I Am Not Worried...About The Ranking

On Sunday, as I was hoping that somehow everyone favorite statutory rapist Matt Leinart would get into the game against Miami, Georgia's football team ended up dropping again after a win in the polls.  I tried to remember if this has ever happened this early in the season.  I couldn't recall.  I couldn't recall a time where the #1 team drops to #2 after a win.  This week it was from #2 to #3 after #1 USC rolled OSU (over-rated) and then #3 Oklahoma won by 41 to leap frog Georgia.  What did Georgia do this past weekend?  They played their first conference game in South Carolina and won 14-7.  Sure, it was not a stellar game in which they scored 40 points and won by four touchdowns.  It was an ugly win.  Still, it was a win.  In conference against a team that beat them last year on the road on national TV.  Las Vegas expected Georgia to win by seven.  They won by seven.  They just did not get any style points.  In the world of the internet, insipid blogs (like this one), and style over substance teams have to win by huge numbers to get the votes.  And it works.  It worked for USC in the first week and it worked for Oklahoma in week 3.  Georgia got style points in week 2 and they kept their ranking.  I have always been a firm believer that you should not lose your ranking if you keep winning.  Keep winning and you keep your ranking.  However, the rest of the world is in the same hot tub with Leinart and Tony Romo drinking Zimas through a bong.  It does not matter if you just win.  It's not enough.  You have to go Grand Theft Auto on a team and get noticed and you get the credit.  

In the end, am I really worried about being #3 in mid-September?

No.  I am not.  It does not matter if Georgia is #3 now.  It matters whether or not they will be #2 or #1 in mid-December.  So now, I am not worried about where Georgia is ranked.

What am I worried about besides whether Bank of America and Microsoft end up owning every company in the US in the next week or that Ron Mexico will get out of prison and his rights still being owned by the Falcons?   

I am worried about the schedule.   Georgia's schedule.  I knew going into the season that the schedule was going to be very tough.  Tougher than Jessica Simpson's face after taking off her make-up.  Tonight I looked at it again.  And almost dropped my Frosted Flakes mixed with Coors Light on the floor.   This is what I saw:

9/20   at Arizona State

9/27    vs #9 Alabama

10/11   vs  Tennessee

10/18   vs  Vanderbilt

10/25   at  #6 LSU

11/1    vs  #4 Florida (in Jacksonville, armpit of the world)

11/8    at Kentucky

11/15  at #10 Auburn

11/29  vs  Georgia Tech

There is no easy game on the schedule.  Every team is capable of being Georgia on any given afternoon.  But FOUR top ten teams?   Three in less than a month?  LSU, Florida, and Auburn all being road games?  What happens if Georgia wins the SEC East?  Well, probably another game against a top ten school (Auburn, Alabama, and LSU are all SEC West teams).   Georgia may not win any style points against this run of killer squads with killer talent, but at least they will have earned their wins.  They will have played the toughest schedule in the country.  The only schools that compare to this schedule...are other SEC schools.  USC's highest ranked opponent on their schedule from here out is ranked #17 and there are no other ranked teams on the docket.  They even get to play the two best teams in the state of Washington--Washington State (0-3) and Washington (0-3).  Oklahoma has three teams ranked in the top 20 left on their schedule, but all at home.  If Georgia survives with one loss then their ranking should take care of itself.   Winning against a schedule playing five games against top ten teams (if one includes the SEC title game) with only one loss should guarantee them a shot at the BCS title.  In this case, winning will take care of their ranking.  Once strength of schedule is factored into the mix there is no contest....Georgia just can't lose to trap games to Vanderbilt or Tennessee (again).

Now, you will need to excuse me I need to drive to my step-daughter's school (now owned by Bank of America), using my car (owned by Bank of America), and come back to my house (owned by Exxon/Mobile a new subsidiary of Bank of America).

Random Thoughts

I just have some random thoughts about what is happening that has come to my attention. Everything else is just a blur of wine and laxatives.

** The #1 team in college football, Georgia, won against Georgia Southern 45-21. What? There should be a rule. When you are the #1 team in the country playing a Division I-AA school (sorry, that is what I will continue to call it) you should win by at least 42. Did anyone else notice but me that there was no official Las Vegas line for this game? I guess they can't post lines for Division I-AA schools. The line for the Hawaii-Florida game I think was forty two. The Gators won by 46. I should have put money on that one. I was so tempted. The bad news in Athens is that senior starting defensive tackle Jeff Owens is out for the season with a knee injury. This is truly bad news. This is worse than the mass suspensions for meaningless games by the crew of players that got arrested in the off-season...all 80 of them. Owens provides "veteran" leadership on the defensive line and is a solid lineman versus both the run and pass. It will be extremely hard to replace his presence on the line this year.

