load”, and he can become a focus for the offense while a young passing game gets established.

Forget onepeats – who was the last team to beat a Gene Chizik defense?

Georgia.

In November, 2003.

That streak might come to an end this year (then again, it has a good chance of standing also). It’s not uncommon for good coordinators to duplicate success from job to job, but it’s amazing to construct two separate defenses of undefeated programs. Of course he had good talent to work with and a strong offense making the difference in a lot of those wins. The guy must be doing something right though.

The Chizik defenses we saw at Auburn weren’t especially overwhelming or physical, but we did see plenty of speed. Linebackers all over the field. Agile defensive tackles. Defensive ends who specialized in the pass rush. Even in Georgia’s solid 2003 win, points were excruciatingly tough to come by, and I didn’t feel good until Odell Thurman’s back-breaking interception. In 2004, Auburn’s defense was overshadowed by the offense, but the defense led the nation in scoring defense and was Top 5 in yardage. I was especially impressed in the 2004 Georgia game how Auburn made plays to stop the few potential game-changing drives that Georgia put together.

Chizik’s Texas defense last year wasn’t quite as good. I didn’t consider them dominant against Ohio State or USC, and they were a bit shaky against the run, but they played well enough during the season to finish as a top 10 unit in scoring and total defense while giving Young and Co. plenty of support.

28 and counting. How long will it last?

South Carolina (40-23) at No. 7 Georgia (45-20)
11 a.m. (ESPN2), 4 p.m. (ESPN/ESPNU), 1 p.m. (ESPN/ESPNU)

Looks like an early morning on Saturday. Monday’s game, if necessary, would be a day game. That hurts those of us who would drive up after work.

Times, matchups, and TV for all Super Regionals

Reminder – tickets are on sale at georgiadogs.com or over the phone at 706-542-1231. Only all-session tickets are sold now. Individual game tickets, if available, won’t be sold until Friday night.

Anyone should know better than to count these Dawgs out. Facing three elimination games to win the Athens regional, Georgia put together a string of wins that had everything from power hitting to shutdown pitching. Monday’s tight 3-2 win over FSU concluded a tremendous regional and a three game series with one of the nation’s most storied programs. FSU had a lot on their side after winning Saturday night’s game, and they had never failed to advance from a regional. Typically you’d expect a high-scoring game in a situation like this, but both Georgia and FSU found strong performances waiting down their pitching depth charts. Georgia’s Trevor Holder just got better and better, and regional MVP Joey Side made FSU pay for one of their few pitching mistakes with his third home run of the weekend.

For the regional Side batted .455 with six extra-base hits and twelve RBI. Side joins Jeff Keppinger in 2001 and Will Startup in 2004 as Dawgs who used the postseason to elevate already-solid reputations to lead Georgia to success.

“I felt like I was pretty much in the zone as a hitter,” Side said after Monday’s win. You don’t say.

Side wasn’t the only story of the regional of course. You have Morris tying the single-season HR mark. You have the trio of freshman pitchers who stepped up in the final three games to make sure that Georgia was playing on top most of the time. You have Georgia fighting out of the elimination round at home for the third time this decade. So many contributions and big plays. Kudos to FSU for an ultra-competitive series.

Now it’s the super regional, and South Carolina will return to Athens. Georgia has swept all four meetings to date with South Carolina this season, but of course none of that matters now. South Carolina obviously has to be playing good baseball to advance from the Charlottesville regional, and they bring one of the more dangerous offensive teams remaining in the tournament.

Super regional tickets are already on sale at georgiadogs.com, and the series will be a best-of-three beginning on Saturday.

Many Georgia fans know that Andy Landers’ frontcourt was decimated before the 2005-2006 season even started. Four forwards and centers were wiped from the roster through injury and attrition. Out of desperation, Landers turned to Georgia volleyball player Maria Taylor after the volleyball season had ended. Taylor had been an accomplished basketball player at Centennial High School but was on volleyball scholarship at Georgia. Because Bear Bryant (and I suppose others in that era) abused athletic scholarships from other sports and stockpiled football players, the SEC (and only the SEC) has a rule that prevents football and basketball teams from using players who are on scholarship in another sport. Landers’ plan to use Taylor (who had even begun practicing with the team) was stopped in its tracks after an appeal to the SEC fell through.

