Dawg to the Bone

Man, you guys are going to make us work for this one aren't you.

Good luck today Huskers! I think the game sets up nice for you guys. Initially, I thought UGA in the end about 35-17, but now I think this game sets up nicely for Nebraska. I am expecting a much closer game. Something like 31- 28 UGA. Good luck today. Great fans and a great tradition you have there at Nebraska.

Richt has lost the last two bowl games (UCF, MSU) after previously only having lost two out of the previous nine bowl games. I wouldn't believe that about the guys going pro for a second. Richt does believe in the reward part of the bowl game and it makes one wonder if he takes the bowl games serious sometimes, but after two straight losses in bowl games, I think he will keep them focused. I would say the game actually sets up nicer for you guys. Nebraska really wants to get the taste of that B1G championship game out of their mouths. That team will be playing with some intensity and pride to show that is not the "real" Nebraska team. The UGA team has to be disappointed after losing a chance at playing for the national Championship game and I am not sure how you get up for this game after losing that game. This is a chance for Nebraska to show how they stack up against the big bad SEC. UGA has to show that they really were deserving of a shot at the Natty, but I am not sure that will be enough motivation to really get them fired up. Pellini needs to get some of this guys to talk trash. Our guys need something to fire them up and motivate them. That is about the only thing that I know might really get them up for this game.

That's not a bad strategy if you can make it work. UGA has been pretty good against the run in the first qtr. Even Alabama didn't really start running until well into the 2nd qtr. The question is if it is not working initially will he keep at it? The other thing is that UGA has been scoring pretty well this year, so if, per chance, UGA gets ahead by a couple of runs, will he be forced to change tactics? UGA seems to either get worn down or doesn't have the depth for a sustained rushing attack. UGA did do pretty well against the two option teams we faced, but that is a different animal all together. Running straight at UGA (too much speed to go side to side) or rolling Martinez out of the pocket with maybe some run pass options is probably the best bet. You don't want him sitting in the pocket. UGA's strength is the pass rush. As far defending UGA's offense, it is pretty doggone balanced. Still the best bet (as always) is to stop the rush and try to make UGA one dimensional. If you can do that and put some serious pressure on Murray (and for all his knocks, it takes serious pressure to rattle him) you have a chance to force some mistakes. Even Michigan State was able to do that last year in the Bowl game.

UGA- 35 NU- 20 NU Rushing- 160 NU Passing- 80

I think we have been pretty relevant. We haven't won the big one with Mark Richt, but we have a pretty good record overall. Mark Richt era: 2001–current The current head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs is Mark Richt, who joined the Bulldogs in 2001 after serving as the offensive coordinator of the Florida State Seminoles under Bobby Bowden.Since Richt's tenure began, Georgia has won two SEC championships – 2002 and 2005 – and 6 of their 7 SEC East Division Championships – 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2011, and 2012. (Out of those years Georgia represented the East in the SEC Championship Game in all but 2007.) Including bowl games, Richt’s record, as of November 21, 2012, is 116–39–0. His bowl record through 2010 is 7–3. Richt has been a fixture in the recruiting world ending up with top 5 classes the past 3 years. On October 8, 2011 Richt won his 100th career game as UGA's coach against Tennessee at Neyland Stadium 20–12. Under Richt, Georgia is 8-4 against Tennessee, 4-8 against Florida, 8-4 against Auburn, and 10-1 against Georgia Tech, including games from 2001–12. In 2011, under Richt, Georgia defeated Tennessee, Florida, Auburn, and Georgia Tech in the same season for the first time since 1981. UGA has finished in the top ten of the final AP polls 9 times in 11 years since Richt has been head coach including rankings of #3 in 2002 and #2 in 2007. There is a good chance UGA finishes top 5 this year. I wouldn't say we have been irrelevant. Perhaps, we have not lived up to our potential and under performed some years, but I think a lot of the teams we have kept from going to the SEC Championship game would not say we are irrelevant. Georgia has not been a pushover team, but has flown under the radar with their accomplishments. I think the reason for that is because of LSU, Alabama, South Carolina and Auburn (for one year). I thought this year was your guy's year though! I wouldn't say Georgia was not irrelevant, but I would say they are a school that remains under the radar. Even when they are excelling. That's certainly fair. Another thing that has hurt UGA is that recently (especially in 2008, 2009) we under-performed and much of it was on the national stage. We lost to a very good OK State team. We lost to a poor Colorado team. We lost to Boise State. We lost to UCF and Michigan State in Bowl games. This is what the national audience remembers, because these were nationally televised games. We have also lost to USCe the last three years and these have been nationally televised. Of course, as you stated, we also get overlooked because Alabama, LSU and UF get most of the media attention. We are the "also ran" like Wisconsin in the B1G playing second fiddle to Ohio State and Michigan. Hopefully, we can take that next big step at some point soon.

