Georgia fans have been waiting to see how Mark Richt would react to this week’s arrests, and they got some answers this afternoon. Richt discussed the arrests and announced suspensions for some, though not all, of the players recently arrested.

"I’m certainly disappointed in a few of our players who have made poor decisions during the off season," Richt said. "It is of great concern and we take it very seriously. They will be dealt with accordingly and will pay a price. Each one will be disciplined based on the severity of their actions."

He went on to highlight the positive activities and behavior of the vast majority of the team which included everything from mission work to volunteer activities.

So for those keeping score at home, here are the suspensions and results of the offseason incidents as they stand now (in order of severity):

• DE Michael Lemon (felony battery): suspended indefinitely (per athletic department policy)
• OL Clint Boling (alcohol-related): two games
• FB Fred Munzenmaier (alcohol-related): two games
• DB Donovan Baldwin (alcohol-related): one game
• OL "Bean" Anderson (simple battery): no suspension announced (yet)
• OL Trinton Sturdivant (simple battery): no suspension announced (yet)
• DE Jeremy Lomax (concealed weapon): charges dropped, no suspension

You can get better legal analysis here, but “not good” more or less sums up the current state of affairs for Bulldog reserve DE Michael Lemon.

Misdemeanor battery charges against Michael Lemon have been upgraded to include a felony aggravated battery charge, and Lemon turned himself in this morning.

If the charges stand, any discipline from Mark Richt is the least of Lemon’s concern. He’ll be facing some very serious charges with potentially severe punishment from the court and the University. The alleged victim seems determined to press on with the charges, and that’s certainly his right if the facts of the case support his claims.

Meanwhile, Bellygate is into its third day, and there’s not much new to report on the cases of Sturdivant and Anderson.

Hopefully none of us have any illusions about the role of money in the modern major athletic department. But what does it say when there’s a pretty good indication that the pursuit of that money puts one of the teams at a competitive disadvantage?

Read here for the background.

By itself this might sound like sour grapes. But grumbles about the Nike equipment isn’t a new issue. Certainly Georgia has had plenty of success despite the bats, and Peisel’s missed grand slam opportunity stands out because of an otherwise outstanding pitching performance by Fresno.

It’s a bigger issue than one series or at-bat. It’s one of the most powerful athletic departments in the nation telling one of its teams that inferior equipment is “good enough” because Nike says so.

We’ve seen Central Michigan on our schedule before. They’ve been named Marshall or Central Florida or UAB or Troy. It’s that team that’s not quite a cupcake, made a bowl the year before, but they’re not BCS material. They’ll have a standout QB or receiver that racks up incredible stats in his conference and will likely have some pretty good numbers against the Dawgs too.

This time that guy is Dan LeFevour, Central Michigan’s junior QB. You’re probably sick of the dual-threat QB, but LeFevour definitely qualifies: only he and Vince Young have thrown for 3,000 yards and rushed for 1,000 in a season. He even caught a TD pass. There’s no question that the CMU offense flows through him, and HeismanPundit has named him a darkhorse if not for 2008 then for his senior season in 2009.

HP has an interview with LeFevour, and it’s worth a read. Georgia and Purdue are the big nonconference challenges for the Chippewas this year, and he discusses the team’s readiness for a game in Athens.

You’ve got a big game against Georgia coming up. How will you guys approach playing a game in such a hostile environment?

We’ve had some experience with that. We played at Kentucky last year. We’ve played at Michigan and Clemson and Purdue. We just need to remember that we’ve been in that situation before and carry it over to this game. As long as we are ready mentally, we should be ready to play.

The closest of those games was at Kentucky where CMU closed to within two points in the 4th quarter before falling 45-36. How about those other games? Michigan (41-17), Purdue (45-22), and Clemson (70-14) weren’t quite as close. There was also a 52-7 loss at Kansas to open the 2007 season.

Central Michigan can definitely be a dangerous team. They pushed Kentucky in 2006, and they came back on Purdue in the bowl game rematch last season once the Boilermakers went to sleep on a big halftime lead. Without breaking them down, the formula seems to be what it usually is against these kinds of teams: take the opponent seriously, jump on a weaker defense to put up some points, and don’t sleep on a lead. If nothing else, it will be a treat for Georgia fans to see someone of LeFevour’s talent competing opposite Stafford, Moreno, and Georgia’s own Heisman darkhorses.

