Sucked. Then Sucked Me Back In.

Georgia-Tennessee was super fun. Here are a few short thoughts:

• Tennessee was so well prepared for this game, it was mind-blowing. Having 2 weeks to prepare had to have been a huge help (but Georgia also played so bad that UT probably would've won had they played the night before). Here's hoping Georgia looks as good in Jacksonville after their bye week. There was a part of me that thought during the game that the Big Ten might have something right in having no bye weeks. Tennessee looked that precise and prepared.
  
• Arian Foster was awesome. Looked like a completely different back from how I've seen him before. He was so good I seriously thought he was on something - meth, 'roids, pure adrenaline.
  
• Know how a stopped clock is right twice a day? That's two times more than the Georgia defensive backfield was right yesterday.
• Once down by 4 touchdowns, Georgia started throwing downfield (ineffectively). Cal and Florida killed Tennessee by successfully stretching the defense downfield. It wasn't horizontal passing and screens that opened things up for either of them. Two of the first three plays in the game for Georgia were relatively deep passes (overthrown by Stafford), and each was the right play. But the next few series were more side-to-side passes and runs up the middle. Playcalling was scared for the rest of the first half.
  
• I can't get through this without talking at least a little shit about Tennessee. If there's one recent development I absolutely HATE about college football, it's the way Tennessee (and Oklahoma State did this too) before EVERY SINGLE OFFENSIVE PLAY, sets up, waits a few seconds, then the QB, running backs, and all receivers comes up out of their stance, looks at the coaches, resets and then runs the play. It's a more annoying equivalent of Peyton Manning's constant audibiles. God forbid they actually run a play that was called originally. God forbid that players actually make their own decisions on the field. When I see an opposing team doing this, I kind of wish football teams had no coaches at all, and just went out and played schoolyard football. It is so annoying - and sometimes Georgia does it too, though normally it leads to a timeout or delay of game penalty because the changed play gets in too late.
  

So I muted the TV in the 4th quarter, and stopped watching entirely after the second UGA touchdown (which was probably undeserved - the pass interference wasn't entirely indefensible, but probably unnecessary). I really thought at that point I was "done" for the day. I started watching that terrible movie where David Spade and Jon Heder play little league. That lasted 18 minutes. Then I watched Fight Club. Eventually, I flipped back onto ESPN to check the scores for my office pool. And then it sucked me back in... UPSET ALERT: Stanford on the 9 yard line, down 6 with a minute and half to go. Shockingly, I actually found the game on TV, and in HD as well. Flipped it on just in time to see the 4 goal-to-go downs. Give 'em hell, Harbaugh (and loved how he refused the post-game on-field interview)! Then I flipped to see the last quarter of the Florida-LSU game, which was great too.

So the lesson is this: when your team gets totally annihilated by a rival, to the point where your season is rendered meaningless and you wonder if the team should simply stop playing football entirely, the best way to feel better about the sport isn't by grasping to whatever small silver lining there might be about your team's performance. No. The best way to feel better about the sport is to wait for two teams you don't particularly like to lose - one by a massively unexpected upset, the other in a road game where it probably played well enough to win.

Yes, I know I'm a weak person for thinking the misfortunes of others makes me feel better about myself. But that's what college football is all about. Hate schadenfreude, hate college football. Or something like that.