For a guy who’s on record as seeing Georgia as only the ninth best team in the SEC early in the preseason, CFN‘s Brian Harbach makes a pretty decent case for optimism in Athens.
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“We remember the Sugar Bowl, I think it my junior year of high school, we let Alabama beat us twice,” Brinson said of a team that also lost to the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship game. “We’re not letting Alabama beat us twice. In the Sugar Bowl in 2018, they… thought they should have been in the playoffs and lost to Texas.” -- AB-H, 12/27/23
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Get The Picture · Bloviation for the Dawgnation
Get The Picture 
Do you think he might have received just a little heat for what he wrote last week? Yeah, he did.
Now why do I feel if indeed his original article was correct, we are going to get one of those, “back in February I wrote this article……, or on his second article, he will write one of these, “back in February I wrote this article…
Talk about covering you rear.
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This guy clearly didn’t watch our defense last year and is a little hard on our offense. He also seems not to have heard of big bad John.
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Lets be careful about doling out nicknames before the season please.
e.g. The Hitman
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The nice thing about “Big Bad John” as a nickname is that regardless of how the season plays out, it will be accurate; he’s definitely big, and hopefully will be bad in the good way, but the name will work the other way as well.
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I didn’t coin it. DawgSports has been all over that one for a week.
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CFN has been overly-optimistic about the Dawgs in the past and hasn’t shown themselves to be very good prognisticators about alot of college football related items. So it surprises me a little that anyone would really care about their thoughts on UGA.
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Exactly.
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There’s plenty of cause for optimism and pessimism. It just depends on which you wish to focus. This is going to be a long off-season.
Also, Brian Harbach desperately needs an editor.
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So….it all goes back to the absurd number one ranking in 08.
Is there any rational Dawg fan who thought we were the best team in the country?
Clearly, Georgia is suffering from “We overrated you, we’ll never trust you again syndrome” Auburn went through the same process…and it cost them in o4.
The pundits blabbered about Howarye, made them out to be way better than they actually were….when we eviscerated them in the Sugar Bowl, we had to be a great, undiscovered, team…right?
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Coming into the season, yes Georgia looked as good as anyone else. Nobody expected the defense to take such a dramatic step back, and the offense returned most of its important pieces. As it turned out, it was a very good team who had to deal with Alabama and Florida defenses who had greatly improved. The Tech game is what made it a hugely disappointing season instead of a mildly disappointing one.
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+ !.
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There is an element of rose colored glasses to what you say, brother. The 2008 Defense really wasn’t very good. UGA was winning shootouts 42-38. The good Defense in 2007 was really a holdover from earlier teams and it got worse as players worked their way out of the system and were replaced with “Willieized” newcomers. Yes, Alabama and Florida had improved but the Defense finally got to the point that the Offense just couldn’t carry it against a really good team. The Offense got put in the position of having to play catch-up and broke down with turnovers in the Florida game. That same thing happened in the first half of the Alabama game but to their credit the entire team made a comeback in the second half to make the final score respectable. It was the fault of the UGA Defense falling apart, not Alabama and Florida becoming so much better.
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Well, the thing that team had (that no UGA team has had in a LOOOONG time) is star-power. We had Moreno & Stafford. They were legit stars and players the the media, rightfully, loved.
The interesting thing to me is that Bama did almost the exact thing thing this year:
-Undisputed #1 to start the year
-Tons of star power
-Lost to an unexpected up-and- comer in the league (a team that was better than expected)
-Lost to a Division Rival
-Lost to their in-state rival at home after having a huge lead
-Went 10-3 and won the Capital One Bowl…over Michigan St.
The difference? Their defense simply wouldn’t allow them to get boat-raced by 2 teams that season.
But 10-3 is 10-3. Looking back, that season was so frustrating and probably set us back a little. There were clear signs that year that the defensive coaches were inept. But nobody fires guys after 10-3 because nobody wants to come work for a guy who just fired guys for going 11-2 and 10-3. It was a very tough spot for CMR. He did what he had to do after ’09. If we can get back to some respectable level of defensive play, we’ll see this program take off again.
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This dude picked Tennessee to win the East about two weeks ago. I could understand picking South Carolina, but Tennessee? November always clouds the mind when it comes to the Vols. People forget that they play the four easiest teams on their schedule in November and think they have improved as the season wore on. They didn’t. Tyler Bray is good-ish, but they are still reeling from Kiffin’s monumental screwups… and, they play LSU, Arkansas, and Alabama from the West. Good luck with that choice.
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Agree, I am mystified about the UT love flowing from many quarters. Are Rivals Radio’s homer hosts that influential in influencing thinking? If so, perhaps the F’Bomb Show will have to change it’;s opening where Paaauuuulll is declared to be the most influential radio personality in the SE.