Well-deserved.

David Perno, who recently led the Georgia baseball team to its third College World Series appearance in the last five seasons, has agreed to a new five-year, $2.25 million contract, Director of Athletics Damon Evans announced on Wednesday.

The new contract amounts to an annual increase of $150,000. Playing for the national title always makes those postseason evaluations a little more pleasant than usual:

“First of all, I’d like to say that I really enjoyed my discussions with Damon after the College World Series, and we’re excited about the future of the Bulldog baseball program,” Perno said. “I’m very pleased with the opportunity to be at Georgia and hope to be here a long time. The support we’ve received from our administration is very much appreciated.”

That support from the administration will be tested soon as the future of Foley Field becomes more of an issue. Georgia baseball continues to set attendance marks, and everything from concessions to practice space could use improvement. At the same time, Foley’s location doesn’t necessarily lend itself to much expansion.

It seems odd to say after Perno’s seventh year on the job, but there are those who up through this season questioned Perno’s fitness for the position. This new contract is a sign that Georgia baseball has its man. Now let’s do something about those odd-numbered years.

I’ll let the story speak for itself…

Georgia football player Michael Lemon is a suspect in an alcohol-related battery incident Saturday night that sent a University student to the hospital with a severe eye injury, according to an Athens-Clarke County police report.

Read the whole thing. It’s not a favorable account.

It gets better…Trinton Sturdivant and Justin Anderson were apparently booked on “simple battery” charges. (hat tip to Steve Patterson of UGASports.com) It’s unknown at this time whether those arrests were related to Lemon’s incident. Way too early to make heads or tails of this story yet, but for those of you keeping score at home that’s over half of Georgia’s projected starting offensive line (when you include Boling) that has been arrested over the offseason.

UPDATE: It seems as if the incidents are not related. More information on the Sturdivant / Anderson incident is available from ESPN. Still doesn’t look good for Lemon, but I wouldn’t be surprised if charges are ultimately dropped against the two offensive linemen.

Uga VI will be laid to rest inside Sanford Stadium this afternoon. It says something about Georgia fans that the Athletic Department has had to make it clear that this is a private ceremony. Still, given that they have made the time and the date of the interment public information, I really hope that a crowd doesn’t gather on the bridge. There’s a fine line between paying your respects to Uga and becoming one of those Barbaro freaks.

After Uga is buried, the process of naming a successor will begin. This is no small job. It’s not just about looks. The ideal Uga must also have the personality and the temperment to handle the job week in and week out in front of SEC crowds. Just any white bulldog won’t do.

The last transition was public and smooth. Uga VI of course was selected and introduced while Uga V was still alive, and Uga V had a chance to retire before passing away. But now we face the scenario of an active Uga passing while in office, and an interregnum is a new experience for many Georgia fans. It’s been a while since we’ve gone through this process, so I’m here this morning with a look inside the process.

The process begins this week after the burial of Uga VI. Living members of the University’s Circle of Honor and football players with retired numbers will arrive in Athens beginning this afternoon, and they will sequester themselves on several floors of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education (Uga’s Athens residence during a home game). They will take several days to become familiar with the candidates and deliberate. Most of the day will be spent in seclusion in their Georgia Center rooms reflecting on the qualities of Uga while consulting "Best of Munson" DVDs and the 2008 Phil Steele.

During this time the Circle of Honor must decide what kind of mascot they want. Uga VI was large and playful with a sense for when it was time to play ball. The Circle might decide that they want a more hard-line, no-nonsense mascot to keep the team on task during this difficult season ahead. They might want a young, smaller pup who has a little more animation than his father. Less-conservative members of the Circle might even support a mascot with some carefully-hidden brown patches as a sign of inclusiveness and an appeal to widen the growing Georgia bandwagon.

Then they will vote. Each day the members of the Circle of Honor will cast a ballot with a single name. Damon Evans, whose duties as Athletic Director include administrative oversight of this process, will read aloud the result of each ballot. If no candidate receives two-thirds of the votes, the Circle of Honor will retire for the evening, and the ballots will be shredded and used to line the cages of the various candidates.

