Led by Tasha Humphrey’s 23 points, all five Lady Dog starters scored in double figures, and Georgia went over 60 points for the first time in two weeks in a 72-58 win at Arkansas on Thursday night.

With the win, the team avoided the program’s first 4-game losing streak under Andy Landers. The Lady Dogs are now 4-4 in the SEC.

The Lady Dogs will remain in Arkansas today, practice, and then head to Baton Rouge for a nationally-televised game on Sunday at LSU. LSU is tied for the league lead with a perfect 8-0 record, and they’ve been dominant on both ends of the court with Sylvia Fowles controlling the low post. Georgia beat LSU in Athens last season on Ashley Houts’ buzzer-beater.

Paul Johnson supposedly had this quote at last night’s signing day festivities:

“We’re sure going to try and beat (Georgia). Heck, I’ve hated them since I was at Georgia Southern.”

It’s obvious why Johnson would develop such feelings for the Bulldogs and not for Tech – it would be hard for a Georgia Southern coach to work up a hate for a program that won’t even play the Eagles.

Following last night’s loss to Vanderbilt, Georgia junior guard Billy Humphrey was arrested for underage possession of alcohol.

Humphrey is obviously in a world of hurt right now. You could sense the frustration and disappointment about his injury in his comments following the South Carolina loss. His struggles have continued in the two games since, and unfortunately it looks as if he chose the wrong escape route from his troubles last night.

Humphrey is suspended indefinitely, and he will face at least a mandatory three-game suspension due to an alcohol-related arrest. Georgia’s offense sputtered without a healthy Humphrey, and one has to expect that the scoring difficulties, especially from the perimeter, will continue during his suspension. The trio of Swansey, Butler, and Brewer will try to hold down the position.

It’s silly to fault Dennis Felton for Humphrey’s transgression; remember that suspensions for alcohol-related incidents are athletic department policy and are out of the coach’s hands. Still, it’s a disturbing trend that we’re starting to see off-court drama begin to take over the Georgia basketball program once again.

Dennis Felton was brought in to win, graduate players, and, above all in the wake of Jim Harrick, clean up the image of Georgia basketball. He managed to do well in that direction for a few seasons; it isn’t the case now. If you saw any recent game, you know that the team hasn’t quit on Felton or the season. Still, Felton will be fighting a perception soon – if he isn’t already – that he is losing control of the program. Even an incident completely outside of his control like Humphrey’s arrest adds to that perception when it’s stacked on top of everything else that has happened to the program in the past year.

The history books will list the New York Giants’ Kawika Mitchell as a South Florida Bull, but the Super Bowl XLII defensive standout originally signed to be a Georgia Bulldog in February of 1998. With Signing Day Eve upon us, here’s a refresher on the linebacker class that Georgia inked ten years ago. Even considering transfers and attrition, it stands as one of the Bulldogs’ best positional hauls in a single recruiting class.

• Boss Bailey: Bailey played as a true freshman, making an impact in the 1998 Peach Bowl win. A knee injury on the opening kickoff of the 2000 season seriously affected the rest of his Bulldog career (not to mention Georgia’s 2000 season). Bailey broke through in 2002 with a senior season that was key to Georgia’s SEC title run. He has been a starting linebacker with the Detroit Lions since he was drafted in the early second round in 2003.
• Tony Gilbert: Gilbert wasn’t the highest-rated of the bunch by any stretch, but he got every bit of production he could out of the talent he had. As a senior in 2002, he tied for the team lead in tackles and was named second-team All-SEC. He was a 6th round pick of the Arizona Cardinals in the 2003 NFL draft. Since being released by the Cardinals, he has had a successful career with Jacksonville.
• Charles Grant*: Yes, a linebacker. Grant was athletic enough to play everything from tailback to defensive end, but the current New Orleans Saints star was considered a linebacker on the recruiting board. He left Georgia for the NFL after his junior season in 2001 and was a first-round pick of the Saints in the 2002 NFL draft. By the way, here’s to a speedy and complete recovery for Grant.
• Jessie Miller*: Miller and Grant were the biggest academic risks in the group, and though each did not qualify out of high school, Miller was the real academic casualty of this class. After earning some playing time as a freshman in 1999, Miller was no longer with the program in 2000.
• Kawika Mitchell: As we mentioned above, Mitchell signed with Georgia out of Winter Park, Fla. but transferred after to USF his freshman season. Various rumors cite homesickness or a girlfriend back home, but he went on to have a solid career at USF and is now the only Bull with a Super Bowl ring.
• Will Witherspoon: ‘Spoon was a fan favorite from the moment he shocked the world by signing with Georgia out of Florida. His signature play was batting away a two-point conversion against LSU in 1999, but Will had a consistently strong college career and quickly caught on in the NFL. After joining the Carolina Panthers as a third-round pick in the 2002 NFL draft, he signed with the St. Louis Rams in 2006 and was named the team’s MVP following the 2007 season.

