If you hadn’t heard, the Redcoat Band leaves this weekend on a once-in-a-lifetime two-week tour of China.

The Redcoat Band China Tour Send-Off Concert
Friday, May 12, 2006
7:00 p.m.
Woodruff Field, (adjacent to Spec Towns Track)
No Admission Charge

Sponsored by the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, the Georgia Redcoat Marching Band will be the first collegiate marching band to perform in China. On Sunday, May 14, the Redcoats will depart on a historic 14-day performance tour. The entire University and Athens community is encouraged to join the Redcoat family, friends, and staff to give our band a rousing send-off.

Bring a folding chair or a blanket and gather on the hillside above the Woodruff practice field (adjacent to Spec Towns Track) for their final practice run-through. This will be your only chance to see the show that will be performed in six Chinese provincial capitols.

One of the major financial partners in this effort, Chick-Fil-A, will be there in case you get hungry during the concert. They will also bring the Chick-Fil-A cow.

Uga VI (known to be a huge fan of the Redcoats) will be in attendance to bark his approval.

The Asbury Park Press in New Jersey has a look at a tie that binds Kade Weston, Knowshon Moreno, and Clifton Geathers. The MAC Testing, Inc. SAT prep center has worked with all of them to improve their SAT scores and hopefully get Moreno and Geathers qualified to enroll at Georgia and play football. The system was successful for Weston last year, and word seems to be getting out about the success Dr. Jean D’Arcy Maculaitis has had with her program.

It’s good that these guys have found what seems to be a legitimate system to improving their academic credentials, and sometimes some structure like this is exactly what’s been missing from their approach to schoolwork and the SAT. Still, you’d hope that kids with college aspirations, athletes or not, get this message earlier and realize how important it is to find this kind of struture and discipline before the last minute. For someone like Geathers who has had an uncle and a brother go through this process before en route to the NFL, it’s almost amazing that he’s just now getting this wake-up call.

Sweating the SAT and the NCAA’s minimum standards is not a very fun way to spend the last months of high school. “Oh, man, that was tough being inside all day like that,” Geathers said about spending his time cracking down on the SAT instead of enjoying the South Carolina springtime. Welcome to real life.

Georgia sweeping division-leading and twelfth-ranked South Carolina last weekend seemed about as likely as:

• Georgia winning a home SEC series this season
• Georgia scoring more than 4 runs in an SEC home game
• Matt Dunn and Jonathan Wyatt going deep to make sure Georgia had the early lead
• Sunday starting pitching up to the standards of Westphal and Brown
• Joshua Fields pitching in and closing out all three games

And it all happened. Sweep. Consecutive sweeps. Seven straight wins. How a team can pick itself up off the floor after losing a series to Tennessee and then a loss to Western Carolina and then reinvent itself this late into the season is beyond explanation. Is it the move of Wyatt to the leadoff spot? Westphal and Brown settling in to their respective starting slots? Whatever it is, the right buttons are being pushed now. The Diamond Dawgs are on the same kind of mid-season run that propelled them into the 2004 postseason and on to Omaha.

Georgia had never swept South Carolina before. In fact, the only seasons recently where Georgia could manage a win or two from the Gamecocks and avoid being swept themselves were 2001 and 2004 – and we know how those seasons ended up.

Next up is the rubber game with Georgia Tech at Turner Field on Wednesday. A win over Tech in Athens started this winning streak. Georgia’s bats came to life, and I don’t believe they’ve scored fewer than seven runs in a game since. It’s Tech. The Dawgs are hot. It’s at Turner Field. Proceeds benefit one of the best causes in Atlanta – Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Be there.

The offseason rubber-chicken circuit is in full-swing, and Urban Meyer got a nice little dig in at the Tennessee program recently at a stop in Daytona Beach.

He noted that the Gators overcame some issues — not the least of which were injuries to key players and getting acclimated to a new coaching staff and a new system. He also noted that one Florida rival was not as fortunate.

“The school up in Knoxville (Tenn.) folded when they went through some hard times,” Meyer said.

