Over at Team Speed Kills, David Wunderlich looks at Georgia’s chances to win the SEC East, pronounces them decent, and then wonders where the excitement is.
… With Richt having a great history of developing quarterbacks, UGA has a great chance at living up to its billing as East favorite and a top ten team.
So are you excited yet? Probably not, because this is how it goes with Georgia every year. Talent? Check. Program stability? Check. Expectations? Check. Ring?
His answer is perfect.
At some point this becomes a higher class Glen Mason Zone, which refers to how Minnesota got bored of Mason winning just a bit above the program’s historical average and going to annual bowls while not breaking through to something higher. Every other team in the East would probably trade their 2011-14 results for Georgia’s, and UGA is now generally expected to have the best season of any division team in 2015. But because this is how most post-Martinez era teams have been, UGA just doesn’t stand out too much.
And he’s not the only one who feels that way. Here’s what Messrs. Feldman and Mandel have to say about picking Georgia to win the East (and maybe bigger things):
But most of all, Georgia is one of those teams that always makes us a little nervous to embrace. The Dawgs, after all, have averaged nearly 10 wins per year under Richt but have never played for a national title. Is this, his 15th Georgia team, really the one that will put it all together?
Eh, who knows. Do you pick the door that says Law of Averages, or the one posted Exception that Proves the Rule? As I’ve said before, it would simply be nice to change the conversation.
Get The Picture 
Who thinks we put it all together this year? Raise your hand……class…..raise your hand…..class?
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And who thinks if Georgia does put it all together, that the response of most “realists” will be something along the lines of “what took you so long”?
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I already let the ones who didn’t raise their hands go to recess Senator. You are speaking to an empty classroom.
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You’re in the wrong room. 😉
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He has no class.
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And just got schooled.
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Absolutely. Complainers always find something to complain about, especially those who are so embarrassingly wrapped up in something (UGA football) that is totally out of their control in the first place.
If we win it all this year, they will quickly move on to bitch about the fact that it took since the Carter administration to do so, that our 2016 recruiting should have been better coming on the heels of a championship, etc.
Just like the guy who wins the lottery, then turns around and complains about all the taxes he has to pay on his winnings…some people simply can never allow happiness into their lives.
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Bring out cha dead!!!
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Is that link another long indirect explanation of why we’re Brain Fart U?
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Hopefully, the difference will be having a team with a full complement of 85 scholarship players to play and practice against. More depth, more competition and more meaningful practices. It may not mean much, but it is better than self imposing scholarship limitations and rolling into an SEC championship game with 68 or so scholarship players like we did in 2012
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Agree. The koolaid from this pre-season tastes different. I strongly doubt we win it all. But nobody can seriously say its business as usual.
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I saw a tweet by Clay Travis yesterday proclaiming Georgia is to football what Dustin Johnson is to golf… kind of ticked me off until I thought about it and realized how true this really is.
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Well, he also posted a top 10 dumbest fan base list that didn’t include Bammer and the Barn. Just sayin’…
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Your first mistake was taking anything Clay Travis says / writes as serious.
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Yeah you could find a lot of UGA clones in parallel sports universes.
In addition to being a UGA fan, I am Gooner too and there are lots and lots of similarities between UGA and Arsenal of the BPL.
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I never saw us three putt from 15 feet when 2 putts would get us into a playoff at the U.S. Open. We’re probably more like Ricky Fowler it Henrik Stenson. We’re really, really good sometimes (when it counts for little) and up there a lot but we haven’t even had a chance to choke on the big stage yet. Oregon is Dustin Johnson. Looks great without much resistance but there are some structural problems to deal with when facing top competition.
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Ha – enjoyed those comparisons. Not that he could have played his way into contention with the level Day and Spieth were at yesterday (all 4 rounds really)… but that snowman at the 1st – followed by pretty dominant golf the rest of the way – was DJ in a nutshell.
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It took Bobby Bowden 16 years at FSU to win his first Natty.
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So next year it is.
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It took Coach V. Dooly 17 years to win his only NC and that was only because of Hershall.
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I apologize for the mis-spell, Herschel.
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That’s fine but… we will need your GTPer card back until we can get this straightened out.
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OK the next two yrs, back to back.
And it is Herschel.
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How many did it take Meyer, Saban, Fisher, Spurrier, Miles?
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Richt had the same record as Meyer, Saban, Spurrier, and one better than Miles in year two there smart guy. It’s called circumstances beyond one’s control.
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Totally different time/scenario…like comparing apples to accordions. Bowden took the helms of a program that was literally nothing, in which they weren’t many years removed from being an all-girls school.
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Easier to recruit guys to an almost all girls school or I would think it would be.
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We are always in the conversation besides Bama what other SEC team can make that claim.
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LSU
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Auburn too, as bad as I hate to say it.
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They lost 5 games last season, 9 in 2012, 5 in 2011, 5 in 2009, 7 in 2008…the only conversation Auburn should be in is one about how consistently overrated they are every year they don’t have Cam at QB.
I really hate Auburn, fwiw. And I’m really tired of hearing about how good they are going to be.
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I’m right there with you in the Auburn hate. Unless they can find a felon with special skills, they consistently suck. Still, the media has a love affair with them like no other team. I’m sure they are paying off writers too.