* – Grant and Miller did not qualify in 1998 and were re-signed in 1999.

I wanted to wait for confirmation before posting news like this, and we have it now. I received this e-mail on Monday evening:

Earlier today, a dear friend and a former UGA walk-on was killed in an automobile accident in the Watkinsville area.

Josh Willis, a walk-on Long Snapper (#69) who was a member of the 2006 Chick-Fil-A Bowl Champion Georgia Bulldogs football team, was in a fatal car wreck on his way back to Athens after spending the weekend at his parents home in Americus, GA.

Josh could make anybody smile and was a pure joy to be around. He put his all into Special Teams and enjoyed life to the fullest at UGA. It seems so unfair because JW didn’t partake in all the destructive activities in Athens yet has had his life cut off in a freak accident. We as his friends are trying our hardest to not be selfish and trying to trust God and his will. It’s just hard!

The Willis family of Americus and all the people who know and love Josh are in deep need of your prayers in this tough time.

God bless Josh and his family and friends.

It’s a melodramatic title, but when you consider the week that the Georgia men and women had, it rings true. It was a crappy week to be a coach, player, or fan of either Georgia basketball team.

The men’s Wednesday loss at South Carolina wasn’t televised, but a lot more people got a look at the Dawgs on Saturday. Say what you will about Dennis Felton (and this is apparently the time for even the media to start taking gratuitous shots), but Georgia was in great position to beat Kentucky and had dozens of good looks at the basket, even down the stretch. If an open perimeter jumpshot isn’t a quality shot for a starting wing or guard in the SEC, it’s time to cash in the chips.

No, I’m not thrilled with the decision to bench Price. Kentucky did have more success when a post other than Bliss was in the game, and Price probably could have helped that situation. Sundiata Gaines’ comments about Price’s attitude show that Felton isn’t being capricious, but at some point these guys have to enjoy playing the game and coming to work on the court. The team has taken enough hits this year with attrition and injuries to have a player vs. coach stare-off add to the drama.

A Vanderbilt team that struggled to beat Auburn in Nashville limps into Athens this Wednesday. Vandy played great ball to start the season, and they have quality players in the post and on the perimeter. But with a trip to Florida waiting this weekend, Vandy is Georgia’s best chance to stop the losing streak until South Carolina comes to town next week.

SEC Men Power Ranking

1. Tennessee: Tough to win in Starkville, and they did.
2. Florida: Back down to earth after a trip to Arkansas.
3. Kentucky: First road win of the year didn’t come easy.
4. Mississippi State: 2 straight losses, but they host Alabama next.
5. Arkansas: Pelphrey’s team finding their stride.
6. Vanderbilt: Got a shaky win over Auburn to end two-week losing streak.
7. Ole Miss: Say goodbye to the Top 25.
8. South Carolina: Two wins in a row after an upset in Oxford.
9. Georgia: Missed two good chances for wins.
10. Auburn: Upset of Ole Miss looking less impressive by the day.
11. Alabama: Hanging on above LSU.
12. LSU: Only SEC team with just one win.

Lady Dogs

Only Tennessee has more NCAA Tournament appearances than the Lady Dogs, but it became clear over the past week that earning even that annual birthright will be a struggle for this year’s team. Two conference losses leave Georgia at 3-4 halfway through the conference schedule. Without an improbable upset of LSU or Tennessee, 8-6 is the best case SEC finish for the Lady Dogs. That assumes they’re able to win on the road at Arkansas, a team ranked earlier in the season, and win a rematch with Auburn, a team that blew Georgia out by 30 last month.

Arkansas this Thursday is a key game in the season. The Lady ‘Backs were ranked earlier in the year but have struggled to a 2-5 SEC mark, most recently giving South Carolina their first conference win. LSU is waiting for Georgia next Sunday in Baton Rouge. Andy Landers has had only three 3-game losing streaks in his 30 years of coaching, but right now it looks as if they must beat Arkansas to avoid an unprecedented 5-game slide.

