Ah, the weekend: New Proof Gators don’t just suck, they inhale, too.

Percey Harvey one of three who tested positive for the reefer at the NFL combine.  You are in good company when you are in a cohort with Vontae Davis.

Look for Al Davis to trade the rest of his lower round picks and next year’s number one pick with the Rams to get the number two pick to grab Percey with.  Of course, he takes Davis with the seventh pick.  Both will be pissed to find out the green room at Radio City Music Hall isn’t exactly that kind of green.

Also, UTEP kicker Jose Martinez tested positive, but I am pretty sure he has glaucoma or some other good reason.

The NFL Draft begins on April 25th at 4:20 EDT.

(the name that shall not be spoken) moves indoors? A tardy response from the plains.

The relationship between Jacksonville and the Georgia-Florida game has been one of debate and consternation for nearly 30 years.  In the 70s and 80s, Florida fans decried the decrepit stadium, mayhem in the stadium and the dangerous neighborhood around it when whispers that maybe a home and home arrangement made more sense.  The (name that shall not be spoken) game WAS played at a decrepit old stadium that literally swayed with the masses of humanity, piled red and black to orange and blue section to section.  The neighborhood was shady (as a side note, in 94, the last game before the old Gator Bowl was torn down, my folk’s tour bus got shot up and their window was shot out on Duval).  In the days before Veterans Memorial Arena, the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville, and the parking venues that have been built to accommodate an NFL team, Jacksonville Memorial Coluseum and Sam Wolfson Park were surrounded by old houses and the Maxwell House Plant.  It was, to put it nicely, not a good part of town.

While Georgia fans saw the same conditions, it was different for us.  We enjoyed the trip to Jacksonville.  Munson’s comments after the Run, Lindsay, Run! call were dead on.  All those Dawg people with all those places in Saint Simons, Jekyll, and all those other places for the weekend were there for the party.  Jacksonville was a red and black town.  The largest Bulldog club outside of the state was (and still is) there.  My, how losing changes the perspecitve.

Paul Westerdawg lays out the best arguments for keeping the game in Jacksonville, succinctly summing the situation up as “We’re chicken shit if we leave”.

Orson at EDSBS has a more sarcastic and dead on reason: the Dome would be like Jacksonville was in 94.

As a native of Southeast Georgia, there was something comforting as a child about all the cars with students wearing red and black making the trek down Hwy 15 to Jacksonville.  I remember the Red Coats’ annual trek through Southeast Georgia, making stops in places such as Vidalia, Jesup and Waycross, playing impromptu concerts as crowds gathered.  As a junior in high school, I resolved to go to Georgia and only apply there after seeing a car with freshman girls unload at the Oak Plaza Restaurant in Blackshear on Wednesday before that year’s game (the Bell to Nattiel game).  Although I had firmly been a Dawg fan my whole life, I figured any place with girls that pretty traveling to a football game on Wednesday was perfect for me.  I was right.

I do want to give a hat tip to Kyle at Dawg Sports.  Kyle lays out another good reason to keep the game in Jacksonville.  If we leave, we are ceding the whole of South Georgia to Florida and FSU.  I don’t live there now and haven’t since I graduated from high school.  However, there are no telling how many students that only consider Georgia would consider other options if they don’t have the shared experiences of over half the student body and many, many fans making the trip to Jacksonville. How many Albany, Valdosta, Tifton, Camden, Charlton, Ware and Glynn County kids go elsewhere because they won’t get to play close to home?  I just think it is short sighted reasoning and a puss out move.

Stanfill's from Albany. Spurier still doesn't sleep without checking if he's under the bed. Good enough reason for me to keep it in Jax.

From a business perspective, the state does benefit from a game in Jacksonville.  Think gas taxes.  Think hotel rooms and restaurants in the Golden Isles.  Think tour groups running eleventeen hundred buses from the Golden Isles to the game.  Yeah, if the (name that shall not be spoken) game were in the ATL, the state gets more of that money, but you cannot have the discussion of moving it without discussing the loss of revenue in Southeast Georgia resulting from moving it.

