Farewell, Penn Wagers

Lucky for me, I got to be at the game today to witness all the excitement! Any time you get to watch a game from Sanford Stadium, even one against a nobody team when most of the students have gone home for Thanksgiving, the atmosphere is indescribable.  Electric, really. At one point I even stopped (Not in the middle of the sidewalk, though. I hate when people do that.) and thought about how proud I am to cheer for such a great team.  Not just this year's team, but teams from every other year that I've been around. Great players, great leadership, great traditions.  And while many people still find reasons to complain (or look reaaallly hard to find reasons to complain), I guess I just have a different set of qualifications for what makes a team great.  The teams that come through UGA do things the right way.  They play with heart, and they continue to make me proud to be a fan. Win or lose.

Observations of the day:

• Our offense is virtually unstoppable.  I know the team we played doesn't really count for much, but still. After today's game, our average points per game has gone up to 43.3 points.  Thanks, Mike Bobo!
• Hutson Mason continues to grow on me. As critical as I have been about him (and I still stand firm on most of my opinions), he had an excellent game today with some beautiful passes.  He does what he needs to do to help us win.  I think he is an analyzer, and doesn't seem to really like making instinctual plays. He doesn't seem to like to throw passes to where the receivers are going to end up (à la Aaron Murray), but his receivers do what they can to help him out (especially Conley). Mason continues to produce for us, AND he is even mixing in some longer throws! Yay Hutson! 
• Brice Ramsey is going to be legendary. The kid has a strong arm already (look out, Stafford), and he's only a redshirt freshman. He obviously has some room to grow and learn, which is why it was so excellent to give him the amount of playing time he saw today.  Those reps in real-game situations are what will provide him the most growth.  He's also a very eloquent speaker. I heard him being interviewed on the drive home and I was impressed.
• Nick Chubb is already legendary. Not only is he running through defenses left and right and scoring touchdowns like crazy (I don't think defenders realize just how fast he actually is until they're trying and failing to catch him.), but he is also proving to be a punishing running back in other ways.  Just ask the CSU defender he threw to the ground today. Rather forcefully, might I add.  Or you can ask this guy:  http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:11883038.  Or this guy: 

• Speaking of legends, I had a Rumph sighting today! Rumph has been compared to Bigfoot and unicorns in the way that people have heard about his skills but rarely is he ever seen to confirm the rumors.  Well, I think he pretty much confirmed them today.  He's got game.  It's a shame he's a senior, because he's got great hands and is the perfect build for a receiver.  He could have been the next A.J. Green had it not been for injuries plaguing him for the past couple of years.  
• REAL legend Charley Trippi was in Athens today signing autographs. And he is the cutest little old man ever.  I just wanted to hug him.  Trippi has too many accolades and achievements to list, but I feel lucky to have been able to even be in the same room as him. 
• Chris Conley is officially my favorite. Not only is he an outspoken Christian and his hair game is on point, but I also think he may actually be a superhero.  I'll let you make your own decision, but I'm just gonna leave this here: 

             

                And this:

Just sayin'...

Other observations:

• Kimbrough is still knocking people around on special teams.  He will be valuable on defense for us next year.
• I'm glad Dominick Sanders' injury isn't major, because we are going to need him next week. 
• Rumor has it that Penn Wagers is getting removed/reassigned because he's just soooooo good at his job.  So this very well could have been his last game spent working against us.  Fingers crossed.  You could tell it killed him to have to give us that fumble on CSU's first drive. 
• It was great to see some of the 2nd/3rd/4th string players get on the field today. 
• Defense looked solid once again, but I'm not reading too much into it because of who the opponent was.
• This game was great practice for next week.  This team's option is a bit different than what we'll be seeing next week, and they don't block like Tech does, but we at least got to see something similar. 
• It's a shame that we're having to rely on another team to lose for us to make it to the championship, especially when we annihilated said teams on their home turf.  Hopefully Arkansas can help us out next week.  They've got major momentum right now.  Time will tell..