Of course that’s true, but it’s not what we’re used to hearing from any coach not wearing a visor. No comment yet from Spurrier on Meyer’s origami last year in Columbia.

Huge series this weekend with South Carolina. The Gamecocks seem to have risen to the top of the tightly-packed SEC this year, and it will be a very challenging series. If Georgia can win the series, they’ll be over .500 in the league and in great position to make both the SEC and NCAA Tournaments. But to get there, they’ll have to overcome some bad trends. Georgia hasn’t won a home SEC series all year and are just 2-7 in home league games. South Carolina has also owned Georgia lately, sweeping them several times.

If the Dawgs are going to have success this weekend, it’s likely going to begin with the starting pitching. South Carolina has some potent bats, but Georgia has been excellent in Friday and Saturday starts recently. Westphal and Brown are the two most recent SEC Pitchers of the Week and have each thrown very well in the past two series. One bad rain-interrupted inning against Tennessee by Westphal is the only blemish. Sunday pitching has been a bit of a different story, and Perno will have to find an answer there. Westphal and Brown are going to have to go deep into their games, or it will be a very long weekend.

Offense has been a concern in SEC home games, and getting only three or at most four runs a game is a big reason for the 2-7 home SEC mark. Georgia’s bats have woken up lately, though. Offensive explosions against Georgia Tech and Florida came after a few changes to the batting order, and hopefully that can continue against a better pitching staff this weekend. Jonathan Wyatt has been on a tear since moving to the leadoff spot. Josh Morris is one home run away from tying Georgia’s career home run record.

UGASports.com caught up with Dennis Felton in Savannah on the Road Tour (subscription required). The emphasis was on the frontcourt, and Felton summed up the situation by saying, “We’re tired of being pushed around.” Georgia lacked not only depth but also physical presence. The Bulldogs will add 6’10” Albert Jackson and 6’8″ Takais Brown to the frontcourt, and both will be counted on for significant contributions. “Now, it’s gotten to where you’re not just relying on any one guy, you’ve got depth. You want to have depth to create competition and want to have it to be able to withstand significant injuries.”

He added that he was pleased with the progress made in the 2005-2006 season. Though the Dawgs faded down the stretch, an NCAA Tournament bid was a realistic possibility into February. “I was just proud to be in that position so late in the year,” said Felton.

Felton also mentioned the impact of the new practice facility currently under construction. “We’ve been able to hold it up as an example that once and for all, we are dead serious about building a good basketball program at Georgia. It’s a big step for our program and a big step for the University.” For pictures of the progress on the facility, Georgia Sports Blog has a fresh batch.

Marc Weiszer of the ABH reports that four undrafted Dawgs have signed free-agent contracts…

Bryan McClendon to Chicago (just like his dad!)
Dennis Roland to Dallas
Will Thompson to NY Jets
Russ Tanner to Indy

First, thank God it’s over. There will be a few days of post-mortem analysis of course, but the worst is past us. The “mock draft” has become as annoying of a sideshow to actual sports as poker-as-sport and fantasy leagues.

For those of us used to seeing Dawgs go in the first round lately and with so much hype around certain players, it would be easy to say that this was a disappointing draft for the Dawgs and to note how a few players we had seen mentioned as early draft picks slid to later rounds. In the end, everyone we expected to get drafted was drafted. Given the lack of SEC superstars that went early in this year’s draft, it should be a very competitive league with lots of young talent in the upcoming years.

2007 might not be as prolific a draft year for Georgia, but they will still have several top prospects led by bookend defensive ends Quentin Moses and Charles Johnson. For now, we’ll thank an outstanding senior class that leaves as one of Georgia’s winningest. They put up four 10-win seasons, three SEC Championship appearances, two BCS bowl appearances, and two SEC titles…not bad at all. My take on those who were drafted…

