GREAT GREAT FOOTBALL PERFORMANCE

Too much travel and work have kept me from blogging lately. I apologize to both of my loyal readers!

In my last post I stated that this bunch of Bulldogs did not have the character to get things on track. I wish I had made that statement after the Ole Miss game. I feel a little like Pat Dye. Clearly the players took my challenge to heart and proved me wrong in every way. BRAVO, gentlemen, BRAVO.

Kyle King has already usurped me on one topic that I intended to discuss, so I will be brief since the Mayor has already treated the subjected deftly. Every year, a Mark Richt team will open a can of whoop ass and pour it all over somebody who is supposed to give us trouble. This year, Auburn was that somebody. Previous recipients have been LSU, LSU, Tennessee, and Georgia Tech in reverse chronological order. When these days of beauty will strike is always hard to predict, but just know that they will come at least once per season. If you are a Georgia opponent who gets caught in this annual eviscerating buzzsaw game, wear raingear because the bloodletting and detrital body parts will stain your clothes and possibly your soul. Oh, that one season soon we will have many of these days of football nirvana.

Until then, we have Georgia Tech in front of us and one more chance to redeem this season in memorable fashion by unleashing the rabid hounds that played so impressively on the Plains.

Speaking of impressive play, here is a "we are not worthy" repeated bow to the hobbled trenchmen Nick Jones, Chester Adams, Ken Shackleford, Daniel Inman and Bubba Velasco who played hurt and/or without relief for 11 consecutive weeks and on this day, put it all together for a dominating, road-paving performance against a solid defense. They just got better and better as the afternoon wore on and on. Huge kudos to Shack for gutting it out after getting banged up in the first series but refusing to be kept out of this redemption game.

Matt Stafford was awesome. The out route to Michael Moore was a laser that could not have been made by many NCAA QBs. It came on a critical third down in the third quarter when Auburn was trying to wrest the momentum away from the Dawgs. Moore had about one step of separation from the defender. Stafford rifled a bullet across the field perfectly on the outside shoulder of Moore and out of harms way for a first down catch. A flutterball in that situation could have easily been picked for six. That is why CMR is so impressed with this arm. His two beautiful deep throws were also welcome sights for sore eyes. Because of his early effectiveness and some well coordinated runs by Kregg Lumpkin, the Auburn defense was left scrambling for an answer and ended up leaving the middle wide open for the numerous first down runs made by Stafford. What a great day at the office for the true freshman. He really deserved this one!

We should also praise the perfect game played be the receivers and tight ends. NO DROPS. Circus grabs. Downfield blocking. Keep it up gang.

Lastly, the entire defense deserves tremendous kudos from CWM to Tra Battle to Ray Gant. Everyone. They attacked Auburn from the initial snap and showed great desire and effort. Gang tackling. Running to the ball. Showing some swagger.

All in all, it was obvious that this team was having fun Saturday and I am extremely happy for them that they were able to put it all together in such dominating fashion. I hope they will go into the Tech game focused on attacking and having fun. If they do, it will be a good day to be a DAWG.

GATA.