Another preseason pick likes Dawgs in SEC East
Blair Walsh topped one of ESPN's many SEC lists. (Brant Sanderlin / AJC)
ESPN.com’s SEC coverage team, Chris Low and Edward Aschoff, so far have spent the summer making lists. Lots of lists. They’ve compiled conference rankings looking at each position on the basis of team strength and individual players (Georgia’s Blair Walsh topped all SEC place-kickers, for example).
And after all that was done, they crunched the numbers all together and have come up with an overall ranking. As Aschoff explains it, “For our overall team rankings, we took all eight position rankings and found the mean for each team. Obviously, the lower score, the better — just like golf.”
Alabama came out on top, as you’d expect, and the SEC West dominated the top of the chart, with Arkansas second, followed by LSU. But Georgia pulled an upset by nudging out South Carolina for fourth place.
And, says Aschoff: “That gives Georgia the SEC East in our book. The Bulldogs also had 13 players ranked in our position rankings, with seven making it in the top five. Even with those offensive questions, Georgia has some pieces in place to make a real run in the East. The Bulldogs would feel right at home in Atlanta for the SEC championship game against Alabama (if our rankings hold true).”
So we can add that to the growing list of preseason picks that like Georgia in the East.
KEEPING DAWG FANS OUT
Georgia Tech athletic director Dan Radakovich has made an appeal for Jackets season ticket holders to purchase additional tickets to the game against UGA at Grant Field this season so as to keep tickets out of the hands of Dogs fans.
“Two years ago,” he writes, “you all responded en masse and our entire remaining allotment wound up in the hands of our season ticket group. The result was an overwhelming display of Gold and White support at that critical state rivalry game.”
Which Georgia still won, by the way.
He continues that with the last day for season ticket holders to exclusively purchase single-game tickets and request additional tickets to the Georgia game coming up on June 30, “we still have a long way to go to get all of these tickets claimed by our Georgia Tech faithful. Please take the time to purchase your additional Georgia tickets now and help us maintain that great home field advantage when we face the Dawgs.”
Yeah, I know. Pathetic, isn’t it?
Anyway, if the Tech faithful don’t buy all those tickets, they undoubtedly will be snapped up by Georgia fans. Of course, some Red and Blackers go so far as to buy Tech season tickets to assure a seat at Grant Field when the two schools meet. If you want to go that route, it’ll cost you $350 for the game you want and the six that you don’t care anything about. An additional TECH Fund per-seat contribution is required in some designated sections throughout the stadium, but not all of them. You can buy Tech season tickets here.
BEAT NOTRE DAME!
Kevin McCann writes: “Bill, UGA has fallen behind ND. Can’t let those guys win this thing. Re-post if you can and try to drive some traffic to vote. Thanks for what you do.”
Kevin is referring to the EA Sports NCAA College Football Traditions battle, where our mascot Uga is now up against Notre Dame’s “Play like a champion” sign. As of this morning, the Notre Dame sign was leading with 51 percent of nearly 43,000 votes cast. If you haven’t voted already, support Uga here!
PLAYING IT OLD SCHOOL
As the brother of a Redcoat Band alum, I get a kick out of a vintage version of “Hail to Georgia” done by the Redcoats and the UGA Men’s Glee Club back in 1955 that UGA has posted online. Check it out and read about the history of the Redcoats.
Go Dogs!
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263 comments Add your comment
Ca dawg
June 25th, 2011
4:14 pm
@ uga student: I second…
TechFan
June 25th, 2011
4:22 pm
Nice. An unnecessary shot at GT just because their AD is trying to sell tickets. That doesn’t make you look obsessed with GT at all Bill. The truth is that GT will never have a football fanbase as big as the football factories. Students, alumni, and fans of our school just don’t place nearly as much importance on football like some other schools. It is what it is. If UGA fans would like to buy extra tickets to the GT game then more power to ya. Enjoy the game!
UGA FRIEND
June 25th, 2011
4:25 pm
This is my last post as UGA FRIEND. You folks make too many negative and ugly comments about GT. Since most of you seem to gloat over beating GT all the time why don`t you get your AD to let the current contract expire or even better, buy it out. Then you can sign a long term contract with Ga State. You will beat them every year but it will be a different team that you can gloat about always beating. Should help your ego too. Good Bye.
SlapAjacket
June 25th, 2011
4:38 pm
@ UGA friend! Why would we give up 9 of 10 to play GA state?
Red-N-Black
June 25th, 2011
4:42 pm
This is too easy….
