A more hospitable location for next year’s game.

Fans can be funny. Georgia’s offense finally showed some punch, and of course everyone is now fretting about the defense. Had the defense played better and stuffed the offense, we’d be back to trashing the receivers and calling for an offensive coordinator (oh…wait.). If anything, G-Day was entertaining for once this year. In 2006, G-Day was all but over after Stafford’s first pass. If it’s just a spring exhibition for the fans, it might as well be fun, and at least this year’s game had action for the 21,000+ fans who braved the cold.

The performance of the offense is a good thing. Though the playcalling took a few more liberties in the spring game, there was still a good variety of formations and calls. Execution helps – there were few, if any, bad drops. Tailbacks ran well. The new offensive line, a universal source of concern this spring, held its own.

At the risk of contradicting myself, the defense didn’t look terribly impressive. It was a bad performance. Kelin Johnson said, "It was just horrible, man, horrible.", and he should know – many of the more successful plays of the day were across the middle. Coach Martinez didn’t use the excuse of a spring scrimmage to slack off – he was in faces early on about the lackluster play. "We just gave up too many big plays," Martinez explained. "It’s been happening a lot in the spring. It’s happened way too often. We just have to get it corrected. We just have to reshuffle our lineup and see if we can get it straightened up."

The Dawgs are replacing six of seven starters along the defensive front seven, and it showed. There were enough bright spots on defense among the first and second units to show that potential answers are on the team, but the questions still remain. Based on Martinez’s statement, we’ll probably see a lot of experimenting with different solutions before the season. Is it time to panic and abandon the season? Of course not. That’s what the next four and a half months are about. If improvement stopped after spring, we’d never be very good.

If there was a "story" to G-Day other than the big plays, it was the recruiting class of 2006. Rashad Jones made an immediate impact as a ball-hawking safety. Knowshon Moreno showed a great burst and power at tailback. Tony Wilson made some noise at receiver. Members of that class who did not redshirt, like Matt Stafford and Kris Durham, also had impressive afternoons. Without reading too much into a single spring scrimmage, here are some quick hitters from the game:

• Damn was it cold. Not chilly. Cold. The 2003 Tech game came to mind.
• Tripp Chandler seems ready to assume the starting tight end spot. He made a couple of tough catches, holding onto one as he got hit hard right after the reception, and he drug several defenders on a long completion across the middle.
• Jason Johnson continues to hold the Johnny Brown Award for the best G-Day performance from a guy least likely to see the field during the season. Last year, Johnson had nearly 100 yards on the ground at G-Day but didn’t get a single carry in 2006. This year Johnson had 48 rushing yards at G-Day, only five fewer than starter Kregg Lumpkin. Johnson also added a touchdown pass to his stat sheet this year, setting a whole new standard for this honor.
• The offense did a lot of its damage on big plays, and that can distort some good defensive plays and shaky moments on offense. Stafford had some great passes but was also a relatively inefficient 6-of-12. He struggled throwing swing passes, and there were some obvious miscommunications with receivers. It’s spring. Barnes fumbled, Massaquoi ran into his blockers on an end-around…there’s still plenty to do on that side of the ball as well.
• Brandon Miller’s move to middle linebacker continues to look good. He led the Black team with six tackles.
• It was clear why Georgia recruited a punter in the 2007 class. Butler might be called upon early. Coutu had a nice punt, but I’m sure we’d all prefer he focus on placekicking if possible. Mimbs was inconsistent.
• An interesting diversity at receiver is emerging. Sean Bailey is back and made a superb catch along the sideline. Massaquoi remains steady. Durham is going to be a "glue" guy on this team for several years. Henderson got open deep again and was the spring MVP. Tony Wilson had an impressive debut. We didn’t even see guys like Bryant or Harris or Gartrell. Don’t forget Moore either.
• As always, the best news is that no long-term injuries came out of the game. Cornerback Bryan Evans hurt his hand on Chandler’s long reception, but that kind of thing won’t affect his 2007 season.

Billy Donovan is staying at Florida. As most outside of Lexington expected, he’s simply going to play the situation into a nice extension at Florida.

There is hope though for the rest of the college basketball world. Florida’s four star underclassmen Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer, and Taurean Green are expected to announce later today that they will declare for the NBA draft.

Cori Chambers’ hometown paper writes about her selection in yesterday’s WNBA draft. At Connecticut, she’ll only be an hour or so away from her family.

