With the news that Tra Battle has been named third-team AP All-American, Georgia has now produced an All-American safety in each of the past four seasons (and hopefully defensive backfield recruits are paying attention). Battle contributed right out of the gate as a redshirt freshman when he started the 2003 season opener at Clemson. Everyone expected him to give way to some higher-regarded scholarship players, but Battle became a two-year starter and cemented his All-American status with a three-interception game at Auburn. Not bad for a walk-on. Congrats, Tra! Congratulations also to DE Quentin Moses for joining Battle on the third team.

2003: Sean Jones

2004: Thomas Davis

2005: Greg Blue

2006: Tra Battle

I’ve only been marginally paying attention to the offseason coaching carousel. It’s reason enough to stop and appreciate Mark Richt. Wasn’t he a sure thing to run off when Miami came calling? Oh, nevermind.

• Arizona State will retread Dennis Erickson. He’s had success at other schools, and we’ll see if he can sort through the mess in Tempe. The Dawgs will face Erickson’s Sun Devils in his second year, so we’ll keep an eye on his rebuilding job next year.
• How often do we see a coaching search where the main criteria seems to be "the exact opposite of the last guy?" The last coach was too dull, so let’s get a personality in here. The last guy was married to the option, so let’s open up the passing game. That seems to be the case at NC State. Chuck Amato was quirky, eccentric, flashy, erratic, and his teams were known for their undisciplined play. Tom O’Brien might or might not be the right coach for the Wolfpack, but the former Marine major projects an image that’s everything Amato wasn’t. Will that matter when it comes to bringing a higher level of consistency to Raleigh?
• Count me among those unimpressed with Miami’s hire. Shannon’s biggest job will be to convince the local goldmine of talent to believe that a coach from the former failed staff can restore the image and attitude of "the U".
• So Alabama is still without a coach. When Georgia was looking for a coach after the 2000 season, I wrote that firing the existing coach was the easy part. The decision to replace the coach can’t be evaluated until we see how the replacement does. Everyone now looks back on the decision to replace Jim Donnan as a no-brainer, but that’s only because we hit a home run with Mark Richt. The Dawgs could have likely ended up with Ray Sherman or even, yes, Chan Gailey. Every coaching change is a big risk from replacing a guy leaving on his own terms to getting rid of someone not performing to expectations. The saving grace for Bama is that as messed up as things appear now, the next coach won’t be judged based on how smooth the selection process went. If he succeeds, no one will care about the public process. If he fails, it wouldn’t matter if Bama ran the model coaching search.

Finals week brings the college sports world to a grinding halt. Football is in hibernation, and both basketball teams won’t play again until this weekend. Once exams are over, here’s what we have to look forward to:

• Men’s basketball really gets going with games upcoming against Gonzaga and Georgia Tech. There aren’t many more preseason cupcakes left. A road win over Wake Forest was nice
• The Lady Dogs try to recover from their first loss of the season and try to find chemistry and rotations that work now that Tasha Humphrey is back.
• The football team will start practicing for the Chick-fil-A Bowl. It’s not quite summer two-a-days, but the semester break gives the team a chance to go through some of the more intense workouts they’ve had since August.
• Early enrollees will join the football team. These include recent junior college commitments as well as high schoolers graduating early. I believe that offensive lineman Tanner Strickland is the first to arrive. These early arrivals will be able to practice with the team during bowl preparations, though they won’t play in the game. Going through bowl practices and spring practice is very valuable to incoming freshmen (Stafford and Durham made the most of it last year), but it’s infinitely more important for junior college players where the eligibility clock is already ticking.

Good luck on exams, and we’ll see what interesting topics we can come up with until the Dawgs start making news on the field and court again.

University of Georgia Head Coach Mark Richt will join Virginia Tech Head Coach Frank Beamer on Thursday, December 14th at the Chick-fil-A Bowl Coaches Luncheon presented by Russell Athletic. Coach Richt will discuss the Dawgs big wins over Auburn and Georgia Tech as well as give his insights into the December 30th match-up against the Hokies. The luncheon will be held in the Atlanta Marriott Marquis. The event starts at noon and tickets can be purchased for $35 by calling 404-586-1923.

