Without a doubt, in my lifetime as a college football fan (as opposed to a Georgia football fan), there’s no season I have enjoyed more than the 2007 one. It was absolutely and unpredictably nuts from start to finish, with plenty of stops along the way.
So, it is with great pleasure that I share with you SBNation’s tribute to that season. Check out the following pieces in particular:
- Bill Connelly, on CFB’s 11 wildest seasons (2007 being #1)
- ULM 21, Alabama 14
- Les Miles, ladies and gentlemen
- How would a four-team college playoff have looked?
- The Celebration, and Corch’s “stunning pettiness“
- Steve Spurrier reminisces about 16-12, and Georgia in general
The end result: the only national champion to lose two regular season games in multiple overtimes.
Crazy as hell. But great. I doubt we’ll see another season like it again.
Get The Picture 
what a year
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It’s like a Boston fan declaring the 1986 World Series as the most exciting. It’s like a surviving member of the crew of the USS Indianapolis saying, “well probably not see a day this chock full of intrigue again.”
It was “interesting times” in the most painful meaning of the phrase. The long, all day lead up to the kick in the balls on the Sunday after the seccg to top it off. You knew it was coming. You knew it was gonna hurt. You just had to sit and wait while Herbie made everybody comfortable with the idea that we deserve to have our nuts kicked. All the while seething that the smug fuck face had taken the exact opposite position in 2006.
Then we get friggin’ Hawaii. I hated 2007. I don’t even like thinking about it.
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Really? You thought there was a chance Georgia was going to play for the national title in 2007? I knew that ship sailed when Tennessee eked out their wins over Vandy and Kentucky. I just enjoyed the ride of those final 6 games.
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We were sitting at four. WVU and Missouri lost ahead of us and LSU was ranked 7th. If it had been week three or week seven or five, we would have moved to 2. Instead then jumped no. 7 LSU five spots to 2 and we went to four.
Yeah we had a chance to get in that year. It was so realistic that they talked about it all fucking day on both Saturday and Sunday….dick.
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You’re right. ESPN would never talk up something that would never happen to keep ratings up for their bullshit selection show. Anyone could have predicted that they would jump LSU to 2 after they won the SEC title game.
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I said I saw it coming. Are you stupid?
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Then why were you so pained?
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Because we were at four and I watched two teams ahead of us lose on the last day of the season. Then I watched herbie change his story from 2006 that division titles were meaningless and that it’s really about getting the best teams together.
It’s really pretty simple for those with functioning cerebral cortexes.
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The Russians stole it when they hacked into herbies headset
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There’s an email that says the equivalent of: “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump?”
I doubt it. People take football too seriously to collude with Russia to influence the outcome of a natty.
But I get your point. Treason. Funny.
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An email that says. Was it one of hillarys 30k that were destroyed. You Dems used to love the Ru skies till ya lost . Maybe run a candidate that doesn’t scream at the camera , can walk 10 feet , and at least visits Wisconsin one time and doesn’t hate the white working class. .even ole Alan Dershowitz is laughing at you Der. Treason. Take a pill in addition to deep breathing and turn on CNBC
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I would think that any American would be disturbed by a foreign adversary interfering in an any election. Not only does that not bother you, you think it’s ok to go along with it and then to lie about it and then to cover it up.
There’s a name for people like you: traitor.
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Maybe she just lost Der get over it gonna be a long 8 . Keep up the good work . Stick to football . At least you can carry on a conversation
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So it’s ok if it didn’t work? Attempts to commit treason isn’t treason?
Stick your head back up your ass. The extra oxygen isn’t helping.
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Yep, screwjob for sure. There weren’t any teams without flaws and until Herbie comes up with his new rule, we’d have been there beating the crap out of OSU instead of LSU.
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I disagree with the screwjob, LSU never lost in regulation, and UGA lost tiebreakers to make the SECCG. LSU had the better resume with the SECCG win.
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I agree that LSU had the better resume. And I acknowledge that UGA had no God-given right to play in the championship game. The sour taste simply came from the obvious tail wagging the dog effort required to get LSU to jump UGA by the poll voters. This was made even worse when the Herbstreit Doctrine was abandoned to justify Michigan and Alabama playing for the championship.
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We were told that the bcs was designed to choose the “best” teams not the most “deserving” teams. By any measure we were the better team. Vegas would have favored by 6.5 in the seccg had we made it.
