Georgia, I don’t even know you anymore.

I hope you’re sitting down for this.

While Georgia is ramping up its football schedule by adding attractive power five conference teams, an FCS opponent that was slated to come to Sanford Stadium now won’t.

Indiana State and Georgia mutually agreed to cancel their game in Sanford Stadium that was scheduled for the 2023 season, Indiana State athletic director Sherard Clinckscales told the Athens Banner-Herald in an email.

That’s right — Butts-Mehre just cancelled a cupcake game.  And it’s probably for this:

The only nonconference game currently on the Georgia schedule for 2023 is the annual game with Georgia Tech.

Georgia added games with Florida State in 2027 and 2028 and two more games with Clemson in 2032 and 2033.

Georgia and Oklahoma are in talks about scheduling a game in Norman in 2023, according to The Athletic, with a return game in the next decade. An Oklahoma spokesman last week would say only there are no agreements with Georgia.

Be still my heart.  And kudos to those responsible.

BTW, you gotta love Georgia getting out of paying the $500k cancellation fee.  No doubt McGarity does.

Next, they’ll be building statues to him.

Boy, Dan Mullen can be an arrogant bugger when it suits him.  Listen to what he says about Felipe Franks.

“There are three statues in front of the stadium that make playing quarterback at Florida different than almost every other school in America,” Mullen says. “There’s no bigger job in the SEC than being the quarterback at Florida. So with that comes a lot of responsibility. What did he end up with 31 touchdowns and six interceptions last year? A lot of places, you’re up there. Not here. You better come to grips with that.”

What he’s pitching there is that Franks isn’t getting the adulation normally due him because he’s the Florida quarterback, that a guy who posted a ninth-best 124.69 passer rating in league play would ordinarily be a household name we’d be singing hosannas to but for his unfortunate choice of uniform colors.  Yeah, sure.

You’d think if there really were no bigger job in the SEC than being Florida’s quarterback, they’d have found a great one after Tebow left.

Your 4.10.19 Playpen

We’ve discussed food here at the blog.  We’ve mentioned beer preferences.  We’ve recommended bourbons and whiskeys.

One thing we haven’t touched on here, though, is wine.  How many of you are fans of the grape?  Red, white, rosé — what do you like?  What about the memorable bottle(s) you’ve tasted?  Is there a wine that works at a tailgate?

Have at it in the comments.

“I’m not expecting anything great; I’m not expecting anything bad…”

Well, look who surfaced yesterday.

Ladies and gentlemen, we not only have had a Nate McBride sighting, but a full-blown close encounter.

The Georgia Bulldogs’ curiously popular junior linebacker was made available for post-practice interviews for the first time since his trumpeted signing in 2017…

Full disclosure, though, he was bit taken aback when informed he was to represent the team at Tuesday’s media availability.

“It was a little bit shocking,” McBride said with a laugh. “I was like, ‘dang, did I do that good in the scrimmage?’ But, yeah, it shocked me a little bit. I’ve done these things before. … It’s fun.”

It’s not fair to say McBride’s been a flop.  Rather, it’s more that he’s been engaged in an uphill struggle with Georgia’s depth at his position ($$).

Still, there were early signs that it wouldn’t be easy for McBride, who was the 161st overall prospect in the 2017 class. That would have made him the top-rated signee that year at Georgia Tech and Kentucky, or the fifth-best signee at Auburn and Clemson, or the sixth-best at Florida.

But at Georgia, that only ranked him No. 14.

And that was before the 2018 class, which had 12 players in the top 100 alone, including five-star Quay Walker, and the 103rd-ranked player was inside linebacker Channing Tindall.

And then came the 2019 class, with five-star Nakobe Dean, who has already drawn gushing comparisons to Roquan Smith.

Lordy.

Wednesday morning buffet

Morsels and nuggets, just for you:

• Zamir White’s teammates are waiting for him.
• “According to the “Madness, Inc.” report, $986 million is spent annually on student-athlete scholarships at these schools to support 45,000 student athletes. That ends up being just under $22,000 per student. By comparison, approximately $1.2 billion is spent annually on coaches’ salaries to pay just 4,400 coaches. That averages out to about $273,000 per coach per year.”
• In addition to (allegedly) murdering several hookers, Ted Cruz is accused of doing the same to Texas Tech’s national championship dreams.
• Robert Beal was back at practice yesterday, so running those stadium steps must have paid off.
• Another state looks at a bill allowing for student-athlete compensation.
• Alabama and Oklahoma have scheduled a home and home for… 2032 and 2033.
• There’s only one class in America like this:  “The conversation started with a question about using plays suggested by prison inmates and quickly shifted to a Valdosta State custodian named Big John who once offered a helpful tip for the school’s offensive linemen.”
• Just curious — how much of a say-so do you think Fulmer had in the hire of Tee Martin?
• Somebody obviously doesn’t pay attention to who’s in the stands for those cupcake games:  “(G-Day) is awesome,” quarterback Jake Fromm said. “It’s really better than a home game because you have only your fans there…”

Today, in preseason happy talk

World, don’t say you weren’t warned.

New offensive coordinator James Coley is getting the backs more involved in he pass game, Swift said, and bringing new looks.

“A lot of exotic stuff on offense,” Swift said, “that the world will have to look out for this season from the Georgia Bulldogs.”

Of all the words I could think of to associate with Georgia’s offense, exotic would be about the last one.

Musical palate cleanser, seems like yesterday edition

R.E.M.’s Reckoning turned 35 this week.  Hard to believe, innit?

Anyway, here’s my favorite song from a great, great album.