Nothing was usual when Notre Dame came to Athens.

What you see above is the new LED lighting installed in Sanford Stadium earlier this year. Those of you who see a lot of live sports may be familiar with the old metal halide lights that warm up slowly. These are not those. Quick on and color changing, the new lights made for some very impressive stadium effects during the big game, including the red out at the start of the fourth quarter. Nice addition, Georgia.

It didn't take red lights to notice the difference between Notre Dame and a "regular" game. Despite adding extra seats to the stadium for this meeting of top ten teams, Athens was still expecting 50,000 people without tickets, and they arrived early and took all the parking places. We had a flyover of F15s and about two dozen returning Dawg football stars on the sideline (including David Pollack, Champ & Boss Bailey, and Knowshon Moreno, just to name a few). When kickoff finally arrived, the atmosphere was truly electric.

Speaking of the crowd, although ticket costs had bloated from their $75 cover price to a rumored $600 and up on the secondary market, it didn't keep the drunks out. Nor did it keep them in their seats. For reasons that remain unclear to me — credit my naturally welcoming personality, perhaps — Mom and I had plenty of elbow room in an otherwise packed stadium when the couples to our left and right simply disappeared at halftime. That gave us plenty of space to bite our nails when Notre Dame made their late comeback attempt.

Final score: #7 Notre Dame 17, #3 UGA 23. Great football game. It just might have been worth $600.

Footnote: During the pregame, all ten Ugas were showcased on the big board. However, instead of being presented chronologically, they were ordered alphabetically by Roman numeral: I, II, III, IV, IX, V, VI, VII, VIII, X. That probably says terrible things about a Georgia education, but at least the football team is good.

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The train wreck that was the 2015 Miami Dolphins didn't end today with the season's closing bell. Even before even taking the field to play (and defeat!) the New England Patriots, the team had fired Dennis Hickey, its General Manager of the past two years. Hickey is the same man responsible for overpaying Ndamukong Suh and Ryan Tannehill. Too bad he won't be taking the balance of those contracts with him.

To be fair, Hickey was also responsible for bringing in two players I like, Brent Grimes and Knowshon Moreno. By any metric, he was a far better judge of talent than his predecessor, "Blind" Jeff Ireland. I don't think its any coincidence that in the past two years that Ireland has been scouting for the New Orleans Saints, they've fallen to the bottom of the talent hole in the NFC South.

Hickey is being replaced by Mike Tannenbaum, the man who brought superstar Darrelle Revis into the league when Tannenbaum was working for the Jets. However, Tannenbaum also drafted Mark Sanchez, a quarterback bad enough to ride the bench for the snakebit Philadelphia Eagles. In the five years Tannenbaum was guiding the Jets, the team went only slightly better than .500. In the Dolphins' case, that would be an improvement.

Speaking of drafting talent, the Patriots have won the AFC East for 7 consecutive seasons in part because at draft time they have plenty of picks they've hoarded from trades with other teams. It's no coincidence that they keep reaching Super Bowls with players no one has ever heard of. As a general rule, you should emulate the best teams, not do the opposite of what you see them doing.

Tannenbaum has a pronounced history of giving away picks, averaging about 4 per Jets' draft compared to the Patriots' 8. It's hard to find talented players to fill the roster when your already-talented opponents have twice as many picks as you do. I hope Tannenbaum has learned that lesson. Given that the Dolphins think so highly of him, I'm pretty sure he hasn't.

UPDATE 2016-01-04: Tannenbaum will apparently remain in an executive role ("Executive Vice President of Football Operations," whatever that means), as the Dolphins have announced that the new General Manager is the previous Director of College Scouting, Chris Grier. I am not going to pretend that I understand the difference between an EVPoFO and a General Manager. My guess is that it just gives Tannenbaum someone else to fire before he feels any heat himself. Grier has been with the Dolphins since 2000, which means he's seen just about every possible wrong way to build a team, including the draft busts of Ted Ginn, Dion Jordon, second-round quarterbacks John Beck and Pat White, and many, many other questionable decisions that didn't pan out. I hope Grier has learned his lesson. Given that he's still with the organization, I'm pretty sure he hasn't.

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NFL preseason kicked off on Sunday, and the league seems to think I should be excited about that. I'm not.

Maybe I'd be excited if I was a fan of a team that didn't look like the same mediocre club that's gone 8-8 the past 2 years. Maybe I'd be excited if we weren't going into year 4 with a coach who has still lost more games than he has won. Maybe I'd be excited if we didn't have the most boring uniforms in the league.

In the offseason, the Dolphins gave Ryan Tannehill, an unproven quarterback, $96 million. They also gave Ndamukong Suh, the league's dirtiest player, $114 million. You get what you pay for, and what we've got is mediocrity and dirt. Hooray.

Of course you can't win games without receivers and running backs, and I challenge anyone who hasn't been paying attention to the Dolphins to name one of either on the current roster. Hell, I've watched every game for decades, and I can only name a couple. (Poor Knowshon Marino has to take the year off for his bad knee and might not ever return to the 'Fins. There goes even that reason to watch.)

