Filed under: College Baseball, College Basketball, College Football, GEORGIA, NCAA, SEC, Sports, THE FRAT, bowl games, championships, family, richt
Interesting the parallels between the football and baseball programs at GEORGIA. Two seasons ago, both finished as National Runners Up. UGA football smoked Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl, after being outvoted in favor of LSU. UGA baseball was up a game in the best of three College World Series final series, before dropping two consecutive to Fresno State. Resultant: The Dawgs were oh so close in football and oh so close in baseball. We felt the great divide between 1st and 2nd.
This past season, UGA was a regular season Number One in football and baseball. Then we fell off in both sports. The football team finished 10-3, and the baseball team was barely ranked at seasons end at 24th.
We are in the mix in two of three major men’s sports and recently hired a new basketball coach. Long way to rise up in hoops, but in baseball and even more so in football, we are right there as a system, as a program. We just need to take the final steps to glory.
Baseball head coach David Perno benefits from Jason Eller’s strong recruiting and the program is at a point that NCAA postseason play is a regularity. College World Series visits have become frequent.
Football head coach Mark Richt benefits from Rodney Garner’s strong recruiting and the program is solidly top ten. Richt has two SEC rings and has finished #2 and #3 nationally.
Nothing remains as an unaccomplished goal in either program except National Championships. Go Dawgs!
Filed under: Cocktail Party, College Football, Cox, D, Floor-DUH, GEORGIA, Green, Injuries, LSU, Moreno, NCAA, SEC, Stafford, athens, bama, bowl games, championships, fall, kentucky, richt, taunts, tech
Think about this: For the first time in the history of this storied program GEORGIA gave up 38 or more points five times, all during the regular season. That’s right. Five out of twelve times that we lined up, we were utterly scorched for at least 38 points. In the regular season finale, holding Tech to 38 would have won the game and preserved the state win streak. We lost 45-42. Kentucky and LSU found a way to lose to us on their home fields after cracking 37. Florida in the second half, Bama in the first half and Tech in the third quarter – NIGHTMARES.
And our offense was the best in the SEC. We had the best running back in the nation and the number one overall NFL draft pick at QB. Our true freshman wideout led the SEC in receiving and was often outplayed by our senior wideout.
Penalties were frequent, predictable and untimely. Injuries and poor defensive coaching were major factors. And we lacked a killer instinct and the confidence to stop the regular bleeding.
We won a bowl game, remaining perfect against the so-called Big 10. We finished with ten wins. The program is very solid, yet the season was in many ways squalid. Moreno is gone; Stafford is gone; Asher Allen is gone; Massaquoi is gone.
And we move on. The one season Joe Cox era is underway.
Filed under: poetry
My God, Larry
Would you look at the stupid clock
It says forty-two
That’s how many
Beautiful, bountiful
Years you gave
To the fair institution
You are one, yourself
And no man can be an island
But Hell if you ain’t a legend
Blue, Forty-two
Set, Hut…Touchdown!
And the tears stream
As I dream of you
How can one man
One self-effacing
Gravel-voiced
Gloom-and-doom
Radioman
Mean so much
Mr. Munson, sir
You are the greatest
You are the greatest
You are the greatest
That ever lived
Filed under: athens
The REALest coverage is at www.bighairyblawg.com
Filed under: Uncategorized
I will attend the Book Expo America Writers’ Conference in Manhattan on May 27th
THE DAWGS HAVE PUT THE MOST PLAYERS IN THE NFL OF ANY SEC TEAM SINCE 2000. 10 DAWGS HAVE BEEN TAKEN IN THE FIRST ROUND AND 54 HAVE BEEN DRAFTED OVERALL. LOOK AT THE RUNNERS-UP: LSU WITH 48 PLAYERS DRAFTED, 9 IN FIRST ROUND AND FLORIDA WITH 50 PLAYERS DRAFTED, 9 IN FIRST ROUND. NO COINCIDENCE THAT THESE THREE PROGRAMS HAVE HAD THE MOST ON-FIELD SUCCESS. AUBURN, TENNESSEE AND BAMA HAVE ALSO HAD SUCCESS AND AWESOME TALENT BUT THOSE THREE PROGRAMS WERE MORE EBB AND FLOW THAN THE TOP THREE.
THE ONLY BIG LACK AT UGA IS THAT OF A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP SINCE 1980. AND THE ONLY TEAM RICHT HAS HAD MUCH CONSISTENT TROUBLE WITH HAS BEEN FLORIDA. THE PAST TWO SEC CHAMPS AT FLORIDA WERE NATIONAL CHAMPS, DITTO DOWN ON THE BAYOU. RICHT AND RECRUITING COORDINATOR RODNEY GARNER HAVE PROCURED THE MOST TALENT AND EARNED TWO SEC RINGS. ONE OF THOSE TEAMS FINISHED NATIONAL NUMBER THREE. A NON-SEC CHAMP UGA TEAM FINISHED AS NATIONAL RUNNER UP. BUT UNTIL WE WIN IT ALL AGAIN, THERE IS NO PURE SATISFACTION.
