Vandy...they are who we think they are

Just a couple points and ponderings:

• This game isn't about respect, it's about reminding one team of their lot in life.
• It's not about last year's post game, the chop blocks or the war of words either. It's about one thing and one thing only: the SEC East.
• It's business. If some dumbass in tinted glasses wants to make it personal, that's on him. If he's got his panties in a wad because a 17 year old football player chose Athens GA over Nashvegas, what the hell ever.
• Play assignment football and we win. Comfortably.
• Pretend this game is about anything other than what's been stated above, and it becomes the typical Vandy team playing better against Georgia, and playing better at night...for some damn reason.
• Pretend this game is about anything other than the SEC East, and it becomes the typical Georgia team playing down to its opponent.
• Run. The. Damn. Ball.
• Tackle them. Hard.
• Get After Their Asses.
• They're Vandy. We're Georgia.

Win.

Some weekend homework

We're going to talk about this in more depth later, as soon as Tuesday. However, for now just read this article in its entirety. No...right now. Go.

DICKSAMIV...making awesomez.

SEC Kickoff with Coach Dooley

Coach reviews last weeks action and previews this week's action. This episode includes a one on one interview with Kentucky's Joker Phillips.

Friday Misery - Anchor Clown!

Knock knock.
Who's there?
James Franklin.
Get the f*** off my porch before I rip off those fake glasses with the transition lenses and shove them where the sun will never see them again.

The NEW Vandy reality
Who is James Franklin? First, let's list the places where he's coached (and I'll pause a moment while you pull out some reference books...): Kutztown Univ., East Stroudsburg (his alma mater), Roskilde Kings of the Danish American Football Federation (no seriously, they have the forward pass, shoulder pads and everything), James Madison, Washington State, Idaho State (not the Vandals), Maryland, Green Bay Packers, Kansas State and back to Maryland.

An actual image from a Roskilde Kings game. (via)

First off, don't become too enamored with that Green Bay gig as their wide receivers coach too much. He was there one season before Mike Sherman was fired, presumably for hiring some dipshit from Maryland who complained about how the coffee was too strong and the tone in which the players were talking to him. So truly, Franklin's greatest contribution to a tackle football sideline thus far has either been as Kansas State's offensive coordinator or in his ambassador's role for Denmarkians teaching them how to punt, pass and kick. What an effin' troubadour. 

Vandy, you had a legend in Robbie and you kicked him to the curb for this douchesnozzle? You're Vanderfrigginbilt for God's sake. The apex of your coaching echelon is a Steve Martin lookalike. You have a hole in your campus' athletic history where there was no actual athletic department. Franklin has ideas of putting y'all on the college football map. When all you really need is an actual college football stadium.

This is perhaps the best way to sum up the SECs most proficient blowhard...he's the former "head coach in waiting"...at Maryland! Maryland doesn't even play football. They have a bunch of male volleyball players and JV wrestling guys that put on "uniforms" once a year on national television. People don't watch for the tackling and the scoring and the blocking, they tune in to see how ugly the jerseys are going to be. And the rest of the season the students and alumni just go to the football field to buy hotdogs and talk about how much they hope they crush Duke in lacrosse the upcoming season. 

If you like kids running around with sticks, go read Lord of the Flies again. But you don't fire your favorite Uncle Bobby to make room for creepy second cousin Jimmy with the over-inflated ego and the bright future selling steaks door to door from the back of his pickup.

There's no easy way to put this Vandy. You once had a coach in Widenhofferererer that no one wanted to face. Then you got Steve Martin's brother and that was at least good for a few famous lookalike shout-outs on Sportscenters and the local news. He stepped down and you could've gotten someone cool to run the ship. Instead you passed on Captain Sully and took Stubing. Captain Phil was passed over for the Skipper, or maybe even Gilligan. You could've easily had Captain Crunch and instead you went with Tennile's bitch keyboard artist. You might have even been able to land an actual pirate to steer the ship, instead you chose a rudderless, sack of fail.

Walks the walk, not the plank.