June 25th, 2011
11:04 am
What is pathetic is devoting half of a blog to a school you claim to disdain
Link Report this comment This is too easy….
June 25th, 2011
11:06 am
Not to forget begging fans to vote in a meaningless poll to beat another school you clain to disdain
Whhhaaaaaaaa, Whhhhaaaaaaa, haters goana hate woot woot – who runs this state? WE DO.
Techie
June 25th, 2011
4:46 pm
Beast from the East, doesn’t say anything other than we are tired of you rednecks taking our tickets. And Bill, we know you just hate Tech and love to run uga wins when you write your blog but I hope we stick it where the sun doesn’t shine this year! Eat it!
Bitter "dawg reporter------aka---Chip Towers."
June 25th, 2011
4:48 pm
someone write to my bosses and tell them to pull there head out of there a—’s and bring me
——-back to collage recruiter reporter——————yaaaaaw——-just saying—-i like to drive
——————–tree killers and pay for play sux————-hahahahahahah
old time dog
June 25th, 2011
4:55 pm
beast from the east… Can’t say that your predictions aren’t possible. U are right about us having several unknowns that won’t likely be answered until about four games in. I’ve always felt by the fourth game you have an idea of what kind of team you probably have. By the seventh game you have pretty much what you are. I do think we have some depth and pretty fair skillsets at a number of areas but until we hit the field can’t say eYe am comfortable about OL,DS and being ready for the week to week battles. U are right in that our schedule appears more favorable than yours but we stunk up a pretty good schedule last year.
Ed (The Original)
June 25th, 2011
5:16 pm
How bad is the SEC East supposed to be this year if a Richt-coached Georgia team coming off a losing season is expected to come out on top? Not exactly a vote of confidence for Will Muschamp. You almost have to assume a Florida win over Georgia, so the experts must think that Florida will struggle enough in conference play for Georgia to end up on top alone, no tie. Interesting.
Something else the SEC leads the nation in...
June 25th, 2011
5:26 pm
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/06/map-day-falling-life-expectancies
Y’all have your priorities in order.
AltamahaDawg
June 25th, 2011
5:37 pm
Radakovich needs to announce that the first 15k fans will receive Go Gator souvenir posters if he wants to sell more tech home game tickets.
2011 is the year!
June 25th, 2011
5:37 pm
ESPN got it right—this will be the year of the Dawgs!!! Florida’s way down and UGA will beat them easy. USC’s overrated and Ga can pull the upset in Athens. Plus, garcia will probably be suspended again for something that week. Ga–alabama for the SEC title—mark it down!
Dawgy Style
June 25th, 2011
5:51 pm
“And beast from the east just owned that tech loser. Well done, sir.”
Yeah, Just like like FL owns the Dawgs!
AltamahaDawg
June 25th, 2011
6:01 pm
Techie, I’m sure you will?
FBFan
June 25th, 2011
6:03 pm
Brilliant! We are ranked number one in this “poll” primarily because we have a good punter and kicker? Well one think for sure our punter will get plenty of chance to shine. Way too little experience to win championships….no experience at receiver, running back and a good but soph QB. DBs? DL? OL? Way too much reliance on players yet to play a down! Last time I believed in hope and change I got burned. Not listening this time.
SOUTHGADAWG88
June 25th, 2011
6:09 pm
The SEC east will rebound this seaon.FWIW SC did beat Bama by two TD’s last year.I’m still not buying all the Ark and MSU love.Instead of improving I can see both teams not matching last year’s record.MSU is 2-8 in the SEC West to date
Delbert D.
June 25th, 2011
6:12 pm
An earlier poster said that “most UGA fans don’t finish high school.” I don’t buy that. Projections for the entire state of Georgia are for at least a 64% graduation rate.
I did some research, and here is what I found. Sonny Perdue set a goal for the state after the 2002-2003 graduation rate was 63.3%. The goal was to attain 80% by 2009-1010. It was achieved, but there is a catch: the standards are changing. Here is a March 2011 quote from the Georgia Superintendent of Schools:
“State schools Superintendent John Barge last month warned educators to expect as much as a 16 percent drop in the graduation rate because of the new rule.
“Barge said worst-case scenario projections indicate Georgia’s graduation rate could drop from about 80 percent to 64 percent.”
That’s from the Jacksonville Times, for the SE Georgia market.
SOUTHGADAWG88
June 25th, 2011
6:18 pm
Wow.special teams is unimportant now?
Delbert D.
June 25th, 2011
6:25 pm
I think special teams is just as much about kickoff and punt coverage.