A sloppy and anemic performance all around from Georgia led to an upset 70-62 win for Middle Tennessee Wednesday night.

Georgia committed a season-high 22 turnovers and gave up 15 offensive rebounds in the loss, and MTSU attempted nearly 20 more field goals as a result. Point guards Ashley Houts and Janese Hardrick combined for 4 assists, 11 points, and 12 turnovers. They were completely ineffective against pressure, and Megan Darrah was not able to pick up the slack as she did Sunday at Georgia Tech.

Things weren’t that good on defense either. MTSU had two main scoring weapons, Amber Holt and Chrissy Givens, and Georgia was able to stop neither. Holt scored 21 and Givens 25.

Even more frustrating is the fact that Holt originally signed with Georgia last spring as a junior college all-American. She wasn’t admitted to Georgia but apparently was qualified to enroll at MTSU. She torched Georgia tonight, and the Lady Dogs had no answer.

Georgia’s post trio of Robinson, Rowsey, and Humphrey managed a combined 19 points, ten of which came from Robinson. For whatever reason, centers Robinson and Rowsey played a total of 23 minutes between them. So with the game left to the guards and the wings, only Chambers (23 points) did some damage.

They looked confused and frustrated trying to get into the offense. Transistion was non-existent. They simply must get more from Houts and especially the senior Hardrick. Georgia had flirted with upset losses to Davidson and Georgia Southern, so perhaps they were due, but they didn’t look much better – and it might be argued they looked worse – with Humphrey in the lineup. They weren’t exactly meshing at Tech on Sunday either but got enough plays to win that game.

Exam week means that they will have over a week to stew on the loss and hopefully come back and close out December looking much better.

After several seasons without a single JUCO football signee, Georgia added offensive linemen Vince Vance and Joe Blaes a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday, they received commitments from two additional junior college defensive linemen, Corvey Irvin and Jarius Wynn from Georgia Military College. Chad Simmons at UGASports.com has the scoop ($).

Four junior college transfers in a single season isn’t a recruiting strategy used by Richt in the past, but the need is definitely there at those positions next year. These four are all able to provide some degree of help right away. Some will even be able to enroll and begin working out with the Dawgs during Chick-fil-A Bowl practices. With two years of eligibility remaining, in most cases, getting them in the program and through a bowl and spring practice is very important to making sure they can contribute out of the gate.

See the results here.

For all of the “SEC loyalty” people, note where Tommy Tuberville did – or didn’t – place Georgia in his poll. Yay SEC!!!

My favorite is Schiano putting Rutgers tenth. They finished 17th. Hey, why not?

Hit this link to see Falcon linebacker Keith Brooking wearing a Georgia hat after losing a bet with D.J. Shockley. Go to atlantafalcons.com if the clip doesn’t work. Give it a second to come up and watch for a few minutes.

As much as I didn’t want to see Florida in the national title game, I should be consistent and say again that a rematch for the national title is wrong in the current system. Is Florida the best possible opponent for Ohio State? Who knows. They’re as flawed and as good as anyone. I do note that many of the people discussing the relative merits of Michigan and Florida bring up what I called the "king of the mountain" view of college football – Michigan got their shot at knocking off #1 and now someone else gets a shot. I was also glad to see the attention given to Florida winning their conference. Conference champions form the core of my ideal playoff, so it’s positive to see it as a point of emphasis now. We can play parlor games with playoff ideas later, but I guess we’ll live with this cluster#^@& for now. Florida belongs in the game, and I hope they face a Nebraska-style beating again.

