Adios, robots.

Fox throws in the towel on the next BCS TV contract.

(h/t The Wizard of Odds)

Ooh, baby, it’s a wild world.

Tim Tucker notes this hasn’t been your typical SEC season.

• Go figure. How weird is this? Both Vanderbilt and Mississippi — but neither Auburn nor Tennessee — are eligible for bowls.

Vandy and Ole Miss won their sixth games of the season Saturday to clinch bowl eligibility — Vandy for the first time since 1982 and Ole Miss for the first time since 2003.

Meanwhile, Auburn’s loss to Georgia means the Tigers won’t be eligible for a bowl unless they upset No. 1 Alabama Nov. 29. Auburn hasn’t missed out on a bowl since 1999, and Tennessee — with the second most bowl appearances in NCAA history (47) — will miss out for the second time in four years.

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John McCain doesn’t run the BCS.

John Swofford currently does.  And here’s his polite reponse to President-elect Obama’s call for a D-1 football playoff (gosh, that’s almost as dramatic as calling to put a man on the moon in ten years):

“First of all I want to congratulate newly-elected President Obama and I am glad he has a passion for college football like so many other Americans. For now, our constituencies — and I know he understands constituencies — have settled on the current B.C.S. system, which the majority believe is the best system yet to determine a national champion while also maintaining the college football regular season as the best and most meaningful in sports. The college presidents, conference commissioners, athletics directors and coaches have continually considered ways to improve the system in keeping with four primary objectives, among others: protecting the unique significance of the regular season, preserving the bowl system for the thousands of students and fans who participate each year, keeping football as a one semester sport and doing what’s best for the student-athletes. We certainly respect the opinions of President-elect Obama and welcome dialogue on what’s best for college football.”

Translation:  bring it on, sucka.  The Republicans were a walk in the park compared to what you’ll be getting into here.

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UPDATE: Matt Hinton, aka Doc Saturday, makes his pitch to become Playoff Czar.  Bastard!

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UPDATE: Oy.

The EIAR, B! watch starts now.

It’s time to get our collective heads out of our asses, people – Georgia Tech’s next up!

I’ve been waiting for this game all year.  My normal attitude about Georgia’s schedule is that Florida is the game I want the win the most, while Tech is the opponent I most hate for Georgia to lose to.  Not 2008, though.  This year, there’s a point of pride to take away from the detestable insects, a record that I doubt most Tech fans were ever worried about seeing be erased.

Georgia Tech holds the series record for most consecutive wins, at eight.  As much as the series has come to be dominated in the here and now by the team in red and black, that streak still sits out there festering.  But the Dawgs are on the verge of rewriting the record books.  If they pull it off, it’ll be one of the towering achievements of the Richt era – after all, don’t forget that Richt’s predecessor was canned for the ignominious sin of dropping three in a row to the Jackets (the last of which was particularly embarrassing).

Best of all, this is a two year project.  If Georgia gets the win in Athens, it will hold the streak in the books along with Tech.  And if the Dawgs go to Atlanta next year and pull off another one… well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

Anyway, to honor the current streak, and to get the hate moving in the right direction (since we’ve got two weeks), I’ll post a review every day of each Georgia-Georgia Tech game that Richt has coached.  We’ll relive the most lopsided game in the series, Tech’s unfortunate inability to count, Massaquoi!, and, of course, the most significant playa of the streak.

To give this the historical perspective it deserves, though, I’ll start tomorrow with a post on the game just over a half century ago that ended Tech’s run.  After all, you can’t have EIAR, B! without stopping the Jackets’ streak first.

Go get your game face on.  It’s not too early.

My Mumme Poll ballot, Week 12

TOP FIVE

• Alabama
• Florida
• Southern California
• Texas
• Texas Tech

BEST OF THE REST

• Georgia
• Missouri
• Ohio State
• Oklahoma
• Oklahoma State
• Penn State
• Utah

COMMENTS:

• No team on my Week 11 ballot lost.  Because of that, I couldn’t find a reason to demote any school, so for the first time this season, my ballot’s unchanged.
• There are a few teams I’m keeping my eye on for my top twelve in the future, though, as their resumes build:  North Carolina, Oregon State (both of whom have three losses, but have played serious schedules) and Michigan State (beat Penn State, and it’ll be there).
• Following up from that, it’s worth remembering that there are still a number of significant games left to play, starting with Oklahoma-Texas Tech.  I expect that this week’s ballot is an aberration from a consistency standpoint.

Has the journey become more important than the destination?

Look me in the eye
Then, tell me that I’m satisfied
Was you satisfied?
Look me in the eye
Then, tell me that I’m satisfied
Hey, are you satisfied?

—  The Replacements, “Unsatisfied”

This blog post of David Ching does an efficient, sane job of summarizing what many people feel about how the ’08 season has played out for Georgia.  As I said in an earlier post, here’s a team that’s on the cusp of another 11-win, top 10 finish, and yet… and yet… we’ve got a fan base that’s to one degree or another, depending on what message board or weblog you read, puzzled, frustrated, angry or ready to run one or more coaches out of town (there’s even a firemarkricht site that’s sprung up, believe it or not).

The puzzlement I understand and agree with, frankly.  The rest of it, maybe not so much.  I’ve never really been much of a “style points” advocate – I remember a 2003 Georgia team gutting out some wins against mediocre opponents and wondering what the fuss was all about, considering what the team had to work with on offense – so the fact that Georgia hasn’t dominated any of the SEC teams it’s played this year doesn’t bother me, given the 6-2 conference record.  But I suspect that, even if I’m not in the minority on this, there are a number of Georgia fans who feel quite differently about this.  So how did we get here?

Here are a few clues, offered as explanations, not excuses:

1. The psychology of being the preseason #1. In hindsight, this didn’t do the coaches, the team or the fans any favors.  Richt tried to walk a fine line between embracing the opportunity and warning about being too big headed, but it seems clear at this point that many didn’t heed the latter.  The team and its fans knew Georgia was talented; the outside validation may have altered the mindset of the kids.  It was apparent early on that the level of intensity for this season had diminished from how the prior one had finished.
2. The schedule. It’s funny.  We looked at the schedule prior to the start of the season as both a badge of honor and as an incredible burden for the team to overcome.  As the year wore on and it’s become apparent that some of the schools the Dawgs have played have gone on to disappointing seasons, it seems that we’ve discounted this.  Well, guess what – Sagarin says this is still the sixth toughest schedule in the country.  Nobody ranked ahead of Georgia has played a harder one.  Lost in the sloppiness of the Auburn win is the fact that the Dawgs went 3-1 on that long stretch away from Athens, which turned out about as well as we probably hoped before the year started.
3. Youth must be served. If nothing else, it’s clear from the way the season has gone that Richt and his coaches have recruited extremely well from a talent standpoint.  That’s been both a blessing and a curse.  There’s a perception – in my opinion, one that’s justified – that this team has coasted too often on its athletic ability this year at the expense of focus.  Given that, plus the injuries and the expectations/burdens put on true freshmen to contribute significantly, it’s been quite the accomplishment to be where we’re at with this team.  Maybe we’ve taken a little too much for granted here.
4. Failing to show up on the biggest stages of the season. This is the one that bugs me the most.  I can live with losing to Alabama and Florida this year.  In both cases, the better team won.  It’s the complete absence of being competitive for a half at a time that’s hard to stomach.  We fans have been sensitive for a long time about how this program is perceived nationally (the whining about the drop of Georgia’s national ranking to #2 early in the season is cringe-worthy now, isn’t it?);  complete meltdowns like the first half against ‘Bama and the second half against Florida don’t help our self-esteem.  And, as I’ve posted before, this is becoming a troubling habit with this team – troubling not from some sort of negative style points perspective, but rather as an indication that focus and motivation are seriously lacking.

There are no doubt other factors in play as to why the mood of the Dawgnation isn’t as sunny as might be expected from the current 9-2 record.  I invite your comments on them.

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UPDATE: From David Hale’s evening Q & A with Mark Richt comes this exchange that seems on point –

Q: How different do you think people would view this year if you had started the year ranked No. 24 instead of No. 1?

CMR: They’d be doing cartwheels right now.