After a season like the one we just completed, why shouldn’t the offseason be any less quirky?

Jim Grobe has apparently changed his mind and turned down Arkansas for Wake Forest.

That’s right up there with Georgia Tech getting in a bidding war with Duke and SMU.

Keyframe, a division of score/video board maker Daktronics, produced the videos we saw on the video board this year including the crowd favorites before kickoff and the fourth quarter. They have a gallery of their video productions, and Georgia has several in there. Follow the link and select the video you want to see.

My personal favorite is the “tunnel video”. How about you?

Congratulations to Knowshon Moreno, the 2007 SEC Freshman of the Year. He was the only unanimous selection on the SEC’s list of individual accolades. The previous two SEC Freshmen of the Year? McFadden and Harvin. Not a bad legacy to follow. Winning this award unanimously over other worthy freshman such as Eric Berry is quite an accomplishment.

Now to ruffle some feathers about a couple of the other selections:

Is Glenn Dorsey’s selection as the SEC Defensive Player of the Year a case of reputation over reality? Dorsey at his best is definitely a dominant player. But the thing is that he hasn’t been healthy for much of the season and was ineffective enough at the end of the year that the LSU defense, as noted by Danielson, actually played better with him out of the game in the SEC Championship. Do you consider the injury and guess at what a healthy Dorsey would have meant down the stretch? I really don’t have an alternative player to suggest as more worthy than Dorsey, and even injured he’s a hell of a player, but I do wonder if this award was won before the season.

As the Senator notes, the selection of McFadden over Tebow is interesting. Good for DMac. I doubt this is a Heisman harbinger – more of a sendoff by the SEC. "Excellent" is too weak to describe Tebow’s season, but the potential for what might happen every time McFadden touched the ball made him the most outstanding player.

On to Sylvester Croom. The Mississippi State story this year is one of surprising upsets, a storybook comeback in the Egg Bowl, and an important bowl bid. I guess I just have a problem with this award going to a coach because his team was just mediocre instead of plain crap. It’s a little patronizing to be honest.

The coaches’ All-SEC SEC football team came out yesterday. Congratulations to Bulldogs Fernando Velasco, Knowshon Moreno, and Dannell Ellerbe.

Georgia might be the only SEC team where none of its preseason honorees (Brandon Coutu and Brandon Miller) made the postseason team and vice versa.

Beginning with Gameday at 10 and ending as Hawaii held on at 3:30 in the morning, it was a great day to watch the end of the college football regular season. We sat through 482 showings of the same Dr. Pepper commercial, watched the drama of the Michigan coaching position unfold, and saw outcomes worthy of this unpredictable season. We also saw…

• Dr. Pepper in a single weekend has made me hate Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Bastards.
• How’d you like to be the sophomore defensive end that always gets skipped when the ABC/ESPN lineup introduction spends all its time highlighting the middle linebacker?
• Football tip of the day courtesy ABC and Boston College coach Jeff Jagodzinski…yes, it is easier to throw and catch the ball on a calm, sunny day.
• Either Ryan Perrilloux is the most emotionally fragile redshirt freshman ever, or CBS was overdoing it a bit with their appreciation for how LSU was managing their barely-adequate offense.
• Good job by the ABC cameramen keeping the ACC Championship crowd shots nice and tight. Just go ahead and move the game to Lane Stadium.
• Some thought Tennessee’s all-orange uniforms looked like prison jumpsuits. I just thought of Bill Bates.
• I really want Army-Navy to mean something, but it’s becoming harder and harder to watch each year. The highlight of the day remains the entrance of the cadets, and it goes downhill quickly.
• Other than skin color, I’m not sure what’s supposed to make Jacob Hester a "throwback" player. He’s a good running back, runs hard, makes plays. Otherwise, does he play with a single-bar facemask or something?
• Fox’s BCS selection show reminded us of the "love" part of the love-hate relationship we have with ESPN. For all of the nitpicking we do with the WWL’s punditry, it is miles above the clownish show we got from Fox. Right out of the NFL pregame show model, we got Barry Switzer on laughing gas plus 17 other useless talking heads dragging out 45 seconds of information into a 30-minute show. Bring on the exploding robots.
• It had been a while since I had seen Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year Curtis Lofton, but the Oklahoma junior linebacker was the best player I saw in any game on Saturday.
• Good Lord, what’s happened to Cal?

