Georgia fans will give you endless excuses why we never draw more than 20 or 30,000 people to the spring scrimmage. After all, other teams draw 50,000 or even more for their scrimmages. You’ll hear about Masters weekend or sometimes Easter weekend or the weather or Richt’s tendency to play the scrimmage as vanilla as possible. It’s always something, and that’s just fine with me.

Let’s be honest. You’re watching a scrimmage. You have no emotional stake in the outcome. Your greatest concern is that everyone remains healthy. The only reasons for going are to spend a day in the ol’ college town, stock up at the bookstores, entertain the kids, and sit a lot closer to something resembling football than you otherwise could in the fall. Football practice is boring once you get over the novelty, and that’s why I’m glad that most Dawg fans usually can find better things to do when G-Day comes around each year.

Over 92,000 Alabama fans had nothing better to do on Saturday than to attend A-Day in Tuscaloosa just to be a part of Nick Saban’s first public appearance on the Bryant-Denny sideline. Fans actually used words like "historic" to describe a football scrimmage. Far be it from a sportsblogger to play the "obsessive to the point of unhealthy" card, but damn. The coverage of the crowd also serves to remind the rest of us that Alabama football fans are similar to Kentucky basketball fans in that same kind of arrogantly annoying way. We don’t enjoy them being down as much as we would, say Auburn or Florida, but just know how insufferable they’ll be if Saban actually does do something there.

Someone on the DawgVent asked what the turnout was for Richt’s first G-Day game back in 2001, and I came across this recap from UGASports.com. If ever G-Day was set up for a huge crowd, it was that day. You had a triple-shot of hype: Richt was bringing his shiny FSU offense to Georgia. G-Day returned to Sanford Stadium after skipping a year due to that infamous sewer leak. Finally, fans got their first look at quarterback phenom David Greene. Despite all of those things that might have made G-Day 2001 ever so slightly more interesting than usual, I’m very glad to say that only 20,445 showed up in Athens on that day.

We’ve known for years that it’s a quirk of these spring games that some unusual suspects can steal the show. Georgia has had Johnny Brown, Ronnie Powell, and even Jason Johnson – the heros of spring games past. 2001 was no different. With several players held out due to injury, you need to dust off a media guide to follow the recap.

Much like 2006, the quarterback position was a question mark and a big area of interest. It was clear by that point that Quincy Carter was long gone. Cory Phillips, the caretaker quarterback of the 2000 season, was given the opportunity to win the position. Fans were eager to get a look at redshirt freshman David Greene after hearing the hype during his redshirt season in 2000. Matt Redding didn’t last long at quarterback after the spring. He’d be tried at linebacker and eventually left the program. Neither Greene nor Phillips looked very impressive against the first-string defense, though Greene threw two touchdowns. Coach Richt would not name a starter until the week before the 2001 season.

Incumbent tailback Musa Smith was held out of G-Day 2001, so the running game wasn’t really on display. Even Jasper Sanks was out. Georgia’s leading rusher that day was the forgotten Bailey, Kenny. Kenny spent some time as a reserve tailback before trying his luck as a defensive back later in his career. You can’t mention G-Day during this era without mentioning Ronnie Powell. Powell scored the game’s lone rushing touchdown and averaged over 10 yards on his four carries. Lurking down among the running backs was a fullback named Verron Haynes.

The receiving stats were particularly interesting. The top two receivers in the game became known more for leaving Georgia than for anything they did in Athens. Durrell Robinson came to Georgia as a partial qualifier, made a few receptions in 2000, and was off to junior college not long after this spring of 2001. Robinson became one of the nation’s best JUCO receivers and committed to West Virginia before dropping off the face of the earth. Tavarus Morgan also left Georgia during 2001, and he settled as South Carolina State where he had a decent career. Standouts Randy McMichael, Terrence Edwards, and Damien Gary didn’t have stellar performances, but that’s not unusual for G-Day.

Georgia’s leading tackler that day? Safety Burt Jones. Jones would go on in his career to become (quite seriously) one of the best cover guys Georgia has had on special teams in some time. Right behind Jones was safety standout Terreal Bierria who scored eight tackles and was involved with two interceptions. The defense tallied four interceptions overall.

Sophomore Billy Bennett was the game’s leading scorer. He connected on five field goals (a sixth was blocked) in a foreshadowing of his record-setting six field goal performance that was to come much later in 2001 during the streak-breaker game at Georgia Tech.

