Will Black Be Back?

The Georgia-Auburn game of 2007 will be remembered by all who attended as one of the best football games ever played between the hedges. Yes, Georgia won by a score of 45-20, proving many wrong who proclaimed that Auburn would have their revenge for a spoiled 2006 season at the hands of the Bulldogs. But the game was special not just because of the score and the plays on the field, but because of a new tradition that emerged on that cool evening in Athens and excitement never before seen in Sanford Stadium. The first blackout was something that every Bulldog fan should have been a part of, whether in the stadium or at home watching on TV.

Below is an extraordinarily epic video someone made to try and show how crazy that evening was.

To cap off a magical season, another blackout was held in New Orleans at the Sugar Bowl. That turned out to be a pretty good game too (for Georgia).

And then came 2009, another blackout, and a 31 point 1st half deficit.

At one point, it appeared that the blackout and black jerseys would be a new yearly tradition. The senior players would pick one home game, the fans would be notified, and the hype would build. But after Alabama turned the blackout into "a funeral," things aren't looking so clear.

A few days ago at the SEC Media Days, a reporter asked Coach Mark Richt about the black jerseys. His reply?

"We may wear black jerseys again. We don't know. One thing about the blackout is if the fans don't buy into it, it's no good. After what happened against Alabama last year, I'm not sure everybody will wear black. We have the ability to do it. We have the jerseys."

It seems that Coach Richt still would want to do the blackout, but he isn't confident that the fans will agree. It also seems the general consensus is that the players liked to wear the black jerseys. But do people want to see Sanford Stadium decked out in black again, at least in the near future?

I say yes. Let the team wear black again, this season.

First, this Georgia Bulldogs squad of 2009 is a different team than the one we saw last year. Sure, there are plenty of familiar faces, but a whole bunch of new ones too that would be new to the blackout idea. With a lot of new players who are eager to show what they can do on the field and MUCH lower expectations from the media for 2009, it's unlikely we'd see a problem with complacency or lack of effort from the team just because of some jerseys for a big game at home.

Second, to abandon the blackout is basically to admit defeat. UGA is 2-1 in games that are "blacked out." The first 2 games were special, and the third was utterly depressing. But should the tradition that was started in 2007 be thrown away just because of one (big) slip up in 2008? Plenty of bloggers and fans have argued that to move the Cocktail Party out of Jacksonville is like running away with our tail between our legs, basically admitting that we can't beat Florida in Florida. Well, I see the blackout the same way.

If we put away the black jerseys it's like we're trying to hide the fact that we lost a big game in 08. Teams lose games. Sometimes they lose bad, and sometimes they lose embarrassingly bad. But that team still has to go out and play the next game. Do we really want to throw away something great because of one bad loss? All it takes is Georgia going out there in black jerseys again and winning to make everyone forget that Alabama ever happened. Let's just call it redemption.

Third, everyone knows (and says) that the jerseys/blackouts don't win game. Clearly, they don't. Georgia's players and coaches have experienced that firsthand. I don't think they would make that mistake again this season. But if we do forget the blackout for some time, maybe a few years, a new Georgia team with completely new faces may not remember that lesson so well. Do we really want the blackout to always be remembered for the Alabama "funeral" instead of the beatdown of Auburn that was perhaps the most electrifying atmosphere ever felt in Sanford Stadium?

So vote in the poll on the right and give your opinion on the blackout.

Do you want to:

Have another blackout this season

Wait a couple of years to have another blackout

Never have a blackout again, but have black jerseys again

Have the players wear black as a surprise but no fan blackout

Never have a blackout and never wear the black jerseys again

This decade in Georgia football

Has been good.

A recent Rivals.com article takes a look at the teams that have won the most this decade, and it's a good link to show your rival friends who challenge Georgia's position as one of the top current football programs.

According to the list, UGA is 6th this decade as far as win/loss percentage goes (the highest SEC team), tied for 10th in home wins, and 2nd (yes 2nd!) in road win percentage. Also, UGA is one out of 14 schools that haven't had a losing record this decade.

