It’s been a while.

The saddest thing about this chart isn’t that Georgia’s listed in fourth place on it.

Championship chasms
Here’s a list of teams that have waited the longest between national championships. This list only includes teams that have won multiple championships.
Team	Year won	Next title	Span
Michigan	1948	1997	49 years
Tennessee	1951	1998	47 years
LSU	1958	2003	45 years
Georgia	1942	1980	38 years
Pittsburgh	1939	1976	37 years
Texas	1970	2005	35 years
Ohio State	1970	2002	32 years
USC	1978	2003	25 years
Nebraska	1971	1994	23 years
Minnesota	1941	1960	19 years
Alabama	1992	2009	17 years

It’s that if Georgia were to win a MNC in 2010, its current run would rank eighth.  Sigh.

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In the take this for what it’s worth department…

Spring practice doesn’t get underway until March 4th, so if you’re looking for some nuggets or tidbits to tide you over until then, the best I’ve got are a couple of comments from Coach Richt last night:

“It’s going good,” Richt said. “We’re installing the defense, mostly, with the coaches and our coordinator is making sure the coaches understand, and we’re feeding it little by little to the players.”

Grantham, who was the Dallas Cowboys’ defensive line coach last season, appears to bring a new level of intensity to that unit, according to Richt. If so, it’s possible that Grantham would fit the same mold as Brian VanGorder, who once was the Bulldogs’ defensive coordinator and currently holds that same position with the Atlanta Falcons.

“We like a lot of things about (Grantham),” Richt said. “He’s a great communicator and has got some presence about him that I think the guys will respect and enjoy.”

Friday morning buffet

There’s always something worth nibbling on…

• Dez Bryant has a future in politics:  “I lied, which everybody knows that I lied, but I also did tell the truth…” And I’m sure signing with Eugene Parker was a mere coincidence, Dez.
• Here’s a study that indicates it’s easier to motivate favorites than it is to motivate underdogs.  That sort of undercuts everything we’ve been led to believe about Georgia in the Richt era.
• I think it’s fair to say that Corch Meyers and Stan Drayton have a complicated relationship.
• If you didn’t catch Marc Weiszer’s tribute to Mark Richt’s fiftieth birthday, it’s worth a click.
• It’s a good thing Josh Nesbitt doesn’t need the practice time to work on his passing game.
• Financially speaking, the state of California is dysfunctional.  UC Berkeley is even more dysfunctional.  But the football stadium is about to get a $320 million upgrade – paid for with borrowed money.
• The playoff expansion quote of the day comes from University of Tennessee at Chattanooga basketball coach John Shulman:  “The peewees aren’t complaining about it. The mids aren’t complaining about it. The people who are complaining are from the Big East, the SEC and the ACC. Those people who come in ninth in their league and are on the bubble and don’t get in are mad. We’re not on the bubble. We’re either in or out.”
• It’s easy to forget how young Richard Samuel is.  How young? “That’s younger than two of Georgia’s incoming freshmen signees, including linebacker Demetre Baker. Samuel was born in the same year as 11 other members of the Bulldogs’ 2010 recruiting class.”

Damn. Just, damn.

I couldn’t bring myself to post yesterday on the tragedy that is Rajaan Bennett’s senseless death because I felt inadequate in being able to express something meaningful about the random perversity of human nature, particularly in the context of a situation where I have no personal knowledge of the family or Bennett himself.  A day later, that feeling hasn’t changed, so I’ll simply leave it for you to listen to Coach Johnson talk about the loss, if you haven’t heard him already.