The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics has proposed a ban on the use of male practice players for women’s teams. You might or might not know that it’s a common practice to augment the practice squads of women’s teams (mostly basketball, but others do it also) with men, usually volunteers, in order to improve the level of competition in practice.

That’s apparently an abomination.

The thing about this recommendation is that the committee seems so rabid about the gender issues involved that they completely missed how these practice squads are used. Coaches and players from across the country have chimed in over the past week setting the record straight. The opposition is nearly unanimous. Did the CWA even research the issue?

I’ve seen Georgia practices where there were only eight or so scholarship players, and the managers and coaches – male and female – had to be pressed into service while the starters and reserves rotated in and out. Even when there are enough players for two squads, you want your starters and reserves running your plays while a practice squad simulates the opponent. You also have to consider that you often won’t have a full squad able to go full-speed in every practice because of injury or fatigue. This isn’t football where you have entire practice squads of freshmen and walk-ons. Either the reserves must take time away from their development to be the practice dummies, or you can get outside help. Why not use women volunteers? Quick – find a female on campus to simulate Candace Parker. You won’t find many men who can do what Parker does, but at least you might find a few 6’4" guys with decent basketball skills. Any female who fits that bill is probably already on the team.

Don’t take my testosterone-clouded word for it. How about two women who have been advocates of the game for decades? Ask All-American Ivory Latta. "Love ’em. That’s how they make us better. They give us attitude. They give us the killer instinct." Even the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, hardly timid when it comes to sticking up for the women’s game, is opposed to the proposal. "It’s mind boggling that this is what’s getting all the focus,” said WBCA president Beth Bass. But of course they’d oppose the proposal. The WBCA represents the coaches – the people who understand how these practice squads are actually used.

The CWA’s response to the criticism is hilarious. "There are many ways (training, nutrition, etc.) that female student-athletes can work on getting faster and stronger," they replied. Sure. You can also build strength by chopping wood, but most student-athletes prefer the weight room. Coaches and players in the women’s game have found a technique which they feel best trains them. The CWA continues, "Athletes at every level have continued to evolve through drills and practice without including bigger, stronger and faster opponents in these drills." Right again. But when those "bigger, stronger and faster opponents" are available, you’d be a fool not to make use of them.

For the sake of gender purity and not equity this committee would retard the growth and development of female athletes and women’s sports. This is what happens when you have academics and social scientists making uninformed policy decisions for athletics. They’re willing to deny a proven and valuable training tool in order to address a problem that doesn’t exist – as if there were scores of female student-athletes sitting wistfully a few rows up in the gym every day wondering if this might be the day that Coach lets them practice. Of all of the issues facing women’s sports, they’ve chosen to attack a positive force helping the development of those sports. Michigan State coach Joanne McCallie is exactly right: "It’s absolutely absurd. It’s short-sighted. It’s got nothing to do with equity and everything to do with politics." It makes you wonder what kind of research and thought went into some of the other regulations that govern college sports.

Dennis Felton has had several big wins at Georgia. He has beaten Georgia Tech twice. He’s beaten Kentucky in Rupp Arena. Last season’s win against an Alabama team that went deep into the NCAA Tournament is very underrated. So to immediately label Saturday’s win over Gonzaga as the biggest in Felton’s four years at Georgia or to claim it as a sign that Georgia has arrived might be getting ahead of things. The thing about those other impressive wins was that they stood out in seasons of frustration. Nice wins were followed by puzzling losses or even slumps that went on for weeks. We even got so impressed with ourselves early last year that a trip to the postseason seemed a foregone conclusion. Oops.

That’s not to downplay Saturday’s win. It was magnificent. Gonzaga didn’t play poorly. Georgia did so many things well – the biggest of which was keeping up the intensity. Scoring droughts have killed many a promising Georgia game, and the Dawgs more or less avoided them in this game. A Gaines layup in the midst of a Gonzaga run ended the Zags’ biggest push of the second half, and the Dawgs didn’t let them get on another run the rest of the way. It’s possible that we might not have even seen Georgia’s upper limit on Saturday – the three-point shooting wasn’t that good – but at the very least we know that Georgia is capable of some very good basketball against quality opponents.

The story is as it has been for a couple of years now. Georgia will play as its guards play. The three top guards combined for 65 of Georgia’s 96 points. Stukes ruled the first half, Gaines took over in the second, and Mercer was…well, just watch this:

The difference this year is that the rest of the team isn’t a liability. Whether it’s Jackson’s incredibly clutch back-to-back baskets down the stretch, Newman’s five assists, or Brown and Bliss playing strong under the basket, other players are finding roles and not killing the team with mistakes. Make no mistake – the Dawgs still need those three guards to play at that kind of level to have much success this year. The guards just won’t have to do everything.

