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October 22, 2009

UGA to have a bye week before the 2011 Cocktail Party?

RedStripe over at SicEmDawgs.com does a good job with future football schedule tracking. A few weeks ago, he found that Mississippi State announced some future dates for 2011. The implications of their announcement suggest that Georgia likely has an open date before the 2011 Georgia/Florida game.

It's possible that we'll play Kentucky that week like we're doing in 2010, but it seems more likely that the SEC wants to alternate bye weeks for UGA and/or Florida going forward. No team should have a bye week every single year. It's competitively unbalanced.

It'll also be nice to have 7 home games in 2011 for only the 2nd time since league expansion in 1992. The other years were 2002 and 2006.

See Also:
-- Tickets: 2009 Georgia vs. Florida Game
-- Unofficial 2011 Schedule - SicEmDawgs.com

PWD

41 comments:

Scott said...

"Competitively unbalanced?" All's fair in love, war, and football. Screw the SEC. If they can't get their officiating house in order, recent suspension not withstanding, then they should have no say in how schools do their schedule.

Mr. Bulldawg said...

Perhaps CMR can buy off the SEC's front office, a'la Spurrier...and get the bye week every year.

PTC DAWG said...

2011...now that's a favorable schedule..what some of our fans don't realize is that many of our SEC foes regularly have 8 home games. AU for example.

sUGArdaddy said...

You are right, PTC. Some fans have no idea that is normal operating procedures for many schools. UT and AU have 8 home games this year. We have 6. We played 2 OOC on the road this year. Most SEC schools would never do that.

Anonymous said...

Paul,
I've always thought the best thing we can do for our schedule it to break up the UT Vandy games being back to back either both home or both away. Heck lets play Vandy in Nashville two years in a row to break it up. It would keep us from missing October home games every other year and keep us from being on the road for two weeks and off week then J-Ville. It seems a pretty easy fix to me that would really help our schedule.

Hobnail_Boot said...

PTC and sUGArdaddy.. y'all are missing the point.

See, what we're trying to do here is make Georgia a "national brand". I'm sorry if your pursuit of football victories gets in the way of that.

Jax Dawg said...

Jesus - we play 10 consecutive games in 2010 before a bye week.

Who's the dumb shit that put that together?

Are you trying to f*cking kill our players?

Nice job Damon or whoever the hell did that.

What a moronic move.

matt b said...

Paul,

Has it ever been revealed how Spurrier was able to schedule a bye week before the Ga game for all those years?

Hunkering Hank said...

My investigation has revealed that he threw his visor down and pouted. If that didn't work he bitched like a girl and then cried. Then he made some smartass remark. Then he got a week off before beating the dog shit out of Ray Goff.

Unknown said...

Jax,

Look at it again. No Bama. No LSU.

Plus....

Week 1: Fluffy Soft opener

Week 4: at MSU isn't scary.

Week 5: at Colorado. If we fly direct back to Athens, we will be home faster than when we drive to Nashville, Tuscaloosa or Knoxville. Playing one of the worst BCS teams in America.

Week 7: Home game against Vandy gives us a breather.

Week 10: Fluffy soft Div I-AA team. Essentially a bye week. Many SEC schools are moving a cupcake to Week 10 or 11 to get a defacto second bye week. It's the new Best Practice.

Week 12: Bye Week before Tech.



PWD

PTC DAWG said...

I agree PWD, 2010 looks good too....

Will said...

Looking further out though it gets kind of scary again...I think it's 2013 where we play @UT, @Vandy, @LSU and then the Cocktail party in four weeks.
That's 4 weeks on the road and at least two ranked teams, possibly three.

Anonymous said...

We drive to Nashville, Tuscaloosa and Knoxville?

Anonymous said...

Paul, you mean one of the worst BCS teams in America that just beat the #17 team Kansas and the week before that led #2 Texas at the half 14-10 before Texas use a 92 yd INT return as Colorado was getting ready to score again and then a 75 yd punt return to put it away, that Colorado.

