It was fate. Or not.

If you’ve ever wondered how Mark Richt got into coaching, here’s his story:

Richt: As far as getting into coaching: I tried to play pro ball, got cut by the Denver Broncos within a week’s time. And then I tried to be a life insurance agent, and my boss got thrown in jail. So I quit that. I tried to sell memberships in a club, and the boss fired me for not being productive enough.

I started valeting cars. Got in real good shape, thought I could play ball again. Tried out for the Dolphins. Got cut real fast again.

And then I needed a job. I look in the newspaper and found a job as a bartender. Got fired about the second week of being a bartender. The guy who fired me, he told me to stick around at 2 a.m., he had a job for me. I started cleaning the bar after everybody left., from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. After I got really desperate doing that, after a week or two, I thought, there’s gotta be something I can do with my skill set.

I said, I know. I’ll be a coach.

I wonder what his first resume looked like.

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A Red and Black oasis in Tempe

As I’ve blogged before, Paul Westerdawg over at Georgia Sports Blog has done yeoman’s work providing information to Dawg fans on the trip to Arizona State for the September 20 game.

He’s got a post up regarding a watering hole in Tempe fairly near the stadium that’s agreed to host Georgia fans for the game weekend. Given the truncated tailgating standards that exist in Arizona, this sounds like a don’t miss.

Tear down this wall, Mr. Slive!

As over the top playoff rhetoric goes, this is the bomb.

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UPDATE: Sunday Morning Quarterback has this whole Slive-Wetherell contretemps nailed.

The reaction sets in.

I know you’ll find it a huge surprise to find this kind of question raised at a Tennessee blog, but over at Rocky Talk Top, Joel asks “Are the Georgia Bulldogs overrated?”

You can no doubt guess his conclusion, although he’s pretty gracious about it (“Look, Georgia is going to have a great team this year. Better than Tennessee. Better than anyone in the East except for perhaps Florida. But No. 1 in the nation? No. Sorry. Not buying it. Not yet.”), but that’s not what I wanted to focus on here.

One of his knocks on Georgia concerns last year’s seven game winning streak that finished out the season:

Yeah, but . . . look at who they beat in those seven games: Florida (9-4), Troy (8-4), Auburn (9-4), Kentucky (8-5), Georgia Tech (7-6), and Hawaii (12-1).

Yes, look at who Georgia beat. All seven of those teams finished with winning records. All but one played in bowl games. Three finished ranked in the top seventeen of the coaches’ poll.

As a comparison, UT finished 6-1 in its last seven. The Vols played four schools that finished the season with winning records in that period, all of which played in a bowl. Two of those teams finished ranked in the top twenty five.

Not that that’s unusual. Skip the winning streak for a minute. I couldn’t find a single national title contender from last season whose opponents’ resumes over the last seven games didn’t include at least one team that finished with a losing record, for example.

I’m not claiming that the Dawgs faced the toughest road in the country down the stretch last year. But that was certainly a credible slate of games they played. Let’s put it this way – after the Vandy game, I doubt you’d have found very many takers for the proposition that Georgia would have run the table against that bunch.

There are certainly valid reasons to question Georgia’s chances in 2008. The way the Dawgs finished last season ain’t one of them.

A different kind of turnover margin

Yeah, the schedule looks like a bear from this vantage point. But Georgia’s got one big thing running in its favor going into the 2008 season.

Stability.

The Southeastern Conference has a slew of new offensive and defensive coordinators this season – eleven of them.

Yikes.

There are open tryouts for starting quarterback, too. There are going to be at least six of those.

Here’s the school-by-school breakdown:

Alabama: New offensive coordinator, Jim McElwain.

Arkansas: New head coach, Bobby Petrino, new offensive coordinator, Paul Petrino and new defensive coordinator, Willy Robinson.

Auburn: New offensive coordinator, Tony Franklin, new defensive coordinator, Paul Rhoads, and a new quarterback in either Kodi Burns or Chris Todd.

Kentucky: New starting quarterback in Curtis Pulley or Mike Hartline.

LSU: New defensive co-coordinator in Doug Mallory and Bradley Dale Peveto and a new starting quarterback in Jarrett Lee or Andrew Hatch.

Ole Miss: New head coach in Houston Nutt, new offensive coordinator in Kent Austin, new defensive coordinator in Tyrone Nix and new starting quarterback, Jevan Snead, a transfer from Texas.

Mississippi State: New defensive coordinator Charlie Harbison.

South Carolina: New defensive coordinator in Ellis Johnson and new starting quarterback in Tommy Beecher.

Tennessee: New offensive coordinator, Dave Clawson, and new starting quarterback Jonathan Crompton.

There are only three SEC schools not on that list – Florida, Georgia and Vanderbilt.

Georgia’s ten most memorable plays of 2007, #1

Georgia vs. Alabama, September 22:

Georgia at 15:00			GA	ALA
1st and 10 at ALA 25		Matthew Stafford pass complete to Mikey Henderson for 25 yards for a TOUCHDOWN.	26	23

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have any trouble listing this play at #1. It’s the first play that comes to mind when I reflect upon last year’s highlights. Located at the intersection of gutsy playcalling, perfect execution and overtime drama, it’s one of the greatest moments of the entire Mark Richt era.

No knock meant towards Scott Howard, but I’ll always wonder what Munson would have done with this call. It’ll always be a little bittersweet for me because of that.