Because basically we said, "Suck it, tech."

I love this, from an AJC piece on the story behind the Boise State game, because I can't see much reason for the decision other than we just didn't want to do it, since it would have been good for Georgia tech:

Stokan next pursued the possibility of moving this year's Georgia-Georgia Tech game from late November in Bobby Dodd Stadium to early September in the Georgia Dome.

Tech expressed interest, but only if UGA would agree to play at Tech, rather than in Athens, in 2012.

The result would have been that starting in ‘12, Tech's home games in the rivalry would fall in even-numbered years, rather than the current odd-numbered years. That change would have created a more even flow of revenue for Tech by breaking up the current format that has home games against Georgia, Clemson and Virginia Tech in the same seasons.

Georgia declined, saying it did not want to alter the rivalry's home-game rotation.

Rambo suspended for the Boise game?

I certainly can't confirm it, but it fits with chatter from the last week or two. From Dave Tarter who, according to his Twitter account, is a UGA student and radio show host:





















Update: Dawgpost.com and other outlets have several interesting things up from this afternoon's press conference, including Coach Richt getting asked point blank if Rambo is expendable ... er, suspended:

“I’m not going to address that (Richt said). At the appropriate time if anybody is like that, I’ll let you know.”

If that ain't a "yes," then either there are some real strange circumstances, or Coach Richt needs to learn how to answer questions better.

Turn up the heat

How desperate are we for College Football that this qualifies as smack talk?

Boise State, the vocal bulk of your never-been-nowhere, chip-on-it's-shoulder, llama-feeding fan base is clueless. You live in a dream world, where the grass is blue and you wanna bet us whether Kellen Moore can throw a football over them mountains.

I definitely think you should kick to Brandon Boykin, every chance you can get. And I love the way he's talking to you.

I heart Greg McGarity

Since his return a year ago, UGA Athletic Director Greg McGarity has repeatedly struck just the right tone on issues a lesser executive would have easily over, or under, stepped on.

Consider the fine line that needed to be walked in meeting with Athens' police chiefs. Consider his focus on the little things, noted in that same piece.

Simply put, the man gets it. He sees consequences several steps beyond his choices. Every decision he makes just makes me more confident that he's leading this department to success.

And that's a big picture that should put a smile on your face.

"I doubt we go to the Ramsey"

From the bottom of Marc Weiszer's practice notebook today:

"Some guys have done a better job of being mature enough to fight through being tired, being sore, being bored, whatever the heck it is, to get better," he said. "I’d say there’s a few guys that still need to learn that." … Richt in recent seasons has taken his team for some diving and swimming at the Ramsey Center during camp to change things up, but that’s not in the plans. "I doubt we go to the Ramsey," said Richt, who said the team is on track to get in 29 practices for what might be the first time since he’s been at Georgia.

Good call, coach. Ramsey's got an indoor pool. They can swim in December.

"Opinions were mixed on Saturday ..."

The media coverage of Saturday's Pro Combat uniform debut provides several examples of one of my least favorite newspaper traditions: The public reaction story.

Basically, this story assignment translates to "go out, talk to like 5 people, and write what the public thinks about something." At the heart of this practice seems to be a belief that the reader needs to know what a handful of random people think, generally on a subject they know little about.

And despite a number of newspaper headlines telling you how much fans hate the Pro Combat uniforms, I can assure you that's not true. Fans have mixed opinions on these uniforms. People always have mixed opinions on things.

Hell, people can't even come to a consensus on what color the new helmets are. UGA and Nike say they're silver. The Banner-Herald says they're gray. The Macon Telegraph somehow determined that they're white.

There are fans who hate these uniforms. There are fans who like these uniforms. There are fans in the middle. You don't have any idea what the actual split is.

Me, I like them, for one game. I think they'd look better with black pants, though.

Update: The Telegraph changed its helmet description, going with "silver and red."

The 2011 AP Top 25 in list form

Twelve years in the newspaper business and I can't for the life of me figure out why the Associated Press is so quick to move a story on their College Football Top 25's, but makes just a simple list hard to find.