The question the team has to face is, "now what?" It’s great that we’re not sitting here on Monday knowing that Georgia can’t compete with good teams and hoping they can salvage something from the season. Georgia can play. Now with games coming up against Tech, Clemson, and Wisconsin, we’ll see if the Dawgs use the opportunities opened up by this win to go into SEC play with a head of steam and take a real step forward on the program’s path back.

Otherwise, it was just another isolated upset win.

I’ve only been marginally paying attention to the offseason coaching carousel. It’s reason enough to stop and appreciate Mark Richt. Wasn’t he a sure thing to run off when Miami came calling? Oh, nevermind.

• Arizona State will retread Dennis Erickson. He’s had success at other schools, and we’ll see if he can sort through the mess in Tempe. The Dawgs will face Erickson’s Sun Devils in his second year, so we’ll keep an eye on his rebuilding job next year.
• How often do we see a coaching search where the main criteria seems to be "the exact opposite of the last guy?" The last coach was too dull, so let’s get a personality in here. The last guy was married to the option, so let’s open up the passing game. That seems to be the case at NC State. Chuck Amato was quirky, eccentric, flashy, erratic, and his teams were known for their undisciplined play. Tom O’Brien might or might not be the right coach for the Wolfpack, but the former Marine major projects an image that’s everything Amato wasn’t. Will that matter when it comes to bringing a higher level of consistency to Raleigh?
• Count me among those unimpressed with Miami’s hire. Shannon’s biggest job will be to convince the local goldmine of talent to believe that a coach from the former failed staff can restore the image and attitude of "the U".
• So Alabama is still without a coach. When Georgia was looking for a coach after the 2000 season, I wrote that firing the existing coach was the easy part. The decision to replace the coach can’t be evaluated until we see how the replacement does. Everyone now looks back on the decision to replace Jim Donnan as a no-brainer, but that’s only because we hit a home run with Mark Richt. The Dawgs could have likely ended up with Ray Sherman or even, yes, Chan Gailey. Every coaching change is a big risk from replacing a guy leaving on his own terms to getting rid of someone not performing to expectations. The saving grace for Bama is that as messed up as things appear now, the next coach won’t be judged based on how smooth the selection process went. If he succeeds, no one will care about the public process. If he fails, it wouldn’t matter if Bama ran the model coaching search.

As much as I didn’t want to see Florida in the national title game, I should be consistent and say again that a rematch for the national title is wrong in the current system. Is Florida the best possible opponent for Ohio State? Who knows. They’re as flawed and as good as anyone. I do note that many of the people discussing the relative merits of Michigan and Florida bring up what I called the "king of the mountain" view of college football – Michigan got their shot at knocking off #1 and now someone else gets a shot. I was also glad to see the attention given to Florida winning their conference. Conference champions form the core of my ideal playoff, so it’s positive to see it as a point of emphasis now. We can play parlor games with playoff ideas later, but I guess we’ll live with this cluster#^@& for now. Florida belongs in the game, and I hope they face a Nebraska-style beating again.

A concept that’s so universally accepted in this process that we don’t even discuss it is the number of losses as an absolute measure of strength. Everyone horse-whipped Florida last week for their weak out-of-conference schedule relative to Southern Cal. So much for that. It’s clear that the criteria for a title contender from a BCS conference are, in this order, 1) number of losses, 2) winning your conference, 3) schedule and everything else. Would Florida be a much different team had Jarvis Moss not gotten his paw on a South Carolina field goal? Nope. But it certainly would have disqualified them from national title consideration. Does that seem a little silly to anyone else?

Now we’ll start to hear from some Georgia fans who think we should pull for Florida because they’re an SEC school and "it makes us look good." How sickening. I want Florida and any of our rivals, especially those against whom we recruit directly, to lose as much on the other 364 days as I do when we play them.

PS…Did Georgia keep Auburn out of the national title discussion? Excellent.

Congratulations to Wake Forest for winning Region 4-AAA. Hopefully they’ll play in front of a larger crowd this weekend in the Georgia Dome for the GHSA semifinals.

One of the best parts of being a Georgia fan this year is seeing the implosion in the Georgia Tech program that began with the win in Athens a week ago.

