UGA

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Like the Gators themselves, SNL doesn’t want to play the game today, but hopes to peak as the week goes on, and crescendo on Saturday at or near 3:30 p.m. 

If the local fish-wrap and airwaves are fair indicators, and they usually are, SNL stands alone in his reluctance to begin hyping the UF-UGA rematch.  SNL’s reticence notwithstanding, it seems only fair to offer a pearl or two before substantive analysis begins later in the week.

First, Georgia is the higher ranked team in the only poll that counts, the BCS.  Second, Vegas, stoic in the face of the pollsters and computer dorks who promulgate the BCS, has installed UF as a 5.5-point favorite.  Third, the UGA faithful, lamenting the injuries, arrests, and ass-kicking by the Tide only weeks ago, have been reconstituted by UGA’s thrashing of LSU last Saturday and the web is today rife with comments from prose-challenged UGA fans predicting Gator doom. 

For those Gators inclined to escalate the matter by responding to the poorly articulated web-banter of the Dawg-backers, SNL would recommend a hot shower and a cognac, its going to be a long week.  

-So Sayeth the Shepherd

Tags: Pope Meyer, UGA, WLOCP

“Fear is the true opiate of combat.”

 

SNL, like everyone, has heard it over and over.  “We respect (team we should dominate), and we’re not looking ahead to (our biggest rival).  We are taking this season 1 game at a time.”  

Naturally, the need to utter this bland and overused quote, or some facsimile thereof, is because it is 100% false.  Right now, every Gator fan, player, and Coach is eager to dispense of UK so they can officially do what they have been unofficially doing since last year, planning revenge on Georgia. 

Nationally, the interest in UF-UGA game will depend largely on the reult of Georgia’s game this Saturday in Baton Rouge.  Locally, this game will be anticipated, talked about, dissected, downloaded, uploaded, condensed, DVR’d, and YouTubed more than Brittany Spears’ nipple “incident,” irrespective of the outcome in Baton Rouge.

For Gators, it is inarguable that the visceral need to beat the Dawgs in humbling fashion will remain unchanged irrespective of Saturday’s outcome.  This fact flows inevitably from last year’s loss, which emphatically ended an era of Gator dominance. 

Like all Gators, SNL’s lamentations could be heard for miles following UGA’s defeat of Florida last year.  As the days passed, however, SNL came to see the good, which is that this rivalry, which has experienced periods of hegemonic dominance much like the Visigoths and Romans,  had been given new life.  For this, SNL offers to the Dawgs a humble thanks.  Moving on…

UGA’s game against LSU is difficult to get a read on.  For its part, Georgia has been a study in incongruency this year.  Knowshon, Stafford and the unbelievable freshman wideout, Green, have put up great numbers by and large, and yet Georgia seems on a weekly basis to allow its opponents to hover in some sort of purgatory, never out of the game, but never really in the game either. 

Certainly, the well-chronicled offensive line problems, as well as the evident overzealousness of the Athens PD, have played a significant part in UGA’s inability to dominate its SEC foes to date.  To his credit, Richt has nonetheless kept the Dawgs in the winner’s column for the most part, and may well do so again this Saturday.

On the other side of the ball, SNL can’t help but feel that LSU’s undressing at The Swamp has disproportionately damaged its national reputation.  That LSU was able to win at South Carolina has apparently done little to change this, despite the fact that the Cocks have an excellent defense and were playing well coming into that game.  Though ot evident from an empirical standpoint, especially given LSU’s schedule to date, SNL has a feeling that the Tigers of the Louisiana genus are probably better than given credit for. 

For Gators, the result of the LSU-UGA game may not carry the impact originally foreseen.  For example, if LSU wins at home, Florida’s resouding victory over LSU is commensurately bolstered.  If UGA wins, the WLOCP takes on heightened importance nationally, which is also good for Florida (assuming, of course, that Florida can win). 