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Only provided they have a QB who had been kicked off another SEC school’s roster for stealing. Otherwise they’re losing at least 4-5 games.
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I still count them as having lost 4 games in 2013. I refuse to acknowledge that fiasco as a loss.
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“Maybe it’s also because UGA hasn’t had any offseason arrests, which means the usual noise from the “Mark Richt has lost control of the program” meme has been absent”
This is somehow a negative??
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This is a large reason why I’m drinking the punch this year, no discipline problems and an administration that seems to also have gone all-in with the team. Add two fairly easy games to get our QB figured out, and I cannot help but to expect big things.
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The discipline thing is both good in and of itself and perhaps an indicator of something(s) else–a closer team chemistry, an “all in” mentality, a closer eye on things by the coaches. If no one’s made a problem, you sure as Hell don’t want to be That One who does. So, yeah, I think that may be as big a deal this year as anything else. Not only are they all there, they all have done what it takes to get there and avoided doing the dumb things that can cost a game and, ultimately, a championship season.
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Unless Mark Richt leaves (either on his own or being forced out), I am confident he will win another SEC title and then a National Championship. There will be that season where just everything to comes together and the breaks go our way.
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Here’s hoping, UJ. And when that NC comes, there will be a collective “Jason Day on the 18th green at the PGA” moment in Bulldog Nation.
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My wife says its ok to cry….
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I was thinking more in terms of finally getting the monkey off our backs about not being able to close, but what the hey, a few tears might be in order too. Along with a few beverages. Not sure which would come first, though.
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If CBS and CJP working in tandem can overide CMR on game and clock management decisions, there is a chance Dawgs go a long way!
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You assume they will make the correct decision.
A correct decision is often made so by the people who carry it out, poor execution makes a great decision very questionable.
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Well – of course that’s perfectly logical. If the man can’t be trusted to do the coaching, he should clearly be trusted to make proper coaching hires.
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So…if games and clock decisions are managed properly…and we go along way…CBS and CJP get credit. If not, then CMR is so bad that his assistants can’t help him. Man it must suck to be a head coach and only get credit for failures while your assistants get credit for wins.
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I agree with the earlier comment about our off the field issues. One thing that CMR brought to UGA was the “Thug U” moniker. Subjective fan bias aside, this label was well-deserved. A huge source of hope for me now is that this has radically changed since the CJP hire. If the players are finally listening to and respecting CMR, if things have tightened up and rules are being followed, if we are finally learning what it takes to truly compete at the highest level, then we will see the results on the field.
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Richt brought “Thug U” to UGA…was well deserved…CJP is the reason it’s changed?
Straight out of Sting Talk.
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I did not say CJP is the reason it has changed; I just said it has changed since he was hired. I am hoping this reflects change on many levels, as we have had many years of embarrassing off the field incidents. CMR should take the blame for the problems we have had during his earlier tenure, and he should also get the credit for the (hopefully long-term) reversal we are now experiencing.
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What Richt has done is clean up Thug U. In case you forgot Donnan had such fine upstanding citizens as Quincy Carter (drugs) and that safety that murdered someone (can’t recall his name). If you are or have been a problem at UGA since 2001 you have been shown the door. God I freaking hate our “fans” some days.
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If Bobo was here, I would say the stars had finally aligned. Schottenheimer scares me, though. He doesn’t seem like the “make the defense think 2x as much as the QB” type of OC that’s thriving in colleges right now. Maybe it’s simply watching him coach to the requirements of Fisher and Ryan over the years. Hopefully he has a gear he hasn’t been able to show yet. Still, he seems more like a guy who knows the fraternity of coaching better than he thinks the game.
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I’m excited about this year..sue me.
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Love the Life of Brian quote.
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We’re basically the Arsenal of CFB right now, and will remain so until either a coaching change or SEC title.
https://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-crisis-of-noncrisis-petr-cech-and-the-sorrow-of-being-an-arsenal-fan/
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“Arsenal plays in the Champions League every year, sells shirts on every continent, prints money, and boasts a profile almost any club on earth would trade for. It’s just that, somehow, the Gunners have become the kind of very successful club for which the emphasis always seems to fall on the shortcoming rather than the accomplishment — the sort of club for which everything keeps almost going right.”
Swap “Arsenal” for “UGA,” “Gunners” for “Dawgs,” and “plays in the Champions League” with “is in contention for the SEC East title” and that’s us, right?
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“between everything going well and everything collapsing into rococo nightmare is a strange and ambiguous state.”
This gives me a rococo nightmare amphibious flashback when I got off the boat and was attacked by strange frogs
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As a long time Gooner, I wholeheartedly agree and have compared the two for quite a while (not here of course though, as I suspect there aren’t many EPL fans lurking).
With that said, COYG!
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Arizona Wildcats basketball also is a very similar program to us—consistently recruit/get the most talented players, great fan support, very good to great regular season record…but disappointing in crunch time or inexplicable losses when the game matter most.
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I remember 1997 fondly. But there have been many close calls since including the epic collapse against Illinois, a horrific call against Duke, and last year’s…miraculous shooting performance by Wisconsin.
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I said that several years ago and above earlier today.
It is totally true too.
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