My blog yesterday was probably them most viewed since I starting blogging the first of this year. I am glad people read the blog because it really made me happy to be able to share that story. As I mentioned, William has Barth Syndrome and not many people have ever heard of it. I am going to put the Barth website link on my blog so that anyone that comes back today or in the future can have that link. William has a twin sister, Lily, who is not a carrier as she was tested. Barth only impacts boys but girls of course can be carriers. I can tell you, the Mom and Dad of William are special folks as they have done everything in their power to make life as normal as possible for William-and William is doing very well as a baseball playing second grader. They gave me permission to share the story and I am certainly glad they did. Not only did it allow me to share more about Barth but it also allowed me to share some pictures of two outstanding young men we have as student-athletes at UGA. Yes college kids do some dumb things from time to time, make mistakes but there are plenty of good ones around as well. I think all of us that have ever been to college can certainly agree that we made mistakes. For us though, we did not have the microscope on us waiting to report every time we screwed up. Anyway, again, here is the link to the official Barth Syndrome foundation if you would like to learn more, or even contact the organization to see how you can get involved to help find a cure.
http://www.barthsyndrome.org/english/view.asp?x=1
As I have looked at Ole Miss this week, one thing has really jumped out. Even though expectations for them at the start of the year were not extremely high, after the loss at Vandy last Saturday, the fan base in Oxford is beyond angry. I mean boosters taking out full page ads in the local papers calling for Nutt to be fired, the school president feeling the need to show up and get involved with the weekly call in show.Remember again, Ole Miss was 4-8 last year, 1-7 in SEC play, losing to Vandy in Oxford last year. Ok so we have lost to Vandy as recently as 2006, we nearly lost to them again in 2007, I know it is embarrassing but this is Ole Miss-then again, this is the school that ran away David Cutcliffe years ago after ONE bad season-the most successful coach they have had in recent years. As you will recall, Ole Miss was involved in the kick off classic reshuffling deal. They were originally scheduled to face Boise to start the season but instead got BYU. They were also promised a spot in a future kick off game-I believe 2013 but maybe 2014?? Anyway, looking at the Ole Miss D, they are currently 11th in the SEC in total defense and last against the run. That after playing BYU, Southern Illinois and Vanderbilt. If you look at the stats, Ole Miss is averaging 374 yards a game which is only ahead of Auburn-who get this, is allowing 534 yards a game. They are 5th in passing defense and 11th in rushing defense. In game one, BYU passed for over 200 yards but only ran for 91 yards. In game 2 against the equal of our recent Coastal Carolina, they gave up over 200 yards rushing. Against Vandy, nearly 300 yards rushing. In fact Vandy RB Zac Stacy had 11 carries for 169 yards, averaging over 15 yards a carry. I wonder if Vandy will print up a t-shirt for that yards per carry as that has to be a record-sorry, I think only GTU prints up t-shirts for rushing/total yards in a game. Lets take a look at the starting lineup for the Rebs on D. They run a traditonal 4-3.
DE Wayne Dorsey 6-6 265 SR
NT Uriah Grant 6-0 300 JR
DT Justin Smith 6-3 290 SR
DE Kentrell Lockett 6-5 260 SR
LB Ralph Williams 6-1 220 FR
LB Aaron Garbutt 6-2 210 JR
LB Mike Marry 6-2 237 Soph
CB Marcus Temple 5-10 188 SR
S Frank Crawford 6-0 185 Soph
S Charles Sawyer 5-11 175 Soph
CB Wesley Pendleton 5-10 175 JR
First thing I notice that suprises me is that this DL is BIG and experienced. The fact they are struggling against the run makes me think the DL are maybe big but not the most athletic guys-it also calls into question the LB's who are not very big and not very experienced either. The secondary is pretty small in comparison to the first two schools we played. Bottom line, there is simply NO excuse for our offense to not have a good day on Saturday. From what I have read about this D, they simply have had trouble tackling this year, the DL has a good one in Dorsey-he can cause trouble against the pass but overall, the secondary is fast but they are small so bigger WR's can have a big advantage here. Ok, so Mike Bobo is constantly catching grief about his play calling. Here is a game where he can make all the old school UGA faithful happy by doing one thing consistently-RUN THE BALL. Now, the question remains CAN we run the ball. I think it is now very evident who our best running back is, Mr. Crowell. I expect IC to get at least 20 carries this week. Samuel is still not 100% per the latest injury report, give Crowell the ball and see what he can do with it. One thing that I can say is really encouraging to me about Crowell to this point-besides the fact he just looks like a very good back, the way he can catch the ball out of the backfield has really been nice. I would expect to see Orson Charles more involved this week as well-he likely draws a young LB covering him or the spur/LB Garbutt, if the running game is going as we all hope, the play action is going to work wondefully this week. I see no reason why this offense can't crank out 400+ yards this week but I caution, this D gave up 30 last week against Vandy but their QB threw 5 INT's-and no the QB for Miss is not named Quincy in case you were wondering. Also Vandy's D got a safety. BYU only scored 14 points for the game. Southern Illinois put up 24, and again, ran the ball all over Miss. I guess we can have high expectations but as we have found out over the years, you can never truly predict how young men are going respond after embarrassing losses. I hope we can come out early, score and then score again, give our D some cushion so they can really get after the Ole Miss offense, which, I will look at tomorrow. Needless to say, from all accounts the Ole Miss offense is probably worse than the Ole Miss defense.
One closing note, I was called out by a good friend of mine for using third person on my blog recently. Kudos to him for calling me out on this, I can't say I purposely did it but I will just say, if anyone HATES third person more than me, well, I doubt anyone does. When I was in Athens years ago, my first roommate in the dorm was a guy named Dave. Nice guy Dave but LOVED to use third person. He would sit outside our dorm room talking to a girl (I assume maybe his girlfriend that was breaking up with him-or seemed to be breaking up with him quite often) and say, Dave is going to be fine, Dave is OK, don't worry about Dave. Thankfully for me he sat out in the hall, unfortunately, I could still hear him and it was truly one of those beat head against wall moments. I am a good guy, soft spoken and like to just leave people alone, which I did in this case. BUT, the fact that I can still remember this crap 20+ years from when it was happening, just tells you the impact THIRD PERSON has had on my life. You hear athletes use third person all the time, it is SOOO bad but then again, it does make me laugh/chuckle because it brings me back to when I was 20 years old, sitting in a dorm room in Athens, Ga, only care in the world was going to class and making darn sure that I studied and passed my classes. No kids, no mortgages, no car notes, no stresses about losing your job, no stresses about ANYTHING but going to class and having fun. So, while I do apologize to my friend DB for using third person in an earlier blog, in a sense I don't apologize at all. As we live our life, sometimes it is refreshing to having something bring back and old memory and bring a smile to your face. Even if the memory is something that annoyed you then and still annoys you today, it still takes you back in time and slows down the otherwise busy and stressful lives we find ourselves in daily. So, as Dave would say back in old days, Haney is ok, Haney is going to be fine, and Haney thanks you for reading his blog!! :) Oh and one more thing, Haney is NOT my name but it is my board name on UGA message boards-it is my nickname given to me by my big brother. We used to love the show Green Acres, and of course the classic Mr. Haney. When I was about 12-13 years old, as I was "becoming" a man so to speak, my voice was changing and I kept going from boy voice to man voice-much in the same way Mr. Haney did on Green Acres. SOOO, being the ever so supportive and loving older brother, he started calling me Haney and even though it made me so mad I would go tackle him and punch him, he was a good big brother and never really hit back. But, the nickname stuck and now I used it as my nickname on message boards and this here blog.
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