Tennessee: The Orange menace that will challenge UGA
History will be made in the big stadium by the river Saturday. For the first time since 1937, Georgia will face Tennessee at a time when neither is ranked. (And the Associated Press poll, it must be noted, was only instituted in 1936.)
Underpinning that bit of trivia is something less trivial: How Tennessee fares in the coming months will have a direct effect on Georgia.
Even in what seems a slightly down season, the Bulldogs are still second-best in the SEC East. Steve Spurrier notwithstanding, South Carolina has proved it’s not going to jump above Georgia, and Vanderbilt and Kentucky provide dual safety nets at the division’s bottom. No matter what happens in Baton Rouge this weekend, Florida has established itself as the nation’s best program. That leaves Tennessee.
The Big Orange is in big flux. It has lost twice to then-unranked opponents in the big stadium by the river, and it managed to treat a double-digit defeat in the Swamp as some sort of victory. We cannot yet know if Lane Kiffin will be any kind of coach, but this much we can know:
Among SEC East programs, only Tennessee has the resources to rise up and challenge Georgia for second place in this division. And recent history tells us that if Tennessee rises, Georgia falls. (And vice versa.)
We forget that the Bulldogs and the Big Orange used to meet only occasionally. We remember the Herschel game and the famous tie on Tennessee’s new Astroturf in 1968 — Sports Illustrated headline: “A Rouser on a Rug” — but not until the SEC split into divisions in 1992 did the schools that represent neighboring states become true rivals. And Tennessee, as you know, owned Georgia through the ’90s, which is a key reason Tennessee won two SEC championships and the 1998 BCS title.
Unlike Florida and Georgia, the state of Tennessee doesn’t generate enough first-tier recruits. The Vols must poach to get good, and the national championship was fueled by three Georgia products: Deon Grant, a safety from August; Cosey Coleman, an offensive lineman from Clarkston, and tailback Jamal Lewis from Atlanta (although Lewis hurt his knee in October 1998).
Loading ...Had Jim Donnan signed two of those three, he might be coaching Georgia still. (Donnan did do the next-best thing: He hired recruiting ace Rodney Garner away from Phillip Fulmer.) But Donnan could never rearrange the East hierarchy, and he was fired in 2000 in large measure because he was 2-8 against Florida and Tennessee.
Mark Richt’s arrival changed the divisional dynamics. He began amassing the 10-win seasons and the SEC East titles that had fallen to Fulmer (although Tennessee did slip in and take the division in 2004 and 2007). And then Florida, not willing to cede any more ground, dumped Ron Zook and hired Urban Meyer.
There’s room for two giants in the SEC East — Fulmer and Spurrier co-existed in the Top 10 for years — but not three. And Kiffin has staked his entire stewardship on recruiting, and there are only so many places he can go. Many of the finest Vols have come from other Southern states: Peyton Manning from Louisiana, Stanley Morgan from South Carolina, Condredge Holloway from Alabama, and now Eric Berry from Fairburn, Ga.
Berry leaving for Tennessee in 2007 didn’t mark the beginning of a Grant-Coleman-Lewis exodus. There were mitigating circumstances: Berry’s dad played at Tennessee. But Kiffin and henchman Ed Orgeron have served notice: They’re going to recruit anywhere and everywhere, and with Florida and Alabama and LSU among the nation’s elite and Auburn apparently on the rise, the SEC brand name that seems most vulnerable is, sorry to say, Georgia.
The Bulldogs should win Saturday. But the battle with the Big Orange is just beginning anew.
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221 comments Add your comment
Troubled Waters Ahead
October 7th, 2009
11:00 am
Everybody is becoming a threat to the kinder softer gentler dawgs!
PMC
October 7th, 2009
11:02 am
Defensive plan for the week. All 11 in the box.
mmgtfan
October 7th, 2009
11:03 am
First!
mmgtfan
October 7th, 2009
11:04 am
Dang it! Nevermind
Paul H
October 7th, 2009
11:05 am
UGA will win Saturday and continue this decade’s dominance over UT.
The majority of SEC schools get great recruiting because it’s the SEC. It’s why the SEC is the best conference and always tough, year in year out.
Bubba
October 7th, 2009
11:06 am
If we’re No. 2, why don’t we try harder?
Mark Bradley
October 7th, 2009
11:06 am
MMGTFAN, it’s a dog-eat-dog world in both recruiting and being first. What can I say?
Bryan G.
October 7th, 2009
11:07 am
I just don’t think Kiffin can coach worth a flip. Only time will tell about that, though.
But, you’re right. If Kiffin can coach well, UGA kind of has a soft underbelly right now.