Football Jersey update and VOTE on ESPN

First, a quick update on some old questions. Back in February I started this blog with a post in which I asked whose jersey will be the new best seller in the UGA bookstore (or any stores in general). I stopped by the on campus store the other day and aside from #7 and #24 jerseys being on sale, I noticed some #8s and #35s as well. So it looks like AJ Green and Rennie Curran's jerseys are already being featured in the store. I looked on the UGA Bookstore website and those jerseys aren't listed online, but I swear I saw them there. I think they had them in red and in black.

Oh, and the bookstore is also carrying Stafford's new Detroit jersey and Moreno's Broncos wear.

In other news, ESPN is doing their "50 States Tour," and they are devoting each episode to a different state's college football programs. They discuss the greatest coaches, players, and teams in each state's history. Well, Georgia's day is coming up in a couple of weeks (July 27), and they already have the polls online to vote for the best in Georgia.

So go vote and try to stop the Techies from making it look like Tech is the best program in the state.

Click here to vote.

Who is the Man of Steele? Is he Irish?

If you haven't been following it yet, Phil Steele's 2009 college football preview PDFs are jam packed with great information. He's been counting down his top 40 teams for 2009 and is currently at number 9 (but if you want a little secret: just change the number and team name and see every PDF, even the rest of the top 10).

Check out his site and top 40 list here at PhilSteele.com.

By the way, I tried to figure out who this "Phil Steele" is by looking him up on Wikipedia, but for some reason it redirects me to this. I hope that's the same guy, I really do.

Oh, and here is his top 40 for 2009:

40- Arizona
39- Tennessee
38- Wisconsin
37- West Virginia
36- Oregon St.
35- Nevada
34- Florida St.
33- Arkansas
32- NC State
31- Troy
30- North Carolina
29- Michigan St.
28- Georgia Tech
27- Southern Miss
26- USF
25- Clemson
24- UCLA
23- Pitt
22- Nebraska
21- Miami
20- Iowa
19- Illinois
18- TCU
17- LSU
16- Rutgers
15- BYU
14- Oklahoma St.
13- Georgia
12- Boise St.
11- Virginia Tech
10- Ohio St
9- Cal
8- Alabama
7- Notre Dame
6- Ole Miss
5- Penn St.
4- Oklahoma
3- USC
2- Texas
1- Florida

I won't say much about this, but a few things stand out to me.

1. I really like the love he gives Georgia (and the fact that we're right above Oklahoma State, and Georgia Tech is way back at #28).

2. Ole Miss at #6? Really?

3. Notre Dame at #7???? Forget about Ole Miss at 6, this is just ridiculous.

4. Where is Utah? They went from being undefeated and ranked #2 to being not even in the top 40?

5. Appears Oregon is completely missing from the top 40 as well. Is it possible that the mysterious Mr. Steele just accidentally forgot about them?

Other than all of that.... not the worst top 40 I've ever seen.

Anyway, check out the PDFs. I'll get your started with Georgia's.
Remember, just change the number and team name.

UGA-Oklahoma State Game Time Announced

Georgia's first football game this season against Oklahoma State on September 5 will be broadcast on ABC at 3:30 PM.

I assume that Coach Richt is going to have the players practicing in some sort of large oven to prepare them for their first task in Stillwater. Unfortunately, such warm (blisteringly hot) weather isn't the best for maintaining a beard, which shatters my earlier argument for allowing the players to have some facial hair.

Are Preseason Rankings Predictive?

The answer is no. Even if voters want to rank teams in the order of how they think they will finish the next season, they usually do a pretty bad job at it. After my little "unbiased" preseason poll experiment, I started to notice just how bad the 2008 preseason polls look in hindsight. In fact, 2008 may have had the worst preseason rankings in a LONG time.

Does this have anything to do with Georgia being the preseason #1? Not really. Yes, UGA had what many call a "disappointing" season, but the #1 pre-ranked team ended up at #13 and #10 in the AP and Coaches' Polls (respectively) with 3 losses and a bowl win. Sure, this was "disappointing" to UGA fans, but many of those who bleed Red and Black won't be satisfied without an SEC or national title.

