The sweet 16 gets underway tonight, thankfully for me, all games are at night so I will be able to give 100% to work today and tomorrow. Unfortunately for me, the second games start at nearly 10p, and for a guy that has to get up at before 6a every morning, it is TOUGH to stay up and watch. Tonight, first games you have San Diego State against UConn and Florida against BYU. I predict the two east coast teams win. UConn because they just have more overall talent and have Kimba Walker-same type dominant scorer as Jimmer-BYU is the only team to beat SDSU this year (twice). As for BYU and Jimmer agains the Gators, again, UF just has too much and remember, BYU put UF out of the tourney last year in double OT. I think the huge size advantage inside for the Gators will be too much for the Cougars. The late games, Duke against Arizona and Butler against Wisconsin. I favor Duke, even though they struggled at times against Michigan, I think they are going to take down the Wildcats, who really was fortunate to beat Texas to make the sweet 16. In the other game, I lilke Butler-they just again seem to be a team that finds a way to win close games. Then again, Wisconsin really has been impressive so far, so I could see them winning but I will stick with Butler-they are the Bulldogs after all.
Seth Emerson wrote a good article about Bruce Figgins and his move to FB. I have been a big fan of this move because Bruce has already demonstrated he can handle two of the three job duties of the position-blocking and catching passes. Granted, his blocking is going to be different when he is pass protecting because he will have to pick out who is blitzing etc but to me the only thing I wonder about is Bruce taking a handoff. But, Shaun Chappas, a true FB for us last year, only had 15 carries all season. So, probably not goign to be giving big Bruce too many rushing attempts. You still need to have that as an option though and as big as he is, seems he could pick up the short yardage. Here is the Emerson article-
http://www.macon.com/2011/03/23/1498883/figgins-not-waiting-for-his-number.html
I have also read recent articles about Brent Benedict and AJ Harmon, two guys that will be backup OL for us this year. Two kids that came to UGA with very high expectations. Benedict redshirted last year after suffering a bad knee injury his SR year of HS. He is now back 100% and is fighting for playing time at guard. Harmon was a highly recruited OL/DL coming out of HS. In fact, a big part of his recruitment centered on where he would play in college. He wanted to play DL but our coaches said OL, unless he brought his weight down. He got very limited PT last year, but then was suspended from the bowl game due to academic issues. He has the school work cleared up and is now backing up Sturdivant at OT. From the sounds of it, he is very relived that Coach Searels left the program, he is enjoying working with Coach Friend and feels like he has a second chance. I hope both guys can start making contributions this year, next year on the OL we certainly will have openings for 3 guys to step in so we need our reserves this year to step up, get some PT under their belts and be ready to play in starting roles next fall.
Ok, all for today, I have to admit I missed the first dancing with the stars, I hope Hines Ward did a good job. I can't keep up with what day that show comes on or what time, same for American Idol-but then again, with my family duties, primarily baseball with my son, I have little time to watch anything on TV except sports-after the kids are in bed. I will be out the first week of April (spring break), going on a cruise, looking forward to getting a few minutes to actually rest and relax-that should be nice.
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