Matthew Stafford helped himself with a strong Pro Day performance last week in Athens, and his curve-setting 38 on the Wonderlic test won’t hurt either (h/t The Wiz).

In addition to watching 40 players in the NCAA Tournament who chose to leave the state of Georgia, many of us will be wondering if somewhere along the way we’re watching Georgia’s next coach. You’d like to think that a decision like that would be based on a larger body of work than just this couple of games, but reality is that coaches make names for themselves at this time of the year, and an early exit can quickly cool off even the hottest names out there.

Take VCU’s Anthony Grant. Grant can still hang his hat on a tournament upset of Duke a couple of years ago. His 11th-seeded VCU team isn’t favored to beat UCLA, but there’s still plenty of people interested in the outcome. If VCU pulls the outright win, of course Grant’s stock will only skyrocket. But if they fall flat and don’t put up much of a fight against the favored Bruins in the first round, will it diminsish his attractiveness to a major program?

Other coaches might have more to lose. Jeff Capel at Oklahoma might be the hottest name in play right now, and he could command a larger contract than most candidates. His team raced to a 25-1 start, but they’re just 2-4 over the last six games. If Oklahoma doesn’t live up to their #2 seed, will Capel’s stock take a hit? Sean Miller at Xavier could also use a strong tournament. Xavier has established itself as a solid program, and they have a couple of recent Elite Eight trips to their credit. His team is almost expected now to be able to advance past somene like FSU in the second round.

Still other coaches can use the tournament to rise from complete obscurity. These coaches won’t necessarily become candidates for vacancies at major programs like Georgia, but they’ll certainly become the next group of coaches to rise up the ladder and possibly fill positions left vacant at the mid-major level.

How about $300 to see Arkansas play Texas A&M?

Fans wishing to sit in the Club Level (which is just about everything close to the field) will have to pay $125 for the ticket and also make a $175 donation to the Cowboys’ 12th Man Foundation. Other seats cost $85 and $125. Studens get in at the bargain price a $50.

I’m glad they make it reasonable for the poor, suffering student. As Ryan said, “I’m not sure I would pay $300 to see an NFL game there.” I don’t know that I’d pay $300 to see Georgia in anything short of the national title game. After this and the $100 bucks Oklahoma State is asking from Georgia fans, that $40 per ticket on my UGA order form is looking like a pretty good deal right now.

It’s a beautiful 70-degree day in Georgia and the perfect afternoon to start spring practice. By now you know all of the big questions and players and positions to watch over the next few weeks leading up to G-Day on April 11th. Just a few unrelated notes before we get going…

Underdog. David Hale has a little pre-spring chat with receiver Kris Durham. I don’t mean to read too much into what Durham has to say in an otherwise upbeat piece, but something he talked about touched a nerve with something I hear a lot from Georgia fans. I’ve never seen a fan base so willing to place high expectations on a program while at the same time wanting to remain "under the radar" or craving the status of underdog.

I get what Durham is saying. You draw your motivation from whatever source you can. If it creates the focus and drive that makes a difference this year, great. No one is going to list Georgia among the favorites this year, so we have to use that to our advantage.

But the underdog status will only carry you so far. Underdogs are underdogs for a reason: they usually lose to and finish behind the favorites. Not always of course, but upsets are exceptional because they are infrequent. Sooner or later, if you’re successful, you have to embrace that success and deal with being on top.

Put it another way: do you think the guys at Southern Cal, Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma are relishing the underdog role? Me neither. That’s where we are this year, so we have no choice. I just don’t want it to be Georgia’s permanent condition. You eventually have to learn to live with high expectations. It comes with the territory for that elite class of perennial title contenders, and I hope that’s where our fans and players and coaches want to see this program.

You can show me list after list with wins and Georgia’s performance relative to everyone else over the past ten years, but shedding this underdog mentality is part of taking that next step. We’ve read a lot this spring about a change in approach and a more focused team, and now it’s time to see that on the field.