I think we have been pretty relevant. We haven't won the big one with Mark Richt, but we have a pretty good record overall. Mark Richt era: 2001–current The current head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs is Mark Richt, who joined the Bulldogs in 2001 after serving as the offensive coordinator of the Florida State Seminoles under Bobby Bowden. Since Richt's tenure began, Georgia has won two SEC championships – 2002 and 2005 – and 6 of their 7 SEC East Division Championships – 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2011, and 2012. (Out of those years Georgia represented the East in the SEC Championship Game in all but 2007.) Including bowl games, Richt’s record, as of November 21, 2012, is 116–39–0. His bowl record through 2010 is 7–3. Richt has been a fixture in the recruiting world ending up with top 5 classes the past 3 years. On October 8, 2011 Richt won his 100th career game as UGA's coach against Tennessee at Neyland Stadium 20–12. Under Richt, Georgia is 8-4 against Tennessee, 4-8 against Florida, 8-4 against Auburn, and 10-1 against Georgia Tech, including games from 2001–12. In 2011, under Richt, Georgia defeated Tennessee, Florida, Auburn, and Georgia Tech in the same season for the first time since 1981. UGA has finished in the top ten of the final AP polls 9 times in 11 years since Richt has been head coach including rankings of #3 in 2002 and #2 in 2007. There is a good chance UGA finishes top 5 this year. I wouldn't say we have been irrelevant. Perhaps, we have not lived up to our potential and under performed some years, but I think a lot of the teams we have kept from going to the SEC Championship game would not say we are irrelevant.

To be honest...I've actually always kind of liked Richt and Georgia. I just despise what your conference has done to the game. I even have close relatives that went to Tech, so I root for Georgia annually just to piss them off. It's not fair to hurl lacerating comments at you through some "guilt by association" justification. That's on me. None of that changes how I feel about your conference, though. In the battle between integrity and winning, your comrades have scoffed at the former and are throughly unapologetic about Cam Newtoning their way into the latter. Over signing is the one thing that is copped to, but we both know damn well that's only a part of the full equation. Well, I am not going to dispute that. Many of the teams in the SEC point the finger at the others (Auburn, UTenn, Bama) that have had NCAA violations and wonder why they never get punished harsher. It seems that if you are not cheating, you aren't trying. It is bothersome. It gets especially onerous when it comes to scholarships, over signing and gray shirts and the like. However, it is not common to just the SEC. I believe Ohio State and USC proved that.

Nebula, It's obvious that you do not follow UGA recruiting. For years Richt has under recruited as far as numbers go and really placed us at a disadvantage with teams in the SEC that either oversign and cull out those they don't want or practice the art of gray shirting. This puts us on a level with those schools that get caught with NCAA violations and lose a few scholarships because we are p[laying with less scholarship players than our other SEC schools. You talk about lack of quality depth. Imagine playing Alabama who has a full 85 blue chip scholar athletes playing and you only have about 75 due to not managing your roster very well. That lack of depth might show up somewhere (perhaps the defensive line). The reason Richt is "oversigning" this year is because we are about 10 scholarships down from last year and about ten of these are early enrollees that count towards last years class. What we are doing is playing catch up. Truthfully, we would be better off to have 25 top flight recruits every year and not have to play catch up. On your second point. I was looking at the college teams that send the most players to the NFL and Nebraska is top five. UGA is #7. Nebraska must have some talent somewhere. No disrespect intended, but if that is true then people need to get off of Richt's back, because Nebraska is under-performing worse than Georgia. http://www.nfl.com/n...most-nfl-talent

