Adios, Mr. Anderson

No surprise here…

pic.twitter.com/dxFJWN31T6

— Seth Emerson (@SethWEmerson) January 26, 2022

There was simply no way he was coming back in a timely manner, if at all.  His departure didn’t hurt the team ultimately, so all that’s left to say is that I hope the court process plays out fairly for everyone concerned.

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Locked and (re)loaded

Looking at Dasher’s breakdown of the 2022 defense, all I can say is that Kirby’s done the Lord’s work on the recruiting trail.  Yeah, there is some formidable experience walking away, but there are plenty of talented bodies ready to step up and fill some holes.

Quick takes, by position group:

• D-line.  Jordan Davis will be missed, but it’s not as if Jalen Carter is chopped liver.  I worry, relatively speaking, about how they replace Travon Walker’s freakish athleticism.
• OLB.  Two returning starters from season’s end, plus some really talented youngsters.  My guess is they’ll figure it out.
• ILB.  My favorite position group of 2021 is gutted, but again, there are players behind them.  I am really big on Dumas-Johnson’s future.
• Safety/Star.  As a returning group, they are the 2022 equivalent of the 2021 defensive line — plenty of experience and talent coming back, especially if Poole’s CFP performance wasn’t a mirage.
• Cornerback.  There is talent, but a lot of it is green.  Like last year, this is the most likely place I see Georgia going to the transfer portal for a reinforcement or two.

And you?

SEC Net YPP, final edition

Thought I’d spend one more post on my favorite stat and how the conference shaped up in that regard for the season, now that it’s in the books.

(As always, stats via cfbstats.com.)

1. Georgia 2.83 (6.98 o; 4.15 d) [NC: -.56]
2. Alabama 1.77 (6.54 o; 4.77 d) [NC:  -.25]
3. Texas A&M 1.30 (5.96 o; 4.66 d) [DNP]
4. Florida 1.12 (6.60 o; 5.48 d) [NC: -.12]
5. Tennessee 1.04 (6.47 o; 5.43 d) [NC: -.24]
6. Arkansas .97 (6.37 o; 5.40 d) [NC: -.03]
7. Kentucky .89 (6.40 o; 5.51 d) [NC: -.23]
8. Ole Miss .78 (6.29 o; 5.51 d) [NC:  -.24]
9. Auburn:  .54 (5.81 o; 5.27 d) [NC:  -.10]
10. Mississippi State .33 (5.89 o; 5.56 d) [NC: -.24]
11. LSU -.12 (5.39 o; 5.51 d) [NC: -.07]
12. South Carolina -.33 (5.30 o; 5.63 d) [NC: +.20]
13. Missouri -.52 (5.86 o; 6.38 d) [NC: -.12]
14. Vanderbilt -2.23 (4.52 o; 6.75 d) [DNP]

Turnover margin, after week six:

• +9:  Ole Miss
• +8:  Alabama
• +5:  Arkansas
• +4:  Georgia
• +3:  Missouri, Tennessee
•  0:  Auburn, South Carolina
• -1:  Texas A&M
• -2:  Mississippi State
• -3:  LSU, Vanderbilt
• -8:  Florida
• -11:  Kentucky

Observations:

• First of all, remember why I track net ypp:  “As a general rule of thumb based on the last four seasons, you’d better create a net YPP of 2+ if you want a realistic shot at the CFP (the four-team version, that is). And if you want to win, you’d better wind up north of 2.5.”  Georgia, and Georgia alone, did.
• The net numbers back up two impressions I had from this season.  Pittman and Beamer did impressive coaching work.
• But the coach who I think deserves the biggest tip of the hat is Stoops.  A ten-win season in this conference with a minus-eleven turnover margin?  That’s damned good work.  And as an added bonus, UK’s got regression to the mean to look forward to in 2022.
• Mizzou’s numbers are bad, but LSU with a negative net ypp should never happen.
• This makes two straight seasons of Junior’s team fading noticeably at season’s end, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise, given his roster limitations.
• There’s no question which team wound up as the biggest underachiever, based on net ypp.  That would be Florida.

Your final thoughts?

Reliving a classic

I know, I know, the national title game was special, but one unfortunate byproduct of that is we’re giving Georgia’s emasculation of Michigan in the Orange Bowl short shrift now.  That’s a real shame, because from both a coaching and playing standpoint, it might have been Georgia’s most complete effort of the season, especially impressive because so many wondered going in if Alabama had exposed the Dawgs as pretenders in the SECCG.

[Narrator:  they didn’t.]

Anyway, I bring this to your collective attention because I want to share this epic review of Michigan’s offense from that game at mgoblog.  It manages to be lengthy, detailed and thoroughly enjoyable to read (at least if you’re a Georgia fan).

My favorite observation also happens to be about my favorite play of the game:  “You knew it was over when. Michigan gets man coverage on Corum vs a LB and tries to edge Devin Bush, who in this case is Nakobe Dean. It does not work out.”  Well, that’s a matter of perspective, I suppose.

