How did they ever get all the trash off of North Campus? I honestly didn't know if such hallowed ground could ever recover from such utter disrespect. Maybe Michael Adams' fat face ate it all.Nothing fancy in this post. Just a few random thoughts about Georgia football.
1. The NCAA is full of crap. I won't rehash everything here, but the inconsistency and disproportionate punishments dealt to various players and the endless delays in rulings and appeals make me wonder why major programs subject themselves to the NCAA's governance. What is to stop the BCS conferences from governing themselves and awarding their own championship? I'm not just whining about the A.J. Green situation. What the NCAA did to UNC, Ole Miss, and all the other SEC schools under investigation isn't right. What else do they really have to do that's more pressing than these investigations? Some swimming investigation in the WAC? Make a decision and quit leaving major programs hanging right before the season and into the season. Not that there's some vast anti-UGA conspiracy, but I'm just glad to know it's still safe for collegiate athletes to beat up cops and that the NCAA is keeping a tight lid on sales of collegiate athletes' personal property.
2. The Dawgs are not as good as they looked in Week 1 and not as bad as they looked in Week 2. I'll admit I got my hopes up a little after beating down a nobody, but the South Carolina loss didn't sting as much as a number of losses in recent memory. Tackling was weak, the O-line appears to be overrated, and we had some bad breaks (late fumble). Still, returning less starters on defense than Carolina returned on offense and with the addition of a stud Carolina running back, the Dawgs only allowed 17 points compared to last year's 37. That is a considerable improvement that shouldn't be overlooked. Georgia should win any game that the defense allows under 20 points. Everyone could have played better, but the offense really crapped the bed and must step up. I said going into this year that the worst case was 8 wins and best case 11. I think we can now safely rule out 11 wins, but I think this team still has a legitimate shot at 9 or 10 wins. After Arkansas, no one else on our schedule has impressed me yet.
3. I'm now convinced that UGA President Michael Adams and the UGA administration have manufactured a false tailgating controversy for the sole purpose of taking the privilege away only to sell it back to us without the backlash other schools have faced when charging for tailgate space. I'm not at all proud of the mess on campus after each game last year, but I did not see a single picture last year that differed much from anything I ever saw in my 13 years of attending nearly every UGA home game. Somehow, the mess was always cleaned up by Sunday night, some people were employed to clean it up, and life carried on without a single polar bear drowning.
"Hmm...How can I distract everyone from my plot to charge for on-campus tailgating? More importantly, how can I distract everyone from my ridiculous come-over?"
Someone got outraged by the norm (perhaps honestly, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were encouraged to be outraged) and Adams and his administration played the UGA community like a fiddle. The feigned outrage on all the blogs just about made me sick. I seriously doubt anyone that devoted an entire blog to UGA football has never left a beer can on the ground before a game. The politically correct response was to hold UGA and its beautiful campus as some hallowed ground that should never be trod upon, much less desecrated with trash that would barely land before being picked up.
The reality is that none of it was new. If anything, the perceived problem was only exacerbated by concentrating so many fans in one area, not allowing parking anywhere near it, and not providing enough trash cans. Ten years ago, when parking and tailgating was a free-for-all, everything could be much more easily packed up and thrown away by the fans before or right after the game. No one pitched a fit over trash that was ALWAYS picked up within 24 hours.
"Whoops! Almost stepped on one of the little people. That might have been terribly inconvenient...FOR THEM! Mwah ha ha ha ha!!!"
What changed? The tailgate situation on campus has frustrated me a little more every year since my senior year in college (nine years ago). It's no secret that Michael Adams is a jerk. As a student at the outset of his tenure, I knew he was a colossal pig long before the Vince Dooley episode. He was constantly making life more difficult for students, especially when it came to all things parking, football, and revenue. When he started selling student parking lots (particularly the one at the corner of Baxter and Lumpkin) to alumni that rarely filled them (and announced the new policy booting legitimate student parking pass-holders from those lots AFTER they paid for them and school started that year), I thought it was an inconsiderate money grab. When he changed the rules for parking and tailgating a year or two later such that informal parking in grassy areas and on sidewalks all over campus was no longer allowed (as it had been for years prior), I thought he just hated football. That move in particular made it far more difficult for many people to tailgate in their traditional spots.
Before these changes, I knew no one that tailgated regularly on North Campus. Only when all other options were taken from the average fan did almost everyone I know move their tailgates to North Campus. Fast forward eight years and suddenly we have a big mess on North Campus that none of the elitist geniuses in this town can solve without completely restricting nearly everything that made it remotely enjoyable.
"What do you mean 'We're out of funnel cakes'?"
Now, tailgating is forced to even more inconvenient locations and I have almost no doubt it is only a matter of time before enough people play into Adams' hands, beg for the privilege again, offer to pay through the nose for it, and suddenly Adams and the University have a brand new stream of revenue. Well done, bloggers. Way to be better than everyone else and love UGA more than everyone else. You just gave Adams a blameless path to institute yet another price hike for the thing we all supposedly love. I suspect there will be plenty of trashcans when King Michael blesses us with the opportunity to pay to share in his pristine kingdom again.
Neighborly pet sitting for the Athens, Georgia area.
