UGA will host the second annual Countdown to Kickoff tomorrow (Saturday July 7th) from 3-6 p.m. at the Woodruff Practice Fields. What started out as a little idea by Matt and Jon Stinchcomb and a few friends brought out over 1,500 fans last year and raised over $100,000 for charities. This year’s event should be even bigger. Over 50 former Georgia football players (several of which are in the NFL) will be on hand. Current players will be there too.

Tickets are $30 each. A "Family Pack" costs $100, which includes four tickets, four meals from Chick-fil-A and a special football for getting autographs. Also, free pizza and soft drinks will be available.

Countdown to Kickoff will benefit Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and the Georgia Transplant Foundation, as well as the Children’s Tumor Foundation and the University of Georgia College of Education.

The weekend has expanded to include a full host of related events including a related golf tournament tomorrow morning and an auction this evening at Foundry Park Inn at 7 p.m. Check out some of these items up for auction tonight:

1. Dawg for a Day: Unbelievable behind-the-scenes access, do everything the team does on gameday (except play!), 4 people, ride bus with team to Sanford Stadium, dawgwalk with the team, pregame locker room access, and sideline access.
2. Press Pass: 2 people in Press Box for Oklahoma State game, (ESPN crew, Larry Munson) eat pre-game press meal, watch game from Press Box (no tickets needed), attend Coach Richt’s post game press conference
3. Legacy Year: 2 people spend 1/4 of game in broadcast booth with Larry Munson and Scott Howard, headphones on to listen to him call the game, and photos
4. Pre-game flyover: Thrill ride for any Dawg Fan, 2 people fly in open cockpit Red Baron Squadron bi-planes when they do their pre-game fly-over of the stadium on gameday.
5. Red Coats: Climb the Ladder to Conduct the Red Coat marching band when they perform the traditional spelling of G-E-O-R-G-I-A at halftime, scoreboard big screen shot of you doing it, and an authentic Ken Modak print to commemorate the occasion
6. UGA/NFL experience: Fly to New Orleans for the Saints/Falcons game featuring UGA greats DJ Shockley, Jon Stinchcomb, Charles Grant, stay at the 5 star Royal Sonesta Hotel, champagne brunch, dinners at finest New Orleans eateries, airfare and game tickets included (2 people)
7. Air Dawg: Two round trip tickets on your own Wings Air Executive Charter to Destin, Charleston, St. Simons, Asheville, Nashville, Knoxville – fly to go see the Dawgs play Vandy, Tennessee, or the Gators or visit the beach without the drive or the hassle of Hartsfield (www.flywingsair.com)
8. Homecoming: Gameday Penthouse w/view of stadium, entertain and enjoy homecoming weekend with fellow Dawgs in penthouse of Gameday Condominiums, includes tailgate party and overnight stay.
9. Pampered Pup: View the season opener ESPN Game in style with 4 luxury suite tickets to the Oklahoma State game, eat and drink at your leisure, keep from sweating like a dawg in the air conditioned comfort of a Sanford Stadium sky suite (on home bench side of stadium).
10. Queen of Southern Cooking: Visit Savannah and Miss Paula Deen, star of Paula’s Party on the Food Network, and highest authority of all things Southern and fried, a 2 to 3 day "Paulathon", 2 or 4 seats to taping of Paula’s show, Lunch or dinner at Lady and Sons restaurant, Lunch or dinner at Uncle Bubba’s (Paula and her brother).
11. The Outdoorsman: Experience the old southern tradition of wing shooting at Ashburn Hills Plantation, 4 hunters stay overnight at beautiful bed and breakfast in Thomasville GA, step back in time and enjoy a full day of world-class quail hunting from horseback and mule drawn carriage (www.ashburnhill.com)

Damn.

I’ve written about this before, but UGA has officially announced its relationship with XM satellite radio.

XM Satellite Radio is now the official satellite radio home of the University of Georgia Athletic Association under a five-year sports broadcasting and marketing agreement starting in 2007.