** Matt Ryan is the starting quarterback in Atlanta for a Falcons team that will not be favored to win a game all year. They get Detroit first up. Not a horrible way to start your career. It's better than playing the Patriots your first game ever. The Lions are favored on the road in this one by three. Definitely take the Lions in this game. You have no other reasonable choice. The Falcons did not have any other reasonable choice in picking Ryan as the opening day starter. What is the point in sending Redman out there? He is not good enough to be the starter for Georgia Southern. Why not send him out there to sink or swim from the very start? He'll get sacked this year 100 times and eventually get PTSD like David Carr and become so shell shocked that he'll never be effective. But who cares? Who cares when you have a guy with a porn mustache running your team. Joey Harrington just iced his "bust" status by being cut from the Falcons. When you are a quarterback and you are cut by the Falcons, your NFL career is over. It's time to play in Arena 2.

** The Braves have gotten so low that the only pitcher they could go out and get was Elmer Dessens. Who is Elmer Dessens? Well, he is a lower than journeyman pitcher who was 10-2 with an ERA of 4.02 this season...in the Mexican Triple AAA league. There was no one else available? Fernando Valenzuela wasn't waiting by the phone? Dessens in his first appearance of the season got lit up for five runs on five hits in a 1/3rd of an inning blowing a save and getting the loss to the worst team in the majors. ERA is now 31.65. Even Barry Zito thinks that ERA is bad. The Braves are now 19 games under .500 and are closer to last place than first. Right now, the Nationals are playing better than the Braves. Now that is saying something. How about bringing up everyone from Richmond (er...Gwinnett) to pitch? That has got to be better than bringing in a retread from Mexico. Not that anyone should have any bad feelings about Mexico or anything...it's only the most corrupt country on Earth.

** Hurricane Gustav is on it's way to Louisiana. The New Orleans city officials, state officials, and the US government are trying so hard to do a better job this time around that it appears contrived. They are making such a public spectacle of showing how "prepared" they are that it is sickening. It is disturbing that as 1.9 million people are evacuating the area, numb to what is happening again three years after Katrina that all the public officials are making as many photo ops as possible so they can be seen as "prepared", "visible", and "ready." Just do your job right. Don't look for photo ops. Just do the job right this time. The worst offender, of course, is President Asterisk who went to FEMA headquarters and shook hands with people in the command center, posed for photos, and gave a news conference. Who came up with that idea? Let's go down to FEMA command and make sure a bunch of cameras are there and distract these people from being able to prepare for a major disaster. Great.

UGA VI Passes Away From A Broken Heart

Beloved UGA VI, mascot of the Georgia Bulldogs athletic program, passed away of heart failure on Friday night at his owner's Savannah home. UGA VI was most noticeably the mascot of the football team who had an air conditioned dog house at Sanford Stadium and first class Delta tickets to road games. He was nine years old. The Bulldogs won two SEC football titles and a football record of 87-27, the most of any previous UGA.

UGA VI has had a very interesting last nine months. Georgia's football program flirted with a BCS Title game bid and eventually landed in New Orleans in a BCS game where they destroyed Hawaii. The basketball team was seeded last in the men's SEC tournament in Atlanta and despite having to play the majority of their games on Georgia Tech's home court due to tornadoes damaging the Georgia Dome they won the tournament by winning four games in three days.

However, I am wondering if UGA VI passed not of heart failure, but of heart break. The Bulldogs baseball team was seeded #8 in the NCAA Baseball tournament and landed in Omaha for the College World Series. Through clutch hitting, stunning come backs, and shut down relief pitching they made it to the final championship series against Fresno State. Georgia went up 1-0 in a come back victory, then it all fell apart. In Game 2, Georgia was up 5-0 and wound up getting whacked 19-10. Then in Game 3, Fresno State pitching game up one run and five hits and won the championship in a stunning upset (Fresno was seeded fourth or last place in their own regional). The loss was deeply heart breaking as Georgia was playing the best baseball in the CWS and was up a game and 5-0. I wonder that this was just too much for poor UGA VI to take. A few days later, he was gone.

Soon a UGA VII will be revealed. UGA VI will have a service in a few days in Athens and be buried at Sanford Stadium along with all his predecessors. One hopes the UGA VII's run will be as fruitful. UGA VI, DGD!