Offensive line. With the focus on quarterback and tailback this year, the offensive line that got so much concern and attention over the past two seasons is almost an afterthought. It’s true that there’s finally some seasoned depth, and we all know the names of the major contributors. Now they’re expected to be one of the strengths and known entities as the new skill players fill in and get experience.

While I join everyone else who’s been blown away with the job done through two years by Coach Searels and his linemen, I’m also aware that Stafford and Moreno made the line look at times better than it was. Now that a couple of first-round picks are gone from the backfield, will some issues that previously seemed minor emerge along the line as something more serious?

Unfortunately we won’t get a good read on this question (and others) during the spring. Three key contributors – Sturdivant, Chris Davis, and Vance – are out recovering from injuries. All are expected to return in time for the season, but it will be some time before they are back at peak condition. Even though the line is a secondary story this spring (as it should be with several other higher-profile positions in play), I still think it’s as big of a concern as it was a year ago.

If you saw my post earlier in the day, I thought that the odds of the Lady Dogs making the NCAA Tournament were as long as they could be. The experts agreed. As the brackets were unveiled on Monday evening and region after region omitted Georgia, it wasn’t looking good.

But then in the last group announced was a pleasant surprise. Georgia was in as the #11 seed in the Trenton Regional, and they’ll get to enjoy the payoff of being selected as one of the 16 host schools by playing the opening two rounds right down the road in Duluth. Though the seed is quite a bit lower than we’re used to, the Lady Dogs are going to the tournament for the 15th consecutive season and for the 26th time out of 28 opportunities. “Obviously our basketball team is very excited if not thrilled to be included,” head coach Andy Landers said. “We realized the bubble and the size of the bubble. We had played ourselves onto a small bubble, and we knew that we had a chance to get in and a chance to be left out.”

Of course the low seed means that the Lady Dogs will be under the gun from the outset. They’ll open the tournament against #6 seed Arizona State, a quality Pac 10 team. ASU finished the season at 23-8 with several quality conference wins and a nonconference win over Xavier, a team that handled Georgia in Athens.

But the Sun Devils were eliminated in the Pac 10 quarterfinals and will have to play the NCAA Tournament without leading scorer and starting point guard Dymond Simon who tore her ACL in a late-season game against Stanford. A team as good as ASU is more than one player though, and the Sun Devils have plenty of depth with ten players averaging at least ten minutes per game.

Arizona State’s top inside player, senior center Sybil Dosty, should be no stranger to Georgia. She played at Tennessee during her first two years of college and was the Lady Vols’ leader in field goal percentage as a freshman and sophomore.

Here are the details for this weekend:

TRENTON REGIONAL – DULUTH SUBREGIONAL
Saturday March 21
Game 1: #11 Georgia vs. #6 Arizona State – noon ET (ESPN2)
Game 2: #14 NC A&T vs. #3 Florida State – 2:30 p.m. ET (ESPN2)

Monday March 23
Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner – 7:00 p.m. ET

Ticket Information – Come cheer on the Lady Dogs in the NCAA Tournament at the Gwinnett Arena

Tickets to the 2009 NCAA Women’s Basketball First and Second Rounds hosted by the University of Georgia at the Arena at Gwinnett Center on March 21-23 are on sale and can be purchased online at http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0E0040F8ADDB6455 or by calling 1-800-745-3000.

All-Session tickets are $30 for adults and $20 for youth. Single-Session tickets are also on sale and are $20 for adults and $12 for youth to attend both games on Saturday and $15 for adults and $10 for youth to attend Monday night’s Second Round matchup.

Groups wanting to attend a single-session can purchase tickets for $12 each as long as the group is at least 25 people in size. To order group tickets, please call 770-813-7681.

A couple of departures noted today:

First, despite clarifying comments that he claimed were “blown out of proportion” last week about the Georgia basketball program, sophomore guard Zac Swansey will indeed ask for his release.

While he should certainly be given his release if that’s what he wants, I hope the University at least waits until a new coach is named before they grant his request. He’s not going anywhere soon; the semester still has nearly two months left. There’s no rush to open the floodgates before anyone interested in transferring has the opportunity to make an informed decision.

