(It’s not) The End of the World as We Know It

I am being half-serious when I say it might be my fault that the Georgia Bulldogs lost to the South Carolina Gamecocks last Saturday between the hedges in Athens, Georgia so if you really feel the need to vent your anger at somebody, you can direct it at me. By my own estimation, I committed the cardinal sin of any true Dawg fan (and especially an alumnus) of the University of Georgia–I took a game against an SEC opponent for granted.

I was so sure that Georgia would easily win the game that I decided to leave for Savannah and listen on the radio instead of watching it at home, as I normally would. Because I’m old enough to remember the pure joy as a child of listening to Larry Munson’s famous call of the 80-yard touchdown pass from tight end Richard Appleby to wide receiver Gene Washington on the “end around” pass, the idea of listening to the game “live” and then watching the highlights on replay had some appeal to me. I guess I was feeling a little bit nostalgic.

The bottom line is that I had a choice, and in retrospect I chose unwisely. I probably should have stayed home and watched the game, and drove to Savannah later that night. Should have, would have, could have. I should have known better. Because I have played sports myself for much of my life, I’ve always been a little superstitious about sticking to a routine on Game Day. On the other hand, sometimes you just have to accept that some things are a little more important than who wins or loses a football game and it’s important to keep our priorities in order.

This was one of those times, in my opinion.

While I’m sorry UGA didn’t win the game, it won’t be the end of the world as we know it. There were no career-ending injuries on either team. Nobody was killed. But if you have to blame somebody, I’ll accept full responsibility because I forgot one crucial detail in my decision to drive during the game and listen to the radio instead of watching on television at home: Georgia was coming off a blowout win on the road against a bad Tennessee team, but South Carolina was coming off a bye week, which meant an extra week of preparation for that huge “rivalry” game (“rivals” at least from the Gamecocks’ perspective.) Perhaps the defoliation of our hedges will provide some added incentive for our team before next year’s contest, in case the idea of losing to an inferior team two consecutive years won’t be enough motivation. After this past weekend, I won’t be caught looking beyond our next opponent anytime within the foreseeable future.

Mea culpa.

For the sake of brevity (now there’s a first) I’ll skip past most of the factors that led to my decision (or “cut to the chase [scene],” as my dad used to say) and just say the most relevant factor was that I had to go to Savannah on Saturday to take care of my mother for a few days, and it was never a question of whether I would be driving from Atlanta to Savannah on Saturday, only about what time I would travel. Before you grant me absolution for doing the proverbial good deed for my mom, you might want to be reminded that last year when we lost to LSU in Baton Rouge, I was flying to California to attend my nephew’s wedding. The difference here is that I was concerned about playing LSU on the road long before the game; I took a win at home against South Carolina for granted. For a seasoned Dawg fan with almost fifty years of experience, that’s a rookie mistake.

Over the past two seasons, the only regular season game that the Dawgs lost coincided with the only time I wasn’t planted in my chair watching the game on my own television. Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, 007, famously said that once is happenstance and twice a coincidence, but the third occurrence could be assumed to be enemy action. I mean…we were a 24-point favorite! Playing at home, on Dooley Field in Sanford Stadium, between our beloved hedges! How could we lose?

Well, “we” had to play the game, and there was just one tiny little problem between me and my assumption–the South Carolina Gamecocks were reading about people like me who didn’t think they stood a chance, and they have pride. They were playing to be the spoilers of dreams and the owners of bragging rights, not another Bulldog doormat. The Gamecocks can’t win the SEC East, but they might be able to say we won’t win it, either.

As Kipp Adams reported at 247sports.com, the first evidence that Georgia might be in trouble was only about twenty minutes before the opening kickoff in to Coach Kirby Smart’s pregame interview with sideline reporter Chuck Dowdle. Kirby was worried because in his estimation our guys weren’t ready to play, but South Carolina was. We’d had a good week of practice, so that was no excuse. When Coach Smart said that, I decided to stop in Macon for an early lunch and to watch the first half. In retrospect, the pick-six at the end of the half epitomized the entire game…we simply didn’t deserve to win, because we didn’t want it bad enough.