Georgia faced the same situation earlier in the season. They didn’t just lose to divisional rivals Tennessee and Florida; they also lost to Vanderbilt and Kentucky. Fans were beside themselves, coaches were feeling the heat, and both the offense and defense were facing a big crisis of confidence as receivers dropped passes and opponents drove for game-winning scores. At 6-4 with games remaining against ranked teams Auburn and Georgia Tech, a 6-6 finish was not only possible but seen as likely by many. Comparisons to 2005 Tennessee were made as everyone waited for the meltdown.

The Dawgs were able to come together and close out the regular season with two wins. The finish doesn’t erase the tarnish of those midseason losses, but instead of packing it in and waiting for a sweep of coaching changes to start fresh next year, Georgia began building behind a new quarterback and will have a chance to claim quite a bit of momentum heading into next season if they can get past a very quality Virginia Tech team in its bowl game.

Tech was riding high two weeks ago. They had wrapped up their ACC division with weeks to spare and had won four in a row after stumbling at Clemson. Calvin Johnson was magnificent, Tashard Choice was peeling off 100-yard games, and the defense was dominant. Then they played Georgia. Even with a spectacularly bad performance from Reggie Ball, the running of Choice and the defense seemed enough to win that game until Matthew Stafford found Mohamed Massaquoi for a touchdown with less than two minutes remaining.

The loss to Georgia started the grumbling, and the Tech community moved on by noting that they were still playing for a conference title. Oops. Ball followed up his Georgia performance with another so bad that it has his coach considering replacing the four-year starter in the bowl game. Johnson was held without a touchdown catch for the third time in four games. The defense played well most of the afternoon but gave up a pair of long passes that led to two second-half Wake Forest field goals.

With the rare expected win over Georgia and a shot at the ACC title gone, the finger-pointing has begun in earnest. Most noteworthy are statements from defensive leaders KaMichael Hall and Joe Anoai. "It’s a lack of offensive production. The defense can’t do everything," Anoai said. Those senior leaders leave no questions about their frustrations with the offense. The defenders aren’t alone; Choice has grumbled about not getting carries late in the game.

Tech still ends up playing on New Year’s Day as the Gator Bowl must take the ACC runner-up. It sounds as if they’re really thrilled to be headed back to Jacksonville. "Whatever," said Choice. Gator Bowl officials are poised to jump from Jacksonville’s Hart Bridge unless West Virginia brings half the state with them. Without an improbable attitude reversal, Tech will go into the bowl game with a defense distrusting of its offense, an offense at odds with itself and without a leader under center, and an offensive coordinator with one foot out the door as he eyes the Tulane job. Fans jaded by losses to Georgia and Wake Forest will likely pass on another trip to Jacksonville for a game in which they will be clear underdogs. All the while, twilight begins on the Calvin Johnson era and a possible championship and ten-win season.

Georgia came together; Tech is still coming apart.

Hate it for them, I really do.

• Can’t wait for Army-Navy tomorrow. It’s not relevant at all and pretty one-sided lately, but it’s still must-see football on the first Saturday in December.
  
  
• I have to join those congratulating Oklahoma for a fine season despite losing Peterson and Bomar. They aren’t the only team to fight on through attrition, but they’ve come through it better than most and have a shot at the BCS. Unfortunately, the popular telling of their 2006 story has been to whitewash the end of the Oregon game. They didn’t lose just because of a blown call. The call certainly was central to the outcome, but let’s not forget the defensive and special teams meltdowns that defined the last few minutes of that game.
  Take this absurd line from the AP: "Oklahoma is 9-2, but would be 10-1 and possibly a part of the national championship discussion if not for the officiating errors at Oregon." Are they serious? Oklahoma led 33-20 with 90 seconds left. Granted that the game would have been over with the right call on the onside kick, they still had to allow another Oregon touchdown plus get a reasonable 44-yard field goal attempt blocked in order to lose. Oklahoma is 9-2 and playing for the Big 12 title. Take it.
  
  
• Has anyone in a major conference ever had a more anonymous 11-win regular season than Wisconsin?
  
  
• With the (temporary) rise of Ohio State to #1 in both football and basketball polls, it reminds me of the list of schools that comes up when people discuss whether or not it’s possible for a "football school" to have a successful basketball program (or vice versa). Can we now please officially drop Michigan from that list? When was the last time they were relevant in college basketball? Actually, I think the most schools can hope for along these lines is a good run now and then. Michigan had its run in basketball. Ohio State is just starting its run. Texas had/is having its run. UNC had a couple of periods of good football. There really aren’t many schools, if there are any at all, who can sustain success in both.
  
