I was so pissed yesterday with the whole Kirby Smart situation that I was wondering just what good the interwebs were for my blood pressure and overall mental state. And my beloved college football, my religion as a member of the Church of Uga, was riding in a very close second for things I was going to give up for a few weeks. And then Lane Kiffen, Uga bless his heart, gives me reason to smile and something he never had: perspective.

I got a text from my buddy at 2112: “Lane Kiffin just took the SC job.” My first reaction was simply, “What??????? I though Mariucci was taking it.” Then, remembering my dance with the devil just yesterday, I reminded him, “Don’t believe it until the presser. Like we did with Kirby.” And I went back to what I was doing. Then I got done and fired up the evil, demon interwebs and found this as breaking news on Yahoo. And the message boards, they were a burnin’.

So it turns out that, really, honestly, Kiffykins is headed back to where it started. ESPN reported it, so I tended to believe it (more than say, Rivals and footballcoachscoop.com and Pollack’s Twitter feed). And then came this (h/t: BusterSports.com). Wait, did he just zing Fulmer on his way OUT THE DOOR with that “leaving here 14 months later with a lot better team than we were 14 months ago” comment? Wow, first you took the man’s job and now you’re saying that in 14 whole months you made that much improvement? Dude, you went 7-6 and got it handed to you in the Chick-Fil-A bowl.

I’ve just got to wonder if it had something to do with the NCAA sanctions. Not the minor violations he’s managed to rack up at UT, along with the hostesses that he “didn’t have knowledge of” and one of his prize recruits just pleading guilty to attempted robbery. No, what I’m saying is that in 14 months at UT that wasn’t good enough for Lane “Sanction Express” Kiffin. He needs a school with a foundation and tradition in that particular area.

Oh, just so nobody’s worried about the Kiffykins Crew, Daddy and Orgeron are packing up to. And like the hotel guest that takes a towel or two, they’re going to try to sneak a few amenities out in their luggage. Like all 8 recruits that enrolled early and are were set to start classes tomorrow. Well, that’s ballsy for sure. I’m not sure if that’s smart considering this happened (NSFW pics in the link). But that’s all water under the dam, right? Right??

Well Vol Nation, even though we (for the most part) cordially detest each other I’m not here to rub it in. I didn’t get any real grief from you guys on the Kirby thing, except for that one goober, so I’m going to give you insight into this Dawg fanatic’s mind. I’m going to tell you how to scare the Silver Britches off of the collective Bulldawg Nation: Hire the right guy this time. I’m not being flippant. Last year’s shellacking aside, I was never really worried about UT as long as Lane and his reanimated DC Daddy were at the helm. Your program was being run by an entire pack of blind squirrels. At least you didn’t have to wait 3 years for the problem to get rectified (ahem).

I know a lot of names are already being thrown around for the vacancy and that time is SO of the essence, what with National Signing Day right around the bend. Your need has finally taken over the spotlight in the SEC, so I thank you.

• I know a lot of folks want Muschamp, but I think it’s a pipe dream – his gig is too sweet down at the other UT.
• I’ve heard Mike Leach – WTF-ever. Yeah, the only thing to counter the drama and crazy you just had is with MORE crazy….
• Gruden – not likely. He’s got ties to the program, but those were a long time ago. He’s an NFL guy now. Your chances of getting him are about as good as us getting our now-NFL guy, Van Gorder.
• Patterson – DECENT chance, but the timetable is too short for you. He might like to come to a AQ school, though. If you weren’t concerned with trying to keep or replace those 8 guys following Pied-Orgeron’s flute it might be worth a shot.
• Calhoun from Air Force – I believe he was a finalist when you hired the last guy. I think the time table works against you again. And he wouldn’t scare me much.

Here’s an idea that would scare me to death: Look to your tree and get a guy who’s come home several times. A guy with SEC ties and a successful track record as a HC in the conference. A guy who coached up your golden calf and his brother. He’s a head coach in the basketball conference (ACC) right now. Some guy named Cutcliffe.

Look, the man can coach. Period. He took a pretty rank Ole Miss squad and did some pretty good things. In 6 seasons, he had 5 winning seasons and never had a losing record until his last. He was 4-1 in bowl games (counting his first when he took over when TTubbs ran to Auburn), including a Cotton Bowl win in 2003 when he tied for a share of the West with eventual BCS champs LSU. And it’s not like he left that team in shambles – Houston Nutt brought his heavy run offense to the table and took them to the Cotton Bowl the following year.

His next, and current, HC gig took him to Durham. They’re not awful. In his first year Duke won the same number of games as they did in the last 4 years COMBINED. They improved another win last year, against a pretty tough schedule. I’d bet that he takes them to a bowl in the upcoming season. The man can flat out coach. Oh, don’t forget about the last SEC guy that took Duke from the crapper, whipped them into respectability, then came back to the SEC. Here’s a hint –

So maybe Cutcliffe isn’t the second coming of Darth Visor. Maybe we have that already in Meyer and Saban. Maybe I’m pulling your collective Rocky Top chains. Maybe I just wanted an excuse to post a pic of Erin Andrews (that would be a good guess if I actually NEEDED an excuse). All I’m saying is that Cutcliffe would make UT, in my silly little mind, relevant in the SEC East discussion.

And there is whining coming from here, too. I’ll at least try to justify mine with a little bit of logic. Everybody who’s listened to me talk about college football knows that I am no fan of the BCS. I refuse to accept the apology that, “it’s the best we’ve got, so we have to deal with it.” I think that it’s a huge conspiracy from the powers that be (Presidents, ADs and League Commissioners) of the BCS conferences to hog an even bigger piece of the college football money pie. But that’s all for some other time. One that I’ll probably get into later in the season as my frustration with the “system” grows. What I want to cover right now is the first poll and just what I think of the “B-no-C-S.”

I have no complaints about the first 2 teams. Texas and Bama have proven it on the field and deserve their positions. Texas has run an incredible gauntlet and acquitted themselves very well, and they’re led by the Heisman Trophy front runner (Colt McCoy). I’m tired of hearing that they’re playing teams that aren’t that good or that the Big 12 isn’t as great a conference that popular opinion says it is. Guys, it is. No doubt whatsoever. I have, and still do, maintained that the Big 12 is the second toughest conference in CFB and that it’s the only conference that belongs on the same field with the SEC. History has proven that it’s certainly not the Big Ten (those last 2 NC games have spelled that out well enough). And here’s the thing about both of these teams – they will have to win their conference championship crowns on the field. So they’ll have to play their way into the NC game. read this entry »

Well, Georgia is without a game this week so we’ll do a quick wrap up of the Bama debacle and what’s ahead for the By God University of Georgia Bulldogs. Then lets do a quick overview of the rest of the country and take a look at a couple of good matchups this week.

Talk about a tale of two halves last Saturday. I will still give Bama all the credit in the world – they came out and punched us right in the mouth FIVE STRAIGHT POSSESSIONS and left us for dead. And I’ll give them Dawgs a lot of credit – they didn’t roll over and die like they did last year in a similar situation at Tennessee. I tell ya – one more defensive stand on Bama’s field goal drive in the second half, or one missed tackle on the ensuing kickoff and we would’ve had ourselves a brand new ball game.

For that matter, take away that roughing penalty on the first drive (the one that deleted that fumble) and maybe things are different. And ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have ourselves a merry Christmas…. Kill yourself with penalties, have a few bad breaks (missed catches and the fumble by AJ) and that adds up to a momentum killer. Knowshon wasn’t much of a factor, either, at least not after the first drive. Give Bama’s D-line the credit there, and for keeping pressure on Stafford.

All in all, a spectacular first half by Bama and nearly the same from Georgia in the second. The difference came down to the Dawgs not being able to keep the game from getting away in the first and Bama being able to put the game away in the second. But like I said way back before the season started, I expected a loss before the break. There’s still plenty of time and the schedule is favorable, especially if the season keeps to the same script as last year (remember the last week of September last year?), to book that trip to Miami. Now that we see that we’re not the titans we thought we were, I hope that there’s some soul-searching and retrospection that leads to some quality wins for the rest of the season.