A concept that’s so universally accepted in this process that we don’t even discuss it is the number of losses as an absolute measure of strength. Everyone horse-whipped Florida last week for their weak out-of-conference schedule relative to Southern Cal. So much for that. It’s clear that the criteria for a title contender from a BCS conference are, in this order, 1) number of losses, 2) winning your conference, 3) schedule and everything else. Would Florida be a much different team had Jarvis Moss not gotten his paw on a South Carolina field goal? Nope. But it certainly would have disqualified them from national title consideration. Does that seem a little silly to anyone else?

Now we’ll start to hear from some Georgia fans who think we should pull for Florida because they’re an SEC school and "it makes us look good." How sickening. I want Florida and any of our rivals, especially those against whom we recruit directly, to lose as much on the other 364 days as I do when we play them.

PS…Did Georgia keep Auburn out of the national title discussion? Excellent.

Congratulations to Wake Forest for winning Region 4-AAA. Hopefully they’ll play in front of a larger crowd this weekend in the Georgia Dome for the GHSA semifinals.

One of the best parts of being a Georgia fan this year is seeing the implosion in the Georgia Tech program that began with the win in Athens a week ago.

Georgia faced the same situation earlier in the season. They didn’t just lose to divisional rivals Tennessee and Florida; they also lost to Vanderbilt and Kentucky. Fans were beside themselves, coaches were feeling the heat, and both the offense and defense were facing a big crisis of confidence as receivers dropped passes and opponents drove for game-winning scores. At 6-4 with games remaining against ranked teams Auburn and Georgia Tech, a 6-6 finish was not only possible but seen as likely by many. Comparisons to 2005 Tennessee were made as everyone waited for the meltdown.

The Dawgs were able to come together and close out the regular season with two wins. The finish doesn’t erase the tarnish of those midseason losses, but instead of packing it in and waiting for a sweep of coaching changes to start fresh next year, Georgia began building behind a new quarterback and will have a chance to claim quite a bit of momentum heading into next season if they can get past a very quality Virginia Tech team in its bowl game.

Tech was riding high two weeks ago. They had wrapped up their ACC division with weeks to spare and had won four in a row after stumbling at Clemson. Calvin Johnson was magnificent, Tashard Choice was peeling off 100-yard games, and the defense was dominant. Then they played Georgia. Even with a spectacularly bad performance from Reggie Ball, the running of Choice and the defense seemed enough to win that game until Matthew Stafford found Mohamed Massaquoi for a touchdown with less than two minutes remaining.

The loss to Georgia started the grumbling, and the Tech community moved on by noting that they were still playing for a conference title. Oops. Ball followed up his Georgia performance with another so bad that it has his coach considering replacing the four-year starter in the bowl game. Johnson was held without a touchdown catch for the third time in four games. The defense played well most of the afternoon but gave up a pair of long passes that led to two second-half Wake Forest field goals.

With the rare expected win over Georgia and a shot at the ACC title gone, the finger-pointing has begun in earnest. Most noteworthy are statements from defensive leaders KaMichael Hall and Joe Anoai. "It’s a lack of offensive production. The defense can’t do everything," Anoai said. Those senior leaders leave no questions about their frustrations with the offense. The defenders aren’t alone; Choice has grumbled about not getting carries late in the game.

Tech still ends up playing on New Year’s Day as the Gator Bowl must take the ACC runner-up. It sounds as if they’re really thrilled to be headed back to Jacksonville. "Whatever," said Choice. Gator Bowl officials are poised to jump from Jacksonville’s Hart Bridge unless West Virginia brings half the state with them. Without an improbable attitude reversal, Tech will go into the bowl game with a defense distrusting of its offense, an offense at odds with itself and without a leader under center, and an offensive coordinator with one foot out the door as he eyes the Tulane job. Fans jaded by losses to Georgia and Wake Forest will likely pass on another trip to Jacksonville for a game in which they will be clear underdogs. All the while, twilight begins on the Calvin Johnson era and a possible championship and ten-win season.

Georgia came together; Tech is still coming apart.

Hate it for them, I really do.

The first letter here.

What’s really shameful is that the R&B decided to publish this letter. They allowed their editorial space to be used for a hit piece. Free speech my ass…the kiddies playing journalists at the R&B need a lesson in discretion.