  
• College football fans love to talk about the absolute importance and vitality of the regular season, and I don’t disagree. I live for the entire football season. I think an argument can be made though that for someone who really enjoys college basketball, the hoops regular season actually offers more high-quality regular season matchups. The other night, #6 North Carolina beat #1 Ohio State. Big deal, you say – Ohio State’s football team went out of conference to play Texas. But the tOSU – UNC basketball game was remarkable because it is routine. This weekend, Carolina will turn around and host Kentucky. They have already played Gonzaga. Last weekend, Florida and Kansas clashed. UCLA has already played Kentucky and Georgia Tech. It’s just another autumn in college hoops. Dream matchups like those in college football are the exception and the stuff of weeks of hype.
  Note I didn’t say more meaningful matchups. That’s the tradeoff – because these early-season games aren’t actually deciding anything (other than style points when it comes selection/seeding time), the casual fan doesn’t really begin tuning in until after the Super Bowl. The first Duke-Carolina game is the unofficial start of the college basketball season for a lot of people. If meaning is what does it for you then, yes, February and March is your time. For good interconference basketball, this time of the year is second only to the NCAA Tournament. It makes you wonder that if a single loss didn’t put you in such a really tight spot in the college football national picture, how many more teams would be willing to take a few more chances in the quality of their nonconference scheduling?

’tis the season to start hearing some very dumb statements from college football fans.

• "There are just too many bowl games."
• "Teams with (x) wins don’t deserve a bowl game."

Once you get beyond the BCS championship game, almost every other bowl game from the Rose to the GMAC is an exhibition game. The only variables are the payouts, dates, and media coverage. There are surely historical and traditional contexts that make some bowls more important or prestigious than others. Occasionally a bowl game might serve as a shot in the arm going into the next season for a team or a Heisman candidate, and the undecided recruits might pay a little attention to your final ranking. Still, there’s not much more than pride at stake in any game outside of Glendale.

It hasn’t always been this way – the Bowl Alliance / BCS and its other iterations have guaranteed irrelevance for most bowls. Remember the Cotton Bowl? In 1983, it was part of the national title picture as Georgia upset Texas 10-9. Now it’s a consolation prize for SEC and Big 12 teams played in a dilapidated stadium. In the 1990 season, the Citrus Bowl was in the national spotlight. Soon after, it became a punchline as Steve Spurrier tweaked Tennessee. Even the other BCS bowls suffer from diminished relevance. In 1996, viewers jumped With the mission of the BCS to match #1 and #2, it has concentrated all postseason relevance in one or very rarely two games.

But enough history and back to the point. If only one game is really relevant and the others aren’t playing for much of anything, it makes no difference how many bowls there are. If two teams are willing to get together, if a sponsor is willing to make a stadium and a payout available, and if there’s a network willing to send its sixth-string announcing team, who does it hurt to play the additional games? At worst, they are watched by 5 people and the outcome echos into empty space. Even at the risk of losing money by traveling, smaller programs would and do fall over each other to get national exposure on ESPN. The real benefit of a bowl game to most programs is a couple of weeks of extra practice – it’s essentially a jump on spring ball and player evaluations for the next year. Early enrollees even get to participate in bowl practices. What program doesn’t want that?

Dwelling on what teams "deserve" also doesn’t make much sense. Bowls are and always have been business arrangements between schools or conferences and the host committees. If a town thinks that Miami will bring fans (yeah, right) and make sponsors and merchants happy, they’ll get a bowl invitation with six wins regardless of what some talking head thinks they deserve. Occasionally teams will decline bids, but let’s leave that up to them. I’m not even sure if the six-win benchmark is appropriate. If someone wants to put up the cash for two winless teams to play in the Toilet Bowl, go for it. Of course it would be ridiculous, but it would be no more or less meaningful than the Gator Bowl.

What’s always been strange to me is why college football fans would have a problem with more college football. Bowls in general might be anachronistic, and the lesser bowls might be boring, ugly, mediocre, or all of the above, but they’re still football. If you’re not that much of a fan of the game, watch something else. So San Diego State vs. Ohio University isn’t Southern Cal vs. Ohio State. It’s another four hours that poker isn’t taking over actual sports programming. Play on!

When news came down a few months ago that Tasha Humphrey would be suspended for the Lady Dogs’ first six games, "4-2" immediately popped into my head. I’m sure I wasn’t alone. Georgia would start the season without its leading scorer, its best rebounder, and its swagger. It also meant that Georgia would start the season with seven players – including two who are still coming back from season-ending ACL injuries last year, one who had offseason wrist surgery, and two true freshmen. The first six games would include two opponents ranked among the preseason top 11 nationally.

