Malcolm Mitchell's red cape

You see...this is all I'm sayin'. 

ITA Indoors, Diaz discusses defeat of Cal

Georgia Mens Tennis defeated Cal 4-0 yesterday at the ITA Indoors in Charlottesville VA. Cal is ranked #16, so this was a good early test. Here Coach Diaz and freshman Nathan Pasha discuss the win in the round of 16.

Diamond Dawgs take the field

A little taste of spring in the air today as the Diamond Dawgs begin their season with a series against Presbyterian College. First pitch is at 5:30 today, and 2pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Georgia welcomes back eight starters from last season headlined by senior Levi Hyams (.332-5-38 in 2011) at second base and junior Kyle Farmer (.308-8-58 in 2011) at shortstop. A familiar face in a new place is senior Colby May (.222-2-5 in 2011) as he moves from the hot corner to first base. A pair of freshmen to watch will be left fielder Hunter Cole and designated hitter Jared Walsh. Walsh will split time with junior Brett DeLoach (.263-5-27 in 2011). 

The Georgia coaching staff returns in tact from a year ago with David Perno at the helm for his 11th season. Perno's assistants are Jason Eller, Allen Osborne and Jason Jacobs.

Sr Colby May will move from 3rd to 1st base

Redshirt-sophomore LHP Alex Wood (6-7, 4.44 ERA in 2011) draws the Opening Day start. When we last saw Wood, he was instrumental in extending Georgia's 2011 season. He tossed his first career complete game in beating Auburn 3-2 to keep Georgia's season alive in the SEC Tournament and then followed it up with eight strong innings in beating UALR 7-3 in an elimination game at the NCAA Corvallis (Ore.) Regional. 

Senior RHP Michael Palazzone (10-5, 3.14 ERA in 2011) goes on Saturday. He is one of the top returning pitchers in the SEC after posting seven wins over ranked foes in 2011. During the SEC regular season, he went 7-2 with a 3.22 ERA and three complete games. Palazzone's wins include beating #3 Vanderbilt, #4 Florida, #5 Florida State, #9 LSU, #14 Arkansas and #24 Miss. State. He made the SEC All-Tournament team, going 1-1 with a 3.60 ERA in two appearances. On two days rest following a loss to #3 Vanderbilt, he went 4.1 innings and allowed one unearned run in getting a win in relief over #3 Florida to reach the SEC Tournament semifinals and qualify the Bulldogs for an NCAA at-large bid. 

Georgia returns the rotation that it used down the stretch in 2011 anchored by Palazzone and Wood. However with closer Tyler Maloof (18 saves in 2011) sidelined with a right lat injury until March, junior Blake Dieterich (3-3, 3.67 ERA, 2 SV in 2011) will move to the bullpen/closer role instead of his projected No. 3 starter slot. Thus, redshirt-freshman RHP Taylor Hicks gets the first look at that weekend spot.

Preserving rivalries, a case in simplicity?

Could it really be this simple? vineyarddawg takes a stab at preserving specific rivalries in the face of conference expansion.

The simplest solution, I suppose, would be to keep the 8-game conference schedule and go back to having 12 teams rather than 14 in the SEC. And personally, I would keep A&M, add Clemson, and dump Arkansas, Mizzou, and South Castlevania. Rather than make that radical suggestion that has no possibility of actually happening, however (I've already done that, for the record), I will stick to an option that is more plausible... and, in fact, makes the most sense from a scheduling standpoint.

After securing an NCAA waiver to continue having a conference championship game, the SEC should drop the divisional structure of the league. Instead of being forced into some odd "geographically aligned" divisional system that requires us to play Missouri more frequently than we play Auburn, the SEC should implement a system that allows each team to preserve its most important rivalries while giving the league the greatest amount of flexibility to rotate teams' schedules.

