"...some of the best sheer muscle seen in recent Cotton Bowl memory."

Ronnie Jenkins. Damn Good Dawg!

Your thoughts and prayers are asked for ladies and gentlemen as this Bulldog legend underwent quadruple bypass surgery yesterday after going in for a catheterization procedure. Scott, a friend of the family, says he did well. But I'm sure those around him would appreciate any and all support.

I mean, you can't get much harder nosed than a fullback in the old school SEC. And Jenkins did work. Hard work against the toughest his era had to offer. And he helped Coach Dooley get his first SEC title.

via Anti-Orange Page Gallery

Check this out:

The battering ram fullback on Vince Dooley's first championship team, remembered as much for his toothless smile as his overpowering rushes, emerged from the woods of South Georgia to do his part as the centerpiece of the Bulldogs' full-house backfield, won a Southeastern Conference title and then returned to the lifestyle from which he sprang.

Down home in spirit and in fact, Jenkins is the homespun hero from Glennville whose father, E. K., taught him that any man worth his salt was a man who earned his keep by the sweat of his brow, and that any man worth his salt paid his bills and took care of his family.

They don't make em like that any more. Like Scott says, a high school coach from down in South Georgia once said, "It looked like a tornado had come through my football stadium when Ronnie Jenkins came to town."

Here's another throw back snippet for you:

He wanted to excel because he wanted to contribute, do his job and help the team.

Nothing hurt him more than when he fumbled on the goal line against Auburn his sophomore year in 1965.

Every back fumbles. Those who do must have short memories and gain redemption on another day. Jenkins took his work seriously, and that fumble bothered him.

After the ignominious sophomore faux pas, you would see Jenkins walking around the football facilities in the coliseum, cradling a football. The coaches didn't have to motivate him. He took matters into his own hands. 

Yes. Real men take matters into their own hands. They own up for their own mistakes. They yearn to never let the team down again.

Ronnie Jenkins ain't done fighting. Lift him up today. Remember him. And under your breath or at the top of your lungs, say "That's a Damn Good Dawg gettin' after that ass!" Just like in the 1967 Cotton Bowl:

When Lawrence's explosive swiftness wasn't plaguing an SMU defense that actually played better than the score might indicate, Jenkins was. The powerful junior fullback showed little effect of the pulled hamstring muscle which was supposed to hamper his effectiveness. What he did show was some of the best sheer muscle seen in recent Cotton Bowl memory. He punished the Mustang middle with 87 yards net of 21 carries. That included a 4-yard attack against the right side of the SMU line that left blockers and defenders alike piled in his path to the final touchdown which put Georgia out of reach in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter. Jenkins or Lawrence carried on every play of the 59-yard drive for the final Bulldog touchdown.

Get well Mr. Jenkins. The DawgNation is behind you.

The Aaron Murray files: of pain and posterity

Been dumping a lot of videos from my phone onto YouTube and such. Came across this one and despite the gut punch that came after it, I felt compelled to catalog it on the blog. For no other reason than it's one of the gutsiest and most determined runs I've ever seen.

One day, when I play it for the grandkids and they ask, "Who is that?' I'll simply say, "That's what a Damn Good Dawg looks like."

Sorry for the shakiness and quality. That stadium was worse than bonkers.

Some (non) practice news

Mr. Nabulsi made up for being ushered out of the practice viewing area early by providing some premium content for his twitter followers last night. It was both news and entertainment for me. Perhaps for you as well.

Wonder what Herbstreit will tweet about this.

Either this UGA professor is just lazy as hell. Or his syllabus is the most interesting in all of the psychology department. Either way, Herbie is appalled I'm sure.

A student told police Lance asked her to obtain a "regulated dangerous drug" illegally while the student was visiting Mexico, police said in the report.

Lance gave the student $120 in cash to buy the drug. He did not have a prescription for the drug, police said. 

Coaching quotes - on prayers and players

"I've found that prayers work best when you have big players." - Knute Rockne

Now that's more like it!

via Instagram, Logan Booker and Georgia Athletics

Hopefully my last post on "theft by deception"

By the time actual practice started yesterday I had become more and more convinced that we had seen Matthews, Deloach, Taylor and LeMay in silver britches for the last time. For me, admittedly well outside the arena, I kept coming back to the fact that the very institution that was housing, feeding and educating these young men had been the victim. The University of Georgia was the one deceived and stolen from when those checks were cashed a second time.