• Can’t wait for Army-Navy tomorrow. It’s not relevant at all and pretty one-sided lately, but it’s still must-see football on the first Saturday in December.
  
  
• I have to join those congratulating Oklahoma for a fine season despite losing Peterson and Bomar. They aren’t the only team to fight on through attrition, but they’ve come through it better than most and have a shot at the BCS. Unfortunately, the popular telling of their 2006 story has been to whitewash the end of the Oregon game. They didn’t lose just because of a blown call. The call certainly was central to the outcome, but let’s not forget the defensive and special teams meltdowns that defined the last few minutes of that game.
  Take this absurd line from the AP: "Oklahoma is 9-2, but would be 10-1 and possibly a part of the national championship discussion if not for the officiating errors at Oregon." Are they serious? Oklahoma led 33-20 with 90 seconds left. Granted that the game would have been over with the right call on the onside kick, they still had to allow another Oregon touchdown plus get a reasonable 44-yard field goal attempt blocked in order to lose. Oklahoma is 9-2 and playing for the Big 12 title. Take it.
  
  
• Has anyone in a major conference ever had a more anonymous 11-win regular season than Wisconsin?
  
  
• With the (temporary) rise of Ohio State to #1 in both football and basketball polls, it reminds me of the list of schools that comes up when people discuss whether or not it’s possible for a "football school" to have a successful basketball program (or vice versa). Can we now please officially drop Michigan from that list? When was the last time they were relevant in college basketball? Actually, I think the most schools can hope for along these lines is a good run now and then. Michigan had its run in basketball. Ohio State is just starting its run. Texas had/is having its run. UNC had a couple of periods of good football. There really aren’t many schools, if there are any at all, who can sustain success in both.
  
  
• College football fans love to talk about the absolute importance and vitality of the regular season, and I don’t disagree. I live for the entire football season. I think an argument can be made though that for someone who really enjoys college basketball, the hoops regular season actually offers more high-quality regular season matchups. The other night, #6 North Carolina beat #1 Ohio State. Big deal, you say – Ohio State’s football team went out of conference to play Texas. But the tOSU – UNC basketball game was remarkable because it is routine. This weekend, Carolina will turn around and host Kentucky. They have already played Gonzaga. Last weekend, Florida and Kansas clashed. UCLA has already played Kentucky and Georgia Tech. It’s just another autumn in college hoops. Dream matchups like those in college football are the exception and the stuff of weeks of hype.
  Note I didn’t say more meaningful matchups. That’s the tradeoff – because these early-season games aren’t actually deciding anything (other than style points when it comes selection/seeding time), the casual fan doesn’t really begin tuning in until after the Super Bowl. The first Duke-Carolina game is the unofficial start of the college basketball season for a lot of people. If meaning is what does it for you then, yes, February and March is your time. For good interconference basketball, this time of the year is second only to the NCAA Tournament. It makes you wonder that if a single loss didn’t put you in such a really tight spot in the college football national picture, how many more teams would be willing to take a few more chances in the quality of their nonconference scheduling?

’tis the season to start hearing some very dumb statements from college football fans.

• "There are just too many bowl games."
• "Teams with (x) wins don’t deserve a bowl game."

Once you get beyond the BCS championship game, almost every other bowl game from the Rose to the GMAC is an exhibition game. The only variables are the payouts, dates, and media coverage. There are surely historical and traditional contexts that make some bowls more important or prestigious than others. Occasionally a bowl game might serve as a shot in the arm going into the next season for a team or a Heisman candidate, and the undecided recruits might pay a little attention to your final ranking. Still, there’s not much more than pride at stake in any game outside of Glendale.