That solution is to assign each team in the conference 3 "permament rivals," then rotate the final 5 conference games between all of the remaining conference opponents. At the end of the season, the teams with the two best conference records (regardless of geography) would meet in Atlanta. For example, the SEC's new "preserved rivalry" lineup could look something like this (rivalries listed roughly in order of importance to each school):

Team	Rival 1	Rival 2	Rival 3
Alabama	Auburn	Tennessee	LSU
Arkansas	Texas A&M	Mizzou	Mississippi State
Auburn	Alabama	Georgia	Mizzou
Florida	Georgia	LSU	South Castlevania
Georgia	Auburn	Florida	South Castlevania
Kentucky	Tennessee	Vanderbilt	South Castlevania
LSU	Alabama	Ole Miss	Florida
Mississippi State	Ole Miss	Arkansas	Texas A&M
Missouri	Texas A&M	Arkansas	Auburn
Ole Miss	Mississippi State	LSU	Vanderbilt
South Castlevania	Georgia	Florida	Kentucky
Tennessee	Alabama	Kentucky	Vanderbilt
Texas A&M	Arkansas	Mizzou	Mississippi State
Vanderbilt	Tennessee	Kentucky	Ole Miss

See how I did that? With 5 games used to rotate between the remaining 10 teams, every school could make a complete home-and-home circuit of all conference teams in 4 seasons. And I didn't even get paid a single dollar, let alone the mind-boggling figures the geniuses in AD's offices around the conference get paid to come up with this stuff.

I'm still not pleased with expansion and would resist moving away from the "unclutteredness" of the two divisional champs meeting in Atlanta. But, vineyarddawg's solution seems to be a worthy compromise to me.

Beer of the Week - Bitter American

"Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza." -Dave Barry


Today I want to talk about cans. If I truly love beer then I must lust for cans. (I want you to repeat that with me...) If I truly love beer then I must lust for cans. Ok, some of you need to get your minds out of the gutter.


But we all need to get our beer out of the gutter. And cans are the way to go. Two of beer's biggest enemies are light and air. Bottles do an admirable job in their force of resistance. But cans! They can do the job ten times better than their inefficient brother, the bottle.

Mrs. Bernie frowns on canned beer. We've had this argument before. But it's usually around the pool where bottles are strictly forbidden. And see, we should follow pools' lead. They know what's what kids. Cans are functional, efficient and safe!

A can of Bitter American, posing inside
of my favorite glass.

Luckily craft beer isn't only a bottled enterprise. Several big hitters in the craft beer biz are canning instead of bottling and others are getting onboard. Earlier this week it was announced that a new brewery on the market would start canning instead of bottling; West Sixth Brewery in Lexington understands what is best for its brew.

"There's been a stigma, an unfair stigma, against cans in the past that they're not as good for the beer and that it's not as high quality a product," said Ben Self, one of the founders of the company. "But we're seeing that's not the case."

Self said the company decided on cans because they're more portable than bottles, easier to recycle and can keep the beer fresher longer.

"It's so much better for the beer in preventing air and light into the container," he said. "It's a really superior container."

Superior. Isn't that we're all striving for? Ok. I'm done preaching for now. Just trust me and go try anything by Oskar Blues or 21st Amendment and several others, then tell me that cans aren't better.


Speaking of 21st Amendment. I had their Bitter American last night. It's a pretty light pale ale for all of us day to day American heroes. There's a LOT of hops on the nose, but it only packs 42 IBUs. I would say it tastes a little hoppier than that, but it definitely mellows on its way from the nose to the back on your mouth. And it's very sessionable at only 4.4% ABV. Overall I would say it's both light and very tasty.


So grab a can today. Be an American. Celebrate freshness. 

Commings suspended for two games

Our starting cornerback will miss the season opener against Buffalo and the trip to Mizzou following his arrest last month on domestic violence. Damian Swann is officially on lockdown for the next 6 months. If anyone sees him downtown please notify BDB headquarters.

Georgia-Carolina lowlights

Well, this sucked. It was certainly within reason that a loss to the cellar dweller was possible. But we had been playing so well.


Last night was a bucket of cold water to the face.

Roll Hyperbole Roll...

Nicholai Sabane called BDB headquarters yesterday. He's evidently an athletic coach at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. I also had the opportunity to speak with their president Dr. Robert E. Witt (from Tuscaloosa), Sela Ward (from Hollywood), Bernard Madoff (from prison) Rece Davis (from Bristol), Dabo Swinney (from a West Virginia sex slave ring) and Joe Namath (from a bar at least 50 feet away from Suzy Kolber).


They were all concerned that I had fallen victim to a campus prank. I ran with a story (blogger lingo for clicking the Publish button) when it was in the very least a slight bit embellished. Indeed, the tweet that included the pic was pulled down from the interwebs sometime yesterday. 

Oh hyperbole! You vicious whore you!

