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August 27, 2006

Are These the Golden Years of Georgia Football?

While we're strolling down memory lane, the AJC's Carter Strickland talked with Loran Smith, Vince Dooley, Terry Hoage, Buck Belue and others. He asked the question, "Are these the Glory Years for Georgia?" Loran Smith has the best line of all:
"Who knows what would have happened with coach Wallace Butts if World War II had not come along? Excluding the war years, Coach Butts took his teams to five bowl games. He won two national championships.

He recruited the point-a-minute Bullpups in '39 and had Charley Trippi and Frank Sinkwich in the same backfield in 1942. He recruited some great players in those years, but so many of them went off to war and never were able to regain their skills when they returned home. Coach Butts really had it going. That possibly could have been Georgia's greatest era if Hitler had stuck to painting."

Wally Butts (image: GeorgiaEncyclopedia.org)

The Glory Years issue is a topic that Kyle King of DawgSports.com has discussed in detail before, but I'll be damned if I can find the link. If Kyle sees this, he'll probably add the link in the comments field.

Personally, I think this is the Third Golden Age of Georgia football. The 40s, '76-83 and then '01 to now. But to call this the BEST era of Georgia football would be crazy without a national title run. Perhaps we're entering the Glory Years? The history books will decide.

PWD

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wally Butts was a game-fixing (see Bear Bryant) crook who insured that Sinkwich and Trippi were paid to matriculate. Do the reseach, sucka!

Anonymous said...

Previous idiotic comment aside, I do believe this is the 3rd and ultimately will be the best "Golden Era" of Georgia Football. I firmly believe that Georgia will win more than 1 national championship before the Mark Richt era is complete.

Anonymous said...

What is great about football, and college football in particular, is that you can enjoy arguing about this for a loooong time and never get a conclusive answer. Partly that's because you start from "if": "If" WWII hadn't happened - first words out of Loran's mouth. '76-'83 were certainly glorious, but '66-75 were better if you liked being in the stands when the Dawgs beat higher rated competition with some degree of regularity. And you could argue that right now, with the 85 scholarship limit and the sort of parity that it brings makes the competition to excel tougher today and makes these the glory years. The accusation about Butts is uncalled for, btw.

Astronaut Mike Dexter said...

I love it when "do the research" is used to mean "Go talk to a bunch of still-resentful Tech and/or Auburn fans who are just as bug-f%$! crazy as I am."

Anonymous said...

"Do the research"? Who are you, Anonymous 9:20, Furman Bisher? Only a complete moron would suggest "the facts" prove Wally Butts and the Bear fixed anything. Don't take my word for it, though. Read the US Supreme Court case of Butts v. Curtis Publishing Company, the story of "The Greatest Libel Ever Sold." In case you didnt know, Butts sued for libel after Furman Bisher wrote the story for the Post about how he and the Bear "fixed" a game. Butts won the largest verdict in a libel case ever awarded as a result. In case you didnt notice, the Saturday Evening Post went out of business about 40 years ago. I guess paying out huge verdicts kinda cuts into the bottom line.

It's the height of absurdity that a Tech fan should be accusing anyone of anything untoward, given Tech's recent spanking by the NCAA for academic fraud. As for the possiblity you're an Auburn fan, well....no one ever said the Moo Eagles were too sharp. You stil have more NCAA probabtions than SEC Championships, Tech still has as many SEC football titles as you do, and your head coach is a slimy, jug-eared self-promoter.

Other than that, I'm sure there's a lot UGA people can learn from AU and Tech people.

Thanks for playing.

Anonymous said...

You are all losers... UGA ... ha.. what a joke of a team... I'd love to know where you get "Jean short wearers" from.... I haven't seen any Gators wearing jean shorts... but I have seen plenty of dressy "Prom night" UGA fans... trying to look silly like Vandy, Auburn, and Alabama... I don't get it... its football... go home Dawgs... UGAs golden era has expired.

 
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