Florida Hate Week in Photos
Mark Richt, you’re our only hope…
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The Defeat of He Who Must Not Be Named
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Archive for the 'Sports' Category
Deep South Smack Talk: Like a paper tiger in the sun
Well, I’ve got talk for this weeks matchup between the Georgia Bulldogs and LSU Tigers, but I struggled to get the smack. I tried to find an LSU fan willing to stand up for their team this week ahead of their matchup with the Dawgs. I approached more than a couple of bloggers who came up as the result of a search for “Geaux Tigers” in Technorati. You would think that the defending National Champions would have a legion of fans chomping at the bit to defend their school. Maybe it was the beat down that they took at the hands of the Marsh Skinks a few weeks back, but nobody seemed willing - or perhaps able - to speak up for the Bayou Bengals. I did get one reply in broken French with a whiff of stale Dixie Beer, but I thought the translation may be difficult. Does anyone know what “Bùrp” means in English? Nevermind, we’ll do without the fragile Tiger fans.
Without someone to spar with, it’s not much fun, so I’ll keep things short and sweet. The Tigers are not a natural rival, in fact the last time we faced up with the Bayou Bengals was 2005 in the SEC Championship Game. The Tigers came in heavily favored with a 10-1 record and the only thing between them and a possible shot at a national championship being the Dawgs. That game didn’t turn out so well for LSU. They may be the defending champs, but until they beat us, we’re the defending champs of this matchup.
This game is at LSU’s Tiger Stadium, better known as Death Valley. It’s called that for a reason - the Tigers are tough as nails at home. Death Valley at night is a scary place. Fortunately, it’s a 3:30 kick and the Dawgs play better on the road than at home. In addition to their spanking in The Swamp, LSU has put up underwhelming wins against subpar Auburn and South Carolina teams and perennial cellar dweller Missy State. To be fair, the Dawgs haven’t exactly been setting the SEC on fire either. It ain’t going to be pretty, my friends, but I think we can take LSU in their house. Georgia 31, LSU 27
Geaux Dawgs!
Once again, apologies for not coming through with an LSU fan but, with all due respect, the fault lies squarely…
Wait, what’s that? I’m being told that, creeping in out of the swamps of Louisiana comes this missive, soggy and reeking of jasmine and decay. Lousiana Brown of Louisiana Love has staggered in off the shrimp boat to come through for the Tigers:
The countdown begins: Mere days before Georgia knows what a skewered catfish feels like in the bayou. To be honest, Georgia is good enough and strong enough, but can Mark Richt outcoach Les Miles? That’s the question. Richt’s bread and butter this season has been to throw it early and often to insane freshman A.J. Green. He’s lived up to the billing so far, and had his longest reception of the season (49 yards) last week vs. Vandy. LSU has no answer, so we’ll cede 10 points because of that. But don’t think for a moment that Matt Stafford will actually have time to plant his feet and throw to him. LSU has gotten used to calling all-out blitzes the last 2 weeks, look for more on Saturday.
Knowshon Moreno is a great back, but he won’t be able to run on LSU straight up, and LSU will not put 8 in the box either. On the other side of the coin, LSU’s resurgent Kieland Williams will supplement the durable Charles Scott and give the UGA defensive line just enough trouble to off-set the passing game. Jarrett Lee will throw an interception, so we’ll cede another 7 points to the Dawgs. LSU has played from behind in all its major conference games this season, this game won’t be any different. In the 4th quarter, when the UGA defense tires a bit, look for the deep ball to LSU’s speedy receivers Demetrius Byrd and Brandon Lefell. LSU 28- UGA 24.
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Georgia at LSU kicks off at 3:30 p.m. Eastern (6:00 a.m. Sunday Adelaide) on CBS. Expats, you can watch the game on CBS.com with a tricky little fix that The Vol Abroad sorted out (see, some Vol fans are OK). Send me a mail if you need to know how.
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Bent on World Domination
Your underwhelming correspondent is slowly spreading his tentacles around the interweb.
Check out my guest post on America’s game over at esmon dot net. And I’m delighted to have one of my science posts picked up by Tangled Bank, a biweekly blog carnival featuring the best science and medicine posts in the blogosphere. See which one they chose here at Evolved and Rational.
