Dawgs on Top!

Rocky flop.

Neyland's erector set, in progress

Vol Navy!!

More Denver Bronco Peyton Manning jerseys than Justin Worley. 

Knoxville's biggest funnel

"He's running OVER people!"

Like so many other venues, playing in Knoxville will always remind me of Larry Munson. Perhaps Knoxville a little more than others.

Let's get ready to hunker down y'all!

Going to see the leaves (and Vols) change colors

Should be a nice weekend in the mountains. Wife and I are aimed north with reservations....one for a hotel, and another for an ass kicking.

I'll try to post some pictures or videos. If you're meeting me there, there'll be nothing smoky or gray about my attire.

Go Dawgs!

Friday Misery - A Prius, a goat and a box of whine

Before we begin, RIP "Poppa N". Always enjoyed tailgating with you, even though when it came down to cards you had a way of making me the "asshole". We will always hold your seat in Sanford with pride! And I'm sure around 3:30 tomorrow Munson will be in your ear once again. Hunker Down and Go Dawgs!

They just suck. So hard.

Good gracious we fell down hard from that win. Took a few days as we patted ourselves on the back and inflated our egos...to where they should be anyway. But when it happened we fell hard. And all of a sudden we're selling ourselves short again.

I get it, the 2009 loss to the Vols was one of the worst events in Knoxville. Ever. That includes the time Milli Vanilli opened for Nickelback at Neyland Stadium on 2 for 1 Possum on a Stick Night. And the 2007 game was a textbook case of how to fail epically. Hard.

I could go on for another few lines, but you get the point. Trips up yonder, many times, haven't been pleasant. But don't lose out on this opportunity to stomp a hobnail boot on those backwood bastards while they're down. For those of you who seem to have forgotten that footwear reference, aim your mouse here.

This is the worst Tennessee team we might ever see.  Ever. EVER. They were a really bad team last year. Then they lost Tyler Bray and Justin Hunter and replaced them with guys that wouldn't make the two deep for Kentucky. (Well...ok, Georgia Tech's two-deep.) They're awful. So stop mincing words and call a spade a spade. Dawg up and stop resembling that scrawny ass coon hound. WE ARE GEORGIA! AND WE'RE COMING TO KICK THEIR ASS.

Nothing sucks like a big orange. And Lord have mercy, this is one mother of a BIG ORANGE!!

And then Cooter said to Jimmy Bob...
"You hold its legs and I'll go first."

I'm not saying Tennessee fans are stupid...well, yes I am. They took to rejoicing early this week when our old friend KiffyBaby got hisself canned. On one hand I understand their exuberance as that bastard really did them over good. Laid em down for a season of sexy time, then threw a wadded up ten on the bed and left them in the dead of night with nothing but a confused look and a bag of secondary violations.

"But coach, wuh...wuh...who gon' pump gas for us n all?"

And this picture they made of themselves next to their Molestation Mountain is cute.

This is what knuckle-draggers do. They miss the whole point. You Tennessee fans, Mr. and Mrs. Junior and Lulu, you're the butt of the joke. You ran off a good coach who'd had a couple bad seasons just so you could turn the program into a dumpster fire. Mike Hamilton lit the match and then it's all "Oooooh, look how pretty!!"

You're too busy wiggling that thumb up your ass to realize you're at rock bottom. Karma ain't a "Butch" so much as it is a herd of frat boys after the box of Franzia is empty. It's a BB gun in the floorboard of a Prius. It's a pair of orange britches covering up Lil Dools' diaper his momma strapped on him good and tight. It's the end of a funnel that smells like poo. It's Rocky Top being played when you get ONE GOTDAMN FIRST DOWN. It's Jabari's finger lickin greasy fingers. It's having to steal water from a friendly neighbor just so you can fight the fire that you created years ago..."Ooooh...sooo pretty!!...uh-oh...too hot! TOO HOT!!"

