http://twitter.com/#!/AnthonyDasher1/status/143491899771203584
To close out the 2011-12 season, the MSU football team will take on Georgia at the Outback Bowl on Jan. 2, 2012 in Tampa Bay, Fla., according to a tweet from Executive Director of MSU Alumni Association Scott Westerman.
http://twitter.com/#!/BarrettSallee/status/143468887101546496
Check that, guys. It’s no longer just the Gator Bowl.
If I recall, Vince Dooley’s last game was at the Mazda Gator Bowl. I remember thinking how silly that sounded. But it sure ain’t no TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl. I wonder if Corch will be in attendance?
Update: But wait, there’s more!
Some pre-war links to occupy your time today:
The Big Question against LSU — in fact, the Big Question underlying Georgia’s presence in this game, period — is, were any of those offenses any good? The two best teams on the schedule, Boise State and South Carolina, combined for 70 points; in the meantime, the only other offense the Bulldogs have seen that ranks among the top 60 in scoring is Georgia Tech, which scored 17 last week. At 8-4, the Yellow Jackets finished alongside Auburn (7-5) as the only winners in the entire streak.
“We take pride in protecting Murray, because we never want our best friend to get hit at all,” Jones said. “We treat him just like our little brother — you don’t want nobody bullying on your brother. That’s how we’ve taken it all year — he’s our best friend, he’s our little brother and we try to protect him with our life.”
The SEC will not have a representative in the Sugar Bowl as both LSU and Alabama will land in the BCS title game.
So the only way the SEC could have a representative in the Sugar Bowl is if the Dawgs win on Saturday, right? I don’t know about you guys but, like Marshawn Lynch, I kind of have a sweet tooth. I hope our boys develop a taste for Skittles.
What’s that? They have?
http://twitter.com/#!/crob45/status/142305242439102464
Oh, it’s on now!
Wow. Oklahoma State. Oregon. Oklahoma. Clemson. Maybe they should just let LSU play LSU for the BCS Championship. Les Miles could find a way.
Days like yesterday is why college football will always be better than Pro ball.
There’s a whole lot of assuming in this article projecting the Dawgs to the Cotton Bowl to face Kansas State.
LSU will play heavily in the SEC’s Cotton Bowl representative: if they run the table en route to a BCS title appearance, that will include beating the Hogs on November 26 and Georgia the following week in Atlanta, giving Arkansas two losses and Georgia three. Arkansas would go to the Capital One Bowl in Orlando to play a Big 10 opponent, while the Dogs would head west to Dallas.
The other side of the equation also features a bunch of stuff happening that would allow Kansas State to make the Cotton Bowl. I don’t really follow BIG ?? football so, yeah, whatever. I’ll take your word for it.
Dawgs making it to the SEC Championship game and losing to LSU seems to be the prevailing thought, yeah? If we make it back to the Dome, how much fun would it be to win the game and screw things all up for everyone else?
That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing this projected match up between the Dawgs and Wildcats. My brother-in-law along with other members of his family are all KState grads. This could be a lot of fun for me. Dang, now here I go assuming…
Dawgs247 has got all kinds of interesting notes and quotes up regarding the start of training camp including this exciting one from Aaron Murray:
“That’s probably my favorite speech Coach Richt has given in three years. He was pumped up, energized, motivated. I walked out of the room like ‘Wow.’ I know us players are ready to go, but Coach Richt is ready to go out there and fight someone right now.”
Yeah, I’m smiling just a bit. Coach Richt ain’t the only one in a fighting mood because it’s gloves off for Murray (and Coach Bobo) as well:
“He’s like, ‘You are not wearing a glove. I don’t care if you throw better with it or not. I just don’t want to deal with the media with it,’” Murray said with a laugh. “I was like, ‘All right, coach. I won’t wear a glove anymore.’”
Look, I know that Aaron wearing the glove during the Liberty Bowl didn’t cause us to lose that game. But I can’t say I wasn’t a little glad to read that he won’t be wearing it again.
The year I moved to Memphis, I attended a Tigers football game at the Liberty Bowl. It was the 1996 season and Memphis lost a poorly played game against the Minnesota Golden Gophers. It was such an underwhelming and frustrating experience that I have yet to return to the Liberty Bowl to see another Tigers game.
Well, I went back to the Liberty Bowl yesterday afternoon to see the Dawgs play. Upon finding my seat and taking in the view, I was immediately reminded of that Tigers game years back. But I thought to myself that today is different because I’m going to have a chance to cheer on a real football team. I could not have been more mistaken.