Once a candidate gets at least two-thirds of the votes, members of the Seiler family will remove the other candidates from the room. The Uga-elect will be presented with a dummy of an Auburn player (an actual Auburn player may be substituted) and a television cable. If the Uga-elect correctly lunges at both items, Sonny Seiler will immediately place the bulldog on a bag of ice and speak the name of the new mascot while proclaiming him Defender of the End Zone and Protector of That Big Air-Conditioned Dog House. Seiler may choose any appropriate name; there is some speculation that Uga IV was nearly named Herschel I. But it’s expected that this year’s new mascot will be named Uga VII.

Seiler will then place a custom-made red sweater on the new mascot. The Chapel Bell will ring. Finally, Seiler will emerge from the lobby of the Georgia Center and announce, "Habemus canum y’all" (we have a dawg). The new mascot will emerge and make his public debut as he is taken for a walk around the Georgia Center grounds, possibly stopping to anoint the vegetation along Carlton Street.

The Seilers and the new mascot will return to Uga’s summer residence in Savannah to prepare the mascot for his first public appearances. His first big foray into the public world will be at Picture Day in August, and he’s only two months away from his first game when he will lead the Bulldogs into action against Georgia Southern.

Eager Georgia fans wait outside the Main Library for news of the next Bulldog mascot.

A big hint that you’re not that far up on the ol’ recruiting board: all of the coaches - even your position coach - are on vacation during your recruiting visit.

Justin Jones will commit to Kentucky following a disappointing recruiting visit to South Carolina. “Justin went to South Carolina on Wednesday and everybody was gone,” Heritage coach Chad Frazier said. “They had a [graduate assistant] showing him around campus. That’s what sealed it for him.”

Like his father, Uga VI had plenty of fire.

Some of my favorite pictures that I’ve taken of UgaVI…

According to the Savannah Morning News and Josh Kendall, Georgia’s mascot Uga VI died last night. He would have turned 10 in June, and that’s pushing the life expectancy for a bulldog. There was some speculation last summer about his retirement, but Uga VI remained in place for the entire 2007 and went out a winner. He presided over 114 Georgia football games and 87 wins - records for both wins and longevity for a Georgia mascot.

Georgia under Uga VI

• 87-27 (76.3%) career record
• Made a bowl in each of his nine seasons, winning seven
• Three sUGAr Bowl appearances, winning two
• Two SEC titles
• Three SEC East titles
• Five AP Top 10 finishes

Dennis Felton will now be replacing both of his starting backcourt players after Billy Humphrey was dismissed from the team on Friday.

Humphrey’s dismissal stems from a Tuesday night arrest for DUI on top of two previous incidents. Coach Felton said,

“I am disappointed in Billy,” Felton said. “We’ve worked really hard with him in the past to see that he succeeds, but I feel that it’s now best for our program to move forward without him.”

Initial reports stated that Humphrey blew a .02 (still trouble for an underage drinker), but additional details from the ABH correct that error and paint a much more serious picture:

When Humphrey was stopped on Georgia Highway 316 early Tuesday morning, his blood-alcohol content tested at .082 on the road and .129 later at the county jail, where he was booked on DUI and other charges, according to the officer’s report. The Banner-Herald previously reported in error that Humphrey blew .02.

Police found a half-full bottle of Bacardi rum on his back seat, and jailers tested Humphrey’s blood alcohol level at more than one and a half times the legal limit.

With that new information and with his earlier (though minor) incidents in mind, Felton really had no choice here.

Jeremy Price and Terrence Woodbury are now the only returning starters. Coach Felton got a new lease on life with the SEC Tournament title, but he’ll have to identify a new shooting guard to avoid slipping backwards. Obviously this is bad news for the program and Felton (not to mention Humphrey).

I mentioned the incoming freshmen in the last post, and there’s also news on those who have left the program.

First, the ABH confirms that TE NaDerris Ward has officially enrolled at Oregon. He’ll have to sit out this season of course.

