The Junkyard Blawg

It's always fun to see the alumni cheerleaders. Can you believe they still have those uniforms? (Photo by Olivia King)

Homecoming at Sanford Stadium came on a glorious fall Saturday amid all the pomp and pageantry that puts college football on a level above the game played on Sundays, at least in my mind. My daughter and I got to enjoy the parade in downtown Athens Friday night and an up-close performance by the Redcoat Band at the early morning rehearsal on the practice fields, where we joined my brothers, one of whom was part of the 35th annual alumni band that performed the pregame show.

Beyond that, let’s face it, this wasn’t a game that deserves a lot of heavy analysis. Tennessee Tech was a 1-AA team outmanned at every position and played like it. They flat out couldn’t run against Georgia. And what little passing game they had didn’t test our defense, either. It was mainly an opportunity for the Dogs to give everyone some playing time.

I heard several fans express the …

Continue reading Homecoming 2009: A blogger’s notebook »

Washaun Ealey runs in for his second touchdown. (Brant Sanderlin, bsanderlin@ajc.com)

Midway through the third quarter of Saturday’s game, shortly before the stands started emptying, one of my neighbors at Sanford Stadium, a lady lawyer, sighed and asked, “How did we end up playing Tennessee Tech? This is not interesting.”

Precisely. This was a game where if it had been interesting, it would not have been a good thing for the home team and UGA fans would be in an uproar again.

It was pretty much what was expected, both good and bad: The Georgia offense roared off to a fast start, taking a 31-0 halftime lead, and then lost interest in the second half. Washaun Ealey continued to tantalize, with two touchdowns and 89 yards rushing (44 of them on one of his touchdown runs) and Caleb King, the starter, added another 71 yards as Georgia rushed for a total of 304.

Willie Martinez’s defense notched its first shutout since 2006. Joe Cox didn’t throw an interception, but …

Continue reading Dogs win not too exciting … thankfully »

Photo by Brant Sanderlin / AJC

There’s still time to get your photo in for a chance at two free tickets to the Auburn game in our Junkyard Blawg Fan of the Week contest, but don’t forget the deadline is midnight Monday.

This time, we’re looking for anyone who decorates their body to show their UGA spirit. Paint your face, chest or head? That’d qualify. Plus, of course, UGA-related tattoos.

Send us a photo of your UGA body art by midnight on Monday (Nov. 9). We’ll narrow the entries down to four finalists and put it to a vote of the readers next week.

The winner gets two tickets to the Auburn game and their picture up on the big video screen in Sanford Stadium before the game.

So here’s a chance to show off your Bulldog “personality” while sharing your UGA spirit!

SUBMIT YOUR PHOTOS

To submit your photos, go here. Remember, the deadline for photos in this contest is midnight on Monday, Nov. 9.

Contestants must submit via e-mail a photograph that fits the theme of the …

Continue reading Paint yourself for games? That could win you free tickets! »

Logan Gray against the Gators. (Brand Sanderlin / AJC)

I was kind of hard on Logan Gray after his dismal appearances in the fourth quarter of the Florida game, which was a bit of a turnaround for me since I’d been campaigning all season for Mark Richt and Mike Bobo to give their backup QB more playing time.

I had liked what I’d seen of Gray in the G-Day game and all that smoke Bobo blew in preseason about special packages and a Wild Dawg offense got me kind of excited to see him. Then for most of the season he ended up restricted to the occasional handoff or one painfully telegraphed option play per game and his usual fair catch duty … until he got the mop-up call against Tennessee.

He didn’t show us much there, though he didn’t really have the opportunity, and then against the Gators he just looked horrible. Mainly his passes, and I’m not just talking about the ill-advised throw out of the end zone that turned into a pick.

This, I figured, is why we haven’t seen more of him …

Continue reading Bulldog Bites: Reconsidering Logan Gray »

You can be pretty sure you'll never see a black helmet at Homecoming. (University of Georgia)

Most Homecoming games aren’t very memorable, and those that stick in the brain usually do so because something awful happened: The home team lost.

Thankfully, that hasn’t happened very often at Sanford Stadium, where the Dogs are 68-17-2 on Homecoming. Probably the most memorable Homecoming win to me was in 1970 against South Carolina. Instead of selling programs like usual, I was ushering in my ROTC uniform in the upper deck, the only game I’ve ever completely watched from up there. Georgia was down 21-3 in the second quarter but Athens’ own Paul Gilbert led the Dogs back for a 52-34 win. A score like that was quite a rarity in the Vince Dooley era.

My senior year at UGA we lost at homecoming to Kentucky by a score of 12-7. You tell what an ugly game that was just by the score. I actually don’t remember much about it except my Homecoming date was a girl named Eugenia.