“Behold, I can make fire from a little box.”
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Your cadillac has got a wheel in the ditch
Welcome to a new feature here on A Free Man: Deep South Smack Talk
With the SEC Football season moving in to full swing this week, I thought I would give the enemies, er opponents, of my beloved Georgia Bulldogs an opportunity to sing their team’s praises before the Dawgs take them apart. It’s just good sportsmanship, really. It was a bit of a challenge to find an Alabama fan who could form sentences well enough to put together a post, but I’ve found a fan of the Tide who was lucky enough to be educated at a proper university. Inexplicably, he retains his love for the University of Alabama.
We’ll give the visitors the first shot. Writing, surprisingly eloquently, for the Alabama Crimson Tide is Alex from esmon dot net:
I was born where the red tide rolls and the sun droops low over the rose-colored skies at twilight.
I was born on the balmy shores of Alabama at the height of the era of terry cloth shorts and big plastic-framed amber vision sunglasses. Mobile is my hometown, perched right on the Gulf of Mexico. When I was one, Hurricane Edward roared through our city — as the story goes, I slept right through it. We lived there until I was three. The Gulf is a pretty neat place full of great seafood dives and a very, very slow pace of life.
But there are a few things that make people in the great state of Alabama get off their collective asses and shout for something that’s not just half-price night at an all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet. Football in Alabama means one thing (and I don’t care what the Auburn fans think, because who cares about them anyway): The Crimson Tide.
There are few teams that can match the storied history of ‘Bama football. I mean, come on — Paul “Bear” Bryant. Need I say more?
I will anyway. Here’s a number to mull over: 12. And no, that does not stand for the collective football team IQ. That’s National Championships, my friends. And honestly, what’s more intimidating that a team named after a harmful algal bloom of phytoplankton containing photosynthetic pigments?
Now, there are those from Georgia (you know – that state that borders us to the east and blocks our view of the Atlantic) that think they have a decent football squad. They may have had a few decent seasons, and I think they have even managed a few SEC crowns. But don’t be fooled — those Pop Warner wanna-be’s are nothing compared to the thundering herd that is the Crimson Tide. They talk about the great years in the 80s when some guy named Walker won a Heisman. Then they talk about the great teams under the current regime of Coach Richt. Then when they are reminded that none of those great teams under Richt have won a championship, they turn into Cubs fans — It’s all “Oh well, next year will be the year.”
Seriously, how many next years can there be? (Actually, as a Cubs fan, I know there can be quite a few “next years”)
And how many National Championships for the Dawgs? Two. Now I may be a simple boy from Alabama, but even I know that two is less than 12. But don’t worry Chris — The Gym Dogs have won nine gymnastics National Championships. I hear they do a mean halftime show.
So Chris, after the dust settles on Saturday and the stadium has emptied and your “Dawgs” have been thoroughly throttled and washed into the Gulf, you can call me and we will talk all about next year.
Roll Tide.
And in reply, your underwhelming narrator:
Thanks, Alex, that’s very well said for a Bama fan, but you betray yourself as being the alum of a better school.
I’ve got a number for you too: 13. That’s the number of years that have passed since the Tide last beat Georgia. I’m pretty sure that it’s going to be 14 after Saturday.
Alex, all those purty words cover up one essential fact about your boys in crimson. The truth that they are pure evil.
Bama didn’t used to be evil. In the days of the great Bryant, when they won all those National Championships, they were the pride of the South. But things have been rough in the past couple of decades in Tuscaloosa and a couple of years ago, the powers that be in Tuscaloosa quite literally made a deal with the devil. They hired away the pretty much universally loathed Nick Saban from Miami’s NFL team for some obscene amount of money. I hope it’s worth it for you guys, but I don’t think it will be. There’s only one letter separating Saban and Satan and the bad guy always loses in the end.
So as the manifestation of pure evil rolls up into the north Georgia hills on Saturday, there will be a band of brave Georgia boys waiting between the hedges of Sanford Stadium They will be waiting to represent truth, justice and Good in the face of a crimson and white onslaught led by Satan incarnate.