1. Oklahoma (36 of 60 first place votes)
2. Alabama (17)
3. Oregon (4)
4. LSU (1)
5. Boise State (2)
6. FSU
7. Stanford
8. Texas A&M
9. Oklahoma State
10. Nebraska
11. Wisconsin
12. South Carolina
13. Virginia Tech
14. TCU
15. Arkansas
16. Notre Dame
17. Michigan State
18. Ohio State
19. Georgia
20. Mississippi State
21. Missouri
22. Florida
23. Auburn
24. West Virginia
25. Southern Cal

Seems like there are some reaches in there. But, then, what else to expect before the season starts?

I guarantee that's not how you Dooley

It's not that there are no words, it's that there are way too many.



Hat tip: Silver Britches.

Looking forward to basketball season? -> this guy

Not to be seen as a comment on the coming football season.

UGA hoops schedule announced. How 'bout them Dawgs.

Bleacher Report: Also successful publishing

"Little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire."
- Homer Bannon, Hud

Let me start with this: I did indeed paint with too broad a brush last week in writing about the Idaho iteration of SB Nation. It was unintentional. There are fine writers at SB Nation, just as I'm sure there are fine writers at Bleacher Reporter.

An entity has to be judged by what it does, not by semantics. Blogs can produce great stuff. Newspapers can produce crap. But you shouldn't publish things that look to all the world like a regular article then hide behind, "well that's just a fan perspective," when it contains numerous inaccuracies.

Which brings me to The Bleacher Report. If you think they actually sent someone to all 50 of these stadiums, or did anything more scientific than read other rankings and dither over how to produce the most hits through this list of the loudest college venues, you're kidding yourself.

It's click bait, like so many things you see today from traditional and non-traditional publishers. It's a slideshow with a bunch of pictures. Facts don't come into it.

There's a place for that type of discussion. But does it deserve 43,000 views and counting?

What I'm saying is: Facts are important. Research is important. Actually going to see things in person is important. Please reward that and stay away from publishers who prove, repeatedly, that they don't value these things.

Otherwise, you will get what you pay for. Because one thing's for sure: The media is going to give you what you want, particularly when what you want is so much cheaper than traditional journalism.

Update: In writing this I have asked myself, "am I a hypocrite?" After all, this blog generally contains little original reporting. Then again, it specifically advertises its stupidity. And like other blogs I enjoy reading, it would be hard to mistake for a legitimate news organization. I'm not saying blogging is bad. I'm saying be clear and honest with readers about what you are.

Bring back the silver helmets

I'm on record against anything called "Pro Combat" that doesn't involve actual soldiers. But if we're heading down that path anyway for the Boise State game, I'd like to see some throwback flair to the new uniforms.

I'd like to see silver helmets in the mix, with an updated "G" on the side in a nod to the 1962 uniforms described here.

All in all, I think we downplay silver in general. I'm not calling for a silver-out ... yet. But it sure looks good mixed with that red and black, and it's a lot better than white.

Nick Saban: It hits all by itself

My buddy Joe was telling me the other day about a radio interview he heard with Alabama Coach Nick Saban.

Essentially Saban said he knows what he wants to do on defense, he recruits the right players for it, then he dictates that right down the other team's throat. But on offense Saban rejected the idea of having a specific philosophy, even though many argue it's important for an offense to have a clear identity.

I can't find this interview online, but Saban has made this point before:

"Our philosophy is we want to utilize the players we have on offense," Saban said following Alabama's second practice of Fall camp Friday. "We start with that. There were times at LSU when we led the SEC in passing and there were times when we led the league in rushing. There were times when we scored a lot of points and there were times when we were hard to score on. ...

"The bottom line is, we don't have a philosophy."

It didn't take long to remember where I'd heard that before. It was Bruce Lee's philosophy of martial arts, laid out at the beginning of Enter the Dragon.

Trojan Horse t-shirts: For the tech fan in your life

I want to give these people a standing ovation. From Reuters:

BERLIN - Festival goers at a nationalist, right-wing concert in Germany were taken by surprise when souvenir t-shirts they were given had a secret anti-far right message that emerged only after being washed.

The slogan on the shirts first read "hardcore rebels" along with a skull and nationalist flags. But once washed the slogan turned into a message from a group offering help to right-wing extremists break away from the neo-Nazi scene.