SEC Women Power Ranking

1. Tennessee: Win at Duke just another feather in their cap.
2. LSU: Rolling. Defensively dominant.
3. Vanderbilt: Control their own destiny for 3rd place.
4. Kentucky: Big win over Georgia, but still must play LSU and Vandy.
5. Auburn: Hanging in there around .500.
6. Georgia: Reeling, and the SEC is showing no mercy.
7. Florida: Could be a bubble team if they can land a good win.
8. Ole Miss: Win over Bama ends 3-game losing streak.
9. Arkansas: Bad loss to SC drops them to 2-5.
10. Mississipppi State: Best of the bottom group.
11. South Carolina: Recorded their first SEC win.
12. Alabama: Now that South Carolina has a win, Bama’s back in the basement.

Congratulations to Danny Ware, Kawika Mitchell, and the rest of the New York Giants.

The college football blogosphere will no doubt be inundated over the next few days with opinions about what this improbable outcome means for a college football playoff.  Did the 10-6 Giants even belong in a championship game with an undefeated Patriots team?  Is it inevitable that a college football playoff would put a 7-5 conference champ in the position to win a few games and end up playing for all the marbles?  Is the winner of a playoff really the best team?

Other than the fact that I’m a Giants fan, I don’t have a problem with the outcome, and here’ why:

• The Patriots, Cowboys, and Packers had every chance to win the title.  None of the top teams in the league were denied access to the process, and for that reason any debate about the league’s champion ended when Eli Manning took a knee.
• If we accept a playoff, we have to accept the “any given Sunday” risks that come when you actually play the games and let the process play out on the field.  Sports doesn’t follow the scripts, the oddsmakers, or the computers.  An outcome that seems less-than-optimal isn’t an indictment of the process.
• Beating four increasingly-difficult opponents over a month’s time isn’t to be dismissed as merely “getting hot at the right time”. You have to sustain a pretty high level of play over a significant length of time.  In the case of the Giants, that had to be done completely on the road.

On its own, this was an incredible game, and a thrilling finish.  The Manning-to-Tyree pass will take its place among the pantheon of legendary NFL plays, and Eli Manning finally has a legacy of his own. 

In an act sure to go down in history alongside “freedom fries” as bold legislative stands, the Georgia legislature took the time to weigh in on the BCS.

The state House voted 151-9 Friday to urge the NCAA to create a playoff system for college football, adopting a resolution that calls the current system “dysfunctional.”

…The resolution, which now goes to the Senate, calls the BCS system “the greatest disappointment of the 2007 college football season.”

Awesome. Can’t wait to see the outcome of their American Idol vote later this month.

But if the legislature is going to stick its nose into college football, there are much more pressing matters they could deal with such as this abomination they allowed to slip through:

The Lady Dogs found a way last night to make the men’s 56-point performance at South Carolina on Wednesday look like the output of a Tarkanian UNLV team.

Georgia gave up only 47 points to Kentucky…and lost 47-44.

They scored 17 points in the second half, and that includes a garbage layup at the buzzer.

After going up 36-27 with 13 minutes remaining, the team made just one more shot until Ashley Houts’ layup as the clock expired.

Tasha Humphrey scored 20 points for Georgia, but even she was held to just six points in the second half. Kentucky doubled down on the Bulldog star, and Georgia’s perimeter players were not quick enough to make the Wildcats pay for the extra attention paid to Humphrey.

It is impossible to describe just how wretched the Georgia offense was. If it wasn’t missed shots, it was turnovers. Really bad turnovers. Everything from Ashley Houts’ unforced double-dribbling along the sideline to Megan Darrah throwing the ball away on Georgia’s final opportunity to tie the game.

When you’re a successful coach like Andy Landers, watching (and pointing out) the same mistakes over and over is maddening. He reached a breaking point after the game and pulled the team into the postgame media conference to let them hear some very candid and pointed public criticism.

"We don’t fight," Landers said. "I have a hard time correcting mistakes. And quite honestly, our accountability is not really great. All that’s my fault. I’ve got to figure out how to get all that straightened out. We don’t like to be accountable. We’ll call momma. We’ll call daddy. We’ll call you if we think we can get you to agree with me on a bad idea. …I’m an ineffective coach. I’m not doing a very good job."

From what I’ve seen over the past couple of seasons, he’s right to be frustrated with the players. But the scary thing is looking beyond this year. What is this team without Humphrey and Darrah? The program signed a single guard in the fall signing period without much fanfare. There are a couple of post players sitting out this season – one due to injury and one due to transfer rules – but neither seems to be the impact player that Humphrey is. The long-term outlook for the program is another post for another day, but it’s not a pleasant subject, and Landers has plenty to answer for himself.

Getting back to the present, the Lady Dogs have only a couple of days to rebound and get ready for a rematch with Vanderbilt on Sunday. Vandy jumped out to a 16-0 lead and led by as many as 20 before Georgia made a game of it in the second half, getting as close as 6 points before Vanderbilt sealed the 67-59 win. 24 turnovers – including 9 by Houts – did in the Lady Dogs.