No one would have come down too hard on Georgia for losing to Stanford and/or Rutgers with a seven player rotation and minus Humphrey. They would have been patted on the head for a nice effort and told that it would be OK once Tasha returned. But this is the team that put together a Sweet 16 run after losing four post players a season ago. Playing without Tasha was just another problem to solve, and its a good thing that they had much higher expectations for themselves than we did. A 5-0, and likely 6-0, start to this season didn’t seem likely, but here we are. It hasn’t been easy of course. Four of the six games, including Davidson and Georgia Southern, were anyone’s games. Georgia had dropped games like those in recent years.

Sunday’s game against Stanford went a lot like the opener with Rutgers and several games last season. Much has been made of Georgia’s second-half collapses last year, but so far this season they’ve been able to hold off runs by some quality opponents and finish strong. Stanford got star Candace Wiggins heated up and stormed back and even had a couple of chances at the foul line to take the lead. Big plays down the stretch came from Ashley Houts – Houts had missed several free throws earlier in the game but twice hit a pair of free throws with the Lady Dogs hanging on to a one-point lead. Despite Stanford getting effective inside-outside production from Wiggins and Brooke Smith, not many other Cardinal players were able to be factors. Georgia’s contributions came from all seven players – everything from Chambers’ scoring to Rowsey’s career-high rebound total – and that was the difference. The penetration by Hardrick and Darrah opened up the inside and provided a nice complement to the outside game of Chambers. I’m telling you – if Cori Chambers drives to the baseline and squares up, just put two points on the board.

With these games behind us, the next big challenge on the schedule is this weekend at Georgia Tech. The Lady Dogs lost to Tech two years ago in Atlanta, and it was a close win for Georgia last year at home. Tech isn’t ranked, but it’s obvious that they place a lot of importance on this intrastate rivalry as they are trying to compete with Georgia for recruits and attention. Georgia needs to build on their early success this year and firmly reestablish control of this series.

The good news now is that after a likely win over Memphis this Wednesday, Tasha Humphrey will return for the Tech game. Georgia could also add anywhere from one to three players to the court before the end of the season. Georgia volleyball player Maria Taylor has already begun practicing with the team. She’s naturally lost right now but could give key minutes at the forward spot. Sophomore wing Danielle Taylor is still sorting out some offseason legal issues. Freshman guard Jaleesa Rhoden injured her knee last spring playing with the Canadian national team and might be in the position in a month to assess whether she wants to play this year or redshirt.

The changes will bring a different set of challenges for Coach Landers and the players. Georgia’s offense has been primarily focused on the wings and particularly Cori Chambers. Posts Rebecca Rowsey and Angel Robinson have made a big difference just by their presence on defense and in rebounding, but their roles on offense have been more opportunistic than strategic, at least in terms of point production. That will change when Humphrey is in the game. Her abilities will present lots of options. The team can show a bigger look with Humphrey at the 4 and Darrah sliding over to the wing. Darrah’s year playing down low will give her a nice physical advantage over most wings, and her size and speed are already advantages. A dynamic player like Humphrey also means Georgia can run high-low plays with other posts or play inside-out games with the wings. Humphrey’s versatility and ability to draw defenders might even mean that she is on the outside feeding the ball inside.

Options and versatility are almost always good things, but there are pitfalls. Chemistry between the five on the court has gone a long way in the first five games, and some combinations going forward will be more effective than others. It will be interesting to see in the Georgia Tech game – a very close game in the past couple of years – how the team chemistry adjusts to the significant addition of Humphrey. Tech doesn’t have a lot of size, but they have a fleet of quick guards who can take advantage of sloppy play. You also have a special weapon in Chambers, and it’s important that she not disappear once Humphrey gets going.

A concern that has emerged is at point guard. Ashley Houts will be fine, but she will certainly be the focus of defensive pressure. After a spectacular opening game, Houts has been up and down. It’s not that she’s a liability or unskilled; she’s just a true freshman and is still learning the college game. The team’s assist-to-turnover ratio is under the benchmark of 1.0 (74/83). Teams will try to disrupt Houts before the team can get into its offense and get the ball to Humphrey or Chambers. Hardrick is more experienced and can also bring the ball up but has been notoriously wild at times. Humphrey’s return will help there as well – she (along with Darrah) is more than capable of getting the ball up the court.

I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself – they could easily have a losing record at this point and could definitely get caught on a night where they sleepwalk into a game. If they can get past Tech this weekend, they should be considered even money to head into the SEC schedule undefeated.

