Let's hope the ball ain't got any heavier...

Herschel's in town. He's been seen in twitpics and Facebook status updates signing pages for current Georgia players, all with the same awestruck gaze that you and I would have in the same position. Good deal. Very happy Walker has taken the time to spend with the team. As this post goes cyber, he's working out with the team and showing them exactly what makes him such physical freak. Coach T might even break a smile, privately.


But Herschel will also spend some time with the newest kid to try and fit into the shoes Walker wore to town back in the Summer of 1980. Three years later the legend had long been made, and tailbacks have since been measured to #34's greatness.


Fair. Unfair...reality. Enter Isaiah Crowell.


The expectations are steep. The hype maybe even greater than Walker experienced given the social media age and the even greater attention to recruiting these days compared to 30 years ago. Yet, the two will spend some time together before Herschel dons his cape and leaves town.

“The advice I’d give him is to do his thing,” Walker, who was inducted in the College Football Hall of Fame in 1999, said. “You can’t worry what people think about you because I tell people all the time there’s people that don’t love me, people that don’t even like me. And I’m a great guy, I thought, but there are people that don’t like me. What he’s got to do is he’s just got to do his thing. Just do what he can do and don’t worry about it and don’t worry about making mistakes.”

Walker claims he didn’t feel any pressure until his junior season, when he was expected to win the Heisman Trophy and was playing with a broken thumb. Crediting a great group of upperclassmen when he first arrived, Walker had two full seasons to play and grow as a player and person before he had to deal with realized attention and anticipation.

Crowell does not have this luxury. The Bulldogs are thin at tailback and kick the season off in the Georgia Dome against nationally-regarded Boise State.

All eyes will be on Crowell, whether he fully comprehends what comes with that burden or not.

“I know as the season gets closer there is going to be a lot of pressure,” Crowell, who rushed for 18 scores as a senior, said. “Well I want to be the starter. Got to be a starter.”'

I think the ball Murray will hand to Crowell is about equal in weight as the one Belue handed to Herschel up in Knoxville just before Bill Bates' chest met Walker's enormous thigh. Let's hope that ball finds the endzone an equal number of times as well.