Found this via a link on the dawgs.com home page. The following is from Eric Zeier's blog as posted on georgiadogs.com. I thought it was a good enough read to share here:
Sept. 29, 2009
I have been involved in the game of football nearly my entire life. I started playing the game officially as a ten year old in Hinesville, Georgia, but my infatuation with the game dates back as far as I can remember. I remember that first year of organized football as if it were yesterday. I remember looking through my Dad’s closet to find a shirt that would fit over my shoulder pads. I remember completing my first pass. I remember riding in a parade after the season along with every other youth team in the league…I remember it all. It is funny isn’t it? How some memories are always with you, allowing you to re-live every minute if you so choose. It was on that first “official” day of practice that I was given the one instruction that was repeated to me on the first day of practice every year for the next 20 years. DO NOT TURN THE FOOTBALL OVER. It is your most prized possession on the field and if you are careless with it, the other team will win. You must protect the ball at all times…we will win the turnover battle. It was not as if this instruction stopped after the initial practice of the year, these words were beat into our team constantly so there was never a doubt as to the importance of protecting that football. Every coach, every team, every year the message was the same…protect the ball and you will win games.
If you ask any expert how many wins a team should have if they have given the ball away 12 times over a four game stretch and the answer would be, on average, one and maybe two if they got lucky. If you then state these turnovers would come against Oklahoma State, South Carolina, Arkansas and Arizona State and the answer may shift to zero. And yet our Dawgs have navigated through this four game gauntlet and emerged with three victories. On top of that, they are one win away from getting back into the national spotlight of college football. The talk and criticism has shifted each week, rotating between the offense, and then the defense, and then the special teams. It is almost as if the critics cannot get a grip on whom to point the finger at. All they know is that this Georgia team is not playing at its best. And yet here we stand, on the verge of the national spotlight with three wins. One thing is true, our Dawgs have not yet put together a complete game, but instead of trying to place blame on whose fault the lack of perfection should be attributed to, I choose to take a look at the other side of the equation.
There is no way this team should be 3-1. Not after the turnovers, not after the penalties and not after the kind of schedule we just faced to open up the season and yet here we stand. Each week there is a new hero that emerges from the crowd to place this team on its’ back and carry it to victory. Last week is was the defense. Against Arkansas it was the offense. Against South Carolina it was the special teams. But even when a specific unit is performing all that well, an individual from that unit is finding a way to step forward and make a play. Brandon Boykin, Rennie Curran, A.J. Green, Joe Cox…the list could go on, but the important thing is this team is finding ways to win. They are competing. They refuse to quit. They refuse to make excuses. Bottom line is they believe in each other and they believe they will win. We often use words like character, leadership, and competitor when it comes to athletics. Typically those words are used on teams that are blowing through their competition and performing at the highest of levels. It is not that those descriptions should not be used in those scenarios; it is just that leading, competing and having character when everything is going your way on the playing field is easy. Finding a way to compete, to lead, and to maintain your character when there is chaos around you…now that is where the challenge lies. And it is there where this team has excelled. Everyone will mention all of the things we are doing wrong on the field; it is the nature of the beast. But I see infinite possibilities with this talented group of young men because of the way they have handled all the pressures that accompany playing football in the national spotlight and doing so at less than your best. This team will compete, they have leadership that keeps them focused on the moment at hand, and they have the character to make a mistake and then step on the field to fight again. We are 3-1 and we have not played our best. Imagine the possibilities when we do!!
Go Dawgs!