UGA '05
June 25th, 2011
6:30 pm
Special teams are 1/3 of the game. We have good special teams so that’s 1/3 of the game we have down. We have a stacked defense so that means we have a total of 2/3 of the game down. Now we just gotta work on offense.
SOUTHGADAWG88
June 25th, 2011
6:41 pm
UGA has one of the top kickers and punters in the nation..the SEC leading KO coverage unit and one of the best KO returners in the SEC.That can help you win close ballgames.
realitycheck
June 25th, 2011
6:56 pm
An awful lot of optimisim(just as it is on here every single year)for UGA. I guess if Bill King, Mark Bradley, and others had been less high on UGA the last couple of years they would’ve lost their jobs. A couple of observations here: Murray looked great against sub par competition, but was winless against teams with winning records, and UGA looks very thin on the OL(both starters and depth) to me. I see Murray taking lots of hits against the better teams again this season. We will see how it all shakes out, but UGA has way too many question marks to just expect all of the wrongs from 2009 and 2010 to all of a sudden become righted. Some of these “it’s gonna be a great year to be a dawg”, and “two losses at the most” types of comments are pretty darn unrealistic. If UGA were to lose 4 or possibly even 5 games this season, it should be a shock to only a die hard and unrealistic dawg fan.
A big plate of hypocricy
June 25th, 2011
7:11 pm
Wait, hold on, let me get this straight. UGA blogger geek calling another school’s AD pathetic. What happend? Did DRad get arrested for DUI? And was another woman in his car that was not his wife? And did he have her red panties in his lap when he was stopped? And did he sob like a girl to the state trooper? Wow, good call out redneck. Can’t wait to see when the dash cam video goes public!
SOUTHGADAWG88
June 25th, 2011
7:16 pm
It seems easy to say Murray beat the bad teams but lost to the good teams.Funny NOBODY seems to notice that our Defense played poorly in every game lost during the season.
SOUTHGADAWG88
June 25th, 2011
7:18 pm
I guess Murray should have made some more tackles out there too.
Bill Grogan
June 25th, 2011
7:31 pm
You dogs are just like my goats…as soon as you signed to played a ranked team in the kick off game, you were doomed….
Bless her name
June 25th, 2011
7:39 pm
Attention, everyone, especially dawgtards. We will now observe a moment of silence in memory of Saint Jan Kemp, who exposed the shameful practices at UGA that were initiated and carried out by slimeball Vince Dooley. Dooley’s image as a coach and a nice guy were forever shattered during the trial, not to mention the one million dollars that dawgtards had to pay Saint Jan. These practices of recruiting morons and coddling them for four years, them tossing them out like garbage, are still going on, but at least the world knows what’s happening in Athens now.
And now, the moment of silence…
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Thank you, you may resume your normal activities now.
Bless her holy name
June 25th, 2011
7:42 pm
Attention, everyone, especially dawgtards. We will now observe a moment of silence in memory of Saint Jan Kemp, who exposed the shameful practices at UGA that were initiated and carried out by slimeball Vince Dooley. Dooley’s image as a coach and a nice guy were forever shattered during the trial, not to mention the one million dollars that dawgtards had to pay Saint Jan. These practices of recruiting morons and coddling them for four years, them tossing them out like garbage, are still going on, but at least the world knows what’s happening in Athens now.
And now, the moment of silence…
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Thank you, you may resume your normal activities now.
Dawgtards ahoy
June 25th, 2011
7:44 pm
Boise State 57, UGA 7
It’s all over for the dawgtards.
chickenman
June 25th, 2011
7:45 pm
crowell for heisman
JB
June 25th, 2011
7:46 pm
Dawgs will surprise this year….and I know, after the last two years, it will be a surprise………but even so, we will surprise. 9, maybe 10 wins
dawgfan
June 25th, 2011
8:18 pm
“Two years ago,” he writes, “you all responded en masse and our entire remaining allotment wound up in the hands of our season ticket group. The result was an overwhelming display of Gold and White support at that critical state rivalry game.”
Thanks for the great quote “D-Rad.” I’ll keep this in my back pocket for next time some crybaby sore loser Techie tries to claim that the UGA game doesn’t mean anything to them. You know, like right after we lay the wood to that Techie azz for the umpteenth time in the past umpteen years. Its always the same bitter low class excuses out of the Tech faithful. The game doesn’t mean anything to them you see, unless they win it of course.
Tech fans=JOKE.
Thanks.
Eastland Dawg
June 25th, 2011
8:19 pm
Boise State? Get real–Ga will beat them like a rented mule in the dome in front of 80,000 wild liquored up dawg fans. I’ll be partying all day outside the dome getting ready for that blowout. Look for Crowell to break a couple of long runs and pick up 150 yards, easy against that weak D.
The Truth
June 25th, 2011
8:24 pm
UGA has played football for over 100 years and has had two great teams, 1980 and next year. Pathetic isn’t it.
dogsfan4life
June 25th, 2011
8:32 pm
tech fans why do you get so upset when a member of the national media says something positive about uga football? well I guess if espn ranked uga at the bottom of the acc just ahead of duke i would be upset at them too. techs ad should be thankful uga fans buy up all of the tickets for the game they are a lock to have one sellout every two yrs. dont cut off your nose to spite your face.
Pago Pago DAWG
June 25th, 2011
8:36 pm
Rankings don’t mean a thing if we can’t win in JAX!
dogsfan4life
June 25th, 2011
8:36 pm
do tech players still get “championship rings” if they beat uga or was that a one time deal?
Reginald
June 25th, 2011
8:57 pm
Best blog you’ve ever done Bill. Keep up the making fun of tech
Dawg Whisperer
June 25th, 2011
9:05 pm
I like the dawgs’ chances this year in the SEC East. UF is in transition with a new coaching staff and SC has a question mark at QB not to mention they have to come to Athens this year. UGA will not likely be dominant but should have enough to slip into the SEC championship.
All the garbage comments exchanged between fans belittles only the particpants, not the respective schools.
sports
June 25th, 2011
9:09 pm
Radakovich can’t give away tickets? What a joke those blowflys are the nightmare continues.
sports
June 25th, 2011
9:23 pm
Was there ever any doubt about who would play for the NCAA Baseball title. North Carloina and Virginia drilled by Florida and South Carolina. Of couse you will not see any credit given to these two great SEC TEAMS by The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Their so green with envy over the SEC it’s pathetic. SWEET!!!
Spike 80DF
June 25th, 2011
9:27 pm
who cares about rankings, schedule strength, and who’s program is up or down. if we limit the turnovers that killed us last year and play Junkyard Dawg D then we’ll see either Bama or LSU in the dome.
we were preseason National Champs in 2008 and how did that turn out? where was Auburn ranked to start 2010? They were not even on the radar to start last year……
gt4ever
June 25th, 2011
9:35 pm
UGA Student,
Funny, very funny…… UGA again will dominate…. Oh wait, they have to play the games… Sorry…. UGA football is almost as pathetic as GT’s…. It really is more pathetic because of all the talent that rolls through that football factory…. The state of Georgia is really in need of a good football program to be proud of, maybe GSU will someday fill the bill…
Troll Power Ratings
June 25th, 2011
9:37 pm
@Bless her name: You post under many different names and it is so disingenuous and obvious. And I’m not talking about just the Jan Kemp theme. By the way, she’s dead, along with Bobby Dodd, and just as presently relevant. Get some new material. Thanks for caring. Now go by some extra tickets for the ass whupin’ on the Flats to help out your AD.
A big plate of hypocricy
June 25th, 2011
9:52 pm
@dawgsfan4life. Not at all. For once I wish the media hype of UGA football would come true. I am tired of talking my UGA graduate friends off the ledge after every loss. My only point to my rant was why does this goober get to poke fun of another AD, any AD, after what UGA went through last year? There should be at least a 10 year moratorium for dawgs to make fun of another school’s AD. Good luck this season, except for the Tech game.
SugarHillDawg
June 25th, 2011
10:00 pm
Radakovich should have made that appeal to mainland China instead of Georgia.
DrDawg
June 25th, 2011
10:15 pm
Gaters, Gaters, Gaters. If we win in Jax and have a victorious ride home for a change, it will be a successful season.
GODNWHITEFORLIFE
June 25th, 2011
10:35 pm
Wow Bill, I use to think you were a classy guy. This coming from you’re rivals point of view. But you’re just like the rest of the mutt nation, obnoxious and not too bright. Keep living in that fantasy world where UGA wins the SEC East and get’s that National Title. I hope Tech steam rolls you’re beloved “Dawgs” so bad this year it worse than the 51-7 beating we took in 02. Maybe Johnson can start a streak where Dodd left off when we beat you 8 in a row. Oh and we still own that streak. Choke on it Bill.
Remarkable
June 25th, 2011
10:54 pm
The vote between ND and UGA is 50-50. . If you haven’t voted already, support Uga!
JDawg1785
June 25th, 2011
11:04 pm
That’s funny about Radakovich. Don’t tell him that my buddy (a Tech fan) has already sold me his tickets for the Georgia game.