Uh oh, Grantham got called into the principal’s office.
Georgia Athletic Director Greg McGarity has already met with defensive coordinator Todd Grantham regarding the postgame confrontation with Vanderbilt head coach James Franklin on Saturday and the Southeastern Conference is in the process of reviewing the incident.
McGarity, who was in Nashville on Saturday, said he discussed the situation with Georgia head coach Mark Richt by telephone on Sunday, then met with Grantham face-to-face in his office at Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall early Monday morning. Meanwhile, both Georgia and Vanderbilt have been asked by SEC Commissioner Mike Slive to submit written reports to the league office for review.
Yeah! Two grown men making asses out of themselves in public. That’s the kind of crisis Mike Slive can sink his teeth into!
By the way, Grantham is very, very sorry.
… Grantham told the AJC Monday morning he regretted his actions after Saturday’s game.
“First of all, I love my players and appreciate their hard work and investment in our program,” Grantham said. “I feel a responsibility and loyalty to protect and stand up for them. However, I feel it’s important to educate them in all areas of life. While my intentions were genuine, I feel it was unfortunate that things escalated to a confrontation. However, I’ll use it as a learning experience for my self as well as my players so that we all become better men.”
I’m sure he’ll get right on that after he finishes ripping his players a new one over the second-half run defense play.
***************************************************************************************
UPDATE: If Mike Slive really wants to channel his inner Miss Manners, here’s something else he can put on his to-do list.
Get The Picture 
I think if we had gotten a camera angle that showed Franklin, Grantham wouldn’t seem to be the sole focus of this discussion.
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Franklin’s face, I mean.
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God love Grantham.
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Keep this guy around, CMR-Please
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At this point, Richt has too much riding on defensive performance to weather the storm that would most likely come with having to get a new D coordinator. Year 3 in this system should see another jump in production.
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Slive is doing everything he can to get on my most hated list. First the Cam thing, then diluting the SEC’s brand by letting in those yahoos from A&M, now this. He sucks.
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He’s Michael Adams if Adams was a SEC commish.
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Anyone catch the SEC TV ad about sportsmanship before the fight?
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I think his apology is appropriate. Let’s move on.
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+1
If this were a coach at UF or AU, then our fans would be irate that they behaved this way. It reminds me of idiotic parents at my son’s t-ball games getting upset. That being said, I can understand getting caught up in your emotions when someone is going after your players. The apology was necessary and to the point. Let’s move on.
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Unfortunately, this is the SEC and it will probably continue to be dragged out. I’ve already seen the beginnings of the Grantham vs. Muschamp anger management theme that I’m sure we’ll hear plenty more of in the next two weeks. Goody.
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I’m not so sure that “I feel it was unfortunate that things escalated to a confrontation” (or anything else in the quote) qualifies as an apology. (Sure doesn’t in our family.) It’s apology-like enough to satisfy some people, but strictly construed, Grantham is only saying that he hates that the event happened, without acknowledging any fault. And if memory serves, this is about what we got from him in the wake of the choking gesture last year. Either Grantham is a master at crafting PR-type statements that acknowledge regret-sans-culpability, or he’s getting some help from within Butts-Mehre. I don’t know which of those scenarios fascinates me more.
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I’m sure no statements on sensitive matters like this are made without vetting by PR and approval by McGarity. Maybe even legal.
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I think so, too. But that means that from within the same AA, you have quotes from McGarity and Grantham willing to acknowledge differing levels of culpability. I could envision a scenario in which Grantham refused to apologize, and so the closest thing to an apology was produced in order to harmonize with McGarity’s position.
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All you will ever get out of the Thinking Bulldog is an expression of regret that an event happening without acknowledging any fault. I can tell you that. “I deeply regret that I totaled your Lexus.”
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…hit send too soon. “I deeply regret that your Lexus was totaled in this accident.”
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Heh heh.
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Sort of the same thing with Franklin and his mumbo jumbo. He didn’t apologize either. However, Vandy’s AD hasn’t said anything about this incident.
It’s becoming a bunch of drama (media, Slive, etc.) queen BS if you ask me
I’ll have another beer and let’s kick some Florida ass
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“However, Vandy’s AD hasn’t said anything about this incident.”