If anybody thinks that if Missouri or WVU wins that we finish lower than 3, I have some beachfront property in hahira for sale.
It was a manipulation of the process so that the regular order of things would not be followed. If you can point out one time where a team dropped a spot when two teams ahead of them lost, I’m listening.
We got fucked. You can say we deserved it. You can say we should have never been rated ahead of LSU to begin with. You can say that late season losses weigh too heavily. Whatever your story is is fine with me but the idea that we didn’t get jackhammer fucked is simply wrong. We did.
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We didn’t UT abused that that team. LSU was never out of a game.
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Man, why are you obsessively angry and bitter over something that happened 10 years ago? Especially considering it’s something (UGA football) that’s totally outside of your control and has no real bearing on your life whatsoever? I can only imagine how insanely preocupied and passionate you are about things you actually have control over, otherwise I’d say your priorities are just slightly misaligned.
I’m guessing (or assuming) you’re a big wig pulling in 750k+ annually with 6% body fat, a smoking wife, and hobbies galore that you excel at.
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Call it Irish Alzheimer’s. I forget everything except my grudges.
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“Best” and “most deserving” can be interchangeable terms depending on who is using them in the context of the BCS.
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It’s subjective to be sure. However, herbie was willing to forego application of the same objective standards in 2006 that he felt were so important in 2007. It’s blatant hypocrisy, plain and simple.
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I disagree…but I respect your opinion….even though it’s wrong. 🙂
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You certainly make a compelling argument in support of your contrary position.
It reminds me of the Erasmus vs. Luther debate in which Erasmus argued for several hundred pages in support of the existence of a free will. Luther came back with a stunning retort: “you’re wrong.” A very convincing argument I must admit.
The good thing about subjectivity is that you could debate whether the sun rises in the east and walk away thinking that both sides views should be respected. Some would say that truth matters. But does it?
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Derek’s right. UGA got screwed over by the nattering nabobs of ESPN. If you examine who the talking heads were it is even worse as all of them had conflicts of interest: Granny Holtz, who Georgia owned while he was at South Carolina; Herbie, who Georgia beat like a drum in a bowl game and who, like SOS, never got over it; Jesse Palmer, a GayTurd. UGA beat LSU by about 2 TDs the next season so we have some empirical reason for saying the Dawgs were better, too. (I know, I know–a different season, a different team. But we still beat ’em 5 games after the BCSNCG.) We had the best team at the end of the season and we got screwed out of the Big Game. Just ask previously undefeated Hawaii how good the Dawgs were.
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Oh Mayor, year after year we continue to dance this little dance. We just view the 2007 season from opposing lenses. You see a team primed and ready for the BCS title game only to be left out. On the other hand, I see a team that lost to an awful Carolina squad and to Tennessee and failed to even win their half of the division. I believe winning your division and conference means something…and no, Alabama did not earn the right to a rematch vs LSU in the title game a few short years later in my opinion. Sure LSU soared past us in the polls. Sure ESPN and their “nattering nabobs” (well done with that name by the way! I will certainly use that in the future. Giving you full credit of course.) spoke poorly of the Dawgs. But all deservedly so. Don’t lose to the Gamecocks and/or the Vols and problem solved. We can agree to disagree and move on.
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Actually, give former vice president Spiro Agnew credit. Mayor was quoting him with the “nattering nabobs.”
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Actually it’s Bill Safire’s quote. He just lent it to the soon to be disgraced former VP.
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Skeptic, I understand and respect the opinions of others–including you–on this issue. What I don’t get is that you always seem to hold UGA, your supposed alma mater, to a higher standard than you hold other teams. You do that consistently. For example, you and others who espouse your view that the Dawgs weren’t “good enough” and LSU was “good enough” completely ignore the fact that LSU lost to Kentucky explaining that Kentucky “was ranked as high as #7 in the nation” during that season. Well, Georgia didn’t lose to Kentucky–Georgia BEAT Kentucky that year. Some how is it that you think LSU (also a team with 2 losses) was better when the Dawgs beat one of the teams LSU lost to?
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Eventual MNC, two loss LSU lost their final regular season game to lowly, unranked Kentucky…at home. That’s pretty much all that needs to be said.
I remember James Carvell getting on every and any tv program after that game screaming that LSU deserved to play in the BCS title game because they were undefeated in regulation play. And basically OT rules were stupid anyway and shouldn’t really count.