Now at the SEC spring meetings, Landers is promoting a rules change that would remove women’s basketball from the rule, and the suggestion has been well-received. Landers obviously has a specific motivation for suggesting this rules change, but he also presents the idea as an issue of opportunities for female student-athletes. “To limit those (opportunities) for any reason at this point in the evolution of women’s sports is I think wrong and counterproductive,” he said.

What Landers attempted to do with Taylor last year was entirely above-board and not against the spirit of the “Bear Bryant rule”. It wouldn’t have received a second thought in any other conference. It’s a little too late to help, but I hope he’s successful in this campaign.

Marc Weiszer in today’s ABH has a nice rundown of news from the SEC spring meetings going on this week in Destin. A few comments on each item…

• It’s obvious that the drums are beating louder for the indoor football facility. The relatively minor upgrades to the Butts-Mehre facility are all necessary but are in a different class of magnitude. As the beautiful basketball and gymnastics facility takes shape within sight of the football offices, the drive to make the indoor facility our next major capital project will only increase. It’s interesting to see Richt back off his vision of the facility a bit. Where earlier reports had more of an “all-or-nothing” tone for a grandiose football office and practice facility that would also house indoor track events, Richt concedes now that “some things may be done in phases”. Is that a concession to move things along?
• Georgia can’t seem to ever get an off week before the Florida game, but at least the SEC has ensured that no team will have the advantage of a week off before the SEC title game.
• There was only one change among the SEC’s football and basketball coaches this year. You have to get a chuckle out of Phil Fulmer’s comment on that news. “That’s good,” he said. “I hope it’s the same thing next year.” LOL. I’ll bet you do, Phil. If there’s one high-profile SEC coach starting to feel some heat, it’s Fulmer.
• The mystery conference for the SEC basketball challenge is a poorly kept secret. Bring on the Big East. Better than the ACC-Big 10 Challenge? That would be something. At any rate, such a matchup would be another reason why the basketball regular season is so underrated. You’ll never see such a group of quality nonconference regular season games in football.
• Great to see that the falling-out-of-bounds timeout is on the way out. This practice was the “intentional grounding” of basketball – a bogus way of turning around a bad situation. Make plays within the white lines.

This is heartbreaking. Jody was such a good guy as anyone around the 2001 team will remember, but what really won the fans over was his family. They were truly wonderful people who really soaked in and gave plenty back to the unique flavor of a college baseball community.

We’re sure that Jody’s memory will take its rightful place in the Athens regional this weekend.

What a season. From midseason desperation just to qualify for the SEC Tournament to a national #7 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the Diamond Dawgs have given us a very enjoyable spring. Georgia worked hard to earn the right to host the regional, so I hope the stands are packed to reward the Dawgs with a good homefield advantage. “I wasn’t expecting us to see a national seed because they usually stiff us over every year,” said Joey Side in the ABH. That’s true, so let’s make the most of the opportunity to have the home field all the way to Omaha.

A few observations on the upcoming tournament:

• Georgia and Tech for once would not meet before the CWS. Both are national seeds (Tech received the #8 seed, rightfully after Georgia) and would host their own super regional if they advance to that stage. I have mixed feelings – it was very satisfying in 2001 and 2004 to send the annually overrated Yellow Jackets home.
• Florida State is the #2-seed in the Athens regional. The FSU program has a strong baseball tradition, and their visit to Athens in 2001 for the super regional was memorable. The raucous Georgia crowd caught FSU’s attention, and hopefully some of the same will be waiting for them this weekend.
• It’s easy to dismiss unknown programs like Sacred Heart and look ahead to sexier big-name opponents like FSU, but all Georgia has to do is look back to the beginning of their late-season winning streak and the loss to Western Carolina to know how much the name on the jersey is worth. All it takes is one hot pitcher to take control of a game, and most teams good enough to make the NCAA Tournament have that potential.
• Georgia won regionals in 2001 and 2004 by going through the loser’s bracket. Hopefully that won’t be necessary this year. The pitching staff was stretched very thin in the SEC Tournament, and it would be nice to do things the easy way for once.
• Georgia needs Mickey Westphal back. Dating back to the Auburn series, Westphal hasn’t fooled many batters and has caused Georgia to dip into the bullpen early. Much was made during the season of his injury-motivated transition from a power pitcher to finesse and location, and hopefully some unfamiliar opponents will help him recover some of that midseason success.
• I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed that Jonathan Wyatt had passed Joey Side in batting average by the end of the season. Wow. Just a few years ago, Wyatt was purely a defense and speed substitution, and any offense was gravy (making his legendary home run against Tech in 2004 that much more of a great story). Now he’s almost an even-money threat to get on base, and as a leadoff man that is pure gold.
• It’s also great to see Matt Dunn batting well. With Jason Jacobs on fire in the 6 spot, Peisel a consistently solid eigth batter, Dunn getting some hits makes the bottom of the order rather potent and turns Wyatt and Side into big RBI threats with their high averages.
• Speaking of Dunn, if Virginia and Georgia both win their respective regionals, Dunn’s Dawgs will play host to his former team in the super regional.

“This was as tough an environment as I’ve ever played in,” Seminoles coach Mike Martin said in 2001. “We ain’t ever coming back up here again.”

Wrong, Mike. We’ll see you this weekend.

The Redcoats are currently on a two-week tour of China and have done everything from call the dawgs atop the Great Wall to enjoy rockstar treatment at all of their tour stops.

The AJC has a short photo gallery up from their stop in Chengdu.

It’s somewhat satisfying to see Notre Dame figure out what the SEC has known for a little while now. But it’s a bit sad as well as it’s an acknowledgement that, yes, this is what the great game of college football will look like without drastic changes.

Notre Dame’s approach in this new era of “barnstorming” is pretty clever. They will play some mid-majors in fertile recruiting territory and move the games to larger venues where the Notre Dame brand recognition will allow them more fans. Hmmm…Jacksonville, Orlando, New Orleans, and Dallas. Not much prep talent in those parts, is there? So Notre Dame wins all around…they get a game on their schedule that’s a likely win, they play it in a nearby neutral professional-quality venue that allows their national fan base to outnumber the smaller local following for the “home” team, and they play the game in the backyard of some of the nation’s best high school prospects. Oh, and they even pocket the gate receipts. My hat’s off to them.

As much as bowl-system purists will complain, the reality is that there is just too much at stake to pay much attention to emotional and hypothetical appeals to play a tougher-than-necessary schedule. Such things are nice for those of us playing offseason parlor games and making lists of the greatest schedules ever, but we are not those whose jobs depend on win-loss records, titles, and postseason money. Notre Dame obviously recognizes this reality, and their scheduling will reflect it.

Is it bad for the fans? Of course it is. I’ve admitted that. In fact, I’d expect those most upset by this “red flag” as CFR calls it to be at the forefront of those pushing for change because the current system of incentives is incompatible with the kinds of schedules we’d like to see. I’m glad to see it. When a program like Notre Dame takes a stand on this issue, people pay attention.

Something has to give.

The SEC baseball tournament begins this Wednesday as always in Hoover, Ala. Georgia will open on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. (ET) against sixth-seeded Vanderbilt. Georgia will start Mickey Westphal, and Vandy will likely turn to their ace, 6’6″ fireballer David Price. Georgia beat Price 9-7 in Nashville earlier in the season.

Generally speaking, there aren’t many more useless things than a conference baseball tournament, particularly in the SEC. The season has determined the conference champion. Most of the NCAA positioning has been settled. An SEC team that qualifies for Hoover as one of the top eight teams in the league has usually wrapped up an NCAA bid. The sixteen teams across the nation who will host a first-round NCAA regional have stood out well enough by this point.

What makes baseball different than, say, a basketball tournament is pitching. Fatigue is a factor in other sports, but only in baseball could you see your best player available for only part of a game once every three to five days. In a conference tournament, teams that advance any distance, especially those who have to fight back from the loser’s bracket, will spend a lot of pitchers. The problem is that the NCAA Tournament begins the very next week with its own potential double-elmination marathon.

