Not to bag on an old point...

But I was watching ESPN this morning, and Kiper has us as his #5 team coming back. The reasons? A Defense that loses one starter, and Aaron Murray.

Now...just a little realism.

Our defense, while stout at times, did give up big points against Boise and LSU (probably the two best teams we faced all year).

And Aaron Murray, well....we lost 4 games. In three of them, he had a pick-six and a crucial fumble. Yeah, he throws a bunch of touchdowns against not-so-excellent teams. But, he's really going to need to mature in his decision making over this off-season if he hopes to lead us back to Atlanta and beyond. And sorry, you can't argue on that. He is talented, he is athletic, but there is one thing he isn't - Clutch.

Let's put it this way.... No one is calling the fourth quarter (or overtime) "Murraytime."

More later.

Go Dawgs.

Caleb King to play for Vikings

Yes, it's official - Caleb King is better than a one-legged Adrian Peterson. Peterson tore both his ACL and MCL this week, and former Dawg Caleb King has been signed to take his roster spot.

Good luck, Caleb.

Go Dawgs.

Merry Christmas, Dawgfans!

Sending a hearty Merry Christmas out there to all of the readers who stop by the page. Thank you so much for giving me a forum in which to express my thoughts, and for being responsive to them as well. I feel blessed to be a contributor, and honored that you continue to be entertained and informed by what I do.

Merry Christmas, and may the Dawg New Year be a very very happy one!


GO DAWGS!

For Mr Sanchez, who doesn't believe I am Me...

Mr. Sanchez has now suggested that I am an internet fraud, that I am holding myself out to be "Ben Dukes" while in fact, not being who I say I am.

Now, while it's true that I could grab photos of "Ben Dukes" from the web, from "his" facebook (facebook.com/countrydawg53), from "his" website (www.bendukes.com), from "his" youtube (www.youtube.com/bendukes); and while I could do research on "him", and maybe get a few facts wrong and thus do a poor job of pretending to be "Ben Dukes" while not being "Ben Dukes",

I doubt I could find this picture posted anywhere unless I made it myself:

oops. Guess that's me.

Go Dawgs.

A note on blog censorship...

A couple of days ago, my lil blog was visited by good ol "Mr Sanchez" of Sports and Grits infamy. Now, he apparently took some offense to my mention of their blog in a recent post, when I "implied" that perhaps their blog sometimes utilizes catchy headlines and then fails to deliver with a quality post, or indeed one which even has any real bearing on the title.

I didn't mean to imply this...I meant to say it outright. There's no secret that the S&G boys and I don't see quite eye to eye on many things. Mainly we don't see eye to eye on their apparent thought that it is best to be incendiary as opposed to sensible. Then again, I've been waging the war against idiocy in sports-fandom for some time now, and am fully aware that it is a war that can not be won.

Anyway, I have received a few emails and texts about the back-and-forth between myself and Mr Sanchez, mostly because a few of his posts are missing, having been deleted by the author (Mr Sanchez himself). Now, I was unaware these posts had been deleted, as I am informed via email when posts are made, but not when they are removed. So, I was a bit shocked to learn that he removed them. I don't like censorship - even self-inflicted. So, for those who care...here is the back-and-forth, in its entirety (posted as Comments to my blog, "All 21 of Georgia's Missed Opportunities":

So many clicks. I guess your headline writing still needs work Fat Rudy.
Posted by Mr. Sanchez to This Dawg's View at December 12, 2011 9:38 AM

[Ah, the term "Fat Rudy" - I'm 6'3, 230 lbs...and have less that 12% bodyfat...not sure where the Fat term comes in...but the Rudy part I take as a compliment. Though, it is a bit inaccurate. Rudy didn't dress for a game until the last game of his senior year. I dressed and played in games my first season with the program, and lettered as a Senior while winning team awards as a Junior and a Senior.]

Mr Sanchez - professionalizing irrelevance since 2010!

Posted by Ben Dukes to This Dawg's View at December 12, 2011 9:47 AM

To be irrelevant, we wouldn't matter enough for you to take cheap shots. But then, that's something people learned at UGA when they didn't have the benefit of athletic tutors and ideal scheduling.
Posted by Mr. Sanchez to This Dawg's View at December 12, 2011 5:07 PM

[Deleted, and replaced by]

Maybe that bevy of tutors and easy schedules you get as an athlete made the difference man, but "professionalizing irrelevance"? For a college graduate, you seem woefully ignorant of the meaning of both words in that phrase.
Posted by Mr. Sanchez to This Dawg's View at December 12, 2011 5:09 PM

Took two tries for that one, huh? Nice. A couple of quick things for ya, genius...

