Monday's Meatloaf - of fatherly pride and ponytails

We stepped up to the registration desk and I could sense her uneasiness. I've only known her for eight years and 55 weeks, but I know she tenses up in new situations. Especially ones with new faces in new places; surely a character trait I evidently passed down to her. So I put my hand reassuringly on her shoulder, the way a dad does when he knows his kid is the least bit uneasy, and I wondered if she picked up my uneasiness as well.

Because like me, she's also pretty intuitive.

Flag football combine, event 2, distance throw, grade: A+

Months of negotiating had lead us to this point. Of course all of the discussion about playing football had been in private, for the most part. She kept insisting on tackling somebody. And I kept insisting she start with flags on her hips.

It's not that I'm afraid of pads on her shoulders. She can hold her own, trust me. It's just that flags seems the reasonable and logical step. When I first offered that a trail had already been blazed for female place kickers she insisted that she'd be a "quarterbacker" or a linebacker at UGA instead. I quickly recalled it is not in a father's best interest to sell his own daughter short. Ashamed, I quickly told her she could be anything she wants to be, a phrase she and her sister hear about every day from their mother and myself. After all, we'd much rather them reach for the stars than the storm clouds underneath.

So there we were, a year and a half later. Me standing by my promise and her standing at the desk where we knew the question would be raised. I cringed before he even asked. "Okay young lady, are you here for cheerleading?.....(long pregnant pause as the jersey and cleats she's wearing catches up to him)...or flag football?"

"She's here for football," I announced, louder than I had anticipated.

The rest was easy; even easier than the countless minutes of catch in the backyard, the neighborhood games and even the indoor Madden '13 matchups. Yes, as expected, she let her arm and her legs and her knowledge of the game do the talking once we were out on the field. Her pass had a tighter spiral than any of the coaches. Her routes were confident and sharp. She didn't like the cone drill because she didn't get to run it with a ball in her hands - "What's the point of that Dad?" But by the end she had made her point.

Should this experience prove too little of a challenge, I won't push her to continue if she doesn't want to. Just like I won't lower the bar because she's a girl. As far as I'm concerned the most important step is already behind us. And we took it together. Nothing against cheerleading, but she does enough of that on fall Saturdays.

Proud to be her daddy. Her mother, sister and I are pretty sure she will be the best one on the field. Regardless, I have already proven to her that while the world stands and waits for their opportunity to believe in her, I'm already at the front of the line.

Today's Ingredients
- MARCH MADNESS IS HERE!!!!!1 And we're not in it.
- But Tyler has the pool heated up. And here's a link to Kerri's #FBWD pool for you tweeps. Password is "Twittah".
- Hoop Dawg has a season wrap up in a lot more words than I can express.
- And Daugman sums up my thoughts exactly on our early exit from Nashvegas.
- Greg has some communication he'd like to impart, from the line of scrimmage.
- From Blutarsky: Animal husbandry. Cousin lovin'. SEC nuptials. Sometimes they're closer than you think. Maybe that explains WarDamnTiglesmen.
- Dawg Haus looks at the 1984 clash 'tween the hedges of Georgia and Clempson.
- Meanwhile, Kimberly wonders who ya got for the season opener.
- The GymDogs finished the regular season with an impressive road mark.
- Diamond Dawgs...swept out of College Station.
- And the Men's Tennis team took care of the Gamecocks yesterday in Athens.
- Lastly, in case you missed it, make sure you craft beer drinkers catch my talk with Kevin at College Football Zealots. We even sneak in a little spring football talk.

So how was your St. Patrick's Day? Did you end up face down?... in a pool of your own green vomit?...in the middle of Savannah?...with nothing on but a ratty pair of green silk boxers?...three sizes too small?...

I didn't. I mean there were some moments when I guess it was touch and go. I did attend a beer fest after all. And spent a good part of yesterday comparing and contrasting Irish brewing techniques. The products of those techniques that is.

But I think the highlight was eating most of the weekend's meals outside on the patio with the family. There's just something about getting back to nature after being frozen over by these harsh Georgia winters. Like I said Friday...

Y'all have a great Monday. And rest assured I'll let you know when my daughter is signing autographs. Until then, here's your fork. Go on and get after it!

Bernie

Friday's Misery, GDay chapter: as the calendar turns

It's thirteen going on fourteen. Time to get miserable instead of unlucky.