In a season that will be remembered for the contrast of losses to Vanderbilt and Kentucky and wins over Auburn and Georgia Tech, it makes perfect sense that Saturday’s game went as it did and that seniors were at the center of some of the game’s most brilliant and most boneheaded plays. Take three examples from this weekend:

• Tony Taylor has been born again hard in the second half of this season. He has simply played lights-out and for a while was one of the few bright spots on a defense that was hanging its head. He became a turnover machine – at one point intercepting a pass in four consecutive games. Against Tech, Taylor showed the presence of mind and sheer strength to wrest a loose ball away from a pile of players when everyone else in the stadium was sure that the play would be blown dead. Forgetting a lesson from the Auburn game, Taylor plunged over the goal line and was called for excessive celebration. Tech got right back in the game as a result of the shortened field on the ensuing kickoff.
• Quentin Moses had two of Saturday’s biggest individual defensive plays. He deflected a Reggie Ball pass in the third quarter that led to an interception and set Georgia up with their best field position of the game. On Tech’s final drive, he was able to reach a hand around an offensive lineman on third-and-two and disrupt Ball again leading to a sack which put Tech in fourth-and-long. Yet seconds later – on a dead ball – Moses got suckered into a shoving match and was flagged for a hit to the head.
• Dan Inman, everyone’s favorite whipping boy, was again called for a couple of penalties. Yet when the offense needed a final game-winning drive, the offensive line with its three seniors was right there opening holes for Ware and giving Stafford all the time he needed against a steady Tech blitz to lead the team down the field.

We’ve struggled all year to get a handle on this senior class. Coach Richt wondered aloud in the preseason about the leadership in this group. There weren’t the obvious superstars of recent seasons; Moses was one of the few identified as potential first-rounders. Others (namely Taylor and Gant) who might have stood out were fighting injuries. The advantage of a senior quarterback never materialized. There were even some polarizing figures – just mention the names Milner or Tereshinski or Elmore or Inman around a group of Georgia fans and see how the conversation turns. Increasingly as the season wore on, a true freshman became the public face of the team.

It was tempting all year long to point fingers at the seniors, but just as you did they would show us why they were on the field. Tra Battle was pressed into service right away as a walk-on freshman against Clemson. This tiny player, hardly from the mold of Sean Jones or Thomas Davis, went from walk-on to multi-year starter at safety. He had his ups and downs to be sure, but his three interceptions against Auburn two weeks ago and the performance of the entire secondary against Tech was as good as it gets for a defensive back. Martrez Milner probably will never escape the association with dropped passes, but he is second on the team in receptions, leads the team in receiving yards, and has as many receiving touchdowns as anyone else on the team – including the game-winner against Colorado.

The Tech game was certainly not beautiful, but it was a win. Such is the way these seniors, their senior season, and their final home game might be remembered. It wasn’t an unblemished year, but with two SEC East titles and an SEC championship to their credit and a chance in the bowl game to earn their 40th win in four years, they are ultimately winners, and they are 4-0 against Tech. I’ll take it.

Looking at PWD’s tale of the tape, two stats stand out as areas where Georgia really trails: turnovers and rushing offense.

Turnovers we know about. The fact that Stafford threw no picks at Auburn was beyond huge. Looking deeper at the turnover numbers tells us some things:

• Both teams have been relatively similar in their takeaways (24 vs. 23), though Georgia’s four interceptions at Auburn gave that total a nice shot in the arm.
• Of course the disparity comes in giveaways. Georgia has coughed it up an incredible 29 times to just 15 for Tech.
• While Stafford’s October interception-fest got the most attention, Georgia has fumbled it away 14 times this year. That’s way, way too much. And when you think about when some of those fumbles have occurred (on the punt in the endzone vs. Tennessee, to start the second half vs. Florida, Raley’s injury at Kentucky), they have come at some really bad times. At least the three fumbles at Auburn were deep inside Tiger territory, so they weren’t immediately costly (though they did end three more scoring opportunities!).
• Tech has only lost four fumbles this season. But while Georgia’s 15 interceptions are dreadful, Tech has also thrown 11 picks. That puts them solidly middle-of-the-pack in the ACC.

Tech’s turnover numbers speak to the maturity of Reggie Ball. Tech is also among the ACC leaders in fewest sacks allowed, so Ball isn’t getting hit and fumbling it away. On the contrary, the rushing numbers show that, in additon to the emergence of Choice, Ball has been a lot more successful this year in pulling it down and getting positive yards. That’s a problem as Georgia has struggled against such quarterbacks and done reasonably well against potted-plant QBs at South Carolina and Auburn. Ball still isn’t that great of a passer – the interception numbers speak to accuracy – but he is at least not gift-wrapping nearly as many opportunities for teams as he has in the past.

