Target on Their Backs

So the puppies get the nod from the coaches in the

USA Today Coaches Preseason poll and Flori-duh gets picked to win the SEC. Go figure. After the country butt whippings we administered during the last half of the season, I think we have a legitimate claim to being somewhere in the top five.

"Being number one in the coaches' preseason poll does have significance since it's one-third of the formula to decide who playsin the national championship game," Georgia coach Mark Richt said Friday inpress release from the university. "But the postseason poll is the one that isthe most important. However, I know the ranking is exciting for Georgia football and hopefully we can do our part to stay in the race."

That's the key part - staying in the race. For what I'm reading in the AJC, the Dawgs have never been a number one preseason pick in the Coaches' Poll. And in my true pessimistic Munson fashion, I wish they weren't slotted in the top spot.

First, only two teams in the past ten years have taken the preseason poll and gone on to finish as champs; USC (2004) and Florida State (1999). On the plus side, CMR was there and has seen first hand how to get it done.

Coach Richt has stated that this will either be a blessing or a curse. It's a blessing in the overall formula and giving the players a sense of pride. It can end up a curse if the players develop a senseof entitlement and they forget how much blood and sweat will be needed to finish at the top.

I would be much more comfortable crawling up from say number two or three to the top after the first weekend in November after we return from Jacksonville. But that's irrelevant. The target is firmly planted on our backs and now it's time to get busy and keep it there because it hurts a lot more when you fall from the top.