Next, Anthony Dasher of UGASports.com mentioned that walk-on cornerback Malloy Van Gorder has left the program. No word on his future plans, but could he be headed to Georgia Southern…and then South Carolina?

June brings the beginning of summer, the end of the college baseball season, and academic news about the incoming football recruiting class. Fortunately the news is almost as good as it could be for Georgia. Here’s a summary of what’s going on with the recruiting class:

• Most of the qualified freshmen are already on campus, enrolled in summer classes, and participating in summer workouts.
• An exception was Fork Union LB Marcus Dowtin. Dowtin is a good student but had some transcript issues which delayed his enrollment. UGASports.com reported this week that those issues are cleared up, and Dowtin’s father says that "Marcus will be moving to Georgia July 1."
• Tavarres King, Richard Samuel, Dontavius Jackson, and Ben Jones enrolled for spring semester.
• As expected, Xavier Avery chose professional baseball over college football.
• DE Toby Jackson remains the lone academic concern. Cordy Glenn and A.J. Green were considered academic risks at one point or another, but both of them are already in Athens and good to go. Jackson isn’t sunk yet; he took the ACT only a couple of weeks ago and is waiting on those results.

All in all, it looks as if the class will be more or less intact. That’s good news because several could see playing time this year. Walsh, Jones, Samuel, and Green are almost certain to get a look in preseason, and fall camp will offer several others the opportunity to play as true freshmen. Tripp Chandler reminds us though that two-a-days can be quick to humble even the highest-profile newcomer. "Things change when you go from running a route when people can’t hit you to when people can hit you."

Earlier this morning, Steve Detwiler’s thumb was removed by surgeons in Omaha and replaced with a prosthetic. The thumb is currently en route to Lubbock, Texas where it will be featured next to the monument already in place at the College Baseball Hall of Fame.

We’ve seen individuals break Georgia’s heart before. Dan Marino. Mark Prior. Ronnie Daniels is still running. And of course there’s John Wallace.

But few have had such a dominant individual performance against a Georgia team with so much on the line as Fresno State’s right fielder Steve Detwiler. Fresno posted six runs against Georgia, and every single one of them was knocked in by Detwiler. His performance was so incredible and so unlikely that it overshadows a clutch pitching job by Justin Wilson. Under any other circumstances, the ability of Wilson to come off of three days’ rest and contain a Georgia offense that had scored 17 runs in two previous games would have been the story of the night.

Congratulations to Fresno State. A team that beat Long Beach, San Diego, Arizona State, Rice, North Carolina, and Georgia to get to this point is as legitimate as a champion gets.

There’s no use breaking down the game. The season is over, and the second-best season in Georgia baseball history deserves the focus now. This team rebounded from a rough early stretch to win the SEC, end Georgia Tech’s season, take the season series over Tech yet again, and roll to the program’s best postseason finish since 1990. There was individual excellence and key role players. There were dominant performances and clutch comebacks.

If history is any indication, the good news was that this title run probably won’t be a one-shot deal. Georgia baseball is competitive nationally and has been that way for most of this decade. The personnel losses will be significant just as they have been after each of Georgia’s three previous trips to Omaha since 2001. Recruiting is strong, and coaching is solid, so the safe bet is for Georgia to be back in this position sooner than later.

The immediate challenge for Coach Perno is to smooth out the valleys. A return trip to the NCAA Tournament, even as a lower at-large seed, is what we’re talking about here. With guys like Poythress, Cerione, Allen, McRee, and Weaver due to come back, a strong an experienced core is there. Georgia must replace not only gloves and bats but leaders also, and finding the guys who will challenge their teammates to demand better of themselves as Ryan Peisel did earlier this season will be as important as finding a new leadoff man or closer.

If there’s any kind of silver lining in the constant attention to the "Cinderella" storyline this week, it’s this realization: Georgia teams are expected to play for titles. Georgia being in Omaha is dog-bites-man. Situations where we are the great underdog story are rare (see: men’s basketball), but that’s what happens when you have one of the nation’s strongest athletic programs. After Hawaii and Fresno you might be getting a bit tired of being the foil to the media darling, but remember that the story of the underdog is great because it is the exception. This loss stings, but Georgia teams will be back competing for titles in just a few months.