Somewhere on Georgia Tech's campus, the director of undergraduate admissions is leaping to his feet and shouting, "Eureka -- we've found the tag line for our new student-recruitment campaign."
(Hat tip: Mac G's World.)
Monday, August 18
And wait . . . and wait . . . and wait . . .
Matthew Yglesias brings us news that the billboard below is part of some conservative organization's abstinence-promotion efforts, but the first time I read it my mind went somewhere else.
Somewhere on Georgia Tech's campus, the director of undergraduate admissions is leaping to his feet and shouting, "Eureka -- we've found the tag line for our new student-recruitment campaign."
(Hat tip: Mac G's World.)
Somewhere on Georgia Tech's campus, the director of undergraduate admissions is leaping to his feet and shouting, "Eureka -- we've found the tag line for our new student-recruitment campaign."
(Hat tip: Mac G's World.)
Preseason BlogPoll roundtable: sovereign states, face-plants, and cookin' up rivalries.
MGoBlog founder Brian Cook has once again invited me to
1. In his "visiting lecturers" series posted on Every Day Should Be Saturday over the past few months, Orson Swindle asked each participant to explain which country, during which historical period, their team most resembles. Let's bring everything up to the present day and ponder: Which current sovereign nation is your team? Or to look at it another way, how does your team fit into the "world" of college football?
Ironically enough, Georgia right now is the Russia of college football. We were fearsome in the '60s, '70s, and much of the '80s; kind of dropped off the map in the late eighties; have begun making noises about returning to superpower status over the last few years, and now we're kicking this bitch into overdrive. First we went out of our way to tweak our long-time arch-rival in as blatant a manner as possible, then we further threw our weight around by kind of arbitrarily bitch-slapping a much weaker country that had made noise about becoming one of the big boys but it turned out was never anywhere close to our league at all. And our fearless leader is a poker-faced genius who seems like a nice, reasonable guy at first but deep down is a diabolical hardass of the highest order.
With (the University of) Georgia just as with Russia, though, that return to superpower status is easier said than done. We've made headlines all over the place the last few weeks, and whatever else you can say about us, we're not flying under the radar anymore. And while beating down the Colt Brennans or Mikhail Saakashvilis of the world was a cakewalk, it's only going to get a lot tougher from here. For that reason, plenty of people are thinking we're not ready for The Show just yet, as we might only be one critical injury or monetary crisis away from collapse.
Incidentally, now is a perfect time to present an idea I think we should take a long hard look at this year for a must-win home game: Maybe this is just my bizarre morbid fascination with Communist iconography talking, but the week leading up to, say, the Tennessee game this year, I think we should royally fuck with the Vols' heads by transforming Athens into a simulacrum of Moscow circa 1980. I'm talking three-story-high banners of Mark Richt's visage hanging from buildings all over campus, a parade featuring the football team marching in front of a line of tanks, and a reviewing stand in College Square where Damon Evans can wave imperiously to the crowd. It might ruffle some feathers, but technically I don't think the NCAA could stop us.
If you thought the end-zone celebration ruffled some feathers . . .
2. Every preseason roundup has to have some discussion of who's overrated, but let's go beyond that. Which team do you think is poised to crap the bed in the biggest way this season relative to high expectations, and which game do you think will begin their slide into ignominy?
This is the easy answer, of course, and certainly I've already spent plenty of time bagging on Clemson's title chances this season, but the more I think about it, the more I think this is how the season goes for Tommy Bowden's team: They beat Alabama in the Georgia Dome on August 30 in an ugly game, but people manage to forget about that lackluster win as the Tigers dispatch their next four opponents (N.C. State, Maryland, and two D-IAA snack cakes) fairly easily. Then it all comes crashing down on October 9, when the 5-0, 5th- or 6th-ranked Tigers go to Winston-Salem and get dropped by the Demon Deacons. They recover by pummeling Georgia Tech the following week, but drop at least another two out of their season-ending five-game stretch (at Boston College, at FSU, Duke, at Virginia, and South Carolina).
"I don't wanna talk about it. I don't wanna talk about it. I don't wanna talk about it."
Why? Because I just don't have confidence in Tommy Bowden's ability to lead his team in the face of huge expectations. And I realize that's a dangerous thing for me to be saying as a Georgia fan, and there was even a part of me that considered going the
3. On the flip side of that coin, which team do you think is going to burst out of nowhere to become 2008's biggest overachiever -- this year's version of Kansas '07, as it were -- and what's going to be the big upset that makes us all finally sit up and take notice of them?
Well, based on the last question, Wake Forest is a logical choice here. But I can also see Utah coming from a comparatively under-the-radar position (given that they have to share oxygen in their own conference with BYU, everyone's Most Likely to Break Into the BCS anointee this year) to surprise some folks, and it could start early with a road upset over Michigan in week 1. That wouldn't necessarily be a huge upset, given that a) we already know Michigan's going to struggle this year and b) a season-opening upset in Ann Arbor is anything but unprecedented. But anytime a mid-major can go into the Big House and come away with a victory, that's kind of a big deal, and in the Utes' case it'd be enough to set them up for a big run through their next four games, which in turn would give them some strong momentum headed into a Thursday-night challenge at home versus Oregon State on October 2.
Joe Pesci, as Vincent "Vinny" Gambini, joins me in praising the Utes.
4. Here's an "I'll hang up and listen" question. I put Ohio State and Oklahoma #1 and #2, respectively, despite their recent high-profile BCS face-plants. Where did you rank those two teams, and did those BCS issues have anything to do with it?
My rationale for putting the Buckeyes and Sooners 1-2, of course, is here.
5. Last season was a statistical outlier in countless ways, not the least of which was the fact that we ended up with a two-loss team as national champion. Do you think anyone plays a strong enough schedule to get MNC consideration as a two-loss team this year? Conversely, do you see anybody managing to sail into the national-championship game undefeated?
Very few teams look bulletproof to me this year, so I can see several conferences advancing two-loss champions into the BCS. But I think we'll still end up with enough one-loss teams that anyone with two losses will still be on the outside looking in come December 7. The most likely national-title pairing, I think, is 12-0 Ohio State versus a one-loss team from the SEC (the sound you just heard was Buckeye Nation's collective cerebral cortex shorting out as they try to decide whether to jump for joy or wet themselves with anxiety over that). The Buckeyes do have that huge matchup with Southern Cal on their schedule, for which the ESPN hype machine has been busy cranking out new adjectives for seven months now, but once they get through that -- and I think they'll do so with a W -- I think they'll crush the rest of their Big 10 schedule.
6. OK, time for some Olympic fever. Which athlete from the Beijing Olympics -- any sport, any country, with the exception of USA basketball since those guys are already pros -- would you most want to add to your team's roster this season? No worries about age, eligibility, or even gender; we'll worry about that crap later.
My opinion is probably already well known that any association with Alicia Sacramone can only be a good thing, and her speed and agility could add yet another dimension to an already deep RB corps, but it's not like we're hurting for talent there at the moment. What we really need is a sure-fire replacement for Trinton Sturdivant at left tackle, and I think I have just the guy: Guam flag-carrier Ricardo Blas Jr., who at 6'0" and 399 pounds, may be the heaviest athlete ever to have competed in the Summer Olympics. But get this: He competes in judo. So not only is he as big as a house, he's got moves. If anyone gets close to laying a finger on Stafford, this guy could just kick the crap out of 'em.
He's the one in front. No, not that one.
Drop a note in the comments with a link to your responses, BlogPoll voters, and there'll be a roundup here about this time next week.
Sunday, August 17
Someday we'll look back on this and laugh:
The preseason BlogPoll ballot.
As warned, here's the preseason top 25 that will serve as my first BlogPoll ballot of the 2008 season. Just to give you an indication of how accurate you can expect this to be, my preseason ballot from last year did have the eventual national champions (LSU) at #3, but they were surrounded by Southern California, Virginia Tech, Texas, and Michigan in the top five. Ohio State was down at #11; Georgia didn't appear until #16 -- one spot above Nebraska. So, uh, beware. I'd add one of those "for entertainment purposes only" disclaimers, but that would imply that somebody might find this entertaining.
I'll break it into groups of five to keep things manageable. Now let's begin, because I'm not planning on making y'all wait very long for a reason to call me an idiot.
1. Ohio State
2. Oklahoma
3. Georgia
4. Missouri
5. Florida
OK, so I've got the great and powerful Bulldogs at number three behind two teams that have laid a combined four gigantic BCS eggs the last two years. What the hell?
I know some people are going to penalize the Buckeyes and Sooners for having taken the pipe so dramatically in the '06 and '07 bowl seasons, but I just don't think that should be a factor in ranking them for '08. Regardless of what happened in January, I think that Ohio State and Oklahoma bring the most top-to-bottom solid and talented teams to the table in August, and even if one of them ends up getting humiliated once again in the national-title game, the fact remains that, at this point, I think they're more likely to get to that game than anyone else.
Why is Georgia at number three? It's not because of the schedule, because in these preseason rankings I'm trying to judge teams based on how good they are right now and not how good we're going to think they are two or three months from now. Honestly, all of the top three teams are good enough that trying to compare their relative strengths and weaknesses involves splitting some pretty thin hairs, but Georgia has just enough question marks -- can they find someone to replace Trinton Sturdivant at left tackle? How will Blair Walsh do as the new kicker? Will one of the receivers step up to replace Sean Bailey and become a team leader? -- that I can't quite put them up on tOSU or OU's level at the moment. Or maybe I'm just afraid of the karmic repercussions I would face by ranking them #1. Yeah, that's probably it.
I think Missouri is going to be terrific again this year, and has at least an outside shot at getting revenge on Oklahoma in this year's Big 12 title match and making it to the national-championship game. As for Florida, yes, I do think their defense will be better this year, but if you're expecting improvement based on a "can't get much worse" rationale, then you're probably not talking about a national-championship-caliber team -- at least, not a team with as clear a path to the national-title game as everyone seems to think at this point.
