Week one of this college football season, I told friend Randy that we should go the National Championship Game if his team, Florida State, ended up playing mine, Georgia. Well, we got half of that.

Randy didn't want to spend the time or money it would take to get us to the Orange Bowl (which is understandable since he's dealing with family medical issues), so we compromised instead on the Camellia Bowl played in the Cramton Bowl stadium in Montgomery, Alabama, where we saw the Northern Illinois University Huskies defeat the Arkansas State Red Wolves 21-19.

Maybe it didn't have the weight of an SEC vs ACC contest, but I can't argue with the price or location. We even had great seats. Well, pretty good seats, anyway. The banner in front of us did block our view of the near sideline, as you can see in this screenshot of us from the ESPN broadcast. I have helpfully illustrated the best looking Georgia fan in the stadium.

Last year in Birmingham, we were very cold in the evening air. This year, we were very warm in the midday sun. As much as I dislike the cold, I also dislike noon kickoffs that require 9AM departures. Maybe next year the time and temperature will be just right.

Highlights of the experience include the Arkansas State crowd booing when the PA announcer suggested everyone should get COVID boosters, Randy's calling a fake field goal prior to the snap (by the position of the kicker), and Randy's recognition that the late game onside kick attempt was doomed to failure (by the position of the kicker). That Randy sure knows his kicking game.

Speaking of kicking, Randy also had a lot to say about the Camellia Bowl Queen who played football on her high school football team. Her position? Kicker.

I'm glad we went, and I already wonder where we'll go next year.

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Alabama 26. UGA 23.

Well, shit.

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UGA crushed South Carolina. Then Alabama lost to Mississippi. Vegas declared No. 13 Alabama an underdog against the No. 8 Bulldogs. All UGA had to do was show up and play.

They didn't.

Final score: Alabama 38, UGA 10. It wasn't ever really that close.

In all the UGA games I've ever watched, never have I seen the team collapse like they did today in the steady rain. After clawing to a 3-3 tie, it was like they ran out of fight at the start of the 2nd quarter. Alabama proceeded to score a rushing touchdown, block a punt for a touchdown, pass for a touchdown, and come back from halftime to intercept the ball and ran it back for a touchdown. All UGA did was stare at their own navels. The only reason the score wasn't worse was because Nick Saban didn't need it to be.

UGA did nothing right. Defensive backs were out of position on every play. Quarterback Greyson Lambert couldn't decide who to throw to and froze up. Relief quarterback Brice Ramsey couldn't manage to throw to his own team. But the worst of it all was Coach Richt and his coaching staff:

• Calling a majority of passes and not runs even before the game was out of hand. (The Bulldog's two scoring drives were the only two possessions in the game when UGA called more runs than passes. That was not a coincidence. Maybe I was too hard on Mike Bobo all these years; Bobo is gone but UGA is still up to its same old sour tricks.)
• Continuing to get special teams wrong. (Time outs to ice your own field goal kickers? Punt protection formations that block no one? Sigh.)
• Worst of all, completely failing to prepare their kids for yet another big game. (Of everyone in the stadium before kickoff, no one seemed more confident in a UGA victory than the UGA players. That swagger sure disappeared in a hurry once they went down by one touchdown!)

Let this be known as the game that finally destroyed my faith in Mark Richt. I mean, I still like the guy. I think he's good for the University and its student athletes. I certainly don't want him to be fired. (Some things, like academic performance and ethics, are more important than wins and SEC Championships.) LSU in 2011? Alabama in 2012? Vanderbilt in 2013? Florida in 2014? Alabama in 2015? I just need to accept that we're never going to win any "big games" while he's the head football coach.

I admit that I didn't go to last week's game. I was sick with a cold and didn't want to endure the rain just to see UGA beat up on an inferior opponent like Southern University. I regret that decision now. If I want to see UGA win, those are the only games I should go to. Inferior opponents are the only ones we can beat.

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Mom and I traveled to Auburn to watch the Bulldogs and Tigers play. I'd never seen a game in Auburn, and Mom hadn't been to Jordan-Hare stadium since her father, an Auburn alumnus, took her in about in 1957. We figure this means that she goes to an Auburn game once every time Auburn wins a national title. If Auburn's play today is any indicator, she won't be going back for another 50 years.

Auburn and Georgia didn't belong on the same field together. The Tigers were as bad as any team we've played all season, and they totally deserved the zero points they scored. Georgia effortlessly 28 on their first 4 possessions and easily steamrolled their way to an eventual 38-0 victory.

The Auburn fans in the stands had long since resigned themselves to how terrible their football team is in 2012, and were resorting to self-deprecating gallows humor to ease the pain. By the third quarter, most Auburn fans had even gone home, abandoning their home stadium to us Dawgs fans celebrating clinching SEC East. It was a pretty good time.

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Earlier this year, my father bought something like 40 acres in Fountain, Florida. He bought a camper so that he could sleep on the land while he worked on cleaning it up. Yesterday, his carefully laid plains went up in smoke.

It seems that Dad was clearing some brush with Prometheus' good friend, fire, when things got a little out of control. Soon his camper and his van were burnt to ruin, along with everything inside of them. By 5PM, the only things still intact were Dad and a rake.

A good Samaritan named Al lent Dad his cell phone so that Dad could call me to rush out on a 484-mile round trip to recover him to Georgia. It was my first trip to Dad's property. Too bad it was all in the dark.

I arrived in Fountain shortly after 11PM EST (10PM local time) to find the Fire Marshall still on the scene, looking for evidence to prove his theory that Dad had been cooking crystal meth. I'm sorry I wasn't there earlier, I could have saved that man a lot of trouble. Dad might do a lot of crazy things, but he's far too lazy to cook crystal meth.

Dad was a little worked up over being accused of making drugs in his electricity-free trailer in the woods that had just burnt up in a mysterious fire. He insisted that we drive straight back to Georgia once the Marshall let us go. I hadn't eaten anything since 2PM, so I stopped at a 24-hour McDonald's in Eufaula, Alabama. If a McDonald's hamburger doesn't taste great after you've fasted for 14 hours, it isn't ever going to taste great. Therefore, I can definitively say that a McDonald's hamburger is never going to taste great.

All in all, it could have been much worse. Dad's alive and I don't have to hear about how awesome it's going to be for him to camp out on his land in Florida anymore. I'll consider that a fair trade for my time.

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Everyone wears black to funerals.

I've made it no secret that I hate the black Georgia jerseys. I hope that the memory of this week's debacle, a 41-30 loss to Alabama will keep them in the closet for a long time. The final score isn't even close to describing the 31-0 beating that we were taking by halftime.

Even the fans got on my nerve at the game. Though I was quite surprised that the crowd kept trying to rally the Dogs (we're usually so quick to throw in the towel when the chips are down), there seemed to be more jerks around than usual. Within reach or me were the drunk Georgia Tech chick who kept reminding us that she had seen more lopsided defeats at Tech, the asshole behind me who took a break from talking on his cell phone to insist that I sit down because he didn't want to have to stand to see the mess on the field, and the Bama fan dressed like Bear Bryant who kept chanting "overrated" and "blackout." Fun, fun, fun. I travel for hours each way to see UGA play this poorly while surrounded by these strangers? Something must be seriously wrong with me.

Still, I'm not too down on the loss. We started the season with a lot of hype, and if there's anything for which hype prepares me, it's disappointment. There's a long way to go yet this season, and if the Dogs can learn from this fiasco, we might earn a rematch in the SEC Championship game come December.

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