One
Old Dawg’s comments last week were eerily on target. “Every year several big schools get beat by some smaller
school underdog,” he observed and then said, “They have nothing to lose and
everything to gain, and we’re just the opposite and that makes for a dangerous
situation.” A dangerous situation, indeed. Georgia barely squeaked out the win
26-24.
One
Old Dawg says, “The
only good thing about last Saturday is we got a W; it wasn’t pretty but it’s
still a W. I received a text from my Louisiana cousin, whose son is a Nicholls
alum, and he politely abstained from gloating, but I could sense that inside,
he was mighty proud. He said, ‘We Cajuns call Nicholls, Harvard on the Bayou,’
so those Thibodaux Colonels are not only tough but also smart. We found that out.
“You might try what I did― watch the
replay of the North Carolina game to clear the Georgia mind of bad memories.
The apostle Paul tells how he dealt with unpleasant things in the past in
Philippians 3:13: ‘But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what
is ahead’. This is not true just in spiritual matters; it has a general
application as well. If we are not careful, yesterday’s miscues can contribute
to tomorrow’s failure. We need to forget about last Saturday and move on to the
preferred future that is ahead.”
Now to the third game in the season against South Carolina back in that 1966 SEC championship year.
Now to the third game in the season against South Carolina back in that 1966 SEC championship year.
“We
are going to have to play our best game in order to beat them,” Coach Vince Dooley said in an interview leading up to the game. In several news reports, apprehension
was expressed about the match up as in this vintage account.
"We held the Gamecocks to 115 yards rushing and 80 passing but more impressively, we shut them out. Kirby Moore and our offense rose to the occasion and drove it in late in the game for a touchdown, and we won the game 7-0. It was a memorable game for me for two reasons: I was named defensive captain for the first time in my career and at a team meeting the next week, Coach Erk Russell Defensive Coordinator (later head coach at Georgia Southern) gave me the game ball; pretty dawg gone special.”
Jack
Davis was the offensive captain for the game. Later, news reports highlighted
Kirby Moore, Craig Elrod, Bill McWhorter,
Edgar Chandler (All American, Buffalo Bills, New England Patriots ), Donald Hayes, Ronnie Jenkins, and Jack Davis on offense. On
the defense, Happy Dicks, (All
SEC, All American) Larry Kohn (All SEC), Dicky Phillips, Jerry Varnado, Jimmy Cooley,
Bill Stanfill (All American, Miami Dolphins, Super Bowl Team)
, and George Patton (All SEC, All
American, Atlanta Falcons) made significant contributions to the win.
In
fact, another Atlanta Journal article began, “’. . . you are a real All
American football player.’ The speaker was Georgia end Jerry Varnado. The
complement directed to George Patton.”
One
Old Dawg has always been a big Patton fan.
The
article continues with Patton’s response, “We all did it out there tonight.”
Dooley
agreed when he was quoted in another Atlanta newspaper article after the game, “I
want you to know that it took a fine effort to beat that South Carolina team.”
One
Old Dawg offers his prognostication about this week’s upcoming game against
Missouri.
“This Saturday we have to walk into the
Missouri Tigers den which is a dangerous thing to do, even though we have been
very successful at skinning these tigers in their own backyard. Since Mizzou
joined the SEC, we are 2-0 in Columbia and 1-1 at home. This year they lost at
West Virginia 26-11 but then walloped Eastern Michigan 61-21at home. At 2-0
with a win over a ranked team, I guess the Dawgs get the nod, but we all know
none of that matters when you start barking in the Tigers ‘den. But I’m
confident these young Dawgs are growing fast and at the end of the day their
bite will prove to be as bad as their bark and Uga will
have another Tiger skin to adorn his doghouse. Gooo… Dawgs! Sic ‘em.”
So that’s it for this week’s One Old
Dawg, but we’re here again next week for the both the 1966 and 2016 games
against Ole Miss, both the fourth game in the season.
A few pictures from this past week’s
1966 reunion events:
Happy Dicks and Jerry Varnado |
Larry Kohn and One Old Dawg, Jerry Varnado Wayne Ingle, Terry Osbolt, Jerry Varnado |
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