Savannah’s paper weighs in on a hometown issue of their own. Sonny Seiler has more to say about the future of Uga VI and maintains that there are no set plans to retire him.

The AJC is reporting that Jon Stinchcomb, David Pollack, Will Witherspoon, and Hines Ward will serve as honorary coaches for Saturday’s G-Day scrimmage.

Coach Richt indicated that it’s not a one-year thing. “We thought it would be a good idea to initiate a tradition to also have players as guest coaches at G-Day,” he said.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind if they suited up.

G-Day 2007
2:00 Saturday, Sanford Stadium
CSS TV live and rebroadcast several times next week and probably all summer

Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for students high school aged and younger. UGA students will be admitted free with their UGA card. Tickets are on sale Thursday and until 3 p.m. on Friday at the UGA ticket office in the Butts/Mehre Building.

Tickets will go on sale beginning at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday at Sanford Stadium at the main gate (underneath the bridge), as well as gates 2, 4 and 6

The Connecticut Sun selected Georgia guard Cori Chambers on Wednesday in the second round of the 2007 WNBA draft. Chambers became Georgia’s most prolific career three-point shooter in January, and her 228 attempts and 85 made three-pointers in the 2006-2007 campaign established Georgia season records. Her career totals of 282 three-pointers on 742 attempts are Georgia career records and rank #3 and #7, respectively, in SEC history.

Chambers gives the Lady Bulldogs nine players on a current WNBA roster. She joins Kara Braxton, Kedra Holland-Corn, Deanna Nolan, Kelly Miller, Coco Miller, Christi Thomas, Sherill Baker, and Keisha Brown in the league. Braxton, Nolan, and Holland-Corn play for the Detroit Shock, the defending league champions. Cori and the rest of the players will report for preseason camp in little more than a week, and the 2007 season will begin in mid-May.

Arkansas has been going through basketball coaches so quickly that the latest one is gone before he even got started.

Yep…Dana Altman will remain at Creighton. The soap opera that is the Arkansas athletic department continues.

This might actually turn out to be a good thing. Altman wasn’t a very good hire, and the Hogs are bailed out albeit with a little egg on their faces. Who’s next?

Jim Delany must be in awe of Florida’s fast basketball team this morning.

It’s tough to say it, but Florida had a magnificent team this year. The word most frequently used to describe them was "balanced", and that shone through in the national title game.

While frontcourt stars Noah and Horford get the spotlight and people debate about which is the better pro prospect, the backcourt made this team dominant. Last night Noah and Horford had a single basket between them in the first half as Florida built a double-digit lead. That’s not to say that they played poorly. They rebounded and defended well. The attention paid to them on offense left open looks on the perimeter, and the trio of Brewer, Green, and Humphrey knocked them down with ease. That’s what balance does – last night it was the backcourt putting up the points. Had Ohio State extended, the Florida frontcourt would have taken over.

A 9-0 run later in the first half put Florida up by 11, and they had control of the game from that point. Ohio State was within striking distance for much of the rest of the game, but they never got back within six points. Florida was able to hold the Buckeyes at arm’s length, always in control, and always poised. They answered every Ohio State push, and demoralizing three-pointer after three-pointer from Florida made their eight-point lead seem like twice that. As productive and impressive as Oden was for Ohio State, they were trading two points for three. Florida, the inconsistent upstart a year ago, played this game with the precision and level head of an experienced champion.

To call most of Florida’s team "role players" is to diminish the fact that individually they would be stars on any team. What team wouldn’t kill to have a tall ball-handling wing who can match up at four positions like Brewer? Most teams have their three-point specialist, but how many can hit the clutch and timely daggers that Lee Humphrey pours in on a regular basis? Of all the big-time scorers to play in the NCAA Tournament, who would have expected Humphrey to be the most prolific three-point shooter of them all? Then there’s Chris Richard. He plays in the shadow of Noah and Horford, but few starting SEC posts can play the "garbageman" role as well as he.

Vitale and Digger on ESPN tried to make the case that these guys didn’t measure up to some of the great champions of the past, but I don’t buy it. Not only do they have a complete team, but they also had the mental edge and ability to turn it on in the spotlight. There might have been more talented teams, but Kansas and Carolina watched the Final Four from home. When you look at great teams like the mid-90s Kentucky teams or Duke from the early 90s or the Big East teams of the 80s, this Florida squad can claim to match up competitively with any of them.

