You think?
Something tells me the RRR had its peak right around the end of the broadcast. My guess is some folks were tuning in for the Georgia-Alabama broadcast and suddenly realized that Oklahoma had found an offensive pulse again. How’d the premiere B1G game matchup?
It’s also nice to know it was the most watched Georgia-Alabama game, especially since so many people go to see us finally win again at BDS.
Go Dawgs!
Well, dammit.
First, what I’m hearing is that Bowens underwent a Lisfranc procedure. I’m sure you’re wondering what that is, so here’s some insight:
The Lisfranc ligament runs between two bones in the midfoot (middle of the foot) called the medial cuneiform and the second metatarsal. The place where these two bones meet is called the Lisfranc joint. The name comes from French surgeon Jacques Lisfranc de St. Martin (1790-1847), who was the first physician to describe injuries to this ligament.
Tearing of the Lisfranc ligament and other ligaments around the Lisfranc joint can lead to instability and disruption of the joints in the middle of the foot. The goals of Lisfranc surgery are to put the bones back into their original position and restore the foot’s normal alignment.
That’s not good. When could he be back? Well…
Sutures will be removed about two weeks after surgery and you will have a cast or CAM boot. No weightbearing is allowed for 6-8 weeks after surgery. A walking cast or boot is then used for another 4-6 weeks. If pins were used to hold the fourth and fifth metatarsals in place, they are removed 6-8 weeks after surgery.
In other words, 2027, unless he pulls a Brock Bowers superman recovery.
More concerning is the questionable status of KJ Bolden, who I didn’t even know was hurt. How he’s hurt isn’t readily available, based on my expert (read: three minute Google search) digging into the situation.
On a positive note, Frazier isn’t listed, so that optimistic.
That Bye Week will be a welcomed reprieve before we head to the Benz to play the Gators on Halloween.
Man that’s weird to say.
The Dawgs come back to the friendly confines between the hedges at Sanford Stadium to host the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry with the Auburn Tigers. Georgia has ascended to the #1 ranking after beating Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Auburn sits at 3-2 after a loss two weeks ago on the banks of the Tennessee River to the Volunteers. Alex Golesh gets his first introduction to this SEC rivalry, and Georgia looks to extend its recent dominance in the series. After a tough game on Saturday night and a bye week before the Cocktail Party, this game can potentially be a trap game if the Dawgs sleepwalk Saturday afternoon. Let’s get to the first look.
Series record / last meeting
Georgia leads the series 66-56-8 as a result of a 9-game streak in the series. In the last meeting, the Dawgs win 20-10 with a late Superman like TD by Gunner Stockton providing the final margin. The game’s turning point was a controversial fumble inside the Georgia 1 as the Tigers were going in for a 17-point lead on the Plains. Georgia would go on to kick a late 1st half field goal and then dominate the 2nd half of the game on both sides of the ball.
Gambling degenerate facts
According to DraftKings, after opening as a 16.5 point favorite, Georgia has become a 20.5 favorite with a 49.5 point total. Georgia now sits as a -1600 favorite on the money line.
Interesting statistic: 7 (Auburn’s interceptions thrown)
Byrum Brown has struggled thus far adjusting to the SEC speed of the game throwing 7 picks in 5 games including 2 in their last game at Tennessee. If the Dawgs’ defense can get some heat on Brown, I expect he is going to throw at least 1 on Saturday afternoon. He has not faced the quality of a secondary he will see Saturday in Athens.
Early outlook
Will the Dawgs come out with a focus on destroying anything in Auburn orange? If so, I see practically no path to victory for Auburn. If Georgia falls into the trap they did last year in Jordan-Hare, there is likely to be a game into the 2nd half. This Georgia team appears to be different. They appear to be focused on getting out to fast starts and forcing teams to take chances to keep up. My opinion is that this trend of fast starts continues on Saturday afternoon. Dawgs take care of business and win a game by eventually wearing out the Auburn lines of scrimmage. 20.5 seems like a big number especially with D.J. Durkin game planning the Auburn defense, but this is the same team that gave up 44 to Florida at home before the wheels started falling off the Handbag bus.
What’s your thought right now for Saturday?
Given the length of the series, what is your favorite win the Dawgs have had over the Greater Opelika Cow College? Mine has to be 1992 when we won the game with the ball on the Georgia 1 as the clock ran out. My wife & I got back from our honeymoon on a red-eye that morning and met friends in Auburn that night after they left a message on our answering machine that they had 2 more tickets.
Let us know in the comments below.
In light of our criticism of announcers and the quality of the game telecast, allow me to present to you an interesting clip of film footage of Georgia’s first game in Sanford Stadium versus Yale in 1929.
There was a clip of someone calling the game on the radio, but other than that, it’s just football, crowd noise (when available), and watching the game unfold. Also, Vernon “Catfish” Smith going all Herschel Walker on that Yankee ass for all 15 points.
Just imagine the yammering on from Chris and Kirk watching the Dawgs win over a vaunted independent like Yale.