How in the world did only 20k show up for that?!?!

Georgia claimed three SEC titles this weekend. Men’s and women’s tennis followed up their regular season titles with tournament titles. The women beat Florida for the title and ended Florida’s run of five straight SEC titles. Women’s golf also brought home team and individual championships. Unfortunately, the men’s top-ranked golf team finished just sixth at the SEC championship.

With a little more than a month remaining in the regular season, things continue to look grim for the Diamond Dawgs. They dropped another SEC series, losing the final two to Arkansas in Athens after winning on Friday. Stephen Dodson continues to be the lone bright spot; he’s pitched consecutive complete games for Friday night wins. The bad news is that the home stretch features series against several of the SEC’s better teams such as Vanderbilt and South Carolina. At this point, I’m just hoping we can salvage something from the two remaining games with Tech, including tomorrow night’s Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta benefit game at Turner Field.

Coming up this week:

• Baseball: vs. Georgia Tech, Tuesday 7:00 (@ Turner Field)
• Baseball: @ Western Carolina, Wednesday
• Baseball: @ Kentucky, Friday-Sunday
• Gymnastics: NCAA championships, Salt Lake City, Utah. The GymDogs will try for their third consecutive national title against hometown favorite Utah and a Florida squad that has been unbeatable so far this year. Thursday-Saturday.
• Football: NFL Draft, beginning Saturday

It’s been about a year and a half since University of Georgia students approved a fee to construct "Tate 2 ", an expansion of the Tate Student Center at the heart of campus. (Students of my era can relate to a fee for a building – the SPACENTER, now the Ramsey Center – which wouldn’t be finished until we were long gone.) After a delay, groundbreaking finally took place on the project on Thursday.

Though the plans have been scaled back a bit, the concept is still the same. The first phase will be to build a 500-space parking deck in the lot (N11) below the bookstore and adjacent to the Tate Center. Once that parking deck is completed, it will become operational as the Tate Expansion is constructed on top of it. If you think about the landscape in that area, it makes sense…there’s a big slope from the new Student Learning Center down to Tanyard Creek (the location of the Dawg Walk), so the top of this "underground" parking deck will be at ground level for the bookstore and Student Learning Center.

The project will transform the area that has become, thanks to the Dawg Walk, the "front door" to Sanford Stadium. Once the parking deck is completed, the remainder of the parking spaces in Dawg Walk Land will be converted into green space as part of a rehabilitation of the Tanyard Creek area. Original plans even included a "Dawg Walk Overlook" on top of the new parking deck next to the Tate Expansion. You have to see the conceptual drawings to really understand the project.

For those of us used to a sea of asphalt from the bookstore down to Gate 10, it will be a big chance to the central part of campus. The hulking Student Learning Center has already changed the look of the area, and this new development will take the next step. The original plans also call for a future "Alumni Development Center" along Lumpkin Street which will join with the Tate Expansion to mirror the SLC and create a plaza from the Baxter/Lumpkin intersection through to Sanford Drive.

If you’re reading this site, you’re probably more concerned with the impact on football than you are with the aesthetics of the campus master plan. The first obvious impact is parking. Once the project is completed, there will be a shiny new 500-space parking deck to replace the spaces lost to the new Tate Expansion and the green space along Tanyard Creek. In the meantime, those spaces at the site of the former UGA police headquarters and Stegeman Hall (lot N11) will be unavailable. While most of us don’t dream of parking that close to Sanford Stadium, the temporary loss of those spaces will probably push some of those with prime reserved spots further out into campus. The lot leading up to the stadium where the Dawg Walk takes place will remain until the deck is ready.

The broader impact to football fans will be to the gameday experience. If this is done right, I think the changes will eventually be very positive. The green space planned for the area could become a popular gathering area, assuming of course that UGA doesn’t claim it first as a "family-free-friendly" zone or allow the corporate tailgates to take over that prime space in close proximity to the stadium. Currently that entrance to the stadium is a massive parking lot in a bowl bordered by a creek that more closely resembles a drainage ditch. The Dawg Walk should be enhanced as fans can enjoy the plaza and not have to navigate parked cars in order to join in the experience.

I generally don’t do companies’ promotions work for them, but seven outgoing Georgia football players will be selling autographs at the Mall of Georgia on Saturday April 21st from 1-3 p.m.

