Ok, so I di’ant immediately race here and celebrate my
Dawgs victory over the Virginia Tech Hokies in the
Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl. Living in the land of the Hokies should have been enough for me to go shout from the mountain tops (I considered it). But what goes around comes around. So I’m silently joyous. Plus I have a whole year of listening to this from people who see my license plate (BULDWGZ), my UGA bumper sticker, my UGA cell phone case (with Glory Glory ring tone), my UGA golf club head covers, my stockpiles of t-shirts (as well as my daughters’):
“Dawgs fan, huh? You guys played well”
“You a Georgia fan? What a comeback”
“Hokies GAVE you guys that game”
To be clear, I can’t take credit for the win. I did my part, though. I took my wife and girls to our UVA friend’s house and I passed out buttons, t-shirts, pompoms………and because they all HATE Virginia Tech, well, let’s just say it was easy to have them pull for Georgia. Was it uncomfortable when they showed the replays of Georgia beating UVA in the 1998 Peach Bowl? Sure, but they’ve long gotten past that.
So even though I brought my own cheering section, I didn’t really come up with the game plan, or defensive alignments or special teams scheme. No, that credit goes to the coaches. And really, that game was indicative of the entire season. We started out strong and got on the board with a whimper, went sleepwalking through the middle of the game, then finished extremely strong. Kudos to my buddy Benny, who, when we were down 21-3 at halftime (and I was planning my concession speech) said, “Dude, I saw your team play – this game ain’t over, not by a long shot.” Now he might have been thinking wishfully, lamenting the LONG off-season that was about to be. But when the Dawgs came back he was the LEAST surprised. “Hey, man”, he calmly said, “I told ya.”
For those of you who don’t follow football………….I bet you’re asking, “So what does a college football fan do in the off-season?” Well, here’s the thing. There is no off-season. Oh, sure I’ll watch the basketball games. Rather, I listen to
Georgia games on the internet. But February 7
th is National Signing Day. For us, there’s Labor Day (official start of season), Thanksgiving (usually last weekend of regular season and when you play your rival), and Signing Day. Grown men have been sniffing around the lockers of hundreds of 17 and 18 year old boys, hoping they will sign their LOI’s (letter of intent) to play with
Georgia. We crown them “the real deal” and “the next stud” and as silly as it sounds, we love it. March and April brings us spring practices, ending with the intrasquad scrimmage (which, even though meaningless, whets our appetites enough for conversation on
blogs and
message boards). During the summer, we keep an eye on the police blotter, to find out who got arrested for what, and more importantly, what that means to the depth chart.
So you see, there is no time to take off, not for the seriously rabid fan (read: loser like myself).
For those of you who DO follow football. We
lost Allen Bailey today. I’m not panicking, but not having a lot of action in the weeks leading up to signing day is like…….opening your Christmas presents all on Christmas Eve. The big day comes and you already know what you got, you’re just hoping for a few more surprises. Even if you already got a
LOT of good stuff. Sure, you’ve had some of your stuff for
quite a while, but MAN, wouldn’t it be great to have
ONE MORE GIFT?
One quick note on the basketball team. Wednesday
win over Kentucky really helped in the way of getting over
being screwed the Alabama loss. Other SEC teams are fearful of playing us, and rightfully so.
Go Dawgs!!!