For all the talk of parity this year, the two teams playing for the national title are a participant in last year’s title game versus a team picked #2 at the beginning of this year. Four of the six BCS conference champs were preseason favorites, and Oklahoma and Ohio State were hardly out of left field. The traditional power is still alive and well.

I understand the sentiment that this was an incredible season with upsets and turbulent polls and a cliffhanger of a final weekend. It was. Still, I admit that I prefer to see the triumph of excellence. I don’t know if we’re going to see a championship game of the quality of the 2006 Rose Bowl any time soon, but that’s what does it for me.

It’s a lot easier when excellence makes the decision obvious, but that wasn’t the case this year. There are several teams with impressive accomplishments and a few blemishes. I don’t envy the job of those who had to sort them out. Were the best teams the ones who were strongest at the end? Do you subscribe to Les Miles’ "body of work" criteria? If the regular season is our playoff, what does it mean to lose?

You hear it repeated often that Georgia is playing the best football of any team in the nation right now. It might well be. At the very least they’re among a group of strong teams that includes Virginia Tech, LSU, Southern Cal, Oklahoma, and Ohio State.

I will say this: I think that a healthy LSU and Oklahoma were the two best teams I saw at any one point in this season. That’s not an argument that those two should play for the title, but if we’re talking about which teams blew my socks off, I think it’s those two. Southern Cal and Georgia aren’t far behind.

Of course trying to rely on anything but results can lead us astray. Last season the case was made for an Ohio State – Michigan rematch because the "best two teams" should meet for the national title. Florida backed into the title game only after Southern Cal fell to UCLA. After Florida humiliated the Buckeyes and Southern Cal dispatched Michigan, it’s possible that everyone was talking about the wrong two teams. Fans of most BCS teams probably feel that their team could beat Ohio State if given the opportunity. Don’t bet the house on that.

Could even an 8-team playoff solve this problem? A playoff of the BCS conference champs plus, say, Georgia and Hawaii, leaves out an arguably worthy team like Kansas. A favorite solution, the "plus-one", would leave out Georgia if based on the final BCS rankings. You’re always going to have someone pissed off and jilted, and engineering a solution to fit the outcome of a specific season won’t mean that all other potential problems are solved.

Forget moving it to Charlotte…try Greensboro’s Page High School.

So Georgia will play in the Sugar Bowl against Hawaii.

After a 20-year absence, this will be the third sUGAr Bowl and BCS appearance in Mark Richt’s seven seasons at Georgia.

There definitely was the case for Georgia to play in the BCS championship game, but there was the case for several other teams as well. I’m disappointed but not devastated. Naturally we are most disappointed for the seniors who will not get another shot at playing for the title. If we dwelled on the inconsistencies and double-speak that played a part in the final rankings, we’d run out of bits and bytes. It could be worse – we could be Missouri dropping out of the BCS completely after entering the weekend ranked #1.

Georgia and their fans have two choices now:

One – we can mope about the process and the perceived quality of the matchup. That worked out real well for us in the 2006 Sugar.

Two – we enthusiastically give our best effort and support and take care of business as if we were playing LSU, Southern Cal, or Ohio State.

I don’t buy that this game is a no-win situation for Georgia. At the most basic level, it’s an opportunity for our 11th win and another Sugar Bowl title. Even in this relatively high-water era for Georgia football, a BCS bowl victory is nothing to sneeze at. Beyond that, we must consider positioning for next year. A win in New Orleans puts Georgia in all likelihood among the top three at the end of this season and among the top five starting next season. Oklahoma dropped their BCS game with Boise State and began this year ranked around #10. LSU won the Sugar Bowl and started 2007 ranked #2 even after losing the top draft pick. Starting position matters if Georgia plans on being in the national title picture again next year.