Harvard of the South? Please. Your Mascot is an abandoned rank in the US Navy, thrown in the trash in 1899. EIGHTEEN NINETY-NINE!! You're an after-thought. A historical reference to years gone by, or that were never there in the first place. To say you're the new Vandy is like saying the musket is going to once again be a weapon that revolutionizes modern warfare.

Get over yourselves Vanderbilt. You can't even get Lionel Ritchie to sing the National Anthem...in 2012. TWO THOUSAND TWELVE!!!

Blogging prophetically Last year I recounted to my reader the story of me demanding a Dandy Vandy get down on all fours and bark like a dawg. Let's recap that shall we?

I like Vandy but some of their fans sure can be pompous. I mean, here we were in Athens GA and this kid wants to act like his football team is the best thing since sharpened #2 pencils. I asked him what his SAT score was and he said it was too high for me to count. Yeh, he was a witty sumbitch. Though after two fisting drinks for a couple hours he was probably right. At the urging of Fred and Nama I then insisted he get down on all fours and bark like a Dawg. When he refused, I insisted he meet me at Stegeman that February and sit with me while we watched Hugh Durham's boys dismantle his precious round ball team.

Durham and the Hoop Dawgs came through. CommieDouche didn't.

Y'all probably just see me as some dipshit with a keyboard connected to wifi, but I believe this proves I have super bloggin' powers. Mere hours before the game that ended with lil Jimmy Franklin becoming a household name across the DawgNation, I introduced his illegitimate brother, the CommieDouche to the Dawgosphere. I think his actual name was Francis however.

The resemblance is remarkable. Check this out: both have over-inflated impressions of themselves, both stir up confrontations, both lack the manparts to put words to action, in 3rd grade recess both spent more time mouthing off about future accomplishments than playing an actual game, both clip coupons to use each week at their local tanning salon, and both wore diapers long after aging out of Johnson and Johnson's size chart.

So well done, all you Vandy fans. With your SAT scores in your back pocket and your sparkling class attendance record. Congrats on your amazingly exaggerated self-image and the coach who has the talk like swagger but can't fight his way out of a wet paper sack. What a perfect representation of your student body and alumni.

Anchor down? Sure, right into the cellar with KenSucky.

And as the rules of Friday Misery state, let us bow our heads in prayer: Lord, we ask that you one day rid our fair, respectable conference of douchesnozzles like Jimmy Franklin and return him to that Scandinavian nation with the cute uniforms. Bless the Vandy students and their cute little GPAs. And please protect our players from chop blocks. Amen.

Respect and Coach Bobo

It's been a really long time since we've had the collection of talent on the offensive side of the ball that we have today. Granted, it's still a little early in their careers to be saying these freshmen are SEC ready. But I think we've seen enough so far to know that they can be something special. And without getting into the debate of whether it's the coaching or the talent that makes good teams great and great teams dominant, let's just agree that it takes a good dose of both to run the table or even make it to the SECCG. At some point in the season there is going to be moments where a player has to make a play and a coach has to make a call that has the potential to be the difference in the outcome.

So...with that I'm just going to explain the lenses through which I'm looking at our offense.

• QB's rushing stats.^* Each of his previous seasons Aaron Murray has had 87 rushes for between 1-2 yards per carry. If Bobo can improve on those numbers it adds a whole other dimension to this offense. One that can keep a defense on their heels.
• QB rating. This should exceed the previous six seasons Bobo has been the OC because he has a quarterback that's been in the system for three seasons and four springs.
• Points per game. Self explanatory really. Each of the last six seasons we've always been around 32ppg. The exception was 2009 when it dipped below 29ppg. This season should be an exception as well, yet in the other direction.
• Rushing yards per attempt. We need to get back to the 4.5 and above area where we haven't been in two plus seasons. 
• 3rd down conversions. In the Bobo era, we've never cracked 50% for the season. If we can average around 5 yards per rush (currently we're at 5.76), this should go way up.
• Red zone conversions. In 2010 we finished 12th in the nation in red zone scoring. Last season, all the way down to 60th.

To be clear, this is a big season for Bobo. Talk to me about the inexperience at offensive line and how many draft picks on offense we lost off last year's squad...that's garbage. There's no excuses. Bobo has to be licking his chops. With a three year starter under center, talent at running back that don't tap their helmets, good size and depth at fullback, incredible depth at wide receiver and at least one tight end that can block AND catch, our offensive coordinator has never had it so good.

