1. Is the absence of Dowtin and Dent going to be more important than we think? When you consider what Tennessee does best on offense – run the ball, screen passes, and short-yardage passes – not having two of your better linebackers available seems to be a pretty big deal.

2. “What’s wrong with Georgia’s special teams?” is a topic that can and has been discussed all week, but there’s one area I’ll focus on here: punt returns. Georgia’s 2001 and 2005 wins in Knoxville each featured a Georgia punt return for a touchdown. In 2001, that Damien Gary return enabled Georgia to get back off the carpet from an early deficit and prevented the game from following the script of so many trips to Neyland. Thomas Flowers’ return in 2005 came in a tight 13-7 game and gave a strong Georgia defense the cushion it would need to close out the game. Are the days of Flowers and Mikey Henderson that far gone? Did the fake punt by South Carolina rattle Georgia that much?

3. Is it likely that another big return will help Georgia this year? Not if current trends continue. The Dawgs are so frozen in nearly every element of special teams that even once-explosive units like punt return are stuck with trotting out a backup quarterback to field fair catches because “Georgia is using essentially its regular defensive unit to prevent a fake.” I understand situations where you’d want to play the fake, but it was disheartening to see Prince Miller call for the fair catch after LSU punted from its own goal line to start the second half.

4. Which development is going to make a bigger difference in the game – Washaun Ealey or Tennessee’s higher-tempo offense? Ealey was credited with being a second-half “spark” for the Georgia offense. (What does it say about the state of the Georgia running game that ~30 yards and a 4 YPC average is enough of an improvement to stand out?) Meanwhile Tennessee got things going with a little more pace towards the end of the game, and the words “no” and “huddle” are getting thrown around a bit this week in Knoxville. Then again, Tennessee’s success with an up-tempo offense came with the game pretty well in hand.

5. How many college players are being mentored or otherwise involved with Deion Sanders? Sanders has been a mentor and spokesman for former Texas Tech receiver Michael Crabtree. Sanders also nearly became the legal guardian of Noel Devine. Now he’s at the center of the Dez Bryant eligibility issue. I don’t question Deion’s motives or claim he’s doing anything but looking out for some guys with very troubled backgrounds, but all we need now turning up in related stories is M.C. Hammer. What’s that you say?

6. Is the kickoff scheme so complicated that even Georgia’s best players can’t get it right? Richt talked about the experience and youth factor on kickoff coverage, but was that the problem on Georgia’s last flawed kickoff? For starters, junior linebacker Rennie Curran appeared to go the wrong way and was the cause of the formation penalty. That left the Dawgs shorthanded on the right side of the field with just three players – Prince Miller, Baccari Rambo, and Nick Williams. Rambo and Williams aren’t the most seasoned Bulldogs, but they’re not exactly freshman walk-ons either. I don’t know where Blair Walsh was supposed to put the kick, but it was relatively deep (it would have been fielded on the 2 or 3 were it a normal kickoff), and the ball went to the center of the field from the right hash. It didn’t take long for the returner to head left towards the sideline where Georgia was shorthanded essentially putting most of Georgia’s coverage unit behind the play.

Assuming that Walsh didn’t put the ball exactly within the 3-inch landing zone prescribed by the strategy, two of the bigger mistakes on the play were made by 1) Georgia’s starting placekicker and 2) the SEC’s leading tackler. Is that really a question of experience?

7. Does the relative success (and I use that term very loosely) of Ealey play into the discussion of what’s wrong with the offensive line and specifically run blocking? I don’t mean to imply that the blocking has been there all along, but were the struggles of King and Samuel really mostly to do with the line?

8. Is this the week Crompton puts it together? Every pessimistic prediction this week has had a variation of this: “Our defense and Willie are going to make Crompton look like Joe Montana this week.” The problem with Crompton though hasn’t been one of coverage. He’s had his open receivers, and the broadcast of their Auburn game took pains to point out the open underneath crossing routes. Crompton just isn’t hitting them, or they’re being dropped. It’s possible that this is the week that he finally starts hitting open receivers in stride, but that would have a lot more to do with Crompton than the coverage. If Georgia’s pass rush continues to show signs of life, it’s reasonable to expect that passing game to continue to struggle.

9. Has Georgia had a touchdown drive this year without a play or return of 20+ yards involved? David Hale digs up the fact that “well over half of Georgia’s drives are five plays or less,” and those include a few scores. If you wonder why the offense bogs down for stretches, consider how feast-or-famine things have been. Of course sustaining drives goes back to the running game…

10. Does the news of Dez Bryant’s ineligibility affect Georgia? Heismanpundit thinks so – at least indirectly. Whether or not Bryant is able to regain eligibility, HP speculates that the incident “probably narrows the Biletnikoff Award field [for the nation’s top receiver] to Golden Tate, Eric Decker and A.J. Green.”

That was the report according to Chuck Dowdle of WSB-TV yesterday. (Dowdle is also involved with the football radio broadcast team and the Mark Richt television show.)

According to reports, the Dawgs and Jackets have at least talked about playing in the 2011 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game at the Georgia Dome. Both Mark Richt and Paul Johnson have expressed displeasure over the kickoff game giving other programs a prime showcase in the state of Georgia, so this might be the solution to give the hometown teams a little satisfaction.

Since the game would be in 2011, it would take the place of Tech’s home game in the series. Georgia would not be giving up a home game in order to play at the Dome. I’m getting ahead of myself, but I wonder if the game would be ticketed as a Tech home game or if it would continue to be sold as a neutral site game.

Anyway, what would you think about the game being moved to the start of the season and to the Dome?

UPDATE: Marc Weiszer of the ABH has more information including comments from Damon Evans. Evans confirms a “few talks” about the possibility of playing Tech at the Dome to open the 2011 season, but he stresses that “there’s nothing definitive about doing that right now.” A lot has to happen for this game to take place. For starters, Georgia would have to do some scheduling gymnastics with the Louisville game that’s currently slated as the 2011 opener. On top of that, we haven’t heard from the Tech side of things, and I can’t imagine how excited their fans would be about giving up a home game in order to fit that many more Georgia fans in the Dome.

Both the Tennessee and Vanderbilt games have been picked up by the SEC Network and will kick off at 12:22 ET.

Following these two regional broadcasts, Georgia will appear again on national TV against Florida.

For a list of SEC Network affiliates, use this link. The games will be on Peachtree TV in Atlanta. For Atlanta Comcast subscribers, that means no HD broadcast. We’ll try to find contact information to get that changed this week.

Freshman receiver Rantavious Wooten continues to earn more playing time and made two big catches in last week’s win. Last week the students also named him heir to Musa Smith, Michael Cooper, and Greg Blue by saluting him with a loud “Woooooooooooooooo” after the catches.

But Wooten already had an underground following among recruitniks long before he got to Athens thanks to his highlight video. It wasn’t for the highlights, though those showed why he was a target of most every program in the area. The video was famous for the calls of the PA announcer who narrates each play and will forever make it impossible for a subset of Georgia fans to mention Wooten’s name without adding “daballcarrier” immediately afterwards. Here’s the video…

David Hale spoke with Wooten about the video’s fame, and it’s no surprise that Rantavious is aware of the phenomenon. He seems ready to take it to the next level. If rumors are true, Wooten will be sporting this eye black during Saturday’s game. Now if someone can just get word to Brook Whitmire…