You bite the hand that feeds you and you're are very likely to go hungry until you find another way to the table.

But, what neither I nor you are privy to is how these young men reacted to getting caught. And as Coach Richt suggested to the media yesterday, dismissal is still on the table as a possible consequence. However, if there is one thing I am sure of, it's that if they had not been completely forthright and if Richt was not satisfied with their level of contriteness, they would not have been on the practice field yesterday. You take a man that has given you an opportunity so few are afforded, only to put that man (and his superiors) in the position of having to embarrass the school or risk committing a serious breach in NCAA compliance, and you have given him the opportunity to show you the road back home.

No one would have faulted Richt for doing just that. And again, he still may. But for now these four men are still a part of the team.

And while I honestly am not yet sure how that sits with me as a proud alumni, I am glad for Coach Richt to be able to make this kind of statement:

You’re disappointed, obviously. You’re disappointed. You have to decide, start deciding what you’re going to do about it. At Georgia, we’ve never tried to hide things. If somebody makes a mistake, we clean it up. We don’t hide it. In due time, everyone’s going to know what’s going to happen because of it. Some things when it comes to discipline are very public and some things aren’t. I’m not sure exactly where this is going to fall. If there’s something that we need to let everybody know, we’ll let y’all know."

Now. Onto actual football.

Humpday Hilarity - getting old

Sure it sucks. But that doesn't mean it can't be funny. (h/t Mac)

Garrison Hearst vs Kirk Herbstreit

Thanks to ghostoferkrussell. I just needed a pick me up today. Go Dawgs!

At least no scooters were harmed y'all.

Matthews. Deloach. Taylor. LeMay.

Jailed on misdemeanors for theft by deception.

Taylor was booked into jail at 8:41 p.m. Monday, LeMay at 8:56 p.m., Matthews at 9:06 p.m. and DeLoach at 9:22 p.m. They all bonded out late Monday night. 

Taylor and DeLoach were released on bonds totaling $3,000, LeMay on bonds totaling $6,000 and Matthews bonds totaling at least $4,500.

Georgia officials did not immediately responds to messages left for comment on the arrests. 

Textbooks? Stolen checks? Fraudulent credit cards? Misuse of Hairy Dawg's head? Playing an April Fools joke on St. Patrick's Day?

Stay tuned. But while you do, please enjoy all manner of discourse ignoring any and all discipline problems at Florida, LSU, Auburn, Alabama....[ad nauseum infinitum]...

Monday's Meatloaf - Do you remember when?...

We used to say...

Back in college, Joe Waterloo had this phenomenon he'd point out almost anytime we got into a car, cranked the engine of the old '67 Malibu Chevelle, and then did the same with the car's stereo (appropriately modified for the late 1980's with a Blaupunkt, btw...).

"Hey. This song was playing when we got out of the car!"

The first time this happened I just played along. There was always the chance he was just a bit touched, in a slightly imbalanced kind of way. After all, we'd just met and just because we were at the University of Georgia didn't mean he talked like we do. Maybe I was misunderstanding him.

Like the time he first said "I really smacked that puppy!!" while playing some early adoption Nintendo golf game I believe. We all looked at each other like what kind of sadistic and inhumane male role models do they have in southern Maryland that produces a guy that thinks smacking puppies around is something to brag about. But I do digress.

It didn't matter to ol Joe Waterloo that there was a cassette* in the deck. One that had been patiently waiting for the right key to make the right turn and re-ignite the tales of Pyromania that had so abruptly stopped when we'd finally found a parking spot in the Russell lot (this is before parking decks were invented kids. One had to burn at least a quarter of a tank of gas to luck into a spot back then, gather the groceries cheap beer and packages of Ramen noodles out of the trunk before hiking twelve miles uphill to your dormitory.) No, it was part of the gag I guess.

Which is why I found it so funny last week when I parked the car in the driveway Thursday evening with Van Morrison blaring and the dude just sat there all night long (without the aid of a cassette deck, a compact disc or even an iPod) until Friday morning when he could finish BIP BOP BIPping along about his brown eyed girl. I sat there dumbfounded. A flood of memories returning from decades back just to make me chuckle. I quickly looked in the backseat to see if somehow Joe Waterloo was (screwing) with me.

