I'll do some sort of recap probably Tuesday night. It's too late tonight. I'm too annoyed and I've got too much going on in the morning.
If you're looking for a preview of my thoughts...
Pretty hard to defend 8 guys with 6.
NOTE: Before you read the comments section on this thread please note. MOST of the jackass "UGA SUCKS!" comments on here are from Tech fans directed to this site by a link that "Chris from Indy" posted on some hooptie web site that his mom let's him run out of their basement. The WVU fans who post here were by and large classy. And by Jackass, I'm not referring to Nathan or Dan. Specifically for the Techies...you would KILL to have had the opportunities that Georgia's fans have. The Sugar Bowl is so far beyond your reach that it's ridiculous.
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35 comments:
Great win for WVU! Richt must go!! Big East team beats an SEC team AT HOME?!?! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH...UGA SUCKS so bad that it swallows!!
Chris in Indy
Oh yea, nice prediction too. 27-17 IN THE FIRST HALF, ya shoulda said!! One sided offense?! HAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH A friggin frosh dropped a 202 spot on you-HAHAHAHAH!!!
LOL!!!! No team from the Southeast can win in the Dome! First, Miami...then, the Falcons...now, the Dawgs! They're burning furniture up in WV as we speak!
hey dumbass - UGA and LSU won in the Dome within the last month.
Man where was our secondary? Talk about a non factor all night. Greg Blue might as well have stayed in Athens. What has been one of our strongest areas all season was MIA last night. I don't know how many times he came flying up and missed a tackel or worse just ran into a pile of people missing the ball carrier all together.
I think Richt needs to consider banning all subscriptions to the AJC. Our D looked like they let all the talk get to them and thought they could just show up and win. They really had no awnser all night for the WV running game.
That fake punt made me sick at the end, but we set ourselves up for that all night long. Everytime they punted everyone would drop back except for one guy pretending to rush the punter.
I guess the way to look at is to think back to August. If you told me we'd be 10-3 with and SEC championship I'd have called you crazy. One bad quarter of football isn't enough to ruin a great year. But it still stings this morning.
I can't help but wonder if LSU would have beaten WVU. Judging by their MANHANDLING of Miami, my guess is that their defense would've stopped the Mountaineers. Too bad we'll never know.
I sure as hell loved the looks on the faces of all those redneck idiot UGA fans during the game, like they couldn't even comprehend what was happening.
Clearly all of these anonymous posters who are enjoying the WVU victory are representing schools that did not make it to a BCS Bowl and maybe did not even make it to a bowl whatsoever. Or they are in junior high school. Either way, they will be back to playing cyber world domination games in a few hours and we won't hear from them again for at least 9 months.
Great job turned in by WVU. Nobody really saw it coming, but they have a few all star athletes that are just f'ing fast and talented. They executed well and had great determination. I don't really see too much shame in it. At least our kids did not quit. The only sad part is that we still do not know how to defend the rolling punt formation. That needs to change this offseason or no one will ever punt against us again.
West Virginia will be a good team with those young stars there and a great head coach. They will be back in the BCS for at least two more seasons IMHO.
We have the SEC hardware, so next Septemebr and new banner will be unfurled in Sanford. I'll take it.
Go Dawgs.
Hamp Tanner
Hunkerdown Dawg
Georgia's Most Wanted
Sonny Perdue had to update the list this morning in light of events over the past week. The state of Georgia as a whole didn't come off too good, at least in a football sense, to say the least.
Wow - what a game. So out of character for the Dawgs (the Vols have done this 1st half layover quite a few times over the last few years). I was disappointed for the SEC as we so often diss the Little East. Awaiting your analysis now. Two games against the famous "Spread" and Dawgs are 0-2.
Way to go Mountaineers! TO HELL WITH GEORGIA!
I'm with Tennvolchamp. I'm a little concerned about our inability to adjust to the spread offense. At least we still have one more year of Chris Leak before Myer brings in someone who can run the offense. Watching him run against Iowa was just sad. It was like he wanted to run and be effective, but just couldn't do it.
