Archive for the ‘UGA/SEC’ Category

Eli celebrates the greatest month a 9-7 team ever had. (AP photo)

Every season ends with music blaring, confetti falling, a trophy awarded. It’s “One Shining Moment,” a pinnacle attained, a champion crowned. But more and more, we’re seeing trophies taken by teams that aren’t quite the epitome of excellence. We’ve entered the era of the accidental champ.

We consider the most recent winners in the six major American sports:

Connecticut, the 2010-11 NCAA basketball titlist: The Huskies finished in the bottom half of the Big East, which numbers 16 teams. They were 9-9 in regular-season conference play and entered the Big East tournament as the ninth seed. They won five games in that event, six in the NCAA tournament. They won more than half as many games (11) in the two postseason events as in the regular season (21).

Boston Bruins, the 2010-11 NHL titlist: They finished the regular season with 103 points, seventh-most in the league. They had the fewest points of any of the six …

Continue reading From Cardinals to Giants, it’s the era of the accidental champ »

You've got to be strong with the ball to outmuscle Wisconsin. Jared Sullinger was. (AP photo)

Hoops Hysterics

1.The silver anniversary — meaning the 25th year — of Bradley’s Bracket Fiasco is almost at hand. How about a silvery sliver of a guess as to who’s going to make the Final Four? I’d say Ohio State, Kentucky and Syracuse have stamped themselves as the three best teams, and unless one of them slips they won’t have to play each other in a regional. I’m guessing I’d pick at least two of those to reach New Orleans. As for the fourth team: I’ve been underwhelmed by North Carolina, and I won’t pick Kansas no matter how good Kansas is because I’ve been wrong so many times before. I liked Florida last season because of its guards and I like the Gators again for the same reason. If you’re looking for a unranked major of substance, I’d try West Virginia. For a mid-major, try Wichita State.

2. With big conference games at hand all across the basketball landscape, how do we …

Continue reading Hoops insider: A early line on Bradley’s 25th Bracket Fiasco »

This is basically what pro football has become: One guy slinging the ball. (AP photo)

Always before, old-school football would rise up in the Super Bowl and save the day for us codgers. The 1983 Washington Redskins set an NFL record with 541 points in the regular season, but managed only nine against the Raiders of Lester Hayes and Michael Haynes. The first installment of Buffalo’s hurry-up offense was grounded by the New York Giants, after which Bill Parcells exulted, “Power football, baby!” The St. Louis Rams and their Greatest Show on Turf were undone by Bill Belichick’s Patriots.

And now you’re saying: “The Super Bowl is Sunday. It still could happen.”

And here’s where this old-schooler concedes defeat and says: It won’t.

This champion will have the lowest-rated defense of any Super Bowl winner ever. The New England Patriots, still Belichick’s team, ranked 31st in the 32-team NFL. And the Giants, who are seen as the more traditional of the teams still standings, ranked …

Continue reading Can the Super Bowl really be Super if nobody plays defense? »

Mark Richt addresses the again-faithful Bulldog Nation on Wednesday. (Photo by M. Bradley)

UPDATE:According to esteemed colleague Michael Carvell, Georgia received Josh Harvey-Clemons’ signed letter of intent Thursday morning.

Athens – Forget, if only for a moment, national signing day. As an indicator of which way Georgia is headed, Todd Grantham pointed to incumbent players who remain, not incidentally, incumbent.

“We had nine guys on defense who could have left for the NFL,” said Grantham, Georgia’s defensive coordinator, “and all nine would have gotten drafted somewhere. But all nine guys chose to stay. We’ve been talking about having a dream, having a vision, but to see these guys buy into that and help recruit new guys, that has really ignited our program.”

After the 6-7 record of 2010, after the 0-2 start of 2011, it was possible to wonder if the Bulldogs under Mark Richt had become a ghost ship. On signing day 2012, Georgia again bears the look of a shining ocean …

Continue reading UPDATE: Another strong class pushes UGA closer to the top »

Bulldog Nation — at least a portion of it — gathers in anticipation. (Photo by M. Bradley)

Athens — Here we are at Butts-Mehre, sometimes known as Dawg Mahal, and you can cut the tension with a … well, you know. It’s Signing Day, and the biggest undecided name in Georgia’s sights is about to pledge his troth. (Or, to use a more contemporary image, don some school’s baseball cap.)

And Josh Harvey-Clemons, the linebacker from Lowndes, picked …

Georgia.

For the record, Harvey-Clemons did not do the now-tiresome hat trick. Instead he allowed his younger sister to take off one sweatshirt to reveal a red Georgia shirt underneath. Style points!

And that, you’d have to think, would ease the doubt some Bulldog fans had over this class not being ranked as highly — at least not by Rivals and Scout — as last season’s. Harvey-Clemons gives Georgia the No. 1 player (at least in somebody’s ratings) in four different states.