XM will have all regular season Georgia football games, most men’s and women’s basketball games, and select games from other sports. They’ll also broadcast the football and basketball SEC championships. Though all football games will be available, a satellite provider only has so many channels to use, and they can’t do both home-and-away broadcasts of all games. They commit that "a minimum of eight games will feature the Georgia broadcast crew of Larry Munson, Scott Howard, and Loran Smith." In 2007, XM will also carry games for Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Tennessee, so it’s possible that you’ll only hear the Tennessee broadcast crew when we play in Knoxville. XM also has the ACC, so the Tech game might be another instance where XM won’t have the Georgia broadcast (with or without Munson).

Part of my reason for choosing Sirius last year was that most of the SEC schools were there, and it seemed reasonable that the remaining few (Georgia, Arkansas) would follow suit. Now not only will Georgia go with XM; the SEC itself will go with XM, and the remaining schools will come on board when their current agreements expire.

Georgia fans can go to http://www.xmradio.com/dawgs for a special offer on XM radios. With the investment I’ve already sunk into Sirius, I’m going to hold out hope that the proposed Sirius/XM merger goes through.

Former Auburn (and Clemson) basketball coach Cliff Ellis will be coaching again for the first time in three years. Ellis was recently named the new coach at Coastal Carolina – just down the road from Bobby Cremins at the College of Charleston. If we ever see Nolan Richardson surface at the Citadel, we can then say with some certainty that the Southern Conference has become the recycling center of college basketball.

For SEC fans, that means a new announcing crew coming to Lincoln Financial regional broadcasts. Ellis will now be luring high school prospects with promises of "sharing the candy" and plenty of trips to the "bonus-sphere".

We all like to pick on Reggie Ball, and he’s an easy target. But as poorly as he played against Georgia over his career, he was still a four-year starter with wins over teams like Auburn, Miami, and Virginia Tech.

So for all of the amusement we get reading lines saying that Tech has to be better in 2007 now that Reggie Ball is gone, is it really a given that Taylor Bennett will be markedly better?

Bennett is getting a lot of mileage from the first half of last season’s Gator Bowl. As Bennett threw jump ball after jump ball to Calvin Johnson en route to a big halftime lead, it was natural to wonder why he wasn’t tried before Ball became ineligible.

But I am not yet a believer that Bennett will be an improvement at quarterback over the long term. You’d expect a QB to improve over the course of a game, but Bennett did not in his moment in the spotlight. Tech went from 340 yards of offense in the first half of the Gator Bowl to 133 in the second half. They had four drives of 60+ yards in the first half and none in the second half.

It could be argued that West Virginia wasn’t expecting a backup to find Johnson with such ease, but he did. Once they adjusted and realized that Bennett could throw the ball, he wasn’t as effective. After the world gets a few games of film on Taylor Bennett this fall, we’ll find out if he really is an improvement over a four-year starter.

That’s six and counting, guys.

With the 2006-2007 academic and athletic year completed, Georgia finished a respectable 12th in the 2007 Director’s Cup – not the best showing in recent years, but nothing to be ashamed of either. Two national titles (gymnastics and men’s tennis) were at the top of the highlights, and we’ll get to those top stories soon. But first, we’ll take a look back first at some of the lower points from the past year.

10. "I’m Georgia!"

OK, I understand the proceeds went to a really, really good cause. I bought a few towels myself for that reason alone. But manufactured enthusiasm always seems a little artificial and often cheesy. The "I’m Georgia" campaign was both. It became painful watching former Georgia greats trying to rally the Sanford Stadium crowd in their middle-aged monotones. "You want me to wave this towel and say what?!" But because they distributed so many towels and the kids love them – kids love anything free – the "I’m Georgia" towels are barnacles on the Georgia program that will be hanging on for several years.

9. Basketball collapse at Alabama.

It’s unfair to label any particular game as the reason why Georgia missed the NCAA basketball tournament. It’s not even clear that another win would have made the difference. Still, a double-digit lead against Bama represented a rare chance to get a quality road conference win. The questionable finish only made the missed opportunity more painful. This game wasn’t the only time that the Dawgs blew a decent lead late in the game; Western Kentucky handed Georgia its first loss of the season with a late rally from ten points down. Either one of those wins would have been nice to have. Both together might have earned the Dawgs a bid.