Hmmmm, silly Duhgs can't spell. There's no R or S in UGA.
let's face it guys... you were overated from day one.. this was one of the weakest years on record for the SEC, and you won it. "We didn't expect to get this far" quote the bulldog faithful, and you wouldn't have but for the weakness that surrounded you! Last night you were beaten by a better team. You barely squeaked by SC, Arkansas scared you to death, Tech but for the grace of a pass caught(in the end zone by you) and a sudden brain jolt by your defensive back saving a Tech last second TD, that would have sent you into overtime,and possibly beaten you, is your season..
your luck ran out at FLA and AUBURN,, so face it, a mediocre year, championship or not...
as for Richt, I could read his mind, the whole game,, this is what he was thinking...
"why won't Bowden just go ahead and quit,, how much will they offer me...how will I pretend to hate to leave GA.., I know I can only get my National Championship ring through the Noles...how long will it take....?"
just face it!
I just love the turd-witted Tech fans who pop up after every Georgia loss with the mantra "OMG Richt is going to bolt for FSU, just you wait!!11!!!11" Whatever helps you sleep better at night, dorks. You just keep a-wishin' and a-hopin' for that while Richt sticks around, pounding you and your bush-league program further and further into irrelevance with each passing year.
look there is a thing called class, all these asshole west virginia fans do not have it, its one thing to talk the trash before a game, everyone does that, but after the game, you should just bask in your win, not another teams loss, it was a great game, very entertaining right to the end, exclude the first quarter, and we outplayed them, obviuslly richt ajusted to the west va defense, our d cordinator did not adjust well enough... richt is a great coach, and i hope he is around for a long long time, i will miss shockley, all there is left to say is that it was a great year, GO DAWGS 2005 sec champs, we will be back, my girl said it best last night as i was mad as anything, she was like, dont act like that its stupid, look at the year we had, look at the players that made this year special, we won the SEC, your still a dawg, i'm still a dawg... and its true man, GREAT YEAR everyone, i'll see yall in athens on a beautiful fall day next year, win or lose i'll still be in my seat yelling go dawgs...
once a dawg, always a dawg
how sweet it is
As a Tech fan, I'll take a "mediocre" conference championship over getting embarrassed in a bowl game on the left coast. We have absolutely no room to trash talk.
Yep, it was definitely a weak SEC that saw its conference runner-up hammer Miami 40-3. Overrated? Let's save that talk for Big 12 or Big Ten my friend.
Georgia is a very good football team that simply got outplayed by a very good football team in West Virginia. They wanted it more, had a better game plan and won the game. You take away two costly turnovers in the first half, and maybe that doesn't happen.
Still you can't take anything away from West Virginia. They're good and they won the game.
But here's my thing ... why is this a weak year for the SEC? Is it weak because Florida and Tennessee didn't go 10-1 and 9-2? Is it weak because the competition is more solid from top to bottom?
See, I don't buy for one second the argument the SEC is down. That's just ESPN's way of justifying leaving Auburn out of the national title game last year and why Tennessee is struggling.
LSU, Auburn and Georgia all had excellent seasons, and Florida closed strong (beating SEC champion Georgia, ACC champion Florida State and winning its bowl game). Plus, South Carolina is going to be impressive in the next few years once the Gamecocks can recruit some defensive players not named Ko Simpson.
Who's better? The ACC? Outside of Virginia Tech (who has this mysterious habit of vanishing in big games) and Miami, who is credible in that conference? The Big 10 was without a win heading into yesterday, while the Big 12 is still the saddest excuse for a conference ... well outside of the Pac-10.
There's a reason teams like Southern Cal, Oklahoma and Texas are always in the national title hunt, and it's because they get to beat up on a soft schedule all year long and cruise into the bowl season. Teams like Georgia have to play South Carolina, Tennessee, LSU, Florida and Auburn, and going unbeaten through a stretch like that doesn't happen often (again, see 2004 Auburn being robbed).
