In boxing, there is a type of fighter called a "gatekeeper". He's capable and has skill. He might have contended for championships during his career. But, each such fighter has serious flaws that will always keep him from a title shot. Instead, when promising young fighters come along, the gatekeepers welcome them to serious fights. If the promising youngster beats the gatekeeper, he continues to close in on a title shot. If not, he looks for work down at the docks.
Is this not exactly what Georgia has been the past five years? A team that the up and coming play to gauge their progress toward the elite? Boise State failed in 2005. West Virginia passed. The Pokes failed in 2007 and so did Hawai'i. Alabama passed with flying colors last year. Maybe Okie State passed last Saturday.
Maybe it is just the oddities of our new scheduling philosophy, but it seems that we play a lot of teams about to emerge on the national stage. If they beat us, then they are roundly hailed by the national media. If they lose, they are forgotten. West Virginia went on to top ten finishes in 2005-2007 and got as close to the national championship as we did in 2007. Bama went on to a BCS bowl last year and look like they are on track for a similar result this year. Time will tell about Okie State, but the breaks are falling their way so far this season (Bradford, Gresham).
Quinton
29 comments:
sorry, this just makes me chuckle:
From da blog, Nov. 2006 (was looking up old posts about our victory over AU-- one of my very favorite games to have attended in person):
"SicemDawgs also has the unofficial 2009 schedule up (without the OSU game). According to SicEm, we had originally scheduled Appy State as our opener in 2009. Maybe that's an error, or maybe it means we're dropping a Div I-AA team! Or maybe it just means we're going to fill the week before ASU with a different Div I-AA team. Regardless, the 2009 home schedule looks awesome with games against Arizona State, LSU, Auburn and South Carolina.
For those worrying about overscheduling...
Oklahoma State and Arizona State are basically the South Carolina Gamecocks of their respective conferences. Other than the Jake Plummer and Barry Sanders years, they're usually good for a 5-7 wins with an occassional 9 win season. It's the perfect non-conference match-up.
KUDOS to the Athletic Department for giving us some solid games. -- PWD"
The sentiment seems so timely. Oh how thing have changed...
Anyone out there thinks that Houston upsets Okie State this weekend? Enjoy your week in the sun, Cowpokes
Yeah, but I could only think sitting there in that stadium in the 4th Qtr...why in the world are we playing this game?
Nightmare scenario. Oklahoma St. is really, really good and all the problems we think we have were more about them, then about us. We begin to get on a roll, lose to LSU, beat Florida and beat Bama in the Dome for the SEC, finishing 11-2. Ohio St. and Texas both go 11-1 & 12-1, respectively, and we head to N.O. for another overmatched Sugar Bowl opponent. Boy, we'll look stupid then for scheduling that game. I'm over the non-conference games. We've got one on Thanksgiving weekend that's pretty big every year.
Q- your best (and most depressing) post ever.
@sUGArdaddy:
I would much rather play good non-conference teams than cupcakes. A plus from the Ok. State game is that we played a good team and exposed a lot of problems with our team. If we had played Tenn. Tech or Jacksonville St., we would have won the game and not had as much to work on. We would've been over confident going into the SC game. At least this way, coaches and players should know where they stand and what needs to be done to improve. Hopefully. Some of the quotes after the game don't give me the feeling that everyone was watching the same game, however.
Regardless, we were never going to win the NC this year. Playing cupcakes in non-conference wasn't going to change that.
Just think if this team had beat Tenn. Tech Sat. and then had SC this Sat. It would be the same team with the same issues only they would be hidden by over confidence based on a win over a nobody. At least now we can start Conference play with a sense of reality.
WOW well said Q, hurtful as it is.What can/will be done to change that image?Does the fact UGA isn't thought of as "physical" enough play into it?
Quinton,
Certainly agree with your post, but I believe you left out the ultimate team that treats us as the Gatekeeper-the Turds.
We singlehandedly kept them relevant during the Zook years by blowing games when we had vastly superior teams.