How Georgia finishes out this year and plays in 2010 will go a long way to determining the future of the program. A hiccup this year won’t kill UGA (OU went 8-5 not that long ago, for example), but if UGA doesn’t dominate in the non-Tebow SEC in 2010, there may be trouble ahead.
mmgtfan
October 7th, 2009
11:07 am
So true
KimZ'sPackage
October 7th, 2009
11:07 am
UT is the only team in the SEC that has a worse QB than J. COX.
Tim
October 7th, 2009
11:08 am
This is a huge game for Georgia. Even with two losses, the season is not over. Those two losses were to (at the time of the games) top 10 teams. The defense played great against LSU and kept them in the game. We know the offense CAN click on all cylinders. Here’s hoping both the offense and defense show up in Knoxville this weekend. Let’s be sure neither is left behind when the buses pull out and head over the Smokies. (Okay…they’ll probably fly.)
FLA DAWG
October 7th, 2009
11:09 am
Mark,
Please give Dawg Nation some idea of what you are hearing out of Athens regarding Martinez, Bobo & Richt.
I lost confidence in Martinez & Bobo last season but continued to support Richt. Now the team is in complete disarray from Offense to Defense to Special Teams and Richt is doing nothing to stop it.
You must hear something coming out of Athens……………….how about passing it along to us – give us some hope for next season at least!
KimZ'sPackage
October 7th, 2009
11:09 am
I’m in the TOP TEN in posts. YEA for ME ME ME! Wait I am not Bobby Bowden.
Oogle
October 7th, 2009
11:09 am
Say what?
Hines Ward
October 7th, 2009
11:11 am
If youre not first, youre last. This article is irrelevant.
Mark Bradley
October 7th, 2009
11:11 am
I’ve heard nothing coming out of Athens regarding any Georgia coach, Fla Dawg. Except I did hear Mark Richt say his defense has been “fantastic” in the red zone this year. He said that after the LSU game.
durtydog
October 7th, 2009
11:12 am
It’s always something. At first, Lame Kiffin was the worse thing to happen to Tenn. Now, they are in prime position to steal recruits from everybody in the world! Lol! Man you guys kill me. You love the hot item. You love the guy who talks and talks. Just because Kiffin runs his mouth that means he is going to just take college football by storm. Please! let’s not forget he lost the number one recruit out of his own back yard. Plus, didn’t he offer Gardner a boat load of money to come recruit for Tenn? I mean what does that tell you? The fact is GA can not sign every person in the state. We win some and lose some. What you need to realize is that Mark Richt is taking Florida over. Its only so many scholorships that GA can give out. Stop all the hating. You guys are horrible because all you do is dwell on the negatives. I think you and some of your fellow bloggers at AJC need hugs.
Georgia Fan
October 7th, 2009
11:14 am
Not that recruiting rankings are the end all be all but UGA had a great class last year, has a great class lined up for this year, and VERY early indications are that the 2011 class could be the best of the Richt era. We have a ton of young talent on campus including at the all important QB position and it looks like we should continue to have an abundance of talent in the program for at least another 5 or 6 years. We should be good enough to be a legit contender for the SEC east (which is all we can really control) for at least another half decade.
UT may very well rise up and become a bigger threat than they were the last two years but as you pointed out they have won two east titles in the last five and the UGA program has been just fine. They have no QB on campus who should give their fan base cause for optimism and don’t appear to be on the verge of signing a top notch QB this year.
I don’t know? UT always concerns me as a UGA fan but they don’t appear to me to be a program that is about to really go on a dominating run.
Bradley gets paid for this?
October 7th, 2009
11:15 am
Tennessee had success because Rodney Garner was a Vol and recruiting Georgia. I think it’s naive to assume things will just return to the 90’s now b/c Tennessee has a new coach. Just like the prediction that Spurrier was going to dominate UGA with South Carolina.
coachx
October 7th, 2009
11:19 am
Dawg win 31 – 13 !
Vols do not have the fire power to keep up.
mdbatl
October 7th, 2009
11:19 am
The whole recruiting point is moot if Tennessee doesn’t start winning. Thus far, Kiffin has given nothing to inspire the confidence that that could be happening for the Vols any time soon. You know your program’s in bad shape when a loss is spun as a win. No one in Athens is looking at the LSU game as a “moral victory.”
That said, Kiffin proved he can recruit, but he’s still lagging behing Florida, Bama, and Georgia in the rankings for next year if Rivals is anything to go by. Richt and Co. snatched many more Vols targets than Tennessee swiped future Dawgs. Sad to say, I agree that the Dawgs are the most vulnerable name in the conference right now, but given Kiffin’s performance so far, Tennessee has a long way to go to knock Georgia off the hill.
Maybe he should just bring his wife with him on visits….