6. Southern California
7. Wisconsin
8. LSU
9. South Florida
10. West Virginia
I'll probably be expounding more on this over the next few days, but I'm not buying the Trojans as a serious national-title contender this year, either. Consider that last year, they were a consensus #1 pick in nearly everyone's preseason rankings yet still managed to lose to Stanford and needed high-profile collapses by a couple of their Pac-10 rivals to claim their fifth straight conference title; well, this year's USC team is probably going to be notably inferior to that one in a number of areas. The Trojans' defense will be outstanding, but the most experienced part of their offense is a receiving corps that didn't exactly set the world on fire last year; elsewhere, they'll have a brand-new quarterback behind an O-line replacing four of five starters. And depending on how long it takes Mark Sanchez to return from his injury, that new QB may be Mitch Mustain, who does a bang-up job of handing off but really hasn't done a whole lot else at the college level. Pete Carroll's awesomeness gains them a few extra points, and they'll probably win the Pac-10 again this year if for no other reason than because nobody else is going to want it enough, but I don't see them in the BCS title game this year -- nor do I even see them beating Ohio State on September 13.
I'm not all that confident about the other four teams in this group, either, but I did scramble things at the last minute to put Wisconsin above LSU and South Florida above West Virginia. The Badgers and Tigers both have equally big question marks at quarterback, but Wisconsin's QB does have some actual starting experience, and their defense returns a lot more experience than LSU does. At first it seemed like a big leap of faith to put South Florida above West Virginia, but then I remembered that, oh yeah, the Bulls have beaten the Mountaineers the last two years, and they return 17 starters while WVU is having to break in a new coach and deal with some big holes on defense that had already been pretty inconsistent over the last few seasons.
11. Kansas
12. Auburn
13. Texas Tech
14. Texas
15. Oregon
I did some last-minute re-jiggering here, too, and I'm a little nervous about having Kansas at #11, but I'm more confident about them there than Auburn, who's breaking in two new coordinators and an entirely new offensive system, along with a new starting QB. Actually, the Tigers may be too high even at #12 -- I think the people who have predicted a fast-track transition to Tony Franklin's spread system are reading a little too much into Auburn's bowl win. (If individual bowl games were solid grounds for sweeping future predictions, then Taylor Bennett would've been a Heisman Trophy finalist last year.) Still, Auburn will once again have a killer defense to fall back on, and it's not like that defense didn't pretty much singlehandedly win them nine games last year.
Texas Tech is another team I'm worried about putting too high. All the talk has been about how they're finally going to have a solid defense this year to go with their offense, but no matter how good they are, the Red Raiders always seem to lose one total head-slapper of a game each year (it's been Colorado the last two seasons), plus they haven't beaten Texas since 2002. So maybe I should have Texas above TTU . . . but the way the Longhorns may end up struggling on defense again this year, probably not. Oregon I'm kind of shaky on, too, but if they can settle on a solid starter at the QB position, they'll be the ones most likely to break out of a fairly mediocre Pac-10 and challenge USC for the league title.
16. Arizona State
17. Clemson
18. Wake Forest
19. Brigham Young
20. Penn State
Arizona State is a big question mark for me this year: They could've been one of the best teams in the country in 2007 if they hadn't hung Rudy Carpenter out to dry to the tune of 55 sacks, but this season they go from a relatively experienced O-line that flat-out sucked to an inexperienced line that only returns 33 career starts. This is another one of those units that falls into the "has to get better by default" category, but how much better I have no idea.
After ASU comes the first ACC team in these rankings, which should give you some idea as to the regard with which I hold that conference this year. And the fact that I have Wake Forest right below Clemson should indicate that I don't think the Tigers will have nearly the cakewalk through their schedule this year that a lot of people have been predicting. As Sunday Morning Quarterback showed us a few weeks ago, Tommy Bowden's Clemson teams have been at their worst when preseason expectations have been at their highest, and that spells disaster the way the Tigers have been touted this year. Wake Forest has some big holes to fill on offense, but I'm more confident in Jim Grobe's coaching than Bowden's -- Grobe, after all, actually has an ACC trophy on his shelf -- and I'm already looking forward to a Clemson-WFU game on October 9 that could be one of the big season-altering upsets of 2008.
I'll go ahead and throw my lot in with the people who have pegged BYU as this year's most likely BCS-buster, I'd probably have them several notches higher if their major lack of experience on defense didn't make me worry that deep down they're just Hawaii 2.0 -- i.e. a team with incredible offensive firepower that blows through a comparatively easy schedule to get to a BCS game, but gets exposed the first time they go up against a major-conference team that can match them punch for punch on offense. Penn State I might have too low, given all the talent they bring back this year, but they're breaking in brand-new guys at the two most important offensive skill positions.
21. Virginia Tech
22. Tennessee
23. Utah
24. Fresno State
25. Boise State
The Hokies are going to be another really, really green team this year, and it's mainly my faith in Frank Beamer's coaching (and VT's perennial strength on defense no matter how inexperienced they are) that has them ranked this high. Tennessee, on the other hand, might be too low if Jonathan Crompton turns out to be a superstar. Obviously, as a Georgia fan I'm hoping the kid sucks, but then I was saying the same stuff about Erik Ainge back in 2004.
And now it's apparently time to dump all the remaining mid-majors in here. Utah should end up with their best offensive production since they became the first team to earn the title of "BCS buster" in 2004, and could actually challenge BYU for those honors this year; after that comes Fresno State, a team that, on paper, also seems like another good BCS-buster candidate but who always seems to cough up a couple games each year they had no business losing. I may have subconsciously included Fresno and Boise State on here as a package deal, since there's every reason to believe Boise could jump up and beat the Bulldogs at home in the regular-season finale and ruin Fresno's season anyway.
In the waiting room:
Cincinnati
Michigan State
Illinois
South Carolina
Rutgers
Cincinnati is my sleeper just-outside-the-top-25 team for this season because they have a fantastic coach in Brian Kelly and because the controversy over whether or not Ben Mauk will return at QB is kind of disguising the fact that they already have two good options at quarterback and should be fine on offense this year. With Michigan State I may be getting too hyped up over the fact that last year, for the first time in what seems like forever, they managed to put together a season that wasn't a crushing disappointment, but they're going to return a very strong offense this year and could be the surprise team in the Big 10. In other words, something along the lines of what Illinois was last year but won't be this time around, not without Rashard Mendenhall.
I know I like to make fun of South Carolina as much as anyone out there, but once you get past the soap opera at their QB position and Steve Spurrier's continuing weaselry, they look like they're going to be pretty solid this year -- I could see 9-3 if things shake out right, maybe even 10-2 if they can knock off Clemson at the end of the regular season. Last year's week 2 upset of UGA notwithstanding, I'm really glad we're getting them early enough in the season that none of their quarterbacks may necessarily have their heads screwed on straight just yet.
Finally, Rutgers is a team that has a big playmaker to replace (RB Ray Rice) but should be pretty solid everywhere else. Not enough to make a real run at the Big East title, but I'd put them a solid third behind South Florida and West Virginia.
So that's my best moderately educated guess as to where things stand in the preseason; feel free to tear this to shreds in the comments thread. First BlogPoll roundtable will be up tomorrow.
I'll break it into groups of five to keep things manageable. Now let's begin, because I'm not planning on making y'all wait very long for a reason to call me an idiot.
1. Ohio State
2. Oklahoma
3. Georgia
4. Missouri
5. Florida
OK, so I've got the great and powerful Bulldogs at number three behind two teams that have laid a combined four gigantic BCS eggs the last two years. What the hell?
I know some people are going to penalize the Buckeyes and Sooners for having taken the pipe so dramatically in the '06 and '07 bowl seasons, but I just don't think that should be a factor in ranking them for '08. Regardless of what happened in January, I think that Ohio State and Oklahoma bring the most top-to-bottom solid and talented teams to the table in August, and even if one of them ends up getting humiliated once again in the national-title game, the fact remains that, at this point, I think they're more likely to get to that game than anyone else.
Why is Georgia at number three? It's not because of the schedule, because in these preseason rankings I'm trying to judge teams based on how good they are right now and not how good we're going to think they are two or three months from now. Honestly, all of the top three teams are good enough that trying to compare their relative strengths and weaknesses involves splitting some pretty thin hairs, but Georgia has just enough question marks -- can they find someone to replace Trinton Sturdivant at left tackle? How will Blair Walsh do as the new kicker? Will one of the receivers step up to replace Sean Bailey and become a team leader? -- that I can't quite put them up on tOSU or OU's level at the moment. Or maybe I'm just afraid of the karmic repercussions I would face by ranking them #1. Yeah, that's probably it.
I think Missouri is going to be terrific again this year, and has at least an outside shot at getting revenge on Oklahoma in this year's Big 12 title match and making it to the national-championship game. As for Florida, yes, I do think their defense will be better this year, but if you're expecting improvement based on a "can't get much worse" rationale, then you're probably not talking about a national-championship-caliber team -- at least, not a team with as clear a path to the national-title game as everyone seems to think at this point.
6. Southern California
7. Wisconsin
8. LSU
9. South Florida
10. West Virginia
I'll probably be expounding more on this over the next few days, but I'm not buying the Trojans as a serious national-title contender this year, either. Consider that last year, they were a consensus #1 pick in nearly everyone's preseason rankings yet still managed to lose to Stanford and needed high-profile collapses by a couple of their Pac-10 rivals to claim their fifth straight conference title; well, this year's USC team is probably going to be notably inferior to that one in a number of areas. The Trojans' defense will be outstanding, but the most experienced part of their offense is a receiving corps that didn't exactly set the world on fire last year; elsewhere, they'll have a brand-new quarterback behind an O-line replacing four of five starters. And depending on how long it takes Mark Sanchez to return from his injury, that new QB may be Mitch Mustain, who does a bang-up job of handing off but really hasn't done a whole lot else at the college level. Pete Carroll's awesomeness gains them a few extra points, and they'll probably win the Pac-10 again this year if for no other reason than because nobody else is going to want it enough, but I don't see them in the BCS title game this year -- nor do I even see them beating Ohio State on September 13.
I'm not all that confident about the other four teams in this group, either, but I did scramble things at the last minute to put Wisconsin above LSU and South Florida above West Virginia. The Badgers and Tigers both have equally big question marks at quarterback, but Wisconsin's QB does have some actual starting experience, and their defense returns a lot more experience than LSU does. At first it seemed like a big leap of faith to put South Florida above West Virginia, but then I remembered that, oh yeah, the Bulls have beaten the Mountaineers the last two years, and they return 17 starters while WVU is having to break in a new coach and deal with some big holes on defense that had already been pretty inconsistent over the last few seasons.
