Tag Archives: georgia

Midseason Monday

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We’re into the meat of the 2012 football season with heavy games for most teams from here on out. It’s also the time when teams’ reputations for the year become solidified. One such team is Auburn, which fell to 1-6 on the season, 0-5 in conference with a 17-13 loss to Vanderbilt in Nashville. Four years ago, I watched these teams play under the lights in the same stadium. In 2008, Auburn was 5-0 and highly ranked, but the game outcome was the same. This year’s win over the TIgers/Plainsmen/Eagles won’t do as much for the Commodores’ strength of schedule, but it does push them to 2-3 in the conference, and it’s an important win to kick off the second half of a schedule that should be easier than the first.

While Vanderbilt took a necessary step in the positive direction Saturday, Michigan State took another step toward a lost season with a 12-10 loss to Michigan in Ann Arbor. More on that game later in the week. Back to the SEC for a moment, where the Eastern division is one of the most power concentrated and confusing divisions in the nation. Florida swamped South Carolina, 44-11, to go to 7-0 (6-0), while Georgia escaped Lexington with a 29-24 win over Kentucky. If Florida’s going to lose a game this year, it will be next week when they host Georgia, because the rest of their schedule is soft cake (Missouri, Louisiana-Lafayette, Jacksonville State, and Florida State). In the SEC West, LSU and Texas A&M renewed their rivalry in a compelling game featuring early Aggie control and a Tiger comeback win.

Elsewhere in the top 25, Alabama and Oregon rolled. Two quick notes on Oregon: 1) I’m worried that Florida’s #2 rating in the first BCS, together with their easy finishing schedule, will mean that we don’t get to see Alabama and Oregon in the national championship game, a matchup that feels very compelling and intriguing; and 2) the ALDLAND staff is still waiting on it’s autographed Oregon cheerleader calendar. Jog back to the SEC West, where Mississippi State is the most unheralded undefeated team in the country. After beating MTSU Saturday, though, they’re unlikely to stay that way, finishing with Alabama, Texas A&M, LSU, Arkansas, and Ole Miss. Of course, nothing is more perennially unheralded than the Starkville Dogs, and that schedule only has something to do with it. Most of the rest of the top 25 won, including Clemson, Oregon State, and Stanford in important conference games. The upstart Texas Tech Red Raiders survived in triple overtime to beat TCU, and the very impressive Kansas State beat West Virginia in Morgantown 55-14 in a game in which I’d only somewhat jokingly predicted WVU would score 100 after being embarrassed the week before. Dana Holgorson’s air raid offense appears to be out of jet fuel.

On Sunday, the Vikings continue to mount an increasingly compelling challenge to those who would dismiss them by going to 5-2 with a win over flash in the pan Arizona. RGIII continues to impress despite another close loss, this week to the Giants. The Saints doubled their win total by beating Tampa Bay, and the Raiders came back to beat the ailing Jaguars, who lost Maurice Jones-Drew and Blaine Gabbert, sending out the bat signal for David Garrard (I hope). The Patriots beat the Jets in overtime, although VSL’s Bobby O’Shea, a noted Jets fan, thinks that something is wrong in New England, and I’m inclined to agree. Whether it was the defensive injuries Baltimore suffered last week or Houston’s push to come back from a loss, the Texans returned to 2012 form with a 43-13 win over the Ravens.

In baseball, the World Series is nearly set. The Tigers are in(!), and the Cardinals and Giants are playing a game seven right now, which the Giants are winning 7-0 in the fourth. In other current news, Ndamukong Suh just separated Jay Cutler’s neck from the rest of his body. Bears 10, Lions 0 in the first half.

Topsy Monday

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As noted, last Saturday’s college football games featured a number of games between top-ranked teams. As discussed in this space before, every game generally is going to end with one team on the winning side and one team on the losing side, games being athletic events between two teams. This means that a bunch of ranked teams lost this week, and boy did they.

Keep reading…

College Football’s Practical Alternative (via WSJ)

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Chrysler hit rock bottom in 2009, plunging into bankruptcy and succumbing to a takeover by Fiat, the Italian brand American drivers used to call “Fix It Again Tony.” It was a dismal time for the iconic U.S. auto maker, but it wasn’t the end of days some had predicted. The unified company recovered financially and this year unveiled its most significant new product: a spry compact designed to help Americans learn to economize with style and zip.

