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Georgia Bulldogs Football: Number 3... With a Bullet

by Christopher McIntosh
09/15/2008

I think we've been here before. Stop me if you've heard this before. Top two teams in the country at the end of the season play each other for national championship.

Inexplicably, on the last week of the season both one and two go down, and go down hard.

So naturally last January we saw three and four play for the national title, right?

Uh, no. The number four team was bumped down, despite not playing or more to the point, losing, that week and a different team from the same conference ended up playing for and winning the national title.

As ridiculous as that scenario sounds, I was okay with it. Georgia was aforementioned number four team, but didn't win the conference. LSU did and it only seemed fair.

Seemed is an interesting word. It did seem fair, but was it?

One simple question. If a team is ranked number four one week, does not lose the next, how can pollsters reward teams and push them past the team that had the bye? How can you lose ground by not playing? Should teams start strategically scheduling their bye weeks?

This year, we have the converse of that scenario. Georgia is number one going into the season. Georgia wins, but apparently giving up three scores to a talented 1-AA team is unacceptable when USC blows out the ever dangerous Virginia. No really, that wasn't sarcasm you heard. Nope, you didn't just hear it again.

Next week, UGA is now number TWO in the polls. There was an entire offseason to make your evaluation of teams' talent, their depth, and to project how they would do throughout the season. And all it takes is three and a half hours of beating up on Virginia to make you change your mind? The American voting public is less capricious.

Fast forward to last weekend. UGA plays a tough South Carolina team with arguably one of the best defensive units in the conference. Which is sort of like saying you're arguably one of the best looking girls in your sorority at UGA. In other words, that means something. Offensively we looked a bit sluggish, but we got the job done, on the road, in front of 75,000 screaming Gamecock fans.

14-7. Nothing spectacular, but then again, with our schedule, nothing should be. Frankly, if we get through our schedule without an L next to our name we should just be handed the SEC championship trophy and probably the national championship as well.

14-7. There are no W's with asterisks and no style points in the SEC. South Carolina took us to the brink and they lost to Vanderbilt already this season.

Oklahoma, playing in the Big 12 - ironically named since there are usually only about two, maybe three teams that can beat the squad from Friday Night Lights any given year - blew out Washington 55-14.

So, logic dictates that OU goes ahead of us in the polls and knocks us out of BCS championship land.

And they do. And I'm [redacted] irate.

It. is. not. logical. OU has beaten a 1-AA squad by a bunch, Cincy 52-26, and the aforementioned, dangerous, outstanding Pac-10 representative Washington, 55-14.

What does this tell us? How about this. Chattanooga now has two losses. Cincinnati has only one loss, but that's because they've only played two games.

Every team UGA has played has won the rest of their games. With the exception of South Carolina who lost to Vanderbilt. Who are 3-0.

And Washington, oh, the Huskies. Presumably Sarah Palin/Tina Fey's favorite team outside of the University of Alaska (assuming she hasn't fired the entire staff for somehow crossing her), that team is now 0-3. Winless. They have exactly as many wins as my flag football team does, and our season hasn't even started, yet.

They lost by 34 to Oregon, then lost by 1 in that game everyone talked about (don't break the rules and you won't have these problems) to this year's Hawaii, BYU. And I don't mean that as a compliment, I mean that as a potentially undefeated team that will get pantsed on national TV should they have to play a real BCS team come January.

OU somehow dug deep and beat this team, this O-fer team.

Georgia beat a conference opponent in their house.

Which team do you think had the better weekend.

If you said Oklahoma, you win.

And you're wrong.

So if UGA beats Arizona State do we get dropped behind Florida for fourth? Is this like subtraction soup?

How does any of this make any sense?

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