SEC Championship Game

How the hell is Georgia in this thing? It's because I gave up on football after they got beat by South Carolina, isn't it? I'm gonna watch the game today (well, half watch the game/half read a book/half listen to music/half clean up the house/seven-eights drink beer/half fall asleep and take a nap) and the Bulldogs are going to get massacred. It will be God Himself telling me that my favorite teams will only be successful if I'm not really paying attention to them. Maybe I'll drink bourbon instead of beer and take that nap in the first quarter. Since it'll take a miracle for anything good to happen for the woofwoofs today, I'm going to post this Herschel Walker Guideposts magazine I got from Stats on the Back a long time ago and never posted because I didn't quite know what to do with it. Desperately needing Divine Intervention sounds like a good time to post to me.

Aw what the heck. Article too!

Yeah, I know Divine Intervention doesn't work that way. Besides, God is an SEC fan and wants to see an LSU - Alabama rematch in the BCS Championship game so I should really not invoke Him at all right now. Anyone got an article on Herschel from Reason or Skeptic magazine?

Maybe I should start drinking now... Beer or bourbon? Oh I know!

GoooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DAWGS!

SIC 'EM!

WOOFWOOFWOOFWOOF~hic~WOOF

Woof

I was feeling really down about poor Uga.


Then I saw this picture and felt better:



Lucky Dawg.

Georgia vs. Kentucky

I'm a little late on the draw today. The game is half over (maybe in the fourth quarter after scanning all these cards) and the Dawgs' big mission the rest of the season is convincing Matthew Stafford that another year in Athens is much better than the NFL. Still, we're playing Kentucky and I feel that I should post something. I don't have a really old card from a Kentucky player but I do just happen to have cards from THE GREATEST PLAYER FROM KENTUCKY EVAR

Jeff Van Note!

Now this is not only my UGA/KY post, but my Falcons/Saints post too! That's efficiency! Or laziness. Laziness like me not labelling the cards. They're 1976 to 1984 Topps, by the way. So Go Dawgs! Keep that slim 4 point lead over a team you should be beating handily in a letdown match after Florida!

Georgia v. Florida

UPDATE: At least the Beer was good.



1952 Bowman Large Claude Hipps.

My Google-Fu is failing me today, probably because I'm too geeked about the game to care. I'll figure out who Claude from Waycross is later.



He played for the Steelers, so that's good. Steel beats Gators right? Drop a big ol' chunk of molten steel on their heads and whammo - instant fried gator.

I got cold beer, Tabasco-flavored peanuts in the shell, burgers and dogs and I'm ready for to see a new Lindsey Scott moment as the Bulldogs win the SEC East today.



Lindsey Scott! Lindsey Scott! Lindsey Scott!

I'm as happy as this dawg...



WOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOF!

Georgia vs. LSU

This game worries me. It doesn't scare me to death like the South Carolina game or next week's nightmare, but I'm not feeling good about it. Georgia has beat LSU their last two appearances though, and they certainly have the talent to pull it off. It's also not a night game which is nice. Baton Rouge gets a little crazy at night. Like UGA ending up in the gumbo crazy. Here's another 1955 Topps All-American card that will hopefully ward off the Tigers.

Ken Kavanaugh was retired from the NFL for five years by the time this card was released. Ken starred as a receiver back when teams just didn't pass all that often. Even so he was the Southeastern Conference MVP in 1939. Oh yeah, he also played Defensive End. That was hardcore football in those days. Ken was drafted by the Bears after his college days and played 8 seasons in Chicago. He missed the 42-44 seasons as he served as a bomber pilot in World War 2. He was a productive receiver for the Bears and amazingly still held four team records at the time of his death in 2007.


As you can see, the wonderful '55 back has the requisite exclamation point in the writeup and one of the weirdest cartoons ever. Anthropomorphic pigs in football gear (but no pants) prancing about in suggestive poses. I think the cartoon right there ensures a Bulldog victory, don't you?

Georgia vs. Vandy

Homecoming is today in Athens, and we've scheduled our usual patsy for the game. Unfortunately the patsy this year is in first place in the Eastern division. The Dawgs can't catch a break this year... Vandy isn't a pushover either, they've beat ranked teams this year and I personally witnessed a game in the late '90s where they whooped the Bulldogs between the Hedges. The Bulldogs seem to win when I post a vintage card though, so here's Bill Wade of the Commodores.