We had the chance to knock them back far enough from prominence that a guy like CUM could not come in and instantly dominate. Unfortunately, those bed wetting may end up being the sending of our program back to 1994.
I guess I would rather be the gatekeeper than the Brooklyn Brawler.
Oh, and by the way, Petrino says in the Arkansas papers that they have been preparing for us all summer.
We must win Saturday. We must.
Houston over OKST? Surely you jest...
Frankly, I'm not sure why folks just accept we got beat by a better team.
Cristine,
What I said was right. They are usually good for 5-7 wins a year.
It's just a bad break that they got really good.
"Gatekeeper" program. Damn, as painful as it is true.
@sUGArdaddy, because a good game is a good game. I'd rather watch us play a slew of tough matchups and end up in a lesser bowl than get screwed over for another national title shot and get dumped in the Sugar Bowl with an over-the-hill Florida State or a never-was Hawaii as a reward for playing crappy games all season. We're better off making what we can control as exciting as it can be.
How do we change that image? Keep doing what we've been doing (winning 9-11 games a year) and start beating Florida.
Been saying this for years.
We're good, but beatable.
Not intimidating. Not a pushover.
To me it's why we seem to get every team's toughest game.
The "gatekeeper" theory is nice in this state of post loss self-pity. But I don't think it holds water.
First, we didn't act as a springboard to some level of national prominence for WVU. Yes, we validated that they had a good team in 2005. In 2006 they had the same team and ended the season in the top 5, while we struggled with a freshman qb. In 2007 WVU finished in the top 10, but we finished ahead of them. Last year WVU didn't finish in the top 25 (maybe in one poll). This year they are not ranked. I don't see any level of sustained success or dominance coming from WVU.
Boise State also didn't disappear after we beat them down in 2005. Just ask OU about the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. This year is more talk of a BCS game for them.
So what your left with is Bama and OK St. Maybe OK state is good this year. Who knows how they will be in 3-4 years. Maybe once they lose Robinson, Bryant, Hunter and Cox, they will drop off like WVU once White, Slaton, Coach Rod left.
What UGA is a good team pretty much year in and year out - and I have no doubt this year will END UP the same. So yes, when someone beats us, they are usually good. But there have been years when we have lost to UT or SC and they didn't "springboard" into the national title picture. Neither did Vandy or UK in 2006.
I see UGA doing what Texas did, hang around as a good to very good team, recruiting like hell, until it comes together for the MNC. Yes, it has taken CMR longer than Mack Brown (unless you count MB's stint as head coach at UNC, too), but they'll get it. I AM frustrated with the comments about the coaching confusion and lack of game plan from this past week - not what you expect from the longest tenured SEC coach.
So, in sum, I disagree with the post.
Anon, Q is right on with this one.
West Virginia was widely believed to be a paper tiger before that bowl victory. The win legitimized the program, the coach, and the Big East.
Boise State was written off as a novelty act after their undressing between the hedges. It took the Fiesta Bowl miracle for them to regain any respect.
Hawaii's Sugar Bowl appearance became a punchline.
Oklahoma State was so widely disrespected after 2007 that almost everyone was picking Georgia to go on the road with a new QB and two departed first rounders and pick up the win.
Why would we want OK State to lose this week to Houston?? We should want them to beat the asses off (or beat, at the very least) every team they play. Just like what could have happened with AZ State last year, if we schedule non-conference games -- and LOSE -- they better be to good teams. It certainly doesn't hurt recruiting as much as it could by losing to a crappy team. So for the rest of the year in the Big 12, Go Pokes! I hate everyone else in the Big 12 anyway.
Like Valley Dawg said earlier, we are in a much better position to start the inevitable improvements having lost to the Pokes than beating the pants off Tenn. Tech or Random Directional University -- Tennessee will be in a for a surprise this and next week if WKU was really that bad, letting Crompton throw 5 TDs when he threw 4 all of last year!