So let’s see here, what teams lost last week? USC (Oregon St); Clemson (Maryland, who lost to Middle Tennessee St earlier); Florida (a choker to Ole Miss at the Swamp); Wisconsin (Michigan, who gutted it out); Weak, I mean Wake Forest (Navy, a true system program); Georgia (Alabama, the most complete team I’ve seen play); Illinois (Penn St, probable Rose Bowl participant). Those last two weren’t REALLY upsets, although the Bama game could have been seen that way. Penn St was the higher-rannked team. Oh, and UT lost to Auburn in the TO bowl. Sorry, had to include that one…. read this entry »

Well boys and girls, things start to get very interesting now. Southern Cal got beat by Oregon State Wednesday night and regardless of how Oklahoma does, a Georgia win should put them back on top. I waited to the end of the UConn – Louisville game so that I could make sure that there wasn’t anything else I’d missed to include in this one. It’s getting about time to start rocking the boat and we’re now less than 3 weeks away from the BCS ruining another season, families and arrest records all over the country – the southeast especially.

Let’s talk about the buzz around the water cooler from Thursday – USC losing to 25-point underdog Oregon State. I’ve heard all manner of things from USC had too much time off early in the season to they started reading their own press to, get this shit, that the PAC-10 is that good. I can counter with just one statement: Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

That’s pointed at USC in a couple of ways. First, the last time they played at Oregon State they lost as a heavy favorite. Second, they always have one game every year where they completely lose their focus and lose to someone that had no business being in the game after halftime. It happens to every great team every year (losing focus, that is), it’s just up to the coaches and the teams to get that focus back in time to pull out a close win.

That statement points to the media just as much. Every year, you guys anoint a team in week 3 or 4 and declare them to be head and shoulders above everyone else. Then along comes a Stanford or Oregon St or a Pitt and ruins your best laid plans. An overflow of facts in evidence has made the media back away from their favorite darlings, Ohio State, but they were lucky enough to have USC to fill that gap this year. Oops again, huh boys? read this entry »

Ok, weekly updates weren’t really that important up til now (Georgia had tuneup games). So, I’ll do a quick recap and look at this week, all before kickoff (an hour and a half from now). Obviously, the most important thing is Georgia Football but I’ll touch on a few things that struck me as odd and beat up the media and BCS a little bit, too.

Week 1 was more shocking that 2. With the exceptions of Pitt and Virginia Tech, all the Top 25 teams did what they were supposed to. Pitt wasn’t that good, in my opinion, and Va Tech is having an off year. And I think that East Carolina IS that good, at least as long as they can keep their focus. Kudos to Skip Holtz, and I hope he stays at ECU and turns them into a powerhouse that turns the BCS on its ear for years to come.

The only shocker was the injury of OSU’s Beanie Wells. What the hell was he doing in the ballgame in the 3rd quarter with the game no longer in doubt? Well, padding his stats for his run at the Heisman, that’s what. And I don’t think you can blame Jim Tressel for this. Beanie was probably dying to get more yards and there’s huge pressure on the coaches from the schools to get that recognition. So, he’s still out this week for their alleged “game of the year” against Southern Cal. B-double-O H-double-O.

MY big gripe after Week 1 is about the polls. It’s not that UGA getting bumped down a notch after they covered the spread and USC beat down a BCS conference team in Virginia. It’s how much juggling they did throughout the poll. There has been a call for years to not rank teams until the end of September, but the media has always said that things are okay the way they are. Well, you idiots jumped USC over both UGA and OSU (who both covered) based on the lunacy that because they played FCS teams and USC beat a BCS conference team (that returned a whopping 2 all-ACC players) that played in a New Year’s Day bowl last year. Whatever. Hey guys, how about the brilliant preseason ranking of Clemson at 9? read this entry »