Cuz
October 7th, 2009
11:20 am
C’mon Mark. We all know Coach Richt confides in you and tells you all his future plans. So is he going to get a new DC or a new Ford truck this year?
All I'm Saying Is...
October 7th, 2009
11:22 am
Nice comment, ‘Bradley gets paid for this?’.
And let me add that oh, yeah, we all know how great a predictor recruiting is of a team’s won/lost record.
The only thing decided this weekend is which of these two teams suck less.
Sorry, MB, but this post is in the category of ‘mindless dribble shared to meet my required weekly blogging minimum.’
FLA DAWG
October 7th, 2009
11:22 am
Ok Mark,
I guess Richt continues to live in denial.
In my humble opinion it will be his undoing.
Thanks for the feedback.
mcdaviddawg
October 7th, 2009
11:23 am
There is no place for Georgia to go but down with the present coaching sitution. A part time head coach and poor to bad help. Things are going to need to change and the sooner the better.
Funny Dawg
October 7th, 2009
11:24 am
Two college football fans were on death row and scheduled to be executed the following day. One was from Tennessee and the other one from Georgia. The Warden came to visit them both the night before to ask each of them if they had a last minute request. The Tennessee fan spoke up first and said “Just before I die, I would very much like to hear the song “Rocky Top” played just one more time. The compassionate warden said “We can arrange that for you”. Then the warden asked the Georgia fan “how about you”. “Do you have a last minute request”? To which the Georgia fan replied, “yeah, kill me first”.
Shug
October 7th, 2009
11:25 am
Let’s not talk recruiting classes. According to so-called rankings, Richt always has a great recruiting class. So did Donnan for that matter (for gosh sake, Charles Grant, Richard Seymour, M. Stroud), but what did it get him. There is something to coaching. Donnan (Hall-of-Famer that I’m told he is) wasn’t a good coach; Richt is a good 10-3 coach.
Yellow Fuzz
October 7th, 2009
11:25 am
Enter your comments here:
LOL
BuzztheKiller
October 7th, 2009
11:27 am
Boiling down this article- UGA and UT will be fighting it out for who will finish second in the SEC East every year. Now there is a goal to get behind!
midnite
October 7th, 2009
11:27 am
Lane Kiffen does not concern me. Now, Monty Kiffen is a whole notha story. He was the first DC to figure out that #7 QB, what was his name?
Jeff Kilgore
October 7th, 2009
11:28 am
I have been a Richt supporter for a long time, and I still have some hesitation when you look at his record, 10 win seasons, how quickly he achieved 100 wins, etc. HOWEVER, no coach who starts Richard Samuel at running back can EVER be expected to win the SEC East, much less a national championship. No coach who continues to defend a defensive coordinator who has dramatically failed to achieve while being given nationally ranked Top 5 talent can be expected to win the SEC East, much less a national championship. Either Richt gets tough and makes the hard decisions, or Georgia fans need to relax and bask in mediocrity.
Yellow Fuzz
October 7th, 2009
11:29 am
Enter your comments here
Two college football fans were on death row and scheduled to be executed the following day. One was from Tennessee and the other one from Georgia. The Warden came to visit them both the night before to ask each of them if they had a last minute request. The Tennessee fan spoke up first and said “Just before I die, I would very much like to hear the song “Rocky Top” played just one more time. The compassionate warden said “We can arrange that for you”. Then the warden asked the Georgia fan “how about you”. “Do you have a last minute request”? To which the Georgia fan replied, “yeah, kill me first”.
takedowndawg
October 7th, 2009
11:29 am
I do think that our Dawgs will be up for this game. The pressure needs to be on CMR and his immediate staff. No one staff member can say, “I’ve got it under control, Coach”, because honestly. I do not see one area that is consistently under control and moving in a positive direction. I think that if this team can be focused this year for a game, it will be this one. So much of the season rides on it. Richt needs to get his headset on and guide Bobo. I think he needs the help. GO DAWGS|!!! SICCIM!
Chris
October 7th, 2009
11:30 am
This is the most perplexing team under Richt yet. I could see a complete and totally focused effort and upsetting FL while losing to UT and or Auburn/KY. There’s only one gimme on the schedule.
I keep thinking back to ‘07 with two losses around this time of year and punching people in the mouth the rest of the year and that’s delusional. I keep thinking the east is still possible to win and that’s dreaming.
More and more, I keep thinking to Mr. Bradley’s 8-4 pre-season prediction (game by game) and his piece on ‘has this program peaked’? and I am just saddened. Reality is no fun.