Oh ... and Richt going to Florida State? Absolutely no way. There's a much better chance he goes to Miami when they can Larry Coker in the next two years. If he goes to Florida State, he'll always been in Bowden's shadow. So he's either at Georgia for the long haul (where he's making quite a nice name for himself, thank you) or he's heading to his alma mater.
i know why they say, every dawg has his days, cant win every we play, but you know we're gonna have our days, we'll be singing, GLORY GLORY TO OLE GEORGIA, O GEORGIA HAIL TO THEE- corey smith song "every dawg"
i love the DAWGS. i love DJ SHOCKLEY, AND I LOVE MARK RICHT
Sagarin says the SEC is 5th out of the 6 BCS conferences, and that seems about right.
1 BIG TEN
2 ATLANTIC COAST
3 BIG 12
4 PAC-10
5 SOUTHEASTERN
6 I-A INDEPENDENTS
7 BIG EAST
Teams like Texas and USC are in the MNC hunt because they are really good, not because of some fake "soft schedule" excuse. The SEC isn't (and hasn't been for a couple of years) as strong as the crazy southern fanbase has thought it was - every objective ranking sees it that way. The bottom of the league is very, very bad and the OOC scheduling is bordering on ridiculous (though Richt is changing that at UGa).
I do expect the SEC to be better next year, but people claiming "OMG SEC SO ELITE !!11!!1!" obviously aren't watching the game around the country as a whole. And yes, 3-3 in bowl games with AU and UGa getting punked it just some further proof.
As for Richt to FSU - count me as a Tech fan who never wants to see that. I'd much rather he stay at UGa.
sigh... It scares me to think that some of the people responding might be mistaken for WVU fans. I didn't take kindly to your description of a WVU fan, but I understand. I mean, if a game has 70,000 people and 10 burn furniture, while all the others celebrate the win and drive home - who is the news going to cover?
Anyway - it was a great win for WVU, and I think, more importantly the Big East. When you are dealing with guys that age, there is a lot of emotion. 3 weeks of being told that you can't win and don't deserve a BCS bid can do a lot for motivation. Also hearing things like "we're going to show those freshmen SEC football" can motivate.
The fact is, 7 or 8 out of 10 times they play, UGA wins - and I think that the majority of WVU fans never, for a second, thought it was over at 28-0.
WVU has a unique rushing attack as White and Slaton are so fast, and they use a lot of misdirection that even the very slightest hesitation can be enough for them to get an opening.
I don't know much about Coach Richt, but he and the team seemed to be a class act, and though in losing, should be proud of the character they showed in almost mounting a historical comeback.
It was a Cinderella season for us too - losing Rasheed Marshall and Chris Henry and most of the OL... this was a "rebuilding year." I would have thought you crazy if you told me we'd get to the Sugar Bowl let alone win it.
Most exciting bowl game so far. Good show!
now thats a classy wvu fan, thanks for the remarks, and your right man, it was a great game, and yes mark richt is a classy guy, great man,great christian, and the team as a whole are classy... you my friend just showed alot of class as well...
NOTE: almost EVERY SINGLE jackass comment in this section was written by a Tech fan.
WVU fans don't follow us closely enough to comment on the GT game.
Most of the Nerds found us via the a link that "Chris in Indy" put on some web site his mom let's him host on a server in his basement.
The WVU fans around me were nothing but class post-game.
Sagarin is an idiot. The Realist's rankings for this year, which at least have some reasonable basis for the conclusions drawn are as follows (pending the outcomes of the Orange and Rose Bowls):
1) ACC
2) Pac-10
3) Big 12
4) SEC
5) Big 10
6) Big East
The Big 10 is 6-8 (again, pending the outcome of the Orange Bowl) against teams (including Notre Dame) that finished their conference play with at least a .500 record. That is to say, the better half of each conference. There is no way that they have been the best conference this year. They can't even finish at .500 in that category. The Big 10's wins of note are Notre Dame (2x), South Florida, at North Carolina, Rutgers, and Auburn. So what exactly have they shown that amounts to a #1 conference ranking For comparison, the SEC's wins are at Arizona State, at Georgia Tech, Florida State, Miami, Texas Tech, and Iowa...and I consider the SEC fourth best.