Leonard Pope. There is a sentiment going around that Pope’s drop to the early third round was a sign that he came out too early and should have spent another year improving. I’ll ignore the non-football questions (were there academic/financial pressures for him to leave early?) and take a contrary view. I think Pope made his money during the last part of the 2004 season. If anything, all he did in 2005 was maintain his stature – aside from a career-best 8 rec. and 102 yards against Auburn, the past season wasn’t very remarkable for Pope. 39 catches, 541 yards, 4 TDs. Nice, very nice – yes. Vernon Davis? No. Had Pope returned for his senior season, he would still be in an offense that would get him 3 or 4 catches a game, and he would have a much less-experienced quarterback and offensive line working with him. Despite his rapid development at the end of 2004, he never took that next step in 2005 to become the sure first-round pick many expected him to be. I don’t think another year would have changed that. He, in my eyes, didn’t become a better all-around tight end than Randy McMichael, and McMichael was a fourth-round pick. All that said, Pope is coming into a great situation in Arizona. They signed a great tailback, got a steal with Leinart at #10, and have plenty of good receivers. If their line is decent, Pope can become part of a very effective NFL offense.

D.J. Shockley. Nice pick by the Falcons. My (lack of) enthusiasm for the NFL makes this a golf clap instead of dancing in the streets, but I’m glad D.J. has an opportunity to begin his professional career near his home and family. This is a really low-risk pick in the 7th round. At worst, the Falcons have a versatile player they can use on the practice squad or develop in NFL Europe. At the same time, the Falcons play nice public local relations by taking a favorite player from the state’s largest and most passionate fan base. They silence a point of criticism from the local media. Win-win all around. The only negative I can think of is that Terence Moore probably considers himself a kingmaker now.

Tim Jennings. Last Dawg offered in 2002 to first Dawg drafted in 2006. What more can you say? Jennings was thrown to the fire right from the start in 2002 and was in the game at critical points during that nailbiting fourth quarter in Columbia. He played a huge role against Ole Miss with an interception returned 64 yards for a touchdown. This improbable cornerback turned that early experience into a starting job. All he did was get better and better, and it culminated in a fantastic senior season. I will always believe that the outcome of the 2005 Auburn game would have been much different had Jennings not injured his ankle that week. There was the acrobatic interception against Arkansas. Then there was his game-saving interception of Reggie Ball to save a win over Georgia Tech. He topped off his career by anticipating a pass from the red meat that was an LSU backup quarterback and sealed a rout in the SEC Championship game. His stature was small, but he was big play all the way. That ability to go after interceptions and make those game-changing plays might be the reason he was selected over teammate Demario Minter, a more prototypical cornerback who only had two career interceptions and dropped to a fifth round pick.

Kedrick Golston. Yes, he dropped to the sixth round, but Georgia was a completely different team when Golston (and Gerald Anderson) was on the line. Golston came into Georgia with an injured leg that would end careers for a lot of people, and he spent his college years recovering from that auto accident and learning how to play football with that reconstructed leg. He now has a chance at a professional career, and that’s a pretty strong statement about everything he worked through. Golston will always be remembered as a top in-state recruit who made it cool to pick Georgia at an uncertain time in program history. He challenged other Georgia prospects to consider what kind of program UGA would have if the best that the state had to offer stayed home. With all that Georgia accomplished during his time in Athens, he did plenty to help realize that vision.

Max Jean-Gilles and Greg Blue. A year ago, it was assumed that when these two All-Americans passed on the NFL draft to return for their senior seasons, they were giving up potentially very high draft position. This weekend, they were drafted in the fourth and fifth rounds. Did they get worse? Lose favor? Not really. If their was a downside to their decision to return, it was that the holes in their games which had always been present had another year to be exposed. Blue has been known as a devastating hitter for years, but his pass coverage and speed have always been questionable. Jean-Gilles has huge potential as a road-grader type of lineman, but conditioning has always been a concern since he showed up from Miami. He eventually played significant minutes at Georgia, but constant battles with weight which continued through the NFL combine had to scare off some teams that expect to see their linemen pull and sprint on quick-developing plays. Max and Greg were both outstanding college players who did certain things very well, better than anyone else. Their draft value declined because what they did well wasn’t necessarily broad in scope, but they will be great value picks for teams that can find ways to use them in roles suited to what they do really, really well.