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Kentucky was ranked 17th, the game was played on 10/13 and it was in Lexington. Other than that, you nailed it. 🙂
Seriously, you’ve got that loss confused with Arkansas.
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Kentucky was also ranked as high as 7th that season.
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Well I feel like an idiot. You’re right…I did confuse UK and Ark. On second thought, f it…I’m going to take the Hugh Freeze approach here: you’re wrong and I’m right on this. You also are responsible for my recent IRS audit too. Furthermore, if you find any proof that I’m wrong, email me. Otherwise, shut up and go away. Oh yea, lat but not least — God gives us the ability to be humble and faithful and stuff. Thank you Lord!
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lol
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Bravo.
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I have a hard time with 2007. In principal it was a great season but as a Georgia fan, I just can’t look past some stuff. That was the year I lost any respect I had for ESPN and Kirk Herbstreit in particular. A mere year year after Herbie was shouting for the rooftops, “Who are the two best teams RIGHT NOW?!” trying to get a national title game rematch between Michigan and Ohio State that jackass turned the Big 12 title game into a 4 hour infomercial on how LSU should leapfrog Georgia in the polls because of LSU’s body of work during the regular season. I get that Georgia had no right to be in that game. We lost to Tennessee and an inferior 6-6 South Carolina team. We made our own bed, but the hypocrisy was a bit much. I still to this day don’t get my sports news from ESPN. I just watch the games I’m interested in that they televise.
I was also not happy about the Sugar Bowl that year. I felt like we got shafted in 2003 when we ended up playing a 3 loss Florida State team that was only there because the ACC was terrible that year. But that was nothing compared to seeing what was a red-hot Georgia team get saddled with showing Hawaii they don’t belong in big boy college football instead of getting to play a real team.
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And if misery wants some company, I’ll add that the other Sugar Bowl during the Richt era wasn’t even a real Sugar Bowl. You were given dried up ground up peaches, thrown in a bowl, and told it was sugar. Not to mention, we once again had the distinction of being an upstart’s signature win. Guarantee you some WVU blogger perpetually lists that as his favorite win in school history.
/thanks a lot Katrina
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ALL WVU bloggers list that as their favorite win in school history. It’s the only game against a big-time opponent that they ever won.
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Not to mention that a 2001 Nebraska team that was blown out by Colorado in its final regular season game and that didn’t win its division either and a 2003 Oklahoma team who had been beaten 35-7 in the Big12 championship had already played in the BCS championship game.
I’ve also always wondered what the difference in the “hottest” team in the country and the best team at the moment is.
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I disagree on UGA being red hot or being a great team at seasons end. Along with the two losses, we had an ugly, 3 point win over Vandy late in the year where they were driving late to win only to fumble it away. Then we turn around and give up 34 points to Troy and barely beat them as well. Yet, most only seem to remember the Hawaii thumping which proved just how dominant we were that year. Instead, IMO that was a very overrated team with many flaws. A lot of internal cracks were present too which really opened up in the years following.
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I think that team had flaws but after a disappointing Troy game Georgia won their 3 final regular season games by double digits. Two of those wins were against ranked teams. The 2008 team was certainly overrated early on but I think the way Georgia was playing at the end of 2007 they could’ve at least been competitive with anyone.
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I remember going to Jacksonville after the Vandy scare and beating the shit out of Florida and Timmy Tears. After that, that team was completely different and would have pounded OSU like LSU did.
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That team had the perpetual flaw of CMR coached teams of playing to the competition. Troy and Vandy didn’t inspire the team, so lackluster performances resulted. You can bet your ass that, had they played in a championship game, they would have come out revved up like they did in the Sugar Bowl.
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And I disagree that the sky is blue. That team was unbelievable after the Vandy game. The defense relaxed and let them have some points but the Troy game was never, ever in doubt. Get out of here with that trash.
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And that Troy teams only regular season losses were to Florida, Arkansas, and Georgia.
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Ok, interpret that season as you wish, but the numbers say otherwise. BTW, internally there were all sorts of issues with that team as well — it certainly wasn’t a focused group, I’ll assure you of that
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No, the numbers say exactly what everyone has always said about that season; that the team lost two bad early games, then got their shit together and dominated after Vandy. There is absolutely no argument against that. Please, please show me some numbers that dispute that.
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The UT game occurred in the middle of the season, not early, in which we were humiliated and never in the game. Both the Troy and Vandy games were ugly (Vandy was driving for winning score before fumbling, a game they had led throughout) and we stuggled to put away a mediocre at best, 6 loss GT team, in which the game was in the balance until late.