11. Kansas
12. Auburn
13. Texas Tech
14. Texas
15. Oregon
I did some last-minute re-jiggering here, too, and I'm a little nervous about having Kansas at #11, but I'm more confident about them there than Auburn, who's breaking in two new coordinators and an entirely new offensive system, along with a new starting QB. Actually, the Tigers may be too high even at #12 -- I think the people who have predicted a fast-track transition to Tony Franklin's spread system are reading a little too much into Auburn's bowl win. (If individual bowl games were solid grounds for sweeping future predictions, then Taylor Bennett would've been a Heisman Trophy finalist last year.) Still, Auburn will once again have a killer defense to fall back on, and it's not like that defense didn't pretty much singlehandedly win them nine games last year.
Texas Tech is another team I'm worried about putting too high. All the talk has been about how they're finally going to have a solid defense this year to go with their offense, but no matter how good they are, the Red Raiders always seem to lose one total head-slapper of a game each year (it's been Colorado the last two seasons), plus they haven't beaten Texas since 2002. So maybe I should have Texas above TTU . . . but the way the Longhorns may end up struggling on defense again this year, probably not. Oregon I'm kind of shaky on, too, but if they can settle on a solid starter at the QB position, they'll be the ones most likely to break out of a fairly mediocre Pac-10 and challenge USC for the league title.
16. Arizona State
17. Clemson
18. Wake Forest
19. Brigham Young
20. Penn State
Arizona State is a big question mark for me this year: They could've been one of the best teams in the country in 2007 if they hadn't hung Rudy Carpenter out to dry to the tune of 55 sacks, but this season they go from a relatively experienced O-line that flat-out sucked to an inexperienced line that only returns 33 career starts. This is another one of those units that falls into the "has to get better by default" category, but how much better I have no idea.
After ASU comes the first ACC team in these rankings, which should give you some idea as to the regard with which I hold that conference this year. And the fact that I have Wake Forest right below Clemson should indicate that I don't think the Tigers will have nearly the cakewalk through their schedule this year that a lot of people have been predicting. As Sunday Morning Quarterback showed us a few weeks ago, Tommy Bowden's Clemson teams have been at their worst when preseason expectations have been at their highest, and that spells disaster the way the Tigers have been touted this year. Wake Forest has some big holes to fill on offense, but I'm more confident in Jim Grobe's coaching than Bowden's -- Grobe, after all, actually has an ACC trophy on his shelf -- and I'm already looking forward to a Clemson-WFU game on October 9 that could be one of the big season-altering upsets of 2008.
I'll go ahead and throw my lot in with the people who have pegged BYU as this year's most likely BCS-buster, I'd probably have them several notches higher if their major lack of experience on defense didn't make me worry that deep down they're just Hawaii 2.0 -- i.e. a team with incredible offensive firepower that blows through a comparatively easy schedule to get to a BCS game, but gets exposed the first time they go up against a major-conference team that can match them punch for punch on offense. Penn State I might have too low, given all the talent they bring back this year, but they're breaking in brand-new guys at the two most important offensive skill positions.
21. Virginia Tech
22. Tennessee
23. Utah
24. Fresno State
25. Boise State
The Hokies are going to be another really, really green team this year, and it's mainly my faith in Frank Beamer's coaching (and VT's perennial strength on defense no matter how inexperienced they are) that has them ranked this high. Tennessee, on the other hand, might be too low if Jonathan Crompton turns out to be a superstar. Obviously, as a Georgia fan I'm hoping the kid sucks, but then I was saying the same stuff about Erik Ainge back in 2004.
And now it's apparently time to dump all the remaining mid-majors in here. Utah should end up with their best offensive production since they became the first team to earn the title of "BCS buster" in 2004, and could actually challenge BYU for those honors this year; after that comes Fresno State, a team that, on paper, also seems like another good BCS-buster candidate but who always seems to cough up a couple games each year they had no business losing. I may have subconsciously included Fresno and Boise State on here as a package deal, since there's every reason to believe Boise could jump up and beat the Bulldogs at home in the regular-season finale and ruin Fresno's season anyway.
In the waiting room:
Cincinnati
Michigan State
Illinois
South Carolina
Rutgers
Cincinnati is my sleeper just-outside-the-top-25 team for this season because they have a fantastic coach in Brian Kelly and because the controversy over whether or not Ben Mauk will return at QB is kind of disguising the fact that they already have two good options at quarterback and should be fine on offense this year. With Michigan State I may be getting too hyped up over the fact that last year, for the first time in what seems like forever, they managed to put together a season that wasn't a crushing disappointment, but they're going to return a very strong offense this year and could be the surprise team in the Big 10. In other words, something along the lines of what Illinois was last year but won't be this time around, not without Rashard Mendenhall.
I know I like to make fun of South Carolina as much as anyone out there, but once you get past the soap opera at their QB position and Steve Spurrier's continuing weaselry, they look like they're going to be pretty solid this year -- I could see 9-3 if things shake out right, maybe even 10-2 if they can knock off Clemson at the end of the regular season. Last year's week 2 upset of UGA notwithstanding, I'm really glad we're getting them early enough in the season that none of their quarterbacks may necessarily have their heads screwed on straight just yet.
Finally, Rutgers is a team that has a big playmaker to replace (RB Ray Rice) but should be pretty solid everywhere else. Not enough to make a real run at the Big East title, but I'd put them a solid third behind South Florida and West Virginia.
So that's my best moderately educated guess as to where things stand in the preseason; feel free to tear this to shreds in the comments thread. First BlogPoll roundtable will be up tomorrow.
Friday, August 15
And now, a view from the other side.
I only needed to read through #4 Oklahoma in this team-by-team top 25 preview to know that it was the greatest thing since sliced awesome. It's a guide to hating each of the teams in the coaches' preseason top 25, written from the point of view of a guy whose fandom is proudly NFL-biased but who's admittedly envious of the way truly hateful rivalries spring up like weeds at the college level. Even the Georgia one is hilarious.
Thirteen days, y'all. Thirteen frickin' days. We are very, very close.
Thirteen days, y'all. Thirteen frickin' days. We are very, very close.
The Friday Random Ten+5 goes for the gold.
So what do you do when you're in a condo at the beach and it's been pouring down rain for two days? Well, if you're me, and the two days have been recently, you watch the Olympics. A lot of them. I now know, in principle at least, how Greco-Roman wrestling is scored and judged, so if that ever comes up on Jeopardy!, well, that's another few hundred bucks for me, I guess. Anyway, halfway through the 2008 games, here are the Five Things I Like Best About This Year's Olympics So Far:
Michael Phelps kicking ass
A few people, my mom included, have complained to varying degrees about the attention that's being showered upon Phelps this summer as he tries for eight gold medals in a single Olympics. And while the media hype might be a wee bit excessive, I would counter that a) winning more gold medals than anyone in history is still a pretty big deal, and b) if someone has to be getting this attention, I'd much rather it be a genuinely good kid like Phelps who's a team player, works his ass off and only gets attention for a few months every four years than some douchelick like Kobe Bryant who pulls down nearly $20 million a year and still finds stuff to whine and complain about and who gets thousand-word columns written about him if he so much as farts after a big meal. So anyway, good luck, Phelps. And to your teammates, one of whom in particular was primarily responsible for . . .
That French swimmer getting punked in the relay
Alain Bernard, above, is the French swimmer who confidently stated before the Olympics started that the French relay team would "smash" their American counterparts in the 4x100. He's also the guy who, handed a big lead in the last leg of said relay, got smoked by American swimmer Jason Lezak on his way to settling for a silver medal while Team USA picked up the gold. A more perfect karmic outcome you could not have possibly scripted -- other than, perhaps, Team France tying Team Germany for first place, only to have the French Olympic Committee immediately drop all appeals and surrender the gold to the Germans. Let that be a lesson to you, Frenchy.
Alicia Sacramone
OK, so she fell on her ass in the floor exercise during the team all-around competition. But it was such a . . . nice ass. We were all thinking it, I just said it, OK? I mean, all things considered, you have to fall on an ass, that's the one you want to be falling on. And the fact that the judges evidently didn't take that into account leads me to wonder if they really were against Team USA all along. Whose side are they on, anyway?
China getting called out for letting that one little girl lip-sync to that other little girl's singing
No offense to my readers in China, but -- wait, what am I saying? There's no way this blog would make it past the Internet censors in China. So I can say without fear of offending any native Chinese people that China is one seriously messed-up country. No, let me walk that back a bit -- they have one seriously messed-up government. These people are going to micromanage the opening ceremonies to the point of shoving 7-year old Yang Peiyi (left) into the shadows so that the supposedly cuter 9-year-old Lin Miaoke (right) could lip-sync to her rendition of the Chinese national anthem? I mean, we are one shallow-ass country here in the U.S. and A., but even we'd never tell a 7-year-old girl her grill is too fucked up for her to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner." Anyway, as traumatic as I'm sure this must have been, I'm glad for the rest of the world's sake it was brought to light. And I think George W. Bush could probably raise his approval rating five points by offering Miss Peiyi and her family no-strings-attached asylum in the United States. "Come to America," he'd say, "where you succeed based on your talent rather than on your physical appearance. Well, most of the time. There's always the occasional exception *coughHeidiMontagcough*."
People from different countries not killing each other
OK, so there was that unfortunate incident when some random crazy Chinese guy stabbed an American to death in Beijing. But other than that, there haven't been any Russians killing Georgians, Americans killing Iranians, Palestinians killing Israelis, Pakistanis killing Indians, or vice versa to any of those. That, I think, is my favorite thing about the Olympics: People are too busy competing at sports to worry about wanting to blow each other up. I don't know if that's what people mean when they talk about the "Olympic spirit," but it's probably not the worst thing anyone could come up with.
Wow, I feel like everything's right with the world right now. Well, for the next 15 minutes or so, at least. Anyway, here's the iTunes-selected, beach-approved Random Ten:
1. They Might Be Giants, "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)"
2. Gnarls Barkley, "She Knows"
3. Goldie Lookin Chain, "Your Mother's Got a Penis"
4. The Buggles, "Video Killed the Radio Star"
5. Pet Shop Boys, "E-Mail"
6. Tears for Fears, "Mad World"
7. Q-Tip, "Higher"
8. Duran Duran, "Save a Prayer"
9. Dead Milkmen, "If You Love Someone Set Them On Fire"
10. Johnny Cash, "Orange Blossom Special"
Your turn -- the stuff you've loved (or hated) about the Olympics so far, and your Random Tens, in the comments.
