It's not me: Revisiting Western Carolina.

With the stinky cologne of the South Carolina loss still redolent in their nostrils, the Bulldogs set upon a different part of Carolina to try and get well. Sorry, guys, it's just business.



What I said at the time: Not-exactly-earth-shattering ruminations on what should be a blowout, coupled with nailbiting (which should be de rigueur for Georgia fans by now) over the potential to play down to the level of the opponent.

If Georgia plays to its full potential, we should win this thing by 50 points; if instead we hew toward the scenario I described above, it’s 20-7 at halftime, 44-17 final. At least there won’t be a spread for us to not beat.

What's happened since then: Georgia looked real good in a 35-14 pasting of Oklahoma State and not real good at all in a 16-12 loss to South Carolina; the Catamounts, on the other hand, have been a model of consistency, following up a 52-6 loss to Alabama with a 45-21 drubbing by Eastern Kentucky.

Care to amend your initial statement, sir?: Not really. I suppose there's a chance we'll come out angry after last week and really stomp on WCU's necks early, but we're also going to be without Kregg Lumpkin and A.J. Bryant, and Kelin Johnson will probably get the kid-glove treatment if he plays at all, so the possibility that we'll let WCU hang around for longer than necessary certainly still exists.

It's pretty obvious, though, that an out-of-sync passing game was the main weak link against South Carolina, and will also be the weak link against Alabama's secondary next week if we don't get things figured out, so I'd expect to see Richt and Bobo give Stafford and the receivers plenty of opportunities early. Western Carolina's secondary is not a total sieve -- none of the four quarterbacks they've faced so far have put up really staggering numbers -- so for the first half, at least, we should put Stafford and the receivers up against a somewhat challenging pass defense and tell them to start throwing it around until they've got it going like clockwork. Once the needle on the Score-O-Meter hits "Going Nuts" range, then we send Brown and Moreno against a run defense that's given up 639 total rushing yards in its first two games.


And I want to see lots of pictures like this, only without all that nasty-ass blue and orange.

I'd like to see Stafford finish with at least 250 passing yards, and if Eastern Kentucky can gash WCU's run defense to the tune of 326 yards, we should be able to top 300 with the talent we've got in the backfield, particularly if the lead gets big enough that we're just trying to kill the clock in the second half. So even though I know nobody on the coaching staff gives a fat shit what I have to say, I'm declaring an unofficial goal of 550 total yards, and as for the score, I'll split the difference between my yes-we're-trying and my no-we-don't-care predictions and say we win by 38. Final score of 48-10? Sure, fine, but on the other hand . . .

I will run up and down Highland Avenue in front of my apartment building wearing nothing but a Georgia flag if: We drop 70 on them. After last week's turd sandwich, we could use a big bounce-back game on offense. We've dropped 50 on some folks during the Mark Richt era, had that crazy 62-17 game in Lexington a few years ago where the Wildcats really should've just gone ahead and started punting on first down, but in spite of Richt's Tallahassee beginnings, we haven't yet seen a FSU-in-the-mid-'90s, Bobby-Bowden-goes-for-the-folding-chair 70-point carpet-bombing. Well, make that my early Christmas present, guys. WCU has played six BCS-conference I-A opponents since 2000 and allowed an average of nearly 57 points per game; a couple more TDs, say a big Mikey Henderson return and a blocked punt or something, and we've got 70. Come on, Bobo -- it's not the nicest thing in the world to do, I know, but nice don't score touchdowns.


This will do just fine . . . if you're talking about halftime, of course.