Tra Battle, Ray Gant, Dan Inman, Quentin Moses, Mario Raley, Danny Ware, and Des Williams will be signing at the mall’s lower level in the Nordstrom Wing. Autographs will be $15 per player, four for $50, or all seven for $80.

While I’m in Top 5 mode, I was going through some of last year’s games on the Tivo. We all know that the SEC’s best teams are flush with talent. What makes it especially tough is that even the bottom teams have exceptional playmakers. Here are five players I consider to be some of the best in the conference from the teams we usually consider the bottom four of the league. They struggle for exposure as better teams get the good TV slots, yet they still turn enough heads for conference and even national recognition. Behind Burton and Woodson, Kentucky shed their usual bottom four status for third place in the SEC East last year. With those two back, can they stay out of the lower half of the division again and earn a second-straight bowl bid?

1. Earl Bennett, receiver, Vanderbilt. Vandy producing a talented player is nothing new. Jay Cutler notwithstanding, most of their star talent has been on defense – particularly at the linebacker and secondary positions. There has been the occasional offensive standout like Todd Yoder. But rarely have the Commodores had a weapon on offense like Bennett. He has had at least 75 receptions in each of his first two seasons – the first SEC player to ever do so in back-to-back seasons. His 82 receptions last year were an SEC-best, and I remind you that he increased his reception total without Cutler under center. He’ll surely be the focus of opposing defenses this year, and we’ll see if he can take advantage of a nationwide drain at the receiver position in order to pick up some national honors.

2. Andre Woodson, quarterback, Kentucky. A year ago, Kentucky coach Rich Brooks was in trouble. The program had slid from some modest success, and most assumed that Brooks was on his way out. The Wildcats’ turnaround in 2006 was one of the biggest stories of the year in SEC football, and it was topped off with wins over Georgia and Clemson. One of the biggest reasons for the turnaround was the maturation and improvement of quarterback Andre Woodson. Woodson’s own turnaround was just as dramatic. Kentucky passed for just 169 yards per game in 2005 and threw an incredibly low six touchdown passes. The situation was so grim that Woodson was in a battle with the unknown Curtis Pulley for the starting job. Woodson quickly ended the competition in 2006 by throwing nine touchdowns in the first three games of the season. He finished the year as the SEC’s leader in total offense. A lot of credit for his improvement belongs to position coach Randy Sanders, exiled from Tennessee. Woodson’s transformation was so complete that he now merits national attention.

3. BenJarvus Green-Ellis, tailback, Ole Miss. Ole Miss is becoming Transfer U. Quarterbacks Schaeffer and Snead got the headlines, but Indiana transfer Green-Ellis in 2006 became just the third Ole Miss tailback to rush for over 1,000 yards in a season. With Schaeffer settling in as a dual-threat quarterback, Green-Ellis might have a chance for an even bigger 2007 behind Michael Oher and a decent line.

4. Titus Brown, DE, Miss. St. Brown has been a solid performer on a defense that had been led on the front seven by guys like Deljuan Robinson, Michael Heard, and Quinton Culberson. Brown led the Bulldogs in sacks with 7.5 and was fifth in the SEC. He was third in the league in tackles for loss. It’s Brown’s defense now, and the second-team all-SEC performer will anchor the line as a senior. Without the presence of Robinson and Heard up front, it remains to be seen if Brown can remain as effective. He’ll be the focus of protection schemes. Derek Pegues might be the most exciting player on the MSU defense, but Brown is the difference-maker.

5. Keenan Burton, WR, Kentucky. Woodson’s improvement didn’t happen in a vacuum, and the reliable Burton was a big piece of the puzzle. His 77 receptions, 1,036 receiving yards, 1,845 all-purpose yards, and 13 touchdowns led the Wildcats in 2006. He ranked second in the SEC just behind Bennett in receptions per game and behind McFadden in all-purpose yardage. His 13 touchdowns last year were second-best in the SEC also behind McFadden. Burton, along with top tailback Rafael Little, decided to return for a senior season. Those two plus Woodson give Kentucky a lot of returning experience and talent at three key skill positions and should give Wildcat fans plenty of reasons for optimism on offense and a chance to do as well or better in 2007.