Michael Phelps kicking ass
A few people, my mom included, have complained to varying degrees about the attention that's being showered upon Phelps this summer as he tries for eight gold medals in a single Olympics. And while the media hype might be a wee bit excessive, I would counter that a) winning more gold medals than anyone in history is still a pretty big deal, and b) if someone has to be getting this attention, I'd much rather it be a genuinely good kid like Phelps who's a team player, works his ass off and only gets attention for a few months every four years than some douchelick like Kobe Bryant who pulls down nearly $20 million a year and still finds stuff to whine and complain about and who gets thousand-word columns written about him if he so much as farts after a big meal. So anyway, good luck, Phelps. And to your teammates, one of whom in particular was primarily responsible for . . .
That French swimmer getting punked in the relay
Alain Bernard, above, is the French swimmer who confidently stated before the Olympics started that the French relay team would "smash" their American counterparts in the 4x100. He's also the guy who, handed a big lead in the last leg of said relay, got smoked by American swimmer Jason Lezak on his way to settling for a silver medal while Team USA picked up the gold. A more perfect karmic outcome you could not have possibly scripted -- other than, perhaps, Team France tying Team Germany for first place, only to have the French Olympic Committee immediately drop all appeals and surrender the gold to the Germans. Let that be a lesson to you, Frenchy.
Alicia Sacramone
OK, so she fell on her ass in the floor exercise during the team all-around competition. But it was such a . . . nice ass. We were all thinking it, I just said it, OK? I mean, all things considered, you have to fall on an ass, that's the one you want to be falling on. And the fact that the judges evidently didn't take that into account leads me to wonder if they really were against Team USA all along. Whose side are they on, anyway?
China getting called out for letting that one little girl lip-sync to that other little girl's singing
No offense to my readers in China, but -- wait, what am I saying? There's no way this blog would make it past the Internet censors in China. So I can say without fear of offending any native Chinese people that China is one seriously messed-up country. No, let me walk that back a bit -- they have one seriously messed-up government. These people are going to micromanage the opening ceremonies to the point of shoving 7-year old Yang Peiyi (left) into the shadows so that the supposedly cuter 9-year-old Lin Miaoke (right) could lip-sync to her rendition of the Chinese national anthem? I mean, we are one shallow-ass country here in the U.S. and A., but even we'd never tell a 7-year-old girl her grill is too fucked up for her to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner." Anyway, as traumatic as I'm sure this must have been, I'm glad for the rest of the world's sake it was brought to light. And I think George W. Bush could probably raise his approval rating five points by offering Miss Peiyi and her family no-strings-attached asylum in the United States. "Come to America," he'd say, "where you succeed based on your talent rather than on your physical appearance. Well, most of the time. There's always the occasional exception *coughHeidiMontagcough*."
People from different countries not killing each other
OK, so there was that unfortunate incident when some random crazy Chinese guy stabbed an American to death in Beijing. But other than that, there haven't been any Russians killing Georgians, Americans killing Iranians, Palestinians killing Israelis, Pakistanis killing Indians, or vice versa to any of those. That, I think, is my favorite thing about the Olympics: People are too busy competing at sports to worry about wanting to blow each other up. I don't know if that's what people mean when they talk about the "Olympic spirit," but it's probably not the worst thing anyone could come up with.
Wow, I feel like everything's right with the world right now. Well, for the next 15 minutes or so, at least. Anyway, here's the iTunes-selected, beach-approved Random Ten:
1. They Might Be Giants, "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)"
2. Gnarls Barkley, "She Knows"
3. Goldie Lookin Chain, "Your Mother's Got a Penis"
4. The Buggles, "Video Killed the Radio Star"
5. Pet Shop Boys, "E-Mail"
6. Tears for Fears, "Mad World"
7. Q-Tip, "Higher"
8. Duran Duran, "Save a Prayer"
9. Dead Milkmen, "If You Love Someone Set Them On Fire"
10. Johnny Cash, "Orange Blossom Special"
Your turn -- the stuff you've loved (or hated) about the Olympics so far, and your Random Tens, in the comments.
Thursday, August 14
Itinerary.
As one of my commenters predicted, yes, I brought the rain with me down to Seagrove on Tuesday -- it rained almost all the way down to Florida, rained off and on Tuesday night, rained sideways Wednesday morning, sprinkled off and on for the rest of the day. Weather.com was predicting at least a 30% chance of rain every remaining day this week, and there were times when I thought I might look into a mirror and see a real-life version of Shleprock, wondering if I'd see more than 30 consecutive minutes of sunshine at any point before I had to leave on Sunday. (Not that I was stressing too much about that, not as long as there was a big bottle of Tanqueray on the kitchen counter, but still.)
Fortunately, this is what I got to wake up to this morning.
So don't worry about me -- there's been enough sun today to ensure that I'll be a rich, agonizing shade of Georgia red by the time I drag my ass back into the Salty 'Ham a few days from now, the kind of red that will leave a nice white circle in it if you poke me with your finger (as I go OW OW IT BURNS QUIT IT and retire to my bedroom to cry like a little girl). I haven't forgotten about y'all, though. Even though wireless Internetwebs is costing me $5-$10 per day up in this bitch, the blog will still be updated over the next few days as follows:
Friday -- A Friday Random Ten. Maybe even a +5. If you don't annoy me too much between now and then.
Saturday -- Nothing, sorry. Blogging went up against alcohol consumption in the Priority Cage Match and lost, big time.
Sunday -- Preseason BlogPoll ballot, which I already know most of you are going to hate. Reason the First: Georgia's not gonna be #1. Sorry.
Monday -- BlogPoll administrator and MGoBlog CEO Brian Cook has vested in me the authority to do the opening preseason BlogPoll roundtable, so poll participants, keep your eyes peeled around that time.
Belittle my politics, my football affiliations, or even my physical appearance if you must, but let no one cast aspersions on my commitment to blogging, because I could've sucked down at least two G&Ts in just the time it took to bang out this half-assed post.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got sand to get in my britches.
Fortunately, this is what I got to wake up to this morning.
So don't worry about me -- there's been enough sun today to ensure that I'll be a rich, agonizing shade of Georgia red by the time I drag my ass back into the Salty 'Ham a few days from now, the kind of red that will leave a nice white circle in it if you poke me with your finger (as I go OW OW IT BURNS QUIT IT and retire to my bedroom to cry like a little girl). I haven't forgotten about y'all, though. Even though wireless Internetwebs is costing me $5-$10 per day up in this bitch, the blog will still be updated over the next few days as follows:
Friday -- A Friday Random Ten. Maybe even a +5. If you don't annoy me too much between now and then.
Saturday -- Nothing, sorry. Blogging went up against alcohol consumption in the Priority Cage Match and lost, big time.
Sunday -- Preseason BlogPoll ballot, which I already know most of you are going to hate. Reason the First: Georgia's not gonna be #1. Sorry.
Monday -- BlogPoll administrator and MGoBlog CEO Brian Cook has vested in me the authority to do the opening preseason BlogPoll roundtable, so poll participants, keep your eyes peeled around that time.
Belittle my politics, my football affiliations, or even my physical appearance if you must, but let no one cast aspersions on my commitment to blogging, because I could've sucked down at least two G&Ts in just the time it took to bang out this half-assed post.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got sand to get in my britches.
Tuesday, August 12
SECcessories, take two.
No, I'm not leaving y'all completely high and dry while I head off to the beach. Last year I used and abused this Web site to create a series of motivational posters for SEC teams as they prepped for the 2007 season, and I see no reason not to make that an annual tradition. So here's SECcessories 2008.
Monday, August 11
Not-So-Friday Not-So-Random Ten: In my head, I'm already gone.
So it occurred to me sometime over the weekend that I've kind of totally flaked on the blog for several days now. I'll be honest with you, the well was completely dry last week for a Random Ten+5, and between continued living-space issues, a big charity event on Thursday, visitors from out of town, and racing frantically to tie up some last loose ends at work, it hasn't gotten any wetter. So . . . how do I make up for this, you ask? If you're me, you make up for it by blowing off the rest of the week, going to the beach, and neglecting the blog for another five or six days. Auf widersehen, assholes!
I'm just kidding, of course. Kind of. I don't know. Maybe. Ordinarily I'd feel guilty about blowing off both blog and work to go indulge myself for six days, but after the last couple weeks I've determined that I've earned the right to look out for Number One and no one else for a few days. (And by "look out for" I mean "tan, rest, and intoxicate," of course.) Now, I'll still have Internet access down in Seagrove Beach, but I don't know how convenient it'll be -- and I won't lie to you, given the choice between sitting on the beach with a 12-pack and tapping out thousand-word treatises on Georgia's national-championship hopes on my iPhone, I'm gonna go with the one that doesn't involve anything more physically or mentally taxing than converting Corona into urine. But I'm sure I'll be able to throw y'all a bone or two in between hangovers.
While I try to figure out what exactly that's going to entail, here's a get-the-hell-out-of-town-and-head-for-the-beach-themed Not-So-Random Ten before Holly blows a fuse.
1. Blur, "Get Out of Cities"
2. The Chemical Brothers, "Leave Home"
3. A Tribe Called Quest, "Excursions"
4. Fatboy Slim, "The Weekend Starts Here"
5. Dead Kennedys, "Funland at the Beach"
6. Bobby Darin, "Beyond the Sea"
7. Beck, "Tropicalia"
8. DT8 Project, "The Sun Is Shining (Down on Me)"
9. Happy Mondays, "Lazyitis"
10. Modest Mouse, "Ocean Breathes Salty"
Put your own Tens, be they Random or Not-So-, in the comments. And spare me your jealousy-fueled scolding about what a lazy absentee blogger I am. It'll only make me laugh.
I'm just kidding, of course. Kind of. I don't know. Maybe. Ordinarily I'd feel guilty about blowing off both blog and work to go indulge myself for six days, but after the last couple weeks I've determined that I've earned the right to look out for Number One and no one else for a few days. (And by "look out for" I mean "tan, rest, and intoxicate," of course.) Now, I'll still have Internet access down in Seagrove Beach, but I don't know how convenient it'll be -- and I won't lie to you, given the choice between sitting on the beach with a 12-pack and tapping out thousand-word treatises on Georgia's national-championship hopes on my iPhone, I'm gonna go with the one that doesn't involve anything more physically or mentally taxing than converting Corona into urine. But I'm sure I'll be able to throw y'all a bone or two in between hangovers.
