Dress Blues

Memorial Day weekend. It's bittersweet. For some of us, we go through the motions and walk through America's pictures. The parades, the streets lined with flags, the grill in the backyard and the beer in the cooler. There's nothing wrong with that, mind you. Nothing at all. That's what America is at its core.

But at the heart of every Memorial Day, are true heroes that must be remembered. They were never voted into any office. They never asked for donations or campaigned for your attention. They are the sons and daughters of this great nation that volunteered to put their time, their patriotism and their heart where their mouth was. They set aside their everyday lives and their families and never returned to resume what they had begun.

This song by Jason Isbell captures all of that for me. Enjoy your Memorial Day Weekend Reader. And by all means, raise your beverage to those who gave their all so that you would have the opportunity.

HillBilly sex boosts....GPAs

Remember when the student athletes in Knoxville induced a "whoa is me" attitude as well as a perplexing, frustrating situation for the UT brass?

The University of Tennessee football team had a "tough fall" academically, which may have been related to their on-the-field performance, said NCAA faculty representative Dan Murphy in a presentation to university faculty Monday.

"My point was that generally people do better in the classroom when they're doing better in the rest of their life," Murphy said following the UT Faculty Senate meeting. "When you're suffering from disappointments, it's hard."

Well, after one simple sex scandal, things have changed ...for the better!

Overall, UT said the department-wide GPA of 3.05 for the 2013 spring semester was the highest since records were first recorded in 2003.

The Vols showed strong growth in the two major revenue sports. In football, the semester GPA climbed 12.5 percent from 2.49 last semester to 2.8 in the recently completed spring semester. UT also climbed 3.3 percent from last spring’s mark of 2.71.

Jenny Wright must've had quite the pencil sharpener.

Current panther, always a DGD!

Charles Johnson... Damn Good Dawg.

DE Charles Johnson (#UGA & Panthers) again providing 2 Hawkinsville High seniors each college scholarships worth $20,000 total over 4 years.

Sanders Commings signs first NFL contract

Yesterday Sanders Commings became the Kansas City Cheifs fifth draftee to sign a contract. Details of the contract have not been released. Commings was selected in the fifth round after an impressive career at Georgia. He became the physical defensive back that Coaches Lakatos and Grantham needed in their secondary, recording over 150 tackles (including one sack and six tackles for loss) on top of eight interceptions and 17 passes defensed.

The NFL has become a solid landing ground for Georgia players. For NFL fans out there, you may want to start checking out the available nfl betting lines and odds of your favorite team. Richt has been putting former players into professional rosters with regularity. Forty-seven current players to be exact, although that number could change with a free agent signing or two. Of course, the SEC is a hotbed for future professional talent. But clearly NFL coaches are particularly fond of the players that the Georgia coaches develop.

Back in Kansas City, the Chiefs are looking to improve on their frustrating 2-14 season with new coach Andy Reid. So Commings is a great pickup for them. His physical style and playing experience (one that includes 35 starts and 54 games) will surely help him find the field early on. Playing under a former NFL coach as his defensive coordinator should help as well.

Indeed, I'm looking forward to a lengthy professional career for Commings. Damn Good Dawg!

UPDATE: Commings former teammate Shawn Williams has also signed a contract. The Bengals selected Williams in the third round.

New poll: Eight or Nine games, that is the question.

A week ago people got pretty excited about the thought of opening the 2016 season against Florida State in the Georgia Dome. I'll admit, the blood pumped a little faster for a moment. But scheduling games like that are even more problematic than they used to be because of all the variables involved. A school has to consider it's existing schedule and its inherent, perceived strength, the implications of said strength of schedule on possible post-season opportunities, whether a home game would be lost because of a neutral site matchup, and then money. It always leads back to money.

If the SEC eventually goes to a nine game schedule these games could all but disappear. McGarity has been outspoken (as he should be) about keeping a seven game home schedule. Even if the Chick-Fil-A folks made the offer of playing in the Dome as lucrative as possible (something the city of Jacksonville has had to do in the past to keep the WLOCP where it should be), it would still mean the city of Athens would lose thousands of dollars in potential revenue.

As someone who grew up in the city of Athens, that means something to me. The Loco's on Harris St. closed last Sunday. Weaver D's and Peaches faced a similar fate. Neither were directly related to the football schedule, of course. But if you went to school and/or grew up in Athens undoubtedly you can list off several businesses that enjoy the influx of gameday traffic.

All that to say, I'm all for keeping as many home games on the schedule as possible. And I'd also like the opportunity to travel the SEC more. A nine game schedule gives us trips to The Grove, Baton Rouge, Tuscaloosa more of than a blue moon comes around. I would even consider giving up the yearly tie in with Auburn if it made things easier. I'm not yet willing to let go of the Tech "rivalry" just yet. But there are those that are well past that point.

A lot to consider for sure. But at this point it's safe to break it into two categories to determine which side of the fence you are on: eight games with more cupcakes, or nine with more SEC variety. Where do you stand?

How many calories does 70 million cupcakes have?

As the athletic board finishes up this morning there hasn't been much to take away from it. Except that it is Adams' last as the sitting president. And that the coffers are currently bulging at over $70 million.

Whoa. That'll buy a lot of bus rides to Athens for some directional schools. Wouldn't ya say?

It's slow, but it's news

Not a whole lot going on of course. But the best May days are the quiet May days. The more time the headlines spend on gardening tips and reality TV gossip, the more it means the guys of autumn Glory are handling themselves according to their coaches' wishes.

But there's still this and that to tend to. There is still tidbits of actual news and then some that is just invented for our own flights of fancy. Unless you're going to checkout available NFL odds and betting lines while fighting off mosquitoes, these nuggets might pass the time pretty well. Even Mark Emmert, up there on his NCAA throne, might give them a casual glance before sending more sample cups to Ron Courson.