The NCAA’s tomes governing permissible contact between a prospect and a coach have been behind the technological curve. Traditional methods of contact such as phone calls or face-to-face meetings have been successfully regulated. Even e-mails and faxes have been regulated to some extent. But coaches have found loopholes in the rules and can send (and receive) text messages with the frequency of a sugared-up pre-teen. Isn’t that right, Coach Nutt? Most coaches, whether they admit it or not, can work a Blackberry in their sleep now. Let’s not put all of this on coaches – you’d be amazed how many text conversations are initiated by the prospects.

For the coach, the technology is a mixed blessing. You have the ability to contact your prized prospects at any time with brief, casual messages using the kids’ prefered method of communication. But that same ease of communication applies to your competition. You don’t want to be second to congratulate the guy (or girl) on a great game, and the immediate access means that you are tethered to the technology lest your rival develop an advantage. Some prospects live for the constant attention, but most find it intrusive.

With all that in mind, the NCAA Division I management council has recommended "a ban on all electronically transmitted correspondence, including text messages, between coaches and recruits." E-mails and faxes would be exempt because they are covered under existing guidelines. The NCAA intentionally used the broad brush of "all electronically transmitted correspondence" in order to cover the pace of technological change that can adapt faster than the ability to regulate it. "The reality is that it does keep us a little bit ahead of the curve, for now," said committee chair Kate Hickey.

Coaches naturally are concerned that the ban would eliminate a channel of communication that is familiar to the prospects and their families. Kids communicate through text messages, and being able to relate to how they communicate goes a long way for a coach. Many kids have given up e-mail entirely. I think most coaches though will secretly breathe a sigh of relief – you can’t put the genie back in the lamp, but they might at least get some sleep now.

The AP article is correct that enforcement of the ban will be challenging. I imagine that if anyone gets busted it will be because some annoyed prospect turns in a coach who won’t leave him alone.

The NCAA will decide the fate of the ban at its April 26 Board of Directors meeting. If adopted, the ban would take effect in August.

It’s worth noting the other proposed rules change in that article. Currently, student-athletes may not try out for a professional team if they are enrolled. This seems absurd. We’re trying to graduate student-athletes, but we force those with professional aspirations to drop out of classes for what amounts to a job interview. In a wise change, the committee passed a recommendation "that would allow athletes to receive money from pro teams to make a 48-hour trip. Or they could also pay the bill themselves and not be bound by the time limit." The only gotcha, which seems fair, is that the kid would not be allowed to miss class for the tryout. Adopting this change seems even more important to me than the text message ban.

Last week I mentioned five things that Georgia football could do without this year. Why stop there? College football is a great sport, but even it has its warts.

1. Knee-jerk rules changes like 3-2-5-e. This is low-hanging fruit since the process to rescind this failed experiment is now complete. But the almost universal distaste for the changes had a few additional undertones. The first is a growing irritation with television advertising. More than a few fans noticed that fewer plays didn’t mean less advertising. We know that these huge television deals help to fuel the beast. Advertising has always been there, but the scrutiny and backlash brought on by the new rules really put ads into the spotlight. The second is the realization that college football isn’t the NFL, we like it that way, and we should resist attempts to package it up into three-hour blocks.

It seems as if the next target of the rules committee laboratory is the play clock. 25 seconds isn’t good enough. Now coming out of timeouts, we’ll have a 15-second clock. Nick Saban and others have suggested adopting the NFL’s 40-second clock. I understand the rationale regarding the 15-second clock, but all of this tweaking has me asking, "exactly what is so wrong with college football that we’re suddenly treating it like a beta software release?" The game between the whistles is fine. The postseason? That’s another story.

2. Ballin’. Since the days of Mark Gastineau, celebrating a sack has become an art form. That art took an ugly turn last year worthy of an NEA grant. Is there anything more awkward-looking or out of place than a 6’4" defensive end in full pads simulating a basketball jump shot? The ballin’ celebration, started by the New York Giants, trickled into college football last year. Let’s hope it died as quickly and completely as the Giants’ 2006 season. Is air guitar next?

3. Wake Forest and Georgia Tech in the ACC title game. It was a nice story and surely a special run for the few fans of those schools, but the crowd at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville for the ACC Championship game more closely resembled what you’d expect for a high school marching band exhibition. With a four-loss FSU team winning the title in 2005 and Wake taking the trophy last year, the conference badly needs to produce a contender again. The addition of Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College was supposed to turn the ACC into the next superconference while decimating the Big East. While the ACC does have a bigger upside and has two huge dormant programs in the state of Florida, it’s Big East football enjoying the higher profile. Will shakeups at FSU, Miami, UNC, and NC State change that?