Both Jarvis Jones and Clowney are very impressive.....and are better than Te'o from what I have heard. Clowney is a freak and I've been hearing he has been tearing it up this year. It's pretty crappy to know these two impressive defensive athletes weren't up for the Heisman at all, yet Te'o was. Hmmmm...... And it's not even the Heisman really, but for Te'o to sweep the top three defensive awards when there are others just as deserving if not more so is disturbing. It would have been nice if they could have passed the love around some. See where Clowney and Jarvis Jones go in the draft compared to Te'o.

Down south, we say the same thing about Jarvis Jones and Jedevon Clowney. Te'o is a great player, but his stats are not as good as other players out there. I guess its debatable about the impact these players have had on their teams. IMO, a strong player from USC, Notre Dame, MICH and Ohio State will beat out other, similar or even better players from other teams. That seems to be what history shows.

If we are mediocre, what are y'all? We destroyed y'all 35-7 this year. That was written by a Nebraska fan, c$%k. Maybe if you got that thing out of your ear.......

I think there are some valid criticisms of the SEC in regards to inflated respect and therefore inflated poll standings. However, I also thinking the top six teams tight now in the SEC could probably hang with anyone in the country. I think where the SEC get's the benefit of the doubt is where we (in the SEC) and sometimes the national media as well think our top teams are better than everyone else's top teams. The top teams in each conference (Ohio State, Oregon, Stanford, Kansas State (this year), OK State, Texas) can also hang with anyone in the country. I do think the SECs top end is a little stronger top to bottom, but to think that the very best would not be competitive with the SEC or in the SEC is inflated thinking. Kentucky ran right at us and blocked and ran hard up the gut and it was difficult for us to stop them on long protracted drives. I think we got a little better after that game, but Bama obviously did the same thing. USCe just out coached us. They hit wide open receivers and then while we were focused on Lattimore, they ran the QB. It seemed to do more with the "Old Ball Coach" out scheming the Georgia Staff than terrible play by the defense and offense. Once we got behind, we couldn't really establish the run and the talented USCe defense was able to pin their ears back and attack Murray. We do have a tendency to play down in bowl games that we really aren't too excited to be at. I don't know how it will be this year. When this team gets a chip on it's shoulder it can play with anyone, but if they are not inspired, it can be like they are just going through the motions. I, personally, am looking forward to a playoff where we will get to see more competition from different teams for the national championship. if the SEC still comes out on top, there will really be little debate.

Nothing to see here.....move along....move along.... I am glad you changed your helmet symbol. That NU wasn't cutting it. Those were the days when Nebraska was on a plane with USC, Notre Dame, Alabama and of course your nemesis, Oklahoma. Georgia was just making a rise back into prominence after a dormant 1950s. Dooley had us playing at a high level, just not yet a Nebraska level. Just think this team wasn't far removed from the 1971 "game of the century" team. I am not sure anyone wanted to be matched up with Nebraska in a bowl game back then or even up until the early nineties for that matter.

A lot of Georgia fans feel this way and it is understandable, but everyone recruits Georgia and Florida and even though we get our share, you can't keep them all. We are surrounded by UF, FSU, Auburn, Alabama, Clemson, USCe, and Utenn. Everyone else also recruits here for the 4 and 5 star talent. Atlanta is a metro area that has people from everywhere with no allegiance to Georgia. Also, we are in the SEC competing with Alabama, LSU, UF, Utenn, USCe, etc. We are usually ranked top ten and are competitive in the league. We ahve finished top 5 at least 4 times in Richt's tenure. Richt did underachieve a few times, but more times than not, he has probably overachieved including this year. I'll put it this way, if Richt left UGA, he wouldn't be unemployed for more than a week.