I bet no one playing that day was concerned about missing a penalty or contact to the head. I’m sure they were all happy to just leave the field alive and in one piece.
Glory, glory days!
A commenter yesterday mentioned that Mike Bobo is having a great time right now, as he’s finally getting a complete offensive line (did I hear somewhere the offensive line starters played every snap of the game without substitution…gawlee Pete!), a solid surrounding cast, and a comfortable, confident quarterback.
I also mentioned yesterday that we had some continued hesitancy around Gunner and his ability to see the field and hit the deep plays…well, lookie here:
Is that good? That’s good, right? Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty durn good.
And we don’t even have a healthy running back room. Just imagine…
Here’s something to think about: if things had tilted the wind in a little different direction, who would our quarterback be right now?
As someone already has shown us here, Gunner is in the upper right for the Alabama game (and likely most all games he’s played thus far), while you see the Poet Laureate at the bottom left (that’s bad!), and Archduke is the middle (that’s merely average!) along with He Went to Jared.
With all the hub-ub about Kirby and five-star quarterbacks, maybe he knows what he’s doing and someone is actually developing quarterbacks in Athens. I can’t say Manning or Raiola have shown much growth in their time in the bright lights, as Manning seems like he’s still scared playing against normal sized humans and Raiola is still throwing off his back foot like Patrick Mahomes but with less than Mahomes level talent.
For today’s Roundtable – is the five start quarterback overblown…or, who is a recruit we missed out on that turned out to be a total bust, and we were fortunate not to get them?
One that comes to mind is one that originally chose LSU but eventually came to Georgia, only to do nothing…Arik Gilbert.
Another one that comes to mind was a guy who actually made the NFL but was a trainwreck in his days at TCU and Ole Miss, Zachary Evans.
How about you? What comes to mind?
There’s a couple of things that stood out to me from Saturday, and it involved our receivers.
Firstly, Talyn Taylor and Craig Dandridge are impressive wide outs…while we’re still waiting for the emergence of CJ Wiley, the two have been playing great ball as has Sacovie White-Helton, who plays like a man on fire. The receivers, even without Canion and Blackshear, are quietly becoming reliable and deadly, and the maligned Coley probably deserves a bit of credit to that. Especially with Bizarro Stockton coming to life, suddenly threading needles and hitting deep passes in ways we all thought he couldn’t do given his performance last season.
The other thing that stood out to me was the emotions you could see on the Georgia players faces. Take the victory highlights clip here (see how I’m quietly sneaking the free version here), dial it up to 1:30, and listen to Nate Frazier.
Also, when Luckie was called for holding, negating a Phillips touchdown, I could swear he looked like he wanted to simultaneously cry and puke. Same goes for White-Helton, who looked absolutely crushed on the botched return later in the game.
I think when Kirby says that these guys are special, he ain’t lying. That fire, passion, and energy is loud this season, especially the passion, and the team played like their tails were on fire the entire game.
I told a friend of mine who was texting during the game, as they were freaking out near the end, that “we’ve got this”. Aside from a few penalties and explosives allowed on defense, we were flying around the ball, the far more physical team, and we had that swagger of a team that wouldn’t be denied.
If they can play like that every game of the season, I think we’ll be just fine.
Saturday was glorious. I hope the pollsters find some reason to continue to disrespect us and move Notre Dame to #1. Anyway, on a day like this the message boards once again didn’t disappoint and our geniuses didn’t show up even when it felt the game may be slipping away.
Let’s start today’s trip in Louisville on Friday night for Mike Norvell’s throwing away all of his goodwill from the week before away with 1 play call.
On the road up 14 and instead of going up by 3 scores, Norvell decides to go for it on the 2 yard line and then calls a play where the ball gets thrown behind the line of scrimmage. I don’t know if a field goal there changes the eventual outcome, but it allowed the floodgates to open on the next play from scrimmage when Louisville has a 97 yard run to cut the lead in half. If you’re going to go for it there, either line up and run or make sure you throw the ball into the end zone.
Norvell is a dead man walking at this point. The question is whether they can raise the money to buy out his contract plus his assistants.
Ouch.
Let’s move on to Hogtown where it hasn’t taken long for the Handbags’ season to start free fallin’.
-3 turnover margin gets you beat most Saturdays, and, most of the time, that team gets run out of the building. Giving up 10 of 16 3rd downs is not a good look for a Handbag defense that has multiple loseable games on the schedule left on the schedule. I wonder what the ticket market for the Cocktail Party on the Gator side of MBS is like right now as they get ready to head to Austin for a date with Texas who deep down knows their faceplant in Hogtown last fall was the reason they weren’t in the CFP.
Jonny Boy is finding out really quickly how fickle Handbags are. At this point, the Florida-FSU game may end up on the ACC Network+.
Let’s head to CoMo to check on the mental state of Drink’s latest beatdown victim … Texas 8&4.
That first post is truly genius worthy, or maybe a T-sip posing as an Aggie pulls a great troll.