4. Tuesday morning football. It’s easy for a fan of a major BCS-conference program to take for granted the value of a televised game. There is another tier of programs who must market themselves not only to recruiting prospects but also to pollsters. Such is life for the mid-major: does a team win ten games if no one sees them? Boise State is hardly an unknown now but will play nearly half of its 2007 games on days other than Saturday. Fans and the traditional campus gameday environment become secondary to the small chance of exposure. As fans of schools who can count on at least regional TV coverage for most our Saturday games, we can’t be too quick to condemn smaller programs for jumping at a national television slot no matter the time or day. Still, it’s not a positive development for a sport that draws so much of its appeal from the Saturday gameday experience.

5. Premature BCS politicking and whining. Call it the Tuberville Effect, but it’s almost given that a coach who starts complaining about their position in the BCS during October is sure to lose and lose soon. This goes for fans too though. Eight or nine undefeated teams in mid-October does not mean OH MY GOD WE HAVE A BCS CRISIS!!! Teams will lose. They always do. I’m certainly no fan of the BCS, but college football invariably reduces a huge mess in mid-season down to a much more structured picture by year’s end. Chill and let the process play out as it does most every year.

There’s also plenty that college football could use more of, and we’ll get to that next time.

At least 20 are dead in a Virginia Tech campus shooting.

Georgia is king (and queen) of the SEC in tennis. The men clinched the conference title over a week ago and finished out the regular season with an unblemished record by beating Tennessee. The women followed suit this weekend with their own conference title.

Gym Dogs

As expected, Georgia had little trouble breezing through the Denver regional to earn another trip to the national championships to defend their back-to-back titles.

The news wasn’t all good: senior Ashley Kupets’ career was ended with an achilles injury.

Baseball

If the Diamond Dawgs were going to have some kind of miraculous turnaround to the season, winning a series against another struggling team like Alabama would be a good start. Scratch that plan. Georgia dropped two of three to the Crimson Tide over the weekend. They fell 5-3 on Sunday after loading the bases in the eighth and ninth innings. Perno sounds helpless. "I don’t know about this team. Nothing is happening when we need it," he said.

Saturday’s 7-6 loss was especially painful; they led 6-5 before heading to the bottom of the ninth with closer Josh Fields on the mound. Dodson’s stellar Friday night was the lone bright spot of the series. The Dawgs are now 5-10 halfway through the SEC slate.

If there’s anything to salvage from this season, it’s the season series with Tech. The two teams meet on Wednesday in Atlanta.

A pretty cool project going on in Blacksburg: when Beamerball has its players flying around the football field this fall, several players will have helmets outfitted with accelerometers and wireless transmitters to record impact forces. 300,000 of the 1.5 million traumatic brain injuries nationwide each year are to athletes, and football has more of them than any other sport.

Though the system will collect and store the data for research, it will also provide some real-time feedback that can alert team doctors to signs of trouble before a player notices a problem or if a serious impact is missed during the hectic action of a game.

“We have a pager that alerts me when we receive a high head acceleration,” (team physician Dr. Gunnar Brolinson) said. “We set the pager at 98g – an impact of 98 times the force of gravity at the Earth’s surface – . We think that’s a fairly significant head acceleration.”

Brolinson noted that if he’s alerted to such a blow to the head of a player, then he watches the player for signs of a concussion.

One very interesting result so far is the common-sense finding that different positions receive different impacts, and that might lead to additional equipment refinements.

Brolinson said that so far the study of Virginia Tech’s football players has turned up some interesting and useful data, the most notable being that different positions apparently sustain different types of blows.

“Linemen sustain frontal blows. They’re usually low impact blows, but there are lots of them. Wide receivers receive fewer blows, but get higher blows when they happen. Linebackers sustain higher accelerations than linemen.”

Brolinson said that he thinks the data developed by the instrumented helmets may lead to changes in football equipment. “One of the things that may come out of this research, as we start to understand the blows, is position specific helmets. A lineman may need a different helmet from a wide receiver,” he said.

The work should have applications across athletics, in the military, and even in automobile safety.