One possibility for that is that Vandy’s AD is just like our Special Teams coach: non-existent
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Yeah, let’s get Slive to be all over some other team’s head coach coming onto the field after a game and pointing to a player, singling him out in a threatening way, and then oh by the way, Todd Grantham steps in to take up for that kid. Pretty misguided, if you ask me.
I guarantee you we’d be catching heat if Richt had run out there yelling and pointing at a Vandy player then getting in the face of Vandy’s D-coordinator about some issues he had with that player.
I don’t mean to sound paranoid, or that the world is out to get us…but how does Georgia always manage to get the bad end of it all?
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I don’t mind them getting on Grantham (as much as I liked what he did there) for the exchange, but Franklin needs to be dealt with in an equitable fashion.
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This. I have no problem with him requiring an apology from CTG, he did act like a child. BUT, I don’t think he would have ever raised his voice or said boo if Franklin had not instigated the whole thing by dressing down a UGA player…not his job, and certainly not after a close, emotional finish. Franklin had players acting much worse, and more dangerously than any of the Georgia players. Does anyone think a retalitory punch thrown at a player wearing a helmet is more dangerous than a deliberate clip at someone’s knees? Evan an idiot like Slive should understand this.
Franklin should issue an immediate apology for his actions, which damn near incited a very ugly incident after the game. If he thinks CMR needs to know about a player who said inappropriate things near the Vandy sideline and I don’t doubt that, he should have called CMR on Tuesday and Richt could have made him run steps. What Franklin did was much, much worse. Slive is a real, real problem in this conference. He lack integrity, knowledge, and balls.
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After thinking about it, perhaps Slime really has no concept of how a Head Coach should behave. Let’s see, he didn’t go after Franklin, and nothing has yet been said about disciplining Boom MFer either. The guy really is clueless. What were his qualifications again? Oh yeah….now I remember. Now we can add incompetent commissioner to incompetent officials.
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My only qualm with the whole thing was Franklin making it out that he was just trying to find Coach Richt and that Grantham just lost his mind over words. You can see Franklin going straight after Williams and noticing Grantham on the way. I think I recall Grantham even had his hand out for a shake initially. Franklin opens his mouth and suddenly Grantham’s hand turns into a jabbing finger and anger exploded. You think he wasn’t already steamed and trying to act grown up initially? I mean, Vandy played DIRTY. The reason Kwame lost it was because he got chopped down from behind!!
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Maybe this thing can turn out positive if the right issues are brought up. First, the officiating by SEC refs in UGA games is one-sided. When Georgia players consistently get flagged for minor things yet the opponents do not get flagged for holding, clipping and personal fouls after awhile the Georgia players are going to get pissed off, and rightly so. that is probably where the Shawn Williams personal fouls probably came from in the first place. Second, Franklin was apparently upset with Williams and went after him verbally. That is inappropriate conduct for the head coach of an opposing team. If anybody needs to get into trouble it is Franklin. Third, as pointed out above Vanderbilt played dirty as now does almost every SEC team UGA faces because it has become common knowledge that the refs won’t flag you if you hold or commit almost any other foul against Georgia. Do something about THAT, Slive.
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I will say I think this year it’s been toned down. In several games we’ve done some things that were ticky tacky, but could be called, and weren’t. For example, Crowell jumping up and down after the TD at Tenn. We also had a player (can’t for the life of me remember who) who just about spiked the ball coming in the endzone on a TD. Both times I thought, Oh boy, here we go. Neither player got flagged. I’ll bet both would have been flagged in 2008.
Also, we’ve been smart most of the year. Even though the defense has been aggressive and has hit people, we’ve not had many dumb hits on the way out of bounds. That seemed to be a serious problem to me a few years ago.
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I think it’s less of a vendetta against Georgia, and more of the refs not looking for / missing this kind of stuff because it’s away from the ball. I’m not making excuses… But I don’t buy into the conspiracy theory (for lack of a better term) line of thinking about officials. I literally think this is a performance issue. Count me amongst those who think we need full time officials. We can afford that now.
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Refs hate us because CMR had our players storm the endzone against Florida in ’07.
It logically follows that all of our problems with refs could be alleviated, if McGarity would just do one simple thing:
Fire Mark Richt!!!1!!