Anonymous said...

OMG! We play TWELVE games in 2011! Think of how tired our team is going to be! FIRE DAMON!

Anonymous said...

Anon @3:50:

Yep. Same one that got blown off the field against Toledo.

Unknown said...

Anon 3:50,

Yeah. The ones that lost to Colorado State and Toledo. Who can't tie their shoes and chew gum.

Kansas lost because they surrendered a 1 yard TD drive and a 4 yard TD drive to Colorado. Turn the ball over in the shadow of your own goal post twice for TDs, and it's awfully hard to beat an all girl's college.

PWD

Unknown said...

Will,

The 2013 schedule on his site is an estimate.

Judging by the new even / odd rotation they seem to be putting into place whereby UGA has the bye week before UF in Odd Numbered years, we may not be playing LSU that weekend.

We could just as likely be playing them in Week 4, 5 (instead of Bama) or Week 6.

Those are all equally likely dates. The only dates he has confirmed or almost confirmed based on history are:

Week 1: Clemson
Week 2: Appy State
Week 3: SC (based on history)
Week 7: UT (very good estimate)
Week 8: Vandy (very good estimate)
Week 10: UF (based on it always being Halloween weekend)
Week 14: GT

2008 and 2013 are years that have 2 bye weeks. So the SEC needs to move some games around to spread out quality TV games those years.

PWD

Anonymous said...

2011 for only the 2nd time? 2002, 2006 and 2001. Reggie Ball math.

JackSpratDawg said...

Another angle would be to have Vandy and UK swap their current dates on the schedules. That would break up the usual back-to-back trips to Tennessee we have every other year while ensuring another October home game.

What bothers me is that last years trifecta of what are (usually) the most powerful SEC West teams (LSU, AU, Bama) pops up every five years, 2008, 2013, 2018, etc. Working around that particular knot in schedules could be troublesome.

Anonymous said...

PAUL

And what about Texas Paul, Colorado was controlling that game into the 3rd quarter driving to go up 21-10 until the 92 yd INT turned the game around.

Come on Paul, you know as well as every other dawg fan out there, there is no easy game when you are a dawg fan. Just live with it. I dont care to go into all the past few years games to prove my point. You look it up.

If I remember correctly you are one of the ones that said we wouldn't have a problem with OSU either. Heck, If chose to go back far enough, you probably picked us to beat Colorado soundly when they came here. We all know how that one almost turned out. Not to mention the air is thinner out there and we will be breaking in a new QB.

Get real Paul.

JaxDAwg said...

PWD,
Yes, we have some softies next year, but regardless of that, playing 10 consecutive weeks is tough.

Tough for the kids to get up for 10 consecutive games. It's not like getting up for 10 consecutive girls.

Tough travel even if they used Leebern's jet.

Tough physically - no one has time to heal those nagging "Ben Jonesesque" injuries.

I get your point, but the '95 Huskers would have been effected by 10 straight.

Sorry for the bad language - pissed me off at first glance and I'm still not pleased with it.

Unknown said...

Anon 8:09,

I didn't say that osu would be easy. I said if you can't beat a program like osu, you won't beat the Gators. If you can't beat the Gators then youcant win a national title at UGA.

OSU averaged 4.3 wins a year for 18 years before we booked them in 06. I we are afraid to book a program like that we should just stop trying and focus on gymnastics.

Wade Wilson said...

PWD,

I'll take a National Championship over pride any day.

Put your ego aside and think of the big picture.

UF doesn't play anyone good OOC, but nobody in the media cares and it hasn't hurt their recruiting and national perception. That's cuz they have the championship rings on their fingers. Just something to think about.

Dirk Diggler said...

Wade:
UF plays FSU every year. Not a big deal from 2001 forward, but the cause of much consternation in the 90's when Bowden typically got the best of Spurrier.

