Since I usually post about Georgia home football games, I suppose I should mention that the final tickets in my annual season package were for today's home finale against the 1-9 Charlotte 49ers. I did not go. I gave the tickets to the daughter of a high-school friend who went to Georgia Tech (ha-ha!), which means I watched from the comfort of my couch as freshman running back Bo Walker's two-touchdown debut paved the way to a 35-3 route. Good for Bo. I hope he makes a lot of other people's money playing ball.

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I'm pretty sure that tonight's game matching #10 Texas against #5 Georgia was the last game I'm going to see in Sanford Stadium as a season ticket holder.

To ensure we made it this time (after the traffic fiasco that prevented us from seeing Mississippi last month), Mom and I left the house four-and-a-half hours early. For many years, we parked at Clarke Central High School, where parking fees helped fund extracurricular activities, but as the University has driven tailgating farther and farther from expensive campus lots, the high school now fills up extra early. So we parked at the dentist office across the street instead. Mom wanted to walk the old route through the student center into the stadium, which ultimately only served as a reminder that the University has built new barriers to block it. Oh well. We had plenty of time, and were still in our seats 90 minutes before kickoff, even after I was misled by some context clues (temporary stadium seats that looked like the old seat backs replaced earlier this year) and mistakenly accused someone else of being in our seats. Poor Mom. She's usually in bed by 9, but we didn't get home again until after 2AM. (Don't worry about Audrey: the dogsitter got her fed and to bed on time.)

As it happens, the guy I wrongly asked to move has been attending UGA games for decades, even after moving from Covington, GA, to Florida, but he said after a few decades, he canceled his season tickets and now instead spends that money and more buying tickets on the secondary market just for the games he wants to attend (in Athens and in other locations for other teams). It's a sound plan, one I've been contemplating a lot recently in this modern era of pay-for-play college football. Once upon a time, the university told me my donations bought books and meals. Now, my money finances base salaries, freeing big-donor money to outbid other colleges for the best kickers in the transfer portal. Somehow, I don't find that as satisfying.

Which is not to say that I don't think the players should be paid. Since they are the product, they should get the lion's share of whatever the football program takes in. But it's also fair for me to judge whether I think I'm getting my value's worth from my season tickets. Given that I only made it to two games this year (UGA closes its home schedule next week against 1-9 Charlotte at 12:45 PM, and I am definitely not going), I think the math is pretty clear.

As it happens, when I wasn't stuck in my own head thinking about the future, I did notice there was also a football game played in Athens. It was okay, but it certainly did not live up to the hype. (Though I'm probably spoiled by the two spectacular wins UGA put on Texas last season.) Georgia was pretty obviously the better team for most of this game, even if their offensive coordinator was calling predictable plays that made Texas's defensive line look amazing for about half the game. But the imprecision of the Longhorn's youthful quarterback (some kid named Arch Manning) ultimately doomed them. You'll read in the tabloids about fourth down conversions and an onside kick that blew the game open late, but Georgia had 14 points by halftime, more than enough to win what would become a 35-10 blowout. Good Dogs.

I hope that some other team will be nice and give Georgia a chance to play in the SEC title game. If that happens, I'll happily watch that game with my dogs beside me on the couch.

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"Anomaly Detected" reports Google Analytics. It seems Google expected 9 visitors to Wriphe.com on Friday, and I got 38. Can I account for that difference? No. Maybe a whole bunch of people tuned in to read my take on What's New Pussycat? Come to think of it, maybe some 21st-century surveillance AI flagged me for putting the terms "student bodies," "having wonderful crime," and "murderers among us" in the same blog post. If so, whoops, I did it again.

I don't look at the site analytics often, and I would have thought that 38 was a huge aberration. (According to my phone, I literally only ever communicate with about a dozen people, and that includes my dogs' vet and "friend" Keith who said he was going to buy us tickets for today's Dolphins vs Falcons game in Atlanta then didn't and threw a party without inviting me instead. Not that I'm bitter. At least now I don't have to spend time and money on the Dolphins. So thanks, Keith! What a pal!) But looking at the year-to-date snapshots, 38 appears not quite so deviant. It looks very much like I commonly have over 20 visitors a day in 2025. I'm sure I have no idea who most of you are or why you would be interested in any of my pretentious whining about football or my so-called "friends," but you're welcome here

In fact, I had 345 visitors on August 17. I would assume that was the leading edge of a Denial of Service attack, although the day before I did post about my family's Scrabble history, so maybe that showed up in some Google News feeds, and I caught some stray boardgame fan lookie loos by accident. To those people I offer my sincerest apology (13 points).

Huh. Now that I really walk though the dashboard, I find I am getting a surprising amount of traffic (14% of all site hits) from China. To the best of my knowledge, I don't know anyone in China, so that does seem a bit weird. I don't think that I post a bunch about anything Chinese, but a quick search does reveal 32 posts matching the word "China." There are not quite 3000 posts in the history of this site, so that's a healthy 1%. Disproportionate to the number of hits, sure, but also more than I would have expected. In any case, ni hao to my China people!