The ACC is 9-5. The Pac-10 is 5-3. The Big 12 is 6-4. The SEC is 6-5. The last two bowls will go a long way in determining the best conference this year, but it's easy to see what is going on. So how does Sagarin make his rankings? Based on what the Gameday crew says? Does he pull them out of a hat? I don't get it.
I felt I watched the best Bowl game by far. Georgia came back after being down 28-0. Lots of praise to come back after the first 16 minutes. I am a WVU fan, and it is is true....8 times out of 10 Georgia probably wins. You cannot prepare for speed. i ahve heard that quote 100 times watching football. Georgia underestimated just how fast our team reall was. They are too smart to do that again if they played a week from now. Hats off to Geaorgia for scaring me to death....but to be honest, nobody in your right mind goes for it with 1:38 on the clock on 4th and 6 from mid field. Crazy. People who wrote this game off as hohum missed the greatest bowl game of the season, I thought. I watched 2 classy teams play football, not showboat and trash talk the night away. Great job, future is bright for both teams.
Thw WVU fans sitting near me were good fans and were polite and gracious. It was a great spectator game. Too bad we lost.
Misery loves company, evidently. I was pretty sure most of the GT idiots had been hiding in our holes the last week, but I guess a few snuck out after last night.
For the record, yes - I'd love for GT to lose 38-35 in a Sugar Bowl, it's been a while since we've been in a game that big. Doesn't mean that I didn't find it sweet to watch Georgia struggle - if nothing else it cuts down the trashtalking a couple of notches during the offseason, and UGa fans had been unbearable the past couple of days.
btw - gotta love those 2* high school studs winning a BCS game. Can recruiting rankings ever be close to right?
Recruiting rankings are basically designed to project how someone would fit into a conventional pro style offense.
They don't factor in a guy like White playing QB. It would be like if FSU had left Peter Warrick at QB. Or if UGA had left Champ there.
Do you really think that the issue was athletes last night? I don't. I think it was scheme and execution.
My biggest question is...how on EARTH did WVU get such a physically dominating push from the shotgun...a finesse set.
That's what I'm eager to go back and look at tonight.
Caveat - that's not to say that the RB and QB weren't blazing fast or to take anything away from them.
I thought the athletes were about even (HOLY CRAP SLATON IS FAST), but the WVU kids were barely recruited nobodies according to scout/rivals - who "supposedly" shouldn't have been similar to kids UGa gets.
I thought WVU was the best executing team I've seen all year, they had almost machine like efficiency in their execution. It was awesome to watch from a purely fan perspective. Rich Rodriguez is a hell of a football coach.
WVU and their speed was a big surprise to EVERYONE itn eh country except to those who have WVU season tickets and the teams we beat this year. And for Virginia Tech, they do not beat us if Whtie and Slaton are playing and we do not turn it over at their twenty three times....Georgia put the fear of another WVU let down in our minds but Rich's fake punt call was the play call of the year...Nice comeback Dawgs, Beat Georgia Tech by 50 next year...! and someone acknowlege that WVU just may have some SEC speed itself...
Go EEEEERS!!!!!
I don't think it was necessarily an even matchup, athlete-wise, as has been indicated here. I think that West Virginia had two absurdly fast athletes in White and Slayton, and those guys can just flat-out fly. Combine that with excellent execution on their part and you're going to have some success.
But across the board, Georgia has significantly better athletes. And that was obvious every time the Bulldogs had the ball. The receivers beat the West Virginia DBs every time, while Georgia's offensive line manhandled their defensive line. The Mountineers jumped out early and held on for a win. It was a great game on their part.