^* This of course hinges a lot on Murray playing the entire season and not getting injured. We'll only cross that bridge if we're forced to. 

Nail the Score! EA Sports NCAA Football 13 contest

If you're an avid gamer that wants a copy of EA Sports NCAA Football 13...AND you think you know what the score of the Georgia-Vandy game will be tomorrow night...I might just be able to hook you up.

All you have to do is comment on this post with your score prediction (BEFORE KICKOFF!!!) and then for tiebreaker purposes also tell me how many yards rushing Todd Gurley will have. Closest to the actual score wins a copy of the game! Easy, right?

And if you don't win, you are still eligible to get a copy of it. Here's the directions for the giveaway Coke Zero is doing all season long.

Each Monday for the first 13 weeks of the college football season, Coke Zero is giving away one copy of EA Sports NCAA Football 13 (XBOX360/PS3) every 13 minutes. That’s 111 copies each Monday – 1,433 copies this season.  

The rules to enter are simple: Follow @CokeZero on Twitter and look for messages including the hashtags #GameOn and #ad as well as the URLhttp://bit.ly/EANCAA. Once you retweet the message originating from @CokeZero, you’re entered.

Georgia - Vandy pregame trailer

"Momentum is hard to stop if you keep stoking it."

Follow up on Murray

Didn't quite finish my post on Coach Bobo and the offense as I had planned. I'll have it ready tomorrow. But as a follow up to yesterday, I wanted to share this piece ($) by David Ching on how Georgia has re-developed a vertical passing attack.

“If you have a quarterback that you have enough confidence to drop back and sling it, you’ve got a chance to make some big plays. We do like a vertical passing game,” Richt said. “There’s a lot of people that love to throw it sideways a lot, and we’ll throw it a little bit sideways here and there, but we want to get it down the field. And if we get some matchups that we like to go deep, we will.” 

Through three games, Murray and the Bulldogs have already utilized the deep ball effectively -- an area where he excelled as a freshman in 2010, but regressed last season. 

According to ESPN Stats and Information, Murray is 11-for-20 (55 percent) for 429 yards and three touchdowns on throws of 20 or more yards this season, with an average of 21.5 yards per attempt. 

Fifty-five percent is insane, regardless of the opponents. Considering this was a part of the offense that was missing last season (just a 28% completion percentage) this bodes well moving forward. There were numerous times last year that even though a deep ball was caught, if the throw had been better it would've gone for more yards or even for points. Part of that probably had to do with getting used to life without AJ Green. But as I mentioned yesterday, it's clear Murray feels quite comfortable with his receivers this season. 

Sure hope to see more as the season progresses.

1980 Dawgs promotion at Red Zone Saturday

Last year we spent a lot of time talking about the newly released DVD 1980 Dawgs. Well, those guys are at it again!

For Immediate Release - 9/19/12

Members of the 1980 National Championship Bulldogs will be joining Filmmaker/Director, Lenny Daniel,  in Athens this weekend to promote the "1980 Dawgs" Documentary Film project.  They will be talking with fans and signing autographs at the Red Zone in downtown Athens, Saturday, 1pm - 4pm.

So far,  confirmed are 2-time All American, Rex Robinson #5 and All American Freddie Gilbert # 90, one of the best UGA defensive players of all time.   Other members of the 1980 Dawgs team have also been invited.

Fans, their families and kids really enjoy these events.  The former players from this special group show a humble graciousness about their past and enjoy meeting fans, talking football and joking around.  The 1980 players  are now at the age where they remember their playing years well and they don't mind "letting their hair down" and talking with fans about what it was really like to be part of that special team.  They will also give their views on current Bulldogs football.

For more info and movie trailers:  www.1980Dawgs.com

Where:  The Red Zone, 155 E. Clayton Street, downtown Athens

When: 1pm - 4pm,  This Saturday

 

What time is it?

Time to waste some of it watching an oldie goldie. Like as in the 1984 Cotton Bowl. Because it's always 10 to 9 in Texas.