Anyway, read the whole thing.  This Georgia team deserves that from y’all.

At QB, is Jimbo getting a pass that Kirby didn’t get?

Bill Connelly ($$), looking ahead to some prospective storylines for the 2022 season, makes this point:

Even the best-laid previews go awry. Just as we spent a good portion of last offseason talking about whether JT Daniels was ready to lead a national-title charge at Georgia, we also talked about whether quarterback Haynes King was ready to take Texas A&M to a new level.

In both cases, injuries rendered these topics moot. Daniels missed time and gave way to Stetson Bennett, who indeed led the Dawgs to the promised land, while King was lost for the season in Week 2, ceding the floor to Zach Calzada. Calzada put together a stunning performance in A&M’s upset of Alabama, but he otherwise lacked; at the end of a disappointing 2021 campaign, he decided to transfer to Auburn. Strike up the “Is King ready?” talk all over again. And after the coup Jimbo Fisher just pulled off in recruiting, turn the volume up quite a bit this time.

When you make what Fisher makes, and you sign one of the best recruiting classes on record, you’re going to face all sorts of expectations.

Yet it’s Kirby who got the heat for his quarterback management last season (and still is in certain quarters this preseason), while Fisher doesn’t seem to have gotten much questioning about his.  Think that changes this season?

Dogged Dawg

I’m turning this post over to the estimable Mr. Jason Hasty, friend of the blog, and, more relevantly, UGA Athletics History Specialist at the Hargrett Library.  Take it away, Jason.

The UW ‘Dawgs’ thing has bothered me for a while so I decided to look into it as best as I could without having much in the way of UW materials at hand. Fortunately, like our Red & Black, their student newspaper is digitized and keyword searchable. I searched a bit to see what I could come up with.  To make the search equitable, I also looked back at similar research I’ve done for our own use of Dawgs through the Red & Black archives.

University of Washington — Dawgs

– The first colloquial use of “Dawgs” I found in the UW archives is from Friday, October 13, 1967:

https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/daily/id/2347/rec/1

This is an advertisement for used books and records. Apparently the $.02 books were “Dawgs”.

– The first use of “Dawgs” in relation to a UW sports team came on Wednesday, May 14, 1997, though this was in reference to the UWT Co-Ed Softball team:

https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/daily/id/760/rec/3

– This op-ed piece from October 11, 2000 seems to reference UW-Tacoma (the UWT from above) as referring to itself as the “Dawgs” while the Seattle campus referred to itself as the Huskies.

https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/daily/id/154/rec/7

– After this, the use of “Dawgs” in reference to UW’s teams becomes more common through the early 2000s, while they still use mainly use Huskies. This page is a good representative of that:

https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/daily/id/1649/rec/4

– Their official UW Athletics website makes no mention of “Dawgs” in the section on mascots:

https://gohuskies.com/sports/2013/4/18/208229209.aspx

UGA — Dawgs

In contrast, our use of “Dawg” or “Dawgs” goes back much further and is easily searchable in the Red & Black:

– The first use of ‘How ‘Bout Them Dawgs?’ in the R&B came on Friday, September 23, 1977:

https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/gua1179162/1977-09-23/ed-1/seq-4/#date1=01%2F01%2F1930&nottext=&date2=12%2F31%2F2018&words=dawgs&searchType=advanced&sequence=0&lccn=gua1179162&index=10&proxdistance=5&sort=date_asc&rows=12&ortext=&proxtext=dawgs&andtext=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&page=1

– The first appearance of ‘Go Dawgs’ came on Friday, September 28, 1978:

https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/gua1179162/1978-09-29/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=01%2F01%2F1930&nottext=&date2=12%2F31%2F2018&words=dawgs&searchType=advanced&sequence=0&lccn=gua1179162&index=0&proxdistance=5&sort=date_asc&rows=12&ortext=&proxtext=dawgs&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&andtext=&page=2

– The first occurrence of the ‘D-A-W-G-S’ spelling (but not in relation to sports) was on November 18, 1927:

https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/gua1179162/1927-11-18/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=01%2F01%2F1890&nottext=&date2=12%2F31%2F2018&words=Dawgs&searchType=advanced&sequence=0&lccn=gua1179162&index=0&proxdistance=5&sort=date_asc&rows=12&ortext=&proxtext=dawgs&andtext=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&amp=&page=1

Again, this isn’t comprehensive research. I don’t have access to much UW material and there might be some obvious digital resource I’m overlooking. I relied on the student newspapers to make up for my lack of UW reference materials.

If nothing else, I hope that this sheds some light for you on the UGA/UW DAWGS ‘controversy’.  (Yes, it irritates the life out of me that they use that.)

Thanks and Go Dawgs.

Jason

Whew!  I can’t imagine anyone has anything to add to that, but if for some reason you do, have at it in the comments.