Fade to Black

My new least-favorite Stafford-spooning pic.

Bourn Inferiority here:

I will try my absolute best here to make this post strictly about the
Georgia game in relation to the Blackout, rather than an epitaph of
the 2008 Georgia Football Season. Please keep in mind I merely said
try.

When the losses come, they always seem to hit hard when they matter
most. In Jacksonville 2003, my cell phone got destroyed after a
stumble into the Landing's fountain, my favorite hat got stolen, my
second favorite hat flew out the window on the way to the game, and we
lost. This weekend very much reminded me of that little doozy, with
1/2 of my car, a brand new digital camera, about a half million of my
favorite brain cells and my cell phone were all casualties alongside
the dawgs. Sheesh. These types take a while to get over.

Doesn't it suck when you have a semi-permanent reminder of a really
bad loss, until you at least spend a few hundred dollars getting your
car fixed so you once again have a side view mirror and at least one
side that's not demolished? Of course, the loss didn't cause my cell
phone to get destroyed, the digital camera to be fritzed, or my car to
get roughed up. But that is factually and patently irrelevant. Is my
soul crushed to pieces because of this loss? Of course. Do I feel like
my boyish football hopes for this season just got gang raped by 12
angry, large men? I do indeed. Is all of this compounded and
multiplied because of the additional calamitous events of the weekend?
Certainly. But was the Georgia loss the root cause of my other series
of unfortunate events?

In the same logic, we'll look to Dawg Gone Blog to comment on this
Dawg Gone Game. In an effort to sum up this depressing nut crunching loss, we're provided a quick nugget of wisdom:

"2) Losing the Blackout -- I'm a fan of the Blackout. It gets theplayers excited, gets the fans excited and gets the recruits excited. I don't think it's "gimmicky" at all. I also don't think the blackjerseys cost us a game. I'm absolutely amazed by the folks on themessage boards who think the Blackout should never come around ever again. We didn't lose the game because we were too worried about our wardrobe. We lost the game because we got punched in the mouth and didn't respond. That being said, I do think it's time to take the stance of making the players EARN the Blackout instead of just setting a date for it. Last year it was a reward; this year it was a certainty. I say keep the Blackout, but let's hang it up for just a little while until I get this taste of "embarrassment" out of my mouth."

Y'know, I couldn't have said it better myself. I really couldn't. I
love the Blackout. Love it. It only marginally adds to my enjoyment of
the game, because the pageantry and tradition and campus viewings on
game day are what really gets my heart pumping. But it does add to it,
if only because it provides an extra dimension to the weekend. I think
it clearly reveals the abundant amount of support the fans have for
these Dawgs, but it gets the players fired up and hey, whatever works.
Seeing all of the fans - not just the students, where black shows me
that Dawg Nation LOVES to love their Bulldogs, a far cry from only 8
years ago when we expected to be let down year after year, winning our
glass ceiling 8 games even with incredible talent and always falling
short in the big games. Now it's different. Now we expect to win, and
I hope Dawg fans keep that in mind.

The black jerseys are cool. They just look cool. I think it even makes
us look more ferocious, although admittedly looks were deceiving
Saturday night. And the women were (as always) spectacular in their
Saturday best black dresses. Why would you want to do away with
something that provides so much entertainment? I'm down for putting
the jerseys away for a year, maybe two, but no more than that. I
wouldn't even care if they busted them out again this year, although
my preference would be to wait a little while.

So let's layoff blaming this loss on the Blackout, okay guys? It was
just as much their fault as the fact I didn't have my Musa Smith
jersey for the first time in 6 years. So if you're going to blame it
on any apparel decision, blame it on me.