I swear, it’s almost getting surreal with Georgia’s defense. Jim Cheney admits he was befuddled in the Vols’ last game.
“I don’t know, I sense frustration in everybody, including myself,” Chaney said. “I had a hard time as a playcaller finding any rhythm in that game. Long fields early, the second half didn’t start the way we wanted, it was a difficult time. It doesn’t surprise me that some of our young players lost a little composure, as I did too at times. It was a tough deal. We move on from it, we learn from it.”
And Tennessee’s offensive line coach gets surly.
“You guys [the media] are beautiful, I tell you what,” Hiestand said.
I double-checked the schedule to make sure: Tennessee played Georgia last Saturday. Not LSU. Not Alabama.
God help me, I’m starting to feel positively giddy. Somebody needs to talk me down before I do something stupid.
Get The Picture 
I feel you, Senator. It’s nice, even if our balloon is waiting to get popped.
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How do you think that will happen, Xon? Any particular team in mind? It doesn’t mean they go that way, but believe that we can beat our SEC opponents. What disturbs you about FU and Aub? We should win the other two.
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What disturbes me about FU? The last 20 years.
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/sadly nods in agreement
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That, and Brantley did look decent against a Bama D that shut Tyler Wilson down, prior to his injury. And he and Fat Charlie might have 2 full weeks of practice/gameplanning for our D.
I want to be confident, but I also remember 2002 and last year…
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Cast away all offensive fetishes ye peoples, and embrace the defense of the principle that defense wins championships!
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Senator,
Break out the tape of the ’09 Florida game. That should help.
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’09? That’s Willie and the Poor Boys.
All watching that’s gonna do is reinforce my buzz.
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Yes sir, that’s the outcome I was hoping for.
I watched that season’s games a couple of weeks ago. The lack of basic defensive fundamentals on display was shocking.
After viewing those games and comparing them to this years games, I came away wondering how we ever got to that place.
Are we going to win a NC this year? No. Are we going to win the SEC? Highly improbable. However, I do believe we will look forward to 2012 with great anticipation and the feeling that UGA is definitely back in the hunt.
Now, if you still have any doubts, I have two words for you…….Jonathon Crompton. 310 yards. 4 touchdowns. You will need more than corn liquor and valium to get through that one. While watching the replay, I was sitting on the edge of my chair, eyes glazed over and a razor blade on my wrist when the little woman reminded it was 2 years ago.
Yes sir, we have come a long way from that nightmare.
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How many years have we as Georgia fans NOT looked forward to “next year” with great anticipation and optimism? As much as we like to make fun of the Cocksian Philosophy of “You got us this time, but wait til next year…..” we are often guilty of same.
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I said it earlier this week but this D is going to be fun to watch considering the teams/offenses left on the schedule. They will not know how to gameplan against Grantham.
Florida with Weis and Auburn with Malzahn will be especially interesting. Watch this defense hold Malzahns offense down and set some sort of record that’s never been accunplugged with a Malzahn coached offense.
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accomplished (spell check?)
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Let’s reserve said “giddiness” till after the Florida game.
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thank you!
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Stop it. You are contributing to the delinquency of a dreamer.
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Two words should be a sufficient buzz killer. Florida Gators.
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Exactly….I like all this BUT….I need to see how we fare in J’ville and against Auburn/Tech before I can begin to take this jaded cloak off. I feel like I’ve been burned too many times lately.
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Tech’s a “for fun” game. The other two are for last year. There’s enough hostility towards Aub to get us through and extracting the horseshoe from FU’s ass should be done with much fanfare. Where’s the worry?
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+1 for Auburn hostility. I know a booster who’s offered to sponsor 3 stretchers, in the hope that we’ll need all 3 to carry different pieces of Barrett Trotter.
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Let me be one to double that offer. We need to practice the week before with dummies wearing a Fairley jersey. Aaron needs a “F” Fairley play designed to hurt their D line whenever he choses.
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There’s another fund for your donation: a couple donors are collecting a large “tithe” for Richt’s preacher, on the condition that every November sermon comes from the Old Testament. They want wrath to be righteous by the time Aubie walks/flies into town.
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can’t we just start that now?
How about a nice one about the promised land and walking with those that believed that we could go in and seize the land from current owners.
“We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
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Yahweh be praised.! Amen.
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Easy there, big fella. That defense you’re diggin still laid an egg against the only real offense we’ve seen this season (before retorting, see paragraph 3!).
Our D held UT to 270 total yards (290 passing, -20 rushing). Florida’s the only other SEC team UT’s played, and their D held UT to 279 total yards (288 passing, -9 rushing) — and generated 2 turnovers.
Sure, UF’s D was disemboweled by Bama & LSU, but they’d say the same thing we claim about the Boise game: when the offense goes 3-n-out every drive and makes critical mistakes, the defense breaks. (Full disclosure: I have thoroughly enjoyed watching aforementioned disemboweling.)
In short, if you’re excited about our D, you’d wouldn’t be beyond reason to get excited about UF’s as well. We’re going to need both sides of the ball to win in Jax.