UPDATE: The AJC has additional details and quotes from Swansey. They report that sophomore guard Troy Brewer is also seeking a release. I get that Swansey expressed displeasure over how his demotion was handled, but the point of a coaching change is that those with whom he has a beef won’t be around much longer.

Moving to football, UGASports.com reported this morning that linebacker signee Dexter Moody was released from his scholarship. UGA SID Claude Felton confirmed that Moody has been released and “is now once again considered a ‘recruitable athlete'”, so the University is not allowed to comment further.

David Hale notes that “Richt has repeatedly that he only pulls scholarships for behavior issues,” so draw your own conclusions. Marc Weiszer adds from a number of sources including Moody himself that the issues were both academic and behavioral.

I appreciate Moody’s willingness to speak, but I hope no one is so clueless as to think that Mark Richt would pull a scholarship for merely “fussing with a chemistry teacher.” Georgia “wasn’t (Moody’s) favorite school,” but we’ll see how many other top programs are willing to line up for his services.

The women’s NCAA Tournament bracket has usually been a question of who and where rather than if for Georgia. The Lady Dogs have been left out only twice in tournament history. With the team already deciding that they will decline a WNIT bid, tonight’s selection show (7 p.m., ESPN) will determine whether the Lady Dogs sneak into the field or if the SEC Tournament ended their season for just the third time in program history.

I’ll be honest: I’m not optimistic about their chances this year. 18-13 is a shaky record even for a program with Georgia’s reputation and name recognition. A late-season five-game losing streak really hurt, and they came up just short of a significant bid-securing win in the SEC Tournament. They do have some things in their favor, but as you’ll see there seems to be a bit more on the minus side of the ledger.

Pro

• Three big wins. Georgia knocked off Auburn, Vanderbilt, and Florida during the season. Not too many bubble teams can point to three such wins over ranked opponents. Georgia also played eventual SEC Tournament champ Vanderbilt closer than anyone else last weekend. They’ve proven they can play with the best in the country, but did they beat enough of them?
• Hosting the dance. You can debate whether it should be a consideration, but it is. Duluth, Ga., is one of the opening weekend host sites for the tournament, and Georgia is the host school for that sub-regional. Ticket sales and attendance are very sensitive subjects for the women’s tournament, and leaving out one of the host schools would pull the plug on local support and attendance for the tournament. Rutgers, at 18-12, is another bubble team set to host a sub-regional, so we’ll see if the selection committee gives these hosts a push they might not otherwise deserve.

Con

• Weak nonconference resume. Georgia’s nonconference schedule wasn’t overwhelming to begin with, and they didn’t notch many quality wins along the way. The few quality opponents – Virginia, Rutgers, Georgia Tech, and Xavier – were all losses.
• Too many losses. A .500 record in the SEC is marginal in most years, and it wasn’t the strongest year for the SEC. 13 losses are a lot to overcome.
• Road woes. Georgia’s best wins all came at home, and the road wasn’t particularly kind. Georgia won just four games outside the state this year: Oakland, Eastern Washington, UAB, and Kentucky. Road losses included Detroit and Ole Miss.
• How many SEC teams get in? In most seasons you could feel pretty comfortable in the SEC earning seven bids. But it hasn’t been the best of seasons for the conference. Tennessee and LSU have a combined 20 losses. Auburn and Vanderbilt had strong seasons, but the SEC didn’t do much to flex its muscle nationally this year. Five bids are solid: Auburn, Vandy, LSU, Florida, and Tennessee. Mississippi State finished sixth in the regular season, had an 8-6 regular season SEC record, and were a fairly benign 22-9 overall. Though Georgia defeated Mississippi State during the regular season, it’s hard to see how the other Bulldogs wouldn’t get the overall nod if it came down to those two teams for the SEC’s sixth and final bid.

If the Lady Dogs do earn a bid, they’ll be playing in Duluth on Saturday at the Gwinnett Arena with a potential second round game at the same location on Monday evening.

…is right there in the bracket.