The interesting thing is what comes next. Humphrey and Richard are the only seniors among the regulars. It’s inconceivable that juniors Noah, Horford, Green, and Brewer would all come back, but we thought at least one would go pro after last year’s title. Billy Donovan held off on a pay increase last year to persuade those players to come back for another run at the title, and he’s now set to cash in big at either Kentucky or Florida. If he uses his position to negotiate a big increase at Florida, will the fact that he remained convince some of the juniors to follow his lead and stay at Florida another year?

It’s an historical time at Florida, and I hate it, but the devil gets his due today.

Coaches have to love spring games. In the span of two hours, fans will form their expectations for the players and the upcoming season. Freshmen who don’t shine will be busts. Reserves who impress should get more playing time. Just look back a year ago…

• The entire quarterback question was settled for most fans on Stafford’s first 64-yard pass. Henderson caught just seven passes in 2006, but he did go on to become a valuable return man in Thomas Flowers’ absence.
• Ramarcus Brown and Asher Allen were stars on defense at G-Day. Each played a big role in 2006, but it was Bryan Evans who missed the spring game that eventually emerged as the answer opposite Paul Oliver.
• Jason Johnson won the "Ronnie Brown Award" for a great performance by a guy unlikely to see much time during the season. He was the leading rusher for G-Day 2006 with 97 yards on 13 carries. Johnson didn’t see any time at running back during the 2006 season, but he did get in on special teams.
• Tight end Tripp Chandler was the leading receiver in the game. After two first half drops, he caught four passes for 99 yards. He then caught a total of two passes during the 2006 season.

That’s not to say that the spring game tells us nothing. Going against Paul Oliver, Mohamed Massaquoi had just one reception. Oliver turned out to have a stellar season, but the game also foreshadowed a season of struggles for Georgia’s star receiver. Charles Johnson dominated G-Day, and he played well enough during the season to enter the NFL draft. No one from Georgia’s "three-headed monster" of tailbacks really stood out in the spring game, and that continued into the season. While Joe Cox threw several interceptions, he was also the most successful at driving the offense, and that came in useful in a desperate hour against Colorado.

It also won’t show you everything. While everyone was impressed with the gaudy interception returns last spring, few could see the secondary being beaten as badly as it was against Tennessee or the defense struggling as it did during the middle of the season. Stafford showed glimpses of why he would be the man, but not many figured that the quarterback decision would be stuck in quicksand for a few more months and that there would be so many expensive lessons in costly turnovers.

Based on the buzz, here’s what people will be looking at this year:

• For most of us, it’ll be a chance to see the new offensive line in action for the first time. Coach Searels will have a lot of eyes on him during this game. Nowhere will newcomers be more scrutinized than the early enrollees and JUCO transfers along the line.
• There’s also a lot of new faces among the defensive front seven. The Dawgs are replacing three starting defensive linemen and three starting linebackers. With a defensive end legacy of Pollack, Moses, and Johnson, is the next wave ready?
• Of course everyone wants to see Knowshon Moreno. An incredible amount of hype could be poured on this guy within a week.
• Will the offense have changed much under the continued direction of Mike Bobo?
• How will the passing game look with a more mature Stafford, the return of Sean Bailey, and Massaquoi and Bryant as upperclassmen?
• A big story this spring has been the strong play at the safety position. There are a lot of heavy hitters, and they’ll look a bit different than the undersized Tra Battle. But they’re mostly young, and this is the first chance to perform for many of them.

Me? As always, I just care about getting out without any long-term injuries. The team and the depth chart will change between now and August, and we’ll worry about it all then.

I know almost none of you come here wanting to read about women’s hoops, but last night’s national semifinals were hideous. LSU managed to score 35 points. In a game. Rutgers can play some great defense, but these games last night with their ridiculously low scores do nothing for the game. While you hear teams like LSU, Rutgers, and Tennessee praised for their defense, offensive innovation lags.

The games were ugly not just because of the styles of play but also because of the behavior on the court in the nightcap. We all admire players who play with passion and intensity, but many now use their enthusiasm as an excuse to preen and draw attention to themselves. Last night you had Carolina’s Ivory Latta, famous for spectacular plays and spectacular meltdowns, who became an early focus in the game not for anything she was contributing to her team but for her trash talking competition with Tennessee’s Shannon Bobbitt. Latta leaves college without a national title or even a national title game appearance despite entering the Final Four as the favorite in consecutive seasons.