O'Brien
October 7th, 2009
11:31 am
Mark,
I think a lot of top defensive players will want to go play for TN because of Monty Kiffin. He was a very good defensive coordinator with Tampa Bay, and players will beleive that he will show them what it takes to make it to the NFL (unlike Willie Martinez).
jorge
October 7th, 2009
11:32 am
Lets keep in mind this is the same writer that blogged to keep Norton on the Braves.
unbiased vol fan
October 7th, 2009
11:32 am
no WAY dawgs score 31 on monte’s defense- i am thinking 20-17. just not sure who will win….
Leedawg
October 7th, 2009
11:33 am
Keep crapping on UGA, Bradley. You’re a frontrunner in the worst kind of way. We lose 80% of our offensive output to the NFL and now, according to you, everybody but Miss State has overtaken us. We have our issues (especially special teams), but the Dawgs future is very bright.
Lakedawg
October 7th, 2009
11:33 am
Mark,
You’re giving Tennessee far more credit than they deserve at this
point. They’ve had two losing seasons in the past four years, and only
sneaked into the SECC game in 2007 due to missed FG’s by Vanderbilt
and Kentucky. They’ve also lost to two unranked teams AT HOME this
year, whereas Georgia’s only two losses were to Top 10 teams at the
time. Georgia has won two SEC championships in this decade, Tennessee
zero. In a mathematical sense you’re right – there are only so many
wins to go around. I think certainly Georgia has areas that need
improving, but let’s keep some perspective. Georgia has achieved a
lot despite their shortcomings….has Tennessee ? Why not write about
where Georgia COULD be if we fix our problems, rather than framing up
the opposition as a threat when their recent performance does not merit
that ?
Joseph R. Evans, RPh
UGA Class of 1978
unbiased vol fan
October 7th, 2009
11:35 am
Hey Joe, nobody cares who you are…
Mark Bradley
October 7th, 2009
11:36 am
I prefer to think of myself as a frontrunner in the best sort of way, thanks very much.
Mark Bradley
October 7th, 2009
11:37 am
Ray Goff and I once had a conversation about his stolen tractor. But Richt and I have never discussed automotive transportation.
teed
October 7th, 2009
11:39 am
Bobo has never left the state of georgia for HS, College or career. he does not have the depth to go against the sec offensive coor’s or paul johnson and win on a consistent basis even though he has great talent
RJS
October 7th, 2009
11:42 am
If you look beyond Lane Kiffin’s antics, Tennessee clearly has a lot going for them- they have the best coaching staff money can buy- any neutral observer will tell you that after Richt, Tennessee has Georgia beat at every coordinator and coaching position- and it isn’t even close. Until Richt is willing to shake up his coaching staff and make a quality outside hire, UGA has a lot to worry about from Tenn.
bamafan
October 7th, 2009
11:42 am
Mark – Coach Richt could easily say that UGA defense had been fantastic in the red zone since most opponents scored from outside the 20.
BBB
October 7th, 2009
11:43 am
Not really sure I understand your logic on this one. So, UT is going to come into Georgia and steal the best players because of Kiffin? UT becomes powerhouse and UGA relagated to 3rd in East? As you stated, Berry’s father played at UT.
MIke
October 7th, 2009
11:44 am
I find how the masses have already diagnosed TN and Kiffin after 5 games. TN starts 3 walkons because he has cleared house. It is called rebuilding. Look at what Saban (7-6), Carrol, Rich Rod, and other coaches have done in their first year taking over a program. It takes time. We can see if all of the doom and gloom predicitions come true but give it at least 3 years.
And for the talk of TN not achieving despite their shortcomings, what is this about? I believe GA has been in the top 10 recruiting since Richt has gotten there, 2 SEC titles but no NC title games. Urban, Saban, and Miles have all played in it during this time. So if we have going to talk about achieving despite shortcomings, why dont we talk about underachieving? Who has underachieved more…TN or GA?
b.davis
October 7th, 2009
11:45 am
Heard a rumour the other day that Paul Johnson was being recruited to coach the Goorgia team and that Richt would be in Florida next year at Florida State.
Quite a blow for the Tech folks.
Johnson is a coach but more importantly a man. Not much of that in Athens these days.
Mark Bradley
October 7th, 2009
11:47 am
I suspect this will only further reveal my inherent shallowness, but I still laugh whenever I see the name, “Supersize that order, mutt.”
Tim Tebow and Florida's playmakers on defense
October 7th, 2009
11:50 am
Hi, Mark.
We won’t be in Gainesville next year. Solid enough chance Charlie Strong won’t be there, either.
AJ Green will still be in Athens. Same for Aaron Murray- who Urban wanted but couldn’t have.
So about that 2nd place status…might want to include the Gators in that conversation. Though, Urban’s managed to finish 3rd in the East twice (behind South Carolina, even!).