So, no, NFL, I don't care that your football is coming back right now. Try me again when the wins and losses start counting. I'll want to know just how bad my Dolphins really are.

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Well, that didn't last long.

It seems likely that the Knowshon Moreno era with has come to an end in Miami. Moreno has been put on Injured Reserve after tearing his ACL in last week's loss to the Packers. He's done for the season, and it seems unlikely the Dolphins will invite the suddenly injury-prone Moreno (shoulder, elbow, and now ACL) back next year.

In March, I wrote, "If Knowshon does no better than [wide receiver Mike]Wallace's 2013 production, this will be a successful signing." Wallace has played in all 6 games, banking 313 yards and 4 touchdowns. Moreno has played in just 3 of 5 games so far this season (and 2 of 4 in the preseason), finishing only the season opener. In that one game, he rushed for 134 yards (the most for a Dolphins running back in a game since Reggie Bush left the team in 2012) and one TD. So by my own criteria, Moreno's time in Miami is a bust.

It's been a terrible week for UGA running backs in general. As everyone in America knows, Heisman-hopeful Todd Gurley was suspended by the team in advance of an NCAA investigation into illegal benefits (specifically accepting compensation for autographs). It's still up in the air whether Gurley will ever return to play for the Bulldogs, but I suspect that the Dolphins will be looking for a new running back in 2015.

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Woo-hoo! Dolphins start the 2014 season with a come-from-behind win againt the Patriots. I'm giving the credit to Knowshon Mareno, a Georgia Dawg making his debut with Miami. He was every bit as good today as he was in Athens. Good Dawg!

I watched the game from my father's new house in Fountain, Florida. It's the first time I've seen the Dolphins win in their native state. It's a nice change of pace.

I had previously predicted that the Dolphins wouldn't reach 8 wins this season. Hopefully, they'll prove me wrong. Given that they've already beaten their division rival that has won the AFC East each year for most of the past decade, it's a promising start.

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NFL.com reports that UGA star Knowshon Moreno has signed a one-year, $3 million deal with the Miami Dolphins. According to the report, the Dolphins were the only team to show "serious" interest in the running back. That works for me.

I'm actually excited about this. I don't expect Moreno to be a superstar behind the Dolphins' reworked offensive line, but I do like to have a player that I can cheer for on the team. I might even have a diamond-K Knowshon shirt from his UGA days around here somewhere.

Moreno ran for over 1,000 yards and scored 10 touchdowns last year. In 2013, the Dolphins' two running backs were Lamar Miller and Daniel Thomas who combined for 6 touchdowns. (Granted, you may have heard that the Dolphins had some trouble on the offensive line last year.) It'll be hard for Knowshon to do worse.

Last year, the Dolphins paid $30 million contract to free agent Mike Wallace, who managed only 5 touchdowns in 2013. (Rumor has it that the Dolphins are already trying to unload Wallace to avoid paying him the $14 million he has coming in 2014.) If Knowshon does no better than Wallace's 2013 production, this will be a successful signing.

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Football season is now fully underway.

The Bulldogs ran up their record to 2-0 against a surprisingly competent Central Michigan yesterday. It appears that they worked out all of the lingering kinks from week one: the "B" was painted the right color, the flag was fixed, and they even moved the "SEC" logos to the 25 yard lines -- someone must have worked overtime this week!

CMU played well in a 56-17 defeat, but were clearly overmatched for size, strength, and depth of talent. Besides, the Dogs played like they had a chip on their shoulder following last week's drop in the polls. Knowshon Moreno in particular looked fantastic, punctuating the day with a Superman-sized leap over a standing CMU defender during a long run in the third. (See for yourself here.) It certainly justifies all the fans wearing the "He Is (the) Man" (as in "Heisman Trophy") shirts featuring the letter "K" in the familiar Superman diamond.

Note: Before the game, I lamented to my brother that unlike our previous opponent, the Georgia Southern Eagles, the Central Michigan Chippewas did not parade a live version of their mascot around the field on a leash before the game.

Unfortunately, the start of NFL play found the Dolphins participating in more of the same from last year. I'm pretty sure that right now, in a head-to-head matchup, the Dawgs would win. You'll be pleased to note, loyal readers, that the downfall of the Dolphins was Chad Pennington's weak arm. As disappointed as I was by the loss, I'm always filled with a warm happiness when my predictions of doom and gloom turn out to be right on the money.

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Another Batman and Football month draws to a close with another Georgia Bulldogs victory. This win was a little odd because it seemed that we were able to draw together and defeat Mississippi 45-17 only because of Knowshon Moreno's dancing to a calypso beat during one of those forever long official time outs. After Knowshon got the stadium crowd worked up, Thomas Brown became Superman, tearing through defenders as he ran downfield at will for the following quarter. Why couldn't we beat an inferior team like Old Miss without a couple of players providing motivation very late in the game? (Dancing with the stars, indeed.) That's UGA for you.

We won't have another home game until November. We've got to play Tennessee and Florida on the road first. I'll decide if I'm going to the Troy State game based on our performance in October.

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