Be forewarned. This Seth Emerson piece ($$) is a painful read.
There is no question this Georgia program is in better shape than it was at the time of that 2010 season opener. But the nine years since then have been marked as much by the great moments as the unrealized potential, stabs at greatness snatched away in the most stunning fashion. It is a decade of what-ifs.
He’s got fourteen events, or, in some cases, non-events, on his list. I wonder if there’s another school out there that can match that.
Get The Picture 
GRRRRR!
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Buffalo Bills?
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A friend of mine who lives up north and is not even more than a casual college football fan said to me after the SEC Championship game last December, “I have never seen a team be in on the cusp of greatness so often yet find unimaginable and improbable ways to lose so often.” The truth hurts.
Really hoping that this year ushers in the most successful decade in UGA football history. It seems like we are so overdue that our lotto ball has to come up sooner or later.
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Ugh! I’m going to take off work and go get drunk!
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We’re closer to Georgia’s program, so the missed chances for the Dawgs resonate more with us. But there are some other fan bases that could construct similar lists of rued missed chances. In that 2010-2018 time frame, Oregon and Oklahoma come to mind.
But Georgia has had a number of close calls, it’s true. Fortunately, the best way to knock down the door is to keep persistently knocking at it.
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Michigan and Oklahoma have definitely had a litany of head scratching moments in the same time span.
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Ya know, looking back on one’s past can be constructive. But I’ve seen enough of these self-flagellating articles to last another 20 years. It really doesn’t have shit to do with where we are at this moment. If anything, it shows how Kirby has corrected a helluva lot of past mistakes and has a still-young team poised for greatness. The guy has turned this program into a budding juggernaut at light speed – but that doesn’t seem to be good enough for a lot of people.
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I thought the same thing as I read this earlier today. None of what has happened has any bearing on what will happen. The Red Sox were cursed until they got smart people running the team, now they’ve won 4 World Series since 2004. UGA can have that same level of success.
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God Bless You for your optimism Westy but I think there really is a deep seeded problem. I am a conspiracy theorist—I admit it. It seems like every time the Dawgs are about to win the championship game (conference or national) something happens to cause a loss. Usually (not always) that something is a hanky, either thrown when it shouldn’t have been or kept in an official’s pocket when it should have been thrown. People tend to look at the end of the game when really actions by the zebras earlier in the game caused the outcome. When it comes down to Georgia against Bama (and right now it always will) the Dawgs have to beat Bama and the refs. Plus, there has been antipathy against UGA by the SEC refs ever since the Jasper Sanks fumble call when that crew that blew the call got suspended, made even worse by the end zone stomping incident in the 2007 WLOCP game. Georgia is coming up short because people are doing their best to make Georgia come up short.
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It may be painful to read, but I would rather be knocking on the door consistently rather than hoping every year to be more than mediocre. Maybe that’s what living through 4-7 my last year as a student taught me.
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the only way to stop all that is to find a way to finish it out and win. Until that happens, we just have to absorb the critical jibes. This is as good a year as any.
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Opponents know they can outplay Georgia in the 4th quarter.
This is no secret.
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If you’re referring to AL, then yes, they know. I’m not sure what other opponents know this.
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Since the beginning of the 2017 season, besides the two Bama games, LSU last year and Auburn in 2017, what other teams outplayed us in the 4th quarter?
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UMass or Fech last year because we were pulling people out of the stands by the end of the game to get it over with?
When that guy from UMass ran a double pass to score against our 3rd string and scout team, I would have been tempted to send the 1st team back out with the intention of rolling over the scoreboard in Sanford.
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In the 4th quarter, Georgia outscored its opponent in only four games last year. Five, if you want to count the bowl game where Georgia quit long before the 4th quarter.
Yes, some were blowouts, but bad habits can develop when you play three-quarter games. Perhaps this is another reason Kirby is upgrading the schedule.
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Good post.
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OK – let’s dig into the data for the games we were outscored on in the 4th.
South Carolina – we were running zone read with Fields for the entirety of the 4th quarter. The Lamecocks scored on a deep pass with 10 minutes to go.
Vandy – scored from the 2 yard line with 0:02 to go against our scrubs
LSU – we truly lost the 4th quarter
Kentucky – 7-6 in the 4th quarter when the game was well in hand
Fech – scored twice against walk-ons and freshmen. To say they won the 4th quarter would only be taken seriously on StingTalk.
Bama – we lost the 4th quarter
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I clicked on the article and was immediately depressed.
Here’s hoping- “What if Jeremiah Holoman hadn’t been kicked off the team?” Isn’t the final “What If” of the decade.
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I don’t care for ‘what if’ articles. It’s pointless to me. Let’s deal in the here and now. I know Seth needs to write about something, but damn son! Talk about depressing! No thanks!
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I love that article! Especially because of the misery it brings out in all the losers and turds. It’s like I got the Play Pen to start the week! Thank Sweet Baby Jesus the Dawgs we got between the lines talking with their helmets and Coach Smart don’t give a rip roarin’ rat’s rear end about the past.
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There are dozens of teams who can match a list of 10+ what-if moments, but absolutely none that can come close to the quality of significant near misses that is on that list.
When the Disaster in the Pasture doesn’t make the top of your list, you know you have been hit in the face by mounds deep doo-doo…..repeatedly.
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