As a writer of detective novels and co-writer of fantasy novels (versus spy thrillers), it is my habit to apply deductive reasoning to information and conclude that if Fleming’s hypothesis proves true, Lady Luck must be the true nemesis of the Georgia Bulldogs. Think about it–two years ago, we had Alabama beaten on the field and fully deserved to be crowned the national champions, but the referees had a terrible second half officiating the game and something like eight consecutive bad calls went against Georgia or were not called on Alabama, on everything from offsides and illegal motion penalties to holding calls and even a couple of flagrant personal fouls. Tyler Simmons is still onside when I watch the replay of his punt block that was perfectly timed, but horribly called the wrong way. In fact, there were about four missed calls on that one play. We were either grotesquely unlucky, or deliberately screwed by corrupt officials. Either way, it didn’t count as a W.

However, you’ve gotten one of these public service announcements for Dawg fans before. Perhaps it’s because pessimists prefer to dwell in the past while optimists look toward the future, but we can’t ignore the present. This season is far from over. The same team that beat Notre Dame and crushed Tennessee in Knoxville should beat both Auburn and Florida, but the team that just lost to South Carolina could lose to Kentucky. Or, more accurately as Coach Smart suggested, we could let South Carolina beat us twice.

Our Dawgs can still win their way into the National Championship game next January, but they just lost their margin of error. After the debacle at Baton Rouge last year the team quickly righted the ship and didn’t lose again until the SEC Championship game. When they lost that game the team lost interest in the rest of the season and didn’t play well against Texas in the bowl game. A second loss will kill the rest of the season from the team’s perspective and maybe then we can turn our full attention to the future. A lot of football remains to be played in this season, though. It’s premature to write off our preseason hopes after only one loss though, no matter how ugly it was or how horribly we played. When I was in school, former middle linebacker Knox Culpepper would sometimes wear a t-shirt to class that said “If the other team never scores, the Dawgs will never lose.”

Surely that was something defensive coordinator Erk Russell gave his legendary Junkyard Dawg defense which, like this current team, has been incredibly stingy as far as giving up rushing touchdowns are concerned. In those days before the championship playoff bowl series, a single loss like South Carolina could cause fans to postpone their dreams of a national championship to another year, but that won’t happen unless a second loss during the regular season eliminates us from competing for the SEC championship at the end and takes us out of playoff contention.

Even if the Dawgs do get eliminated from competing for the grand prize of college football for the 2019 season, there is no reason to panic or abandon all hope for the future…all you need to do is read some of the comments coming from some of the big time “blue chip” or “five star” commitments after the game–the loss didn’t affect their enthusiasm for Georgia even a little bit. It should also be noted that linebacker Noah Sewell was quoted as saying, “We win some and we lose some. The important thing is how we answer back and how we bounce back.”

By my count, the word “we” was used three times in two sentences. It sounds like Noah Sewell could become this year’s “long shot” version of Isaiah Wilson and join fellow five-stars Kelee Ringo, Darnell Washington, Zachary Evans, and Arick Gilbert as future Bulldogs. And that will ultimately be the reason why Georgia will win another national championship in football, sooner or later. Kirby Smart understands the secret of competing for at a championship level, year after year, is to develop quality and depth at every position on the field, from quarterback to the kickers. Even if every coach in NCAA football was truly hungry to win a national championship, Kirby is probably the only one who could be accurately described as starving to death.

If you don’t believe me, allow me to remind you of this rather inspiring pre-game speech Kirby gave in 2018…unless you are offended by some pretty salty language. In that event, please just take my word for it. My point is, don’t blame Kirby for losing the game. He didn’t commit any of our four turnovers. Don’t throw Jake Fromm under the bus, either. The young man is only a human being, after all, and only Jesus Christ has ever been perfect in the flesh, and He is God. Jake is not.

True, Jake Fromm has played at a much higher level in much bigger games, but this loss wasn’t just on him, either. The whole team was in a funk. Several analysts have wanted to blame the wide receivers, but the secondary gave up a long bomb. Even with this disappointing loss, we haven’t lost the opportunity to win SEC East, or our chance to play for all the marbles. Quite frankly, if I had to pick one game where Jake could lay an egg without it ruining everything we all hope to see the team achieve, this would have been the game, or a prime candidate. Like I said earlier, all we’ve lost to this point is any future margin of error. During Kirby Smart’s tenure as Georgia’s head coach, his teams have always shown significant improvement after a loss, because he’s relentless in his goal of winning championships. Yes, plural.

And yes, “we” lost a game…even us Bulldogs who never saw the field this past Saturday. It’s not the end of the world. Nobody died. This is what is known as “keeping things in the proper perspective.” Remember how I said at the start of this apology-of-sorts that I had to travel to Savannah? My sister takes care of our mother, and I needed to cover for her while she traveled to my brother-in-law’s family reunion. Most people have heard of Amyotropic Lateral Schlerosis (ALS, a.k.a. “Lou Gehrig’s disease.”)

Almost no one has ever heard of Primary Lateral Schlerosis, probably because nobody as famous as Lou Gehrig has ever contracted it. Unfortunately for my mother and our family, she has, and let me be the first to tell you, it really sucks. I mean, okay, losing to South Carolina kind of sucks too, but in comparison, in the Big Scheme of Things, losing the woman my sister and I once jokingly called the Energizer Bunny to this horrible disease puts the idea of what really sucks and what in comparison is only a little disappointing into proper perspective. PLS really sucks.

My mother can no longer speak. And my favorite football team lost a game. Now I’m not saying I’m glad that we lost a game, but put in the proper perspective, things could have been worse. This meltdown could have been in the SEC championship game or the national championship game, and that would hurt much, much worse. We have a couple of key players injured, but we haven’t lost any key players for the rest of the season, at least as far as I know.

We might have lost title games to Alabama two years in a row, but they haven’t embarrassed us on the field since the game in 2008 when we trailed Saban and the Crimson Tide 31-0 at halftime in Athens. A couple of weeks ago, the Braves lost Game 5 of the divisional series against the Cardinals after giving up 10 runs in the first inning. Losing to a team you should beat in double overtime is a bitter pill to swallow. Getting blown out and embarrassed in front of your home crowd is a whole different level of disappointment, sports fans. Always keep the Big Picture in perspective.

My best advice is to suck it up, buttercup. There might be another bump or two in the road before we finally reach our intended destination. If you’re a grown adult prone to ranting and raving on social media because the Dawgs lost, you might want to think about venting your spleen here instead of on Facebook, where I’m somewhat notorious for wielding a ban hammer on angry and negative “fans” in Bulldog forums with glee. Cleanse that colon here, and spare the masses in the Dawg Nation. Think of this as your best opportunity to rebel against authority and strike back against the Empire (I’m sort of assuming you’re a nerd fan of Star Wars if you’re an overgrown child and this sort of language will have some appeal to you, and hopefully redirect your vitriol from Facebook entirely.)

Never forget–Bulldogs win with integrity and we lose with dignity. We don’t turn into whiny little babies because a bunch of young men made too many mistakes and blew a game they could have won. Tyler Simmons had no intention of letting that pass go through his hands, and Rodrigo Blankenship meant to make that field goal attempt in double overtime. They were just as disappointed as we fans, and they still deserve every bit of our support. They work extremely hard and represent our school with pride. I am proud to be a Georgia Bulldog. Even when we’ve just lost a football game to South Carolina.

Remember to keep things in their proper perspective, people. In 2008 at home against Alabama, we were humiliated. This game reminded me of last year’s bowl game against Texas. For whatever reason, pretty much the entire team played an awful game. In the Kirby Smart era, that has only happened twice in four years. Even Vince Dooley had a bad coaching game every once in a blue moon. It happens to the best of them. And just like this past Saturday, that loss is now behind us…the only thing left to do is another saying Erk Russell used to say to his defense. You might even be old enough to remember the band REM, and what these next four letters mean.

GATA.