Saturday, October 8, 2016

the Saturday Misery hates Matthew as much as carnies

First off, and in all seriousness…


We have spent the week concerned about the time and whereabouts of a football game. It’s only appropriate that we spend a moment of reflection on the devastation that this storm has caused and focus any possible effort towards assisting those left in its wake.


That being said...
You know, "hate" is strong word. Until it comes to college football rivalries in the South. Then it ain't remotely strong enough.
With the game tied, Betty decided it was time
to show her son just how few F's she had to give.


As Georgia fans, we often ask ourselves where exactly Sakerlina ranks on the list of most-hated rivals. Wait, strike rivals. We lead the all time series 40-18-2. That just makes them plain old regular opponents.


No wait, recent history suggests that it is a rivalry though as the game often has some impact on the divisional outcome. Also, in the last ten years the series is split evenly. (And for those of you chicken farmers that just wandered up in here that means we're both 5-5.)


Back to which team I hate the most...I typically put Florida 1A, followed by the engiNerds at 1B. Every other team in the SEC East plus Auburn is tied at 2. Notre Dame is 3. I'm going to put Florida again at 4. And also at 5. Until Thanksgiving week when Tech will take their place there at both 4 and 5. At 6 I think we should avoid putting any team from the north or midwest or way out west because to add them there would be a way of recognizing their existence, and truly I don't even watch their games except for an occasional highlight. So at 6 goes FSU. And then I'm changing my mind again and putting Ohio State at 7A and Michigan at 7B. Nope, make that Penn State at 7 all alone and then those other two at 8A and 8B. At 9 we clearly have to put Florida in there again and to round out this list we'll put Louisville, with the caveat that this team changes to wherever Petrino motors off to next.

Sakerlina fan last week after the women's Cross Country 
team placed first in the Winthrop Adidas Invitational.
Anyway, back to the second most hated team - the South Carolinian Cocks! I HATE them! I HATE the way they use any minutiae and fraction of a positive sign to rush to any and EVERY opportunity to trash talk. They could win a golf match by sinking a 150 yard 7-iron off a tree and they will go on and on and ON AND ON about how awesome they are and HOW MUCH YOUR MOTHER SUCKS!

Seriously, in 2014 we practically gave them the game. It was a terrific game to watch. I even had a seat by the Redcoats. A storm had given us an extra hour to tailgate. The Dawgs fought hard and lost. Walking out I found one, just one, gamecock fan willing to admit it was a great game. I shook his hand and then walked a never ending gauntlet of "F Georgia!" and also so much carnal knowledge about my own dear mother that I had to call her for reassurance and to erase the shame.


But kudos to them. They are the eleventy-billion repeat and undisputed national champion in yapping and trash talking and general lewd and lascivious prattle. They rule the world!


But who can blame them considering their other life choices. Those cluckers over yonder like some tired ass drive thru barbeque washed down with BOGO monster energy drinks. Those penned hens over yonder love them some backup quarterbackers, preseason aspirations, and pecking seed off the dusty ground. Those backyard cockerels over yonder puff their chest and strut their stuff at kickoff then chirp chirp chirp (win or lose) leaving the stadium.


Their diet consists of dashed dreams and Pepsi Cola. They’re corn-pecking herbivores in a carnivore’s environment. “Cluck like Tarzan! Football like Jane!

So keep cluck clucking Gamechicks. The pan ain't hot enough just yet.


Words are fun!
Hurricane - a really big tropical storm that turns wind into a lethal weapon


Sand storm - 100% drier than a hurricane; a major dust up that only makes a gritty mess; also a huge an annoyance of a sound; worse than this. Much.


Willy B - a gorilla that raised a family at Zoo Atlanta; also a college football stadium that is not actually on a college campus. Weird.


Willy M - a reference to Coach William Muschamp of the Sakerlina Gamecocks; also a rage-o-holic with veins the size of pool noodles in his forehead


Carnie - a Stephen Garcia form of gypsy, quick to anger and awful beards; (also, see below)


Cockfight - regular folk take in a movie or even an off Broadway production, USCjr fans gather around a pit and watch poultry peck each other to death; its as noble an illegal tradition as you can find these days


Fowl - the figurative description of the gamecocks' offense


Born from corndogs, candied apples and ferris wheel lights
The University of South Carolina’s most productive degree program is a bachelor’s of arts in Carniedom, a complex study of ring toss, back roads, and using cotton candy as bait. I mean, how do you think Spurrier found Stephen Garcia? The kid was running The Duck Pond as a 17 year old county fair traveler outside of Spartanburg. The Ol’ Ball Coach gave him a ten, took a swig of his Banquet Beer and said, “Boy, show me whatcha got!”
Carnie Cum Laude


Garcia knocked over nine of ten ducks, missing the last, then got so mad he shoved a funnel cake in some old ladies’ face.


“I like your drive kid.”

Eight months later Garcia had graduated from trading tickets for currency all the way up to funneling Bartles and Jaymes and keying professors’ cars.

He was the classic case of you can take the gypsy wanderer out of the fairgrounds but you can't take the questionable character references out of the carnie.


But where I come from we don’t treat old ladies like trash cans and we don’t find our amusement from cleaning the puke out of the Gravitron. As the song goes, we prefer “cornbread and chicken...and a lotta front porch sittin’.”


A chicken raises too much cain around here we sic ol’ Petey on it and heat up Grandma’s pan of Crisco. As long as Matthew is ready to say grace, we are ready to eat!


End of the slide
All slides end with your ass being reunited with the hard ground. Coach Freeze pushed us to a glide in Oxford and just as we thought we were regaining our composure back in Athens we realized there had been ten more seconds on the clock. So the descent had only just begun.


Now we got former friend and frequent foe William Larry pecking (not chomping) at us for the first time. He wants a fight and that’s exactly what he’s gonna get. I’m frequently reminded when confronted by a lunatic that the less you say the crazier they look. This needs to be the case Saturday night.

Actions speak louder than words. Let em gobble and crow and scratch in the dirt all they want. Let their excitement rise to unfathomable levels just because they have the intestinal fortitude and manual dexterity to wave a towel to some goddamn techno "music". Let’s tackle and block and run. And when we reach the end zone we can look back and smile.

Cuz chicken can taste as good on a Sunday afternoon as it does on a Saturday night. Now, please bow your heads....Dear Lord, please bring peace in Hurricane Matthew's wake and Jazz Hands to Coach Boom's endzone. Amen!

Go Dawgs y'all!

Friday, October 7, 2016

The waiting is the hardest part


Hurricane Matthew has caused some turmoil in the SEC landscape. I'm still not sure who has more egg on their face, the home office for all the delay and indecision, Gamecock admins for insisting on having a football game amid mass evacuations, or our own Butts-Mehre for not being able to force a relocation.

Regardless, we'll have to wait another day to see our Dawgs play. The Friday Misery is done, but would feel funny posting it two days before kickoff. So you'll have to wait for that as well.

Most importantly, for our friends along the Golden Isles and in the state of Florida, be safe y'all! 

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Kirby, Will, and Matthew walk into a blog...

 As we wait...

"We'll play in Columbia, Athens, Atlanta, Clemson,
wherever! Just lemme know and we'll load the bus."

"I smell toast."

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Georgia @ South Carolina - a special teams preview

As we watch to see how Hurricane Matthew might impact Saturday's game in Columbia East, and after providing you with some rays of sunshine yesterday, I thought I'd throw some cold water on y'all today.

Special teams have been a big part of Georgia's 3-2 record thus far. And it happens to be an area of the game that could give South Carolina a real boost against the Dawgs Saturday night.

We are 11th in the conference covering kickoffs and they are first in kickoff returns. AJ Turner is a freshman running back for the Gamecocks, and he happens to be second the conference in kickoff returns, averaging 28.43 yards a return. (He also had that 75 yard rushing touchdown on the opening play from scrimmage last week against A&M. The kid is electrifying.)

One thing I've noticed is that while Kirby mentions quite often that he'd like to kick the ball deeper on kickoffs, his real problem with our kickoff coverage is poor tackling. Georgia faced the conference's best last week in Evan Berry. Not much dropoff this week trying to contain Turner.

And then there's this (h/t):
This could absolutely be the get well game the Dawgs need to end a two game skid. But in order for it to be so, discipline on special teams will have to be better than what we've seen thus far.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Chicken inefficiency for the Soul

South Carolina is scoring 14 points per game thus far into the 2016 campaign. That's good for dead last in the SEC, nearly a full touchdown below Vanderbilt.

Sticking with conference rankings, their passing offense is 11th and their running game is last. Comparatively, Georgia is 8th and 7th respectively.

While their passing defense has been very good so far (ranked only behind Florida and Bama), they're next to last in the conference in stopping the run. Opponents are gaining 4.87 yards every time they rush the ball against the Gamecocks.

The Gamecocks only convert 29% of their third downs into first downs, and convert just 64% of their red zone visits into points.

Plus, they've given up 37 (THIRTY-SEVEN!) rushing plays of 10+ yards or more. And they've given up 15 rushing plays greater than 20 yards.

And hey, they're only slightly better than us in giving up sacks! We've given up 15 this season, they've given up 11.

Anyway, thought some of that might help. I expertly glossed over anything statistical I found at cfbstats.com that might be cause for concern. We'll get to that later in the week. Today we need to concentrate on avoiding water cooler talk about anything that may or may not have happened Saturday night, especially in the west endzone.

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Sunday thoughts on four seconds short

If you're coming here for a pity party or to look for blame, keep clicking amigo. I'm pretty okay all things considered.

Because on a day when the referees brought their C- game, the team's best player only played one snap, and a team with vastly more experience was down and out against our young pups...I can only see sunshine this morning.

But dear God in Heaven, I absolutely HATE losing to those bastards. Ugh. Onto the bullet points!
  • I sure hope we don't have to defend against a hail mary anytime soon as my heart just can't take it. But if we do, I'm sure the coaches will have Lorenzo line up at the goal line in that situation. If he's in front of that play, well then....
  • But really you have to start with Eason yet again. So I think I'll just embed what I posted on twitter last night:
  • That's the truth. Uncle Verne and Danielson kept on keeping on with the Stafford comparisons. I guess I get that in a way. But Eason is so very far ahead of Stafford. Even if you put aside the fact that Eason has long been the clear starter, the comparison really stops with the fact that they both enrolled early. 
  • I've mentioned before that Eason makes plays with both his arm and his head. Stafford, especially at this point in his career, was just an arm. A really, really sexy arm. But still, Eason has something more. 
  • Yes, he still looks like a freshman at times, but it's truly less and less each game. He's growing up fast. And I'm loving it!
  • The defense showed improvement. I'm going to stop short of saying it was a vast improvement because they still gave up big plays and had trouble containing Tennessee's best player.
  • But, they were better in coverage as I had predicted. And they pressured the quarterback consistently. Well, until we only rushed three with four seconds left.
  • Hey, we can has a field goal kick!!
I don't think there's much more to say other than the road ahead is much more manageable. That's not to say that there aren't challenges ahead. After all, this is still a young team with a young coach and a freshman quarterback.

But, even though we lost to that team from the inbred hills of tenersee, I feel good about where this team and this program is heading. Chubb played one play. they had a hail mary answered, and Catalina still hasn't been named as an accomplice to a murder. The sun is about to rise. And I'm already starting to get hungry for some chicken.