Aesop Revisited

The way I see it, Georgia's victory yesterday resulted from a domino effect of oddness, starting three weeks ago in Columbia, South Carolina. That's when aliens descended on the Bulldogs' camp and sucked the players' football knowledge right out of their brains. It was a freak accident that could happen to, well, nobody but Georgia. That night, the Gamecocks pecked and pecked until the Bulldogs went home with their tails between their legs.

As it turned out the Florida Gators sat down sometime that Sunday afternoon with a big bowl of popcorn and mugs of hot chocolate and watched that dismal match in South Carolina's Swamp. By halftime, they'd drawn their conclusion: They had to turn off the idiot box and get back on the field to prepare for the game against the Gamecocks.

So they did. And last weekend we saw the Gators eat fried chicken for dinner. Then they returned to Gainsville and hung up their cleats because their next game in Jacksonville, they determined, would be tantamount to a match against Savannah High School. So it seems to me that yesterday's contest in Alltel Stadium was a modern day sports example of the hare and the tortoise.

Several factors fed the Gators' overconfident attitude. First, Georgia has looked a little tortoisey lately. Not only did the Dawgs fail to show up for the Carolina game, but their performance against Kentucky, although a victory, was underwhelming. All last week, any mention of football led to the same question:  "How do you think Georgia's going to play this weekend?" Predictions weren't promising. Usually such conversations went like this:

"I don't think Georgia's going to win Saturday."

"Me, either. I mean, I want them to win, but I don't think they will."

"Nope. I think Mark Richt should be fired."

We were still licking our wounds from the chicken coop.

Also feeding the Gator's inflated ego was the Bulldog nation's dissatisfaction with Georgia's head coach. Any time the Dawgs lose against a major SEC contender, most people wearing red start grumbling, "Fire Mark Richt." I don't think that man's resume ever gets cold. And after South Carolina, the grumbles had some merit to them. Contrasted against other SEC coaches, Mark Richt is a real teddy bear.  In fact some sports analysts have described Richt as the Pa Ingalls of college football coaches (see "Show Us Some Nellie, 2009).  

And then there was the whole first half. True, Georgia remained ahead, but not by much. Throughout the game, fans stayed in their seats waiting for Florida to score and take the game away from Georgia.

And then there was the fumble.

I've never been so happy to see a fumble in all my life (In fact, that inspires me to write a post about college football's most significant fumbles). As soon as Georgia jumped on that ball in the end zone, Stephen yelled, "There's the bean bag! Georgia's got the ball!" My first reaction was "Bean bags in football? What for?"

Then Georgia ran to a first down, and that was game. After CBS showed us about two dozen replays of that fumble (Thank you, CBS), the camera shifted to the Florida sideline, where Florida's #11, Jordan Reed, rested his helmet on a trainer's shoulder. The trainer had his arm around Reed's neck and was muttering through the ear hole of Reed's helmet. That's when I exclaimed, "Is he weeping? He is! He's weeping!"

And it wasn't just a few angry tears. Reed turned on the water works. I know that because Reed made the awful mistake of taking off his helmet.Then CBS steadied the camera on him so the whole world could see Reed's pout and puffy eyes (Thank you again, CBS).

Now, I always thought this went without saying, but obviously not:  College football players should not weep over a bad play--especially not on national television. Punctuating the inappropriateness of those tears is the fact that Florida's players earned some unsportsmanlike conduct penalties for pushing their opponents around on the field. I've always thought Florida showed bad sportsmanship. I've seen their players (again on national television) blatantly poke their fingers in Bulldogs' eyes out in the wide open where everyone could see them doing it (at least players of other teams are more covert about trying to blind each other). I know such behavior happens all the time on the gridiron. And I know Georgia's guys had some unsportsmanlike penalties as well. But if a player's going to behave that way on the field, then when he makes a major mistake like Reed did, he needs to suck it up and at the very least save the tears for the locker room.

So on Florida's side the tears flowed. On Georgia's side, the beers flowed. Mark Richt can file away that resume for another week, and the Bulldogs can prepare for their bout next Saturday against Georgia Southern.  Note to Murray:  Don't make the same "hare-y" mistakes Florida did.