We'll see tomorrow just how much more ugly we can smack off of these inbred mouth breathers. We'll see tomorrow just how rock hard is the bottom on which they've fallen. We'll see if they're anymore interested in tackling than they were last year, or if it's still all about jamming a funnel up your ass while your best friends forever clap and cheer you on merrily!

As Poppa N once said to me, "Bernie, you might be the permanent asshole." True words, as I suck at cards once the seal on the bourbon is cracked. But it's never been home to any foreign objects.

Go Dawgs!

#HillBillyHateWeek - "OMG, that's bad right?"

Ain't always easy being a Tennessee Vol when the Dawgs come to town.

"And we dive on the ball...AND WE PICK IT UP!!"

"Nobody does it like Georgia!"

#HillBillyHateWeek - coaching contrast edition

No offense to anyone who may be more musically inclined than me...but looking at the pictures below, which man would you want as your head football coach?

 

h/t AHD

Cheer up bUTtchuggers, at least Jones isn't using the trumpet as a funnel.

#HillBillyHateWeek - vols gone wild!

Sorry I'm late with today's installment. But it's a good one, courtesy of BassinDawg.

"Meanwhile at Neyland Stadium..."

Aaron Murray asks for your help!!!

Okay, he's not really asking because he would never worry about individual awards. Especially during the week before a key road trip. But I AM asking for your help on his behalf.

Many years the winner of the Davey O'Brien award, given by the committee of the same name to whom they feel is college football's best quarterback, predicts the Heisman Award winner. One of the unique parts of the award's process is that the fans' votes account for 5% of the formula used.

It should be a slam dunk for Murray to be a finalist this year. At least given the start to his senior season. However he's way down in the fan voting. He trails names like Bortles and Manziel and Boyd and McCarron. Okay, I get that I guess. But he also trails Brett Smith who's the signal caller for Wyoming...and Brandon Allen of Arkansas...Rakeem Cato of Marshall. Are you kidding me?

Pitiful. C'mon! We gotta get behind this thing and help a Damn Good Dawg out! Go register and support your quarterback with a click the way he supported us Saturday with his arm. THEN, share that action socially through your BookFace account and your twitterings. THEN, do the same thing tomorrow. You can vote once a day through the process. It's easy. Takes less time than you spent reading this post.

Go! NOW. Do it!

Wednesday's gimpy ankle headers

Looking more and more like Todd Gurley won't be ready by the time the team leaves for Knoxville. Let's just hope that has much more of an impact on his Heisman numbers than the actual game itself.

Some other things of note:

• A lot of comparisons to Saturday's win over LSU in terms of crowd noise/excitement with 1984's win over Clemson. I wasn't there for Kevin's Butler's monster kick, but Marshall was. So he adds some thoughts on the big win.
• And in another post, sUGArdaddy has some cool and historical thoughts on the LSU game, as well as some observations.
• Any way Connelly breaks down the stats, he comes to the only conclusion possible - LSU at Georgia was just a remarkable game.
• Another fun activity this week has been all of the pictures from the LSU game. Tyler brings up some good "winning" ones from Jim Hipple. The second does the most for me I guess - Richt fist pumping, Bauta flying, troopers smirking, Watts Dantzler just being Watts.
• Where was Quayvon on Saturday? Mostly spectating like me and you.
• Chris Conley gets mic'd up!
• Murray Poole scouts Tennessee.
• It's been a while since Tennessee beat a ranked team. Quite a while.
• Looking for some Vol stats in bold colors? Here ya go. Like we said yesterday, Butch Jones' first defense up there really knows how to take the ball away.

Lastly, Loran writes a letter to Larry Munson. Can you imagine the replay his voice would be getting this week if he'd been around to give us the picture on Mett's last incompletion?

Humpday Hilarity - the way the game was

h/t Fred

With a lot of talk these days about rule changes...shall we say...making football a little less of a contact sport, this throwback is refreshing. Art Donovan, who passed away a couple months ago, was on scholarship at Notre Dame when he left to serve his country in World War II. He returned to the game post-war as a decorated Marine and a hard-nosed son of a gun. So after finishing his career on the field, it was no wonder that he would make the rounds as a talk show guest. Here's one of his appearances on Carson.