Halfway through the SEC regular season, the Lady Dogs must beat Vanderbilt to avoid sinking below .500 in conference play.

Most remember Scelfo as Georgia’s offensive line coach and Jim Donnan’s right hand man up through 1998 when he left for Tulane. I don’t think Donnan was quite the same after Scelfo left. If you believe the chatter, Scelfo was also considered for Georgia’s recent vacancy at tight ends coach, but of course the job went to John Lilly.

Scelfo is coming back to Georgia, but it will be as tight ends coach for the Atlanta Falcons.

The Georgia basketball team isn’t hard to figure out. I wrote a week or so ago that "we know that this team is an off-night from Humphrey and/or Gaines away from an ugly loss." You don’t need to look much further into Georgia’s 62-56 loss at South Carolina last night after seeing that Humphrey and Gaines were a combined 4-of-22. Against a South Carolina team that put recent scares into Florida and Kentucky, I’m surprised that Georgia only lost by six with the shooting as it was.

The news doesn’t get better: it looks as if Billy Humphrey is going to have to tough out the rest of this season with a painful injury that seems to be affecting his head as much as does his knee. A struggling perimeter game gives defenses the chance to pack inside the arc and frustrate attempts to penetrate, create space for post players, or get clean looks at entry passes. If the transition game isn’t working, the halfcourt offense will continue to suffer.

The Jekyll and Hyde nature of this team away from home is something else. I don’t know the extent to which this has been done, but Dennis Felton really needs to follow Mark Richt’s lead and see if something drastic needs to be done to shake up the routine that’s clearly not working. We’re all familiar with Richt’s adjustments during the 2007 season after he sensed a problem with intensity at Tennessee. Of course I’m not suggesting that the basketball team all run on the court after the first basket against Kentucky, and it’s a lot easier to turn around a season when you have the players to do so.

It’s just that with results so skewed, some serious introspection needs to be done into this team’s approach on the road. Felton can’t continue to compartmentalize and say that the defense was generally good and that we played with a lot of fight while nothing gets done on offense for minutes at a time. While I commend him for trying to find a positive after losing, that’s a bit of a red flag to me that the urgency for change isn’t really there. Even if South Carolina was just a case of shots not falling, the offense has been equally inept in other road games at Mississippi State and Tennessee.

Saturday’s game against Kentucky seems like a great chance to get back into the win column. Georgia has yet to lose in Stegeman Coliseum this year, and Kentucky is 0-5 away from Rupp Arena. The Dawgs took one in overtime against the Wildcats last year, and holding serve at home seems to be the only way that the team can keep its head above water this year.

The Senator points us to a Seattle Times series about the 2000 University of Washington football team. The focus today is on a player who had to overcome many things in his quest for a degree, not the least of which were institutional factors that compromised academics.

An offensive lineman exemplified the mind-set of many players on the team. “I was a football major,” he says. “Class was not important to me.”

J.K. Scott, who was a backup quarterback, says: “Most of the talk with the guys, and this isn’t everyone, was, ‘What are the easiest classes we can find?’ For everyone there, it’s football first, and education second, as an afterthought.”

The article (and series) is interesting and pretty damning at times, but it’s naive to think that the portrait we develop from this series is unique to Washington. There isn’t a football program in Division 1 that doesn’t lower its academic standards for football players, and Husky players surely aren’t the only ones even on that campus looking for the easiest path to a degree.

But while we’re talking about institutional approaches to the education of student-athletes, it’s worth noting that the University of Georgia’s “University Council Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics met Tuesday afternoon to plan a meeting with students, coaches and academic support staff to interview them about their academic experiences.”

“The committee proposed questions to ask the coaches and students, such as how many hours were dedicated to the teams per week and how they deal with academic violations,” the Red and Black reported. This event is scheduled for March 27th, and it aims to be a pretty comprehensive survey of athletic programs.

This study comes on the heels of an NCAA study that, not surprisingly, found that most student-athletes consider themselves athletes first and students second. The survey also found that student-athletes spend, on average, over 40 hours a week on their sport – far in excess of NCAA guidelines for supervised practice time.

Consider this thought: Knowshon Moreno might be the lowest-rated recruit among the Georgia running backs on the 2009 team.

It’s not like Moreno was an afterthought as a recruit. He was a heavyweight prospect considering Georgia and Florida. He was rated the #10 back in the nation in the 2006 signing class. That’s pretty damn good, and at this early stage it’s possible to argue that he has outperformed most on the list ahead of him.