8. Women’s golf embarassment.

The mysterious resignation of women’s golf coach Todd McCorkle turned into an uncomfortable if not creepy story filled with charges of harrassment and other conduct inappropriate for someone in his position (and most anyone over the age of 14). McCorkle resigned his position but remains with the athletic association, an arrangement that I agree creates a lose-lose situation.

There’s another angle to the story that didn’t get much play – the spokesperson-parent. Art Leon, father of star player Taylor Leon, triggered an investigation by complaining to administrators "after his daughter said she was berated by McCorkle at the Bryan Intercollegiate (tournament)." While I consider the harassment charges very serious and worthy of the reaction they received, I am not so quick to sympathize with parental claims of "verbal abuse" that resulted because a coach got in a player’s face.

Mr. Leon comes across a bit differently in this quote from the AJC following McCorkle’s resignation: "I’m shocked, surprised, just flabbergasted…Todd’s a great coach. I just saw him at SECs and everybody was happy and jubilant." A week later, Leon told the ABH, "He’s the type of guy you feel like you’d like to have a beer with, but he has no place being a coach of women’s golf." Hm. OK.

7. UGA: home of the minor alcohol-related incident.

From Akeem Hebron to Ian Smith to Tasha Humphrey, the campus crackdown on underage drinking left its mark on Bulldog athletics. For the football team, the incidents resulted in another round of early-season suspensions, and Hebron was suspended by the University. In the case of Humphrey, her suspension led to chemistry issues on the team that weren’t really sorted out until the final month of the season. Given the climate withing the campus administration, the overzealousness of local police, and the automatic suspensions mandated by the athletic department, you’d think the message to be smarter about drinking might be getting out to student-athletes. But this next academic year hasn’t gotten off to a great start either.

6. Quarterback indecision.

A year later, it seems like a hazy dream. But a year ago, Georgia fans were debating whether or not Joe Tereshinski’s unproven ability to "manage the game" (whatever that meant) was enough to give him the nod at quarterback over less-experienced but more talented options. Ideally, the question would have played itself out in August. Unfortunately, the quarterback question ended up dragging into the middle of the season and not settled for certain until the Mississippi State game, the eighth game of the season. Along the way we had an injury to the starter, a solid debut from the freshman phenom, an off-the-bench rescue by a third quarterback, and several close calls. Eventually the job was won by Matthew Stafford, but his on-the-job training during the middle part of the season included some very harsh lessons. It’s impossible to say how the season would have turned out had Stafford started the whole time, but that doesn’t keep fans from wondering.

5. Big Three vs. Florida.

0-fer. Sweep. Georgia’s "big three" men’s sports of football, basketball, and baseball all played their part in the Year of the Gator. The Gator football team held off a second-half comeback from the Dawgs en route to SEC and national titles. Florida’s outstanding basketball team was never seriously challenged in three games against Georgia including the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament. Georgia’s best chance for a win was against a struggling Gator baseball team, but even a Florida team that would finish under .500 and fire its coach managed to sweep a three-game series in Athens. Thank goodness for other sports like tennis, gymnastics, and women’s basketball which took care of their own business against Florida, but a turnaround in the "big three" can’t come quickly enough.

4. Baseball roller coaster hits bottom.

I guess we should have seen it coming. Georgia baseball has had a strange pattern of feast and famine lately, and the calendar said that they were due for another downturn in 2007. But the severity of the downturn was the news this year. The talent drain after the 2006 trip to Omaha hurt, and those expected to carry the team this year didn’t. Georgia produced no all-SEC players this season, and they clearly lacked the clutch star power they’ve enjoyed recently. Georgia finished the season under .500 with their worst record in several years and far out of contention for the postseason.