Then you have Candace Parker. To say that Parker is a great player understates things. She changes the game. She won this year’s Wade Trophy, a player of the year recognition, as a sophomore. Among the criteria for the Wade Trophy are "character" and embodying "the ‘Spirit of Margaret Wade’," a pioneer of the women’s game. Parker found herself in foul trouble early in this game and spent much of the first half on the bench, providing ESPN with a reason for a reason to put a camera on the bench to get her reaction whenever a teammate dribbled. My favorite display of this character was when Latta picked up her third foul. Parker, herself on the bench with foul trouble, danced around like a fool with three fingers held high and egging on the Tennessee crowd behind her.

Of course this stuff is nothing new in the men’s game, but you hate to see it creep into the women’s game, and you especially hate to see it celebrated as much as it is.

If they were honest, they’d take and change the WNBA’s slogan "Have you seen her?" to "Have you seen me?"

Click to see AJC screen capture.

Click to see Macon Tel screen capture.

Chip Towers is reporting in the AJC that Sonny Seiler plans to retire the current Uga following the 2007 season. Uga VI took over from his father in 1999 during a “Changing of the Dawg” ceremony before the South Carolina game. Since the indication is that the next transition will take place after the 2007 season, it doesn’t appear as if there will be a similar ceremony this time.

Uga VI is the largest bulldog in the line to date, and he has faced some health problems for years because of that size. Seiler maintains that Uga VI is in fine health for a bulldog of his age and should be up for his ninth season on the sidelines. The life expectancy of a typical bulldog isn’t much more than ten years, but we know that Uga isn’t just a typical bulldog.

While not as famous as his movie star father, Uga VI has been more effective on the field. He has presided over two SEC championships and witnessed wins in 76 of the 101 games in which he has been the mascot since that debut victory against the Gamecocks in 1999.

No word yet on Uga VII or when he will be introduced, but Sonny assures us that “I’ll just say if we needed to put our hands on a puppy, we’d be ready.”

UPDATE: Seiler denies setting a firm date for Uga VI’s retirement. Josh Kendall in the Macon Telegraph quotes Seiler, “Why should we draw a line any place?” Kendall writes,

None of the dogs in the Uga line has served beyond the age of 10, so there’s no guarantee the current Uga, officially named “Uga V’s Whatchagot Loran,” will be around for the 2008 season, but there’s also no reason to say he won’t, Seiler said.

It’s possible that the original articles might be edited, so I’ve taken some screen captures of the originals. It’s a few days too early for an April Fool’s joke like this.

If you haven’t heard of Bobby Reid, you will by the time Georgia’s football season opens against Oklahoma State on Sept. 1. Reid emerged as a decent Big 12 quarterback last year for the Cowboys with 24 touchdown passes and over 2200 yards through the air. He added 500 yards on the ground. He was second in pass efficiency in the conference behind only Colt McCoy of Texas. Not a bad player, right?

He nearly came to Georgia. He wanted to come to Georgia.

The class of 2004 was a bumper crop of quarterbacks. Henne. Xavier Lee. Brohm. Weatherford. Ainge. McGee, Harrell, Bomar, Patton, and Reid gave the Big 12 alone five of the best prep quarterbacks in the nation.

Georgia was in on a good number of them. Henne considered the Dawgs. Harrell named Georgia his front-runner. And of course Reid all but committed to the Bulldogs. So what happened?

Georgia signed two quarterbacks in the 2004 class. A.J. Bryant committed on Signing Day 2003. He has been a receiver his entire career at Georgia, so we forget that he was considered a quarterback/athlete for recruiting purposes (and rated the #1 “athlete” in the nation by Rivals.com that year). He was Georgia’s lone commitment for months.

Things heated up in late July during camp season. Georgia was zeroing in on three quarterback prospects. There was Reid, Harrell, and Blake Barnes of Mississippi who was rated the ninth-best pro-style quarterback in the nation. Reid really began to favor the Dawgs after a July 2003 visit to Athens. Likewise, a summer visit to Athens put Georgia at the top of Harrell’s list ($). Barnes also attended camp in Athens in mid-July and received an offer after that camp ($).

