Author
Dean Legge @AuburnOnScout
Embracing Being the Bully
ATHENS - This column would likely make Larry Munson very uncomfortable. It might make you uncomfortable, too, but you should read it anyway.
ATHENS - This column would likely make Larry Munson very uncomfortable. It might make you uncomfortable, too, but you should read it anyway.
Georgia, perhaps its fans and administration more than anyone else, is going to have to start embracing being a bully - beating up teams because you should rather than it being a once- or twice-a-season phenomenon.
I’ve written extensively about the advantages the University of Georgia has over most of its peers - academically, athletically and with natural resources. Now its time to harness all of those advantages for a long run of success on the fields of play in athletics… all of the fields of play; not just football.
But football has a major test this weekend at No. 10 Auburn. Georgia
should win this game. On top of that, UGA fans shouldn't think any other way (UGA’s coaches and players certainly should be bashful about expressing that, but that should be the mindset).
Why? Because for too long UGA has dealt with high expectations, but those were false expectations… hoping that greatness will happen without fully planning for it. A mindset change has been long overdue, and I’m glad to see at least one coach (along with long-time winners like Manny Diaz and Jack Bauerle) ushering in a major change in imagining not only what UGA can be, but what it “should” be.
What Kirby Smart has done in the recruiting world for football should be par for the course at Georgia - not the outlier. That’s the key, but more on that later.
That Georgia is 9-0 and considered the top team in the College Football Playoff isn’t something that’s going to happen all of the time. But UGA certainly “should” be ranked the No. 1 college football team in the country more than a couple of weeks in a multi-decade period of time (from 1982 until 2017 UGA was only No. 1 a few weeks in 2008).
This
should be happening. This isn’t an anomaly. This also isn't guaranteed into the future.
Georgia enters the critical test at Auburn, a game it certainly could lose considering the skill of the Tigers, the location of the game and the reality of this rivalry, with everything in front of it. Expecting to win, or that it
should happen, doesn’t guarantee anything. That’s where a lot of folks misunderstand what I am saying.
But expecting to win is a far cry from the negativity that too often creeps into the psyche of this program. Remember the bellyaching about playing the Gators earlier this year?
“So many bad things have happened through the years down there.” Or “Take the decals off the helmets and UGA wins for sure, but you never know because of the Gators.”
Shut. Up.
Part of preparing to win is expecting to win, and that’s the part it feels like so many UGA fans are uncomfortable with. Why? Because they have been so programmed, through years of Munson’s calls that perpetrated the Bulldogs as underdogs or doing the unthinkable, that Georgia has to overcome big odds to get the job done. That wasn’t really the case - at least not as mush as it was made out to be.
I’m not trying to pile on Munson. He’s great, and he’s the person that most comes to mind, but the truth is that there are Munsons everywhere. Georgia is a little like the Chicago Cubs or Boston Red Sox, two of the wealthiest, best-positioned teams in baseball constantly falling on their faces. Those two aren’t the Padres or the Brewers. The Cubs and Sox “should” win, and lately they have.
I’m likely thinking of Munson because he is the best play-by-play man in the history of college football. He made you feel his trepidation. His disbelief in UGA’s fortune expressed in his classic calls are what made him so special. I mean, he was really, really good.
But - and if you will excuse me - Lady Luck has virtually nothing to do with anything. It suggests what is happening on the field has as much to do with your work than something you can’t control. And that’s simply not true. Lady Luck gave you an out: You were simply on a tortured ride, and what happened was what was going to happen because of a Black Cat, or some dumb trade made decades before.
Old Lady Luck, the Curse of the Bambino, Curse of the Billy Goat and all of the other ridiculous curses (I’m looking at you South Carolina with your “Chicken Curse”) are just ways of explaining failure in a nice way. Simply put: those organizations haven’t done what’s necessary to win.
Kirby last Saturday night after defeating the Chickens: “It takes what it takes in the SEC, and if you are not winning to do that, then you are not going to be there.”
Bingo. Bull’s eye. Touchdown. Spike the football. Take Old Lady Luck and shove her down the toilet.
Munson’s calls crediting Lady Luck over the airwaves after a win were fun and entertaining to hear, but wasn’t reality. And its something the fanbase would do itself some favors by removing from its mind.
Georgia’s season didn’t fall apart after Jacob Eason went down to an injury because Kirby Smart signed another 5-star QB - Jake Fromm. Having Eason wasn’t enough. Kirby went out and got Fromm. And having Fromm isn’t enough either, so Kirby went out and got the No. 1 player in the country, 5-star Harrison QB Justin Fields.
That has nothing to do with Lady Luck. This isn’t a surprise. This
should be happening, and it is.
Embrace being the bully. Be ready to cheer for when the Dawgs punch their foes right in their snouts… because that’s what’s going to happen, and you need to get used to it.