The Dawgs lose two solid seniors from the 2007 team, Thomas Brown and Kregg Lumpkin, but let’s look at who’s joining the team over the next two seasons:

• Caleb King, RFr. Injuries to Brown and Lumpkin moved King up on the depth chart for the Florida game, but he was able to preserve the redshirt season. King was rated the #8 back in the 2007 class.
• Richard Samuel, Fr. Because of his versatility (tailback or linebacker), Samuel is ranked the #2 "athlete" nationally in the current recruiting class. He will start out at tailback and is already on campus.
• Washaun Ealey, class of 2009. The Emanuel County star was named the state of Georgia’s player of the year as a junior. He committed to Georgia earlier this week and will likely be rated among the top 5 players in Georgia for his recruiting class at any position.

On paper, it looks like the most impressive set of backs at Georgia since at least the mid ’80s. When you think about the state of the tailback position in 2003 or around the turn of the decade, the upgrade in talent is tremendous.

But recruiting rankings and hype only go so far of course. Brown and Lumpkin were just as heralded coming out of high school: Brown was the #4 tailback in the nation as a high school senior in 2004, and Lumpkin was the #2 back in the nation in the 2003 class. Their careers were full of plenty of positive moments, but injuries plagued both Brown and Lumpkin, and neither was able to separate from the other (or Danny Ware, for that matter). Moreno as a redshirt freshman was able to get the lion’s share of carries over the two seniors from the beginning of the 2007 season.

There are also the implied questions of playing time and rotation. The Georgia offense has struggled over the past few seasons with getting the right back on the field when injury didn’t make the decision for us. It should be pointed out though that some of the better tailbacks in college football lately have split time. Reggie Bush had LenDale White, and Darren McFadden had Felix Jones. LSU won a title in 2008 with a mix of three backs.

It’s entirely likely and reasonable that two or more of these Georgia backs will share carries, but it will be up to the staff to make sure that the right guy is on the field in the right situation. The abundance of talent also opens up the opportunity for creativity. Whether that means two-back sets or increased use of backs in the passing game, spread formations, or direct snaps, the offensive coaching staff shouldn’t be limited by the talent with which they have to work.

UPDATE: There have been some great comments so far. I do agree that many project Samuel to play defense, but we’re going with the news that he will at least be given the token opportunity to start his career at tailback. But as Tommy pointed out, I’m mistaken not to include mention of Dontavius Jackson, Rivals’ #8 running back, who also is already on campus. If Jackson lives up to his billing, that might accelerate Samuels’ move to defense. To be complete, there’s also Carlton Thomas from Florida who will have quite a career as a utility player – think a better Tyson Browning.

If you’re a minor league hockey team in Wheeling, WVa., you probably need all the attention you can get. So the Wheeling Nailers are reaching out to the disillusioned people of West Virginia and will host "Shred Rich Rodriguez" night this Saturday. Bring a picture of Rodriguez to feed into a huge shredder and get a discounted ticket. (A shredder! Get it?)

The promotion doesn’t stop there:

Additionally any fan who wears WVU apparel to the game will receive $2 off their ticket price. Ohio State fans will also receive the discount by wearing their gear to the game to demonstrate their mutual distaste for Michigan.

Any fan caught wearing University of Michigan apparel will be charged double in order to help Rodriguez pay his $4 million buyout to WVU.

If your first name is Rich or your last name is Rodriguez your ticket will be $8.25. If your name happens to be Rich Rodriguez you will get in free. Except, of course, if you actually are Coach Rich Rodriguez then you will be barred from the building and escorted outside state lines.

In the land of the burning couch, I’m sure a few people will show up and be disappointed to find that Rich Rodriguez will not actually be fed through a wood chipper.

One of the biggest question marks for Georgia’s 2008 team is the placekicker.  Four-year mainstay Brandon Coutu is gone, and Georgia is putting their hopes in incoming freshman Blair Walsh from Florida.  Walsh, a first-team USA Today All-USA selection, is profiled in the Banner-Herald today.

Georgia’s last placekicker signed to a scholarship was Andy Bailey, and that didn’t work out very well (to put it nicely).  Walsh seems a bit different if only that he shows the same kind of confidence we saw from Coutu.  Then there’s this from his coach:  “He’s just a very different kid than your typical kicker…he’s an athlete that’s a kicker.”  You can’t say that about many kickers.

With a little hiccup in 2004, Georgia has had solid kicking for years now.  Walsh has the confidence and the leg, but he’ll quickly have the chance to show whether or not he has what it takes to be an SEC kicker.