In related news, the #FREEKOLTONHOUSTON petition needs a few hundred more signatures. CLICK HERE to add yours. Then pick up your tardy slip from the front office.

So Ty Flournoy-Smith is leaving before I even learn whether he prefers the hyphenated version of his name or not. I keep seeing it presented both ways, so I'll just type one of each version to keep this paragraph balanced. Although that development is not shocking, it is intriguing in terms of the roster and future recruiting. For the 2013 season we'll have a senior (Artie), a sophomore (Rome) and a true freshman (Jordan Davis). For the class of 2014 we've already secured a commitment from one of the nation's top tight ends in Jeb Blazevich. Another target, Herschel Walker's nephew has since committed to Clemson. Also, Richt gave a casual mention that Ty Smith might even end up back in Athens after a stint at what is looking like Georgia Military College. So it'll be interesting if Richt and his staff decide to pursue another signee for the next class. Undoubtedly, they'll wait and see a little more of what they have in Davis and what Rome does with his second season.

As the Athletic Board meets in St. Simons, the dead horse was arisen from his grave topic of an indoor practice facility came up again. Then short of it: Richt wants one, but doesn't think we really need one; meanwhile McGarity would rather invest in building a car dealership outside of an Amish community than an indoor practice facility. Those are my words, not his exactly. Some advice for Richt, if anyone asks about an IPF, just start reeling off statistics from the 2012 WLOCP. You'll always fare better in that direction, promise.

It took three sets in each match, but Georgia's own Lauren Herring and Maho Kowase both advanced to the next round of the NCAA singles tournament. Herring will meet Southern California's Zoe Scandalis tomorrow and Kowase (who fought off a math point from UC-Irvine's Kristina Smith and forced a tiebreaker) will take on TAMU's Christina Sanchez-Quintanar.

Back to football, CBS announced some initial time slots for a few games in this fall's action. Naturally, the Georgia-Florida game will be in Uncle Verne's lap. The two dates for the double-headers are October 19th (noon and 3:30) and November 9th (3:30 and 8:00).

Lastly, if you're setting off any fireworks for your Memorial Day celebration this weekend, confine your dog. He's gonna wanna do his job.

via meme-meme

Muschamp's kids, Jordan Reed and other "Florida guys"

I have to admit, this new video that made the rounds yesterday featuring Coach Muschamp's kids imitating their father's trademark stare is pretty good. And by good, I mean in the way that it can rejuvenate a fan base after getting their ass handed to them by the Louisville basketball team in a bowl they didn't belong in.

Of course, I'm not going to embed the video here. I mean, this is a Georgia blog. It's bad enough I'm going to give you the link here in a second. I'm worried that featuring Muschamp in a video here will allow SEC receivers to run around all over the place.

Like back in the early 1990's at Sanford Stadium.

So here you go. Use your mouse device (or index finger for you tablet/mobile phone holders) to click the link here and watch the video if you haven't already. Then be sure to come back and continue reading as I break this clip down.

For the rest of you, while you wait, here's some footage from Muschamp's sixth consecutive loss in Jacksonville.

To take the words from Will's mouth, I assure you...gators suck.

Ok, back to the floriDuh promo. Some thoughts:

• How many takes before those kids went the whole thing without fumbling? BOOM!
• I mean, those are the smallest frat boys I've seen since my last trip to Vandy. The old Vandy.
• Hey Will, I see their mother also taught them how throw the ball. You know, because of your VW Passat and all.
• You mean to tell me the richest family in Gainesville can't afford a single pair of jorts?
• With any luck those kids'll get a gig doing voiceovers for a local news channel and second rate car dealership commercials, thereby somehow avoiding a long standing, deeply tumultuous relationship with a methhead masters student.
• Lastly, one of my favorite tweets of all time sums this thing up best. Take it away Robert...

One hundred days

From BassinDawg...

Can Morgan match Walsh's sophomore season?

In the third installment of Emerson's most important players series he takes a look at placekicker Marshall Morgan. The reasoning is simple: as he puts it, Morgan was on last year's list because he was a freshman and no one knew what to expect from him; and he's on this year's list because as a freshman he didn't allay any of those fears.

Inevitably the comparison to Blair Walsh will come up. So let's have a look. (via cfbstats.com)

Blair Walsh, freshman 2008

Marshall Morgan, freshman 2012

The first thing to notice is the contrast in number of field goal attempts. Clearly Richt had more faith in the offense on fourth down than the place kicking. And why not, given how well the offense was performing last season. (note: the number of 4th down attempts went down last year, but rose as the season progressed. That's a post for another day.) But Morgan clearly settled down as the season progressed. He didn't miss an extra point after the trip to Lexington. And that's the next thing that jumps out at me - the offense got in the end zone a lot last season. And although there were times the kick was more exciting than it should've been, Morgan made most of those conversion attempts.

So Morgan's freshman season was watched with a more anxious eye, but all in all it was pretty comparable to Walsh' first one in Athens.

Blair Walsh, sophomore 2009

Obviously Walsh had a big jump in confidence and consistency from year one to year two. And as unfair as it might be, this becomes the standard for Morgan entering the 2013 campaign. I would expect to see a similar jump for Morgan this season. And going back to something Emerson says to wrap up:

BEST CASE: Morgan makes his first field goal of the season, and it goes from there. For the first time since Blair Walsh’s junior season, the Bulldogs have a reliable kicker who makes at least 80 percent of his fields. Oh, and his kickoffs are almost always touchbacks too.

If Morgan makes his first field goal of the season...at Clemson's Death Valley...under the lights...on national television...well, that may tell us all we need to know.