Teasing the fact pattern further out, however, illustrates that an UGA victory is the best result for Florida for 2 reasons:  1) As before, it heightens the importance of the WLOCP, which will likely strengthen Florida’s SOS and place more voting eyes on Jax next week; and 2) An UGA win places LSU 2-games back of ‘Bama, which means that ‘Bama’s rear-naked-choke on the West is strengthened.  This in turn means that Florida is unlikely to rematch an angry and much improved LSU team in Atlanta, which is a good thing (ask FSU how that went in the 1996 Sugar Bowl). 

So, hunker down you hairy ‘Dawgs!  See you next week.

-So Sayeth the Shepherd

 

 

The

Tags: LSU, Saban, SEC, The Hat, UGA

Gone from the headlines of the CFB world, for now anyway, are Georgia and Florida, and their respective superstars, Moreno, Stafford, Tebow and Harvin. 

Filling the void are the traditional, yet strangely new to the discussion, Tide and Lions, along with the usual suspects, Oklahoma, LSU, and to a lesser extent, Mizzou. 

One interesting and evolving theme in Gainesville is the parallels between these programs in the wake of Saturday’s surprising (according to the Vegas line anyway) losses.  Like embittered ex-girlfirends, many of the fans from each program have sought refuge from their own feelings of betrayal by reveling in the misery of “that other bitch!”   

It is axiomatic (that’s “self-evident” for those of you who are linguistically challenged) that this is a poorly premised and wholly subjective exercise. That said what the hell else are you going to write about if you are sitting in Gville or Athens in abject misery (like moi’) and besides, isn’t grieving itself a subjective process.  Poor Casey Anthony grieves the loss of her daughter at night clubs by taking ecstacy and giving lap dances to hoodlums, O.J. Simpson grieves the loss of his wife on golf courses and in casinos all over the world.  Who then, is SNL to critique this exercise?  No one. 

So, the lamentations of SNL will now be channeled in a way that makes this day seem a little better than it is, which is by demonstrating that it is still better to be a Florida Gator than a Georgia Bulldog for the following 5 reasons:

5.  Georgia was emasculated.  Watching UGA’s beatdown by Saban’s legions of doom was like watching Ike Turner with a date.  It was ugly early, often, and the ho’ had a busted nose before the close of the second quarter. 

Florida was leading at the half and, whether realistic or not, can blame turnovers for allowing the Rebs back into the game. In other words, there was plenty of mistakes, stupidity and incompetence displayed by the Gators, but nothing as painful as having your face beat-in and your date taken home by your assailant-which is precisely what Saban’s shock troops did in Athens.

4.  Georgia had farther to fall.  This reason has a literal conotation given Georgia’s ranking last week, which was higher than Florida’s.  However, this here is one of them double entendre thangamajigs-which is therapist lingo for a hidden meaning.  The fact is that Georgia whupped Florida last year, was preseason No.1, and ostensibly, had less questions coming into the year than the Gators.  Today, Florida’s chances against Georgia look much better than they did last week and quite frankly, its hard to tell which team is better at this point.

3.  “Knowshow” Moreno is injured and likely out for the UT game.  Conversely, Tebow and Harvin remain unscathed and incidentally, the only members of the Gator offense likely to catch, throw, or run in the coming weeks.  Seriously, Moreno may only be nicked, but injuries have a way of hanging around in the SEC.

2.  Georgia played in fron of a national audience in the biggest game of the week.  This doesn’t (and shouldn’t) matter now.  But, at some point the doofuses that vote each week will be looking rearward to remember who lost to who, and when, and they will recall that Florida, by virtue of some untimely ball-control issues,  lost at home by 1 to what will hopefully be an Ole Miss club with one more upset on its resume, and Georgia was eviscerated on national TV.  Tie goes to Gators.

1.  Florida gets to play this week.  For players and fans alike, sitting around for 2 weeks after an ego-crushing defeat provides little, if any, viable means of recovering from the loss-induced hangover.  This means an extra week of second-guessing, complaining, and misery in Athens.  For Florida, all will be forgotten, if only temporarily, when the Gators take the field Saturday.  Even better, the opponent should provide plenty of E-SPIN moments for the offensively impotent Gators, which in turn should foster a renewed vigor, at least until next Saturday when LSU comes to The Swamp. 