Fortunately, that brave band of boys is one of the finest football teams to come out of the South in quite some time. Lovers of peace and freedom can breathe a bit easily knowing that they are proudly defended by a Georgia Bulldogs team that is getting better every week. The Tide are bringing in some unholy 400 pound demon called Cody to try and crush the Dawgs offense, but if they stop our dynamic tailback Knowshon Moreno then we can go to the air with quarterbacking phenom Matthew Stafford. We’re ready in every way for the demonic invasion.
The Tide is going to find Athens an unwelcoming place, a place for these evil upstarts to be put in their place. The players have called for a Blackout, replicating conditions under which we spanked another little team from Alabama. It is times like this that I really miss the States. A September Saturday night in Athens, Sanford Stadium packed and roaring for their heroes. I can almost hear it already as the Dawgs burst out of the tunnel in black ready to tear the Tide down, bit by bit. This time the good guys are wearing black.
Oh, and Alex, this is next year. (For the Dawgs, don’t know about the Cubs)
A Free Man’s pick: Georgia 28, Alabama 14.
Georgia-Alabama kicks off at 7:45 p.m. Eastern (9:15 a.m. Sunday in Adelaide) on ESPN. I’m pretty excited because Boy Z’s great-aunt is going to let us watch the game over at their house. This will be the first time I see a game live on TV since 2004. Just seems right for my boys to win, doesn’t it.
Go Dawgs! Sic’ em!
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They’d still be Chinese children
You know how sometimes you can get a completely inappropriate song stuck in your head? Well, I keep humming Devendra Banhart’s “Chinese Children as we watch the opening ceremonies in Beijing and there’s probably something vaguely racist about that song in this particular context.
Oh, good some Chinese opera, that’ll get rid of Devendra.
My impression of the opening ceremonies so far - very red, far too much singing but technologically fantastic.
One other tip for the Chinese Olympic Committee, if you want don’t want to be thought of as authoritarian, probably best to keep the goose stepping soldiers to a minimum. Dr. O’C and I are having an argument as to whether or not China’s government is Communist, Fascist, or something else entirely. She argues for fascism, but I stand by the assertion that fascism died with World War II and thus at most, China would be neo-fascist. Which they aren’t.
Don’t you wish you could hang out with us?
“Now if I lived in Russia, I’d have some Chinese children
If I lived in Prussia, I’d have some Chinese children
Well if I lived in India, they’d still be Chinese children uh huh
And out my toes my little blue baby grows
And that’s another fact…”
I’m warning you, don’t push play…
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Game Day: My Old School(s)
“It was still September
When your daddy was quite surprised
To find you with the working girls
In the county jail
I was smoking with the boys upstairs
When I heard about the whole affair
I said oh no
William and Mary wont do…”
What a year in college football! Both of my alma maters (or is it almas mater) are in the top 10 and both have an outside chance of playing for the National Championship. It don’t get much better than that. On top of that, we’re celebrating Z’s first Thanksgiving tonight with some good friends. L.S.U. has already helped us out and depending on how things shake out in Atlanta and Kansas City (as well as Lexington and Morgantown) either the Georgia Bulldogs or the Missouri Tigers (or both) could end up looking at a shot to play for all the marbles.
We’re a bit short of Mizzou gear over here in Blighty, but to show our support for the Tigers Z’s sporting a Shakespeare’s Pizza onesie (courtesy of Barb & Martha), pants in Mizzou black and Georgia black (courtesy of the Esmons) and his favorite Lil Dawg socks (courtesy of Grandma & Grandpa V). We do what we can to cheer on the teams from across the pond!
Georgia vs. Georgia Tech kicks off at 3:30 p.m. Eastern (8:30 p.m. Greenwich) and Missouri vs. Kansas gets started at 8:00 p.m. Eastern (1:00 a.m. Greenwich). Both games are televised on ABC in the States and both Georgia and Missouri offer live audio over the net for those of us in the rest of the world. The first game is in the midst of our British Thanksgiving and the latter in the midst of prime sleeping time so I won’t be able to listen to the whole of either contest but I’ll be cheering along:
Hurray, hurrah! Mizzou! Mizzou!
Sic ‘em Dawgs!
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