Hawaii is a great story this year and will draw a lot of viewers to see if their pass-happy scheme and players can match up to an SEC power. A lot of people seem to think that Georgia is one of the best, or at least the hottest, teams in the nation right now, and they can add to that momentum and carry it on to next season by winning the Sugar Bowl.

A big part of the challenge against Hawaii will be matching their intensity. If you saw the bowl selection show last night, you saw a Hawaii team and fan base genuinely excited by the opportunity. That will carry over to their bowl preparations. Like West Virginia, Hawaii’s not a team you want to get very far behind out of the gate.

Saturday started with Kirk Herbstreit making himself part of the Les Miles – Michigan story.  Herbstreit cited “sources” telling him that Miles would accept the Michigan job with Jon Tenuta joining him as defensive coordinator.  Whether simply untrue or whether the leak forced Miles’ hand, Miles announced at an afternoon press conference that he would remain on as LSU’s coach.  Herbstreit, in a comment during the evening, stood by his sources and speculated that his announcement gave LSU a chance to counter Michigan’s offer or that Miles’ announcement was a “smokescreen” until his real decision could be made.  (Miles has since confirmed that he will return to LSU next season.)

Now on to tonight’s BCS discussion.  Herbstreit was quick to discount Georgia and Kansas, emphasizing that a team that couldn’t win its conference doesn’t belong in the national title game.  He acknowledged that the rules did not require a conference championship, but it would be a requirement if he made the rules.

Say what you will about that, but Herbstreit had no problems campaigning for an Ohio State – Michigan rematch in last season’s title game.  Making the case that the voters should select the two best teams regardless of conference hardware, he dissented when the BCS voters placed the Gators in the 2006 title game.

I appreciate the Gators. They had a great year, and they deserve to be there. It’s just my humble opinion that I still feel that Michigan is the second best team in the country. The voters clearly did not want a rematch.

Does Kirk just make up these rules as he goes? “It’s down to who the two best teams in the country are…forget about who’s played who…who in your mind are the top two teams right now in college football?”

Mark Richt said during his Saturday teleconference that, “the bottom line is it’s going to come down to what the computers believe.”

While that might seem odd in a system where the computers are only 1/3 of the equation, the computer polls might act as a stabilizing factor if the human polls diverge at all.

With that in mind, here’s how the computer polls looked last week:

Missouri (.9900), West Virginia(.9700), and Ohio State(.9100) were solidly 1, 2, and 3.  There was quite a gap following Ohio State.

Next was a cluster of four teams all within a few percentage points.  Kansas (.8400), Georgia (.8300), Virginia Tech (.8100), and LSU (.7900) were all within a hair of each other.  By those numbers, the Dawgs might have more to worry about from the Hokies who beat a strong Boston College team than from LSU.

After those four, Boston College was the next-strongest team.  Oklahoma and Southern Cal weren’t close.

The human polls might cancel each other out when it comes to the Hokies and LSU Tigers.  The coaches’ poll had Virginia Tech #5 and LSU #7 while the Harris Poll had the exact opposite.  Georgia was #4 in both human polls. 

A chance at the national championship is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for many programs and coaches.  When it presents itself, there is no choice but to go for it.  Now that the politicking has begun for BCS positioning, Mark Richt has jumped in with both feet tonight with an aggressiveness that befits the team we’ve seen this season.  No matter the outcome of the number-crunching, there is no question that Richt is fighting for this chance for his team.

In a Saturday night media teleconference, Richt touched on several of the points he made on ESPN earlier in the evening.

“I think we are one of the two best teams in the country right now. If the rule stated we had to win a conference championship, then that’s what we ought to do. But that’s not what the rules state.”

