Silver Linings for the Silver Britches

I have to admit...as a Dawg fan, it's real hard to find one this morning.

Diamond Dave, Bulldog fan extraordinaire and world-renowned Gator-hater, will probably never recover from this turn of events, at least until this October. He and I had a spirited discussion, bordering on heated argument, as to whether one should pull for Florida or not. His position: Never*. My position: From a strictly selfish standpoint, Georgia needs Florida to do well (and really, if you think about it, win big) if we get our shot in the next couple of years... or we'll get screwed a la Auburn from the lack of respect for the SEC. His rebuttal: Doesn't matter. All that matters is that UF lose now. We can only worry about GA if and when that time comes. And you know what? He's probably right.

* Ever

But I have a confession to make. I enjoyed watching Ohio St. lose. The only difference between this game and the 1992 Alabama national humbling of Miami was that Troy Smith didn't fall on his butt taking a snap like fellow Heisman winner Gino Torretta. Ah, the panicky, pants-soiling coaching decisions made in the first half by Sweater-Vest U...the numbing realization by their fans that good grief! we're getting our butts handed to us by these barefoot jeans short wearing mullet hicks.

Did you know that Ohio State's band played the "Titanic" theme song as part of the halftime show? That is funny ha ha.

Please forgive me for pulling for Florida just a wee little bit. I suck.

The argument put forth every December that one must pull for SEC teams in bowl games always creates a major conflict for the Georgia Bulldog part of me. Admit it, you got the warm fuzzies seeing Penn St. whip Tennessee. Same for LSU exposing what everyone who is not a Notre Dame fan already knew. Notre Dame's presence in the BCS shows the system has as much credibility as the voting for the MLB All-Star Game. You probably didn't care that Arkansas didn't show up. You probably weren't even out of bed yet when Auburn kicked off in the Cotton Bowl around sunrise on New Year's Day. Kentucky will hang a banner in their overgrown high school stadium for winning 8 games (but seeing Clemson lose always produces a smile), while Steve Spurrier will continue to tee it up at Augusta National for raising the bar at Carolina with 8 whole victories. Bama....yow, without the strong finish, that could've been us getting weedeated at the buzzer.

(Side note: I vowed a long time ago that I would never pull for TECH again. I did one time, in 1990, for their 1/2 championship, when I was young and stupider than I am now. I swore I would never make that mistake again. I did personally pull for Taylor Bennett in the Gator Bowl...200 yards and 3 TD's in the first half must've twisted the knife a little bit deeper, hee hee!)

This is my personal matrix for whether I pull for other SEC teams or not: (Note, I reserve the right to change my mind depending on how it affects my beloved Dawgs.)

Alabama: My feelings for Bama are well known. I pull for them exclusively except when we play them. They now have a coach. Which is Tubby Tooberville's worst nightmare. That sound you hear is the War Eagle Cessna firing up when Bobby Lowder flies to Atlanta to give Petrino another shot in two years when the Coach Killer Ron Mexico (aka Mike Vick) ends the Louiville Experiment at Suwannee.

Arkansas, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Miss St, Kentucky: To borrow from Grizzard, most games they play are like two mules fighting over a turnip. I mean, who cares?

Auburn: Tubby is a hard man to root for. But not quite as hard as Phat Phil and Turban Meyer.
Until he opens his mouth, that is.

Tennessee: Uh, no. I did pull for them against Notre Dame. Besides, Krispy Kreme stock goes up for some weird reason when they aren't playing well.

Florida: Outside of last night, which was not really pulling hard for them, I pull for them only against Tennessee. And probably Miami.

LSU: Those people can cook. There is a reason this blog is called Heavy Lunch.

Vandy: Every 10-12 years, we are reminded that they do play football as a varsity sport.



Silver linings for a Gator Chompionship? (Note to CNNSI and ESPN.com: That headline is just gator as hell).

1) The Yankee/Midwest Anti-Southern bias depantsed Once Again. The national pundits, especially ESPN** got it handed to them last night. I got sick of hearing the excuses made for Michigan's sorry Rose Bowl performance (i.e., the bowl loss didn't matter; they should have had a rematch). That "losing by 3-points heroic effort" the Maize and Blue gave against the Buckeyes vaporized in Glendale in front of the whole nation. Any attempt to peg Ohio State's cataclysmic collapse on the 50-day layoff just sounded hollow. Even Big 10/OSU apologist Kirk Herbstreit, no SEC fan, admitted he was wrong about speed. Again. And he had an upfront and personal look at it against GA in the Citrus Bowl in '92. It's not just the skill positions. Ted Ginn, Jr. is quite the track star, holding or no holding. It's in the trenches AND playing against that speed week in and week out.

More often than not, annually the best college football top-to bottom is played way south of the Mason-Dixon line, and those condescending b*&^&*ds only understand it when something like last night happens. Kinda like the Taliban only understanding our reasoning when we drop a 5000-lb Daisy Cutter down their rabbit hole. Ohio State got blown out of the stadium by a (having...trouble...speaking) better, (throat tightening) faster, (wheeez)more proven team (....now I'm choking back the bile...excuse me, blleccchh). Ahem... too bad it was Florida that got to prove it. On the bright side, we probably won't have to see a countdown timer starting in September this fall for Ohio State/Michigan. We will see one starting today for Notre Dame/USC, dammit.

**aka the Eternal Self-Pimping Network.

2) That's it. Outside of the North vs. South thing, there is nothing else even remotely good about Florida winning this game, unless you count the satisfaction we're gonna get when we beat the defending national champions.

3) Oh, wait...Playoffs? I could care less about a playoff right now...because pretenders like Boy-see State*** can make all this noise about wanting and deserving a shot. Any team whose big game each year is against the Oregon St. Beavers (snicker snicker) or the Hawaii Warriors**** and generally only wins that game at home...while getting absolutely destroyed in the one big-time game they've outside the big blue potato patch in the past three years (48-13 Dawgs thank you very much!) needs to work on that out-of-conference schedule a bit.

***Thanks to Oklahoma for getting the Dawgs off the hook for giving an illegitimate conference a head of steam from a BCS bowl game. I think it is safe to say the WAC ain't the Big East.

**** Formerly the Rainbow Warriors. Also considered: the Hawaii Jeff Gordons.


In closing (finally! had a lot to get off my chest)

You wanna know the real reason the bowls got screwed up and begat the BCS? The Rose Bowl Committee. When they put their heads together 50 years ago and locked in the Big 10 and Pac 10 each year, they directly caused the problem we have today. And they still cause it, because if they don't get their way and have their precious Cornfed vs. Pretty Boy matchup, they take their ball and go home.

And that is why we probably won't see a playoff anytime soon. Besides, the debate is pretty fun.

Chik-Fil-A Bowl note:

I received a plea for help during halftime of the UGA/Va. Geek Squad game...good friend keepitcreel.com called me from the GA Dome and said he needed a pep talk. Things were not going well, to say the least, and he was contemplating getting on MARTA and heading home...so I did what any good friend and Dawg fan does:

I lied. (well, I thought I was lying at the time).

"Keepitcreel.com," I said, "we're a second half team. All we need is a defensive TD and we'll be right back in this thing. You hang in there, we're not out of it." I even thought about putting on my lucky Hawaiian flowerdy shirt that I sewed a "G" patch on for comebacks. Having had the Heavylunch cocktail of choice, the V&T with a Chianti chaser, I promptly forgot. Turns out I didn't need it.

Moral of the story: If GA gets behind early, call my cell and I'll lie to you, too.

Whatever works, babe.

Countdown to signing day is coming!

Woof.