Urban has been fortunate to arrive while FSU is sliding back to its Corso days of mediocrity AND Miami has been a disaster. If the Pooh and Free Shoes U can right there ship, we'll benefit as the pie of talent will be more evenly divided in the Sunshine state.

If they continue to stink AND Tech AND UT improve under exciting new leadership, we should expect to return to our form of the late 90's.

Unknown said...

Wade,

Are you honestly saying in a straight face that UF is winning because of schedule? Seriously?

UF is winning because they have bad a$$ athletes and bad a$$ coaching. And they except nothing less than the destruction of their enemies.

UF won the national title in 2006 while playing FSU and Miami.

FSU went 9-4 last year. Same as GT. Miami went 7-6 which was better than Arizona State.

If we booked Miami and FSU instead of GT and Ok State...every Dawg fan on earth freaking out about our schedule would crawl into the fetal position and SURRENDER.

We are NOT losing because of schedule. We're losing because Mark Richt isn't surrounding himself with the same level of players, coaches and expectations that Urban Meyer is.


Our entire program. EVERYTHING should be centered around 1 question and 1 question only. What are we doing today to beat the Florida Gators.

Everything else is an excuse or distraction. If we get to the point where we can beat their ass, no one can stop us.


As for playing Ok State....all but 2 of UGA's SEC Titles OR 10+ win seasons started off which a strong non-conference opener or an SEC game. 2004 being a glaring exception.

Schedule isn't our problem.

Anonymous said...

tell me how this is fair: in 2010 of alabama's 8 sec opponents 6 will have a bye week the week before they play alabama. alabama does get a bye week before the lsu game but so does lsu. on the other hand, of florida's 8 sec opponents 0 will have a bye week the week before they play florida.

Wade Wilson said...

@PWD

Read my post again. You didn't get the point. I didn't say UF wins NCs because of their schedule.

UF wins because they take care of business in the SEC and they DO NOT hurt themselves with their OOC schedule.

My point was that we should set our pride aside and schedule very weak OOC opponents even you all think it will make us look bad. I was just saying that that's what UF does and nobody seems to care or look down on them for it. The reason being because they have those rings and we don't so it's futile to mock their OOC opponents. I'll take the rings any day.

In conclusion, yes our programs has lots of problems that need to be fixed so we can compete with the big boys. Let's just not shoot ourselves in the foot by scheduling tough OOC opponents. The SEC is hard enough to get through. So I say schedule as many Tennessee Techs as possible!

The Watch Dawg said...

Paul,

that comment you made a couple spots above about beating the Gators is worthy of a post all its own. This scheduling argument is valid to an extent, but the bottom line is: we have to beat Florida. Not once every few years. Regularly. Remember when Texas couldn't get past Oklahoma? Look what happened when they got over that.

Unknown said...

Wade,

Sorry for my tone. You have valid points.

However, setting our pride aside and scheduling very weak did not pay off for Auburn in '04.

Playing a weak schedule isn't doing Iowa and Cincy any good. Granted, they aren't in the SEC. But still. If Iowa were undefeated, they wouldn't be ranked #8 or whatever in the BCS had they played a quality Big 12 or Big 10 team earlier in the season instead of N. Iowa and Iowa State.


Florida didn't schedule in such a way in 2006 to be "comfortable." They scheduled Miami and FSU expecting both to be powerhouse programs.

LSU scheduled VT in '07. Texas scheduled Ohio State in '05. Ohio State scheduled Texas in '06. All played for the national title.

All of those games are tougher than playing 2-3 mid-level or lower OCC teams like we have lately.

Our fans stressed about ASU for goodness sakes. They are nothing more than Central Michigan with hotter co-eds.


You said...."In conclusion, yes our programs has lots of problems that need to be fixed so we can compete with the big boys."

I would strongly argue that playing nobodies and beating them doesn't fix what's broken. It just glosses over them. The only way to know what's broken on a team is via stress tests.