 As my 12yo said, it's no leg lamp but it's
still a major award!

Then I chuckled again. Turned that puppy up a little louder and...FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA ti DA.

Just like that.

Today's Ingredients
- Given our victory this weekend (see inset picture and bow to our supremacy fledgling hopheads) the following bullets are all hopped up and ready to be poured as well as eaten.
- Make sure you check out the latest Junkyard Dawg Podcast. We've kegged episode three and are dry-hopping a two week long battle with iTunes for acceptance. Oh the drama!
- Fox's Hoop Dawgs boiled up to a two-seed in the NIT and will host Vermont Wednesday night at the Steg. Go Dawgs!
- Speaking of which, tickets hit the brew menu this morning for Wednesday night's game.
- Tyler has the skinny (or at least as much as teh internets will offer) on Vermont's basketball program on draft, post Tom Brennan.
- Sure the brackets are all set. But PWD is so malt-forward in looking ahead to next season's hoops schedule.
- Back on the gridiron Lugnut Dawg asks if Georgia's contract with its offensive coordinator isn't carbonated enough.
- Andrew has a spring practice primer on tap.
- If your Georgia tackle football expectations have too much yeast in the fermenter Blutarsky has some cogent and sobering thoughts on the year after the Year of the Quarterback.
- Emerson continues his look at the pre-Spring depth chart here with the defense.
- Greg found a mascot fight on the baseline! Whoa. Talk about a brew ha ha...Ahem. Sorry.
- Lastly, met two more friends of the blog Saturday up in Suwanee. Keep that internet connection paid up and the craft beer flowing Jon and Ben! Go Dawgs!

Special shout-out to my homebrewing pahtnahs Nama and Cord, the other two-thirds of BeaverDawg Brews. I'll hand over the winning medal soon enough. Just know that both Kroger and Publix frown on you wearing it up and down their beer aisle whilst screaming the lyrics to We are the Champion!

The dude so abides y'all. In closing, Happy St. Patrick's Day and all that! As the saying goes, there are only two kinds of people in the world - Irish and those that wish they were! So let's close out this end out with an good Irish Joke:

 An Irishman was drinking in a bar in London when he gets a call on his cell phone. He orders drinks for everybody in the bar as he announces his wife has just produced a typical Irish baby boy weighing 25 pounds. 

Nobody can believe that any new baby can weigh in at 25 pounds,
but the man just shrugs, "That's about average up our way, folks ... like I said … my boy's a typical County Clare baby boy." 

Two weeks later the man returns to the bar. The bartender says, "Say, you're the father of that typical Irish baby that weighed 25 pounds at birth, aren't you? Everybody's been making' bets about how big he'd be in two weeks .... so how much does he weigh now?" 

The proud father answers, "Seventeen pounds." The bartender is puzzled and concerned. "What happened? He was 25 pounds the day he was born." 

The father takes a slow swig of his Jameson Irish Whisky,
wipes his lips on his shirt sleeve, leans into the bartender and proudly says, "Had him circumcised."

Thanks for sending that one Mac, ya old bloke! Sláinte Reader! Here's your fork and a pint glass of Murphy's. Call it lón.

Bernie

New terminology. But it's still football.

Pruitt may have brought a new dictionary to Athens. But it's still the same language of tackle football.

“Too much of the system won’t be new to me,” Swann said. “It’s pretty much the same. A lot of terminology might be different, but I’ve played before.”

Georgia is now calling the outside linebacker spots the Jack and the other still the Sam. The inside linebackers in the base package are the Mike and Will instead of the Mike and Mo. In the nickel package, the inside linebackers will be called the Money and the Mack and the Sam will go out and be replaced by the “Star” nickel back.

About time to lace em up and see what we got!

The Junkyard Dawg Podcast #3 - on Musberger, Mason and a MAJOR AWARD!!

Slow news week in Athens, so we heaqd up to the broadcasting booth to talk about changes in the headphones up there with Musberger getting a demotion and Fowler taking his spot in the national game of the week. Then some talk about Hutson Mason as we head into spring practice this week.

BONUS - during the recording I mention that I was enjoying yet another homebrew, Cloudy with a Chance of Hops. I hinted that it might win some awards and the very next day it took third place for its style at the Suwanee Beer Fest.

So, BOOM. That just happened.

Links form this episode:

UnTangled - Words From a Father

Pieters closes out OSU