The real question is whether any of these analytics serve any purpose. I think the answer is no, at least in regards to Wriphe.com. As you probably know if you're reading this, I don't tailor my blog posts to anyone's interests but my own, which is probably why Google thought I should have only 9 visitors. Seems to me that's still 9 more visitors than I deserve. More often than not, I wonder why I bother posting anything at all, and it's rewarding to know that at least 9 of you are paying attention. Or at least clicking through to see if I'm a murderer. Even if you're all just web crawling spiders, thanks for dropping by.

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I had hoped to wake up yesterday to find Stephen Ross had fired the head coach of his Miami Dolphins today. Ross likes to fire coaches on Mondays.

Ross bought majority ownership in the Dolphins in 2009, and even he doesn't like his own choices to lead the team. He fired Tony Sparano with three games remaining in the season (after a 26-10 loss to the Eagles) on December 12, 2011. He fired Joe Philbin with twelve games remaining on the season (after a 27-14 loss to the Jets) on Monday, October 5, 2015. He fired Adam Gase the day after the season ended (with a 42-17 loss to Buffalo) on Monday, December 31, 2018. He fired Brian Flores the day after the season ended (with a 33-24 win over New England) on Monday, January 10, 2022.

Side note: Sparano's mid-season replacement was Todd Bowles, who has gone on to have some success with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Philbin's mid-season replacement was Dan Campbell, who has gone on to have some success the Detroit Lions. I have to wonder who on the current staff, given a chance to be interim head coach, would go on to win elsewhere once they finally get out of Miami?

Side side note: I still think current head coach Mike McDaniel will make someone else a great offensive coordinator, and I wish him well in his future endeavors. He's just amply demonstrated that his skills are not a good fit for a head coach position, especially with the personnel he's been given in Miami.

Back to the matter at hand, the Dolphins disappointed me again. Despite being beaten Sunday 31-6 by Browns, who had managed only one win and never more than 17 points in previous games, the now 1-6 Dolphins did not announce a coach firing today. In fact, the first line of today's ESPN article reads "Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa will remain the team's starter, coach Mike McDaniel confirmed Monday, despite the worst statistical two-game stretch of his career." This despite the fact that the Dolphins are currently projected to have the second overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. Sadly, that's the point.

You may have noticed that the only coach Ross has fired after a win was Brian Flores. That was no accident. After Flores was fired, he accused Ross of trying to bribe him to lose games, an accusation the NFL upheld (among other proven charges including that Ross had tried to tamper with other teams to steal their quarterbacks and coaches). As punishment the Dolphins were forced to forfeit draft picks in 2023 and 2024.

So Ross has learned his lesson and will now just leave a bad coach in place to secure the pick. Too bad for us fans. If history is any guide, Ross will ruin that, too.

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In the 23 years I've had season tickets, today's football game was a truly unique experience. And I don't mean because #5 Ole Miss scored touchdowns on their first five possessions and #9 Georgia only won because they scored on every possession until they knelt on the ball to run out the clock at the end of a 43-35 game. (What happened to defense?!?) No, I mean it was unique because we didn't make it to the stadium to watch it.

We tried. Mom and I left the house on schedule (rare for us) at 11:30 with the intention of making it to Athens two hours before the 3:30 kickoff. After almost 40 minutes of travel, on I-285 just past the exit for I-75, traffic stopped. Despite Google continuing to insist that we'd be out of the traffic jam in just "15 minutes," the next 4 miles took 2 hours. Eventually we learned that the source of the trouble was that somehow a box truck had overturned on a straight road and blocked three of four lanes of traffic not more than a half mile before the next exit, Jonesboro Road.

By the time we were finally past the accident, I calculated that even if everything went perfectly for the rest of the route to Athens, there was no way we could arrive, park, and make out way to our seats in Sanford Stadium until very near the end of the first quarter. So we made the decision to cut our losses and turn the car around and watch the whole game at home on TV instead. Somehow, it took almost 40 minutes to get home.

I was disappointed. Mom was disappointed. We were looking forward to the big game environment, where someone hatched a hairbrained plan to "stripe" the stadium in black, white, and red, requiring me to wear white instead of my typical red to a home game for the first time. That's probably why there was an accident. I didn't wear red and it broke the universe. Sorry, universe. (And if you saw the game on TV, you may have noticed the white end zones, but deciding to put the black stripe on the sunny side of an afternoon game? Are you trying to kill those people? Good on them for refusing the assignment.)

Sure, you can't always get what you want, but if you try, you might get what you need, so we made the best of a bad situation with some soft pretzels, Mexican Coke, and Culver's custard (Mom's idea for cushioning the blow) as we watched the Dawgs scratch out a win from our sofa with poodles and a havanese. That's my kind of unique.

(I took a picture of us in in our "Stripe the Stadium" whites in front of the TV showing Sanford Stadium pregame, but Mom looks better in this one in our back yard, so it's the one you get.)

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One

Also: The number of wins the Miami Dolphins have earned in the 2025 season so far.

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Kentucky came to Athens to play UGA today, and I did not attend. I didn't think there was much chance of Kentucky winning, and I was right about that. But the biggest reason that I did not go was because it was a noon kickoff, which would have required me to be awake and on the road by 8AM. Sorry, but that's just too damn early for me to be expected to watch a certain victory, even if it was Homecoming. (Congratulations to the new King and Queen!)