Did anyone not see how we annihilated that team with our wimpy defense and an OL that couldn’t block ULL or UCF talent? TN might be able to compete most weekends, and will likely upset someone, but 8-4 would be a heckuva accomplishment and 7-5 looks possible. Bray was certainly better than Sims, but had his success against weaker competition. Who knows how he will perform against top flight talent? I wouldn’t say in February that it is impossible for them to win the East but they look more like a 3rd or 4th best team in the division at this point.
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Let’s not completely discount the injury situation on the 2008 team. That squad, particularly the defense, got ripped by injuries throughout the year. That’s what earned Willie M another year, in my opinion, which led to a craptastic D in 2009.
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Didn’t we lose JOwens on literally the 2nd or 3rd play of the season?
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We lost J Owens when Athens opened a McDonalds too close to his house.
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Irishdawg gets the kewpie doll.
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Hey guys, a couple things…heat from fans for putting UGA 9th was not the reason for the blog. I still think today that is a fair ranking despite the disagreement because there is equal optimism and pessimism for the 2011 Dawgs.
The more I looked around after the ranking blog the more negativity towards UGA I saw from fans and media…I wanted to try and explain why there is optimism in Athens and why there should be. And to the guy saying I need an editor…I wish I had one 🙂
Have a great week
Brian Harbach
CFN
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+1. Class.
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Without its best offensive player (Green) and its best two defensive players (Houston and Dent), Georgia still appears to be in better shape than Vanderbilt.
Ole Miss and Kentucky are having similar struggles and Tennessee got its act together in the second half of the season. So anywhere from 9th to 11th for Ole Miss, Kentucky, and Georgia is accurate.
Georgia has pulled good recruting classes in the past but did not coach or discipline them well.
I see nothing different this year.
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UT went 4-2 over the second half of the 2010 regular season. The Vols lost by 31 to ‘Bama and 14 to South Carolina. The wins came against a powerhouse slate of Memphis, Mississippi, Kentucky and Vanderbilt.
If that was Georgia’s resume, would you be as impressed?
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And lost their bowl game to N Carolina.
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Er…Senator, that basically was Georgia’s resume in ’10, too. The second half UGA beat UT, Vandy, UK, Idaho State and Tech, all teams with a losing record. And lost a bowl to a C-USA team. And “no” I am no impressed–with either.
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I know. I was waiting for somebody to catch that.
The difference is Georgia beat the crap out of UT when they played each other.
Bottom line – I don’t get how somebody can be more confident about the Vols’ chances this season than Georgia’s, based on both schools’ 2010 bodies of work.
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True.
Tennessee and Georgia have had very similar records the past two seasons. Each team had a one-sided win against the other.
However, the biggest difference is that Tennessee did it despite two head coaching changes and the defection of nearly an entire recruiting class.
Looking forward, both teams will be playing the 2011 season with most of a recruiting class missing (with Georgia, it is the 2008 recruiting class). Looking at the resiliency of the programs, the ability to coach up talent, and the respective schedules, I expect Tennessee to recover faster than Georgia and compete for the division as early as 2011.
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A recruiting class? For Tennessee, it’s more like the better part of three.
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What amazes me is that UT keeps beating UK when UK at times has had better personnel. UT should, by all rights, be fighting with Vanderbilt to stay out of the SEC East cellar. (I still hold a grudge against UK for not beating UT in 2007 which would have sent UGA to the SECCG and probably the BCSNCG.)
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I just looked at UT’s 2011 schedule again and I don’t see anything better than a 6-6 regular season out of them–and that is with a win on the road against UK and also a win in KnoxVegas against Cincinnati (which appears to have come back to earth since ’09).
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Yes, it appears Samford Hall and Brian were smoking from the same pipe, and it is a potent variety. Not even one of my TN friends think they are anywhere close to being a contender. And why would they? For all the ink about problems in Athens, has anyone seen the stumbling, bumbling mess that has been UT’s program the past 5 years? Remember when they laughed about the 20 years between UGA’s SEC titles? They are over twelve years and counting; plus going into 2011 they are further away than they have ever been.
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Let’s look at the records the last two years:
Stumbling, Bumbling Mess: 6-7, 7-6.
Georgia: 6-7, 8-5.
Clearly, Georgia is much better.
In 2011, Tennessee has eight home games, and the out of conference schedule is against Montana, Buffalo, Cincinnati, and Middle Tennessee. They, like Georgia, play all the crappy SEC East teams and has South Carolina at home.
Tennessee is only three seasons removed from a division championship and has dominated Georgia at home.
That is seven games where they will be the clear favorite.
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Clearly Georgia is better. They tied UT for that Divisional crown you awarded them (and that was with 3 consecutive Hail Marys against SC, Vandy, and KY). Where are their 2 SEC titles in the last ten years? Or their 6 Top 10 finsishes? And how their own hand talent is how good? Yeah, their program is moving right along. I think I will take our hand and play it against their’s every year.
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