One Old Dawg hunkering down

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University of Georgia football fans have a little over a week until kickoff in Sanford Stadium. Like most of our readers, One Old Dawg has high hopes for this season and is already sporting red and black on a regular basis.

Concluding with last year, on the fiftieth anniversaries of the 1964, 1965, and 1966 University of Georgia football seasons, One Old Dawg remembered his playing years on Vince Dooley’s first three teams with his “mostly true Bulldog lore.”

Though those anniversary seasons are now behind us, we wanted to keep readers informed of news items relevant to those playing years.

First, in an interview with Steve Spurrier, we discovered a video we didn’t know existed. We have stills of this hanging on our den wall of number eighty-eight, One Old Dawg, sacking Spurrier.

Spurrier admits that in his senior year at Florida in 1966, “(UGA) knocked us out . . . Now they completely outplayed us, wasn’t any flukes or anything like that.”

Scroll down mid way through the interview to see the video HERE .

 

HERE are One Old Dawg’s remembrances of the game.

HERE are more highlights from that game.

Also, in a recent Loran Smith article about the Athens Touchdown Club in The Athens Banner Herald, Smith comments on the 1965 Bulldog team. He remembers comments made to the club in the 1970’s by Michigan head coach, Bo Schembechler. “Bo was a big hit with the membership, reminding the members that if he had been coaching the Wolverines in 1965 that ‘things would have been different.’ He was referring to Vince’s light-in the-pants but overachieving Bulldogs, upsetting defending Rose Bowl champion Michigan at Ann Arbor, 15-7.”

If you missed One Old Dawg’s remembrance of that game, they are HERE.

And speaking of the Athens Touchdown Club, One Old Dawg attended their meeting this past Monday night.  He has this to say: “I was really blown away when Coach Smart told the group at the Athens Touchdown Club how glad he was that the athletic department had purchased technology that tracks the players movements during practice (really!) He gave us statistics comparing a practice from last year to the comparable practice this year. This year we had nearly twice as many players exceed nineteen miles per hour and over fifty percent more exceed twenty miles per hour. Is that incredible or what? Not how fast they ran, but the fact they can measure players’ speed while practicing.

 “In my day, the only way coaches could tell how fast we were running is whether we outran the guy we were chasing or who was chasing us! Coach also said he had never seen more intense competition on Special Teams than this fall.

“Then Coach talked about how several seniors were stepping up to take leadership roles and I’m getting excited because I know how important it is for the players to understand the concept of TEAM and their role in leadership. I'm reminded of Ecclesiastes 4:12: 'Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.'

 

“Think about it! Last year we were 7-5 in the regular season. We lost two games by one point and another by three. Speed, inspired Special Teams, and team leadership can turn those close losses into wins.

“We have a stable full of classy running backs and our line is improved on both sides of the ball. We have twenty-six seniors and twenty-eight juniors on the roster. I know I’m easy to encourage, but I think we have decent reasons to hope for 9-3 or 10-2; maybe better. So, get out your red and black and hunker down, kickoff in ten days.  Gooo . . . Dawgs, Sic ‘em!”

We’ll continue to post occasional updates here throughout the season in which One Old Dawg will ponder current UGA football events and remind us again of his “mostly true bulldog lore.”