Countdown To A New Season
Spring practice is history and a variety of preseason magazines are now available for purchase. Both of those items can only mean one thing: a new college football season is getting closer with each passing day.
For me, college football is divided into several parts, which have made it a year around sport. You have the actual season, which lasts several months. You then have the recruiting season (no doubt the part which I follow the least.) You then have spring practice. Finally you have preseason practice, which then leads into the start of a new regular season.
We are in the home stretch of this offseason and within a couple more months the 2017 season will be here again.
Beginning with this week’s column, I will try to take a look at our state teams starting with the University of Georgia and do my best to speculate on how the upcoming campaign may play out.
Year one of the Kirby Smart era was somewhat of a let down for many die-hard Bulldog fans. Smart was deemed the greatest thing since Vince Lombardi (do young players today know the name Vince Lombardi?) and the overall struggles had to be a disappointment.
In looking at the Georgia situation objectively, however, one has to understand there were going to be some growing pains in year one of the Smart era. A first time head coach is going to have an adjustment phase, regardless of how long Smart was a top defensive coordinator for arguably one of the top head coaches of all time.
It seems many UGA fans felt Smart would simply evolve into Nick Saban Jr. from day one. That’s not reality because Smart is not Saban, just like none of the other former Saban assistants. Only Nick Saban is Nick Saban.
Smart will likely take what he has learned from year one and show a good bit of improvement in his second year as a head coach. He’s clearly a strong defensive-minded coach and UGA has plenty of offensive weapons to compete with any opponent on its 2017 schedule.
Georgia’s trap game comes in week one against Appalachian State, a team that should have defeated Tennessee in 2016. Season prediction for UGA: 8-3.
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The recent article in our state’s largest newspaper about former boxing champion Evander Holyfield brought back a ton of ring memories from the late 80s and early 90s.
Holyfield made a strong rise in the boxing ranks during the final heyday of the sport from his days as an Olympian and then as a professional. He was all set for a monster mega-bout with champion Mike Tyson when Buster Douglas upset Tyson in Tokyo in February 1990, robbing us of that super fight.
While Holyfield and Tyson would eventually meet it didn’t have the same shine as it would have had the two tangled before Douglas stunned Tyson.
Holyfield, like many other professional boxers, fought way too long but he had personal reasons for doing do. He still looks in great shape today and one can only hope his mental health is also still strong.
Monticello native Chris Bridges is a long-time newspaper columnist. He welcomes feedback from readers of The Monticello News at pchrisbridges@gmail.com.