Getting ready for Alabama

One Old Dawg is wearing a Georgia logo shirt at every opportunity this week preparing for the matchup with Alabama this week. He returned smiling ear to ear from the Athens Touchdown Club meeting Monday night (he’s the chaplain), and this served to further bolster his optimism about this weekend’s game. The 1965 team beat Alabama the first game in the season for an astounding win as Alabama was national champions in 1964 and went on to be national champions in 1965 as well, with Georgia being their only loss. We wrote about it HERE. As he pours coffee into his Georgia logo cup, and takes a seat at the kitchen table, One Old Dawg offers his thoughts on the similarities between what happened in 1965 at this point in the season and what’s happening this week.

 

“It’s finally here, what we’ve been waiting for since last January, the week the Alabama Crimson Tide rolls into town. Bama’s loss to Ole Miss two weeks ago will be a damper on the media hype for this game but that doesn’t change a thing for the Dawgs. This is a BIG game.

“As this game relates to the fiftieth anniversary of the 1965 team, there are some similarities. Back then, we were 4-0 and ranked # 5 in the nation. We were not facing a ranked opponent that week, but it was a dangerous one, Florida State in Tallahassee, at night. In 1964 the Seminoles whipped us 17-14, finished 9-1-1, including a Gator Bowl victory over Oklahoma, and were rank eleventh nationally in the UPI poll. Graduation had decimated their offense but their highly touted defense was still solid. We were entering the game minus several key players due to injury.”

 

One Old Dawg grimaces as he recalls the details, “It was one the longest, most miserable nights of my life. Our bench was right in front of the FSU student section. Many of the students were intoxicated and obnoxious. We could not take our helmets off on the sidelines because they were throwing ice and cups of ice at us all night. On one occasion, one of our players jumped the fence and went after a guy who was yelling profanity at us. Coach Russell had to drag him back to the bench. Bob Taylor, our running back and my former roommate, suffered a broken leg that ended his career. After a very rough, hard fought game, we lost 10-3. It was a long trip back to Athens and a sad day Sunday.”
 

One Old Dawg puts his coffee cup down and pauses a moment before continuing. “I was spiritually ignorant at the time and had no idea what it meant to turn to God or how one could even do that.  This was football and it had nothing to do with church. Reminds me of a story Coach Dooley told at a charity dinner I attended. He and his wife, Barbara, were at a dinner the day before Georgia played Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl for the national championship in 1980. Being devout Catholics, they were excited to meet a well-known Notre Dame school representative. Barbara said to him, ‘I know you’ve got all the Catholics in America praying for Notre Dame tomorrow!’

 

“He, rather piously, responded: ‘No, my God doesn’t have time for football.’

 

“Barbara said, ‘Well that’s good, because mine does!’ We should take note that Georgia won the national championship that year.

One Old Dawg with Barbara Dooley at a Letterman's event

 

“I agree with Barbara, God is interested in everything we do, including football. Listen to Romans 8:28 (NASB):  ‘And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.’  Paul’s reference is not to just religious or spiritual things, but all things, good or bad, even losing football games. Somehow, it is easier for us to accept a setback and move on, if we know that this failure will somehow work for our ultimate good, and that is exactly what God does, if we will let Him.

 

“Our coaches didn’t quote the Bible to us but they did paraphrase it. Learn what you can from your failures and mistakes. Then forget them and move on. Don’t let today’s failure keep you from tomorrow’s success. So we tried to swallow our wounded pride to get ready to travel to Lexington for a fight with the Kentucky Wildcats the next Saturday.”

 

As One Old Dawg drains the last of his coffee, he wraps up his thoughts for this week. “There are also some significant DIFFERENCES between 1965 and now. The Dawgs are healthy and at the top of their game. We’re not traveling; we have the Tide between the hedges. All of you know in advance that I’m going to pick the Dawgs to win every week. If you don’t expect to win, why even bother to play. This is not just wishful thinking on my part, we have the goods and we can whip this bunch of Alabama pachyderms. It will be low tide at Sanford Stadium about 3:30 this Saturday and the Dawgs will roll that Tide right back to Tuscaloosa carrying with it the bitter taste of defeat . In fact, I believe this just might be the year of the Dawg. Gooooo Dawgs, sick ‘em, woof, woof, woof.”

 

The year of the Dawg, indeed.

 

If that doesn’t get you pumped up for this Saturday’s matchup, we don’t know what would.

 

Join us again next week here at One Old Dawg for more mostly true Bulldog lore. And once more, Go Dawgs!