Ramping Up

Well Dawg fans, here we are, with less than 26 hours to go. Will the stomp talk drive the Gators to give us a country a@#$ whoppin’ or will the Dawgs cowboy up and match them TD for TD?

Here in Atlantic Beach, you can’t get a good gauge on the true feeling of the fans other than each side has a healthy respect for the other team.

If you are following the twitter log (see right) you can keep up with most of our experiences. To put the visual with the micro blogs, here are some photos.

Rasta Dawg prepping for a little PT.

Santa Claus and our Sun Dog server.

Stuart's Get Out the Vote Wagon.

Twittering, Photo Logs, and Mopeds

Phase I of the 2009 Georgia - Florida fan arrival is now safely complete. Andy, Carey, Dave, Randy, and Stuart all have checked in with the concierge – Blogging Dawg (BD). To speed things up and to simplify the process, BD has set up a Twitter site at http://twitter.com/bloggingdawg. This blog has a feed at the top right to give you the latest feeds from the crew as reported by BD.

The crew braved the cool temps last night and went out for pizza and then over to a small local bar called “Ginger’s Place.” There was and interesting mix of folks participating in Karaoke in this joint. Tom, dressed in a crap fishing jumper and flip-flops lead the crowed in a heart warming rendition of Mandy.

Tom and Stuart have upgraded from the bicycles to mopeds. There are three here at the compound, and of course only two are running at the moment.

Check out some of the scary photos of last night's adventures.

Blacked Out, Rolled Over and Black Topped

Too little, too late for the Dawgs in one of the worst first-halfs of football I’ve ever seen a Georgia team play.

Like a big Crimson steam roller, the St. Sabin’s Tide rolled into Sanford Stadium, dominated both lines of scrimmage made a statement to the national ESPN audience – we’re back.

Having grown up listening to the humble doomsday prophesies of Munson and Coach Dooley this game took those fears, bundled them up and served them up in a nice steaming pile. Here’s a few of those choice nuggets that will need to be addressed if we hope to get a chance to play in Atlanta come December.

1. Special teams: I want to scream every time I hear about the wonderful job our special teams are doing. I heard it again Saturday night. Sorry but one TD and a blocked punt didn’t out weigh the two busted punts and awful kickoffs and kick coverage in the game I was watching.

2. Get some discipline: I was troubled to read CMR’s comments last week where he said he felt it was more of guys just playing aggressively. Here’s a suggestion, let them work out that little bit of extra aggression on Sunday afternoon with mat drills for players who commit the penalties. The number of drills could be commensurate with the number of yards penalized. For example, Prince Miller could crank out 25 mat drills for the 25 yards he cost UGA in the first half with his two infractions. I’m not even going to address the time spent with Athens-Clarke County’s finest by some of the other student-athletes.

3. Enough with the gimmicks and pre-game nonsense: Put on the Red, retire the black and play ball. If Georgia needed black jerseys to get fired up for Bama we have some much deeper issues than hands to the face, dropped balls, weak cover two defensive schemes. Saturday I thought I was watching Jerry Glanville’s Falcons. And, if I have to watch another team dancing contest during pre-game, I may just gouge out my eyes. Get mad, get focused and GATAs – enough with the nonsense.

4. Cohesive offensive line play: We need to find that same switch that was seemingly flipped after Vandy last year. Not sure if he has his notebook from last year, but hopefully Coach Searels can work his magic again.

With that, all is not lost. They did play Georgia football for most of the second half. Georgia demonstrated the fight and desire they will need for a full four quarters for every game that’s left – including Vandy and Kentucky.

I know Georgia wants to be number one, but they have to earn it. As my favorite Bulldog Lewis Grizzard put it, “. . . it’s like a dogsled team. If you ain’t the lead dog, the view is always the same.” So enough with the should’ve, could’ve, would’ves. Button your chinstraps and GATA.

Looking Back to Look Forward

Bulldog Headlines

Dogs drop in poll but Richt isn’t concerned
Atlanta Journal Constitution, USA - Sep 15, 2008
By CHIP TOWERS Athens —Mark Richt couldn’t suppress a little chuckle when he answered an inevitable question during his weekly teleconference call on Sunday. . .

Richt: Wishes ASU had beaten UNLV
Red and Black, GA - Sep 15, 2008
"I wish they would have won it so maybe they would be flying a little higher and not have a chip on their shoulder," Georgia head coach Mark Richt said. . .

No. 3 Georgia still has some work to do
Atlanta Journal Constitution, USA - Sep 15, 2008
Georgia has to get more pressure on the quarterback, even if the Bulldogs need to send an extra person. South Carolina moved the ball pretty effectively in . . .

Georgia visiting upset Sun Devils
Chattanooga Times Free Press, TN - Sep 15, 2008
Erickson had plenty of praise for the Bulldogs, pointing out the talents of quarterback Matthew Stafford and tailback Knowshon Moreno and adding that the . . .

Rethinking Georgia's Pass Rush Problems
Bleacher Report, CA - Sep 15, 2008
Now that a few days have passed since Georgia-South Carolina, Kit Kitchens reexamines the Bulldogs' pass rush problems with the help of some other blogs and ...

Time to Shift Gears

The AJC’s

Mark Bradley is asking if the Dawgs have fleas. CBS’s Gregg Doyel (who looks like he drives a van and tries to hand out free candy at playgrounds) says when it mattered, Stafford and Moreno didn’t.

TaterChip sent me a text Saturday night – it wasn’t pretty, but it was a win.
Pretty much sums it up.

To quote Spurrier once upon a time,"Hey it's not like we beat a powerhouse, they lost to Vandy." It wasn't pretty and it wasn't impressive. To build on the old ball coaches quote, these jokers have lost two in a row to Vandy.

As the Dawg Nation is hearing more and more of the O-V-E-R-R-A-T-E-D war cries, I think they should remember, it ain’t where we start, it’s where we finish. Don’t throw in the red and black towels just yet. In 2002, when UGA won 13 games, more than any in team history, five of those wins were by less than a touchdown. In 1980, six games were won by a touchdown or less.

Under Richt, we have had more moments of being impressive than being unimpressive. Have faith that he will have them ready to win the big ones and pray that he finds the answer to having them ready to leave no doubt in the ones where we are heavily favored.

The trick this year is to forget being number 1 in the preseason. Forget ESPN the Mag, SI, and Athlon’s. The Dawgs need to keep their ears pinned back and shift gears this week. If they think the trip to the desert will be easy after last week’s upset by UNLV, they are more immature than Gregg Doyel gives them credit for. Those Sun Devils will be ticked and looking for redemption.

Go west young men. Shift it up a notch. Get all of the kinks worked out. Show those folks a little of the SEC hospitality that Hawaii has seen and get back to the classic city to prepare for the gauntlet.

Know Your Dawgs - Knowshon