While I try to figure out what exactly that's going to entail, here's a get-the-hell-out-of-town-and-head-for-the-beach-themed Not-So-Random Ten before Holly blows a fuse.
1. Blur, "Get Out of Cities"
2. The Chemical Brothers, "Leave Home"
3. A Tribe Called Quest, "Excursions"
4. Fatboy Slim, "The Weekend Starts Here"
5. Dead Kennedys, "Funland at the Beach"
6. Bobby Darin, "Beyond the Sea"
7. Beck, "Tropicalia"
8. DT8 Project, "The Sun Is Shining (Down on Me)"
9. Happy Mondays, "Lazyitis"
10. Modest Mouse, "Ocean Breathes Salty"
Put your own Tens, be they Random or Not-So-, in the comments. And spare me your jealousy-fueled scolding about what a lazy absentee blogger I am. It'll only make me laugh.
Friday, August 8
This s&!t just got serious.
Seeing Georgia in the headlines during the off-season is a mixed bag for Bulldog fans. Sometimes it's good; other times it's not good at all. So with that in mind, I'm still trying to decide what to make of this.
See that third headline under "Top Stories"?
Now, the story doesn't say exactly who was responsible for the downing of the two Russian planes. If this was the heat-of-the-moment retaliatory action of a drunk Georgia player angry about getting kicked out of a bar downtown, then we could be in a heap of trouble here.
But if it wasn't, then it's possible that this is another one of Mark Richt's craaaazy motivational tricks -- in which case look out. Auburn fans, y'all got all offended by our black jerseys and our Soulja-Boying on the sidelines, but how do you like these apples? And you, Urban Meyer -- you can keep whining all you want about The Celebration, but we bet you're thinking twice about boarding the Florida jet for your next recruiting trip, huh?
If we're not afraid of Vladimir Putin, we're sure as shit not afraid of you guys. Bring. It. On.
See that third headline under "Top Stories"?
Now, the story doesn't say exactly who was responsible for the downing of the two Russian planes. If this was the heat-of-the-moment retaliatory action of a drunk Georgia player angry about getting kicked out of a bar downtown, then we could be in a heap of trouble here.
But if it wasn't, then it's possible that this is another one of Mark Richt's craaaazy motivational tricks -- in which case look out. Auburn fans, y'all got all offended by our black jerseys and our Soulja-Boying on the sidelines, but how do you like these apples? And you, Urban Meyer -- you can keep whining all you want about The Celebration, but we bet you're thinking twice about boarding the Florida jet for your next recruiting trip, huh?
If we're not afraid of Vladimir Putin, we're sure as shit not afraid of you guys. Bring. It. On.
Thursday, August 7
Sympathy for the devil.
If anyone needed any more proof as to what a menace John McCain would be to this country, consider this: He's actually making people -- myself included -- feel sorry for the Hilton family.
I mean, I've expressed as much contempt for Paris Hilton on this blog as anybody out there, but over the past few days I've been trying to put myself in Richard Hilton's shoes. If I'd dumped tens of thousands of dollars into the McCain campaign and the RNC, only to have McCain turn around and slag off my own daughter (spoiled whore though she may be) in a national TV ad, I'd want to punch Captain Maverick in the face.
But unlike me, Paris has decided not to get mad but to get even. Holy fuck, does that mean Paris Hilton is a better person than me? While I ponder whether it's wrist-slitting time, watch this, assuming you haven't seen it 20 times already:
The big caveat with Paris's "plan," of course, is that offshore drilling won't "carry us until" anything, since it'd take at least 10 years for the first drops of oil to begin spurting from those coastal oil rigs (and even then it'd be unlikely to drop our gas prices by more than a few pennies per gallon). Otherwise, though, it's not bad, and I'm not the only one who thinks so:
I don't know that I have the wherewithal to answer any of those questions at the moment, because I'm still trying to grapple with the fact that, for the first time that I can remember, I might actually like Paris Hilton.
See what you've done, Walnuts? Damn you, John McCain. Damn you to hell.
I mean, I've expressed as much contempt for Paris Hilton on this blog as anybody out there, but over the past few days I've been trying to put myself in Richard Hilton's shoes. If I'd dumped tens of thousands of dollars into the McCain campaign and the RNC, only to have McCain turn around and slag off my own daughter (spoiled whore though she may be) in a national TV ad, I'd want to punch Captain Maverick in the face.
But unlike me, Paris has decided not to get mad but to get even. Holy fuck, does that mean Paris Hilton is a better person than me? While I ponder whether it's wrist-slitting time, watch this, assuming you haven't seen it 20 times already:
See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die
The big caveat with Paris's "plan," of course, is that offshore drilling won't "carry us until" anything, since it'd take at least 10 years for the first drops of oil to begin spurting from those coastal oil rigs (and even then it'd be unlikely to drop our gas prices by more than a few pennies per gallon). Otherwise, though, it's not bad, and I'm not the only one who thinks so:
Watching the Hilton video, a few questions came to mind. First, why is that Paris Hilton’s fake ad includes more substantive talk about energy policy than John McCain’s real ad? Second, if writers helped Hilton with her script, and writers helped McCain with his script, why is it that Hilton seems to have a better grasp on policy details than McCain does? Shouldn’t that be, you know, the other way around? And third, why is it that a 27-year-old heiress/reality-show star can read a teleprompter better than the presumptive Republican presidential nominee?
I don't know that I have the wherewithal to answer any of those questions at the moment, because I'm still trying to grapple with the fact that, for the first time that I can remember, I might actually like Paris Hilton.
See what you've done, Walnuts? Damn you, John McCain. Damn you to hell.
Monday, August 4
The richest man in Mogadishu.
Many months back I vowed that, with a big fat stimulus check coming from the federal gubmint, I would put a plasma-screen TV of 40 inches or greater in my living room by the time football season arrived. After several months of pinching pennies, I made good on that vow, and I will now have this to stare at in gleeful thrall throughout football season and beyond.
At present, it is the only thing in my apartment that works.
Well, let me back up: one of distressingly few things. I came home Thursday afternoon to find that neither my microwave oven nor my already overworked window A/C unit, both of which were plugged into an outlet in my kitchen, had stopped working. The next morning, I realized that in fact none of the electrical outlets in my kitchen were working, a discovery I arrived at after eating a bowl of cereal with lukewarm milk and then opening my freezer to find that all my ice cubes had melted. An entire fridge's worth of food, thawed, spoiled, and summarily tossed. My stove and microwave are getting enough power to light their "on" lights as if it's cooking something but not enough to actually cook. My toaster isn't even getting enough juice to do that. (And anyone who knows my history with toaster ovens knows that this appliance is playing a dangerous game. Suppose the toaster had been the first thing I'd tried to use Friday morning? I'd probably still be sweeping chards of Chefmate out of the courtyard.)
I managed to plug my air conditioner into a working outlet in the living room, so it's once again cooling the three square feet directly in front of it every bit as faithfully as it was before. And I bought an extension cord as thick as a string of Polish sausages to run from the refrigerator to yet another outlet (I was able to plug the coffeemaker into it as well). So I now have a refrigerator full of food I can't cook, and I can only consume hot coffee as I sit and sweat my balls off in an 85-degree apartment. But I can watch 42 inches' worth of high-definition TV.
Some, not knowing the exact circumstances, might call that a case of misplaced priorities. I call it taking your blessings where you can find them.
But I was reminded of those blessings Sunday night, when I got to watch snippets of the Redskins' 30-16 victory over the Colts in the 2008 preseason opener. The win was keyed by, of all people, sixth-round draft pick Colt Brennan, who -- just months after having his central nervous system reconfigured by Marcus Howard and the rest of Georgia's front seven -- threw two touchdown passes in the second half. Yeah, it was only a preseason game, but given the choice between winning an exhibition march or losing one, I'd just as soon win. And it capped off a weekend in which Darrell Green and Art Monk, the very first individual I can remember referring to as "my favorite football player," finally got into the NFL Hall of Fame.
So readers, y'all are welcome to come over and watch the games now that football season has (kind of, sort of) started. It'll be hot as hell, and there won't be anything for you to eat, but there'll be a big TV. And the beer, at least, will be cold.
At present, it is the only thing in my apartment that works.
Well, let me back up: one of distressingly few things. I came home Thursday afternoon to find that neither my microwave oven nor my already overworked window A/C unit, both of which were plugged into an outlet in my kitchen, had stopped working. The next morning, I realized that in fact none of the electrical outlets in my kitchen were working, a discovery I arrived at after eating a bowl of cereal with lukewarm milk and then opening my freezer to find that all my ice cubes had melted. An entire fridge's worth of food, thawed, spoiled, and summarily tossed. My stove and microwave are getting enough power to light their "on" lights as if it's cooking something but not enough to actually cook. My toaster isn't even getting enough juice to do that. (And anyone who knows my history with toaster ovens knows that this appliance is playing a dangerous game. Suppose the toaster had been the first thing I'd tried to use Friday morning? I'd probably still be sweeping chards of Chefmate out of the courtyard.)
I managed to plug my air conditioner into a working outlet in the living room, so it's once again cooling the three square feet directly in front of it every bit as faithfully as it was before. And I bought an extension cord as thick as a string of Polish sausages to run from the refrigerator to yet another outlet (I was able to plug the coffeemaker into it as well). So I now have a refrigerator full of food I can't cook, and I can only consume hot coffee as I sit and sweat my balls off in an 85-degree apartment. But I can watch 42 inches' worth of high-definition TV.
Some, not knowing the exact circumstances, might call that a case of misplaced priorities. I call it taking your blessings where you can find them.
But I was reminded of those blessings Sunday night, when I got to watch snippets of the Redskins' 30-16 victory over the Colts in the 2008 preseason opener. The win was keyed by, of all people, sixth-round draft pick Colt Brennan, who -- just months after having his central nervous system reconfigured by Marcus Howard and the rest of Georgia's front seven -- threw two touchdown passes in the second half. Yeah, it was only a preseason game, but given the choice between winning an exhibition march or losing one, I'd just as soon win. And it capped off a weekend in which Darrell Green and Art Monk, the very first individual I can remember referring to as "my favorite football player," finally got into the NFL Hall of Fame.
