Pathetic, or something like it

With apologies to Kenny Rogers, Merle Haggard and pretty much every Dawg fan who had to watch that game.



Initially my one and only thought about this game was "pathetic." But somewhere between the sorriness of the third quarter and the inevitability of the fourth, I began to grasp a sense of nuance about a game that surely marks one of the true low points, from a single-game point of view, of the Richt era.

Tonight was 2008 Alabama bad, without the second half attempted comeback. The better team - the better team by a wide margin - won. But we played poorly.

Our offensive line looked like we should have expected at the start of the season. Our defense is inexplicably mediocre. Aaron Murray is getting harder to defend against the people who say he can't win the big games. I'm not one to bash play calling, but running out of the shotgun against one of the nation's most athletic fronts, on the goal line and elsewhere, strikes me as stupid.

So all around a fairly sorry game, not so much in effort (although the fourth quarter made me question that as well), but in execution.

Long season still to go. Still a good chance South Carolina takes a couple of losses in SEC play. We have a week off. Then Kentucky. Then we damn well better beat Florida, or you can start hoping about 2013.

What we had here tonight was a two-Merle-Haggard song loss. Wake up, Bulldogs. In hindsight, you were bound to lose tonight against a good South Carolina team that came out loaded for bear and ready to go. But you also played like shit. I'd prefer you learn, one of these days, to play like champions.