It's a flash in the pan. A meteoric rise followed by a plummet into ocean depths never before fathomed by the college football crazed brain. In the words of Mr. Montgomery and Gentleman Gentry...Gone, like a freight train.


It is the THE SPRING GAME! That quick bold taste of what we all crave. A bountiful steak dinner that is placed on the table before you. You've barely gotten the napkin tucked into your replica #34 jersey and a bite into your mouth before the whole thing is taken away. You show up for a marathon and it sprints away like a bolt of lightning. If the college football season is hot sex, the spring game is either the cigarette afterward...or the taking off of the socks beforehand.

Water Girls don't ride
Hogs, or motorcycles

However you choose to look at it, don't blink.


Trainer's Table Blues
Could it be worse? Well of course it could. Murray's arm could be in a sling and Jarvis could be on crutches. It's mostly a bunch of dings and stings but there's a lot of first stringers that'll be in street clothes tomorrow.


People bitch and moan about doing away with oversigning. We complain about unlevel playing fields when it comes to everything from recruiting to drug testing. We've gotten to a point in our college football development where coaches are no longer revered, but are chastised for throwing bitches off the back of their hog.


Might I take a moment to suggest...swift, fast leglislation that immediately does away with the hamstring pulls...the tweaked groins...the sprained shoulders...and of course the turf toe! You wanna blaze a trail Slive?!? You want to pound your yankee chest on something real Prez Adams?!? 


Take down the trainers tables and let these kids play.

Ya feel me, brah?

Offseason, the sequel
I'm not going to type down to you. I know this ain't your first rodeo. You've handled the long drawn out off season before. Multiple times. But it stands to mention that we are on the brink of the calendar's worst squares. We are tiptoeing ever so close to that driest, most desperate time of year. 


The first edition of the off season is barely enough time to miss it. You pull the winter sweaters down out of the storage and Signing Day is already here. You spend a couple Saturday nights watching some chick flick with Matthew McConaGay instead of football and then suddenly spring practice is here.


The second session however is like a persistent hemorrhoid. It won't go away. There are no salves to make time go faster. No ointments to ease the pain and suffering. Like all sequels to great movies the next chapter of the offseason is the Highlander 2: The Quikening of the offseason. Sucks harder than a Hoover inside a hurricane. These next few months are like that last hour of work that never seems to end. 


But yea...though I walk through the valley of endless discontent...eternal days of no football related news...boundless deserts of no tailgates...I will have no fear. For I carry the sound of the lone trumpeter with me. Forever and always.

h/t AHD

See y'all tomorrow!

Monday's Meatloaf - of forecasts and pansies

As the calendar turns...February rain brings more March showers. Prophetic right? Stand back, I'm just warming up.

Soccer? In the RAIN?!?

Let me forewarn you Reader that this prose has the word soccer in it. For my non-Westernized friends visiting today that is a word that means futbol here in the USA, or in other words the game y'all go and watch before the rioting. The rest of you either recognize it as a sport or cast a self-righteous smirk at its mere mention. Either way, the meaning of this rambling goes well beyond that.


You see, I have fond memories of playing soccer as a kid and teenager. The best of which were in the rain, which made it acceptable to come home with muddy socks and a severe case of the sniffles. You could slide better when the pitch^* was wet and overall the game just had a controlled chaos feeling to it. It was awesome.


Fast forward to 2012 and the club my daughter belongs to closes the field when it rains. Closing the fields means no practice, no games...no fun. Furthermore it means no dribbling, passing and further development of skills. Sure, the admins need to protect the fields from too many cleats when the grass is wet and vulnerable. But don't we also need to give the youngsters a chance to learn the game under all of the elements Mother Nature can throw at them? Don't we have a greater responsibility to raise our kids to be able to overcome the odds?


How's it going to reflect on America in the years ahead when we send our Olympic teams to compete for futbol GOLD, it begins to rain and suddenly our strikers turn tail and head to the locker room? In the words of King Julian, we go from physically fit to just a bunch of pansies!!
* pitch - part of soccer nomenclature meaning field, or area designed for competition