Speaking of whores...ladies of the night are not running rampant in Tuscaloosa dormitories. The signs pasted and displayed on the windows, walls and entrances at Rose Towers on the campus of the University of Alabama were a frivolity, a public display of tomfoolery...some high jinks if you will. Even as you read this, "Mandatory Quiet Hours" are being respected and abided by without the slightest groan, moan or playful slap of "that nasty ass".


And actually, it was pretty apparent even before clicking Publish that it was a humorous antic. But as I explained to Coach Sabane, I'm no journalist. Even as Rece chastised me for defamation of character and Dabo ridiculed me for embarrassing myself (really Dabo...really?), I reminded them that my reader doesn't always click over here for hard hitting truths and indisputable facts. He clicks for a little escape from an afternoon deadline; a brief respite from an overdue expense report. It's the difference between a Grady School of Journalism degree and a blogging diploma sponsored by Shaefer's Light.


But as I explained to Broadway Joe and attempted to reason with Ms. Ward, the silver lining is that young coeds are actually studying at Alabama. They're no longer dangling their private parts on, around and in the vicinity of LSU fans and YouTube cameras. They're not even poisoning trees any more! They're certainly not purchasing the services of hookers and committing acts of lewdness next to dorm room hot plates. What's more is that these coeds are not even the ones doing the servicing themselves to get a little extra cash in between plagiarizing an Alabama Philosophy in the 21st Century paper and botching a History of Legends: the Bear Years midterm exam.


Whew! Bama students are using their parents' extra money for xerox copies at a local Kinko's, a cup of coffee before an early class, a Costco membership so that they can purchase Ramen noodles in bulk. They're NOT throwing cash at local crack whores who solicit in the dorm lobbies and cruelly leave doors open so that RA's get cold.


The world is a better place this morning Reader. Especially in Rose Towers, on the campus of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Noisy Bama prostitutes interfering with midterm reviews

To think that I used to choose between another night 0f Ramen noodles or splurging on a Gumby's $5 large with mushrooms. Kids today...


There's an epidemic of consistent contractual coitus going on in Tuscaloosa. Perhaps they're still celebrating the win in Nola over LSU. Perhaps these ladies are just struggling students themselves trying to earn text book money for extra summer classes.


Either way....Resident Advisors are getting cold...

Please students, keep your prostitution confined to the hours that do not interfere with the Mandatory Quiet Hours. 


Thanks.

Last Minute ValenDawg's Day ideas!

I know, I know. You completely forgot about Hallmark's birthday today and haven't gotten any future dead flowers or semi-stale chocolates for that special lady in your life.

Never fear...Bernie's here! Some of these items are repeats from last year. Others are new additions that are ready to light the fires of love in your DawgHouse. Hope you've made room on that credit card!

• Let's get romantic! Why not add some spice to the relationship with some real sideline role playing. You can be a UGA running back with these super cool eye black strips and she can wear these UGA scrubs and give you some medical attention.
• If you've got the coin and the time, the dream of every Lady Dawg's heart is to visit Georgia legend Terry Hoage. After all, he's not only the best defensive player Dooley ever coached, he also grows a mean grape. 
• Tickets to See the Dawgs Play. Whatever sporting event strikes her fancy, you’ll earn big bonus points with this simple, yet timeless gift. As a bonus, you get another opportunity to bark like hell.
• The Georgia Snuggie. Help her stay warm in style.
• Of course, if you really want to make her day special, a Customized Replica Jersey is a favorite of Mrs. Bernie. She even wears it to church.
• FORE! Help her hit the links in style with this Lettermen's Club golf bag. 
• Wanna get more intimate? How ‘bout these pajama bottoms paired with this tank top? Maybe you’re tired of the little lady’s dainties that came from that store in the mall with the awesome catalog. If so, buy her a set of these unmentionables.
• Need to go cheaper get more practical? I understand. Perhaps your lady needs a new gameday purse (aka a bourbon transporter) or a new recipe book for tailgating awesomeness.
• Maybe the wifey likes things with some more shine. I feel ya. Try this Executive Series Timepiece. You don’t have to tell her it came from WallyWorld, plus she might finally have dinner ready on time for once.
• If you need to take her on a vacation, why not make it Athens on Gameday? If you already live in Athens, tell her You My Lady! all over again this fall against the backdrop of the St. John’s River.

And if all else fails…buy her a subscription to BerniesDawgBlawg and take her for a coupla chili dogs at the Varsity Monday night. You’ll thank hate me later.

Happy ValenDawg’s Day!