UPDATE: As of 3:07 p.m., Georgia hasn’t received Harvey-Clemons’ …

Continue reading Live from Athens: UGA hooks Harvey-Clemons – or does it? »

Josh Harvey-Clemons of Lowndes: With whom will he sign? (AJC photo by Phil Skinner)

If you follow college football, you cannot ignore recruiting. Even if you think it’s overblown, attention must be paid. As Jamie Newberg, the ESPN recruiting analyst, said Monday: “Those stars [rankings for each recruit] do mean something. You just have look at the national champions the last 10 years to know that.”

Then this: “But then you look at a guy like [Virginia Tech's] Frank Beamer — he’s never in the Top 10 [of recruiting rankings] but he gets the guys who does what he wants … Paul Johnson has done a good job in that way, too.”

Paul Johnson, as we know, coaches Georgia Tech, and Tech is often seen as an afterthought on National Signing Day. The SEC schools load up on five-star guys and the Jackets make do with lesser lights, and when you look at the rankings — and we all do — Tech is never in the Top 10. But here’s Newberg on this Tech class,  rated the nation’s 57th-best by …

Continue reading Recruiting mavens weigh in on Tech, UGA and recruiting itself »

"So why aren't we better than this? You're asking ME? " (AJC photo by Hyosub Shin)

Hoops Hysterics

1. Georgia is tied for last in the SEC. Georgia Tech is dead last in the ACC. Which team is more disappointing? Georgia, and not just because the Bulldogs managed to lose to Tech in Athens. (The Jackets are 3-9 since.) A team in Year 3 under its coach, as Georgia is, should be much further along than a team in Year 1, as is the case with Tech. If the Bulldogs don’t win a big game or two the second half of the league season, the advances of last season will be canceled out.

2. How many NCAA tournament bids will the ACC command? How many for the SEC? The ACC could get stuck on four — North Carolina, Duke, Florida State and Virginia — if North Carolina State continues to slide and Miami doesn’t make a big push. The SEC has four almost-certains — Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt and Mississippi State — but Alabama lost four in a row and, its RPI of 33 notwithstanding, could be overtaken …

Continue reading Hoops insider: So which is the bigger dud – Tech or UGA? »

Will Isaiah Crowell and Georgia leave South Carolina in the dust? (AJC photo by Brant Sanderlin)

For the first 10 years of the SEC East’s existence, Florida usually won. When it didn’t, Tennessee did. Then Mark Richt arrived at Georgia — and, not incidentally, Ron Zook took over in Gainesville — and the Bulldogs won the division three times in four seasons. Then the Gators, under new and better management, won three times in four years. And then, in 2010, something strange happened: The East was taken by none of the above.

South Carolina finally broke through, and two weeks into the 2011 season the Gamecocks were poised to consolidate that gain. They’d beaten Georgia in Athens. The Gamecocks had four of the more talented players — Marcus Lattimore, Alshon Jeffery, Melvin Ingram and Jadeveon Clowney — in the nation’s most talented league. But Carolina lost at home to Auburn and booted wayfaring quarterback Stephen Garcia from the squad for good and lost Lattimore to a knee …

Continue reading Who’ll grab hold of the SEC East – UGA or South Carolina? »

A stressful night for Coach Cal at the Stegasaurus? (AP photo)

(Yet again, let me note that this feature is part — but only a small part — of our weekly college basketball package, which runs every Tuesday in the print AJC. I offer my contribution for your digital perusal.)

Hoops Hysterics

1. Does Georgia have a prayer against No. 1 Kentucky on Tuesday? Sure. As good as the Wildcats can be, they trailed in the second halves of both SEC road games, and neither of those — at Auburn, at Tennessee — was against top-shelf competition. At 1-4 in league play, the Bulldogs aren’t top-shelf, either. But they’re at home, which means something.

2. If you had to pick one team against the field to win the national championship, would it be Kentucky? North Carolina? Missouri? Syracuse? None of the above. I’d pick the same team I picked — incorrectly — last March. I’d pick Ohio State because I think Jared Sullinger, whose numbers are almost the same as a sophomore as they were as a …

Continue reading Hoops insider: Does UGA have a shot versus No. 1 Wildcats? »

Statues come in bronze. People are more complicated. (AP photo)

In death as in life, timing matters. Had Joe Paterno died Jan. 22, 2011, he’d have been hailed as the one coach who’d negotiated the murky waters of contemporary college football and left, both his sport and this world, with dignity shining. Every obituary would have included, no further down than the second paragraph, the line: “He did it the right way.”

But Joe Paterno died Jan. 22, 2012, and today every first paragraph is duty-bound to mention of his forced departure from Penn State 2 1/2 months before his death, a departure triggered not because some recruit was given a new car but because a longtime assistant coach was indicted for child sex abuse.

Joe Paterno took two national championships, won more games at the major-college level than any other football coach and never saw his program penalized by the NCAA. Had he died at age 84, as opposed to 85, we would have mourned his passing while celebrating a life …

Continue reading Joe Paterno is gone, but our struggle with his legacy endures »