“Looking back, Dooley admits there was one game that changed his life more than any other.”

Hardly a surprise as to what game that was.

On Jan. 1, 1981, Dooley’s Bulldogs turned back Notre Dame, 17-10, in the Sugar Bowl to claim Georgia’s first and only Associated Press national championship, forever making Dooley a national-championship coach.

“Now that it’s all over, I think it did,” Dooley said. “What everybody would like to do as a coach is have a team that would be undefeated and then the undisputed national champion, and that’s what Georgia did in 1980. They always found a way to win, and there was no question that Georgia was the undisputed national champion. That was very, very special.

“Everything has to fall in place for that to happen. Some teams play a long time and never win a national championship, and other teams have things fall into place a couple of times just right.”

What makes his reflection particularly remarkable is that it’s easy to forget Dooley almost didn’t coach that game.

In early December of 1980 and only two days after Georgia had defeated Georgia Tech to complete a perfect 11-0 regular season, it was announced by The Birmingham Post-Herald that Vince Dooley was leaving UGA and heading to Auburn to replace the resigning Doug Barfield.  Citing sources, the newspaper declared Dooley had decided to return to his alma mater when he was also promised the athletic director position.  Reportedly, Auburn was offering a contract of anywhere from $1 million for five years to $1.8 million for eight – a nice chunk of change 30 years ago for an Athletic Director/Head Football Coach.

With the Sugar Bowl less than a month away, who would replace Dooley immediately began being discussed.  The logical and leading candidate was defensive coordinator Erk Russell – Dooley’s top assistant since they arrived together to Georgia nearly 17 years before.

If Dooley was going to leave for Auburn, Russell stated that he “would like very much to have the head coaching job [at Georgia].”

Dooley was lobbied for the switch by his former Auburn teammate and Alabama Governor Fob James.  In the end, he turned down mama and stayed in Athens.

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Mark Richt is a liberal plot.

I appreciate the thoughtful responses Sunday’s post about Charlottesville generated, even from those of you who disagreed with me.  That being said, I have to tell you that none of you came close to touching the sheer, concise brilliance of a comment my post spawned at the HOTD message board.

In fact, I’m going on record to say that in more than ten years of blogging, it’s the greatest comment about a GTP post I’ve ever read.

Still has his head up CMR’s ass so liberal was a given

If you’re a Georgia fan, in twelve words, that has it all, don’t it?

And some of you thought my post was political.

Today, in missing something

How can you rank SEC stadiums in order of loudness without a single mention of piped-in music?

As an aside, though, bonus points for this throw in:

Off-beat fact: Neyland Stadium actually ranks for the least number of square inches per seat in college football.

No shit.

Fourth chance U

The agony of Jim McElwain:

Florida coach Jim McElwain didn’t hesitate when asked if troubled receiver Antonio Callaway is running out of chances following his third off-the-field issue in the past 20 months.

“Absolutely,” McElwain said on Monday. “The one thing I will do is I’ll continue to help. I’ll continue to be there. I’ll continue to support. But obviously the consequences, you make your own bed, man.”

Running out of chances.

Man, for McElwain to embarrass himself like that… all I can say is Callaway must be an All-American type talent.  Or has pictures of McElwain naked with… uh, wait.