1) I know well when I am inventing terms...the usage of that one was quite intentional.
2) Never needed a tutor. AD honor roll, Dean's List every quarter, Academic All-SEC as a senior, and an Honors Program graduate of the Terry College, with a degree in Management Information Systems. So yeah, the brain works just fine thanks.
3) Easy schedules? Sure. If, by that you mean up at 4am for training, in class by 845, early lunch around 1130, then class, then meetings at 2pm, then practice til 6, and then labs, additional class, or campus activities (such as Professional Fraternity, honors society, etc) in the evening. Yeah, thank God I coasted by on that one.
4) You're right - your blog is completely relevant. The complete lack of competent writing is right up the alley of the ignorant masses who would follow you.

Not so long ago, your blog was trumpeting the cause of hiring the likes of Gary Patterson and Dan Mullen. Now, you back Coach Richt and hope readers will forget. You are as fickle as the fanbase and thus will receive no respect.
Posted by Ben Dukes to This Dawg's View at December 12, 2011 6:10 PM

Or the first one went a bit farther than I wanted. Unlike you, we're a little more respectful than you've ever shown to be.

1) Maybe you need to learn what the word "inventing" means too. Since you didn't "invent" anything, those words already existed. With meaning that is almost at complete opposite from how you attempted to use them.
2) Clearly, from the words you use here. So smart you can't even spell the name of your own teammate in the post before this. Academic All-SEC just the once? And playing offensive line, right?
3) I'm sure you did that year round too. With no help, no tutors, nothing, you super Rudy you. Did you have to walk up Baxter hill, both ways, too?
4) For lacking relevance, we sure get plenty of attention from know-it-all sunshine pumpers like yourself.
Your intelligence shows in that ignorant final paragraph too, that completely abandons reality of what we say or how we say it.

Don't get your respect? I'm devastated, however will we proceed.
Posted by Mr. Sanchez to This Dawg's View at December 12, 2011 6:32 PM

I think my favorite part about this last one is #4. I mean, he is absolutely correct with #2 - I did misspell Jon Stinchcomb's name by adding an "h" to his first name. Damnit if I don't screw that one up all the time. And I'm not sure what he's saying about "year round" in #3...is he suggesting that the schedules in the off-season are drastically different? I don't know...from what I recall we had offseason training, followed by spring practices, followed by voluntary workouts after spring practice concluded. I guess in the summertime it wasn't quite as strenuous. Of course, there's the obvious inaccuracy with me playing "offensive line." Then again, I believe this was probably just him being ironic. That, or moronic, but whichever. No, it's #4 that sticks out to me the most...simply because he's either A) Denying that his blog was all for Gary Patterson coming to Athens and delivering his hard-nosed take-no-shit brand of football or that his blog called out Dan Mullen as a quality offensive hire; or B) implying that they were saying all of that tongue-in-cheek as a way of supporting the present regime in Athens. Well, to that I say: Horseshit. The first option is an outright fallacy, and the second would be backpedaling at its best.

On my blog I have theorized and postulated many things over there years. At times, I have been incorrect. In those instances, I have owned up to being wrong. This is called being a "man"...not a "cold-blooded sausage-maker" (whatever that means). Do I expect the "cold-blooded ones" to do that? Nope. I don't. I don't expect them to come out and say, "Hey, maybe we were wrong about Coach Richt." They call me a "sunshine blower", but the fact remains that I take an objective look at the way our team plays football, and the way the program is run. Coach Richt runs a damn good program, and our boys played some damn good football this season. That, my friends, is the uncensored truth.

GO Dawgs.

All 21 of Georgia's Missed Opportunities

Oh man, did that title get you to click? Oh, how tricky of me! I should start writing for Bleacher Report or Sports and Grits! I don't have the missed opportunities here...so you're out of luck. HA!

Seriously, though...I was inspired by a video that is spreading quickly throughout the Dawg Blawgs. The video shows each of Aaron Murray's 33 touchdown throws. I can only imagine the one we'll see in 2014, after his final bowl game (and yes, I mean 2014...because that follows the 2013 season), depicting all 120+ touchdowns from his career. That video will probably sell for 29.95 on EBay. Yay, fans!

But, the video got me to thinking...how close were we? I mean, perhaps it's a video compilation that would have served us better in 2010, when the fanbase en masse was angry with a team it believed to be horribly mediocre, and showing no signs of hope for the future (fanbase was wrong). Still, I'd like to see video clips of every single dropped touchdown, missed field-goal, dropped interception, fumble, interception, etc. I'd like to see someone put together THAT video.

Why?

Because we'd see where we missed. We'd see that if this moment or that moment went the other way, things could be different. This is how teams learn, and it should be how fans do as well. When we were entering the 2nd half of the SEC Title game, my friends were excited about the prospect of possibly shutting the LSU offense down for another half. But, as I've said many times before, the hardest thing for a dominant defense to do is come out and keep that dominance in the second half. The reason for that is the offense is going to make adjustments. As a defense who has held their opponent without a first down, it's going to be very difficult to make adjustments. When nothing goes wrong, what do you change? The question always becomes whether or not you can make your adjustments quickly enough to prevent damage.

