Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!

I was looking at YouTube for footage of Arizona St. QB Rudy Carpenter and stumbled across the last few minutes of the movie Rudy which stars that kid that played Brian Reynolds in the made for TV movie Please Don't Hit Me, Mom. Anyway, that movie is still as entertaining today as it was the first time I saw it. Why? #1. Tech gets beat. #2. Some garbage about personal triumph, believing in yourself, following your dreams, and all that other feel-good liberal hippie crap!

But all that aside I also did some looking into Arizona State's loss to UNLV last week. I don't know if that sucked more for them or for us as we realized we would yet again be playing a previously ranked opponent who bit the dust before we're scheduled to play them. Which makes it a lose/lose for UGA if Arizona St. plays us close and we barely win again, I can just hear Mark May now...

"Georgia might be the most overrated team ranked in the Top 10 because they've barely squeaked by two unranked opponents in a row who lost games to lesser squads. Now Dr. Lou if you'll excuse me I need to run to the little girl's room (grabs purse stuffed full of Playtex Heavy Flows and exits stage-right)."

Either way, Rudy Carpenter was being hailed as the 2nd best QB in the Pac-10 because of his "experience as a veteran" being that he is a 5th year senior and everything. Let it be known Reggie Ball was also a "seasoned vet" his last years of play and that experience doesn't compensate for lack of talent.

I didn't watch the end of Arizona State/UNLV because I was driving through Bumblefrick, South Carolina looking for $5/gas to make it home. But it says right cha' that the Sun Devil's final OT possession consisted of the following...

1st & 2nd Downs: Dimitri Nance has 2 carries for 7 yard.

3rd Down: Carpenter overthrows TE Jovon Williams in the endzone.

4th Down: Kicker ruins chances of ever getting laid as an undergrad at Arizona St.

(UNLV Celebrates, Dennis Ericson books trip to Arkansas assuming there will be an opening soon).


Carpenter might be worried the playcalling was too conservative for overtime play, but the question it doesn't answer is how they let UNLV tie up the game to force overtime to begin with.

Are you familiar with the phrase, "Luck is where preparation meets opportunity."?

For those still worried about our Pass Defense, whether you like it or not, our defense was prepared to take advantage of mistakes made by South Carolina's offense last weekend. Yeah it sucked watching 2 consecutive drives headed toward our endzone but if the aforementioned saying holds true at least our guys are able to recognize mistakes and take advantage of them. Rennie Curran can recognize an exposed football trying to reach into the endzone (albiet from 4 yards away) and knows it's time to punch the fire outta that ball to knock it loose. Our drop 8 defensive scheme was still smart enough to see Chris Smelley's eyes get big as he thought of throwing it into the endzone (resulting in a game-saving pick with seconds left).

It is apparent Arizona won't be able to run the ball either from incompetence or our stellar Run Defense. Also unless we relapse into last weeks mindset our offense should EASILY run wild over the Sun Devil's couch-cushion fortress they call a defense. In my eyes it's shaping up like this, we have a competent offense and a defense that has ALOT to prove next Saturday. Arizona State's only option will be to throw the ball and hope it lands where Rudy directs it...that's it. They gave up 23 points to UNLV against their first-string defense.

Advantage Dawgs, bottom line.

CORRECTION:
Last night I actually finished watching the UGA/USC game and it turns out the Gamecock player wasn't trying to reach the ball into the endzone like I thought I'd seen in person. Rennie actually just plowed into the guy and it knocked the ball loose. When I saw the guy reaching out trying to grab the loose ball, that's what I assumed was him trying to stretch it into the endzone...my bad.