The worst …

Continue reading Homecoming games you remember for the wrong reason »

(Georgiadogs.com)

With Saturday’s game between the Dogs and Tennessee Tech available only as a pay-per-view telecast on cable and satellite systems in Georgia and Tennessee, fans outside those two states will be out of luck. Even the PPV Webcast available through Georgiadogs.com’s GXtra subscription service will be limited to residents of Georgia and Tennessee.

For those who do live in those two states and aren’t going to Athens for the game, the price for individual homes is $29.95, and commercial establishments can purchase the game for $400. The GXtra Webcast is available to nonsubscribers for $19.95 and to regular GXtra subscribers for $14.95.

The production is being handled by CSS, which does the Sunday morning cable replays of Georgia games, with Matt Stewart handling play by play, Buck Belue as the color analyst and Sandra Golden doing sideline reports.

With the Dogs suffering through a disappointing season, this game against a 1-AA opponent from the Ohio Valley …

Continue reading Are you willing to pay for the Georgia-Tennessee Tech telecast? »

Photo by Brant Sanderlin / AJC

We’ve already seen in an earlier contest how UGA fans dress themselves for a football game, but for some fans wearing red and black outfits isn’t enough. They want to show the world their devotion to the Georgia Bulldogs by using their body as a canvas.

We’re talking body art, which can range from painting your face or your bald head to getting a UGA-related design tattooed on you.

And that’s the theme of our fourth Junkyard Blawg Fan of the Week contest: Showing your UGA spirit through body art.

Send us a photo of your UGA-related body art by midnight on Monday (Nov. 9). And please remember that photos must be acceptable for publication on this Web site, so if that tattoo is in a place that you don’t normally show in public then its location better not be identifiable in the photo. Zoom in tight on the tat, in other words. Originality counts, so don’t expect to win if you just apply one of those Bulldog stick-ons to your face. We’ll narrow …

Continue reading Win free tickets! Show us your UGA body art! »

Mark Richt's job is not in jeopardy. (Frederick Breedon IV / Special)

Mark Richt has been heavily criticized during this disappointing season, and rightly so. While he did lose the bulk of last year’s high-powered scoring punch to the NFL, his Dogs have looked undisciplined and poorly coached this year as they’ve let too many penalties and turnovers derail the offense while the defense has resembled something out of the WAC.

Many fans are demanding Richt get rid of coordinators Willie Martinez and Mike Bobo. A few unhinged fans have even called for Richt to be fired on the basis of a 4-4 record two-thirds of the way through the schedule.

Does that mean Richt is on the proverbial hot seat?

Depends on what you think the phrase “hot seat” means. One of the dictionary definitions is “a highly uncomfortable or embarrassing situation.” If that’s what you mean, then Richt’s seat is definitely warm.

But I don’t think that’s what most fans and sports media folks have in mind when they …

Continue reading Just what is the ‘hot seat’ and is Richt on it? »

Knowshon Moreno often took himself out of drives. (Associated Press)

I’ve been hearing the murmuring among fans for a couple of seasons now about whether Mark Richt’s teams are really in top playing condition.

First it was all those shoulder injuries our linemen seemed to get. Then, amid the odds-defying run of injuries last season, fans wondered why Knowshon Moreno kept taking himself out of games in the middle of drives. This season, the same question as been asked about key downs when leading tackler Rennie Curran was on the sideline. Whatever happened to iron men like two-way player Champ Bailey?

Prior to last season’s NFL draft, there also were a couple of potshots taken at the Dogs’ level of conditioning in the national sports media by anonymous NFL scouting sources who questioned Moreno’s ranking.

And this season, there were all those lingering hamstring problems, and in the opening game against Okie State, the Dogs appeared to be feeling the heat a lot more than the …

Continue reading Bulldog Bites: Dogs’ conditioning questioned »

Should Urban Meyer be suspended? (Associated Press)

Criticism can be unfair, as Mark Richt and Joe Cox are wont to remind us.

A couple of recent examples:

Fans, bloggers and columnists outside of Florida are calling for SEC Commissioner Mike Slive to follow his own recent mandate and suspend Gators coach Urban Meyer for violating the conference rule against coaches publicly criticizing officiating.

Meyer was answering a question from a reporter about footage he sent to the SEC of a late hit delivered by Georgia’s Nick Williams on Tim Tebow in Saturday’s game. The Gators coach said flatly that a penalty should have been called, particularly since the play occurred “right in front of the referee.”

Now that’s mild, especially compared with the comments made by Lane Kiffin, Bobby Petrino and Dan Mullen about poor officiating. But he did call out the referee, which was forbidden recently by Slive, who, in the face of a revolt by conference coaches over the sorry state of SEC …

Continue reading On Urban Meyer, partying Dogs and unfair criticism »