They have always said, "It's the Jimmy's and Joe's, not the X's and O's." However, I think some schools with success it is definitely coaching (K-State, Northwestern, Oregon State, Loiusville, Stanford) and others it is a combination of good coaching and great talent. I think great talent well coached will usually beat good talent greatly coached (see Univ. of Miami in the 80's-90's). If you look at the recruiting rankings and look at the polls, it usually bears this out. Right now the recruiting rankings are: USC Florida LSU Notre Dame Michigan Alabama Georgia Ohio State Texas A & M texas Auburn USCe FSU Do these teams usually stand at the top of the polls or their respective conferences? There's your answer.

Thanks. Our people don't realize how lucky we have it with Richt. Our fans see that he has struggled against top ten opponents the last five years or so and discount the fact that he is the 2nd winningest coach in the SEC after a 12 year career and the 4th winningest coach in the NCAA right now. The fact that we hadn't won a SEC championship or even played in the title game for 20 years escapes them. We have now played in 5 out of the last 12 with UT, UF and USCe in our division. That's not too shabby. Our fans see that 5 other teams in the SEC have won national championships since we last did and it is tough to stomach. However, have beaten some of our main rivals ( UF-2 game winning streak, UT 3 win streak, Auburn 6-1 the last 7 years and on a two year winning streak, GT 11-1 and a 4 game winning streak.) We are on a 3 game losing streak to USCe, but that is a real aberation in our series history. I really don't know who we would find that could do a better job than Coach Richt. If I were Nebraska and the Pelini thing didn't work out in the long term, they should go after Richt. He is pretty much a carbon copy of Tom Osborne as far as class and ethics go. He would be a perfect fit at a school like Nebraska. Thanks for the info. I was totally unaware of how much success he's had! Kudos to you guys, all I remember thinking is how Georgia is consistently overrated every year with top 5 or top 10 preseason rankings, but it seems you're more deserving than I thought. That's cool to hear about Richt as well. There's not enough like him left in the world, and most definitely not in college football. To know that he's having the success he is while doing things the right way, especially in that conference, says something seriously impressive. Do you think he would ever be lured away from Georgia? I've heard people say he's from Nebraska, does he have ties to the school or did he just grow up here? Honestly, I don't think he would, but you never know. If Georgia fans become impatient, he may feel like he is not appreciated and take another offer. Again, his whole family is now rooted here, so probably not, but you never know the psychology of these things. I think Richt could take a team like Nebraska and be at the top of the Big Ten splitting success with Ohio State and Michigan. he has lost a lot of those games with top ten opponents lately, but most of the time they are down to the wire competitive games. Some coach once said that you lost 10% of your fan base support each year. Surely, it's no where near that bad, but there are UGA fans that think he has reached his limit and we can never get to that final level with Coach Richt. You can see where if the standard is national Championship or bust, that is a very hard standard to meet.

Thanks. Our people don't realize how lucky we have it with Richt. Our fans see that he has struggled against top ten opponents the last five years or so and discount the fact that he is the 2nd winningest coach in the SEC after a 12 year career and the 4th winningest coach in the NCAA right now. The fact that we hadn't won a SEC championship or even played in the title game for 20 years escapes them. We have now played in 5 out of the last 12 with UT, UF and USCe in our division. That's not too shabby. Our fans see that 5 other teams in the SEC have won national championships since we last did and it is tough to stomach. However, have beaten some of our main rivals ( UF-2 game winning streak, UT 3 win streak, Auburn 6-1 the last 7 years and on a two year winning streak, GT 11-1 and a 4 game winning streak.) We are on a 3 game losing streak to USCe, but that is a real aberation in our series history. I really don't know who we would find that could do a better job than Coach Richt. If I were Nebraska and the Pelini thing didn't work out in the long term, they should go after Richt. He is pretty much a carbon copy of Tom Osborne as far as class and ethics go. He would be a perfect fit at a school like Nebraska.

