I don’t think it’s any big secret that I find preseason polls to be a complete waste. That goes doubly for pre-preseason polls, like this one from ESPN’s “College Football Live”.
Still, if that either reflects or shapes public opinion on how the early season rankings go, it’s evidence that if you’re Mark Richt and your goal is to make your team nationally relevant again, it’s hard to come up with a better schedule than Georgia’s 2011 one. Richt’s team comes out of the gate facing the number five and number eight (yeah, South Carolina at eight is a major stretch) teams on that list and play both without leaving the state. Win those two and the Dawgs should find themselves sitting top twelve or so nationally. The next part of the schedule is manageable, leading into a bye week before the Cocktail Party. After that, it’s three straight home games and the finale at Tech.
In short, it’s a national championship schedule. The question is whether the team can live up to the schedule.
Get The Picture 
1980 redux??
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sshhh
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Whoa.
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I said it back in 2008, 2011 looks like our chance to run. Admittedly, I also though 2010 looked pretty sweet, too…..
Maybe we should start a fund to send a steady supply of hookers and blow Stephen Garcia’s way, week 2 looms large.
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I’d say we should send some pre-game joints to florida while we’re at it. But it seems they already have an ample supply.
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Yeah, while we’re sending weed to Gainesville, let’s also send some sand to the beach. Or some hookers to Vegas.
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You’ve got to think we’ll be better at stopping Carolina’s run game this year.
I remember reading that the entire offseason after Knowshon ran for 180 against Florida, the Florida players heard about it EVERY DAY.
I wonder if JT2 has mentioned what Lattimore did to our defense last season.
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JG, you really play cards with that Doyle?
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No but my brother JD does. I done told you, the law’s on my side.
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It’s not hard to see why we have such near suicidal reactions to 3 and 6 point losses, we talk ourselves into a team that finished with a losing record the year before having a “national championship schedule” the next year. We all tend to get a little too high on good news/wins and too low on bad news/losses, the truth is usually in the middle.
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I didn’t offer this as a prediction of Georgia’s season. I’m merely observing that it’s a very friendly schedule.
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All the more reason that if we dont do something significant this year – we can debate how that is defined – then the current staff is done.
McGarity has eliminated most every variable that can be controlled except for one – the coaches. I like his style
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Auburn 2009: 8-5
Auburn 2010: 14-0
It happens sometimes, we just want to be ready when it does!
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Cantucky was very close to beating Auburn last year…….
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As were South Carolina and Clemson.
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And Missy State
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yeah, but auburn won
just like we were close to beating teams, but didn’t
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I remember thinking before last season that AU’s schedule was primed for a championship run as well. Not many folks gave them a shot last year. It can happen. I’m cautiously optimistic.
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Correction / amplification:
Auburn 2010: 14 – 0 (-$200,000+)
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Ok, so who’s our Cam Newton? Without him, they are 9-4 at best.
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Crowell.
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It sounds like the pollsters at College Football Live are also not buying into any thought that Garcia won’t be playing against UGA.
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History is our teacher.
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I hope Richt considers going for it on 4th and short this year.
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I hope the offensive line is able to pick up those 3rd and 1 opportunities.
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I hope our defense can stop someone late in the 4th quarter this year.
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I hope our OC doesn’t call slow developing pass plays that require a RB to block a DE when the game is on the line.
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Like this one?
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Eh last year was an easy schedule too, after the last few years i’ve stopped expecting much from Georgia. i don’t think we’ll be relevant again until 2014 at the earliest. one year for richt to get fired then at least another for the new guy to get his feet wet in a best case scenario. i hope uga makes me eat crow because i really want to see richt succeed but i just don’t see it happening
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We’ve got a national championship schedule, but we don’t have a national championship team. I don’t believe that we’ve got receivers who are going to step up. We’ve got a team that can win a lot of games, but beyond that… we’ll see.
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I had a dream last night that we were getting beat by some podunk school coached by Grantham (and some heavyset offensive coordinator). You see Grantham had left UGA and..and…
I spend way too much time on this blog.
One concern I have (WAY down on the list mind you) would be that UGA has too far to climb from the preseason polls and gets jacked. But you know, lets start with Boise State first…
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That’s not possible. 😉
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Win those first two, we are at least ranked in the top 15. Auburn started out last year at #22/#23. If (IF) we win every game, we can make that climb.
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The best possible scenario is repeating what bama did in 2008. The auburn comparison is flawed because we have no cam newton. There are still a lot of questions about this team but if they are playing well there isn’t anyone on the schedule that is insurrmountable. Playing the west champ would be the toughest game if we were fortunate enough to get there.
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It’s all about the run game, really on both sides of the ball. TK is every bit as good as Darvin Adams. Adams was wide open most of the time because of the play action. If we can do the same w/ Crowell and Ealey, we’ll succeed.
And we have to stop the run. Last year’s schedule was NOT that easy. It looked it on the outside, but it was a strange year in the conference. We played the best team in the East on the road (Fake USC). We played 2 Western teams that we thought would be weak (Arky & Miss St.) but ended up as much better than any team in the East…and we played the wrong one on the road. If we’d have played Arky on the road and Miss. St. in Athens, we probably beat Miss. St. We had to travel a billion miles to play Colorado while we were reeling from the AJ hangover. Oh yeah…AJ!!!!! And we had to play the best team in the nation in their house.
This year, the best teams on our schedule are Boise St., South Carolina, Miss St., Tennessee, Florida, Auburn, and Tech. 5 of 7 we play in the state of Georgia. Only one of those 7 will feel like a true road game in Knoxville as half of Bobby Dodd will be red. We’ve got a shot.
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I’m not disagreeing, agreeing or passing judgement but I think this type of post deserves a “hyperbole” or “potential for hyperbole” tag.
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I love Mark Richt and I love our Dawgs. I want them both to be successful. I want desperately to believe we can have a nine win or better season. But the fact of the matter is we have reached the point where nothing matters but the W’s. It doesn’t matter how fantastic our recruiting class is. It makes no difference how tough our S&C program is. Who cares how big our guys look? We have to win. Period. For Richt, his job is literally on the line. There will be no moral victories. Improvement, even significant improvement will mean precisely nothing without wins. Though I come here everyday, it borders on pointless to even talk about this or anything else for that matter. It has to happen on the field. We can do nothing but wait. I hate it. I sure wish Michael Adams had gotten the NCAA job. At least then we could entertain ourselves with that train wreck while we wait for the season to start.
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Who said it wasn’t about wins?
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Hope we don’t meet UCF in a bowl game.
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Me too. If we do that will mean that we had another bad season.
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