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Like I said, it may be sarcasm, but it gets old.
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You know what else gets old?
Having Mark Richt as our head ball coach!
Fire Mark Richt!!!!!1!
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lol
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You are a pathetic excuse for a fan, but you are appropriately named. Only thing worse than a fan like you is a whole group of them posting on a message board which made UGA fans a laughingstock the past few years. Can’t believe I ever paid to be a part of a group like that. It began as a small group of fools, but attracted the real whackos and soon it was really queer over there. Ran the real dawg fans away. Guess you are back from protesting on Wall Street with your other group. Same mentality.
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I think he’s kidding. He’s making fun of the Vent mentality.
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Feel bad for Steve Patterson, seems like a good guy who has worked hard to make that site work. The dummies dragged him down, sometimes you can be too tolerant in allowing all opinions. Ruined his brand by taking advantage of him.
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Slive, who hasn’t had this much fun since Lane left the league, tells his secretary to get ready for some overtime and take a memo to McGarity telling him to submit a written report on why Todd did a bad, bad thing and a memo to Jeremy congratulating him on Will’s sideline demeanor and gender identity advice to the SEC officiating crews
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lol… 😆 got me laughing. I remember seeing that movie. It was strange, no doubt.
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Slive needs to spend his time worrying about why the SEC now has an odd number of teams, not this.
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Watch this incedent get blown out of proportion. Slive going to try a make a mountain out of a molehill
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oops… incident
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How funny, the two last remaining “friendly” rivalries are no more. Auburn got nasty last year and now Vandy is trying on big boy pants.
Good. I hope this fires up the troops in a way that would make Trooper Taylor cry.
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Does Trooper get in trouble for doing the Gatoe chomp on the sideline Saturday night?
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Now there’s a guy who needs some disciplining. I guess the moral of the story is you can taunt but can’t yell if you do it.
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I’m opening myself up to a bashing here, but after a couple days giving it some intermittent thought, this is one ol’ Dawg fan who thinks Grantham overreacted. Should Franklin have directly castigated a Georgia player or, as Buck Belue suggests, cursed the entire team to Grantham? Of course not. Was Grantham entitled to defend said player and team generally? Of course he was. But there’s defending and there’s defending. A firm and simple “You’re way out of line, Coach. If you’ve got a beef with me, my team or my players, you bring that to me,” or “right back at you ____hole,” followed by a turn and walk away would serve the purpose. That there’s media attention and an SEC inquiry into the thing should surprise no one, especially Grantham, following last year’s “choke sign” inquiry. End result is a needless distraction leading up to the Cocktail Bowl. I certainly would prefer that every ounce of the DC’s attention was on correcting what ailed his charges on Saturday, and that’s less likely now.
All that said, the voyeur in me (or the part that enjoyed WWF many years ago) can hardly contain himself when imagining a similar confrontation between Muschamp and Grantham after the end of the next game. They could sell a whole extra set of tickets to that one!
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Even though Will is highly combustible, he’s too light. Fairness demands a post-game heavyweight sumo match between Charlie and Grantham
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Just trying to imagine that–especially the Weis in sumo garb part–leaves me teetering dangerously between hysterical laughter and plain old hysteria.
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The ring girl gets to ride on Charlie’s cooler
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We don’t know what Franklin said, or to whom. We also don’t know what Georgia’s players or coaches were saying. Grantham may have overreacted. He may have shown admirable restraint. We’ll likely never know. However, as the poster above noted, Franklin is probably lucky that you can only see the back of his head in all of these shots.
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Well, we had over 10 players that were looking at Franklin and they are witnesses to that.
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Yes, Grantham overreacted. And it was GLOOORIOUS.
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I have a feeling that as long as Franklin is Vandy’s head coach, we won’t be “overlooking” them any more. Next year’s bout with them should be fun.
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Hey Slaw Dawg and all you other apologists, would you like for me to pick you up a box of tampax? I freakin’ love Grantham and the intinsity. He was irritated at his D’s play and then this little pencil-neck pansy of a coach starts talking s*it? I’m suprprised he didn’t rip his head off and s*it down his throat. Good for Grantham and that little money grubbing hobbit, Slive, can suck it. After Saturday night, I;’n not too sure I’d want to get on Grantham’s bad side Slive!
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Yeah, but how do you really feel about it?
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SDDAWG, sure; we can exchange tampax and valium.
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This is totally an ad hominem attack in response to reasonable discourse from Slaw. Borderline AJC-ish.
Although +1 for the “money-grubbing hobbit” remark. I’ve never heard those words used in tandem.
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+1
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Honestly, I get a chuckle out of the whole thing, but nothing more. I don’t read much into it. Too much goes on between coaches & players that we don’t know about, so I’m not making any generalizations other than the fact that a camera caught Grantham dropping some f bombs. Whoop de do. People who want to focus on stuff like this are really more interested in PR and pointing fingers at programs than winning football games.
Grantham’s only important assessment comes from the performance of our defense. If he helps us stop the Gators, then he can run up and down north avenue in his boxers with his body painted red raving like a lunatic and I won’t care.
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I think that Grantham is cultivating hero-worship among his minions. They just set back, practice hard and let FU’s O know how they feel about Grantham. And Auburns game won’t show any slack in our D’s feelings with last year’s game memory still in mind.
Or he could Grand Tham on Muschamp.
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Huh?
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Muschamp needs to watch out before he becomes numero uno on Penn Wager’s shit list, here at Georgia we’d welcome the company.
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This is the SEC, and they’re UF. I’m not sure there’s much they could do to get on the bad side of the conference.
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I disagree; if Saint Mark Richt can, ANYONE can. And they are looking for a new scapegoat anyway.
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I don’t know if the SEC refs are “looking for a new scapegoat” or not but the way Mus-chump is acting the refs just might decide to give the Gators some of what the Dawgs have had to put up with the last few years.
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grantham=dgd
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At least this has nothing whatsoever to do with race.
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Shawn Williams is black, right? There you go.
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You mean Afro-American. Be careful you know making sure of avoiding potential danger, mishap, or harm; cautious.
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oops… i forgot to reply to him. While I’m thinking about it I’ve never understood the Afro-American connotation
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I love college athletics. It can create rules, paper work, and somebody will draw a paycheck over absolutley much about nothing.
But here is a word for Mike Slive, Vandy, and the SEC. You have to come to our state to recruit. Keep that in mind.
I say let it go. Move on with a letter of reprimand to the coaches. More than that then UGA needs to cease playing any games in Nashville least there is a future incident.
But if you want clean air. Put in a rule where there is no post game interaction with players and coaches.
Most alums I talk with are sick and tired of the SEC office and how they treat UGA. I’ll be honest I held back my contributions this year because I do not feel Adams or the AD ever sticks up for us. At least Todd Grantham does. His conduct may come into play, but it is no worse than what you see from other coaches raising hell with referees all the time. Names will go unmentioned.
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+1. The UGA Administration is in denial about the refs. I have a letter from McGarity where he denies that there have been one-sided calls in games to prove it.
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I have good friends that are alums of other schools and they too feel they get the short end of the stick. I’m reminded of a line from Smokey and the Bandit about perspective. Not saying that we don’t seem to get the raw deal from the refs from time to time. But our players also manage to commit fouls as well.
I watched one of our players talking s&$t with Vandy sideline, and one coach in particular, during the extended penalty discussion that involved Geathers. Some of the hand gestures were pretty blatant. It was a totally unacceptable display. I’m not perfect nor do I claim to be and since my high school days over 20 years ago I haven’t been in the “arena,” so to speak. No flag was thrown for this player’s actions but it would have been justified. I’ve never once been embarrassed to be a Dawg. But I was embarrassed for that player.
My point is that while you might feel we always get the raw deal, if you look closely you might find that over several games it evens out pretty well.
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Just curious. Is there a history between Franklin when he was the the Green Bay Packers staff and Todd Grantham when he was with the Bengals.
We all know why the Packers’ QB’s brother is at Vandy. It is because of Franklin’s days with the Packers. Otherwise why does a kid go across country to play in the SEC. Maybe Mike Slive and Vandy should investigate that.
UGA as far as I know has never had a post game situation like this, especially with Vandy, but not until James Larry Franklin shows up with his attitude to go after an opposing player on the field.
What right did he have to go after Williams. Apparently the officials had no trouble with his play. But then again Buck Belue did. Maybe a few people need to take a look at those chop blocks Vandy brought to the game.