So if Georgia wasn't that big of a problem with the preseason rankings, who was? Looking at the AP preseason top 25 and final top 25 for 2008:

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Preseason #10 Auburn went 5-7 and ended up (of course) unranked.

Preseason #18 Tennessee went 5-7 and also ended unranked.

Preseason #15 Arizona State went 5-7, ended unranked.

Preseason #9 Clemson went 7-5 regular season, lost bowl game, and unranked.

Preseason #7 LSU went 7-5 regular season and ended unranked.

Preseason #6 Missouri did well with a 9-3 regular season, but dropped to #19.

Preseason #14 Kansas went 7-5 and ended unranked.

Preseason #13 Wisconsin went 7-5, lost bowl game, and ended unranked.

Preseason #19 South Florida went 7-5, won bowl game, ended unranked.

Preseason #20 Illinois went 5-7, ended unranked.

Preseason #23 Wake Forest went 7-5, won bowl game, ended unranked.

And finally, Preseason #25 Pittsburgh went 9-3, lost bowl game, and ended unranked.

----------------------------------------------------

By my count, that's 11 teams that started in the preseason top 25 and weren't ranked at all after the bowl games. ELEVEN!

This includes 3 preseason top 10 teams that ended the season unranked (LSU, Auburn, and Clemson). THREE!

Of course this all means that 11 teams that weren't ranked preseason ended up in the final top 25. But guess what? 2 unranked teams in the preseason (Utah and TCU) ended up at #2 and #7. Alabama, ranked #24 by the AP and unranked by the Coaches' Poll in the preseason, of course ended up in the top 10.

So what does this all mean? You can always expect a few teams (especially the lower ranked ones) to end up unranked after starting the season in the top 25. But 11? And also, it has to be unusual for so many highly ranked preseason teams to do so poorly and end unranked. Are the voters just bad at judging who the best teams will be? Or was 2008 just a crazy, unpredictable season for college football?

The Search for an Unbiased Preseason Poll

Warning: This is a long, long, analytic college football (and media) post. Read it if you dare. Or, if you're lazy, skip to my preseason polls and comment on what you think about how they look.

Alright, I spent a little while the other day putting together a very early preseason poll for the 2009 season, because yes, the off-season is that boring.

Now first, check out this link here to see an average of a few respected media preseason polls. I'm assuming that, even though there are only a few sources who've released preseason polls, this average poll at the link is very close to what will be the AP/USA Today preseason ranking released later this year. If you aren't convinced, check out the 2008 preseason polls and average and see how they mostly matched up.

Personally, looking at the average of 2009's preseason polls so far, I think there are few things in there that don't look right. Some teams are ranked VERY high (LSU) based on a lot of hype with not a lot of concrete reasoning. Others may be completely ignored in the preseason hype (Missouri) even following successful seasons, based solely on one or two players they lose. (You'll notice that strangely, Missouri, a team that went 10-4 in 2008, isn't on ANY of those preseason polls, all the way through number 41, which includes Vanderbilt and Tennessee).

So I thought it would be interesting to try to make an objective preseason poll and see how it compares.

In my opinion, the most fair and "unhyped" preseason poll isn't a prediction of how you think teams will finish the next season (even though it's fun to predict). Instead, I think a preseason poll should reflect the success of a team in the previous season, with some consideration to how that team will change (or remain the same) in the next.

Here is what I did:

1. I looked at the AP and USA Today final polls from 2008. Then, I found out how many starting players were leaving from each team.

For instance, Florida, ranked #1 in the final poll, is losing only 3 starters from their 2008 team.

2. Then, I added the amount of starters leaving to the rank of the team. Therefore Florida, ranked #1, with 3 players leaving, 3+1=4. Easy, right? I did this for every team ranked from #1 to about #30 in the final polls (using the others receiving votes for the lowerst ranks).

3. I started to make a preseason ranking by starting with the teams with the lowest number. Florida, with "4" as their number, ended up at #1. Then I continued through the rest of the rankings until I reached #25.