(HT: Engadget)

Here’s Charles Johnson about to provide a data point to QB Sean Glennon:

Photo: UGASports.com

Back in February, I listed the proposed rule changes for college football. The proposed changes still had to be approved by an NCAA oversight committee, and that’s now taken place. While the vast majority of the changes were approved as-is, there are also some new developments.

The main point is that 3-2-5-e is dead. Good.

One proposal that didn’t make it through was a plan to limit official reviews (replays) to 2:00. Citing “the potential for technical difficulties,” the rules committee withdrew this proposal. It’s not really a big deal as replays averaged just 1:49 last year. I maintain that the policy of reviewing every play is a bigger issue. It’s not that replays take too long in most cases – there are sometimes just too many plays being reviewed.

The talk of a 40-second play clock keeps coming around.

The committee will also begin considering a play clock that alternates between 40 seconds and 25 seconds, depending on whether the clock has stopped. The NFL uses that system, and the committee thinks it could speed up games.

We’re going to end up with a system here in a couple of years where the play clock is 40 seconds in some cases, 25 in others, and 15 in the rest. Choose one. The guys on the field have enough to worry about without wondering if this is the second snap after the full moon and whether or not they have to get the play off in 10 seconds or 45 seconds.

Kris Durham made a name for himself as a true freshman with his size and hands. The lanky 6’5" receiver had a slight build, but his ability to make tough catches earned him a spot on the field as a true freshman.

In Saturday’s G-Day game, he did everything but complete a pass to his own team. His intercepted pass on a trick play was about the only hiccup in a solid performance. He showed the value of his length and hands on a diving touchdown catch, and he also showed a promising ability to break tackles on a second touchdown. With that performance and flashes of promise last year, you’d think that Durham was about to emerge as a key member of the receiving corps. I even said below that he "is going to be a ‘glue’ guy on this team for several years," and I believe that.

But we learned today that it had been an inconsistent spring of doubt for the rising sophomore. "Kris had a couple of times this spring where he had his head down a little bit and started to wonder if he could compete at this level, I think," said Coach Richt. Durham admitted, "I had an up-and-down spring. There were some days where I didn’t come out very focused. (Saturday) I seemed to be focused, and I just had a lot of fun. I think it’s paid off."

There’s no questioning Durham’s abilities, but it’s revealing to see behind the scenes and realize that G-Day performances, good and bad, didn’t necessarily tell the story of a month of spring ball.

I had heard some scuttlebutt that redshirting was a possibility this season for Durham. Looking just at his G-Day performance, that seems insane. But in the larger context of the spring, it makes more sense now. Durham probably would have redshirted last year if not for the injuries to Bailey and others. He’s done a lot in one year to increase his strength, and you have to wonder what kind of receiver he’d become with an additional year to develop physically.

The skills are there for him to become a very valuable receiver, but the depth makes you wonder from where the opportunities will come. Bailey is back. Henderson has vaulted into the picture with an outstanding spring. As Richt points out, there are now seven upperclassmen among the receivers, and they’re starting to play like it. Younger receivers like Michael Moore, Tony Wilson, and Durham are fighting for time on the field. Can Durham’s strong finish to the spring do enough to distinguish him from the rest of the receivers, or would a year of development move him into a much better position for his final three seasons?

Talking about redshirting your leading G-Day receiver might sound like crazy talk, but one has to wonder if the thought came into Coach Richt’s head as he watched the receiver position during the spring.

pwd is doing his usual strong job staying on top of the TV schedule puzzle, but one thing is certain: Georgia will not be playing on Thursday nights.

Athletic director Damon Evans made it pretty clear that Georgia has its limits on how far it will go for TV exposure.

“As long as I’m the athletic director here, we won’t have Thursday night football, plain and simple,” athletic director Damon Evans told the University Council’s Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics last month.

Thursday night games are worth an extra $500,000 per school, Evans said, but also mean more class time missed for players, thousands of students out late on a week night and the campus disrupted by fans streaming into town early to tailgate.

Evans neglects to mention Georgia’s state-wide fan base who would also be inconvenienced by mid-week games, but fans haven’t been part of the scheduling equation for some time now.

With the trend towards more midweek games showcasing lesser teams who would play at 3:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning if ESPN said so, it’s a good development to see someone stand up to it. Let other teams play on Thursday. College football belongs on Saturday.

