Today is the Day....Dawgpiles or Depression....Bring on LSU

Well, here we are. The SEC Championship and lo and behold, the Dawgs are playing for it. If you told me this would happen after the Boise State game, I would have told you to have another drink and hit the Clairmont Lounge as soon as possible. I could not be prouder of the guys and the coaches for pulling through after starting out so badly. No matter how today goes, I will still hold my head high as an alumnus and a fan of the University of Georgia.

If by some miracle we come away victorious, we head to the Sugar Bowl for the fourth time in nine years. If we lose, we probably end up in the Outback or Capital One against a Big Ten opponent (snore). Personally, I hope the Cotton Bowl takes us and we end up playing Oklahoma. I respect Oklahoma's history and would love to see that matchup. It would be much better than yet another matchup with Wisconsin or Michigan State, where we will win by two touchdowns, prove nothing and only yearn for 2012.

Notice how I say "we" when I talk about the Dawgs? A Tech fan last week told me he did not understand this. "I just call them the Jackets, it's not like your out there playing or anything," with the usual Tech inferiority complex/smartass tone. He was born and raised in Ohio. "You'll never understand it. Don't bother trying. Now give me your lunch money." I replied. It's a conference thing, one that permeates throughout the SEC. We get behind our teams so much that you almost feel like a part of it. I say "we" without thinking, it just comes naturally. I know the heights, weights, high schools, and stats for every scholarship player on the roster. I don't try to remember, I just do because I care about my team and alma mater, maybe more than I should. Georgia games have produced some of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows for me.

For example:

2001 UGA vs. South Carolina: We lose to an inferior opponent at home, 14-9. Terrence Edwards drops a sure touchdown in the end zone to win the game. My buzz is completely destroyed and I tell my date that I don't want to go out anymore. I drive to Ace Hardware, get a bottle of muriatic acid and aluminum foil, and spend the next three hours filling plastic bottles with the latter two ingredients and exploding them in the front yard. (FYI: the acid eats the foil, creates a gas that expands the bottle and it explodes loudly, like a gunshot. It's quite fun, until the cops get there.) This was moping at its finest. If we had won, downtown Athens would have been $100 richer and Ace Hardware would still have that muriatic acid. (The cops thought it was hilarious, they were depressed too. I got a warning.)

Conversely......

2001 UGA vs. Tenneseee: We go up to Knoxvegas and win on the famous "Hobnailed Boot" play with 6 seconds left. Two minutes before that play, Travis Stephens had taken a Casey "One Arm Behind My Back" Clausen pass to the house, ostensibly beating us yet again. I was so deflated. Tennessee squibbed the kickoff and we recovered with good field position. Then David Greene and Randy McMichael did work, son. Three impossible first down later, we are on the six yard line. Randy was possessed by the spirit of Mike Ditka on that drive. Have you ever watched Ditka's game film when he played? He was a chaotic, angry train of pain that destroyed defenders. Randy, of Peach County, Georgia, was no peach on this day. We gather ourselves on the six, call P-44 Haynes and Greene finds Verron in the back of the end zone, uncovered. That was the first victory in Knoxville since the 1980's. I was on my knees, fists raised and giving my best Ric Flair "woooooooooo!" Then the room got quiet and I hear a stampede coming my way. Four of my best friends, fueled by excitement (and Bud Light in the old gray can with blue writing) dogpiled me in the floor. The last thing I remember seeing an unshaven J. Brock and John Taylor launch themselves in the air with every intention of crushing me. It hurt, but I did not care.I called my parents, said something in Sanskrit that they could not understand, and piled into a 1997 Jeep with twelve other people and went out. The night downtown was epic. It was elevated to legendary when the football team, who instantly got on the bus in Knoxville and drove home, actually came out to the bars. I "cabbage patched" to "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash with the entire secondary. I hugged Boss Bailey and told him I loved him. What a night.

I'm thankful for those memories, both bad and good. It's like saying that "Fool In The Rain" is my least favorite Led Zeppelin song. It is indeed my least favorite Zeppelin song, but that does not mean it's a bad song. Georgia football seasons are like that for me and most other diehards. We would just assume go 0-11 and be Dawgs for life, than to jump off the bandwagon and not care anymore, or worse yet, switch to another team. That is the protocol for fringe fans who don't really care or hicks who only pull for winners so they can run their mouth. My Alabama friends often lament their fringe fanbase. Alabama has a giant following in Georgia right now, there are more cursive "A's" on cars in Atlanta than ever before, and they ain't Braves fans. Interestingly enough, six years ago, you could not find one of those unless it was an alumnus or lifelong fan. They know nothing of Alabama. They couldn't get to Tuscaloosa if their life depended on it. They don't know of Johnny Musso, the Goal Line Stand in 1979, Jerry Duncan, or why the Third Saturday in October matters. That is just beyond me.

Tonight, the Dawgs have a chance to make a new memory. It may really blow up in our face. LSU is beyond good, they have almost no weaknesses and dismantled every opponent other than Alabama and a sloppy game against Mississippi State. They will probably play for the national championship, as they should. However, we may come out, fired up and tired of the talk and beat these guys like rented mules. It happened in 2005 when we won the SEC last. We were ranked #13 and LSU was #3, the game was a foregone conclusion and LSU was supposed to kill us. Jamarcus Russell had been on fire all year. DJ Shockley and Sean Bailey annihilated their secondary, Jeff Owens knocked Russell out of the game on a brutal sack and Tim Jennings punctuated the victory with a pick six to make it 34-14. As that erudite philosopher Herm Edwards once put it, "you play to win the game!" The Dawgs will play to win. All the fringe bandwagon morons stay home, please. If things don't go well, I don't want to hear your whining.

If we do win, and LSU still faces Alabama in the BCS Championship, then you will hear the loudest clamoring for a playoff than you've ever heard since the BCS was created. It will be another BCS failure, even though I think LSU and Bama ARE the best two teams and should be there. Auburn got burned in 2004. We got burned, along with USC, in 2007. Ohio State has been embarrassed twice, undeserving of a title shot in the second game, if you ask me. The rules seem to change yearly, even though this is supposedly decided by an impartial computer. A playoff would remove all doubt. Conference championships be damned, just tee up it in the four corners of the USA, and let the two survivors duke it out at a neutral site. No other sport adheres to this BCS nonsense and neither should Division 1 college football. In any event, "we" Dawgs will tee it up every season and hope that we get our fair shot someday. When that day comes, I'll either get dogpiled or be making muriatic acid bombs, but I'll be a Dawg regardless.