Today's Ingredients

• We're transitioning from regular season to tourney time on the hardwoods. The women fell to South Carolina in Nashville while the men ended the regular season on a high note for Senior Day.
• Martin Van Dawgin looks at the Hoop Dawgs draw in New Orleans.
• sUGA falling finds the recent positive quotes about Isaiah Crowell refreshing, and hopes the trend continues this Fall.
• Blutarsky takes a look at some opening quotes from Auburn's future defensive coordinator new secondary coach.
• If you are one of the complete idiots that thinks it's ok to boo at Sanford "because you paid for that seat and you're just booing the coaches and by God it's you're right!!"...please, please read the words that Streit has typed.
• What happens when gators get über organized in the swamp? They gag on their own juice.
• With Super Tuesday upon us, now for some links with a political fare...As the chickens' AD polls constituents, Tyler helps read between the lines.
• Suddenly dissatisfied with our current SEC leadership? Expansion starting to leave a very real and sour taste? Don't worry, CCRider is ready to take over as SEC Commish. UPDATE: and he's pulled in a familiar looking endorsement.
• Looking for a way to get involved in sports, but you're not athletic? How about with a Marketing or IT background at Guide to Career Education.
• Lastly, in honor of Dr. Seuss' recent birthday..."In my world everyone's a pony. And they eat rainbows and poop butterflies." - Katie in Horton Hears a Who

Now back to the weather...

No cloud, no practice

And putting Katie's general life outlook aside, life isn't always filled with sunshine. When storm clouds approach the clock doesn't stop. Life goes on. And if life goes on the game must go on. Just as we can't let Glenn Burns scare us into buying up every carton of milk at Kroger at the very mention of "snow", we also can't let a little rain drive our kids indoors to sit in front of the rain streaked window wondering how many goals they were going to score before the clouds began to cool and water droplets began to form and subsequently begin their descent towards Earth. More specifically the soccer fields.


Did Mia Hamm's team take their ball and go home whenever it started to rain?


Isn't it bad enough that we already have a large hordes of human drivers (in the Atlanta area at least) that can no more drive safely and with sound logic when it rains than they can split the atom with a Gillette razor and a 10^th grade chemistry book? How's my little girl going to make the Olympic team if she gets the afternoon off whenever it gets cloudy? Hell, they even canceled practices Thursday when it was 70 degrees and sunny! She used her cleats to help aerate the yard instead of learning to leg tackle without losing her hair bow. It's ridiculous. If I wanted to raise a house full of wimpy fair weather kids I woulda gone to school in the Athletically Challenged Conference.


Next thing you know we'll cancel birthday parties because of fire hazards. Ugh. Here's your fork Reader. And an umbrella in case it clouds up. Enjoy your Monday.


Bernie

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.

SEC Media Day One

What started as a calm morning had exploded into a whirlwind of news and speculation by days end. We went from Slive is retiring to Danny Sheridan is sleeping with Emmert within a few hours. Wow. Let's break some stuff down a bit.

Hey Emmert...clean your own damn house!

Slive's Communique
Looking back I guess this is something he had to do. When it was announced that he had something big to say to lead things off in Hoover speculation was rampant: realignment, retirement, a rap where he refers to Delaney as his bitch while continuously holding up five fingers. 


But in the end I don't have a problem with most of his suggestions proposed legislation. I thought it was kind of funny later when someone asked Spurrier about the multi-year schollies and he vehemently disagreed, and actually made some good points. Including the fact that most coaches work off of multi-year contracts. LOLZ!! His smirk as he realized the corner he'd backed into was priceless.


The real news will likely come in the weeks ahead. Such as when Jim Delaney steps on his B1G throne to address their media. Should be interesting to see if he stoops so low to agree with the SEC commish. Overall though it reminded me of what it must have been like to hear Thomas Jefferson et al speak about the Declaration of Independence. Nice of Slive to even don the appropriate wig.

Vacation's over boys. It's Shirts vs Moobs.

bEASTsly enemies
Muschamp was late to the podium but rattled on and on once he got there. I mostly read Twitter while listening to him speak and it looks like the FU fandom is quite smitten with his southern coaching charm and especially his energy. As for what we learned, not a whole lot except that Jeff Demps is in Italy right now running track and Will's never been to Italy. Oh! And that he's a "Florida guy"...his response when someone asked what it feels like for a Georgia boy to be Florida's coach. I just hope somehow, some way MusChomp sees Robert's response.


Spurrier also didn't reveal much except that he's trying to remind his guys that they not nearly as good as the rest of Chickumbia is making them out to be. I found it fitting when he explained the handcuffing incident where he had a cop handcuff him for questioning, a la Clowney style. Then he said something to the effect See it's alright to get cuffed cuz you're helping the police do their job. Okie dokie. All that was missing was a not so subtle reference to a HillBilly Brawl in Knutsville.


sCam's Bag Man
I think Year2 about covers every angle of the Sheridan bombing done on Finebaum's show yesterday. My first thought was the same as most peoples..Danny Sheridan...??...really? But sometimes that's just how these things go. Whoever the USAToday oddsmaker guy knows at the NCAA is hoping this very public nugget of info helps reel in a big fish.


Now we just wait. But surely Wartiglesmen are at least a little less brash and ignorant today. Well, nevermind that.


SEC Chiropracticing
And what would a conference in Hoover be without discussing....the Texas A&M Aggies. There continues to be dissent out west. And as long as there is rumblings there, it follows suit that the rumblings will be here as well. The lastest have the Aggies and the Sooners moving to the SEC should everyone not be all hunky dory with the Longhorn Network specifics. It's like déjà vu all over again.


There has actually been talk over the last couple weeks at least with this. And if realignment should eventually happen, I just hope we don't get a chiropractor from the yellow pages. One team from Kentucky is aplenty and I sure as hell don't want to travel to Kansas every other year.


That's about all I can fit into this post. Offer any additional comments below. Chizzy takes the stand podium later this morning. Wonder if he'll field a question from Julie Roe Lach.

SEC Meeting Livestream

UPDATE: no livestream today, but some interviews and additional footage should be available later on.

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ADDITION: sorry, should've mentioned the livestream should start at 2pm.

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Looks like we'll be able to watch the action in Destin live through the SEC Network video player. I'll try and come back later and embed it here, but in case I get hung up in real life here's the link to the player. 


Lots of interesting stuff going on down there. Come tune in if you get out of that afternoon conference call...or even if you don't.

They said...They're ALL in!!

SportsByBrooks is leading the charge when it comes to Auburn's eligibility questions. And this compilation sums things up nicely as well as brings us up to date.

Again, we all know everyone's playing. It's just going to be a matter of how many mops Jacobs, Slive and Emmert have to use to clean up the confetti.

Wheels on Auburn's bus go round and round, just like everybody else's

I don't know about you, but I'm getting a kick out of all this alleged secrecy with Auburn players' eligibility heading into Monday night's contest against Oregon in the BCS Championship game. Present...here....boarding...seated on bus...


Does anyone actually think that the dirtiest little village on the plains and the NCAA and the SEC would go to all that trouble the last couple months of the season just to leave sCam et al on the side of the road holding their own bags? Of course not. Everyone's there, everyone's eligible.


But in case you're hanging on the edge of your seat, Pennington has the latest:

“After Auburn’s football team an official party arrived at the Phoenix Skyharbor Airport on Monday, Tiger coach Gene Chizik said everybody made the trip.  Asked if that meant everyone was eligible, he repeated everybody made the trip.

I asked athletic director Jay Jacobs if a player had to be eligible to be on the trip.  He said a player could not get on the bus (from Auburn to Atlanta) unless he was eligible.

Add it up and it certainly appears that no players of significance will be academically ineligible when Auburn plays Oregon in the BCS Championship Game.”

I'm not denying the legitimacy of the original report at SportsbyBrooks. But if Fairley, Newton or Terrell Zachary don't play Monday night I'll be the first to write a check toward next season's campaign.

Monday's Meatloaf - This is the Sound a Fan Makes When He Vomits

On the 8th day, God created Cammy Cam... - Cecil Newton, Holy Zion Center of Revulsion

And it was a little too sweet. - Tracy Wolfson

When it's not my team out there I always at least attempt to view the events on the field through my what if it was my team that sold its soul for this championship glasses. Maybe you have a pair as well. And luckily Saturday night we had a little shin-dig that kept me otherwise occupied for most of the SECCG. But as the game wore on and the adoration for all things Cameron reached St. Tebow proportions, I tried to put myself in the shoes of the CBS producer who had to teeter between a game that was eternally boring and the circus that was the Abuurn sideline.

I paid that kid how much for this?

I love college football, but thank goodness for remote controls and satellite signals. I mean, I thought having to choose a side between the cheatin' barners and the lousy lamecocks was going to be the hard part to stomach. But Wolfson swallowing Cam's concoction while he jumped up and down and made out with Trooper was the icing on the crapcake.

I just hope Slive got everything he bargained for.


Today's Ingredients

• The Senator thinks Wolfson missed an opportunity to audition for a cameo role on CSI: Plainsmen.
• Of course, it's official now...we're Liberty Bowl bound! Memphis, Beale Street...George O'Leary's typerwriter.
• Big Muddy is ready to turn Memphis into a football town. If you want to join him, here's the official bowl website and here's the UGA ticket home page.
• If you're having trouble getting excited about Memphis, or Central Florida...Lugnut runs down the matchup and the bowl with an early preview.
• And Coach Magill remembers the previous visits to the Liberty Bowl.
• Chris Low has the SEC Bowl schedule. 
• Meanwhile some of the bowl names have Dawgola Tesla a little sick to his stomach.
• Congrats to Abuurn! They are not only heading to the BCS Wonderland, they also catapulted the nearly idle Ducks in the poll. 
• In related news, The Anti-Orange Page has a Holy Zion Center of Deliverance update (link corrected).
• And Lucid Idiocy is just confused by more War Tiglesmen antics.
• But if nothing else, Awwbarn's greatest contribution to college football this season will always be allowing us to see the Visor opt for a field goal attempt when down by 35. Awesome!
• Colorado's new coach is John Embree, Redskins' TE coach.
• There's a reason tailgaters aren't starting quarterbacks. Leave it to a bunch of Pac-Ten puppies to bring a pigskin to a knife fight.
• DaugMan has an update on former Dawg hoopster Troy Brewer.
• And a big shout-out to my 6 year old, who got up Saturday and adorned herself in red and black then found me to ask: Daddy...what time does Georgia play today?

Normally, my heart would've sunk to a new low. But this season was so exasperating, I could only look at her and thankfully tell her that it would be a few weeks. 

While some of the surprise has faded from the Joe Tereshinki appointment, Rex weighs in on the decision with a first hand endorsement. I'll admit to being more than a little shocked to hear of the S & C change. But I'm certainly not fretting over it like many others are. From reading Coach T's comments to the media I think we're going to get accountability and responsibility in the weight room.

“The whole culture that we’re going with is we’re going to prepare this team for the fourth quarter. Georgia used to be known that in the fourth quarter they won. That’s what’s going to be the culture. We’re going to press and challenge these kids every day to overcome.”

And that's been the greatest eyesore from my seat this season. So many games were lost in the final 15 minutes when we couldn't seem to muster the energy to play half of it. I'm sure we'll hear lots of positives of about the changes in the off-season. We always do. But we'll know in the Dome against Boise if the change is gonna provide results.

I expect it to. Just as I expect this Monday to cower in my supremacy's shadow. Here's your fork Reader. You have a good one too.

Bernie

The BDB VIP Room

Added a widget last night that will now allow you to access the most recent Dawg highlights right here at my humble blawg. I was able to select three teams for the media player, so now we can keep an eye on the comings and goings in gayturdsville as well as AwwBarn. As a bonus it has other SEC highlights too.

My guess is you'll see this feature added to other blogs as well in the near future. So if you can't stand my posts but love the shiny bling to your left, no worries. I just feel fortunate to have been able add this feature despite my criticisms of the new rules governing SEC media coverage.

Anyway, enjoy some sweet highlights of Travis Leslie and Jeremy Price from Saturday night as you peruse some of the crappiest blog posts this side of North Campus. Or choose Full Screen mode and sit back like a true VIPer.

Just don't prop your dirty boots up on the desk there. Thanks...

Here's Your Sign

It would normally be out of line to speculate that a coach would instruct school representatives to drive 200 miles to Byrnes SC to watch a football game.

But...

We are talking about KiffyBaby. The new kid on the block that is on Mike Slive's (and every NCAA investigator's) speed dial. So when it comes out that Marcus Lattimore (a top-rated RB prospect, fwiw) and fellow teammates were recruited on their own high school campus to Come to Tennessee (actual poster board sign probably now available on eBay) it at least explains why the NCAA is so interested when the kids have yet to sign a LOI.

All that being said, after reading the full story...it sounds like a couple HillBilly hostesses got a little LOT carried away and stepped over an NCAA boundary...by about a three and a half hour drive.

The article emphasizes the importance of the interviews with the high school players. But more interesting would be the one with the orange-clad coeds. These young ladies are considered superstars on the Knutsville campus for their ability to open doors and pose for pictures. All of which begs the question: which state they are shipped in from? You know, cuz the pumpin' gas in SC angle is SO oh nine.

Regardless, it's gonna get interesting and should provide some quality entertainment as we watch how the voWel message boards justify their cult heroines' actions. As Bill Engvall would say...

Here's your sign!