WindfallIf you enjoy the writeups and feel so inclined...
Sorry about being in a funk about not posting. Once the writeups are done I’ll have time to post on other stuff. Of course, then football’s over. Oh well, I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.
For the folks making the trip, beware LSU fans in body paint. They smell of body paint, bourbon and very likely (I’m told) corn dogs…
Here’s the LSU writeup…
Here’s this week’s writeup. Sorry for the lack of blogging lately, I’ve been spending frivolously in the midst of this economic boom.
for me anyway…a week at the beach to try and forget what happened in Athens Saturday night. Acutally, considering we were down by 31 halfway through the game my thoughts on that game are surprisingly high. I say that for a couple of reasons. 1, our fans were amazing…simply incredible. They never gave up and when the however improbable comeback started in the 2nd half, 95% of the fans were still there, especially the students. It was incredibly impressive. 2, the comeback itself showed a fight and heart that I was unsure we had. Sure we’ve got a very talented team but without heart we’d have lost by 50. As it stood we managed to close it to 10 at one point and ultimately 11. I know coaches aren’t in to moral victories, but fighting back like that was impressive and gave me far more hope than I had at the half.
That game was just stunning. Everyone around me, except for the guy in 336 on row 15 who isn’t remotely happy unless we’re blitzing EVERY down, was just in shock at halftime. It was like everything that could’ve gone wrong did. It was a perfect marriage of horrendous play by all three phases of the team, offense, defense and special teams. Brian Mimbs hasn’t hit a punt that bad that I remember and he hit TWO that might have gone 20 yards. After their first drive (which was incredibly impressive although a bit penalty aided) Bama had a short field to work against and turned their 5 first half possessions into 5 scoring drives and 31 points, 4 points shy of absolute perfection.
I think the crowd reaction, no booing, very few leaving, general sense that we would mount some type of comeback, even down by 31, was a display of the considerable amount of credit Richt has built in the trust department with the UGA faithful. Yes, his teams occasionally lose and yes, they occasionally look horrible, but aside from the UT game last year, they always put up some type of fight. At halftime, the collective UGA fanbase knew that 31 points against that team was simply too much to overcome but we wanted to see the fight, we needed it for validation. If we had simply rolled over and lost by a 41-3 or 41-7 margin, there wouldn’t have been much hope for the remainder of the season. As it stands, there’s still hope, and frankly it’s as much to do with the other teams in the SEC East looking highly beatable as it is with UGA still being a good team. I mean look at the other teams out there:
I’m not sure we’re not favored in each of those games, in fact I think we are when we play them, as I think UF could lose to LSU to further tarnish their star. Of course the same goes for us. The fact remains that the Bama loss really didn’t derail any of our preseason goals. UF’s shocker of a loss to Ole Miss means that if we win all of our SEC east games, we can still lose to LSU and win the east. Of course that’s assuming that Vandy loses a SEC game outside of ours. Sure, coaches don’t like off-weeks after losses but something tells me this one won’t be a bad one, as we can take advantage of the time to refocus our players.
As for the beach, well, once again Cape san Blas is proving itself to be absolutely incredible. Sorry for complete lack of posting but you kinda get caught up in the “not doing anything” mindset down here.