While I did my fair share of cheering, I’m not sure my team held up their end of the deal. I cared. But it didn’t look like the team did. That was about as ugly a loss as I can ever recall seeing. No, wait, there was the South Carolina loss. Oh yeah, also the Mississippi State loss. And I’m still trying to forget the Colorado loss.
“We’ve gotta go back and re-dedicate ourselves to doing what it takes, and that includes every single man, every single coach, everybody in the Butts-Mehre to do what it takes to be a championship team.”
The quote above was given by Coach Mike Bobo after the Dawgs’ completed their first losing season since 1996. I’ve emphasized the last bit of what he said. The last words, so to speak.
Change is coming. We’re seeing some of it now, with new personnel in position in the strength and conditioning program. What other changes to come remain to be seen. But we need to see something.
Go Dawgs!
I don’t know if you guys happened to watch the inaugural New Era Pinstripe Bowl between the Kansas State Wildcats and the Syracuse Orange last night. It was a pretty back and forth game with both offenses seemingly moving the ball at will against the opposing defenses.
With just over a minute remaining in the game and down by 8, Kansas State scored a touchdown and had a chance to tie it up with a successful two-point conversion. However, the refs flagged Wildcats’ receiver, Adrian Hilburn, with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty when he saluted the crowd after making a big play and scoring the touchdown. Instead of enforcing the penalty on the ensuing kickoff, the refs called for the penalty to be carried out on the extra point attempt, essentially making Kansas State have to go for two for the tie from the 18 yard line instead of the normal 3 yard line position. As one would expect, Kansas State failed on the 2-point conversion, was unable to recover an onside kick and Syracuse won the game.
Now, I understand the letter of the law states that a player is prohibited from drawing attention to himself. But this was a simple salute. It’s not like he blew kisses to the crowd or, in what I think might be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen, pretended to strap on an imaginary belt around his waist. Alright. So maybe I’m still a little bitter about something or other.
Besides, Syracuse’s mascot is the Orange. And I hate orange.
Speaking of which, anybody watch the Music City Bowl last night, matching up North Carolina and Tennessee? Also another tight game that came down to a referee’s decision. Oh, wait. Tennessee lost that game.
Well done, Refs.
According to the AJC, Uga VIII will not be prowling the sidelines of the Liberty Bowl due to suffering from an illness. In his place will be Russ, our interim mascot once again. Russ is currently undefeated in bowl games, having presided over last year’s Independence Bowl victory over Texas A&M. Russ hasn’t been our mascot since week 6 of the season, when he passed over the reins to Uga VIII. Let’s hope he isn’t too rusty and is able to keep his bowl game winning streak alive.
Good luck to Russ and get well soon, Uga VIII.
Apologies, first off, as I’d meant to make this post yesterday afternoon. But important, end of the year type stuff got in the way of that so here we are.
Yesterday’s practice was off limits to the general public and I didn’t feel like pressing my luck with my “press pass” so, instead, here are a few more photos I took on my previous visit to a Dawgs’ bowl practice.
As practice began, the team lined up on one sideline and worked their way to the opposite sideline doing all sorts of little hops and high steps along the way:
With that all done, the guys split into two groups on opposite sides of the field with one group practicing punt returns and the other group doing the same with kick off returns. Drew Butler was in top form, thumping several balls high in the air:
Next up, the groups split up to do position drills. I was closest to the receivers and so got a few pictures of Coach Tony Ball running the guys through some route running drills as well as strip drills:
I mentioned in yesterday’s post how impressed I was with Coach Belin’s well-projected voice. Well, Coach Ball ain’t no slouch in that regard either. He was on Israel Troupe for seemingly the whole practice, providing constant encouragement by way of some light and not so light-hearted ribbing.
As I watched each position group practice, I began to notice some of the players who weren’t participating in the day’s practice. First up, Richard Samuel, who pretty much spent the time walking along the track:
I also got to see Quintin Banks hanging around. Quintin, if you’ll recall, decided to end his football playing career after a series of unfortunate knee injuries kept him from performing at a hundred percent for most of his time with the Dawgs. The other seniors on the team took it upon themselves to honor Banks by taking turns wearing his jersey number throughout the season. Very cool.
Here’s a photo of Justin Houston and Carlton Thomas on the sideline between drills.
And here’s one of Alec Ogletree, Brandon Boykin, Bacarri Rambo and Sanders Commings watching the kickoff return drill while Coach Scott Lakatos confers with Jordan Love:
Alright, that’s it for now. I had a great time watching practice and was glad to be able to snap a few photos before my hands froze off. Quite an unfortunate event, really, losing one’s hands to the cold. Which gives me the perfect excuse for why this post may be filled with typoes (in reality, I’m making this post from my iRobot phone so apologies for any grammatical errors).
Go Dawgs!
Year of the Dawg 