1. A quarterback controversy. Maybe it had to happen this way. The four – or more truthfully – three-man battle for the quarterback position dominated headlines for the first half of the season. The situation was a mess from the start. The injury to Tereshinski at South Carolina threw a wrench into any plans of a smooth progression, and from the Colorado game clear through to the Mississippi State game in late October, the team could get no traction as every week brought a new development and experiment at the quarterback position. Even as Stafford assumed control, he struggled with turnovers and decisions.

That seems like such a long time ago, and Stafford seems like such an obvious choice now. Many thought it was only slightly less obvious of a choice last summer. Was it really that tough a decision and did it have to drag on well into October, or was this something that the coaching staff could have handled better? We spun the situation by convincing ourselves that it was a positive to have four guys capable enough to make it a difficult decision, but you don’t notice too many people complaining about the lack of a quarterback competition this season.

2. The post-halftime turnover. It was our own Groundhog Day. Honestly, all we needed was Ned Ryerson showing up on the video screen at halftime every week. It usually went like this: Georgia would receive the second half kickoff, often with the lead. They would get stuffed on the kickoff return. There would be a spectacular turnover. The opponent would score on a very short field and would completely change the momentum of the game. Each game had a nice twist on the theme.

While most remember the turnovers that resulted in losses, the Mississippi State game stands out to me as the season’s worst meltdown. Georgia led 21-7 at halftime, but that soon evaporated to a four-point lead after consecutive turnovers. Georgia missed the extra point after their only touchdown of the second half (see #4 below). From turnovers to huge pass plays on MSU’s final drive, Georgia seemed to do everything they could to give the visitors a chance to win the game. As bad as losses to Vanderbilt and Kentucky were, only Charles Johnson’s heroics at the end prevented a loss from which the program might not have recovered.

The story wasn’t just turnovers but turnovers timed so perfectly as to do the most possible damage. While the Dawgs cut down quantitatively on turnovers during their impressive three-game run at the end of the season, they also did a better job of stopping the bleeding after the turnovers they did commit.

3. Hyping the three-headed monster. Every time I talk about the running backs, I have to make it clear that I don’t think they are bad. I enjoy watching Lumpkin and Brown. They have made huge plays for us. But for two seasons now, we’ve been touting this "three-headed monster" tailback group while the actual production has been just so-so. I don’t put that all on the backs; it can be argued that blocking and/or scheme has a bit to do with it too. The buzz is starting all over again with freshman Knowshon Moreno after G-Day. I think we have some talented backs, but it will take a much stronger and consistent effort plus a few coaching adjustments before the Georgia running game is scary good enough to be called any kind of monster.

4. An injured placekicker. Coach Richt has remarked recently how close Georgia was to being 11-2 and also how close they were to having a losing record. If you think back to the great 2002 season, at least five of those wins were true nailbiters. That’s life in the SEC. Even the national champions had their share of close shaves last year. The injury to Brandon Coutu was just one of several kicks in the pants during the middle of the 2006 season, but the impact of his loss was immediate. I’ve heard many people say that games like Vanderbilt or Kentucky shouldn’t come down to a field goal in the first place, but again, that’s ignoring the realities of the SEC. The injury didn’t just affect placekicking. By becoming involved in placekicking duties, it seemed as if Gordon Ely-Kelso’s punting suffered in his senior season.

5. Another loss to Florida. Seriously. End it.

First the good: Georgia’s #1-ranked men’s tennis team clinched the 24th regular season SEC title in program history over the weekend with a 5-2 win over #7 Ole Miss. The tennis Dawgs are a perfect 21-0 overall and 10-0 in the SEC with one conference match remaining against Tennessee. They’ll also get an interesting test this week as #4 Baylor comes to town on Thursday.

Now…is it too early to stick a fork in the Diamond Dawgs? By dropping two of three at Ole Miss, they are 4-8 in the SEC and 11-21 overall. Last year, they started SEC play 7-11 but recovered in dramatic fashion to roll through the end of the season into the College World Series. Saturday’s win at Ole Miss ended a six-game losing streak, but they started a new one with a big loss on Sunday. Is such a recovery possible this year? Not likely. There just isn’t any punch. Georgia has scored two or fewer runs in 40% of their games, and college baseball isn’t kind to low-scoring teams. If they are going to start to turn it around, it’s going to have to be on the road this weekend at Alabama. The Tide are just 5-7 themselves in the SEC.