RIP Mr. Donovan.

BDB Gameday Semi-Live, the LSU tailgate

The game was spectacular. We all know that. But one of the reasons that win felt so incredibly awesome was because we always have so much good food and good times at the tailgate, it's just nice to finish it off with a victory like that.

Saturday was no different around campus before the game. Great food, drink and fun everywhere. And you'd be hard-pressed to find anything that cute little show over on Myers Quad had that we didn't: Predictions, check. Interviews, check. Product placement, check. Game analysis, check. Wardrobe changes, check!

So when you get 21 minutes to spare, enjoy.

Kudos to Nama for putting all of this together. Mrs. Bernie and my kids for the signage. And the rest of the guys and gals that made this Saturday one of the best ever in Athens GA.

Go Dawgs!

Tennessee's turnover trend

We like to give John Jancek and Willie Martinez a lot of grief (much of which was earned), but we also need to give some credit where it is due. The Volunteers' defense has been getting to the football and putting it on the ground or taking it out of the air.

via cfbstats

Creating 15 turnovers through five four games is no joke, and can't solely be put at the feet of lesser competition. And what we're not able to see there is that in addition to 11 interceptions on the season, they've caused 11 fumbles, something Wes Rucker points out here ($) with a post on Dawgs247. 

That's impressive. Tennessee was -6 in turnover margin last season, and through just a month's worth of games has nearly matched last season's takeaway total of 17. Even though that margin of +3 will go down further into SEC play unless the offense can improve dramatically, the message is clear: Georgia better protect the football (something it's done for the most part by the way, despite a -1 on the season). Because Jancek has turned around a downward trend for Butch Jones' first defense in Knoxville rather quickly.

#HillBillyHateWeek - spelling is hard edition

Not sure if they're at a football game, basketball game or just cheering on Maria Sharapova.

When homeschooling fails, it hurts the kids the most.

Hey, at least this guy got it right!

HillBilly Hate week commences

Only fitting that we start the process with the Adam and Eve of all HillBillys...Lulu and Junior.

Just to be sure we're clear, that's Lulu on the left. 

I think.

Where's Grantham's killer instinct?

In searching for a cohesive thought about the pass defense getting picked apart, I think Blutarsky nails it here.

Here’s the list of things that the Georgia defense was doing competently to well against LSU at that point:  defending the run, rushing the passer.  Here’s the list of things the defense wasn’t doing competently:  everything else. And yet, at the moment when his team needed a crucial stop and had a chance to take control of the game late, Grantham chose to take the play out of the hands of a group that was getting it done and put it in the hands of a group that had struggled all day to handle a textbook pocket passer with an NFL-quality arm and the two best receivers in the conference.  The results were predictable, and I mean that literally, as Mettenberger had converted another third down and long situation against a three-man rush earlier in the second half.  Basically, he played with matches in that situation and got burned.

Later this week we're going to hear from Grantham about how young the defense is and how his defensive backs are getting better. Much like last week and the week before. And that's very true. Langley in particular is looking more and more comfortable I think. And we're not going to have to defend against another quarterback like we saw in Mettenberger for awhile. (Maybe not until we see him again in Atlanta...knocks on wood).

But we knew coming into the LSU game that we had to pressure Mettenberger because the pocket is where he makes his hay. And as the game wore on he made it even more evident that we couldn't just let him set up like that. To his credit, Grantham dialed up the intensity at the right moments, including the last four plays of the game to force four consecutive incompletions. In particular, Leonard Floyd's sack on first down of that last series was a perfectly designed stunt and executed to perfection. It forced Miles to call a timeout to regroup and put Cameron in a difficult hole to start a potential game winning drive. In short, Grantham had the deck stacked against his adversary and was poised to close things out quickly.