Tech’s weakness on defense is in the secondary. They press at the line of scrimmage to shut down the run and create sacks, but if you get decent protection and catch the damn ball, you’ll be fine. It’s worth noting that Georgia’s offensive line hasn’t given up a sack since the meltdown in the Florida game. They’ve played pretty well lately, actually. Lumpkin has had some good holes, and the protection has been adequate for Stafford. Was the sharper offense we saw at Auburn a sign of growth? Good protection…generally good passes – most caught….leading to opportunities for the running game…funny how all that works. That’s the good news: the running game and turnovers – both areas of concern going into this game – were areas of great improvement at Auburn. So keep it up.

Most of the Tech week talk will naturally focus on stopping Calvin Johnson and Reggie Ball. They are in the spotlight and make the most noise. But my focus is on the other side of the ball. Georgia hasn’t broken 20 points on Tech since 2003. Tenuta’s defense has been tough, tough enough to make the last two games one-possession nailbiters even with good defense from Georgia. Even if the Dawg D can do a nice job on Calvin Johnson and contain Ball and Choice, another low-scoring game could leave this anyone’s game in the fourth quarter.

For that reason, I’m saying that this is Stafford’s game. Tech’s weakness ("weak" being relative on a good defense) is against the pass. The Auburn game was a statement by Stafford, but it was also a nice surprise. He’s showed ability and better decisions as that game progressed. Now the next step is consistency. That Georgia passing game really is the biggest variable in Saturday’s game. Regression to interceptions and drops means more trouble. Building on the success at Auburn on the other hand could make for a very fun afternoon.

Today’s Banner-Herald reports that fullback Des Williams will be among those honored in Saturday’s Senior Day festivities. Though technically a junior in terms of eligibility, Williams is in his fourth season and expects to graduate in May. Injuries have sidetracked and ultimately ended his Georgia career. Most who come to play for a major program like Georgia’s bring dreams of getting their shot in the NFL. Some get to live the dream. Some screw it up through their actions. Many more just have ordinary careers and move on. Some work hard, get good grades, stay out of trouble, do everything else right, and have the rigors of college football tell their bodies that it’s time to stop.

Des arrived at Georgia as a highly-rated middle linebacker (four stars if that’s your thing). I had been really impressed by his ability to cover the field laterally in high school. He was moved to fullback in his freshman season (2003) but was mostly a special teams player. The Dawgs had an established fullback starter in Jeremy Thomas, but depth was an issue. With a seemingly solid depth chart at linebacker, Des’s prospects for contributing were much brighter, at least as an underclassman, at fullback. He saw much more time as a sophomore in 2004 – even starting a few games – and left spring practice in 2005 as the starter who would replace Thomas.

But then the injuries changed things. A torn pectoral caused him to miss the entire 2005 season. Earlier this season, a shoulder injury ended his 2006 season. With his NFL dreams cut short and Brannan Southerland now in firm control of the fullback position, Williams has decided to graduate and hang it up. "Everybody, when they come to play college ball, they have aspirations to go the league. After being hurt my first time, and tearing my pectoral muscle, I counted myself out in that aspect. I fought to come back and got hurt again. I didn’t want to go through the rigors of going through the rehab again."

You can’t blame him. Football is incredibly demanding, and Williams has paid the price with his body. You hate it because you feel his chance never really came, but this isn’t necessarily a sad ending. Williams has been a part of some memorable Georgia teams, and he will start life after college with a degree from the University.

The men got an expected easy win over Valdosta State on Saturday. The story of the game was the debut of Takais Brown, and he shook off some early rust to really make an impression. A consistent player who looks to score inside is a big hole filled for this team. UGASports.com has a nice interview ($) up with Brown.

If there’s a red flag this early in the season, it’s wing defense. Courtney Lee lit up Georgia from the wing earlier this week, and on Saturday Valdosta State had two 20+ nights from the 2/3 spots. I understand that most teams have big scorers at those positions, but that makes it even more of a point of defensive emphasis. The Dawgs will have to get better at guarding the swingmen.

The women had a scare on Sunday and had to overcome a six-point second half deficit to beat Davidson. Davidson is picked to win their conference and has a senior-heavy lineup comfortable in a sound system, so Georgia expected a challenge. I doubt they expected this result though. Davidson played a good defensive game, choked off Georgia’s inside game, and made it back-and-forth for much of the afternoon. Cori Chambers kept the Lady Dogs alive time after time, and freshman Christy Marshall showed up in the second half with some devastating mid-range shots. Defense and rebounding finally made a difference down the stretch, but this was anyone’s game with two minutes left. Kudos to Megan Darrah – she had her first career double-double on Wednesday night and followed that up with another against Davidson. Her rebounding was a difference-maker in Sunday’s game, and she’s come such a long way in just a year.