With the discussion recently being brought up, I hope this is all posturing to help get a favorable deal out of Jacksonville.  The most recent comments from Damon and Coach Richt do indicate that this is a fishing story on the part of the AJC (what Dawg fans have long been rankled?) or a trial balloon by the Atlanta Sports Council.  Just as we played good cop in the 80’s in keeping the game there, here’s hoping the rolls have reversed, with Jeremy Foley playing the good cop and Damon (or his proxies) playing bad cop.

Besides, if we play in Atlanta every year (or even every fourth year), doesn’t it take away from the excitement of making the SEC championship game (or at least taunts involving playing in Atlanta the first weekend in December)?

Ah, the weekend – first observations of March Madness

• I don’t mean to pile on here, but does anyone really think Cal deserved to be in the tourney (much less as a single digit seed)?
• I think I’ll be able to post the same thing about Boston College tomorrow.
• Virginia Commonwealth really looked poised last night in coming back against a pretty good UCLA team.  Too bad they fell just short of the upset.
• This is why the NCAA tournament committee pays attention to key injuries: WKU76-Illinois72.  Chester Frazier out, game over.
• Most dangerous game for the higher seed today: North Dakota State vs. Kansas (14 vs. 3).
• Least compelling 8-9 game: Tennessee vs. Oklahoma State.  Interesting side note:  Dennis Felton has more SEC titles than Bruce Pearl (gotta give credit to Trippdawg for that one).
• Most exciting game today: Utah vs. Arizona.  It’ll be a great game to give a clinic on how to isolate a big man and make every possession count.  Think Georgia vs. LSU in 1990 with Alex Kessler against Shaq.  Mismatch you say?  I think ‘Zona wins a one pointer. 57-56 sounds about right.

Special not so much basketball bullet alert:

• By now *everyone* has seen this Go ahead and watch again, you know you want to.  I’ll take Jack Kingston’s voting against a resolution over Corrine Brown’s Gator wear every day.

Insufficient Evidence

Those two words mean all the world to someone accused of a crime.

Insufficient Evidence.

The State has not got enough evidence to move forward with a case.  As a defendant, you have been given a reprieve.  In a typical case, that usually means the state knows it cannot prove one or more of the elements of its case.  The reasons are myriad for this happening, but he most usual reason is that a key witness either isn’t trustworthy enough to be relied upon or refuses to testify.

In cases where the primary (and sometimes only) evidence is the victim’s testimony, that victim’s testimony is the case.

Like in a violation of a protective order case and a rape case.  Say one like that involved Florida lineman Carl Johnson.  He got lucky.  His victim isn’t afraid of him anymore and doesn’t think he raped her.

Before you jump all over me for being judgmental and all, remember this: Carl Johnson was told to stay away from her and sat across the aisle from her, then followed her off the bus. At the best he basically thumbed his nose at the judge and the judicial system.  Hey, sitting across from her helped him.  She obviously felt like she was mistaken and decided to let bygones be bygones.

Insufficient evidence.  Someone who filed three rape complaints withdrew them.  He was ordered by the court to keep his distance, but he got on a bus with her (but according to his teammates, did nothing to scare her) anyway.  He sat down across from her after he’d been told to keep his distance.  Now she has decided not to press charges. The protective order stands until April 9th.

Insufficient evidence.

Can he catch a football?

I am not a track and field guy.  I watch it when it is on because Ms. The Dean threw hammer and shot in college and she still knows a couple of folks in the sports.  However, the Dawgs are making noise this year in the Indoor season.

Below is a clip from a recent meet in Arkansas.  Seriously, if you don’t care anything about track, just skip to about 4:10 and watch Torrin Lawrence for the Dawgs run.  A sight to behold. He catches Florida’s Calvin Smith, Jr. (Smith was an Olympic team qualifier in the 4X400, but didn’t get slotted to run).