FOR NOW, WE NEED TO TAKE BACK THE STATE TITLE FROM THE TRADE SCHOOL AND FIND A WAY TO BEAT THE TIM TEBOW GATORS. WE CAN DO BOTH IF WE PLAY WITH CONFIDENCE, SHORE UP THE DEFENSE AND RUN THE BALL WELL. BEAT FLORIDA AND WE WILL END UP SEC EAST CHAMPS AND PLAY BAMA OR LSU IN THE ATL. WIN THERE AND THE NATIONAL TITLE IS IN REACH. WE ARE FLYING WELL BELOW THE RADAR THIS YEAR WITH THE DRAFT EXODUS…AND WE STILL HAVE AT OR NEAR THE MOST TALENT OF ANY TEAM IN THE BEST LEAGUE IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL. WE CAN DO THIS.
Matthew Stafford goes number one to Detroit. Moreno goes number twelve to Denver in a great fit pick. The Browns got Massaquoi in the second round. Corvey Irvin, Asher Allen and Jarius Wynn were also picked, all three on day two of the draft.
Filed under: College Baseball, College Basketball, College Football, Cox, D, ESPN, GEORGIA, Green, King, Moreno, POWER FOOTBALL, SEC, THE ATL, UGA, athens, championships, family, food, media, tech, travel
New hoops coach Mark Fox was in awe of the red-and black crowd at halftime. And Big Hairy Blawg was on scene too for a beautiful saturday in Athens. It was the G-Day Game and the fans came out in mass for the free scrimmage, broadcast live on ESPN. Before and after you could have found me at my stepbrother’s spot: Five Star Day Cafe on Broad Street across from the arch. Great, great food and then good not great football with perfect company – I love my girlfriend and hell yeah she’s a Georgia girl – and the Beam was flowing. Like me in a way, Joe Cox was crisp with his passes and even caught one (negated by penalty). That’s right, another damned penalty. UGA must play more error free to reach ten wins again. AJ Green is the best receiver in the country bar none, and that backup QB spot looks secure with the solid play of a Missouri boy that returned punts for us last year. Ah, the joys of strong national recruiting. Speaking of out-of-staters, my fellow Texan Matthew Stafford a. will go first in the NFL draft, b. will not be missed because of the solid production in waiting behind him, and c. was very good yet never won an SEC title (he did finish a Nat’l #2). Moreno is from Jersey like my ex-wife, and they are and will be missed. Caleb and the rest of the runners were fairly unimpressive. Rings. Rings. Rings matter most and I was glad to see a solid Defensive outing from our first and second teams. They dominated G-Day and look much improved from last year’s debacle. We will throw it well and defend better and if the running game clicks we can compete for an SEC Title, which always means at or near a National Title too. Later, it was nice to have a few pops in the Georgia Bar. Big ups to Jonathon for keeping that famous dive intact and alive. And we were back to The ATL with the season only months away… only months.
See you at The TED for number one UGA baseball versus Tech on May 12th
GO DAWGS!!!
Saturday…IN ATHENS
What could be finer? And them Diamond Dawgs are number one after finishing a National Number 2. On the heels of our FOOTBALL National #2, we dropped three games, a bunch in big, bigtime college ball. We dropped three and consider it a bunch, my hunch: that makes us one of the tip top programs in the country. We have finished #3; we have finished #2. There is only one goal unchecked on the Richt list.
Joe Cox seems a solid answer at QB with AJ Green back for his second season – He led the SEC in grabs last year!!! The edge on D is focus again, where penalty must be replaced with production. Hit harder, interfere less, tackle better and we can be okay there. The questions remain overall, especially in the running game where Caleb King takes over for Uber-stud MORENO. Just thinking, but the best overall athletes in the state over the years have usually been the running backs at GEORGIA: Herchel, Moreno, Hearst, Hampton, Davis, Edwards to name a few. Moreno was our second best runner, ever.
Filed under: Cox
You don’t maybe know Joe as well as you want to. He has been around GEORGIA for years, four of them to be exact. Heck, he – red-headed and clipboard carrying, ballcap wearing – went off in as noticeable a fashion as any in the J-Ville endzone celebration two years ago. And he saved the Colorado game when Stafford was cold, and is 1-0 as a starter, though he was removed for Stafford in the one game he did start. He was 50-0 in high school, and I like his winning percentage and winning attitude. He is a fifth-year senior Richt once praised as the best backup QB in the country. Plus, no Knowshon Moreno to eat up carries. This season is on Joe as a one-season shot was on DJ Shockley. Shock won an SEC ring and was upset in the ATL-played Sugar Bowl post-Hurricane Katrina. I Love DJ, and I really like what I’ve seen in Cox to date. He has great touch on his mid-range passes, which is beautiful to watch. Less cannon than the soon-to-be number one pick, Matthew Stafford, Joe Cox is if anything a more proven leader. He backed Shockley up as a True Frosh in a redshirt year and knows what it takes to compete and win. He is no Joe Tereshinski III, we hope. Spring game on the 11th is free this year!!! And it will be SATURDAY IN ATHENS…GO DAWGS!!!