Georgia’s recent history provides a good illustration. En route to their CWS trips in 2001 and 2004, Georgia won a combined ONE game in the SEC tournaments. Did Georgia have a poor team? Of course not – they were regular season conference champions and advanced to Omaha. But they placed the right relative importance on Hoover and didn’t last long. In the subsequent NCAA regionals, they needed every bit of pitching they could find as they had to survive double-elimination and come from behind to advance.

Are there benefits to winning or even advancing deep in the SEC Tournament? Maybe. Georgia is definitely a candidate to be one of the eight national seeds who would potentially host a two-team Super Regional prior to the College World Series. A good showing in the conference tournament might help that bid, but I’m skeptical. I think it’s clear that the SEC tournament is an eight-team crap shoot with eight teams who all approach the tournament with the same conservative eye towards the NCAA regionals. Winning it is nice, but I think it’s about as meaningless as not winning a single game.

Do I hope the Dawgs perform well in Hoover? Sure. They’ve never won the conference tournament, and it would be the one missing crown to add to several regular season titles, CWS appearances, and the national title. Will I be broken up if they’re done by Friday? Not at all.

It’s impossible to do justice to last night’s Diamond Dawg win. Down 4-0 after 1, down 8-2 soon after. Perno was ejected. Down 9-4 in the 7th. Looks like the streak was over, and there would be no shame in losing to a good Kentucky team that hammered Mickey Westphal. I should have known better. Josh Morris erupted for two home runs and a game-changing grand slam in the 7th. Bobby Felmy, for the second consecutive Thursday, drove in the winning run. Joshua Fields left no doubt and mowed down the Cats in order in the 9th. This isn’t even remotely the same team that we saw in April.

There were a couple of questionable late decisions from the Kentucky dugout that helped:

• Morris had a great day, and so Kentucky elected to intentionally walk him in the bottom of the eighth. By doing so, they loaded the bases and put the potential go-ahead run on second base. Sure enough, that runner on second scored the winning run on Bobby Felmy’s hit. Morris, even on his best days, is as likely to strike out as he is to hit one to Anderson, SC. Felmy is a steadier hitter and has a hitting streak of at least 11 games. While Kentucky might not have wanted to pitch to Morris, they could have at least made him look at some pitches to earn the walk – he doesn’t walk very often.
• In the 9th, Kentucky pinch-hitted for a player who had gone 2-3 with 3 RBI. The pinch-hitter struck out.

Had this happened earlier in the season, this game might be remembered as a turning point. Now, this weekend, it’s a huge blow in a season-ending fight for the division title. Yankees-Red Sox stuff. Incredibly fun.

Perno discussing the Will & Grace finale with an umpire

There’s a lot at stake in Georgia’s final regular season baseball series this weekend against Kentucky, and a lot of people don’t seem to know that the series will be Thursday-Saturday instead of the usual Friday-Sunday. The SEC Tournament begins next week, so games are moved up a day to allow Sunday as an extra day of rest for the teams.

Game times are also different: Thursday at 7:00 p.m., Friday at 6:00 p.m., and Saturday at 1:00 p.m.

With a sweep, Georgia wins the SEC East and has a chance at the overall SEC title. Win two of three, and Georgia will likely finish second in the East and 3rd overall in the conference. Not bad at all considering how they began SEC play. Kentucky is a tough team, and they produce a lot of offense with the long ball.

Whoever emerges as Georgia’s starting QB will quickly be thrown into the fire. Georgia’s second game at South Carolina will be a nationally-televised prime-time contest on ESPN at 7:45. As South Carolina and their fans are typically still high on preseason delusions until they lose to Georgia, it should be a wild environment.

As an aside, I’m thinking more and more that the Dawgs need a starting QB identified before the season opener. A nationally-televised night game in Columbia is no place to continue an audition, and the starter should get as much work in the Western Kentucky game as is necessary to have him ready for the conference opener.