In that game, our defense had only 25 yards in which to make adjustments because we fumbled the ball to LSU on the opening possession of the third quarter. That's asking alot. Then, we forced the Defense to attempt to hold ANOTHER short field after a 3-and-out and a huge punt return. We asked too much.

As fans who love our team, it's easy to get very frustrated...but when you go back and look at that game, we didn't lose it in the second half. We lost it on two dropped touchdowns, and at least one dropped interception, all in the first half. But, we forget that. We think only about the way the game was blown apart in the second half....not how we blew it in the first.

So, who's the amazing youtube guru out there with every single game stored on his hard drive? Who wants to compile this very helpful video for us? Anyone? Anyone?

Go Dawgs.

Oh, and if you missed it, I made this post late last night, but it didn't seem to hit all the sites that aggregate Dawg Blawgs. Give it a read.

Crowell and Marshall: Shoulder To Shoulder

In my years on the UGA football team, I met a lot of young men. When there's over 120 players on your team, and there's turnover every season, you're greeted by new faces in the locker room every few months. Some appear in the fall, some appear in the winter...some show up for the first time during the summer. It's not an every-year thing...it seems to be an every-season thing. I met guys my first spring at UGA who were gone before school let out. Some went to greener pastures in places like Oklahoma. Some went to smaller schools to begin working towards a coaching career. Some just gave the sport up altogether. I made some friends in those days, a few that I keep up with. We talk on facebook, we chatter on twitter...and on the rare occasion that I return to Athens, I am always sure to bump into someone at a bar, or at the stadium. I've even run into one or two in Los Angeles from time to time.

We aren't the best of friends. A few of these guys, in fact, may have absolutely hated me. But, when we see each other, we do have the common bond of Bulldog Blood that will always run through our veins. It's more than attending the University, though I don't want to discount the love that so many of the fans hold as a result of that. It's more than simply playing the sport, though playing it at any level definitely gives you perspective on what goes on. No, there is something special about the sweat that drips from you in Butts Mehre. There's something remarkable about the blood you shed on the Woodruff fields. There's something forever changing about your whole self the first time you run from that tunnel in Sanford Stadium and are hit by a wall of sound from over 90,000 screaming fans.

These are the things that MAKE a Georgia Bulldog. You put your heart, your soul, your body on the line - and the guy next to you does the same. John Stinchcomb had a nickname for me - he called me "Duke Nukem"... it was because I was the annoying walk-on who tried to blow him up on every snap in practice - whether we were "full contact" or 3/4 speed. It didn't matter. The way I saw it, I had to go all-out: I was a 230 lb DE. He and some of the other linemen surely tired of it...but I kept pushing. I felt like they hated me.

But, when I trotted onto the field against Ole Miss my senior year, to play some mop-up fourth quarter downs, John yelled at me, "Hey Dukes....Nuke 'em." Funny how that's something that sticks with you. Even those who appear to be your adversaries can be your greatest supporters.

Now, I am not writing this entry to tell you about me. Honestly, my experiences at UGA probably did very little to progress our program. But, I am writing this so that those out there who have already written off Isaiah Crowell and are looking to Keith Marshall as the only possible future for our TB position will take heed. Marshall is going to enroll in January. He and Crowell will go through their first off-season workouts together. Sure, Samuel and Harton and Thomas will have been through it, and will offer their leadership...but I think the relationship between Crowell and Marshall will be the most compelling story of the winter. These guys, who will be in competition for not only a job, but also the admiration of a fickle fanbase, will be shoulder-to-shoulder in drills. They will have to run together. They will have to lift together. They may have to monkey-roll together, I don't really know. What I do know - is they will have plenty of time around one another. This time will be valuable. They will come to learn that when the chips are down, they can count on one another. At some point during the 2012 season, it's going to come down to a moment when one of these guys has to look the other in the eye and say, "Hey - this is why we went through all that pain in January and February. This is why we got up at 4am. This is why we took pictures of all our meals. This is why we worked ourselves to exhaustion - to be right here, right now, with this opportunity. Now, YOU get out there and finish this thing off. I'll get the next one."

The fanbase is creating a competition in its collective mindset, and it is already beginning to suggest that Crowell will crumble under the pressure and leave town. I don't see that happening. I see Crowell fighting to keep his job. I see him working hard in the weight room and on the practice fields. I see him working to become the back he believes he can be...because what he believes he can be is an NFL back, and there's not a better place to be if you want to prove that. Even our third-stringers end up with Super Bowl rings (no, seriously...look it up you'll be impressed). I also see Marshall coming in with the mindset that he can play right away. He wants to split carries, and he wants to be in an offense where he can use his skillset to its greatest potential. He has this at UGA. The fanbase wants to set these guys up as adversaries. In reality, they're teammates - shoulder to shoulder.

Adversaries? They'll face 14 of them - and I'm willing to bet they'll Nuke 'em.

Go Dawgs.