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Seriously, what the hell was the back judge looking at in the FLA v AU game? At 1:01 in the tape, you can see the top of his hat and he is running toward the play as it is happening. Muschamp acts like a jack-ass on the sidelines, but he was clearly in the right on this one. These officials get by week in and week out perpetrating their utter incompetence with seemingly little or no consequences. The players and coaches work to hard and risk too much to have mouth breathers continually ruin games without any consequences. The league claims they receive tapes, review every game and that referees are corrected, yet we see the same ones out there week after week drooling on their whistles.
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c
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Grantham to Slive 10/17/11:
Son, we live in a conference that has national titles, and those national titles have to be guarded by men with balls.
Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Mike Slive? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom! You weep for Vanderbilt and you curse the bulldogs. You have that luxury. You don’t want truth, because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that DEFENSE! We use words like “junkyard”, “GATA.” We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as punchline! I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of cash SEC defenses provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said “Thank You,” and went on your way.
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Thank you Colonel Jesup
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I wish someone would order a code red on Slive…
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SEC football is just no place for potty mouth. That’s the kind of language you expect to hear from a bunch of drunken sailors on shore leave or at a Little League game. What a bunch of cotton-headed ninny-muggins!
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Could it be……..SATAN?!?!?!?
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lol
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Hate to think where the program would be this season if we didn’t have Grantham. He brings much needed fire to the team. Even if someone has an issue with his temper, he’s still our most competent assistant coach and has hired the most competent staff. Once in a while vandy gets their act together and gives us a little trouble. Big deal. In a few weeks only hardcore fans will remember the game. Take the W and get ready for Jax.
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Slive is all over CTG? F**k that!! The flies are all over Slive, POS that he is. McGarity and UGA better do the right thing and stand behind Grantham. He’s already apologized. Have we had an apology from Coach Douchebag (aka James Franklin) yet?
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Meanwhile, Emily Post needs to pay a visit just 45 miles down the road in Tuscaloosa: http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/10/alabama_football_coach_nick_sa_5.html
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HAHAHAHA
😆
Emily Post and her BS business etiquette, wedding etiquette, everyday etiquette, etc
CNS: “You all create so many problems”
CNS: “I could give a shit about all that, excuse my French.”
CNS: “I mean, come on. Let’s talk about the game. What year are we talking about when we’re not gonna play Tennessee – 2025? I’m just hoping I can still go to the lake then, still can walk around and go on a pontoon boat ride.”
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Hahahaha
😆
Emily Post and her BS business etiquette, wedding etiquette, everyday etiquette, etc.
CNS: “You all create so many problems”
CNS: “I could give a shit about all that, excuse my French”
CNS: “I mean, come on. Let’s talk about the game. What year are we talking about when we’re not gonna play Tennessee – 2025? I’m just hoping I can still go to the lake then, still can walk around and go on a pontoon boat ride.”
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oops… sorry for the double post. One more beer.
This Monday night football game is boring. The NY Jets are not very good. And all of the ESPN pundits thought Sanchez was better than Stafford.
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Yeah? Slive let Farley slide with slamming Murray all over the field. So if he does anything to UGA, Richt will go nuts.
Remember this:
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The comments from Franklin seem to indicate he purposely trapped Grantham to be upset. We just have to remember and remind ourselves to keep those Commodoormats where they belong every season. See them in Athens next year.
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Our luck CTG will be suspended for the Florida game.
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No way… the SEC will be serving ice tea or i should say ice cold beer in hell if that happens.
Seriously though if that happened something is seriously wrong.
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No doubt.
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Time to flash $live the choke sign over his $cam Newton coverup and the corrupt, unbalanced league he has created.
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Why does your first line conjure images of Miles, Saban, Chizik, Spurrier, and the rest sitting in desks, snickering behind their hands and whispering, “Busted!”
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My goodness. Muschamp looked like a young Bob Knight there. Well, except for the whole “coaching genius/multiple national titles” thing.
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I’m fixing to hit the sack and watch Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World on DVD. Love that movie seen it at least 5 times.
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Thank god we finally have a coach who gives a damn.
Grantham was totally fine in my opinion.
Franklin 100% wrong.
How’s that.
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