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  That makes it six out of the last nine over U-T!
   
• Go back and look at the play-by-play and drive charts. Georgia demolished the Vols on both sides of the ball. The final score tells us that indeed we were sloppy (as was the officiating crew), but that perhaps our incredibly young caterpillar-like team may be ready to explode out of its cocoon -- similar to the 2007 version.
   
• Speaking of young, Coach Richt was surprised when I mentioned to him on Saturday that Georgia is second in the nation for the number of freshmen who've played this season. 24 pups have seen action. FSU had played 31 freshmen as of last week.
   
• Statistics LIE

  Caleb King's stat line from Saturday: Nine carries for 18 net yards. Two yards per carry.

  • Only people who saw the fourth quarter realize how bogus those numbers are.
  • Caleb did not take one for the team -- he took THREE for the team!
  • On Georgia's final drive the Bulldogs burned clock and Caleb lost six net yards protecting the football and sealing the victory on three consecutive carries.
  • Caleb's true net per carry was four yards (six carries for 24 yards) - double what the final stat sheet says.

  Note: Caleb produced gains of 7, 7 and 8 on nearly 11 minute long game-sealing drive and looked pretty sweet doing it, didn't he?
   

• Who's tougher - Knowshon or Mohammed? Both took wicked shots vs. the Vols and both returned and made the Big Orange pay -- in spades!
   
• Saturday's 26-14 win over Tennessee can be summed up in three drives.

  1. Facing the S.E.C.'s #1 defense, Georgia took the ball on its first possession and rolled 79 yards in 12 plays, eating up 5:36 and culminating in a T.D. run by Brannan Southerland.

  2. Fast forward to Georgia's last drive of the first half. Tennessee was getting dominated till that point but had managed to slice the Bulldogs lead to 13-7 and threatened to take momentum into the locker room at half-time. The Bulldogs instead responded with a 97-yard T.D. drive, accomplished in a mere 2:08. 20-7 Dawgs at the break.

  3. Fourth quarter. Georgia leading 23-14 with 13:44 to play. Our Bulldogs held the ball for 10:55, pounding it down Tennessee's throat to the tune of 17 plays, effectively ending the game with Blair Walsh's fourth field goal of the game with less than three minutes to play.

  THAT - ladies and gents - is S.E.C. ball-control football!
   

• Speaking of our kickers:

  I loved that All-American kicker and super great guy Rex Robinson called "DawgTalk" to check in with Eric Zeier and me on Saturday after the game. Rex had nothing but praise for the critical, pressure-packed 41 yard field goal by Blair Walsh early in the fourth quarter Saturday night. Miss that one and U-T would've been headed downhill with momentum in a game that they certainly hadn't played well enough to merit victory.

  "DawgTalk" comes on about 30 minutes after the final gun each week and lasts for two hours. Zeier's great! Give it a try!

  Oh, let's not forget Mimbsy. Brian Mimbs rebounded from his hiccups against Alabama and netted 44 yards on two punts vs. the Vols. Most important, he did not crumble as UT had the punt block on with 1:11 to play and - under an intense rush -- he boomed a 56-yarder.
   

• An interesting note: Tennessee has now picked off eleven passes this season, but has yet to gain a turnover via fumble recovery.
   
• Kudos to Willie Martinez's defense that gagged the Vols.
  • Tennessee finished with 209 yards total offense - 158 in the first 57 minutes of the game!
  • Sure the Volunteers are struggling on offense, but 10 first downs? Give the defense some love!
  • Georgia's four-man rush kept pressure on QB Nick Stephens all game. Nice to have Rod Battle back on the edge, eh?
  • Our corners played shut down coverage for a majority of the game. Asher Allen throughout, and Prince Miller - especially - in the early going.
  • Great to see the linebackers play adequately without Dannell Ellerbe.
  • Even greater to know that we can add Dannell back to the mix this week!
  • We see a little more "future star" revealed in Rashad Jones each week, don't we?
     
• Finally, do you think that we missed Brannan Southerland those first five weeks? If you wonder why we suddenly were able to rush the ball so effectively against the S.E.C.'s top-rated defense look no further than #36, who wiped out Tennessee linebackers all day long!

On Rankings:

Got an e-mail from a friend (and former Georgia Girl), Lauren Taylor: "I'm...not happy that the Bulldogs are #10 still. They should have moved up in the AP poll."

Look, I know that the rankings will allegedly take care of themselves if we win out (note: "allegedly") but the 2008 script so far reminds me of an old Woody Allen joke:

"Two old ladies are sitting at breakfast at a resort in the Catskills. First lady says, "Oy, the food here is terrible." The other one replies in disgust, "Yes, and the portions are so small."

My friend Chip Towers of the AJC wrote - correctly - this week:

"The Bulldogs might as well forget about the polls. Their national perception has been solidified ? pretty good team, not very disciplined, not national championship material."

Don't shoot the messenger, Bulldog Nation. Chip was simply stating the obvious if you look at how the red and black has been treated by the pollsters.

Someone explain to me how this works?

Georgia is #1, wins, yet drops to #2
Georgia is #2, wins, yet drops to #3
Georgia is #3, loses to #8, and plummets to #11.

But. But!...The team that beat Georgia - Alabama - rockets from #8 to #2.

So let's try to decipher this logic...if you're a pollster you catapulted Alabama from #8 to #2 - past fellow undefeated teams Texas, LSU, Missouri and Penn State - based on...what exactly?

Likely, as a pollster, you based it on the fact that Alabama had just proven its worth by beating a very good Georgia team. If you had thought that they were better because of the win over Clemson then you would have ranked them higher PRIOR to the win over Georgia, right?

But, illogically, you then sent Georgia reeling. Y'see, if you don't think Georgia is very good - then you've catapulted the Crimson Tide without good reason.

So, which is it?

But wait. This past week, top-rated Oklahoma lost by ten points to #5 Texas. Yet the Sooners slipped only three spots in the poll to #4.

Huh? Is it because Oklahoma lost to a really good team -- Texas? But so did Georgia - it lost to an Alabama team that was granted a leap of six spots to #2 in the polls BECAUSE IT BEAT GEORGIA.

Yet the Bulldogs were punished far more severely for their loss to Alabama than Oklahoma was to Texas.

"Ahhh," you say, "but Bama rolled to a 31-0 lead. Georgia showed nothing that merited more respect than what it received."

My counter is: Oklahoma blew leads of 14-3, 21-10 and got outscored 15-0 down the stretch after leading 35-30. The Sooners were outscored 35 -14 over the game's final 40 minutes. Crushed. So, is it better to crumble late than to get up off the mat and battle back to make a game of it? And if so?says who?

It's the Woody Allen joke revised: Essentially the pollsters have simultaneously told Georgia, "Boy, you're not nearly as good as we thought you were" while they're telling Alabama, "Hot damn - you guys must be great to go in there and beat such a good Georgia team!"

So, which is it?

And if we and Oklahoma and Southern Cal (who DIDN'T lose to a top ten opponent, but rather a non-ranked opponent) all win out - then how will this "all sort out at the end?"

Neil "Hondo" Williamson
October 15, 2008

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