UK also was a 5-6 loss team, and I think we were losing to them in the 3rd quarter before finally going ahead to win by 10 or so. You’re acting as if that team got off to a slow start, then steamrolled the rest of the way, but that was far from the case. It was anything but a great team and had many flaws. Hell, WillieMart alone as DC should pretty much silence anyone who feels otherwise.
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That U.K. Team lost 4 games, beat the eventual national champion, and averaged over 36 points per game.
31-17 ain’t a struggle.
Georgia was number 12 in total defense in 2007, to say nothing of the second half of the season. I don’t care who’s coaching that d, 12 in the country is a good d.
You keep bringing up coaches and “internal problems”. Those guys are gone, you can quit trying to get them fired.
Again, yes they did catch fire the second half of the season. You only argument is “well Kentucky”. “Well coaches”. Still waiting on those numbers.
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I’ll save you some time. They don’t exist.
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I already highlighted everything for you; if you refuse to ascertain, then there is nothing else to say. Please go back and look at the box scores, and show me a dominating team. I see a two loss team that trailed Vandy until the final minutes, a team that was losing to a 5 loss on the year UK team in the 3rd, and a team that trailed a 6 loss GT team in the 2nd half as well. Pray tell, where are your so called numbers that show otherwise?
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Not sure what box score you’re looking at, but Georgia only trailedtwice in that game and both times were in the 2nd quarter and totaled only about 4 minutes of game time. They held the halftime lead and never looked back.
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In the first week of the BCS rankings that season, there were two SEC East teams in the top 10. Neither of them were Florida, Georgia, or Tennessee. They knocked off #1 LSU in OT and should have knocked off a top 15 Tennessee in OT. I believe Andre Woodson broke Danny Wuerrfel’s SEC record for TD passes in a single season that year. Bill C’s S&P rankings have them as a better team than Auburn that year. Kentucky was legit in 2007.
Puh-leeze about Troy. They scored a garbage TD with 5 seconds left on the clock against back-ups that made it a 10 point game.
Like MGW says, y’all can keep trying to fire coaches from 2007, but that equine specimen has been dead for a long-ass time. There’s no arguing that they shit the bed with two bad losses in the first half of the season, but the team was hell on wheels after the Vandy game.
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The Auburn game is the loudest Sanford Stadium has ever been. The WLOCP was awfully fun.
On the other hand.. the South Carolina game saw Knowshon ripping it up between the 20’s only to have the ball taken out of his hands, and the team never got off the bus in Knoxville.
Truly a roller coaster season.
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Stafford was really bad against South Carolina that day.
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I still see the wheel route Stafford threw 10 feet too far ahead of a wide open knowshon in my nightmares. Ironic that we missed a wheel route given willie’s trouble defending those in other games.
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Regardless of the BCS issue, it is still my favorite year of Georgia football. (Says the guy who was born 3 months after we beat Notre Dame)
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I’ll take 2002 every day.
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1980, of course, was the best season. 2002 was incredible. The end of 2012 was pretty damn awesome even with 5 yards away.
The best team of the last 40 years may be a team that came up just short … 1981. That team was nasty on defense and pretty much manhandled its SEC schedule.
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If Erk stayed UGA would have another title or 2.
’92 and ’07 were frustrating years so close but so far away. The ’92 team ended with a win over Ohio St and the final play was a Herbstreit INT. Good times.
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Personally, I thought the ’82 team was the best, which made the heartbreak in the Sugar Bowl that much harder to take. That team pretty much dominated all season long and I couldn’t believe that PSU could even hang with us, much less win.
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That team was flawed at QB, but really good everywhere else.
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Any SEC Championship year for UGA was better…
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I
Hate
Corch
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Always liked Moreno shaking his hands as he ran back to the sidelines after the second score in the Sugar Bowl, signaling that Hawai’i didn’t belong on the same field with him. Despite what Mark May, Thom Brennaman, and other assorted halfwits were saying.
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2007? Wasn’t that the year some no-name QB from TN ran the same damn wheel-route play on Willie’s D over and over again? Fond memories.
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Yes and Bobo was running the ball with the safeties giving up the middle of the field.
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I think that was ’09…UT was coached by Kiffin, which made it worse.
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I must be getting my beat downs confused.
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CMR’s motto…close…
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Good thing Bama nor UT never hired him there would be no cigars on the 3rd Saturday in October.