So readers, y'all are welcome to come over and watch the games now that football season has (kind of, sort of) started. It'll be hot as hell, and there won't be anything for you to eat, but there'll be a big TV. And the beer, at least, will be cold.
Georgia Tech preview: Georgia's gonna beat Tech for the eighth year in a row. How's everything with you?
By Barbara GillettGuest Columnist
Hi, everybody! Apparently Doug couldn't find anyone else to do the Georgia Tech preview, so I guess I'm gonna do it. I don't know why I got stuck with the dorky team, but -- oh, wait, I'm probably not supposed to say that, am I? I'm supposed to be kind of objective, right? (It's not required -- ed.) Oh, well then Georgia Tech sucks. Ha ha haaa!
No, no, I'm just kidding. Georgia Tech doesn't suck at everything. One of Clark's nephews went there, Doug's cousin, and he's a very nice young man with a beautiful family. Unfortunately we didn't get to see them when we were up visiting Clark's parents, but they did e-mail us some pictures of the girls not too long ago, and they are adorable! And Joanne looks great, and -- did they meet at Georgia Tech? Duff and Joanne? Or did she go to -- wait, wait, I'm supposed to be talking about football, sorry, sorry.
OK. Tech kind of sucked last year, right? I mean, the only two games I saw them play were Georgia and Virginia, and they lost both of those, so they couldn't be that good. And didn't they fire their coach at the end of the season? Yeah, because I thought I saw a picture of their new coach in the Atlanta paper not too long ago. Paul something. He had a big round head, almost like a Campbell's Soup kid. Didn't one of their other coaches have a big head? That Irish guy who's such a douchebag? Where's he at these days?
OK, anyway, supposedly Tech is going to change their offense to the triple option, so they're going to need a pretty mobile quarterback. Do they still have Reggie Ball? No? Well, that's a shame, he was terrible. The kid who played against Georgia last year didn't complete many of his passes, so I just assumed that was Reggie Ball. Anyway, the triple option means they're going to be running the ball a whole lot, which is just as well, since they haven't had a quarterback who could hit the broad side of a barn in years. Does anybody still run the triple option, though? I kind of thought it was just Navy and -- does Nebraska still run that offense? Clark? Clark, didn't Nebraska switch to the West -- oh, he's already asleep in his chair. Never mind.
But anyway, completely changing your offense like that is usually pretty hard, so they still may not have it figured out by the time they play Georgia. And even if they do, Georgia's defense is going to be awesome, they have like nine guys back from last year. Did you see what they did to the quarterback from Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl? I almost felt sorry for that kid. I hope for Tech's sake they've got a better offensive line than Hawaii did, or their quarterback might end up in the hospital.
And Georgia's offense is gonna be really good, too. They've got Stafford back, they've got Knowshon Moreno back, and -- who was that other running back they had? The one who always did the Soulja Boy with Moreno? Oh, I know this is kind of off the subject, but I have to tell you a story -- [REDACTED], who's in my tennis league, both her kids went to Auburn and she's a huge Auburn fan, and when we played at Cooper Creek that Sunday after the Georgia-Auburn game, it was just bitch, bitch, bitch about "All those Georgia players dancing around on the sidelines like a bunch of thugs, I thought they had no class" and blah blah blah. I felt like telling her, lady, if they beat you by that much, they can dance any damn place they please! But of course I didn't say that. You know what I should've done, though, I should've worn my Georgia Tennis shirt that you got me, just to rub her face in it. Well, you got me that "Blackout" shirt for Christmas this past year, I'll be sure to wear that if Georgia beats Auburn again.
But we're not talking about Auburn, we're talking about Georgia Tech. OK. How many starters do they bring back on defense? Four? Ugh, that's no good. Well, if Georgia could score thirty-one on them last year, then this year they'll probably break 40. And Knowshon will run for a hundred and fifty yards. Maybe two hundred.
OK, the last thing I have to mention about Georgia is Mark Richt. I know Clark is going to roll his eyes when he reads this, but I don't care, Mark Richt is cute. And he and his wife have an adorable family. Did you know they adopted two kids from the Ukraine or something? And he takes his players on mission trips to South America? I think that's fantastic. I mean, you wouldn't see Steve Spurrier doing something like that. Is he still coaching at South Carolina? Did you already find someone to do that preview? Well, South Carolina sucks too. Ha ha! You don't have to put that if you don't want to. Y'all better kick their asses this year, though.
Now, Georgia and Georgia Tech always play the Saturday after Thanksgiving, right? Are you going to the game? Are Mark and Kristen going? Kristen's moving to Denver? That's great! Tell her I said hi the next time you talk to her. See, if the two of you had gotten together, she could be getting you press passes to the Democratic National Convention right about now. (OK, seriously, mom -- ed.) OK, I'm sorry. But anyway, if you're not actually going to the game, you're welcome to come on down to Columbus and watch it -- the house'll be empty 'cause your dad and I will be in Blacksburg for the Virginia-Virginia Tech game, but you and Ann can come on down, bring your laundry, bring the dogs, there'll be beer in the fridge . . . you know the code for the back door, right? It's -- well, I guess I shouldn't be giving that out on a blog. I'll just e-mail it to you later or something. But either way, you're welcome to come on down, make yourselves at home.
Well, that's about everything I've got, I know you're busy so I won't keep you -- give the pups a kiss for me, and I'll talk to you later on this week, OK? Love you! Go Dawgs!
-- Barbara Gillett graduated from the University of Virginia in 1971 with a degree in nursing; over the last decade, though, she has become an increasingly passionate Georgia fan, to the point where she now coordinates her wardrobe with Mark Richt's on gamedays. She and her husband Clark currently reside in Columbus, Ga.; in her spare time she enjoys volunteering with Meals on Wheels, gardening, and schooling sucka punks who act like they know on the tennis court.
Thanks to Mom and everyone else who contributed columns to this year's Georgia season preview. You can access all of the previews through this link.
Friday, August 1
The Friday(-slash-weekend) Random Ten+5 is so over it.
OK, I know this week's +5 is ground I've covered before to some extent, but when you're in kind of a bad mood -- and boy howdy, was I in a bad mood today, at least until I had the werewithal to stave off looming insanity by cramming some Ruby Minis down my piehole at lunchtime -- it's a well that's definitely worth going back to. So here's Five More Things That Just Need To Stop, Right Now, This Instant.
Television news reports on viral videos
If there's one thing that makes me want to put my foot through the television screen when it's not football season, it's networks like CNN wasting valuable screen time on stories like "Check out which viral video is sweeping the nation!" Hey, guess what: If such-and-such video has gotten a bazillion hits on YouTube, then chances are we already know about it, because we're the ones who helped jack their hit count up to a bazillion in the first place. That isn't always the case, of course; I didn't know about the above video or "Fred," the character "starring" in it, until CNN did a story on "Fred" a few weeks ago. But that begs the question, did I need to know about it? Is it vitally important that I be apprised of which stupid thing the nation's tweener girls find irresistible this week? Maybe that's a story you should consider doing instead, CNN: "Is every girl in America between the ages of 11 and 16 a complete retard? We investigate . . . after this." Maybe you could work on that instead of weeing your pants over whatever JibJab next craps out onto the Intertubes.
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
I had the weirdest experience this past Saturday: Rght before a showing of the movie "Hancock," they showed a preview for the forthcoming film "Disaster Movie," and in that preview was a scene parodying "Hancock." We were already watching a preview of a movie satirizing the very movie we had just sat down to watch. WTF? Then it occurred to me: This film was created by the same pair of smarmy dicklicks who inflicted "Date Movie," "Epic Movie," and "Meet the Spartans" on the filmgoing public. Basically, the Friedberg/Seltzer method is to write down every remotely satirizable film or pop-culture phenomenon of the past 12 months, throw it all in a blender, hit "liquefy," and film whatever comes out. I'm sure it's a great moneymaking scheme, but it makes for a fucking awful comedy; even the two-minute preview was about as much fun as a body-cavity search. The whole time I was like, "Am I being too blatant in my contempt for this movie? Does that make me kind of an asshole? Should I let out a chuckle, just to make it clear I'm not a humorless assw -- oh, hell no, they did not just lift 30 seconds of dialogue verbatim from 'You Don't Mess With the Zohan.' Fuck this, no way am I laughing now." Somebody needs to kidnap them and tie them up in an abandoned factory so that Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker can torture them in all kinds of horrific ways. And then I'll be like, "Don't worry, we're just spoofing 'Hostel.' It's satire, baby!"
Crocs
Jesus H. Christ, are we still not done with these?
Brett Favre
Dude, I hate to say this, because I loved you when you were with the Packers. I mean, not the kind of love I have for Mark Richt, whom I love as deeply as any one heterosexual man can love another heterosexual man, but still, you were awesome. So that just makes it all the more unfortunate that you're pulling this "I'm retired, oops, JK I'm not, now let me back on the team and get this Rogers pissant outta my face" act on us now. Not only are you tarnishing what was otherwise a damn near spotless legacy, you've set in motion a media machine that takes over the radio airwaves, the newspapers, the TV networks and the Intertubes every time you so much as take a crap. Peter King's happier than a pig in shit right now, I'm sure, but that doesn't mean it's any fun for the rest of us.
The whole Barack-Obama-as-an-arrogant-elitist-celebrity meme
John McCain had a made-for-TV movie made about him three years ago. He's had cameos on "24" and in the movie "Wedding Crashers"; he hosted "Saturday Night Live" in 2002 and appeared on the show again this year. He's pals with Warren Beatty and Arnold Schwarzenegger, while his daughter hangs out with Heidi Montag. He wears $520 Italian loafers while his wife, a beer-distributor heiress who's been known to charge as much as $500,000 a month on her credit cards, got her pilot's license and bought a Cessna Citation Excel because a private plane is supposedly "the only way to get around the state" of Arizona. Yet Barack Obama is the one who's supposedly an out-of-touch elitist who's obsessed with his own celebrity status. Uh-huh, sure, you betcha.
