Dawgs Black Out, Beat the Tigers, 45-20

The Dawgs carried on several of their new traditions for this year, including Knowshon Moreno running for over 100 yards (101 and 2 scores), scoring more than 40 points, and dancing to "Crank Dat" in the break before the 4th Quarter:



As you can see in the video, the Dawgs came out in black jerseys; according to Dan Magill, this is the first time we've ever come out in the blacks; others have claimed that the 1942 National Championship team wore black jerseys in the Rose Bowl at the end of that season. Either way, the stands were full of fans in black; the team looked great in the jerseys and, more importantly, they looked jacked up for the game. It seems like another psychological ploy by Mark Richt has paid off.

Georgia came out hot to start the game, scoring on a FG following a Kelin Johnson interception. After an Auburn FG, Mohammed Massaquoi caught a long touchdown to give the Dawgs a 7 point lead. After getting the ball back from Auburn, Sean Bailey added another touchdown to stretch Georgia's lead to 14. But Auburn would come back to score before halftime, and at the break, the Dawgs were clinging to a 17-10 lead.

As hot as we looked in the first quarter, we came out flat to start the second half. Auburn scored, and then drove down again to kick another FG with 6:47 to go in the 3rd Quarter. That kick gave Auburn a 20-17 lead, their first of the game.

After that, everything went Georgia's way. Knowshon scored twice, and Thomas Brown and Brannan Southerland each scored once; the Tigers never even sniffed the end zone after that. We quit scoring when the score got to 45-20, with just less than seven minutes left in the Fourth Quarter.

The Worldwide leader has the recap. Paul Westerdawg, at the Georgia Sports Blog, has an article about the Jekyll and Hyde effect of the black uniforms on our head coach. PWD also has pictures of the defense and the offense.

What does Saturday's win mean going forward? We still need Tennessee to lose another game if we're going to make it to Atlanta; even without a trip to play LSU in the Dome, we're sitting pretty at number 9 in the BCS standings right now. Of the 8 teams ahead of us, two of the three teams in the Big 12 must lose at least one game: Kansas and Mizzou play each other, and the winner of that game will have to play Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship. Arizona State still has to play USC, and Ohio State has to play at Michigan as well. If we win out the regular season, we could easily be in the top 5 of the BCS standings before Bowl Season, regardless of whether we play for an SEC Championship.

Unfortunately, I will be missing the game next weekend; if we can hold serve at home against the Wildcats, we'll be keeping the pressure on Tennessee. The Vols are only one slip-up away from handing us a shot at the #1 team in the country; it's hard to say how we'd fare against LSU, but I'd pay good money to find out.

EDIT: As if the video of Knowshon and TB dancing wasn't enough, here's Verne Lundquist: