I/You feel your/my pain.

Receiver Michael Moore can feel your pain.

“We’re playing for the fans right now,” Moore said. “I know they’re getting beat up, they’re torn up. We’ve got to put on a better performance for them.”

Back at ‘ya, Michael.

Brought to you by great moments in a losing cause…

This was easily the best run of the weekend that I saw.  Behold Anthony Dixon’s 51-yard TD jaunt against Houston:

The only thing I saw that was better was Scott Tolzien’s escape act against the Ohio State rush, when it looked as if he were completely enveloped, sort of crouched down and escaped for a nine yard gain and a first down.  It was Houdini-esque.  It’s not on YouTube, but I hope someone posts it soon.

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Here’s what it’s come to.

Gallows humor.  It’s what’s for breakfast.

Sadly, I thought about suggesting the Maginot Line as a nickname for the offensive line in my earlier post about Aaron Murray, but decided to hold back on the snark a little bit this morning.  Chalk it up as a lost opportunity now.

Well, I could always post something about abusing a helpless kitchen appliance – I bet nobody’s done that before.  Oh, wait a minute… it has?  Curse you, Doug Gillett!

I feel my style being seriously cramped today.

We’re here to help, Coach.

It’s been an interesting journey this weekend reading the blog comments both here and elsewhere and the message board posts in reaction to Saturday’s debacle.  Once you get past the anger, sadness and frustration, there are plenty of armchair coaches with advice about how to turn the ship around – if not this year, then next.

Some of it’s sensible, some of it’s silly and some of it’s obvious.  (I’m guessing that Coach Richt has already figured out that “coach better, play better” would help a lot from here on out.)

But there are a couple of specific names I’ve seen bandied about that I can’t help but react to.

• Aaron Murray. Dawgnation, what’s this kid ever done to you?  Seriously, why toss a true freshman quarterback out there with no offensive line and no running game to protect him?  The only experience he’s going to get right now is how fast SEC defensive linemen are chasing you and what it feels like to walk to the bench after your fourth three and out of the game.  He would get to polish his throw-it-up-to-A.J.-and-see-what-happens skills, which might come in handy next year, so there’s that.  I’m not saying it’s a totally ridiculous idea, but it’s waaay premature.  If Georgia’s even deeper in the ditch after the next two games, maybe you could look at Murray against Tennessee Tech, but even so, it’s a stretch – unless you’re convinced by that time that Logan Gray’s a stiff at quarterback.
• Tommy Tuberville. He doesn’t want to be a defensive coordinator.  Mark Richt doesn’t want to open the can of worms that having a former SEC head coach who has ambitions of being a head coach again sitting on his staff would open.  Damon Evans doesn’t want to pay Tuberville the kind of money it would take to entice him and Evans isn’t interested in bringing Jimmy Sexton into his life.  Other than that, he’s perfect.  Well, except that even if Tubs came on board and it all worked out (with a pony!), he’d be gone in a year to the head coaching job that his resume polishing would get him and Richt would have to go through the whole process again.  And, oh yeah, I can’t think of a more sure fire method of getting Rodney Garner to leave Athens than by saying, “Rodney, I think you know our new defensive coordinator, Tommy, here. “ Not gonna happen.

Kiffin watch: forget about snatching from the jaws of victory…

Junior’s pulling deeply from the asshole of victory.

“I don’t know all the Tennessee history and tradition with all the matchups, nor do I ever intend do,” Kiffin said. “There’s a lot of great teams in this conference, but I told (players) that, to me, this is the biggest matchup. To me, because of what we need to do in recruiting, this will be the biggest matchup for this staff and for our team.

“So this was a great win for us.”

Kiffin reportedly told his Vols that it won’t be the last victory in the series.

“Coach Kiffin made a big emphasis on beating these guys,” said UT junior All-America safety Eric Berry, a former Atlanta-area high school star. “He actually made a promise to us that we would never lose to them anymore, ever, until he leaves.

“Whatever happens, he said he wasn’t going to let Georgia beat us.”

Again, bully to Tennessee for getting their first conference win under Kiffin in dominating fashion.  There’s absolutely no question that the better team won.  But it sure would have been a lot more impressive to hear that bravado publicly in the week leading up to the game.

And how convenient that Tennessee’s new BFF “biggest matchup” is with the school having the crappy year.  I guess my friends over at Third Saturday in Blogtober are going to have to rethink the whole concept behind their blog.

How weird is that rationale, anyway?  I thought a program recruited to win games.  The Laner wins games to recruit.  Maybe he’ll give his program a trophy the year Rivals ranks his recruiting class #1.

As a rule, I don’t like living vicariously through another team’s efforts, but I’m making an exception this year.  I hope Nick Saban wipes UT off the map in two weeks.

My Mumme Poll ballot, Week 6

As a Georgia fan, it’s good to have a hobby to take my mind off my hobby.  Gallows humor over, here’s how I think the twelve best in the land shape up right now:

TOP FIVE

• Alabama
• Florida
• Iowa
• Texas
• Virginia Tech

NEXT SEVEN

• Boise State
• Cincinnati
• LSU
• Miami
• Ohio State
• Oregon
• Southern Cal

COMMENTS

• Selecting the top five really wasn’t much of a struggle for me this week.  Va. Tech is the only one in that bunch with a loss, but they’re playing as well as anyone in the country right now.  (Check out Tyrod Taylor’s passer rating against ACC competition.)
• The last slot came down to a choice between LSU, TCU and Penn State.  The schedule is killing the Nittany Lions right now.  They’ve played one good team – Iowa – and lost.  At home.  TCU’s a closer call, but I just have this feeling in a head to head match up, LSU wins that game.  So the Tigers get the nod.
• The team getting the most benefit of the doubt from me is Texas, which hasn’t played anybody yet, except for an unranked Texas Tech team that the ‘Horns didn’t exactly dominate.  I’ll have a much better picture of Texas after the next three games.
• It’s still early enough in the year that you can make a legitimate argument for seven or eight teams to occupy that twelfth slot, so I’ll be interested in seeing how the vote breaks down this week.