Go Dawgs!

We’ll all be a little better for it

St. Timmy the Greatest Ever announced on Sunday that he’d found the cure for cancer.  Or something.

Maybe I can spend just five minutes with him.

Pardon me, can I *help* you sir?

Ah, the weekend – not so special BCS championship game review

• First, congrats to Florida.  That is all I’ll say about that.
• Choklahoma.  Two blown red zone opps for the number one team in red zone conversion.  14 points from the top scoring team in the nation. My guess is that Stoops isn’t so ok with those blown chances now.
• Fox.  Let’s start a collection to see if we can buy out Fox’s contract from the BCS.  Those two clowns in the booth last night couldn’t call a Pee Wee game on a cassette tape well.  As slick as Fox is with its pro coverage, it was just terrible with this game.  Poor or no outros to commercials.  Four and five different camera shots in the span of seven seconds  multiple times (you know, switching from Meyer, to Tebow, to Strong, to Harvin, to some random Florida fan in section 655, all in rapid succession). Constant Tebow fluffing.  Wait, that part is normal.
• Speaking of, it felt like Gary Danielson was in the back of the booth telling the broadcasters to “tell about the time Timmy went to the prison leper colony in the Philippines.”  I swear I wanted to make a circumcision joke there, but couldn’t pull the trigger.
• The Big 12 got the right team into the game.  Regretfully for Oklahoma, Oshea was right:  The Big 12 was a mirage.  A high scoring, cupcake playing mirage.
• Percy Harvin should be pissed he wasn’t MVP.  He should also go ahead and leave for the NFL, because it won’t get any better for him than this morning.
• The Heisman curse continues.  Not that Bradford had a terrible night.  It just felt like after the third Oklahoma drive Chase Daniel was playing QB for Oklahoma.
• Oklahoma:  The Buffalo Bills of D1 football.  At least this one was competitive until the end.

Oklahoma, O-K-U!

Quinton and PWD have perfectly summed up my views on tonight’s BCS Championship game.  I come from a family that has always been SEC homers and will do the damnest things like root for Tennessee over Notre Dame (I personally wanted the game to end in a 0-0 tie with the coaches humping each other on the 50 yard line, just for kicks).

This bowl season, I guess I was rooting for Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, because I don’t personally hate Alabama and we don’t haven’t traditionally done much head to head recruiting against them, plus it would have helped me avoid the difficult task of deciding where I put Utah on my final Mumme Poll ballot.  I definitely rooted for Vandy, since they are Vandy and it is such a cute story that their intramural football team beat an ACC championship game participant.  I didn’t root for Kentucky, because I picked East Carolina in PWD’s Bowl pool.  Of course, I rooted for LSU, but only did so because of who they were playing.

Rooting for Florida because you want the SEC to ‘look’ good makes no sense to me.  A victory for the Gators means even more ego, more mouthiness, more St. Urban, more stories on what a swell guy Timmyboy is.  No one anywhere will think, “well Georgia plays in the SEC East and Florida is in the SEC East, so Georgia must be pretty good.”  No, people will say Georgia definitely will lose to Florida, because Florida in the defending national champion.  Even worse, kids on the fence about playing one place or the other will say “I can’t break any pretty crystal footballs during my visit to Athens, they’ve got TWO to break in Gainesville.”  Even people in Montana get that.

I said it the other day and I’ll say it again: I wouldn’t root for Florida if they were playing my ex-wife and her lawyers.

In the end, I have to wonder if the Big 12’s top offense can overcome their lack of defense.  I won’t be able to say this definitively until tonight, but after watching Texas and Texas Tech, the Big 12 probably got the right team from the Big 12 South into the conference championship game.

Here’s hoping Sam Bradford and company shake the Choklahoma moniker (of course, that does mean another year of Timmyboy, but we’ll worry about paying that bill later, if we have to).

Boomer Sooner!