Once in a lifetime

What a season.

If someone had offered, at the beginning of the year, the promise of a 10-2 season and a near certain BCS Bowl bid, would you have taken it?

Yes, you would have. And you would have run away hugging it, yelling "It's mine, it's mine, you can't take it back," bought a fire safe, put it in the safe, buried the safe 50-feet deep in the backyard, then hidden planet Earth so no one could get their grubby hands on what has obviously been a charmed year.

I won't get into too much bowl analysis (plenty of that out there), but most folks predict we'll head to the Orange Bowl. They have the first at-large pick, and it's hard to imagine them passing up the Dawgs.

Unless Virginia Tech wins the ACC Championship Game over Boston College, which there's a pretty good chance of. Then the Orange might not want a rematch of last year's Peach Bowl.

If that happens, the Fiesta has the second pick. That would match us against Big 12 champion Oklahoma or an at-large team. It won't be Missouri, because if they win the Big 12 they go to the National Title game.

Of course, the Fiesta might just pass us by in favor of a local Arizona State team. That'll sell tickets, if not hotel rooms.

But if Mizzou loses the Big 12 to Oklahoma, sending Ohio State to the National Title game, I might get to fulfill a lifelong dream: Watching the University of Georgia play in The Rose Bowl. That's only happened once, after the 1942 season.

We kicked UCLA's ass then, and we can kick USC's ass now.

Hmmm. Well, at any rate, we won't have to take a train to Pasadena this time. And who knows, maybe my buddy Brian is right when he says USC will just run and hide when we show up wearing black jerseys.

If anyone's interested, here are the BCS' selection rules. Everything will be set next Sunday.

Of course there's always the outside, ridiculous National Title shot, that's amazingly just a couple steps away. Of course, one of those steps is West Virginia losing to Pitt, so it ain't gonna happen.

But boy it sure would be nice. Someone's gonna steal a National Title this year, might as well be us.

We won't mention anything about being a play or two away in the South Carolina game from heading to the SEC Championship Game with real National Title hopes. That would just be too... too South Carolina, actually. Or tech.

Everything is just icing at this point. Ridiculous, sweet, frosty icing so thick you can't see over it, yet somehow it doesn't have calories so we're all still looking hot.

Thanks for the memories, Dawgs. You did good. Real, real, real good.