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I think the comparison of Georgia’s and Florida’s defenses is a fair one. But is it one people were prepared to make after Week 2 of the season? Or, for that matter, before the season started?
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And I ask you, Sir, is there ANY comparison to Will Muschamp, defensive genius?
For the record, though, I see and concur with your point. Giddiness, however, will only ensue when I’m swilling bourbon after a Jacksonville victory and then convince some UF Tri-Delts that beer pong is more fun with tequila in the cups …
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I don’t know that I feel comfortable saying that the defense “laid an egg” against Boise State. The Georgia offense really screwed the defense over in that game. The coaches didn’t have some of the super freshmen ready to go when Tree went down, I guess, and that big tight end got on track in the second half. But the first half, Georgia’s defense was largely in control. And they might have stayed that way, too, if Georgia could have sustained anything resembling a drive in that game. Stupid uniforms…
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The Boise game was lost in the last 2 minutes of the first half and the beginning of the second half when Boise pulled that “score at the end of the second quarter-get the second half kickoff and score” bullsh!t to jump out to a big lead. There is a reason why you defer until the second half when you win the toss and it was shown right there.
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While I agree in “Approach with Caution” with FU, our O is capable of planting one on their D, hopefully with last yrs game in mind. FU was lucky to tie and win the game in ot in the same manner that SC did, with O help. I thought before last year that we were capable of beating them and moreso at the beginning of this year. And I was one who cautioned this summer that Weis would make Brantley comfortable as a pocket passer. The loss of Janoris in the summer is what kicked me over the hump to “We can beat these guys!” attitude.
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Feel giddy after we beat someone that will finish with a winning record.
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Senator, I usually find myself in agreement with your Dawgish ideas and statements. But you just left me in the dust with this giddiness business. I’m not anywhere near giddy. I’ve only just recently allowed myself to approach cautious optimism. If they win the next two games, I’ll be happy. But I can’t see me being giddy anytime soon unless they stomp Florida into a little greasy spot. Needless to say, I’m not counting on that.
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Don’t confuse my feelings about the defense with your feelings about the team’s overall fortunes. 😉
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You sound like one of those compartmentalizers. I’m not very good at that… 🙂
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Let’s beat Vandy first, shall we? And continue to show improvement doing it, without furhter banging-up Isiah, Aaron, Boykin, etc.
(But can’t resist looking ahead just a bit…!) Our D is stopping everything between the tackles. Fat Charlie is going to go right after our weakest areas in the most simple manner…Demps and Rainey to the outside with speed, mis-direction/counters in the middle to keep the ILB’s honest, and a lot of short-yardage tosses to guys in space. Grantham’s probably OK with this as long as his troops are forcing a lot of 3rd down conversion attempts when we can apply pressure. It’s going to be a real chess match between the two coordinators.
Jax will be the time for Mr. Murray’s “redemption”. He can’t come out over-hyped, needs to be patient and let Isiah carry the load early, then start being ruthless in connecting with receivers. Bobo’s going to have him chuck those bombs…I’m not sure that’s the way to get to the gators. I hope we grind-out long sustained and patient drives, good mix of plays (that work!) and just control the scoreboard…classic Richt style game plan. If we win 20 – 17 by holding on to dear life at the end, I’ll damn well take it.
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At the same time, we should bomb the hell out of them because our speedsters can get by their D better than they can with our D. There are more then two fast cats on that field that, if FU doesn’t take them as seriously as Demps and Rainey, will burn their tents down and take some women hostages.
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Gravidy.. I feel ya, bro.
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eek one out in Nashville and tell me how you feel…
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Perhaps our D will look at Vandy as having an FU tatooed between their eyes. Tennessee’s still trying to figure out what happened. Leads me to believe that many won’t see this team coming because their radar is down. Should be able to keep it a mystery through the FU game. Don’t you think our O is as capable as Bama and LSU? We don’t have to jump pass on them, but I expect two timeouts in the last minute after the game is in hand. I ain’t gon’ never forget!
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If we’re talking about 7-0, I’m fine. If it’s a 35-34 shootout, I’ll have to reevaluate my feelings. 😉
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Florida’s got an interesting game on Saturday against Auburn. Auburn’s defense ain’t so great (see, e.g., fan comments that the offense was the problem after Arkasas went yard again and again on ’em), but Florida will have its second-best true freshman QB starting. Let’s see what Demps and Rainey can do against a non-NFL defense without a passing game to help ’em. A loss on Saturday puts Florida pretty much out of SEC contention, so they should show up prepared.
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“lost a little composure, as I did too at times”
Barbara Dooley is fixing to lay an Irvin Rommel quote on Derek’s offensive coordinator, something along the lines of, “in the absence of orders, go find something and kill it”
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If all the TN woe and misery was administerd by UGA, then I’d be giddy, too. But then I remembered the Volunteer Marching Band was the main culprit for Rocky Top’s demise last week.
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Let’s not forget that while the D comparisons of UGA and FU against FU are similar, one big factor to consider is that UT was playing in the Swamp and we played UT in Neyland.
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Sorry, “…comparisons of UGA and FU against UT are similar”…
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