Monday’s Meatloaf – Flushing the Turds

Florida was the team building some nice momentum heading into the Ides of March. They came to Athens on a three game winning streak, including a convincing win over Tennessee on Tuesday in the land of the lost. Then Albert Jackson swatted a desperation pass with just a couple of ticks on the clock and suddenly our cold-blooded arch enemies were looking at a fat L.

Billy Donovan, have a seat back on the Bubble. Careful now…it might just burst.

The gayturds may still make the NCAA field of 65. But today they are sweating it a little more. Kind of like we were sweating it in that second half watching the 15 point halftime lead wither away. But the Stegosaurus has proven to be a tough out under Coach Fox’s watch. Saturday was tough as nails.

And it was the bench that nailed it all down. I guess faced with the prospect of beating Eddie Munster’s Turd Herders less than 48 hours after taking Vandy to the 45th minute, Fox figured the bench would need to punch the time clock more than usual.

Good call. Cuz now it’s the Dawgs with the momentum heading into a home stretch facing Kentucky (home) and LSU (road). Meanwhile the reptiles have both Kentucky and Vandy left. Albert Jackson essentially flushed the toilet when he sent that Dan Werner pass into the stands, leaving just .1 second on the clock.

Even if floriDuh does make the big tourney, at least we get to see them scramble up out of the bowl, again.

Today’s Ingredients

• Be sure to check out the SEC widget to your left. Hoops Hysteria begins this week where you can be a part of 10 days of giveaways. Prizes include autographed memorabilia and SEC tourney tix. The first giveaway will be Thursday, the first day of the womens’ tourney.
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  Speaking of the women, our Lady Dawgs rolled over the hogs and grabbed some momentum of their own heading into Gwinnett Arena. Groo has an in-depth look at how being good was a little unlucky, then provides a silver lining.
• Over at Foley, Perno’s Diamond Dawgs helped continue the weekend’s domination with a sweep of Stetson. Also on the collegiate diamond, Cord points out that the Beavers took it to the HillBillys this weekend. Yeh, we get it dude. Oregon State doesn’t just cheat to win CWS titles.
• Exile echoes Coach Fox’s sentiments, “Pretty solid little team”. And Mike sees Fox as the SEC coach most worthy of the post-season accolades.
• And one last nugget on Coach Fox from Conner Nolte’s blog. It looks the grind of the SEC hasn’t taken away from the head guy’s stellar touch. 
• The gridiron may be on the backburner, but it’s almost always the topic du jour regardless of what the calendar says. And the Senator takes an honest look at some off season quotes and practices through the words of Ty Webb. I’ll only add that a donut with no hole is a danish.
• ecdawg looks at the versatility of Stephon Tuitt.
• Streit takes an early look at some SEC out of conference matchups that we should be looking forward to.
• UGA VIII Wow’d us on Friday then came back yesterday with Part II.
• Hale somehow caught up with Torrin Lawrence in order to update us on his SEC Indoor dominance. My God, a sophomore.
• So we kick the ever loving (crap) outta Can’tada in their own Olympics, set a new record for total medals…and our President is still the one on the losing end of a bet with their President  King  Head Socialist  Leader…?? Are you kidding me?
• Is Tiger’s thirst quenchable? Gatorade thinks not.
• We always had a hunch St. Timothy had an evil streak. But to run a 6.66 in the cone drill…damn. That’s a helluva a way to come out clean.

I had the pleasure of welcoming my one good wrambling wreck’d buddy into the Over Forty Club Saturday evening. Miranda will try and convince you he had the best of both worlds in college: he got edumacated at NATS M-F, but came to Athens to party on the weekends. In fact one weekend after getting a passing grade on his helluva engineer pop quiz he was so geek’d up, he and I nearly came to blows on Broad St. after getting over-served at Peppinos. (The truth is, he insisted on one more pitcher when my drunken calculations were telling me we’d had enough. And I didn’t even know how to use the slide rule he pulled out of his coat.) Luckily, brother Jim stepped in to mediate. Or maybe we just threw unsuccessful haymakers until we passed out. I just don’t recall.

Regardless, it was a nice party put on by his lovely wife Erin…complete with a cake that I graciously refused. Since so few of us Dawg fans encounter insect lovers in actual social situations other than annual beat downs on the gridiron, I decided to make some notes to share. Here are some of my casual observations:

• Not surprisingly, the guests ultimately divided into a Tech group and a Dawg group.
• The techhies only outnumbered the rest of us by a few.
• My group optimized a location closest to the cold beverages.
• No stripper came out of the cake…and luckily no johnson did either.
• And lastly, even after all these years (not to mention several hung juries) Fred is still a lovable sonuvabitch. God bless you Georgia.

And I’d be remiss if I did not also point out that I was given the opportunity to hold and peruse through the Tech Athletic Bible. It was like a large scrapbook of their athletic history on the gridiron, yet had at least one chapter missing. I thumbed through it desperately wanting to catch a glimpse of the Tech Trinity in all their glory. Yet found no mention of Dave Braine, Chan Gailey and Reggie Ball.

Rest assured though, that addition will be my gift to you. I’ve already tracked down interviews with each of them. Not surprisingly, Braine was the hardest to find. Seems before he left he had given himself a brand new 10 year contract with the stipulation that he would never be competitive in the ACC. He was comfortably resting on his laurels at an Atlanta area Golden Corral. Happy frickin’ Birthday!

You too Reader, whenever your BIG four OH is. Invite me to come. Especially if there’s meatballs. For now, enjoy your Monday and your meatloaf. Here’s a fork. Don’t overtax it.

Bernie