Three bids. Three. Total. The Big East received three number one seeds.

Every single one of the SEC’s potential bubble teams – Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina, and Auburn – were excluded. And given the seed Mississippi State received for winning the conference tournament, it’s reasonable to conclude that they would have been the fifth SEC bubble team excluded had they not earned the automatic bid.

No SEC team earned a seed higher than LSU’s 8 seed, and even the regular season SEC champ is not likely to be much of a favorite against Butler. LSU is an 8, Tennessee is a 9 (and draws a hot Oklahoma State team), and Mississippi State sneaks in with a 13.

That Mississippi State team, at 23-12 and 13-7 against SEC teams, won the conference tournament and received a 13 seed, just slightly better than the 14 seed Georgia received last season with a 17-16 record and 12 conference losses.

Please don’t mistake any of the above for outrage. It’s the reality of SEC basketball right now that you take all of that in, think for a moment, and admit, “yep…that’s about right.” Let’s not forget that the SEC commissioner himself was in charge of the whole process. This was as good as it was going to get for the conference.

If there’s a silver lining and a Georgia angle to all of that, it has to be about the potential for pretty immediate results for the right coach. Georgia’s returning roster and current mindset is far from perfect, but in this environment of conference-wide mediocrity and imperfection how far would just a little bit of success and improvement go?

This is the way the season ends.

The forecast in Tampa calls for 80 degrees and sunny skies this weekend, so it should be expected that lightning – and tornadoes – did not strike twice for the Georgia basketball team. The season which, with a handful of pleasant and surprising exceptions, began slouching towards its inevitable end not long into the preseason NIT ended with a predictable loss to Mississippi State. As if to highlight the most glaring weakness of this year’s team, every guard on the lineup produced a total of just 16 points – only two points more than leading scorer (and departing senior) Terrance Woodbury accumulated by himself.

Now it’s on to the serious business – the new coach. We know (or at least are told) that the commitment is there and won’t be an issue. But will that be enough to lure someone from the small pool of proven major-conference winners, or will Georgia end up fishing in the mid-major pool anyway?

Regardless of the new coach it’s likely that there will be some changes to the composition of the team over the next few months. I’m not talking about the wholesale departures that greeted Felton; we already know that the incoming freshmen are fortunately still on board. But comments from sophomore point guard Zac Swansey give a little insight into how frustrated some of the returning players must be.

“I’m not 100 percent sure that I want to be here. I want to play, and I want to be with a program that wins. I’m not sure Georgia is that program.”

Hey – we want guards who can hit free throws and hold on to the ball, but you take what you can get.

Orson (Charles) has called Mark (Richt), and the Florida TE/DE will be coming to Georgia. He’ll bring his Gator trophy-breaking butt and join teammate Aaron Murray in Athens.

For those keeping score at home, that’s three big recruits (Brown, Geathers, and now Charles) since signing day who have chosen Georgia over the greatest recruiting staff EVER at Tennessee.

From the St. Petersburg Times:

In a report set to be released this afternoon, the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions said that the school must vacate all wins in which 61 student-athletes in 10 sports – football, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s swimming, men’s and women’s track and field, baseball, softball and men’s golf – competed while ineligible during 2006 and 2007.

If that holds, move 14 football wins off the ledger. Joe Paterno’s lead over Bobby Bowden for career wins would increase from one game (383 vs. 382) to 15 games.

PS…is vacating wins and individual records the most meaningless punishment ever? You know that game you won or the tournament you played in? Never happened. Seriously. Report to Rekall, Inc. to have those memories erased.

The Lady Dogs wouldn’t guarantee themselves an NCAA Tournament bid with a win over Kentucky in the first round of the SEC Tournament, but a loss would certainly deny them any chance of a bid.

So when a prolonged scoring drought extended from the end of the first half into the start of the second half and saw a 9-point lead turn to a 9-point deficit with 16 minutes remaining, the season was quickly circling the drain. To their credit, the Lady Dogs turned it up on both ends almost immediately and rode a 14-2 run to recapture the lead. That spurt would turn into a prolonged 38-12 run that put Georgia ahead 71-54 with just over three minutes left and put the game well in hand.