As Toon Dawg on the DawgVent so well illustrates in these pictures, you’d want to play in the dark too if this were the scenic setting for your football program:

Since Adam and Eve, the appeal of the forbidden fruit hasn’t changed. The best thing that can happen to an entertainer now is to have some authoritative stuffed shirt try to silence them, and acts from Elvis to Marilyn Manson have made successful careers out of cashing in on controversy.

So when UGA President Michael Adams put out a weak request that CBS drop references to the “World’s Greatest Outdoor Cocktail Party”, it was predictable that the outcome would be to give fresh legs to the previously-stale nickname for the Georgia-Florida game. I can’t recall seeing very much merchandise or many promotional items in Jacksonville in recent years using the name, but that’s all going to change thanks to Dr. Adams. Watch the explosion of t-shirts and banners and anything a merchant can slap the “WLOCP” name on this season.

The ABH wonders correctly just what would change if everyone did agree to drop the nickname. Nothing, of course. Fans would still enjoy a beach weekend. Students (shhhh…don’t tell) would still leave during the week to head down. And, yes, even a spirited foot-ball contest with patrons picnicking behind their automobiles would still take place. Call it what you’d like; I’ll still be on Amelia Island for a week with some fishing, beach time, and the Dawgs.

Why go after the Cocktail Party? After all, it’s just an unofficial nickname used by fans and media. Unlike the Oklahoma-Texas Red River Shootout (which recently decided to drop the “Shootout” part), there is no sponsorship, trademark, or involvement from either school, and we know there would never be official sanction for the Cocktail Party.

The answer is perception. UGA is fighting an overzealous war of perception right now, and athletics is an easy target and foil. The war of perception begins with phrasing the issue as a question of athletics versus academic priorities (stop me if you’ve heard this before). Why…you wouldn’t want to be the yokel who would take the side of athletics over academics, would you? This is such a successful tactic that even Florida AD Jeremy Foley has to bluster about Florida’s stance on the issue. Hrm, um, well…we too would never want our proud University to be associated with something so base as a cocktail party (aside from the stadium suites, of course).

The climate on the UGA campus now is reactionary when it comes to academic reputation. A critical observation last year that UGA students might not spend as much time at study as their peers added to the disgrace of the Cole/Harrick scandal has the academic leadership hypersensitive to any perception that classes are too easy or that academic excellence is not the highest priority for the University. It’s silly to have to make this clarification, but the presence of other priorities outside of the serious pursuit of education – even if indulgent and fun – does not make the University into a diploma mill, and the recognition and enjoyment of those other priorities are not contrary to high academic standards.

But UGA must keep up appearances, and that’s exactly what’s going on. Window-dressing. UGA has seen lots of this lately as folks fall over each other showing how serious they are about academics. There’s the Key – a publication showing the grade distribution for professors used by some to find easier classes and professors. Instead of asking the professor to stop handing out As like candy, UGA will just stop publication of the Key and obscure the information. Perception. Window-dressing. Then there’s Fall Break. Students for decades have headed south for the Georgia-Florida weekend, and the semester system made it possible in the late 1990s to time a short midterm break to coincide with the Florida game. But that too has been attacked because of the perception that the game is more important than attending classes. You’re going to have a Fall Break regardless, and you’d think that timing that break around an event that’s important to much of the University community would be a wise application of common sense, but to the academic leadership it’s just another endorsement of the party school image. More window-dressing.

Kept within the small scope of University minutiae like Fall Break, this perception battle might be successful. We all want UGA to have a shining reputation in everything it does. This Cocktail Party story has become a national joke though, and it illustrates perfectly how ridiculous this climate has become. Georgia’s academic leadership now has a perception problem of their own as they become the butt of this joke – not the guardians of academic integrity but rather a bunch of stuck-up sourpusses who make Doug Neidermeyer seem like a fun guy.

Last weekend, the University of Georgia had a record number of First Honor Graduates – those who completed their degrees with a perfect 4.0 GPA. Over 40 graduates earned this honor. Given the tougher and tougher requirements for admission to the University, we might expect and celebrate this outcome. The quality of student is just better now, but I’m waiting for someone to use the record number of perfect GPAs as another example of how loose academic standards are at UGA. That’s just how things are now on campus, and the insecure pursuit of approval from God-knows-whom is getting pathetic.