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Georgia hype: A blessing or a curse?

Bulldogs on quest to carve name on a trophy

SPORTS TROY-GEORGIA 9 AJC

Georgia tailback Knowshon Moreno hits the hole for a short touchdown run against Troy last season. (Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/MCT)

CURTIS COMPTON /MCT

Written by JOSEPH PERSON

jperson@thestate.com
Posted on 07.25.08
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Where Georgia ranks

A look at some preseason Top 10s in football magazines.

Lindy’s

1. Georgia

2. Southern Cal

3. Ohio State

4. Oklahoma

5. Missouri

6. Florida

7. LSU

8. Texas

9. Clemson

10. West Virginia

Phil Steele’s

1. Florida

2. Ohio State

3. Oklahoma

4. Southern Cal

5. Clemson

6. West Virginia

7. Missouri

8. South Florida

9. Georgia

10. Penn State

Athlon

1. Florida

2. Ohio State

3. Oklahoma

4. Southern Cal

5. Georgia

6. Missouri

7. West Virginia

8. Auburn

9. LSU

10. Clemson

HOOVER, Ala. — If the computer programmers at EA Sports know anything about football, Georgia should have a big year.

It seems many believe the Bulldogs are destined for greatness this season, including the makers of the wildly popular NCAA Football 2009 video game and two magazines (The Sporting News and Lindy’s) that have Georgia ranked No. 1 in their preseason polls.

How the Bulldogs handle the expectations will go a long way toward determining whether they have the bite to match all the preseason barking.

“I don’t really believe and listen to the hype. On the new NCAA 2009 they’ve got us ranked high-power on everything,” Georgia defensive tackle Jeff Owens said. “You can’t really listen to that or believe it because it’s just a video game. It’s just like a book. That book isn’t going to go out and play that 60-minute game.

“We know that if we’re going to be great, we just have to play hard week in and week out.”

Georgia has finished the season ranked in the top 10 in the Associated Press poll five times in Mark Richt’s seven years, peaking at No. 2 last season following the Bulldogs’ 41-10 thumping of Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl.

Georgia’s seven-game winning streak to end last season and the return of 16 starters, including a veteran quarterback and a Heisman Trophy-calibre tailback, have stirred talk of the Bulldogs’ first national championship since 1980.

“I told the players that this preseason hype could be a blessing or a curse,” Richt said Thursday at the SEC’s media days. “It’s a curse if you think it gives you a sense of entitlement to where you think you don’t have to prepare. It could be a blessing if you look at it as one of the greatest opportunities of your life and you put the work in to even be in position to have a chance.”

The Bulldogs have worn the target of a top-5 preseason team once before under Richt. The 2004 team was ranked No. 3 in the AP preseason poll and finished No. 7 nationally with a 10-2 record — a good, but not great showing by a squad that included a pair of first-round NFL draft picks in defensive end David Pollack and safety Thomas Davis.

Richt knows the difficulty of navigating the SEC minefield with no blemishes: The ‘Dogs have lost at least once to every SEC East team since he took over for Jim Donnan in 2001.

“We don’t sit there and say, ‘Well, we got this one, we got that one. Boy, that will be a tough one,’” Richt said. “We know they’re all gonna be tough. Our state of mind going into the game, every game, is that it’s gonna be a 60-minute war. And if you think it’s gonna be anything different, and it becomes that, you’re in trouble.”

Georgia should be among the SEC’s offensive leaders. Quarterback Matthew Stafford has a 17-4 record as a starter, while tailback Knowshon Moreno is coming off a 1,334-yard rushing season — the fourth best by an SEC freshman behind Herschel Walker, Jamal Lewis and Emmitt Smith.

Though Richt expressed concern about an offensive line that has only one upperclassman, the up-and-down play of receiver Mohamed Massaquoi should be of equal concern. The senior from Charlotte has yet to match his first-year production, although Massaquoi stands to benefit from defensive schemes designed to slow Moreno.

Defensively, the Bulldogs welcome back nine starters from a unit that ranked in the top 20 nationally in points (20.2 a game) and total yardage (323.2) allowed.

Owens, a senior from Plantation, Fla., said he did not buy the NCAA Football ‘09 game because several of his teammates own it. And while he enjoys the graphics and seeing how the Bulldogs stack up in the video game version, he is eager for the real thing.

“We can’t really listen to what a video game is going to tell us. That can’t really predict our season,” Owens said. “It’s a long season. We can’t predict what happens in January. We can’t predict what happens next month. We don’t know how all the coins are going to fall.

“The only thing we can control is being Georgia.”

Reach Person at (803) 771-8496.

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