The New F-word…
It’s not what you think. I just wanted to get your attention. I am so sick of hearing about THAT place and THOSE people, I don’t think I’m ever going there on vacation ever again. My dad moved back from PCB last year, I know what Mickey Mouse looks like, I get my oranges from Publix.
We must draw a line in the sand!
It’s all some people can talk about. Can we cross the border and ever win on a regular basis? Uh yeah…it’s not the Bermuda Short Triangle, which some believe exists and is thought to be between Fernandina Beach, McClenny and St Augustine. Apparently great football players, at least those wearing red and black, all of a sudden lose their athletic ability. I think it’s called Ereptile Dysfunction. I call it BS.
Those teams from the F-State have always had great players with tremendous talent. I heard on one radio show or maybe it was on the Dawgvent that stated that the growth in the state of “F” have changed the dynamics of the W.L.O.C.P. shhhh or as some would say, the AA meeting for a beating. Well, unless the next QB is an 80 year old red shirt freshman named Haime Abramowicz, I ain’t making that excuse. The Dynamics that have changed is the Coitch…SS and UM…see I don’t even say their names in mixed company anymore.
See that face! We can make him do it again!
There is a fine line between focus and obsession and an even finer one between obsession and you are just being stupid. Are you one of those that has lost all perspective? I have talked about it once in the past week, because of someone else’s(MR) comments regarding the “F”.
Believe me, we should be worried about the “OS”.
ereptile dysfunction. clever.
06/01/2009 at 12:09 PM
Great post Rex. You hit it on the head. Just win the game. Quit making excuses. Come out and hit Florida in the mouth like in 2007 or like Auburn did in 2006 and 2007. That’s how you beat Florida. Quit playing scared. As much as I love having Coach Richt, I think it’s somewhat pathetic to start making excuses for losses because of the locale. Last year, we would have lost that game if it were in Gainesville, Atlanta, Athens, or even the Moon because that team flat out quit.
05/26/2009 at 10:18 AM
Rex, I want to emphasize and underscore the fact that the Georgia-Florida discussion should not be about how we can beat Florida. That’s an easy question to answer. The way you beat Florida is with solid, hard-nosed Georgia football.
But it seems that most of us are missing the primary reason why Georgia needs to consider alternating the game. Not to a Home & Home, I would argue strongly against that. There are
numerous reasons to keep the game at a neutral site, not the least of which is money, and to keep the game in Jacksonville. Most every discussion I’ve seen both now and over the years has been about MOVING the game. That’s the wrong discussion and the wrong context. The discussion should be about keeping the game in Jacksonville but rotating it with Atlanta every other year. I strongly believe that is the solution which is in Georgia’s best interest.
The reason for that is Florida does have an inherent location and logistics advantage that now has the ability and potential to translate itself into game performance. That wasn’t really true in the past but has now, in the past few years, become a factor in major college football.
That’s because top college teams are much more sophisticated than in the past. Technology has been the backbone and the catalyst behind this sophistication, and the effects are multi-
dimensional. For example, game film can be broken down in a matter of a few hours (I’m guessing) and acquired in a matter of minutes even if you’re in an airplane, bus, or automobile (not guessing). Programs are managing and converting every quarter-hour of the week into production, using sophisticated time-management techniques which translate into everything from coaches getting a head start on a game plan to the accumulative rest of players for the week. These things have now become part of the competitive process.
I haven’t talked to him, but I think it’s pretty obvious this is where Coach Richt is coming from. It’s gotten to the point where, added together, these things are now a factor. If you and I were dead even as tennis players and were to meet in the finals of a late season high-stakes tournament next week, and the rules gave me an extra 8-hour day to watch film and prepare for your tendencies, PLUS an entire extra day to rest-up mentally and physically from the grind, would you not feel I had some degree of unfair advantage? Well that’s pretty much what happened during last year’s Georgia-Florida week, the result of Georgia playing in Baton Rouge @ 3:30 (which was lucky because it wasn’t 7:00 or 7:45) and Florida playing an early home game vs. Kentucky.
Because of logistics, Florida had that advantage. Yet it was a Georgia HOME game. And there are more little things that factor in. Now I don’t think this advantage has had anything to do with the outcome of any Georgia-Florida game so far, and I’m pretty sure nobody in Butts-Mehre thinks that, either. But if technology has brought us to the point to where a game location can really matter, why would you give your #1 rival that advantage EVERY year, knowing sooner or later it will affect overall performance in a game and perhaps even influence the outcome?
Now Georgia lost the game last year because it lacked heart, discipline, toughness and leadership, and because Florida had all that. And for no other reason. But because of technology, sooner or later a game(s) is going to come down to the little things. It’s only a matter of time. Who among us doubts the enormous advantage of the open-date in this series? Anyone who does should simply look at the record for the past 30 to 40 years. This all-new logistical factor will never have the impact that the open-date has had. But it is now a reality nevertheless, and a factor, regardless of whether or not we accept it.
In today’s major college football, if you mismanage logistics, including time, you will soon find yourself falling behind. In the SEC, you can only manage what you are given and there is precious little you can control. Why then, should Georgia give Florida a perpetual logistic advantage in every game when it has the power to do otherwise?
A Home & Home series would level the playing field but that’s a bad idea for a number of reasons. A Jacksonville game with a rotation in Atlanta every 4 years is better than nothing, but what is that? It should be a straight rotation. The most important thing is to insure a level playing field. It’s another long post, but there are good reasons to think the Atlanta game could more than compete with Jacksonville. The Atlanta Sports Council needs to step up to the plate with an attractive proposal. Everything is there for the game to be at least as attractive for the fans. Every other year, Georgia people would go the the beaches, and Florida people would come to the mountains (and at the PERFECT time of year). Jax has the Landing, Atlanta has Underground and the Downtown Hotel Area. And on and on. Atlanta could actually outperform Jacksonville, and both schools, and especially fans, would come out the winners as Jacksonville and Atlanta competed to one-up each other before the next contract. The game would still be in Jacksonville every other year. No tradition has to be lost, only modified. And the opportunity to enhance or add to current traditions is there for all, especially for Florida people.
This decision needs to be an administrative one, not a popularity contest, IMHO. Georgia should do what it is in the best interest of its program. And other than the regrettable 3K lost seats every other year per team, the fans need not be affected. It will be different, but the enjoyment and excitement of the neutral game, for all fans, has the potential to be better than ever. There would be no game in all of college football that could compete with this excitement of this one. And maybe no game in all of sports.
~~~
05/23/2009 at 7:40 PM
Rex, I have said it a zillion times on other Dawg boards and I will say it again here. UF’s short-end-of–the-stick from 1971 thru 1989 was a discrepancy of coaching and motivation, not talent.
Florida’s dominance from 1990 thru 2000 was a mixture in different years of better coaching (1992 or talent (most of the 1990s).
And, of course, UF’s infamous bye week before the Cocktail Party which has been the DECISIVE factor in no less than one freaking third of this century. 2002. 2003. 2005.
Only ONE team in this series has beaten the other while coming off a game the previous week and the LOSER rested off a bye – Hint, hint, the Victor was neither green or scaley. It happened in 1997.
05/23/2009 at 2:56 PM