The season was in trouble out of the gate as the Dawgs dropped early series to PAC 10 members Oregon State and Southern Cal. A sweep of Auburn to start SEC play provided a small glimmer of hope, but reality set in quickly. Taking two of three games from Georgia Tech was one of the few bright spots of the season, and those two wins might have had the added benefit of keeping Tech out of the NCAA Tournament.

The odd-even schedule that seems to rule the Diamond Dawgs lately says that Georgia baseball should be back on top next year, but they’ll be looking for answers and improvement at nearly every spot.

3. Mike Mercer’s season-ending injury.

Ouch. You knew the moment it happened that Mike Mercer’s knee injury at South Carolina was severe. In fact, it was considered "good" news that the injury was only season-ending. Similar injuries have ended careers. A lot of Bulldog programs had significant injuries last year, and some like Thomas Brown’s were season-ending too. But a major injury to a basketball starter is magnified, and Mercer’s injury turned out to be too much for the fragile Georgia depth to handle down the critical stretch run. Though they fought until the regular season finale against Tennessee, Mercer’s injury gave them very long odds for a postseason bid with no margin for error. Still, the team scrapped by and were able to record their first postseason win in nearly five years.

2. Football losses to Vanderbilt and Kentucky.

We sensed that inexperience at the quarterback position would cause problems, but few would have guessed that the defending SEC champions would fall to the traditional doormats of the SEC East. Even worse is that Georgia held the lead in each game but saw Vandy and Kentucky drive late in the game for the winning scores against a relenting Georgia defense. Following the loss at Kentucky in November, things were as bleak as they’ve looked at Georgia since 1996. How the Dawgs turned things around to beat three consecutive ranked teams is an incredible story, and I don’t think we’ll ever know just how much negative momentum the team had to overcome in order to make that turnaround happen.

1. The death of Kevin Brophy.

The Georgia basketball world was rocked in July when point guard Kevin Brophy was killed in an auto accident. The Australia native was driving to Savannah when he wrecked during a rainstorm south of Athens.

Though I consider the death of Brophy the bottom story of the past academic year, the response by the team and the fan base was far from a low point. The team embraced the memory of the popular player, and an emotional win over LSU in the presence of the Brophy family topped off a season dedicated to Kevin. Fans and the University worked together to start a Kevin Brophy Memorial Scholarship Endowment Fund, and its trademark circular "3" patch was a ubiquitous reminder all season on the court and in the stands.

Usually it’s left to Tommy Tuberville to stick his foot in his mouth about a tough schedule or an unfair system before they actually play the games. Now it’s Les Miles’ turn. Miles, who doesn’t have an SEC title to his name yet, is already knocking down other preseason contenders and flashing his SEC membership card (H/T: Get the Picture).

"I can tell you this, that they have a much easier road to travel," Miles said of the Trojans. "They’re going to play real knockdown drag-outs with UCLA and Washington, Cal-Berkley, Stanford – some real juggernauts – and they’re going to end up, it would be my guess, in some position so if they win a game or two, that they’ll end up in the title (game). I would like that path for us."

"I think the SEC provides much stiffer competition."

Has anyone checked the LSU schedule? There are two, maybe three games which should give a preseason Top 10 team any problems. Virginia Tech, yes. Florida, yes. Auburn, maybe. Arkansas, maybe. They don’t play Tennessee or Georgia. There will be a ridiculous amount of hype with the Alabama game, but there is no reason why a rebuilding Bama team, even under Saban, should be on the level of this LSU squad. That Bama game is LSU’s only challenge on the road this year while the Trojans visit Nebraska, Notre Dame, Oregon, and Cal. Southern Cal is not the team to be picking on.

So LSU’s position can be said to be much the same. Win a game or two – at home – plus the SEC championship, and they’re in the title game.

Look, Les. The SEC is cool. Great football and fans. Don’t lean on the conference too much though. Just find a quarterback, win your games, win the mighty SEC first, and then we’ll see where things stand.

If the Tuberville Rule holds, bet the house on Virginia Tech.

PS…Can you blame him though? If he can convince a pollster or two that the 2007 LSU schedule is a death march, good for him. It might even help to swing things his way should there be another batch of one-loss teams at the end. That’s how the process works.