Designers called it the Dodge Dart, after the company’s 1960s stalwart, and backed it with a burst of bold advertisements. The car is Chrysler’s phoenix moment. If you are human, it’s hard not to root for the Dart.

This weekend, as 20th-ranked Michigan State takes on No. 14 Ohio State, the Spartans football program also has emerged from decades of tailpipe-dragging performance. A team that hasn’t had a Rose Bowl season since 1987 or a national title since 1966 is cruising along nicely. The Spartans shared the Big Ten Conference title in 2010 and just produced their first-ever back-to-back 11-win seasons.

They are gaining cred, too, losing the quarterback that led them to a 2012 Outback Bowl victory over Georgia, Kirk Cousins, and still entering this season ranked No. 13. A glass-fronted addition to the football building and a handsome players’ lounge with obligatory pool table show a willingness to keep pace in facilities. The acres of empty seats are filling in. The Spartans have banished the rattles and squeaks. … Read More

(via WSJ)

In the Dawghouse: Vandy no-shows again on the road, loses 48-3 in Athens

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Perched high atop Sanford Stadium, I had the view of Saturday night’s game football nerds have called the Holy Grail: the all-22 perspective. Fans prize this view because it allows them to see the game in its entirety and understand how plays develop, schemes function, and all of the other things blocked out by television’s narrow lens.

What I saw likely could have been apprehended from any vantage point in any of the nearly 93,000 seats, almost all of which were filled, and filled by fans of the home team: an unabated UGA run game set up laughably easy passing opportunities. The visitors were like ghosts on defense and ineffective football players on offense. After Vandy missed a field goal in the third quarter, my hospitable hosts, including Commodawg, took me outside the stadium and, mercifully, out of my misery.

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In reality, I had a great time throughout. While the game itself made all the jostling over who would start at quarterback for Vanderbilt beyond moot, and made it difficult to believe how close this game was a year ago, Athens on a football Saturday is a fun scene, and Sanford Stadium is an impressive place to see a game. Looking ahead, Georgia’s championship aspirations continue to progress, while Vanderbilt has a bye week during which it can reevaluate its approach. As for the series between these two teams, I only see Vandy being competitive in North Georgia when it comes to recruiting, and after performances like Saturday night’s, even that may be in question.

ALDLAND takes you live to the start* of SEC conference play

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Although conference play technically began when South Carolina survived against SEC East foe Vanderbilt in the first game of the college football season, conference play ramps up in earnest this week, when the Commodores, and yours truly, head to Athens for a night game between the hedges against #5 Georgia.

As indicated in the photograph, these divisional opponents have some history. When they played in the above-depicted game, nearly fifty-six years to the day prior to Saturday night’s meeting, Vanderbilt scored a 14-0 victory at home. Unsurprisingly, that outcome does not predominate; in a series that began in 1893 (with a 35-10 Commodore win, incidentally), the Dawgs have a 53-18-2 record. The series was far more competitive through the early 1960s, but Vanderbilt has only four wins (and one tie) against UGA since the 1961 season.

These two teams have some recent notable history, too. ALDLAND was there, in duplicate, for their last meeting, in which Georgia survived a late special teams error to escape Nashville with a win. It was what happened after the game that most people will remember, though Continue reading →

Predicting Boise State vs. Michigan State

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In less than three hours, Boise State will take on Michigan State in a Top-25 battle in East Lansing. Playing a ranked opponent in the first game is a risky proposition, especially when it’s Boise State. Just ask Georgia. Still, the Michigan State team that won a share of the Big Ten championship last season (and should have gone to the Rose Bowl as a result) is without quarterback Kirk Cousins and offensive coordinator Don Treadwell, and their strengths– defense and the running game– are somewhat diminished. This isn’t the same Boise Broncos team either, though, especially in the absence of quarterback Kellen Moore, which is why I think MSU will handle their visiting opponents tonight. (Field color may also be a factor.)

