Wriphe.com: The Blog "football" Posts

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.

Alabama 24, UGA 21

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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Earlier in the week, Kirby Smart was goaded by the press into essentially saying that UGA football fans lacked greatness for leaving last week's Marshal blowout by the fourth quarter.

"I think people should love to be at a Georgia home game because there's only so many of them. It's limited opportunities."

He has a point. How dare we not sit in the sun for three hours to watch our third string players scrimmage against an inferior opponent to extend a 31-game home winning streak? The coaches do it every day. Never mind that they're paid to do it whereas UGA fans are charged $80 per ticket for the opportunity. Yeah, fuck us.

And then today, five hours before kickoff, because of the weatherman's prediction of a 66% chance of thunderstorms before the end of the game, Georgia moved up their game against Austin Peay, an FCS school UGA was beating so badly in 2018 that they decided to not even play the last 5 minutes. So even the die-hard Georgia fans had a hard time making the kickoff of a "game" that history tells us won't even go the distance. How dare we? I mean, I was never intending to travel 4 hours to attend this beatdown, so I'm part of the problem, but man, our fans (me included) are the worst!

The good news is that starting next year, SEC is mandating that teams play an additional SEC opponent for a total of 9 of 12 games. Georgia will certainly keep playing Tech (of the ACC), meaning there will be no more than two cupcakes a year for the foreseeable future. That certainly can't hurt fan enthusiasm and attendence, which is great. We can use all the help we can get because as Coach Smart will tell you, we're shitty.

UPDATE: As I type this, the lightning "weather delay" that was declared at halftime has now started its second hour. I'm sure Kirby will have some choice words for those fans who will choose to go home as opposed to continuing to wait out (undefeated) Mother Nature. Quiters.

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Almost a whole week in, and so far this Wriphe.com Football and Superman month is a little light on both.

Why is that, you ask? I have to admit that's partly because right now I'm pretty sure everything in the world sucks. And if the NFL's 2025 "You Better Believe" Kickoff Campaign bandwagon "Ride the Float" commercial is any indication, I'm right.

Now, the NFL won't let me embed their shitty AI-generated commercial here, but here's a screencap and the top rated comments on the video so far:

Of all the fans in this commercial, somehow they manage to make the Dolphins fan look the worst.
Maybe they're being kinder to it on TikTok
youtu.be/N7auEg6XUOI

That's what 2025 has driven me to: reading (and agreeing with) the comments on YouTube. Sigh. To paraphrase Billy Joel, "we'll all go down together."

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Welcome to the 20th Annual Wriphe.com Batman and Football Month!

Twenty years is a long time. Not so long for Batman, though. He's a spry 87 years old and still fighting crime!

Not that you'd know he's an octogenarian from reading comic books. Comics have a way of sliding time so that "the past" is always no more than twenty years ago. For example, when Batman has a flashback to his college football days in 1978, it somehow looks like the facemask-free 1950s.

Batman has never cared for protecting his face
Batman Vol. 39, No. 304, Oct 1978