Going into Saturday’s Michigan-Ohio State game, I gave the Wolverines the slight edge. I thought their run defense would be good enough to make the Buckeye offense rely too heavily on the pass. I also thought that a healthy Hart would give Michigan the balance they needed on offense. I was right about Michigan’s offense. Hart ran well, and Henne played a fair game. But he and the Michigan passing game were not spectacular, and Troy Smith and his receivers were.

But what I really missed on was discounting Ohio State’s big play threat at tailback. Antonio Pittman has been a dependable back this year, rushing for over 1,000 yards. Chris Wells is a typical freshman superstar – electrifying but inexperienced and mistake-prone. They’re both very good players who would probably be standouts on other teams. I, and probably many others, just didn’t expect them to be able to gash a top rush defense. Each had a touchdown run of over 50 yards, and those two touchdowns plus a solid afternoon from Smith & Co. were too much for any team to overcome. Credit Michigan for even coming close.

The final margin ended up being three points, but this felt like a two-score win for Ohio State. After Michigan’s initial touchdown, the Buckeyes grabbed control of the game early in the second quarter. Each time Michigan scored and found life, Ohio State responded to keep the Wolverines at a comfortable distance. Even when Michigan scored late and brought it within three points, you never really felt the urgency because you knew, if it really mattered, Ohio State would simply answer again.

Michigan is a fine team. The score doesn’t bother me – it was a slugfest just as last year’s Rose Bowl was, and it doesn’t mean that anyone’s defense is suddenly terrible. Ohio State simply had the means to attack Michigan and keep the foot on the gas. If your team has a Heisman front-runner at QB, an elite receiving corps that runs three or four deep, and two tailbacks who can take it to the house, you might too.

The talk quickly turned to a rematch in the national title game. Those on Michigan’s side claim that the Wolverines showed that they are worthy of the #2 spot and another shot on a neutral field. I’m sure that Ohio State fans feel that they’ve already proven that they can beat Michigan. And of course others in the Florida and SoCal camps claim that it’s wide open now and time for another team to get a shot. Though the BCS standings disagree with me, I have to side with those who don’t want to see a rematch.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a rematch for the national title. It happens all the time in playoff systems. It even happens sometimes in college football, especially in conferences which have championship games. Georgia and LSU met during the regular season in 2003 and also played for the SEC title. Had Georgia won the December game at the Georgia Dome, they’d have been SEC champs despite losing earlier in the year at Baton Rouge. That’s a fact of life that we proponents of a playoff system must live with. Does it make the regular season game "meaningless"? Not really, in that regular season games determine the shape of the postseason. We recognize though that the postseason is a different stage on which teams have to prove themselves again.

But if we’re not going to have a playoff in college football, then rematches seem improper. Instead of a postseason where we reseed teams and start a new season, the college football regular season resembles one big game of "king of the mountain" that continues on for one more game in the bowls. A team starts the season at #1 and remains there until they are knocked off. There are a select few who get a direct chance to knock #1 from the top. If they can’t do it, they’ve had their shot, and it is appropriate for a different team to get the opportunity. People like to talk about a playoff diminishing the importance of the regular season, but let’s set up a BCS rematch that says Saturday’s loss by Michigan has no consequences.

Though he agrees with me, it’s amusing to hear the criticism of a rematch coming from Florida’s Urban Meyer. Though Meyer was not Florida’s coach in 1996, the Gators’ championship came in a rematch against FSU. Florida wasn’t even the #2 team entering their bowl (this was still pre-BCS). It took a combination of events including an upset in the Big 12 title game and an Ohio State comeback win over Arizona State in the Rose Bowl to make that UF-FSU rematch a default national title game. Meyer’s pretzel logic explaining why Florida has a better case than Arkansas is also good stuff. The Hogs will have their chance to say something about that in two weeks.

I’m a guest on this week’s UGASportsLIVE (Episode 39), talking about the Lady Dogs and their outlook for the season. My segment comes right before a nice interview with coach Andy Landers with his take on the early season.

I know I’ve said this before, and it’s not just because I’m on there from time to time, but this weekly podcast seems right up the alley for most every die-hard Dawg fan. Give it a listen – it’s free.

Think of it as the 60 Minutes of Bulldog sports. It’s professionally produced, and they get the news makers – coaches, players, media experts, and prospects. For everyone outside of Athens who has wished for a Bulldog-focused talk show, give this a try.