Ahhh. I feel a little better now. So here's the Ten:
1. A Tribe Called Quest, "Lyrics to Go"
2. Pet Shop Boys, "Was It Worth It?" (12" mix)
3. The Strokes, "Alone Together"
4. Love Jones, "Paid for Loving"
5. Common, "Chi City"
6. 10,000 Maniacs, "Few and Far Between"
7. The Farm, "News International"
8. 3rd Bass, "Sea Vessel Soliloquy"
9. Four Tet, "Everything is All Right"
10. Steely Dan, "Reeling in the Years"
Better late than never, it's your turn, folks. Your Random Tens and/or lists of shit that just needs to be given a rest go in the comments.
Television news reports on viral videos
If there's one thing that makes me want to put my foot through the television screen when it's not football season, it's networks like CNN wasting valuable screen time on stories like "Check out which viral video is sweeping the nation!" Hey, guess what: If such-and-such video has gotten a bazillion hits on YouTube, then chances are we already know about it, because we're the ones who helped jack their hit count up to a bazillion in the first place. That isn't always the case, of course; I didn't know about the above video or "Fred," the character "starring" in it, until CNN did a story on "Fred" a few weeks ago. But that begs the question, did I need to know about it? Is it vitally important that I be apprised of which stupid thing the nation's tweener girls find irresistible this week? Maybe that's a story you should consider doing instead, CNN: "Is every girl in America between the ages of 11 and 16 a complete retard? We investigate . . . after this." Maybe you could work on that instead of weeing your pants over whatever JibJab next craps out onto the Intertubes.
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
I had the weirdest experience this past Saturday: Rght before a showing of the movie "Hancock," they showed a preview for the forthcoming film "Disaster Movie," and in that preview was a scene parodying "Hancock." We were already watching a preview of a movie satirizing the very movie we had just sat down to watch. WTF? Then it occurred to me: This film was created by the same pair of smarmy dicklicks who inflicted "Date Movie," "Epic Movie," and "Meet the Spartans" on the filmgoing public. Basically, the Friedberg/Seltzer method is to write down every remotely satirizable film or pop-culture phenomenon of the past 12 months, throw it all in a blender, hit "liquefy," and film whatever comes out. I'm sure it's a great moneymaking scheme, but it makes for a fucking awful comedy; even the two-minute preview was about as much fun as a body-cavity search. The whole time I was like, "Am I being too blatant in my contempt for this movie? Does that make me kind of an asshole? Should I let out a chuckle, just to make it clear I'm not a humorless assw -- oh, hell no, they did not just lift 30 seconds of dialogue verbatim from 'You Don't Mess With the Zohan.' Fuck this, no way am I laughing now." Somebody needs to kidnap them and tie them up in an abandoned factory so that Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker can torture them in all kinds of horrific ways. And then I'll be like, "Don't worry, we're just spoofing 'Hostel.' It's satire, baby!"
Crocs
Jesus H. Christ, are we still not done with these?
Brett Favre
Dude, I hate to say this, because I loved you when you were with the Packers. I mean, not the kind of love I have for Mark Richt, whom I love as deeply as any one heterosexual man can love another heterosexual man, but still, you were awesome. So that just makes it all the more unfortunate that you're pulling this "I'm retired, oops, JK I'm not, now let me back on the team and get this Rogers pissant outta my face" act on us now. Not only are you tarnishing what was otherwise a damn near spotless legacy, you've set in motion a media machine that takes over the radio airwaves, the newspapers, the TV networks and the Intertubes every time you so much as take a crap. Peter King's happier than a pig in shit right now, I'm sure, but that doesn't mean it's any fun for the rest of us.
The whole Barack-Obama-as-an-arrogant-elitist-celebrity meme
John McCain had a made-for-TV movie made about him three years ago. He's had cameos on "24" and in the movie "Wedding Crashers"; he hosted "Saturday Night Live" in 2002 and appeared on the show again this year. He's pals with Warren Beatty and Arnold Schwarzenegger, while his daughter hangs out with Heidi Montag. He wears $520 Italian loafers while his wife, a beer-distributor heiress who's been known to charge as much as $500,000 a month on her credit cards, got her pilot's license and bought a Cessna Citation Excel because a private plane is supposedly "the only way to get around the state" of Arizona. Yet Barack Obama is the one who's supposedly an out-of-touch elitist who's obsessed with his own celebrity status. Uh-huh, sure, you betcha.
Ahhh. I feel a little better now. So here's the Ten:
1. A Tribe Called Quest, "Lyrics to Go"
2. Pet Shop Boys, "Was It Worth It?" (12" mix)
3. The Strokes, "Alone Together"
4. Love Jones, "Paid for Loving"
5. Common, "Chi City"
6. 10,000 Maniacs, "Few and Far Between"
7. The Farm, "News International"
8. 3rd Bass, "Sea Vessel Soliloquy"
9. Four Tet, "Everything is All Right"
10. Steely Dan, "Reeling in the Years"
Better late than never, it's your turn, folks. Your Random Tens and/or lists of shit that just needs to be given a rest go in the comments.
I just want some dumplings!
Sorry for the upheaval in the usual Friday posting schedule around here. Had a bit of a lousy morning today. But here's what turned my frown upside-down around 10 or so.
(Hat tip: SI.com's Extra Mustard.)
(Hat tip: SI.com's Extra Mustard.)
The sky above, the earth below.
It's interesting to think that in maybe ten minutes' worth of Web surfing this morning, I was treated to a crystal-clear picture of just how far the Georgia Bulldogs have come in the last 10 years.
First there was this announcement of a new milestone in Georgia history:
Now, I'm not gonna lie to you: This terrifies me. As I've tried to make very clear, I was kind of hoping that somebody else, maybe even somebody in our own conference, would be helped to the #1 preseason poll spot while the Dawgs languished down at #4 or #5, letting us fly at least a little underneath the radar and giving us maybe a chip on our shoulder besides. There won't be any room under the radar now, that's for sure, but if Richt's skills as a motivator and a leader of men have come along as much as we think they have, maybe he can use the #1 ranking as a motivating tactic itself -- i.e. The poll voters have put a lot of faith in us, guys. Now we have to go out there and earn it. Or something like that.
But anyway, as if to keep us all from getting too big a collective head over this, only a few bullet points down from that story on the front page of AJC.com we got this taste of the way we were:
Ahh, yes. The fall of 1998, when spirits were high, QC was a future Heisman Trophy winner, and a national title was always right around the corner.
Let's remember that when we think about getting a little too full of ourselves over this pre-season ranking, kids.
Anyway, I couldn't help but smile at this unintentionally hilarious last graf of the article:
Yep, inconsistent quarterback play is definitely the kind of situation that Quincy Carter will fit right into. Good luck, buddy.
First there was this announcement of a new milestone in Georgia history:
The Georgia Bulldogs are ranked No. 1 in the preseason USA Today coaches poll released today.
Georgia returns 16 starters from last year's 11-2 team, which finished No. 3 in the coaches' poll and No. 2 in the Associated Press poll.
Georgia is followed in the poll by Southern Cal, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Florida, LSU, Missouri, West Virginia, Clemson and Texas.
Now, I'm not gonna lie to you: This terrifies me. As I've tried to make very clear, I was kind of hoping that somebody else, maybe even somebody in our own conference, would be helped to the #1 preseason poll spot while the Dawgs languished down at #4 or #5, letting us fly at least a little underneath the radar and giving us maybe a chip on our shoulder besides. There won't be any room under the radar now, that's for sure, but if Richt's skills as a motivator and a leader of men have come along as much as we think they have, maybe he can use the #1 ranking as a motivating tactic itself -- i.e. The poll voters have put a lot of faith in us, guys. Now we have to go out there and earn it. Or something like that.
But anyway, as if to keep us all from getting too big a collective head over this, only a few bullet points down from that story on the front page of AJC.com we got this taste of the way we were:
Davie, Fla. — The Miami Dolphins drew another name from the past of Bill Parcells on Thursday, working out former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Quincy Carter.
But Dolphins coach Tony Sparano said the workout is merely an evaluation of Carter, an arena league quarterback who started for the Cowboys and New York Jets before poor play and drug-related arrests ended his NFL career.
Ahh, yes. The fall of 1998, when spirits were high, QC was a future Heisman Trophy winner, and a national title was always right around the corner.
Let's remember that when we think about getting a little too full of ourselves over this pre-season ranking, kids.
Anyway, I couldn't help but smile at this unintentionally hilarious last graf of the article:
Carter was dismissed by the Cowboys in 2004 — a team coached by Parcells, now vice president of football operations for Miami. Carter's understanding of the Dolphins' offense would seem to make him a good fit in Miami, which has struggled to get consistent quarterback play in training camp.
Yep, inconsistent quarterback play is definitely the kind of situation that Quincy Carter will fit right into. Good luck, buddy.
Tuesday, July 29
Urban's way home.
One intriguing part in a quote-heavy book is Meyer's response as to how to approach the 2008 Georgia game, specifically addressing the Bulldogs picking up a much-hyped celebration penalty after their first touchdown in a 42-30 win last season: "That wasn't right. It was a bad deal. And it will forever be in the mind of Urban Meyer and in the mind of our football team. . . . So we'll handle it. And it's going to be a big deal."
-- Gene Frenette, Florida Times-Union, 19 July 2008
INT. BIRMINGHAM AIRPORT -- DAY
Florida Gators head coach URBAN MEYER, on his way home from an eventful week at SEC Media Days, sits in stoic silence in a Delta departure lounge, his unblinking gaze locked straight ahead. Presumably he's looking at the Boeing 737 parked outside, but there's an ELDERLY WOMAN sitting between him and the windows, knitting to pass the time. Periodically she looks up to find the dead-eyed stare of MEYER burning right through her forehead; each time she looks back down at her knitting, a little bit more nervous, until finally she hastily shoves her knitting in her carry-on bag and moves to another bank of chairs out of MEYER's field of view.
The coach doesn't so much as blink to acknowledge her departure. His gaze remains locked on the airplane outside.
Presently one of the flight attendants at the gate gets on the intercom.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a schedule change concerning Delta flight 1458 to Atlanta, with continuing service to Charlotte and New York-LaGuardia. Due to severe weather reported in the Atlanta area, departure has been delayed 45 minutes, and we are now expecting a gate departure time of 9:40 a.m.
MEYER's head whips around.
We will do our very best to ensure that all passengers connecting out of Atlanta will be able to make their flights. Thank you for your patience.