All is not lost in Georgia, however, as SNL’s only known subscriber of “rural background” tells SNL that it is deer hunting season for bowhunters (yep, as in “bow and arrow”)-hope this helps Dawgs.

-So Sayeth the Shepherd

Tags: Saban, SEC, UF, UGA

The Big Picture:  The big picture is what SNL, and most if not all Gators will use for solace in the days ahead.  Aided by Georgia’s humbling defeat, the fact is that the Gators’ goal of winning the SEC East is still very much alive.

In fact, and somewhat ironically, the Gators chances of winning the East look better than they did last week, due in large part to the Dawgs’ undressing at the hands of the Tide (who look damn good on both lines of scrimmage by the way).  This assessment is not an indictment of Georgia, who remains more than capable of making it 2 in a row against Florida, but more of an educated guess based on Georgia’s (un)fortunate draw this year, which sends them to Baton Rouge to play a very strong LSU squad, and includes games against Auburn and UT, who remains “game,” at least for now.

However, the big(ger) picture is still less than peachy as the SEC West seems to be far and away the stronger of the divisions and the Gator squad that played Saturday would have little, if any, chance to beat LSU or Alabama (or even Auburn or Ole Miss for that matter) in the ATL. 

Nonetheless, part of Urban’s reconstitution of his team this week will be to point out that the Gators’ goals of winning Championships (East, SEC and arguably, National), remain unscathed for the most part-though the margin for error has been drastically diminished.  Before Saturday, the most likely scenario was a Gator split of the LSU and Georgia games, with the Gators taking the East by virtue of a second Georgia loss to LSU, Auburn, ‘Bama (done), or UT. 

Today the Gators are losers at home as 23-point favorite, which apparently is deemed by the national media to be a worse loss than the Trojans Thurday night beatdown by the Beavers.  For those who watched both games, it seems that USC’s loss was clearly the worse of the two, but to spend an inordinate amount of time on this issue is clearly missing the forest for the trees.  The upshot of the CFB landscape in Gainesville today is that Florida no longer has the “luxury” of losing to LSU or Georgia as a loss to either, while not fatal to SEC East aspirations, would be damaging enough nationally to assure being omitted from any BCS-title consideration (assuming the Gators could win the SEC, which as stated above, seems unlikely at this point).

The sum total of this fine mess is that everything remains on the table for Florida, but not for long if there is not significant improvement between now and October 17, when a very capable LSU squad comes to The Swamp.

Up Next:  The Little Picture

-So Sayeth the Shepherd

Tags: Cap 1, SEC, UGA, Urban Meyer, UT

Its the economy, stupid.Dr. Saturday’s most recent post centers on Atlanta oil tycoon , Tex Pitifeld, and more specifically, Mr. Pitfield’s position on Saturday’s UGA v. Bama game, which is as follows:

Pitfield: If I was governor, I’d cancel the [UGA-Alabama] game. That is just a huge amount of gasoline, that this structure, this system, this state cannot handle the expenditure on right now.

That gas needs to be used for people to go to work, and for people to take care of their families. I did the same thing with my tennis team yesterday. I told them that I wasn’t going to start wasting gas to go play tennis.

And I’m sorry. I know I’ve got a target on me right now by a couple hundred thousand football fans. Game should be canceled. People need to stay home…
[...]
I don’t think we have even begun to see the blood on the streets that this is going to produce. I think you’re going to see a number of small gasoline stations fail. I would think you may see some distributors fail.

 This breaking news highlights several things:  1) Oil Tycoons have better names than porn stars (sorry Mr. Rambone); 2) T. Boone Pickens has either a nemesis or an alter-ego in Tex Pitfield; and 3) there’s oil in Georgia, allegedly. 

Irrespective, however well-intentioned T. Boone Pickens errr……Tex Pitfield’s sentiments may be, which is questionable because he is, afer all an oil tycoon in Atlanta (???), his position is nothing short of blasphemous, especially in the South where football singlehandedly saves thousands of deer from certain and ignoble death at the hands of drunken, gun-toting hillbillies. 

Tragically, SNL knows this guy…we were cuffed side by side at the 2003 Fla.-Ga. game.  Late….

Tags: SEC, UGA

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