Eventually, I ended up with these polls below.

2009 AP Poll (Unbiased)

1. Florida
2. Texas
3. Utah
4. Oklahoma
5. USC
6. Alabama
7. Ohio State
8. TCU
9. Ole Miss
10. Penn State
11. Georgia
12. Virginia Tech
13. Oregon
14. Boise State
15. Oklahoma State
16. Texas Tech
17. Cincinnati
18. Iowa
19. Georgia Tech
20. Florida State
21. Oregon State
22. Michigan State
23. Missouri
24. California
25. Pittsburgh

2009 USA Today Poll (Unbiased)

1. Florida
2. Texas
3. USC
4. Oklahoma
5. Utah
6. Alabama
7. TCU
8. Georgia
9. Penn State
10. Ohio State
11. Virginia Tech
12. Mississippi
13. Oregon
14. Texas Tech
15. Boise State
16. Oklahoma State
17. Cincinnati
18. Iowa
19. Georgia Tech
20. Missouri
21. Oregon State
22. Brigham Young
23. Florida State
24. Michigan State
25. California

Some things to note:

First, these two polls are very similar to the average preseason polls on the link above, with a few exceptions.

-LSU is basically unranked in both polls. While I don't think they necessarily should be unranked, and I do think they could have a great season next year, I consider a top 10 preseason spot is a little bit undeserved after an 8-5 season.

-Some teams that had a lot of success in 2008 are completely left out of the media preseason polls, but show up in the "unbiased" polls. Cincinnati, 2008's Big East champion, is ranked #35 in the average polls, but shows up #17 in mine. Even more baffling is Missouri, which I mentioned before. Missouri isn't even in the top 41 of the media polls. But they rank #23 and #20 in mine.

-A couple of teams that show up in the media polls aren't found at all in the "unbiased" polls. Most notably is Notre Dame, a team that many fans don't want to see in any poll. In the media polls so far, they are ranked #24 after a 7-6 2008 season (including a loss to Syracuse). Another team, North Carolina, is #21 in their polls and unranked in mine.

I also have a few extra statements:

- Yes, Georgia lands at #11 and then #8 in the "unbiased" polls, and averages #15 in the media polls. I didn't purposefully manipulate these things to put them that high. I had no idea how it would turn out until I finished it.

- I know that a few teams don't look right in the "unbiased" polls. Especially the non-BCS teams, like Utah and TCU. These polls might look a little more credible if I put an automatic lowering of rank on each non-BCS team (for instance, dropping every non-BCS team 5 spots). But generally, the media will ignore non-BCS teams in the preseason, and then find them ranked very high in the final poll. There were no non-BCS teams in the preseason top 15 before 2008, but in the final poll, we had #2 Utah, #7 TCU, and #11 Boise State. Whether you think they belong there or not, they will likely end up there.

- In my opinion, these "unbiased" polls fix some of the hype problems of the media. As previously mentioned, I don't think LSU is worthy of a top 10 ranking. I also thought Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech are ranked a little too high in the preseason polls so far (and I'm trying to be objective here). However, I do think Georgia should be ranked somewhere in the 11-20 range, which one of my polls doesn't do. Yes, #8 for Georgia is too high, and I don't think the media has unfairly ranked Georgia so far. And as I also said, some teams like Missouri or even Cincinnati may be dropped a little too much by the media.

Finally, I acknowledge that this formula isn't perfect. I considered weighing the importance of each starter lost and adding that to the polls (IE: losing a star QB would hurt a team more than losing a nationally unknown safety). But it would be a bit difficult to choose the values of individual players, so I didn't bother with that and decided to keep it (relatively) simple. Also, I know that starters returning on a team (and stats in general) often don't mean much in the crazy world of college football. Many very young teams find plenty of success some seasons. But once again, my polls aren't made to predict how the season will END in 2009, but how it will BEGIN, which is what I think preseason polls should be for.

Let me know what you think of them. Do you think the rankings appear mostly fair? Are some teams way too high, or too low? Should non-BCS teams be dropped in rankings just because they aren't in BCS conferences?