That's how I saw it as well. We have really put teams away in the third quarter this year. I don't think Nebraska is going to let us run all over them. But once the dust settles, I think UGA will pull away by about two scores. The other thing is that Richt will never run the score up. If we do get ahead by a safe margin the ultra conservative run three and out will start. Not saying that will happen, but if UGA does manage to get up Richt just doesn't run up the score. He might put in 2nd stringers and let them run the offense, but usually they can't do much. But you never know. That's why they play the game.

We (UGA) are good, but not invincible. Did you see our games against Buffalo, Kentucky, Tennessee? All of these teams moved the ball on us. Hopefully, we have improved since then, but I think our SEC reputation is holding us to perhaps a loftier standard. As far the offensive game plan, usually its pretty simple for UGA. We are going to try and establish the run to make the play action go. We usually run on first down, but lately we have thrown it a little more on first down. What makes Murray so valuable is he is so experienced at this point in his career. He will go up to the line, try to determine what defensive set Nebraska is in and then call a pass or a run play based on that to try and exploit it to our advantage. If we get the run game going, he will pop you with a long pump and go pass or back shoulder fade pass. Even though we lost a couple of 1st string receivers due to injury, these receivers can catch and run after the catch. Defensively, I think a power running team like Bama or even Tennessee hurts us worse than a mobile QB. The strength of our defense appears to be speed and not power. Obviously our nose guards can really get a push, but other than that it is more of a speed rush. I say that when we have only faced a couple of mobile QBs, but other than USCe we contained most of them pretty well. Our special not terrible, but not too special either. Looking forward to a good game. I am glad we are not facing that power rushing attack that you guys pummeled UF with in the 90s.

Every fan base would be saying exactly the same things. Our board was just as bad after the USCe drubbing. I would be upset as well. There is no reason for a program like Nebraska to allow anyone to score 70 points. As a fan base that can never be acceptable. I am surprised. I thought Pelini's background was defense. Nebraska will not accept mediocrity. i feel quite confident that if Pellini can't get it done, you guys will find someone who can.

It could be the other way around. UGA could be crushed after losing a chance to play for all the marbles and Nebraska with nothing to lose plays lights out. Time will tell, but we have been flat before in bowls we didn't really want to be at. I am hoping playing a "name" program like Nebraska will keep our UGA boys fired up for the challenge, but you never know.

This game actually sets up nicely for Nebraska. You guys have nothing to lose. If you lose to UGA, people will say that wasn't unexpected. You lose no credibility by losing to a higher ranked opponent that is favored to win by two scores. If you win, you get instant credibility. The question is Georgia going to be up for this game after the disappointing loss in the SEC Championship game? I didn't get to see the Wiscky-Nebraska game, but I will say this for Wisconsin and we have played them in two Bowl games in the 2000's, they always have a great running game and a great Offensive line. My guess is that there offensive line is probably better than ours. Our guys pass block pretty good, but the run blocking is good, but not great. Bama has a run blocking machine. Balance is what we do best. If we win, it will be because of really good balance between passing and running. Good luck Huskers and welcome south brother.

As a Georgia fan, I am happy to be playing a storied program full of rich tradition with possibly the best fans in college football. It's great to have a fan base that is passionate and supportive about their team, but civil and respectful of other teams and traditions at the same time. I know our fans will have a great time together. As far the game, I know UGA had a strong showing against Bama and have the ability to be very strong. However, they also have the ability to play flat. I know that recently in Bowl games we haven't shown up the way we should. I think there is also the chance that the UGA team is still suffering from the disappointment of not making the National Championship game and might not be as inspired. Nebraska is the team that has nothing to lose. I do appreciate you guys giving us the chance to even the series after the complete drubbing you guys gave us in 1969. I look forward to the match-up. Just think, we could be playing Northern Illinois.