Hate Week opening line

The online sports books have installed Georgia as a fourteen point favorite against Tech.

What do you think – too much, too little?

#1 with a bullet

After going the past three games without a pick, Aaron Murray now sports the top passer rating in college football.

Battle of the Titans

This week’s Kentucky-Tennessee game promises to be a doozy.

It’s just a shame they can’t figure out a way to let Auburn play the winner.  Or maybe the loser.

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UPDATE:  SOD gets the axe.

“We very much appreciate the effort and energy that Derek Dooley and his staff have poured into our football program at the University of Tennessee,” said Hart. “Derek and I met early this morning, and I informed him that I believed a change in leadership, despite the positive contributions he has made to the overall health of the program, was in the best long-term interests of Tennessee football. We will immediately begin the search for the best possible candidate to assume this leadership role.”

Dooley will not coach the Vols in the season finale against Kentucky on Saturday, Nov. 24 at 12:21 p.m. Offensive coordinator Jim Chaney will serve as interim head coach for Saturday’s game.

“I am sorry we could not generate enough wins to create hope for a brighter future,” said Dooley. “Although progress was not reflected in our record, I am proud of the strides we made to strengthen the foundation for future success in all areas of the program.

“During the last 34 months, I’ve given my all for Tennessee, and our family appreciates all this University and the Knoxville community has given us.”

He certainly leaves the program with a firmer foundation when it comes to personal hygene.

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When is a football conference not a football conference?

When it’s merely a content delivery system for an effing cable network that’s more interested in driving subscriber numbers than in winning football.  Truly pathetic, although I’m sure Delany will be lionized by his presidents if he pulls it off.

“Just so you know…”

We’ll always have the Hat.  He’s the anti-Saban.

Oh, and kiss ’em while you got ’em, ladies.

This week’s biggest challenge lies ahead for…

… the folks at StingTalk, who have to pivot from hoping that Georgia is looking past the Jackets to the SECCG – like that’s worked before – to savoring the possibility of ruining the Dawgs’ postseason chances.

It won’t be easy, but I think they’re up to the task.

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UPDATE:  Okay, it’s the Hive, but still, it’s already started.

The regular season strikes back.

In a year in which we’ve been inundated with tales of selection committees, unheard of television riches, access bowls and other playoff wonders, I hope the irony isn’t lost on anyone that if Alabama, Georgia and Notre Dame hold serve next week – and all should be favored – 2012 will go down as a season in which the BCS did its job flawlessly.

I think that I shall never see a thing as lovely as the Stanford Tree.

I half-jokingly told a friend at yesterday’s tailgate that, given Mark Richt’s track record, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Georgia run the regular season table, win the SECCG and be shut out of the national title picture again because the three undefeated teams in front of it kept winning, too.

Then, last night happened.  And, suddenly, what sounded like a bunch of wistful claptrap after the South Carolina debacle…

“A year ago we’re 0-2, and everybody wants to decide that the sky is falling and it’s over for Georgia,” Richt said. “But what’d we do? We stayed firm, we believed in each other, we kept banging away, we began to win, and before you know it we won the Eastern Division. It’s one day, it’s one game, it’s unfortunate it came out the way it did with so much at stake. But there’s still a lot at stake as the season rolls on.”

… now looks prophetic.

It’s taken him twelve years, but Richt’s finally got what he wants – a season’s end when the only scoreboard the Dawgs have to watch is their own.