With regard to the SEC's strength, I'm still just not sold on how weak it was. Granted, Tennessee being down did hurt, but I can't fathom the Big 12, Big 10 or Pac 10 being stronger top-to-bottom. If you're a coach, who would you rather face week-in and week-out ... Baylor, Kansas State and Missouri or Auburn, LSU and Arkansas? How about Oregon State, Stanford and Arizona versus Florida, South Carolina and Ole Miss?
It's something that's difficult to quantify, which is why I think much of the talk of the SEC scheduling going 'soft' on its out-of-conference opponents is nonsense. If you're Texas - with only one real test on your schedule in Oklahoma - you can afford to put Ohio State on your slate. If you're LSU - with Tennessee, Florida, Auburn and Alabama on tap - it doesn't make much sense to squeeze in a UCLA or Michigan. It's good TV, sure, but you're going to get your lumps down the road.
I guess let's think of it this way with regard to the Texas and USC analogy ...
If Texas had played Auburn, LSU, Alabama and Georgia in the regular season - on top of its non-conference showdown with Ohio State - do they go 12-0? We won't really know, but I can tell you it'd be a much tougher hill to climb than beating up on Baylor or Kansas.
Is Texas a ridiculously good team? Of course. I think they're going to beat Southern Cal tomorrow. But my argument is that there are plenty of very talented teams in the SEC and such balance makes it very difficult to go unbeaten these days and get the opportunities Texas and Southern Cal have (which, again, makes what Auburn did last year all the more impressive).
And I'm not just talking up the SEC here. Think of the ACC which had Virginia Tech. The Hokies are, in my mind, one of the country's top four teams. But it's just too hard to run the table when you've got to play West Virginia in a non-conference contest and then Miami, Virginia, North Carolina State and Florida State.
The Big 10 is typically up there as well, but I think they were down this year too. Missouri never lived up to its potential, Michigan battled injuries and Michigan State imploded. Aside from two very talented teams in Penn State and Ohio State, it's a tad thin over there.
I'm a UGA season ticketholder who was at the game. First, I thought the WVU fans were very gracious and a good group of diehard football fans. They acted no differently than us Dawg fans in terms of "give and take" banter and there was a lot of good natured fun between both sides. Second, WVU played a great game and their QB/RB can both flat out fly! UGA wasn't prepared to play and was outcoached on defense and special teams (at least on the fake punt). I agree with many of you that our defense failed repeatedly to adjust and make plays. Our LB play was horrible - they were often beat to the outside by WVU's backfield and in the few instances when they did put themselves in a position to make a play, they often missed the tackle. Also, not to take anything away from WVU, but they only had 3-4 pass routes (flanker screen, swing pass into the flat, etc.) and weren't much of a passing threat, so I have to wonder 1) why were we playing so much zone, which gave them the cushion to complete their short passes and 2) why were we playing a 2 deep safety formation on defense, which put us at a disadvantage in the box against the run? It took us 2.5 quarters to realize that if we match-up man-to-man on their 3 WR's and only use 1 safety, we could bring 2 more guys into the box, which really started to slow down their running game. Unfortunately, after briefly using this scheme, we switched back to our standard formation for much of the remainder of the game and once again had trouble stopping the run.
I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing that if Van Gorder were still our DC, that we would've been this "soft" against the run - not just against WVU, but almost all year long against, AUB, ARK, FL, KY, etc. This wasn't the first time that we've had trouble stopping a team with a strong running game. Considering the d-line will be our thinnest area next year, I'm very worried if we don't implement a better defensive scheme.
As a WVU alumni and fan who was at the game, I'd like to say that this was a great game. That first quarter made it look like it might not be, but when UGA started their comeback, I knew it was going to be a long night.
It was a good game, and for the most part, our reception from Georgia fans was better than I was led to expect (I'm not a huge fan, and rarely go to games; I only went to this one because several of my friends were going and they invited me along).
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