So you give someone a shirt, and at first it tells them they're awesome. But when they wash it, it lets them know just how stupid their moron beliefs are.

This is easily the greatest t-shirt related technology since hypercolor.

Boise tickets mailed separately

If you've gotten your season tickets in the mail and wonder why you didn't get tickets to the Boise State game, rest easy. Those will come in a separate mailing, according to the UGA ticket office.

Big John Jenkins: Banking on the Motel 6

I have no idea who came up with this, other than this anonymous commenter on Hedges to Hardwood, but this blog heartily endorses "Motel 6" as the official nickname for John Jenkins.

Me: Because he wears No. 6, and he puts people to sleep.

Joe: That is awesome. You think we'll line him up on offense some? What if we beat South Carolina on a p-44 Jenkins?

Me: Then he could go to the sidelines and eat Spurrier's visor.

Motel 6: He'll turn the light off for you.

SB Nation: Irresponsible and successful publishing

It says a lot about today's media that this guy:



... can type up his thoughts and these guys will just throw it up on the Internet, generating hundreds, if not thousands, of hits and thus advertising revenue.

Even better, they do it with the following caveats. From the blog's editors:

This content was not created by OBNUG and therefore may not meet our standards. On the contrary, it probably exceeds them.

And from the author himself in the comments:

idk if these facts are correct but that is what i found, i’d appreciate the feedback so i can get these facts correct

"Pro Quality, Fan Perspective," indeed.

I can fix the misdial recruiting violations

I doubt they're any kind of big deal, even cumulatively, but it's easy enough to keep from misdialing recruits from your cell phone.

Every recruit you program into your phone, put an "x" or some other unusual letter before their name. Then they're all together in one place, and you don't call Drew Harris when you mean to call Jay Harris (fourth item) and commit a secondary NCAA violation.

Putting recruits in the "X" section should also cut down on butt dialing.

Aaron Murray: Room for improvement

I have a confession to make: I didn't think Aaron Murray was that good last year.

Sure, I know he was a redshirt freshman. He was good for a redshirt freshman. And taken as a whole, his stats for the season were downright solid.

But we stalled on a lot of drives, right when we needed momentum. I'm not smart like some of you folks, so I can't just point at Mike Bobo and blame the play calling. I blame a plethora of things. I see death by 1,000 cuts and football as a game of inches.

Which is to say I want a quarterback who can shrug all that off, put us on his back, and take us to the end zone.

And that is why I love Aaron Murray. From The Macon Telegraph:

“If you all were able to go back and watch the film the way we watch the film and critique it the way I critique it and the way Coach Bobo critiques it, there were tons of plays last year where I left on the field,” Murray said. “I could’ve thrown a completion here or there, or thrown a touchdown here or there, or checked to a play here or there that I didn’t do. There are a lot of corrections to be made.”

Boise game NOT a must win

From Tom Dienhart:

I hate to overstate the importance of a season-opening game, but that's just what I'm going to do: Georgia HAS to beat Boise State when they meet in Atlanta on Sept. 3. ... No school will play a more important season opener than Georgia. A loss vs. a very good Boise State squad could send a Bulldogs team with shaky confidence into a funk with a visit from South Carolina - the favorite of most to win the SEC East - looming next. An 0-2 start could mean that Georgia's season is over before it hardly had begun.

Free tip for journalists starting out: Don't write sentences that say two opposite things.

Now, I'm going to lose my mind as much as anyone if we lose to Boise State. But it's not an SEC game. It's not a "must" win any more than any other game on the schedule. To the extent that early-season must wins exist, South Carolina is a must win.

But college football history is replete with examples of teams that stumbled early, then recovered to have very good seasons. And a very good Bulldogs season in 2011 would be a great accomplishment.

Since our primary goal is the SEC championship, I'd argue the opening game is bigger for Boise than it is for us. Win and they're in the national conversation all year long. Lose and maybe the ESPN guys will talk about how Boise State can still win the Mountain West, some time after the third commercial break.

But I will say this: If we're so mentally weak that losing to Boise sends us into some kind of shame spiral the season can't recover from, if we're a team with "shaky confidence," as Dienhart suggests, then we are already doomed.