Monday, October 29, 2007
‘Dawgs Gone Wild!
OK, it’s hypocrisy time.
For the record, I’m usually against big, showy celebrations in football. That is, I’m not a big fan of touchdown celebrations when they aren’t game-winners… I’m not a fan of big first-down celebrations when they don’t clinch a win… and in most cases, I’m not a fan of taunting.
Now, there are exceptions.
I cheered in the WRBL newsroom when I saw Auburn kicker Wes Byrum giving Florida fans his version of the “Gator Chomp” clap. For some strange reason, it doesn’t bother me when Cincinatti’s Chad Johnson does something off the wall (mostly because his brand of celebration doesn’t involve taunting the other team).
And, I really found myself liking the big, wild touchdown celebration the Georgia Bulldogs staged in the Florida game Saturday. In case you missed it, nearly the entire UGA bench emptied on Saturday after Georgia’s first touchdown. The team converged on the end zone, and started jumping up and down until the officials threw their flags. Then, the players retreated. After the fact, we learned they were acting on orders from Bulldog coach Mark Richt, who wanted to inject a little energy, fun, and emotion into his team. According to Richt, he told his players during their bye week that he wanted them to get an excessive celebration penalty for that first score, trading 15 yards for some electricity. Before the game, he told them that he didn’t want it to be one guy celebrating, that it was to be a team celebration. Apparently, the ‘Dawgs took that literally.
The celebration drew a pair of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, leaving UGA kicking off from their own 8-yard line. And, as expected, it fired up the Gators, who scored on their next drive to tie the game. In the days since, columnists and talk-radio pundits have called the move everything from brilliant motivation, to a blatant display of a lack of class.
All that might be true… but the reason I found myself liking it so much was that it turned Georgia-Florida back into a rivalry game again. The last five or six years, the games have been close, but Georgia always seemed to stub it’s toe in the end to lose. The Gators had won 15 of 17 meetings between the two schools. It wasn’t really a rivalry anymore for Florida fans, even though the Bulldogs had won back in 2004.
In one instant, Georgia gave Florida a reason to hate the Bulldogs again… and it gave Bulldog fans a reason to think they didn’t have to be scared of Florida anymore. It escalated the emotion in the moment, and just watching the CBS broadcast, it made it feel like a movie. After the penalties were assessed, the camera cut to shots of the Gator sideline, with the coaches and players jumping up and down, fired up… then the cameras turned to the UGA sideline, with the Bulldog players jumping up and down. The Mighty Gators were called out, and they were angry… the underdog Bulldogs were tired of being pushed around, and they were angry. Then, CBS took a shot from the blimp high above Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, focused on UGA’s mascot “Hairy Dawg” waving a black Georgia flag in the end zone. In that moment, I was getting text messages from friends scattered throughout the southeast, including former WRBL sports anchor Dan Edward, who said, “This is going to be a good one.”
And, it was.
So, while I can’t really find a way to justify it without sounding like a hypocrite who claims to hate it when players step out of line and show up an opponent, I really did enjoy Georgia’s display on Saturday. It was a a brash, fool-hardy move by the Bulldogs that turned the Florida-Georgia game back into what it used to be: one of the most anticipated games of the fall. I’m sure that celebration is the main reason that Gator fans are already looking forward to next year’s game, to see Florida get revenge.
Isn’t that what a rivalry game is all about?