With precise body movements evoking those of Robert Patrick in the second "Terminator" movie, MEYER gets up from his seat and strides purposefully to the gate. Even though the FLIGHT ATTENDANT has been watching him ever since he got up, MEYER clears his throat loudly once he's standing in front of her.
Yes, sir?
MEYER
That's no good. Forty-five minutes? That's no good. We need to leave now.
FLIGHT ATTENDANT
I'm really sorry, sir, but there are tornado watches in some of the counties around Atlanta and the airport is on a ground stop until they've passed --
MEYER
Tornado watches? As in not even a warning? Let me tell you something Urban Meyer has learned in his time on this planet, miss -- tornado warning, that's something you don't want to fly through, that's a big deal. But flying through a tornado watch? That's a matter of will.
FLIGHT ATTENDANT
Sir, I, uh -- none of this is up to me, it's --
MEYER
Maybe not. But you're an employee of the airline. You're involved because you've chosen to be. Do you know how long I have to make my connection in Atlanta? Fifty minutes. Fifty minutes between flights. What happens if I don't make my connection?
FLIGHT ATTENDANT
If we arrive too late in Atlanta for you to make your flight, we'll give you priority placement on the very next flight to your destination.
MEYER
Uh-huh. And do I get any compensation for that? First-class upgrade? Some kind of voucher?
FLIGHT ATTENDANT
Well, no, since weather conditions aren't under our control, we don't typically give --
MEYER
That's uncalled for. First of all, it's against the rules. If you really look at it, some people could be missing important appointments because they're not getting to their destinations on time.
FLIGHT ATTENDANT
Sir, I'm really sorry, but there's nothing I can do about this.
MEYER whirls around to face the rest of the passengers seated at the gate, some of whom have been watching his confrontation with the FLIGHT ATTENDANT.
Are you hearing this, everyone? You seeing how you've been disrespected here? Some of us are gonna be late for our flights, and she's telling us we just gotta sit here and take it.
TEENAGE PASSENGER
That sucks.
MEYER
You're darn right it sucks. So are you just gonna sit there and let 'em walk all over you like that? How many of you got less than an hour to make your connections?
A young BUSINESSMAN stands up.
I do!
MEYER
Yeah? You OK with them telling you you're just gonna have to catch a later flight? Who else?
As several more PASSENGERS stand up, the FLIGHT ATTENDANT desperately tries to quell the situation.
Look, this is all just a --
Don't listen to her! You can either sit there and take it like good little sheep, or you can get mad! Now who's gonna stand with me?
BUSINESSMAN
I will! This plane needs to get moving now!
OLDER GENTLEMAN
Yeah!
The standing PASSENGERS begin marching over to MEYER's side as the coach throws his hands in the air, riling them up and challenging them to act. As their commotion grows louder, the FLIGHT ATTENDANT picks up a walkie-talkie.
All right, everybody needs to sit down this instant, or I'm calling Homeland Security!
The mention of "Homeland Security" stops MEYER's would-be compatriots dead in their tracks. One by one, they slink back to their seats, leaving MEYER standing alone at the gate.
Finally, with a heavy sigh of frustration, MEYER walks back to the same seat he was sitting in earlier. He once again locks his gaze onto the airplane sitting outside. He does not blink.
CUT TO:
INT. ATLANTA HARTSFIELD-JACKSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT -- DAY
His steely expression now frustrated, but still determined, MEYER stares down a red-jacketed DELTA AGENT at an information desk in Terminal A.
So you've already put me on one late flight, and now you're telling me you can't put me on my other flight until one-twenty?
DELTA AGENT
I'm sorry, but as I've already explained, the first flight being late was because of the weather, and we don't have any control over --
MEYER
That wasn't right. It was a bad deal. And it will be forever in the mind of Urban Meyer and in the mind of the rest of the passengers on that plane.
Long, awkward pause. Some of the people standing in line behind MEYER begin to look at their watches.
Sir, I've put you on the next flight to Gainesville, the earliest one we have, which is ASA flight 4528 leaving at 1:20. If you can handle that, great. If you need an earlier flight, our only other option is to put you on another carrier, which would --
MEYER
Oh, I'll handle it. And it's going to be a big deal.
The DELTA AGENT lets out a withering sigh, unimpressed.
Is there anything else I can help you with today, sir.
MEYER
No. I believe our business here is completed.
MEYER continues to stare at the DELTA AGENT for several tension-fraught moments, but the AGENT merely cocks an eyebrow, challenging the coach to escalate the confrontation. After a few more tense seconds, MEYER grabs his carry-on and walks away.
Thank you for choosing Delta, have a nice day.
At this, MEYER whirls around, points to his eyes with his index and middle fingers, then points a single rigid index finger at the AGENT. Then he turns around again and continues on his way.
A little ways down the concourse, MEYER takes out his BlackBerry and dials.
(Into phone)
Shelley. It's Urban. Change of plans. Instead of flight 4779 arriving at eleven-fifty-five, it's gonna be flight 4528 arriving at two-fifty-seven. (pause) I don't know, some nonsense about tornado watches. (pause) Shelley, I didn't call you to be lectured about the weather, all right? (pause) The amount of time is not the issue, it's the principle of the whole thing. It's a bad deal, and -- (pause) Oh, I can forget. I can forget just fine. But I can't forgive. (long pause) Never mind. Just be at the terminal at three, all right? (pause) All right. OK. Bye.
MEYER hangs up the phone and puts it in his pocket. He finds himself standing in front of a Starbucks, and walks in.
Welcome to Starbucks, what can I get for you today?
MEYER
You want to know what Urban Meyer would like? Urban Meyer would like a double-shot grande latte, skim, and a muffin.
BARISTA #1
I'm sorry, I think we may be out of skim milk -- is two-percent OK?
MEYER
I don't know. Is giving you two percent of the price OK?
BARISTA #1
Uhh -- I'm sorry?
MEYER
It's very simple: I've asked for something, and you've tried to give me something less. And that isn't right. That's a bad deal. I understand the motivation here, but you're trying to give me something different from what I asked for. So do you want to try and get what I asked for, or do you want me to handle it? 'Cause I'll handle it.
BARISTA #1
(terrified)
I'll -- I'll go back in the back and see if we have any skim.
The BARISTA hurries back into the stockroom, wiping away tears. Her companion behind the counter finds himself the new target of MEYER's icy stare.
Uhhh . . . do you know what kind of muffin you'd like?
MEYER
Look at me.
BARISTA #2
I . . . am looking at you.
MEYER moves closer to the counter.
No. Look . . . at . . . me. Look me right in the eyes.
Practically shaking now, the second BARISTA moves closer to MEYER's face and stares at him.
Yeah.
MEYER
You got me now? You looking right at me, you're
not gonna turn away? 'Cause I am looking you right
in the eyes and telling you I want . . . that one.
CUT TO:
EXT. GAINESVILLE REGIONAL AIRPORT -- DAY
MEYER stands at the main entrance to the airport, watching, jaw clenched, as cars pull up, pick up or drop off their passengers, and drive away. He checks his watch with the sharp, precise movement of a military commander, and shakes his head.
Unbelievable. Just. Unbelievable.
Presently a Mercedes ML350 with a "Florida Gators 2006 National Champs" front license plate zooms up to the curb. MEYER begins walking toward it and an attractive blond woman, his wife SHELLEY, races out to meet him.
Welcome h --
MEYER
Three o'clock, Shelley. I distinctly remember saying three o'clock. It's now three-twenty-two.
SHELLEY
I know, honey, I got here at three, like you said, but you didn't come out right away and the policeman told me I had to --
MEYER
No no no. That's an excuse. What's the first rule I've tried to teach everyone in this family?
SHELLEY
(sighs)
"You cannot control what other people do -- "
NATHAN
(leaning out car window)
Hi, Daddy!
MEYER
Not now, Nathan. (to SHELLEY) "What other people do, but . . ."
SHELLEY
" . . . But each person carries his own perception of reality, and we can keep them from imposing that perception on us."
MEYER
And how do we do that?
SHELLEY
God, Urban --
MEYER
Shelley? How do we do that? Come on, this is a big deal. Do you understand that this is a big deal?
Excruciating pause.
"Eliminate distractions, focus, and achieve the objective."
MEYER
Right. That's right. That's what you need to do. All right? (beat) I don't tell you guys these things just to hear myself talk. These are rules for getting what you want, what I want, what we all want out of life. This is about a path to success.
SHELLEY
Whatever. Can I please just have a kiss now?
MEYER
Oh. Right.
URBAN gives his wife a perfunctory peck on the cheek.
Now, you want me to drive, or --
MEYER
That won't be necessary. Urban Meyer can handle this.
MEYER grabs the keys from his wife, throws his suitcase and carry-on in the trunk of the Mercedes, and gets into the driver's seat. He throws the SUV into gear and, with a chirp of the tires, they're on their way.
SHELLEY
So how was Media Days?
MEYER
It was satisfactory. We accomplished what we needed to do.
SHELLEY
'Satisfactory'? That's it? How'd Tim do in front of the cameras?
MEYER
Tim handled it very well. Was poised, stayed on message, handled himself very well. If there's one person Urban Meyer never has to stay up nights worrying about, it's Tim Tebow.
SHELLEY
God, honey, you know I hate it when you talk like that.
So how was Media Days?
MEYER
It was satisfactory. We accomplished what we needed to do.
SHELLEY
'Satisfactory'? That's it? How'd Tim do in front of the cameras?
MEYER
Tim handled it very well. Was poised, stayed on message, handled himself very well. If there's one person Urban Meyer never has to stay up nights worrying about, it's Tim Tebow.
SHELLEY
God, honey, you know I hate it when you talk like that.
The Mercedes has pulled up to the toll booth at the exit from the airport. SHELLEY takes out a ticket and reaches across URBAN to hand it to the ATTENDANT.Three-fifty.
URBAN reaches in his pocket and pulls out a twenty to give to the ATTENDANT.
This is the exact-change-only line. You gonna have to back up and go through the next one.
MEYER's jaw sets as he turns to stare at the ATTENDANT.
Would you like to say that one more time?
ATTENDANT
(eyes narrowing)
Sir, I need you to back your vehicle up and go through the line to your right.
MEYER stares daggers at the ATTENDANT for a few moments.
Fine. But it's not right. And Urban Meyer isn't gonna forget this.
MEYER shifts the Mercedes into reverse, cranes his neck to look behind him, and begins rolling backward.
FADE TO BLACK
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