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*or
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Maybe I am not really a general football fan; maybe I am mainly a Georgia football fan, because lots of 2007 was frustrating for me. We played well for most of the season, but then there the times when we just inexplicably shit the bed. In a way, looking back, it was the beginning CMR’s inability to win games he was supposed to win (South Carolina) all the while looking great on other (Florida comes to mind). This when I recall fan frustration start to develop even if we didn’t realize it yet. I agree it was a crazy, and it gave a lot sportswriters good copy, but I am too close to UGA to consider it my favorite year. I’ll take 1980, and not just because we won but because of how we won: Undefeated year, sweet, sweet win in Jacksonville, Tech helps us get the #1 ranking but doesn’t get a win in doing so. Ahh, the schadenfreude!!
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Interesting observation. ’07 seemed liked the promised land was just a fortunate season away. I do admit I wanted Cox’s redshirt burned in ’05 for the national title hunt. ’08 I wasn’t that let down as I thought the OL turnover would let us down. ’10 however with UCF loss followed by ’11 with the losses to Boise St, and Michigan St really set in for me that the program couldn’t be what I knew it could be, and Richt’s best years seemed to have Jekyll and Hyde games.
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My biggest disappointment was not getting to go to the Rose bowl to play USC.
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That I agree with…should have happened
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I can see the point but I was so tired of the MWC and WAC talk I wanted to pummel them out of the national discussion.
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I think even Illinois would have at least won.
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Lets not get carried away here
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At least we beat the pants off of Hawaii. Anyone else remember hearing idiots saying they thought Hawaii deserved to be in the BCSNG game because they were undefeated? pffffft
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http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/2007/12/10/71015-hawaii-deserves-more-than-it-received-from-bcs/
“For the second year in a row, the unbeaten champion of the underrated WAC (Western Athletic Conference) has been snubbed in the college football Bowl Championship Series title game.
Last year it was 12-0 Boise State. This year it is 12-0 Hawaii, which deserved better alohas than it got in the BCS selections.
Sure, twice-beaten LSU and once-beaten Ohio State played tougher schedules than Hawaii. But their Jan. 7 title game doesn’t excite many fans beyond Ohio and Louisiana, even though it might be a barn-burner. Unbeaten Hawaii vs. Ohio State would have had national appeal.”
I emailed Al Neuharth about once a week for half a year asking him to follow up on this after the Sugar Bowl, but he never responded. And he never will now, seeing how he’s dead.
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He must have been HIGH, or reading from a script….I think the latter.
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Or hung up on Pitt not getting their chance in 1980.
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I gotta admit I took pride in UGA’s winning in such a way that it showed Hawaii didn’t belong. The WAC was what the American Conference is today a good mid major that didn’t belong in the national title discussion.
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My lasting memory of that game was June Jones telling his team before they came out on the Superdome turf to play like they belonged. I knew at that moment we were going to absolutely smoke them because Jones knew his team was stepping into a buzz saw.
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That was awesome, and the other was Martinez for his faults had a defense that showed up to rattle Brennan from the opening snap.
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I remember Fran Tarkenton laughing his ass off after he saw our opponent in the pregame warmups and telling everyone, while on national TV, that Georgia was going to destroy them. At the time I was worried that he was a bit over confident, but later I realized that he knew a thing or two about football.
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I remember that. I think Jimmy Johnson said something similar before the game in a bit more diplomatic way. Pretty much said Georgia was a completely different animal from anyone Hawaii played during the season … good times. Hope to see those again soon.
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This will always remain my favorite college fooball season. I’m a fan of the sport outside my alma mater and this season was just so batshit crazy from start to end that it’s hard to see something like it happening again.
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I remember telling a buddy before the 2007 season that the SEC would never win another NC because there were now three coaches in the league with a natty since Saban went to Bama.
I was so so wrong.
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Damn you can tell it’s July. 2007 was 10 years ago WGAS.
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Amusing comments and reflections here.
The biggest culprit in screwing over Georgia in the last 25 years has been Georgia. In 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, 2012 (seeing a pattern here?), we’ve had teams, seasons that could have been magic, could have been great. But we manage to let it slip through our hands by simply playing very poorly in games where we can’t afford to.
1992 (a heartbreaking year): UF
1997: Auburn
2002: UF
2007: UT
2012: S. Carolina
Here’s hoping 2017 breaks the trend (in a good way).
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