Right about now, you might be asking why I would bother to post about a game I didn't go to. That's fair. I'm not entirely sure myself. I think maybe it's to keep track of my state of mind so that next year, when I'm waffling about whether to renew my exorbitantly-priced season tickets, I can do a more effective emotional-cost benefits analysis.

Aw, who am I kidding? I'm going to renew them, if only because not renewing them will rob me of the joy I get from whinging about whether or not I'm going to renew them. I'm just neurotic that way.

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During the drive into Athens, during the walk into the stadium, during the wait for the game to start, everywhere Friend Ken and I looked and every stat we considered augured bad omens for UGA's chances against Alabama. I wish I could say that we were just being pessimistic after losing nine of the last ten meetings, but... final score UGA 21, Alabama 24. Now ten of eleven.

The above picture was taken 40 minutes before kickoff. In over two decades of home games, I cannot tell you when I have ever seen that many people in the stands that early. Sure the prospect of playing Alabama in Athens (for only the 3rd time in 21 years) in a nationally televised night game was a draw, but I assume most were early because they gave away blinking wrist lights to the first 65,000 in attendance. For the record, by the time I got inside the stadium, they were all gone.

Many in the stadium were Alabama fans, and they were keen not to let us forget it. I know that UGA fans have an SEC-wide reputation for being assholes, so I guess that we must have been real jerks to Bama fans in the weeks leading up to the game following Alabama's season-opening loss to Florida State, because once Alabama won (ten of eleven, mind you), their fans were fucking awful about rubbing it in our faces. I mean, on the way back to the car, we were passed by at least four groups of Bama boys yelling at the top-of-their lungs at every Bulldog within earshot about how great Alabama was, is, and always will be. They made Tennessee fans look like gracious winners by comparison, and if you know what lousy winners Tennessee fans are, you know that's really saying something.

I was reluctant to attend this one for several reasons, and after struggling through three hours of traffic to get to Athens and then three more hours of sitting amongst a sea of drunks (alcohol sales now being allowed in Sanford Stadium), I cannot say that I had a great time watching UGA play poorly and lose yet another game to Alabama (ten of eleven, I hear). Maybe it really is time to let go of my season tickets. I'm sure I would have been utterly miserable if Friend Ken hadn't accompanied me. Thanks, Ken; you made a shitty experience tolerable.

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I thought about posting yesterday when the UGA Bulldogs came from behind to find a way to win against the Tennessee Volunteers, but I held off so I would have to write something here about today's Dolphins game. As nervous as I was about the outcome for UGA, I really, really enjoyed watching the Bulldogs play. The Dolphins, not so much.

Of course, the Bulldogs are a good football team with excellent coaching and talent. The Dolphins, not so much. Their defense is truly awful*, and their finesse offense will never be able to compensate enough to overcome their flaws. I know they're not going anywhere, so there's nothing to get excited about.

In fact, it felt like a bit of a chore to wake up early and watch the Dolphins. None of the players have vivid personalities that make them worth cheering for. The coaches seem to care less than I do, and I don't even like looking at the team's current logo or uniforms.

I can't even get excited about the fact that the Dolphins might be so bad that they'll end up in a position to take a high draft pick. The last time they looked this awful was was the 2019 season, when their motto was "Tank for Tua." Well, they even fucked that up, but still traded a bunch of resources to draft Tagovailoa, who has proven as durable as cotton candy and can no longer differentiate Dolphins receivers from his opponents. I don't know which player the Dolphins will waste their pick on in the 2026 Draft ("Death March for Arch"?), but I've come to believe that they're equally doomed.

Obviously I'm not alone in feeling frustrated. Earlier this week, after Josh Gad publicly bailed on the Dolphins season during an appearance on Seth Meyers' late night talk show, another guest encouraged NFL fans not to push their young children into fandom "because that's how you end up with Dolphins fans." Today in Miami the remaining Dol-fans seemed to agree; the stands were never more than half full for the home opener against a division rival. Maybe financial pressure will force the team to do something other than just suck all the time, but at this point, until there's a change in ownership, I'm not going to hold my breath. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

* According to CBS: "The Dolphins have allowed points on 13 straight drives dating back to last season. That is the longest streak by any team since 2000." For the record, that streak came to an end when the Patriots knelt on the ball to go to halftime. So maybe "awful" isn't a strong enough word.

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Not so long ago, qz.com reported a statistical analysis of broadcast NFL games revealing that an average broadcast of 3 hours and 12 minutes contains only 11 minutes of actual action. One hour of the broadcast is commercial breaks, about 20 in all with a total of 100 commercials.

So about two full hours of NFL broadcasts are players just standing around. Somehow, that was the best part of watching the Dolphins lose their opening week game 33-8 to the Indianapolis Colts.

It also bears mentioning that the Colts hadn't won a season opener since 2013, and even more impressively, according to ESPN, no team had scored points on all 7 of their offensive possessions since 1978. (The last team to do it? The Baltimore Colts.)

Another year, same old shitty Dolphins.

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