Instead he has his troops drop back into prevent and only rushes three on second and 17, even though we'd just witnessed LSU convert a third and 22 quite easily to Beckham the series before. For a unit that was winning the battle in the trenches, why so little faith? Why back off the gas and surrender the pocket to a quarterback that had been ripping us to shreds all night? We've been wondering what this defense's identity was going to be. Just as they are getting pressure on one of the nation's hottest quarterbacks we lose that killer instinct and give up yet another big gainer to Beckham after Mettenberger had plenty of time to set up and deliver the ball.

And for a guy like Grantham that emphasizes pressure and turnovers, that strategy seemed ill-timed. For a guy that seems to thrive on intensity, it seemed out of character. We survived this time. Next time we might not be so lucky.

The week of "stepping out of Gurley's shadow"

While tailgating Saturday we had a discussion about our tailback recruiting. It started, of course, with remarks about how we were able to get both Gurley and Marshall. Then about how we didn't hesitate to play JJ Green and Brendan Douglas early this season. The message that sends to recruits is important - Come to Georgia if you want carries early.

In short, there's going to be extenuating circumstances if we are to redshirt a Knowshon Moreno again.

And this week, that's important. Todd Gurley may or may not play in Knoxville. My early guess is that he dresses out, but is limited in the number of plays he's involved in. And while that is very premature speculation, what we actually know for certain is that Gurley will be giving up a lot of reps in practice.

Talking about Green, Richt said on his Sunday evening teleconference that “he’s definitely going to have to have more carries this week. Brendan Douglas will have to have more carries this week if we can’t get Gurley ready. We’ve just kind of got to wait and see what’s going to happen. …My guess is Gurley’s going to be limited in the amount of practice reps he takes so these guys have got to get those reps and be ready to play.”

Suddenly very, very relieved those new freshmen won't be getting their first action on the road while on national television.

Tennessee to use alternate uniforms against Dawgs

Smells a lot like Tour de Franzia fake juice, IYAM.

In case you missed the Adidas announcement back in August, here's what they will look like.

Dawgs climb to 6th in AP

Georgia jumps ahead of LSU, Louisville and FSU.

Sunday's very hoarse thoughts

The most intense and loudest game I've been a part of in Sanford. I might be saying that out of leftover emotions from the win, but it truly was a special experience. The fans really brought it. The students were unbelievable. One of those times you can say with certainty that together we were a twelfth man doing our part to help the team win.

• Grantham did a good job of limiting the LSU rush attack. 
• But all of that success was overshadowed by the three man rushes on third and long. YGTBFKM!
• LSU converted 10/15 third downs. Against a great offense like the Tigers' that can be expected I guess. But the distances they traveled to convert some of those is troubling. And especially frustrating given how good of a job we did against Hill. 
• Okay, on to the positives...
• A little surprised we used so much shotgun. Made me feel a little silly for emphasizing the fullback position so much earlier in the week. Oh well. It definitely worked as Bobo was content from start to finish with spreading their defense out and letting Murray do his thing.
• Marshall became the workhorse and was close to breaking a couple for long ones.
• The offensive line was tremendous, again. Murray had all the time he needed and more. The running lanes were there more often than not.
• And pass protection was one of the keys to this victory. Georgia sacked Mett four times and pressured him into some bad throws as well. We knew that would be important as he is not the same quarterback when forced to move. Meanwhile, Murray rarely felt pressure and kept a clean jersey.
• Willie Martinez will look at game film later today and wonder how in the hell he's going to cover all of these receivers.
• Of course he'll also hope Gurley doesn't make the trip. (More on that later, but sounds like it's about 50/50. We'll see how much he can practice this week.)
• Well hello there Marshall Morgan.
• And hello to you as well Josh Harvey-Clemons!
• Another key to the win obviously was special teams. Beckham is a very dangerous return man and we contained him really well. Our gunners lit him up good on the bobbled punt. That was huge.

Lastly, fitting that Murray and Mettenberger finished the game with almost identical passer ratings. Both played a whale of a game. Sure am glad it was our guy taking a knee at the end. 

#VictoryFormation

Coach Richt loses control of his emotions

I LOVE my coach. I LOVE my team. I LOVE my stadium. I LOVE Saturdays in Athens.

I LOVE my coach.