The difference in the 82-64 win was bench production. I wrote in my preview that “when Houts, Phillips, and Robinson play well, Georgia is usually successful,” but that’s not news. All three did end up with good stat sheets. But when you get 17 points on 8-for-12 shooting from Christy Marshall and a big 7 points on perfect 3-for-3 shooting from freshman Meredith Mitchell to go along with the production of Houts, Phillips, and Robinson, Georgia is tough for anyone to stop.

Andy Landers explained,

We made the stops and forced turnovers and we got the ball and were able to make some offensive plays and then we just kept going, built on it. I think that one of the things we’re starting to learn is that we can play much better tired or when they think they’re tired, but they believed more than they believed that they could during the regular season. We finished some games very well.

Finishing strong has been key in the three straight wins since Georgia snapped a five-game losing streak. The Lady Dogs faded down the stretch during losses to Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Auburn, and LSU, and their ability to step up at the end of games has helped them turn it around.

With the win Georgia advances to face #2-seed Vanderbilt in the quarterfinals. The two teams split during the regular season with each team winning on its own court. Georgia has the advantage inside, but Vandy can shoot well from outside. Foul trouble played a key role in both games. In Athens, Commodore star Christina Wirth spent much of the game on the bench due to fouls. In Nashville, Georgia’s frontcourt advantage was wiped out when Porsha Phillips fouled out early in the second half. Early foul trouble should be a key stat to watch in tomorrow’s third meeting (3:30 ET, Fox SS).

A quick two-game winning streak to finish the regular season snapped an unprecedented five-game losing streak and put the Lady Dogs squarely in the middle of the SEC standings entering this season’s SEC Tournament in Little Rock which gets underway today. In most seasons the SEC Tournament is a formality for Georgia, but the mission is much different this year. There’s no question that the Lady Dogs must turn some heads this weekend in order to earn an NCAA Tournament bid and avoid missing the national tournament for only the third time in program history.

Georgia heads to Little Rock as a classic bubble team: several impressive wins and several devastating losses. First, the good: three wins over ranked teams who are also three of the top four SEC seeds. The bad: losses to Ole Miss and Arkansas, a late-season five-game losing streak, and five nonconference losses against a pretty weak slate. In a sub-par season by Georgia standards, the Lady Dogs have occasionally thrilled and often disappointed. They’ve shown that they can beat the teams that stand between them and the semifinals, but with the WNIT not an option do they have a season-saving run left in them?

After several seasons of LSU and Tennessee duking it out for top honors in the conference, both of those powerhouse programs are rebuilding this year. That has allowed a bit of a shakeup in the SEC standings this year, and names like Bonner, Wirth, and Dotson have taken over for Parker and Fowles. The biggest difference this year is that the SEC hasn’t proven to have a national contender. Auburn is a Top 5 team with only two losses, but their only real nonconference test was Ohio State. No one else has looked like more than a Sweet 16 team.

Auburn won the regular season title with room to spare, and they avoided the slumps that can get to the best of teams. Now they get to deal with the pressure of the top seed. That might not be a big deal for some of the other top seeds who are more used to the spotlight, but Auburn was just the sixth seed last year. This is a talented team in new territory as the favorite, and we don’t know how they’ll respond.

Back for its third season is my breakdown of the SEC Women’s Tournament field.

The Favorite

• #1 Auburn (12-2). The dominant play of Auburn has been the story of the season. They raced to a 20-0 start punctuated by a 82-68 dismantling of Tennessee. Setbacks to decent Vanderbilt and Georgia teams come with the territory and showed some vulnerabilities, but the Tigers have been the class of the league this year. Likely SEC Player of the Year DeWanna Bonner leads the way at forward, but solid guard play provides nice balance.