Hopefully Fabris pulls his head out of his ass, Cox is over the flu, the receivers put some more glue on their hands (as well as the LB's and secondary), and Bobo stops smoking whatever the hell he started after the first drive last week. If 75% of this happens, we can beat the Chickens this week.
Ditto on wanting OSU to win this week. I want'em to be Big 12 champs. They weren't a-holes in victory and their losing will do nothing to help the public perception of our loss. GO POKES! (or whatever they say)
you say "gate keeper" I say stepping stone.
Great article! We (my buddies and I) have been saying this for years now. We are THE gatekeeper. Unfortunately, I do not believe that OSU is such a great team this year. I am of the opinion that we are a bad football team this year. How do you have an entire off season to work with your DE's and register zero sacks? How do you fail to put together a complete offensive game plan during the off season. If our coaching staff was unable to derive a scheme with months of preparation, how will they do so with only 1 week? Sorry to say boys, but the Chickens roll this weekend.
God this blog has turned into such a whine fest. For all we know OSU is the second or third best team in the country. We lost to them. We lost to a high quality team playing the biggest game in the history of their program. It is not the end of the world. Three or four things fall in our favor last Saturday and we likely beat a high quality team in the biggest game in the history of their program.
A loss doesn't turn a program into a "gatekeeper" or a "stepping stone." It doesn't turn a coach into a softy or a squad into a bunch of guys that aren't playing cutthroat enough. It's a game, we lost, that's it. I'm geared up for next week -- maybe we all should be.
Let me just clarify that I'm not whining in this post. I'm just pointing out that we've played a lot of teams recently that were poised for a step up in national profile. Some won and some got crushed. But, when these teams win, they get some serious national pub (hence the image). Given those games, I think the analogy holds. I doesn't mean we can't have a good season this year.
I'll bet Florida would have liked a good game Saturday instead of resting Tebow for an entire half.
That's one half less pounding on his body in preparation for Oct. 31...and that's all the matters.
We're over-scheduling. Beat SC, UT, UF, Auburn, Tech and whomever from the West each year and the SECCG and we won't have a problem getting into the BCS title game.
You get national attention to your program not by opening up in Stillwater, but by finishing in Pasadena and Tempe.
Fair point. I was referring primarily to the "stepping stone" comment above and many of the recent comments posted after this weekend.
I get the point of the post, although I think this is simply the result of playing some quality teams at interesting times in their history (Hawaii with Brennan; WVU with White/Rich Rod; OSU after a ridiculous facility upgrade/unprecedented enthusiasm/Dez White; Alabama after Saban had them under their belt for a year). I think these results speak more about the state of those teams than it does the state of our team.
Personally, I'd prefer consistent ten win seasons in lieu of the drama (and subsequent tremendous let downs in some cases) that occurred at the aforementioned Universities.
*Dez Bryant, not White. Hell I wish it was Dez White last weekend.
Oklahoma State was so widely disrespected after 2007 that almost everyone was picking Georgia to go on the road with a new QB and two departed first rounders and pick up the win. (END QUOTE)
Almost everyone was picking UGA? Really? Maybe just folks on this blog.
I was not all that surprised with the loss; more at the way it unfolded.
I think this "gatekeeper" thing is largely a product of us being an SEC team, not a UGA thing.
The same could be said for Alabama who legitimized Utah last year and the biggest one in my opinion is Auburn. Getting smoked at home by USC in 2001 was really the beginning of SC's ridiculous run.
Because the SEC is the best conference, the comparison is one that we make all the time. So and so is a pretender, they would lose 3 games in the SEC. So, when a team beats an SEC team, it legitimizes them. If not, we can say "I told you so." It just so happens that UGA recently has 1) been consistently good and 2) scheduled legitimate out of conference foes.
I agree with everything Evan said...
OKAY ...you probably wont believe this..i dont care..I reff Div.II in the North Carolina area....the reason he was called was because he "launched"...he left his feet...read some ncaa role books then we can talk....til then...Bitch all you want....you all sound like fools..
oh yea....Go Gators....
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