Georgia great, but it's still easy to doubt Dawgs
Angry Florida just one of many obstacles to national title coming to Athens
Sean Gardner / ReutersCornerback Prince Miller, right, and the Georgia Bulldogs have their eyes set on winning the school's first national title since 1980.
OPINION
By Cary Estes
NBCSports.com contributor
updated 2:52 a.m. ET Aug. 9, 2008
There is an old southern colloquialism that states, “That dog won’t hunt.” Though when spoken in its native tongue, “dog” often comes out as “dawg.”
The saying basically means that a plan which looks good on the surface actually is unlikely to succeed when examined closely. Any ol’ hound dog in the south is expected to be a good hunting dog. If you have one that can’t sniff out the prey, well, that dawg won’t hunt.
The popular contention in college football this season is that the Georgia Bulldogs — or “Dawgs, as they are affectionately called by their rabid fan base — will be in the hunt for their first national championship since 1980, when a freshman tailback named Herschel Walker was painfully introducing himself to linebackers throughout the Southeastern Conference.
A number of preseason prognosticators, including NBCSports.com and the preseason coaches' poll, have the Bulldogs ranked No. 1 in the nation, and nearly every poll has them in the top three. And why not? Georgia returns 17 starters from a team that finished ranked No. 2 in the nation last year. That total doesn’t even include sophomore tailback Knowshon Moreno, who started only six of 13 games last season but still rushed for 1,334 yards and is considered to be a legitimate Heisman candidate this year.
So it came as something of a surprise July 25 when the scribes gathered for the annual SEC Football media days didn’t vote the Bulldogs as being even the best team in their own division. That honor went to the Florida Gators, and it wasn’t even close. The Gators received approximately twice as many Eastern Division first-place votes (45 to 23). In addition, the media placed five Florida players on the All-SEC first-team, compared to only two for Georgia (Moreno and linebacker Dannell Ellerbe).
All told, a mere 26 percent of the voters had Georgia winning the SEC championship, which would seem to be a prerequisite for winning the national title. Florida was the choice among more than half the voters.
What in the name of Vince Dooley is going on here? Why do so many people seem to believe that while Georgia might have the look of a national champion, when it comes right down to it, these Dawgs won’t hunt?
Informal discussions with several participants at SEC media days revealed three basic theories as to why Georgia fans should keep a tight leash on their expectations this season:
Schedule is too difficult
This was by far the most popular explanation as to why Georgia will come up short this season. To say the Bulldogs look good on paper depends upon which piece of paper you’re looking at — the roster or the schedule. The roster looks like an undefeated team, but the schedule has 9-3 written all over it.
The Bulldogs open with Division I-AA powerhouse Georgia Southern, which will be itching to knock of their in-state big brother and become this year’s Appalachian State. That will be followed a few weeks later by back-to-back road games against South Carolina (which beat Georgia last year) and rapidly improving Arizona State. And then once they return home, the Bulldogs will face Alabama and Tennessee, who aren’t exactly the dregs of the conference.
But the kicker comes near the end of the season when the Bulldogs start touring the Southeast like they’re the Allman Brothers Band. On successive weekends from Oct. 25 to Nov. 15, Georgia will play at LSU, vs. Florida in Jacksonville, at Kentucky and at Auburn. Those four teams went a combined 38-15 last season.
“Our state of mind going into every game is that it’s going to be a 60-minute war. If we think it’s going to be anything different, we’re in trouble,” Georgia coach Mark Richt said. “I mean, I’m thinking of what plays we’re going to call in an overtime period before the game even starts. We know they’re all going to be tough.”
Too tough, the thinking goes, to make it through without at least two losses. And is a two-loss team really going to win the national championship for the second consecutive year? Unlikely.
Expectations will be too great
Georgia supporters are as fanatical as any college football fans in the country. After all, where else are you going to see thousands of grown men barking as they wander the streets? But that support has not been rewarded with a national title in nearly three decades. During most of that stretch, the Bulldogs were not even a serious contender for the crown. Beginning in 1984, they have had at least two losses every season except once (13-1 in 2002).
Even last season, despite finishing No. 2 in the country, Georgia was able to operate without excessive hype and pressure. The Bulldogs picked up their second loss of the season on Oct. 6, and it was a 35-14 pounding to Tennessee. After that, nobody considered Georgia to still be in the championship hunt. The Bulldogs then quietly rolled off seven consecutive victories and rose to No. 2 when teams ranked ahead of them kept stumbling near the end of the season.
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