WilMart opening in Opelika, DawgNation reacts

h/t @BassinDawg

News breaks that Ol Willie is joining Chizik and VanGorder on the plains and DawgNation reacts:

Who has two thumbs and loves him 

some pass interference?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

On the air with Coach Fox

An Arkansas writer nearly hijacks the media session early with some questions to prep for their weekend game against Florida. But Coach talks about this week's games including a road trip to South Carolina on Wednesday and the development of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

Monday's Meatloaf - Doppler Radars and Grammys Gone Bad

There's snow scheduled for tonight. And when I say the word scheduled what I mean is it is time for the local weather pundits to do their fair share to boost ratings while causing mass hysteria at local Krogers and Publixes across the state.

Snow even makes snowmen suicidal.

I hate snow. I live in Georgia for a reason and that is so I can enjoy some 70 degree afternoons 12 months of the calendar year. Snow is for people who drink "pop" and enjoy Howard Dean screaming. Howard Dean wouldn't know a bowl of grits from a Gallup poll's hard data. But I bet he can shovel a driveway in January.


Mrs. Bernie and I shoveled our driveway last January. I can report that it is good exercise. Other than that I hope to never have to do it again. Aside from the fact that it's cold and labor intensive work, I don't have the all the necessary tools to do it effectively. Namely, an actual snow shovel and clothing suited for sub-freezing temperatures. A transfer shovel and a pair of cold, soggy gloves must suffice. Again, I hate snow.


Back to the weather guys and their stoopid doppler weather crystal balls that can't predict the day of the week much less the amount of snow fall or even if it will actually fall at all. I think they're secretly leftover milk men from the days when milk was delivered door to door. They get a hankerin' every now and again to boost sales so they drop four letter words and malicious phrases like "snow" and "cold front" and "icy conditions".


Bastards. I hope their Valentine gives them a cold kick in the danglies.


Today's Ingredients

KCP coming of age

• Speaking of which, programming note: be sure to tune in tomorrow for our annual last minute Valentine's Day shopping ideas for that special Dawggette in your life.
• Another great win Saturday for the Hoop Dawgs in taking down a ranked Bizzaro dog squad on the road.
• Mr. Sanchez wonders where this team came from. Tyler thinks they were spawned from whatever came from Fox's mouth in Knoxville.
• Last week Coach Fox received a commitment from JJ Frazier of Ludowici GA. From Hedges to Hardwood takes a look at the much needed point guard.
• Interesting post by JHD on what happened with the ones that got away on NSD.
• Out in exile, Toothpick tells us who will eventually succeed Richt as coach at UGA.
• The deadline for Hartman Fund donations is Wednesday. And Garbin gives us a little incentive towards contributing. I mean, you wouldn't want to miss the next time the faculty goes bonkers.
• Hey engiNerds. Some shame dripped into your trombone there. 

Seen here visiting their favorite vacation
spot, Fulton Co Court.

The things I learned from Whitney Houston's life can be summed up as such: 1) I can't sing worth a damn, 2) I shouldn't use crack cuz it's bad for you and can ruin a good career and 3) Bobby Brown is a lot like crack.


As I was forced to watch hours of footage with "reporters" basically saying nothing except that she had passed away, it dawned on me just how much Houston had changed the landscape of how performers approach the singing of our National Anthem. She put that thing on another level. Ever since that 1991 Super Bowl lesser artists have either attempted to recreate that magic or just fallen on their face miserably before even memorizing the lyrics.


That's right, Whitney Houston could defeat flag burning communists too. With her voice, non-violently, with or without a symphony. But now we're forced to wait for the next voice that can transcend all others' talents. Just like her own once illustrious career, Whitney ain't coming back. Instead we're left with journalistic hacks that continually run the same file footage while "trying not to speculate" on the cause of death for this troubled star that had long battled addiction and may have last been seen by her boyfriend but was no where near her abusive ex-spouse. 


CNN and MSNBC anchors were once local weather persons, I'm sure of it. But you dear Reader, you're alright with me. Here's some meatloaf with 100% chance of a napkin. Cuz you're gonna need it.


Bernie

SEC baseball TV schedule

This season's SEC baseball TV schedule was announced last week (h/t BassinDawg). 

Lady Dawgs beat Vandy

76-63. Pretty in pink.

Dawgs are REAL dawgs

Coach Fox's hoop Dawgs improve to 3-7 in the SEC with a win on the road over Missy State.