It hasn’t always been this way – the Bowl Alliance / BCS and its other iterations have guaranteed irrelevance for most bowls. Remember the Cotton Bowl? In 1983, it was part of the national title picture as Georgia upset Texas 10-9. Now it’s a consolation prize for SEC and Big 12 teams played in a dilapidated stadium. In the 1990 season, the Citrus Bowl was in the national spotlight. Soon after, it became a punchline as Steve Spurrier tweaked Tennessee. Even the other BCS bowls suffer from diminished relevance. In 1996, viewers jumped With the mission of the BCS to match #1 and #2, it has concentrated all postseason relevance in one or very rarely two games.

But enough history and back to the point. If only one game is really relevant and the others aren’t playing for much of anything, it makes no difference how many bowls there are. If two teams are willing to get together, if a sponsor is willing to make a stadium and a payout available, and if there’s a network willing to send its sixth-string announcing team, who does it hurt to play the additional games? At worst, they are watched by 5 people and the outcome echos into empty space. Even at the risk of losing money by traveling, smaller programs would and do fall over each other to get national exposure on ESPN. The real benefit of a bowl game to most programs is a couple of weeks of extra practice – it’s essentially a jump on spring ball and player evaluations for the next year. Early enrollees even get to participate in bowl practices. What program doesn’t want that?

Dwelling on what teams "deserve" also doesn’t make much sense. Bowls are and always have been business arrangements between schools or conferences and the host committees. If a town thinks that Miami will bring fans (yeah, right) and make sponsors and merchants happy, they’ll get a bowl invitation with six wins regardless of what some talking head thinks they deserve. Occasionally teams will decline bids, but let’s leave that up to them. I’m not even sure if the six-win benchmark is appropriate. If someone wants to put up the cash for two winless teams to play in the Toilet Bowl, go for it. Of course it would be ridiculous, but it would be no more or less meaningful than the Gator Bowl.

What’s always been strange to me is why college football fans would have a problem with more college football. Bowls in general might be anachronistic, and the lesser bowls might be boring, ugly, mediocre, or all of the above, but they’re still football. If you’re not that much of a fan of the game, watch something else. So San Diego State vs. Ohio University isn’t Southern Cal vs. Ohio State. It’s another four hours that poker isn’t taking over actual sports programming. Play on!

Tasha Humphrey was serving the sixth game of her six-game suspension during Wednesday’s laugher with Memphis, so it caused quite a stir when she ran to the scorer’s table with 17 minutes remaining in the game. She played the rest of the game, scoring 11 points.

It’s not that she was playing out of necessity. Georgia had the game well in hand. Coach Landers explained why she was played, "Tasha made a mistake – not good. But the way she handled the consequences has been great, and that’s why I put her in tonight. I’d been thinking about it since last week, but I hadn’t told anybody."

She was definitely a bit rusty, but her offense is still there, and she spent some valuable minutes fitting in with several different rotations.

It was also a nice surprise to see Maria Taylor make her Lady Dog debut. Taylor is a volleyball player and has just begun practicing with the Lady Dogs, and she had a surprisingly nice first outing with five points, seven rebounds, and two blocks in just 16 minutes. She might be raw and lost as far as the structure of the playbook goes, but she is extremely athletic and can jump to get almost any rebound. It was very impressive watching her get after the ball.

For such a mundane game, there was a bit of historical significance.

• Ashley Houts tied the team record with ten steals in a single game
• The win was the 700th in program history
• Andy Landers’ 663rd win ties him with Roger Kaiser (who coached at West Georgia and Life College) for the most wins by a college coach in the state of Georgia. Kaiser was an all-American at Georgia Tech, so it’s fitting that Landers gets a chance to set the record on Sunday against Tech.

Center Ian Smith has apparently been arrested for the second time on alcohol-related charges.

Smith was suspended for two games in 2006 for his first arrest. Who knows what this will mean for his bowl game and/or 2007 availability. He is one of only four offensive linemen expected to return next year with any significant playing experience.

The first time was kind of funny and “boys will be boys”. Now it’s just stupid. Forget the excuses and rationalizations about what we all did in college…Georgia’s student-athletes are very well-versed in the consequences of drinking especially given the current emphasis of the University administration, and two arrests in a year isn’t an accident.