Contenders

• #2 Vanderbilt (10-4). With wins over Tennessee, LSU, Auburn, and Florida, you’d expect Vandy to be one of the favorites to win the tournament. They’ve already beaten the rest of the top seeds. But puzzling losses to teams like Georgia, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State show that there isn’t much margin for error for this team. If Vanderbilt has a glaring weakness, it’s lack of size. They rely a lot on the potent outside shooting of Wirth and Marsh and depend on effort and position from an undersized frontcourt for points and rebounds inside. In the season finale, they were outrebounded 45-23 by Tennessee yet weren’t that far away from winning in Knoxville. Bigger opponents can be effective inside against Vandy, but the Commodores usually shoot and defend well enough to handle most SEC teams.
• #3 LSU (10-4). A few weeks ago, LSU was 5-4 in the SEC with games left against, among others, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee. Van Chancellor’s team had massive turnover after saying goodbye to seven seniors last year, and true freshmen now make up the bulk of the LSU lineup with the exception of standout guard Allison Hightower. The Tigers took their lumps early in the season, but since that 5-4 record they’ve won five straight and have vaulted from the bubble to become one of the SEC’s stronger teams. They still play tough defense, keep the scoring low, and have found enough offense to stand as one of the hotter teams entering the tournament. That winning streak will likely be tested on Friday by Mississippi State who beat LSU twice during the regular season.
• #4 Florida (9-5). If any team could challenge Auburn for the best start to the season, it was Florida with their 22-2 record. A lone road loss at Auburn was their only SEC blemish. But since Feb. 12, Florida has lost four of five games and slid from a likely #2 seed to a shaky #4 seed. Defense has become spotty; opponents scored over 80 points in three of those four losses. The Gators were the #11 seed just two years ago, and their rapid rise might have led them to think they were better than they were. Still, this is a team that has impressive wins over FSU, Pitt, Arizona State, and Tennessee. But if they don’t snap out of this recent funk, they might not survive a Friday rematch with Tennessee.
• #5 Tennessee (9-5). It’s been a down season by Tennessee standards, but you still have to include them as a contender. For only the second time in program history they aren’t among the top four seeds and will have to play on Thursday. Tennessee, like LSU, lost a tremendous amount of talent from last season, and they’ve had their difficulties getting the newcomers to play at a consistently high level. They’ve been prone to significant lapses in scoring and have had to rely on effort in defense and rebounding to keep them in a lot of games. That effort has been hit or miss at times, and it’s been frustrating to Pat Summitt to have to coach effort out of her young team. They’ll surely be up for the tournament and should have no problems with Alabama, but after that they’ll have to avenge regular season losses in order to advance. It’s been that kind of season where I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tennessee reach the finals…or get bounced on Friday.

Looking to make noise

• #6 Mississippi State (8-6). At 21-8 overall and 8-6 in the SEC, MSU seems set in the NCAA Tournament. They have a season sweep of LSU and a win over Vanderbilt to their credit, and they have really no bad losses. Even a close loss to Arkansas doesn’t seem that bad now. If seeding holds, the path to the finals goes through three teams they’ve beaten during the regular season. The possibility is there for a big improvement in NCAA seeding if they can make a deep run. Alexis Rack will shoot the ball from anywhere on the court. If she’s hot, look out. If not, they won’t last long.

Please, sir, just 30 seconds of rest…

On the bubble

• #7 Georgia (7-7). After getting swept in two games against Kentucky (including an SEC Tournament loss) last season, the Lady Dogs hope to return the favor this year. Thanks to the clutch play of Ashley Houts, Georgia emerged with a win in Lexington just a week ago. But it wasn’t easy or pretty. Houts will be key again in the rematch against a relatively weak UK backcourt. Phillips and Robinson can match up with Kentucky’s strong frontcourt, but they’ll need to avoid foul trouble. When Houts, Phillips, and Robinson play well, Georgia is usually successful. When they get that plus a contribution from Marshall and/or Puleo, they can run with any team in the league. The biggest danger sign is early foul trouble on a post player, and a sloppy night from Houts usually means disaster. Kentucky tried to focus on stopping Houts last week, and she still came up big. They’ll likely try the same strategy in the rematch, and she’ll need to be every bit as determined this time around. Win and the postseason hopes remain alive. Lose and the season is over.