He also spoke directly to the SEC champions:

“I think if we could have gotten to play in the championship we certainly could have won that game, yes,” Richt said. “I think we could beat LSU.”

Richt continued to make the case that pollsters should show some consistency from last week:

“We were ranked 4th in the BCS this week for a reason. (Voters) believed we belonged to be there,” he said. “Everybody knew last week that we weren’t going to win the conference championship but they voted us ahead of other people anyway. They voted us for a reason and I don’t see why that would change.”

“Georgia one of the two best teams in the nation today? We were voted No. 4 last week in this doggone thing. Two teams ahead of us lost, so why would that change?”

Mark Bradley also goes to bat for Georgia in Sunday’s AJC, making this key point:

The greater injustice would be for LSU to lose its final regular-season game and then be allowed, on the strength of a seven-point victory in the conference title game, to pass a team that has won its past six. The greater injustice would be for the Tigers to get a third shot to prove it’s No. 1 when Georgia hasn’t yet had one.

LSU has been to the top of the mountain twice and couldn’t hold its footing.  It’s time to make way for another team.

The BCS nightmare scenario actually happened:  Missouri and West Virginia, #1 and #2 in the BCS, lost on Saturday.  Ohio State and Georgia, #3 and #4, look to move into the BCS championship game.  But not so fast – Sunday’s voting should be as interesting as Saturday’s games.

What we think we know:

• Ohio State is probably in the national title game.
• Georgia is very likely among the top four in the BCS and will be guaranteed a BCS bowl.

The question of course is the Buckeyes’ opponent.  Based on Saturday’s results, there are about six teams hoping the polls and computers will place them in the title game:

• Georgia
• Kansas
• Virginia Tech
• LSU
• Southern Cal
• Oklahoma

Mark Richt made Georgia’s case on ESPN after midnight on Saturday.  His outstanding points:

• There is no requirement that the BCS champion must win its conference.  It is an issue that has been voted on and rejected several times.  
• Georgia has beaten seven bowl-eligible teams and played a schedule that included nine bowl-eligible teams.  Georgia has beaten good teams like Florida and Auburn handily, and they held the powerful Kentucky offense to 13 points.
• Voters and the computers placed Georgia #4 and in this position last weekend even after it was clear that Georgia couldn’t play for its conference title.

The case for and against the others:

Kansas:  Still just a one-loss team, but beat no teams of Top 25 quality.

Virginia Tech:  Won the ACC, finished strong.  Lost big to LSU.

LSU:  Won the SEC, lost only in overtime.  Had two reigns at #1 and lost each time.  Had a chance to wrap up a spot in the title game at home against an unranked team last week and didn’t.

Southern Cal:  Pac 10 champs.  Playing as well as anyone, finally healthy.  Awful loss to Stanford.

Oklahoma:  Big 12 champs.  Dominant win over #1 Missouri.  Played poor schedule, lost recently.  Possibly too far back to jump to the title game.

The uncertainty is a fitting ending to a season like this.  Now let’s all take a month off and play a bunch of exhibition games.

Nationalchamps.net has (as always) all of today’s college football TV listings on one page for you.

There’s a big part of me that wonders if Tommy is looking across the state at a $4 million dollar 6-6 coach of a program he’s beaten six straight times and thinking that the price of 7-in-a-row has just gone up a bit.

While we’re on the subject of coaches, is Randy Edsall the next Bill Lewis about to turn his first winning season in three years into Tech gold?

SI.com asked some Georgia and Ohio State players what they planned to do this weekend, and Georgia senior Marcus Howard used a term that I hope will stick.

"I’m going to just be doing what everybody else on the team is going to be doing," Howard said. "We’re going to be glued to the TV, just watching the games hoping West Virginia lose and Missouri lose so we get a shot at that natty."

That’s a step up – most college students plan their weekend around a case of Natty Light.