Could the Missouri game in November end up as the biggest home game of the year? After the last 2 weeks, that appears likely now. Texas A&M is officially on tilt after their defense gets shredded for 252 rushing yards.
On the other side, this stat line is horrible.
At 3-3, it could get ugly for Elko because the Aggie oilmen are more than happy to pay another buyout.
Speaking of little brothers, let’s look in on the Greater Opelika Cow College’s preparation for the DSOR (Dawgs, be loud on Saturday … no letdown).
Auburn fans are as bad as Tech nerds over their never-ending obsession with all things Bama. I’m not going to watch the Sa(t)an documentary for many reasons, but seeing a Barner call any program a bunch of cheaters is rich.
Let’s head to the west coast where the preseason national champions’ season is going up in smoke.
7 turnovers. 20:00 of time of possession. 73 yards rushing. 1 for 12 on 3rd down. Damn, just damn, Dan.
If Kirby decided he has had enough, Lanning would no longer be on my list of coaches I would want to pursue. He has every advantage a first time head coach would want, yet he finds ways to lose games where his team is more talented.
Let’s head to Dallas to check on the status of “Texas is back!” after Sark and Arch fail yet again.
To the genius that fires a stray at Kirby, I’m sure Kirby is worried about your opinion. Texas gets exposed by Oklahoma’s defense, and the Archduke is officially out of the Heisman race after throwing 2 backbreaking picks in the 4th quarter. Steve Sarkisian has to be looking at the fine print in his contract after this one. Oklahoma was dreadful on offense again, but Mateer makes 2 throws that make all the difference in crunch time.
That “best team money can buy” strategy appears to be exploding in Texass’s face. Speaking of programs overspending on NIL …
Let’s head back to horse/bourbon country to check in with the Corn Dogs after losing to Kentucky.
I know a lot of LSU fans aren’t that smart, but that genius doesn’t understand the basics of what $19 million really means. A quick Google search mentioned the following: A waterfront mansion in Ft. Lauderdale, a super-yacht, or a portfolio that generates $760k a year (conservatively without touching the principal).
On to the game itself, Kentucky goes for the win in the first overtime for the 2nd week in a row and lives to tell about it. If this keeps up Will Stein may be in line for SEC CotY. There isn’t a game left on the schedule that Kentucky can’t win starting on Saturday night in Norman where they open as a 6.5 point underdog.
On the other side, LSU is fortunate the game went to overtime after 2 turnovers in their own territory both resulted in no points. The Cajuns adored Kiffin in December and are now turning on him in October. They still have upcoming games against Texas and Alabama which I’m sure Disney will put at night in Death Valley.
This will hurt:
Let’s move on to our last spot of the night … west Alabama where the Dawgs win with a flair for the dramatic.
There’s been plenty of cloud storage used over the 36 hours about the officiating and the embarrassment of Fowler and Herbstreit. Dawg in Austin’s observations post from yesterday is a tour de force in analysis if you haven’t yet read it.
My take on Saturday night is that this was a win for the culture and values of the program as created by Kirby Smart. I have said for 10 years now that Kirby took the Process of Saban and put a human face on it.
Connection – Even when Sacovie muffed the punt (thank goodness for Blake Stewart), Kirby and some players made it clear that they were behind him. He made a clear fair catch of the next one.
Composure – It would have been easy for the team to lose their composure as Alabama turned the game in the 2nd quarter, but clearly the team did not leave the field for halftime discouraged.
Resilience – The first drive of the 2nd half was resilience in action. That was coming off the mat and pulling up the defense after the late 2nd quarter drive.
Physicality – The drive chart of the 2nd half was a beauty to behold: 8 plays, 75 yards, 4:22 (TD); 11 plays, 69 yards, 6:20 (Missed FG); 10 plays, 84 yards, 5:19 (FG); and 8 plays, 40 yards, 3:10 (End of game).
G.A.T.A.
What did you see this weekend that made you laugh out loud? Let us know in the comments.
Early Cuyler, take it away.
Let’s look at how Auburn’s been doing this year under new management:
Currently 3-2 with losses to Florida and Tennessee
31st in ESPN’s FPI rankings, which is good for 14th in the SEC.
33rd in SP+ rankings, with the 63rd ranked offense and 17th ranked defense (for comparison, Alabama is 16th in defense but was 5th offensively).
Lost by two scores to the one team that is balanced with a decent offense and defense (Tennessee)
Beat Vandy 21-15.
I don’t have any stats on made up National Championships claimed this season, though I suspect there’s more memory six coming before season’s end.
Lock in, GTP Refugees. Let’s not this past weekend’s big win overshadow just how much Auburn sucks.
For all the whining and crying coming from the Alabama fan base, on thing is being overlooked, and it’s kind of sort of awesome.
17 points is the lowest scoring output by an Alabama offense at Bryant-Denny since Ole Miss beat them 23-17 in 2014.
In fact, Alabama has scored 24 points in the last ten quarters of play against Georgia. I’d say Kirby has to be smiling a little about that. He was certainly pumped up after the game.
But go ahead and tell me it’s about the refs, won’t ya?