Spoilers

• #8 Arkansas (6-8). Before losing badly to Auburn in the regular season finale, Arkansas had reeled off five straight wins to overcome a 1-7 SEC start and climb out of the cellar. During their winning streak they knocked off Georgia and Florida. They’re athletic and play straightforward without any complicated offense, and they’ve been an interesting story down the stretch. But it’s unlikely that they’ll get past Auburn on Friday.
• #9 Ole Miss (5-9). Wins over Georgia and Vanderbilt highlight an otherwise unremarkable season for Ole Miss. They’ve looked dangerous in close losses at Tennessee and Auburn but have shown no consistency. They lost by 11 to Arkansas just a few weeks ago, and they’ll have to come up with some more road toughness to survive another game with Arkansas in Little Rock.
• #10 Kentucky (5-9). The Cats were the #4 seed last year and lost a bit of talent, but a win over Tennessee proved that they still have some punch. They don’t score or shoot particularly well, but they can rebound and play quality defense. Their frontcourt can match up with most in the league. Victoria Dunlap is the SEC’s top rebounder in addition to being a productive scorer, and wing Amani Franklin is a dangerous player who can score inside or outside.

Didn’t make hotel reservations

• #11 South Carolina (2-12). At times, South Carolina has been able to put a scare into SEC teams. They came within four points of Auburn, six points of Georgia, ten points of Vandy, and seven points of LSU. They have the ability to challenge Mississippi State on Thursday but likely won’t get past a motivated opponent.
• #12 Alabama (1-13). The Tide have had a single SEC win in each of the past two seasons. They won’t improve on that against an angry Tennessee team.
  

Just awesome. I’m thrilled for the guys. Georgia’s won only four times at Rupp – ever – but three of them have come this decade. Just a few weeks ago we were wondering if this team would win an SEC game, and now they’re 3-3 over the past six games. This latest win – a road win of all things – couldn’t come against a better opponent, and it might’ve dealt a serious blow to Kentucky’s NCAA Tournament chances.

Terrence Woodbury’s line was unreal. 7-13 from the floor. 4-4 from outside. 12-12 from the stripe. 5 assists. 30 points. First Florida and now this – I guess all it takes for Georgia to be competitive is Woodbury going off. Hopefully he can go out with a similar game on Saturday in his final game at Stegeman.

We might’ve expected John Jancek to get a little raise beyond what was announced last weekend after South Florida offered him the defensive coordinator position.

But was it really necessary to name him defensive co-coordinator?

If there’s one coach towards the Willie Martinez end of the fan appreciation scale, it’s Jancek. Part of that naturally has to do with the “he’s not VanGorder” factor. But also linebackers have only occasionally been a bright spot since he took over. The debate over talent / injuries / coaching can rage elsewhere, but the perception of a dropoff is there.

The obvious question is, “what does Rodney Garner think?”. He’s been on staff for over a decade and produced truckloads of NFL talent. He’s interviewed for the Auburn head coaching job, got offered the defensive coordinator position at LSU, and passed up a high-paying gig at Tennessee. It’s true that he holds the title of “Assistant Head Coach.” But for someone who’s heart is on the defensive side of the ball, he’s been passed over here, at least in title, in favor of a questionable position coach who interviewed with a flash-in-the-pan Big East school.

If the promotion is just to give wiggle room for a raise, does a flirtation with USF really merit anything above the increase already announced? We already know that a) Martinez will still make the defensive calls, b) Jancek will still report to Martinez, and c) Jancek doesn’t “anticipate a whole lot of change at this point” in terms of duties. The coordinator title seems about as ceremonial as Neil Callaway’s offensive coordinator role, but it still sends a signal. If it’s intended in any way to deflect fan criticism of Martinez, it’s not likely to work that way.

Your mission: find a Georgia fan over the next day who understands/wholeheartedly supports this move. Mark Richt will supposedly have a press conference on Wednesday, and surely he’ll go into more depth about these events then. As for now, it’s a complete headscratcher.