Thank You, Kirby

I'm a little late on this, but I still wanted to put it out there - THANK YOU, KIRBY!!

We might have backed into this, but who would you rather have? A guy that has learned under Nick Saban, Frank Beamer (and Bud Foster), Romeo Crennel, and Wade Phillips while scheming against the top offensive minds of the NFL? Or a guy that may or may not make his own calls as the DC for the world's biggest control freak in Saban?

If you were to put the resumes side-by-side, its not even close - Grantham blows Kirby out of the water. During the weekend of Kirby's big decision, I had heard that Kirby and Grantham would both be DC's in the SEC - we just didn't know which one would be in Athens and which one would be in Tuscaloosa. I got really worried that Saban was gonna pull one over on Richt. While most of the DawgNation was upset with Kirby for using his alma mater for a big payday @ Bama, I was thanking him for staying put while I remained hopeful that we would hire Grantham. Luckily, our search finally ended a few days later.

So, once again, Thank You, Kirby - I am glad you are still in Tuscaloosa. I am looking forward to the product that Grantham will put on the field every Saturday.

Dawg Bites

Well, one of them is dawg related and the other is just plain eye candy. First here is an interview done with Men's Tennis Coach Manuel Diaz back at the US Open. Inside Tennis does a very nice job with the interview that you can find HERE.

This isn't really sports but it was found in the Wall Street Journal Sports section, so it counts. And it is easy to look at. Wall Street Journal catches up with new sports illustrated cover girl Brooklyn Decker to discuss some sports and other things. Although Brooklyn is a Carolina fan, there is some six degrees of separation with dawgnation. Brooklyn is married to Andy and Andy's brother John was an All-American tennis player for the dawgs and the assistant head coach. Anyway, check out the article HERE.

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Georgia-Florida Tennis Recap

The Georgia tennis team got shutout for the second day in a row. I am sure it has been a very very long time since the dawgs lost back to back days without getting on the scoreboard. I have the utmost confidence in Coach Diaz and Associate Head Coach Will Glenn that they will get the guys going in the right direction. And this Georgia team will be a force in the NCAA tournament in May when the tournament comes to Athens. HERE is the post match article and some good quotes from Coach Diaz.

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UGA-UVA tennis recap

Click here for an article with a quick recap of last night's 4-0 tennis loss to UVA.... I did pull an interesting quote from Brian Boland (UVA's head coach) last night in another article from virginiasports.com - "The atmosphere was absolutely electric tonight. We have always said that we have the best fans in college tennis and they proved it again tonight." If he thinks he has good fans, I can't wait 'til he gets to hear 5,000+ rowdy Dawg fans barking at the NCAA's in Athens this spring.

We play vs. the hated 12th-ranked Gators tonight at 6:30. You can follow the live scoring here.

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Coach Fox is on the Right Track

When Damon Evans hired Mark Fox last spring, most reactions were along the lines of "Huh, Who? What? We hired a search firm to find this guy?" Almost a year later, he has all UGA fans starting to wonder if he can do what Tubby did in the mid 90's. We have an opportunity to have a great basketball program to go along with all the other great programs in Athens. He won me over with all of his quotes upon taking the job last April 3rd - it all started with a workman-like, take-no-excuses attitude. From Day 1, he has talked about how the team had to win the fans back by going out and playing hard. We still have not heard one word out of him about needing a new arena. In fact, he has gone so far as to say that Stegeman already offers everything that we do need. And, when you get down to it, he's exactly right - It doesn't matter how state-of-the-art or pretty or fancy our place is - we just need to have a team being cheered by 10,000-plus fans going absolutely bonkers every night. And, it has been proven in the past - the crowds will fill Stegeman up if the product is on the court.

Don't forget that basketball is different than football too - all we need is to pluck 1 or 2 of the kids from the fertile recruiting grounds of Georgia and we will be a legit top 25 team as soon as next year. Considering that Fox sent 4 kids from Nevada (friggin Nevada, people) to the NBA in 5 years, I would bet he can convince a kid or 2 to take their chances playing for the state's flagship University.

Obviously, we aren't there yet - but we are on the right track to getting back to where Tubby had us going before he took his dream job in Lexington. The question now becomes this - "What will Damon Evans do to be sure we don't lose Coach Fox?" Given the $$$ that Evans was throwing around looking for a defensive coordinator, I think we are going to be able to hold on to Fox and finally see what will happen when a real coach stays in Athens for more than 2 years.

Tennis Dawgs Live Scoring vs. #2 seed UVA

Men's Tennis will continue their quest for a national indoor championship as they face host team #2 seed UVA in the quarterfinals tonight at 6:30. Click the link below for live scoring. In other tournament news, the #1 ranked USC Fighting Lane Kiffins were upset by #8 Texas earlier today.

Dawgs vs. UVA Live Scoring

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#7 Dawgs defeat #10 Ole Miss

All the details from the 1st round victory over #10 Ole Miss can be found here. Tune in tomorrow night @ 6:30 as we face the host team, #2 Virginia. Live scoring can be found here.