Bill Wade was born in Vanderbilt hospital and went on to star for the Commodores. He was a star quarterback for Vanderbilt and was taken #1 overall in the 1952 draft by the Rams. He played well for the Rams and was a pro bowler in 1958. George Allen was a coach for the Rams when Wade was playing and when he moved to the Bears, he convinced Coach Halas to trade for Wade. The trade worked and Wade led the Bears to the Championship in 1963.

Georgia v. Vandy shouldn't be a big game normally, but when they are ranked #9 and #22 it gets pretty big. After this we face LSU and Florida. Ugh! I'm going to cross my fingers and hope the vintage cards can ward off the losses for one more week.

Dawgs vs. Bama

It's ridiculous, but this game doesn't give me the panicky terrors that the South Carolina game did. 'Bama is clearly better than the Gamecocks, and this is probably the toughest game we'll play all year other than Florida, but I'm sill calm and collected tonight. Maybe it's because I know that the Dawgs are solid and can win this game. Maybe because the game is between the hedges. It's probably because Alabama simply isn't that big a rival. You'd think that since they are right next door, the two teams would hate each other, but actually Auburn and Florida are much bigger rivals. And Tech. And Tennessee. And South Carolina. And Clemson when we play them. Georgia Southern's fun too. Alabama, just not that much hate left for them I guess. We really hate Auburn. Our mascot bit one of their players once for Larry's sake. See, there's one thing Georgia and Alabama have in common - WE FRICKIN HATE THE WAR EAGLE. So to spur on the Dawgs to victory, here's a shiny card of Vince Dooley:

Who played football where? That's right - AUBURN. Suck on it, Tide.

Also for no reason whatsoever, here's an old Bowman card of Chuck Bednarik.

Chuck decided he wanted no part of this debacle and bolted for another post.

Wow..... Glad I didn't get all stressed about this game, 'cause 'Bama's spanking us. We're in the black jerseys too. Yeeesh.

It gets worse and worse... If you want to follow along you can watch the Gamecenter on CBS, or through the magic of YouTube can see actual video highlights of the game!



Oy! They jest scored agin!

More game highlights:



But ya know what? Even though we got our asses handed to us by a team coached by the despicable Les Miles...

FLORIDA GOT BEAT BY OLE MISS!!!!!!!

Oh what a wonderful weekend....

Dawgs in Arizona

I need to post an old card for good luck today, but I don't have any Arizona State cards. I do have this one though of their rivals from Arizona. Fullback Arnold Burwitz should be able to put the whammy on the Sun Devils with the help of his...

Bright Pink Pants!!!

I'm running out of time to write this post so there's not going to be a lot of commentary on this one. This is from 1951 Topps (Rutgers Cards posted one last week) which was supposed to be a 'scratch off' card. I've never seen an unscratched one, so I don't know if this is a fake or not. I can't possibly believe that someone would counterfeit Arnold, but I haven't seen enough of these cards to know what they really look like. The back sure don't look scratchy. The campus photo and line drawing logo is pretty cool though.


Just in case this Arizona doesn't sufficiently jinx Arizona State, here's a 2008 Classics insert of Hines Ward. Now that's a purty uniform. No pink pants there!


UPDATE: The pants worked. UGA 27, ASU 10. The Dawgs will probably drop to #7 in the polls now since they only won by 17. Luckily Knowshon Moreno impregnated the entire Arizona State cheerleading squad during halftime so that will probably keep us from falling out of the Top 10. I keep telling Mark Richt to rip the head off the opposing head coach and drink the blood of his vanquished foe during the postgame interview because that's the kind of stuff that really gets the attention of the voters, but he's just too nice a guy I guess...

1952 Bowman Large Football

I'm scared to death about the Dawgs' SEC opener in South Carolina today. What is that you ask? Why would a top ranked team be worried about a bunch of Cocks? Well, this is why:

1. South Carolina freaking HATES us. I know several Gamecock fans and there is no greater joy in their life than beating Georgia.
2. The game is in Colombia this year.
3. They whooped our ass last year in our own house and cost us a shot at the National Championship.
4. Three little words: STEVE. FECKING. SPURRIER.

So yeah, I'm terrified. I'll probably commiserate with Larry Munson on the radio while flipping back and forth between the Dawgs, Jackets and Braves (have fun Mark!) on TV. Hopefully Knowshon can run over some people and the Dawgs can control the ball. As a lucky talisman to ward off disaster here's an old Bulldog card from 1952 to coax Lady Luck out of hiding.