If you have OCC stress tests early, you can see what's broken and invest in fixing them at a lower cost than waiting til after the first OCC loss.

What would you prefer? That we not fix what's broken, gloss over our problems (like we did after playing Hawaii and a bad Tech team in '07)?

Florida is the stress test. We have to do what it takes to get ready to play and beat them.

Playing 3 joke OCC teams before we face them doesn't help us get better. It just doesn't.

History says UGA has better seasons when it plays tough teams early. Playing weak teams early is a bust for us.

PWD

Unknown said...

Said differently.

There is a TON we can learn from the Gators. Specifically in areas like Strength & Conditioning, special teams, defensive intensity, killer instinct, special teams, ruthlessness, tackling, special teams, and recruiting.

But scheduling just isn't one of those areas.

PWD

hell is orange said...

Playing bad teams and winning creates bad habits. You dont need to fix those bad habits to win. Playing good teams exposes your bad habits and allows you to identify the areas you are weakest.
I am with PWD with this one.

Unknown said...

What is this "Rumors: Georgia making changes for Gators" on espn.com? I don't pay to be an "inside member".

Johnny Blaze said...

yeah i've always found that "inside member" option to be funny. Who would actually pay for that?

Anonymous said...

I'm no ga tech fan but am watching the game right now and had to post a comment. Why don't our coaches show half the fire that Paul Johnson shows? When his players f-up he is on them like white on rice and they go back on the field and get the job done.

Anonymous said...

"Why don't our coaches show half the fire that Paul Johnson shows?"

If you actually watched Georgia's sidelines, you'd find that Willie Martinez shows Johnson's fire all the time. He's also a crappy, crappy coach.

You'd also know that Nick Saban, apparently the King of the Universe to bandwagon Georgia fans, kinda strolls around like he's constipated.

Takes many ways to make a world. As for getting "the job done," Johnson ripped into his players at Miami and then they went out and still got their yellow asses kicked. So.

Dubbayoo said...

Tim Tebow ties Herschel's TD record at Miss State. That means he has a shot of actually breaking it against us next week. Somehow that needs to not happen.

Anonymous said...

meh. records are made to be broken. I'll take a win and let Tebow have 4 rushing TDs for all I care.

Tyler said...

Phil: I am an ESPN insider. Here's what that post said:

Georgia's offensive line coach Stacey Searels is laying down the gauntlet. His O-line is going through more changes in anticipation of the showdown with No. 1 Florida on the 31st, according to Athens Banner-Herald's Marc Weiszer. Searels is apparently going to go with the same offensive line order as last year's game, with the exception of graduated right guard Justin Anderson.

The Dawgs have had four different starting combinations so far this season and moved Junior Clint Boling from right guard to left tackle in practice on Thursday, mimicking the combo they had vs. Florida last season. It might not be a bad gamble since the offense scarred the Gator defense for almost 400 yards of offense in the loss. The biggest problem was the four turnovers the offense coughed up.

the tri guy said...

"Our entire program. EVERYTHING should be centered around 1 question and 1 question only. What are we doing today to beat the Florida Gators."

Unless of course that includes actually playing Florida at home every once in a while. That would just be messing up tradition (sic).

DrummerDawg said...

Tebow will likely break the record next week against us, and that's ok because I agree that records are made to be broken.

Take heart though...Herschel set that record in three years as opposed to Tebow's four. Herschel also didn't have the luxury of 12 game regular seasons and SEC Championship games to give him opportunities to add to that record. The fact that his record stood for 27 years considering all the great RB's to come through the SEC is a testament to his legacy.

PWD makes a good point...for the time being, all roads to an SEC/National Championship essentially lie in beating the Florida Gators. They're the only team we can't seem to beat on a consistent basis (discounting our recent struggles with the Vols). If we can find a way to beat UF, we can beat anybody.

 
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