Hello? Is this thing on?

I'd like to reply to wlayton's long sum-up, if I may.

I did not get to see the G-Day game, as I was at the Ted watching the Braves send Tom Glavine packing (the way I feel about Georgia football, my wife feels about Braves baseball...absolutely RABID! We've had this trip planned for over a month and saw both Saturday's and Sunday's game...neither one disappointed! But I'm off-track.)

wlayton said he had never seen this much raw talent in 40 years of watching Georgia football. I haven't been around that long, but I've been watching my entire life and here's what I'd say to that: NEVER call for Mark Richt's head. The man knows how to recruit. Before Richt, we had this kind of \"get Georgia's best\" mentality where we stayed in-state and had a little leaching from AL, SC, TN and FL. It's an okay strategy; after all, if you want to look for raw football talent you're going to look in GA, TX, FL and OK before you're going to look anywhere else, no matter where you coach. But Richt is the first coach that we've had who thought truly on a national scale. This might be part of his mentality as a former Hurricane (we all know what the 'Canes were building in the 80s when he was at school) and/or as the REAL head coach at FSU (we all know what the 'Noles did in the '90s).

Wally Butts was a stay-at-home recruiter. Dooley's highest profile, best recruit ever was from Wrightsville, GA. Granted, his best recruit ever was also THE best recruit ever, but you catch my drift. We still think about Georgia now, of course, yes, who wouldn't? But Richt is thinking about the national picture. That's where this talent is coming from. Just look at our quarterback situation: Joe Cox is from NC, Blake Barnes is from MS, Matthew Stafford is from TX and Logan Grey is from MO. All CMR recruits. All light-years of talent ahead of 95% of the quarterback recruits in their respective classes. In time, we may see that Vince Dooley's best recruit ever is currently coaching our football program.

Hey dapolla, I'm assuming you ARE agreeing with me on the raw talent at UGA. And you are dead right about Richt's recruiting and very well pointed out. He's definitely looking over the whole country, got Moreno from NJ, got Ward from California etc etc. Nowadays, you BETTER being recruiting nationwide or you'll become Miss State real fast.

Sorry you missed the game, there was a bunch of speed, speed and more speed on that field.

wlayton wrote:

Sorry you missed the game, there was a bunch of speed, speed and more speed on that field.

Speed Kills!

Figure most of you know this already, thought I would throw it out anyway.

Nicknames. . . .

It was not until 1920 that the nickname \"Bulldog\" was used to describe the football team, a name bestowed by sportswriters. On November 3, 1920, Morgan Blake of the Atlanta Journal wrote a story about school nicknames and proposed:

The Georgia Bulldogs would sound good because there is a certain dignity about a bulldog, as well as ferocity.

Shortly thereafter, another news story appeared in which the name \"Bulldogs\" was used several times to describe the Georgia team and the nickname has been used ever since. Prior to that time, Georgia was simply known as the \"Red and Black.\" In more recent years, the Bulldogs have been referred to by fans as the \"Dawgs.\"

I particularly like the second paragraph in bold . . . .

Great trivia Buc. Love stuff like that.

wlayton I absolutely am agreeing with you. Sometimes we get caught up in whether Richt is too conservative a play-caller against Florida or whether he should run more or run the wishbone or what have you. We forget that we might still be wading through mediocrity were it not for him. Every once in a while I like to have a little Mark Richt love fest and point out that the man is a great recruiter and that he has given us MEMORABLE seasons every year he's been at UGA. Even his four-loss seasons (2001 and 2006) were memorable in their own ways: beating Tennessee in Knoxville on my wedding day in '01 was rather nice. He also took out Tech for the first time in four years that year. Though we lost four games in 2006, and two of them to Vandy and UK, we still:

1) shut out two opponents consecutively for the first time since 1980
2) shut out SPURRIER, aka Senor Scoralottapointsonya
3) knocked Auburn out of the NC picture with a 37-15 drubbing on the plains
4) effectively ENDED Reggie Ball's career
5) staged what has got to be the greatest, most exciting and memorable comeback in bowl history against VA Tech

He's won us two SEC titles and took us to a third game in 2003. We won two straight Alabama state titles in '02 and '03, beating both Alabama and Auburn in consecutive years. In 2004 we defeated defending national champion LSU by a score of 45-16. We shut out Clemson 30-0 in '03. We beat Florida in '04. We went to our first Sugar Bowl since 1983 and won our first one since 1981.

I got a bit perturbed with Richt last year, yes. I think we all did. But the idiots in the AJC and ABH calling for his head are just that: idiots. Richt is a fantastic coach, a FANTASTIC recruiter, and sometimes I feel like we lose sight of that.