The Dawgs weren’t going to take more than two quarterbacks in a class. So with one quarterback already in the fold and three leaning heavily towards Georgia, it was a matter of who would commit to take that remaining spot. We all know that Barnes was that guy. He committed on July 28 and chose Georgia over offers from Auburn, Ole Miss, Michigan, and Mississippi State. That commitment set off a chain of events with the others. Reid describes how he got home from the Elite 11 camp to find a letter from Georgia breaking the bad news. Harrell waited just a day or two before committing to Texas Tech on July 30th ($). Reid committed to Oklahoma State a week later ($).

It’s easy now to look at Barnes’ position on the Georgia depth chart while watching Reid and Harrell start to make names for themselves as Big 12 starters and think that Georgia somehow made a mistake. That’s hindsight, but there was no mistake at the time that Barnes was a quality commitment. David Cutcliffe of Ole Miss, who developed quarterbacks like Heath Shuler, Peyton Manning, and Eli Manning, didn’t let up on the top signal-caller from the state of Mississippi. Michigan had offered him right alongside Chad Henne.

This story is a great behind-the-scenes illustration of just how tight and even random some of these recruiting decisions can be. There’s no telling if the other guys would have been successful at Georgia. We’ll never know if Barnes would have flourished in another system. Might the emergence of a Harrell or Reid in Athens have affected the decision of Matthew Stafford? The recruiting trail, much like the game we love itself, is full of such individual decisions that cause ripple effects and aggregate to affect programs, games, seasons, and even careers.

Swinging an axe that would make George Steinbrenner proud, outgoing Arkansas AD Frank Broyles is cleaning house before he turns in the keys.

Broyles announced his retirement on February 17th, but the retirement will not take effect until the end of 2007. Broyles’ retirement announcement came in the midst of a storm of controversy surrounding the football program which began with interference from parents and resulted in the transfer of star QB Mitch Mustain and the demotion and eventual departure of offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn.

Then women’s basketball coach (and UGA alum) Susie Gardner "resigned" following a loss in the SEC Tournament in early March.

Today, the carnage continued with the firing of men’s basketball coach Stan Heath. Arkansas’ run to the finals of the SEC Tournament and a berth in the NCAA Tournament were not enough to save Heath. Heath was 82-71 in five seasons and had reached the 2006 and 2007 NCAA Tournaments. It’s speculated that Arkansas will target Texas A&M’s Billy Gillespie.

Football coach Houston Nutt remains one of the few survivors, but even he is on shaky ground despite an SEC West title last season. With all of the drama around the football program and the changes going on in other programs, the future of Nutt might be one of Broyles’ last decisions as he exits in December.

The latest: The University police department has issued an arrest warrant for offensive lineman Tanner Strickland for possession of a fake ID. Strickland is a 2007 signee and an early enrollee.

This looks to be a pretty comprehensive case: at least twelve people, including Strickland, are named in the same case, and Strickland’s warrant doesn’t carry the “criminal attempt” or “intent to distribute” charges that others in this case will face.

UPDATE: Ching confirms that this warrant is part of a larger investigation initiated by a US Postal Inspector. If the case involves distribution of fake IDs through the US Mail, that could bring along a whole different set of problems for those with some of the additional charges. Using the mail in the commission of a crime isn’t a smart thing to do.

SID Claude Felton told the AJC that Coach Richt is aware of the issue and “will be handled in a manner (Richt) feels appropriate.”

No story lead has become more dreaded by Bulldog football fans than this: "Georgia’s already-thin offensive line suffered another loss…"

Fortunately, Saturday’s first major scrimmage of spring brought no such news. The Dawgs have already had two minor injuries on the line this spring: Vince Vance and Josh Davis have missed time, but both are expected to return soon. The lack of serious injury is the best kind of news you can get this time of year.

The story of the scrimmage was reportedly the defense. Brandon Miller’s move to MLB seems to be paying off, and we continue to hear good things about tailback Knowshon Moreno. Other takes:

• ABH
• AJC
• UGASports($): Offense / Defense
• Chattanooga (Paschall)

I’ve given up on trying to read too much into spring ball. Depth charts will change and are often motivational at this point. You’ll have the Ronnie Powells who will light up spring practice and G-Day and then disappear in the fall. Everyone knows that we are trying to piece together an offensive line. They’re also trying to replace several starters on the defensive line and bring along a receiving corps that will be key to Matthew Stafford’s development. None of that is new to those who keep up with the program, and we’ve learned not to really expect answers until August.

G-Day is in two weeks (April 7th).