As my favorite ESPN.com feature illustrates, the rest of the nation, and indeed the world, agrees with me. By now your eyes have been drawn to a few exceptions, of which there are two kinds. The first is less interesting for sports purposes. These are usually low-population states, and their apparent bucking of the trend usually is the result of a near-even split of a very small number of participants. Here, those states are Alaska (23), Vermont (20), and Rhode Island (45). Social scientists probably have something to say about this interactive map as a tool to measure things like local awareness of broader issues and the availability of internet access.

The second sort is more interesting for sports purposes. These are the states where participants reject rational objectivity and choose the team they want to win the game, rather than the team they think will win the game. Their team could be a 7.5-point dog on the road and they’d still pick them. The overall vote could be two-to-one against them, and they’ll swing even harder in the opposite direction. (Yes, there are some remote reasons why people in Idaho, Montana, and Utah might rationally believe Boise State will win tonight, but please be quiet Mister Social Scientist.)

The truth, of course, is that all voters are of the second type. Or, at least, we all approach the extreme of the second type in positive correlation with the strength of our emotional connection to at least one of the teams involved, and I’m really ok with that. In fact, I love it.

Bubba Watson now owns two prestigious pieces of American history

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This evening, Bubba Watson added an Augusta National green jacket to his personal collection, which already includes the General Lee, pictured above.

Watson also owns one of the best shots ever hit, thanks to his effort on the second and final playoff hole, where he spun the ball out of the woods and onto the green, setting himself up for the win:

Tuesday morning special

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We normally do this on Mondays, but with the breakdown of this fall’s orderly football schedule, together with adverse outcomes in the two games I attended over the weekend and the opportunity to post the song below, I figured it was ok to wait until Tuesday this time.

On Friday, the Red Wings lost by a goal on the road to Chicago, and on Saturday, Vanderbilt lost by a touchdown to Cincinnati in the Liberty Bowl. Recaps of both of those games will come later.

There wasn’t much of special note in the NFL’s final week of regular season play on Sunday, except that Steelers’ RB Rashard Mendenhall tore his ACL and is done for the season, a literally crippling blow to Pittsburgh’s Super Bowl chances, especially considering Ben Roethlisberger’s lingering leg injury.

The traditional New Year’s Day bowls were played on January 2 this year, and Michigan State came back to win a triple-overtime game against Georgia in the Outback Bowl, much to the chagrin of commodawg and bpbrady. By the second half, it appeared that nobody wanted to win the game. The officials insisted that there had to be a winner, though, and two missed field goals by Georgia, including one the Spartans blocked in the third overtime, sealed the game.

The BCS games played yesterday were exciting as well. Oregon topped Wisconsin for the Ducks’ first Rose Bowl victory in over ninety years, and Oklahoma State beat Stanford in overtime for all the Tostitos in the Fiesta Bowl.

Tonight, the once-proud Sugar Bowl stakes its claim to irrelevancy when Michigan takes on Virginia Tech. Our bpbrady is there. Watch for him on tv, assuming he makes it into the stadium after a week in the French Quarter.

Georgian Friday

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Georgia doesn’t have an English bulldawg’s chance in Michael Vick’s backyard against LSU in the SEC championship, but I finally tracked down a digitized version of a jam I’ve enjoyed on vinyl for some years, so I offer it here as an anticipatory or preventative salve for commodawg and all readers pulling for the underdawgs tomorrow:

The Carrier Classic: College basketball takes flight

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The college basketball season tips off in earnest tonight off the coast of San Diego, where Michigan State will take on North Carolina on a court built on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson:

ALDLAND ADDS VALUE: Carl Vinson was a member of Georgia’s congressional delegation for more than fifty years. A 1902 graduate of Mercer University Law School, Vinson served as a county prosecutor and judge, as well as a state legislator in Georgia. He died in 1981 at the age of ninety-seven. All of which reminds me of the last high-profile meeting between UNC and MSU, which did not go too well for Sparty. Tom Izzo’s squad suffered a setback before the season even began, and even the homers aren’t overly optimistic about tonight’s high-seas clash. UNC looks good, but I expect the Spartans to put up a fight.