This is a 1952 Bowman football card. This is the large sized version and is the size of Bowman's '53-'55 sets. There is also a mini version of the set in the size of their '52 baseball cards. I think these are the first large sized cards from Bowman. The change in size was probably a reaction to Topps' huge '52 baseball set.

Claude was one of many Georgia All-Americans from the olden days. The d-back from Waycross served in the Marines and was later drafted by the Steelers. He played for two years in the league and I guess he went on to use that marketing degree as I can't find any recent information on him. No time to look now, it's almost kickoff! Maybe Claude will be there in spirit to pick off a couple passes from Beecher or Smelley (the guy's actual name*) or whoever will be quarterbacking the Cocks today.

Gooooooooooooo Dawgs! Sic 'em! WOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOF

*(No I'm not going to make the obvious joke, you already thought it anyway. )

UPDATE: See why this damn game always scares me to death? One slip up against these guys and the season is ruined. The offense always goes to hell during this game too, Spurrier has spies in Athens or something. The spirit of Claude came through for the Dawgs with Rashad Jones' interception in the closing seconds to save the game. I'm sure he had something to do with Asher fumble recovery also. Talk about hunkering down... Next week won't be any easier, as the Dawgs travel to the desert to take on Arizona State. Then it's Alabama and Tennessee. Man, the schedule is brutal this year.

FOOTBALL

Man, I need this right now. There's too many horrible stressful annoying things going on right now. Three hours a week listening to the Dawgs on the radio is just what the doctor ordered. Man, I hope Larry is calling the game today. Damn, I need Larry to be calling the game today. The perfect combination of homerism and pessimism with a dash of Lady Luck added for flavor.

Here's a Bulldog card from my favorite football set, 1955 Topps All American. I wish I had bought up more of these instead of spending money on Upper Deck and Donruss crap through the years. I like pretty much everything about these cards. The large '50s style cards, the bright colors, the black & white action background, and best of all the awesome cartoony logo. The backs are pretty cool too, nice soothing blue ink and a huge illustrated trivia question that takes up a third of the card. Gotta love a '50s bathing beauty riding on a Rose parade float on the back of a trading card. Sinkwich is one of the University of Georgia's Heisman winners, so maybe posting this card to kick off the season will bring good luck to Knowshon or Stafford. This is going to be a tough season with our brutal schedule, but being ranked the preseason #1 means that our destiny is in our own hands for once. Bring on Georgia Southern!

They're Still Not as Tough as Florida

While I am admittedly kind of freaked out by the war between Georgia and Russia (no, Vladimir Putin is not marching on Atlanta) I still almost laughed up a lung when I saw this article. Especially the picture, which may end up as my new desktop. I knew the Bulldogs had a brutal schedule this year, but DAYUM. Bonus points to the authors for avoiding the obvious "blitz" joke.

Sticky Saturday - Special College Edition

Ok, so I've officially sworn off football cards since the most recent time the Falcons ripped out my soul, and this card doesn't technically follow the spirit of the Sticky Saturday posts, but I found this card on eBay recently and it's just too freaking cool.


2008 SAGE Aspire has an insert set where they take the stickers that get put on college players' helmets when they make a good play and stuck them onto a card. The first time I saw one of these it was for some Michigan State player and I was all like, sheesh they'll do anything to sell cards nowadays. Then I saw this card of Marcus Howard with the UGA dawg bone stickers and all of a sudden IT WAS THE GREATEST IDEA EVER! They are actual vinyl stickers that go on helmets too. When I put the card on my scanner bed they stuck to the glass a little bit. You can keep your buckeyes and pawprints and such, but the dawg bones are just perfect. Fun fact: do you know what the black bones you occasionally see on Georgia helmets represent? Answer soon...

Here's the back of the card. A nice photo of Marcus showing off his many stickers on the bench is paired with some fun facts about Ohi- wait, what??


What does that say??? Even Marcus seems confused.


Ohio State‽‽‽ Did someone at SAGE miss that big ol' G on Howard's helmet?


Why do card manufacturers keep screwing up the cards of players I like this year? It boggles the mind. I know SAGE won't be getting any black bones from UGA though. Vince Dooley began the tradition of putting bone stickers on helmets back in 1971. White bones for great plays, and black bones for academic excellence. See those black bones on Howard's helmet? They mean he's a helluva linebacker AND damn smart too! Yeah Marcus!

HOLY CRAP WE BEAT FLORIDA

AAAAAAaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!

42-30!

Knowshon for Heisman!

Everbody done gone crazy!

I knew I should have had by Bulldogs cards scanned and ready... dangit

Watch this in the meantime: