What’s a guy gotta do to get noticed around here?

If they were still running them, Shawn Williams would be a perfect candidate for one of those “Do you know me?” American Express ads.

Williams didn’t make the first-, second- or third-team preseason All-Southeastern Conference teams by either the coaches or media despite leading the Bulldogs last season with 72 tackles and finishing second with four interceptions.

Not exactly chopped liver, is it?  Hopefully, it’ll motivate him to have the kind of season that’ll make folks think of him as something other than the starting Georgia defensive back who wasn’t facing a suspension threat in the offseason.

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Gator bait: looking for the mojo

I’m sure I’ll be mocked by the usual suspects for raising this point again, but there’s just something different about the mindset of your new Florida Gators, ladies and gentlemen.  Safety Matt Elam tells you something here:

“We’re predators. We’re looking to knock heads off or making people scared to run across the middle or do a post or run a sideline and see us coming,” Elam said. “We want to be the rude nation. People come in and we want them to be like, ‘Oh gosh, we might have a long night in The Swamp.’ Just being rude and making people afraid of us.

Granted, I don’t follow every word uttered by the orange and blue.  But I don’t recall guys like Reggie Nelson talking like this.

When you’re wishing that you can make other teams fear you, what does that say about where your head is at now?

Jax is going to be mighty interesting this year.

“I hear about Champ Bailey a lot now.”

And if your hamstrings were more durable, you’d be hearing a lot more.

Bailey is widely viewed as Georgia’s most versatile player since the inception of two-platoon football, logging more than 1,000 plays on offense, defense and special teams during Georgia’s 8-3 regular season in ’98. The All-American tallied more than 100 plays in seven games and amassed 744 receiving yards, 52 tackles and three interceptions.

Mitchell won’t be getting 100 plays a game any time soon, but coach Mark Richt said he could be in for 60 plays during the first couple of games before getting to 70 or 80 when the weather cools. Richt said Saturday that Mitchell could be in the defensive and offensive game plans for the Sept.1 opener with Buffalo.

“That’s a lot of opportunity,” Mitchell said. “Some people don’t play 80 plays in two games, and I may get to do it in one? That’s a lot of opportunity and a lot of chances to make something happen.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ll be holding my breath all season, hoping he stays healthy.  Should the blow outs come, Mitchell should come out of the game and placed in bubble wrap even before Murray does.

An early contender for the meme of 2012

If David Andrews has a competent year at center for Georgia this season, expect to hear this line.  A lot.

“Everyone talks about size and stuff. I don’t want to go cliché, but it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog,” Andrews said.

We might as well go ahead and cue the Uncle Verne drinking game.

Was there life before Tebow?

If a Florida beat writer feeling the need to lecture people on the history of the Gator football program isn’t your classic pot-meet-kettle moment, I’m hard-pressed to think what else is.

I gotta admit this is priceless:

 There have been numerous others go on to play in the NFL, set records, even make a bigger name for himself for looking for a bride (Jesse Palmer in “The Bachelor”) than what he did on the field.

Go Gata!

Mark Bradley yearns for happier times.

Johnson has always come across as the smartest guy in the room, and through the 2008 season and most of 2009 he seemed the sharpest coach in this state.

Mark Bradley’s latest fellatio-fest of Paul Johnson may be his magnum opus.  And given the author and the subject, that is not meant as faint praise.

Even so, this is a pretty fun read:

On the morning of Nov. 28, 2009, Paul Johnson was poised to become the unchallenged king of football in a state that takes the sport seriously. He was 19-5 in two seasons as Georgia Tech’s coach. That night his Jackets would play Georgia, whom they’d famously beaten 45-42 in Athens the year before.

Tech was 10-1, ranked No. 7 nationally and champion of the ACC Coastal Division. Georgia was 6-5, having just lost at home to Kentucky. Not since George O’Leary was working against Jim Donnan had Tech beaten the Bulldogs twice in a row – Chan Gailey, O’Leary’s successor, hadn’t done it even once – and now Johnson was roundly favored to make it 2-for-2 against the hated Mutts.

But Georgia won. The Bulldogs pounded the Jackets on the ground, and Tech’s final chance was wasted when Demaryius Thomas dropped a fourth-down pass. For Tech and for Johnson, nothing since has been nearly as good.

From Johnson’s 19-5 start, Tech has gone 15-14. (The sweetest of those 15 on-the-field victories – the 2009 ACC championship game over Clemson – was vacated by NCAA sanctions involving Thomas’ eligibility.) Tech went 6-7 in 2010, 8-5 last season after starting 6-0. Tech hasn’t beaten Georgia since 2008 and hasn’t won a bowl game under Johnson.

If Tech has another same ol’ year, the good news for Bradley is that he can recycle this piece pretty easily.