The ACC wants to be the SEC.  They want the big TV contracts, the national clout, the big-time conference championship game, the benefit of the doubt extended by pollsters to mid-range teams in their conference, just like the SEC.  Give them credit for trying; maybe one of these days they’ll get there.  But in the meantime, it’s very funny (and at the same time very sad) to watch, because everything they do blows up in their faces just like those gifts that the Smurfs always used to give each other.

In the early 00’s the ACC pillaged the Big East and looted Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College in order to boost their size to 12 teams, which would permit divisional play and a conference championship.  When the divisional split occurred, it occurred in a strange, convoluted, and woefully unintelligible manner–except that it was designed so that it would be possible for Florida State and Miami to meet in the conference championship.

Hasn’t happened yet.

In 2005 Florida State hooked up with Virginia Tech, a reasonably exciting matchup which drew 72,749 fans–not bad for the first year.  Turns out that was as good as it would get.  In 2006 Georgia Tech and Wake Forest surprised everyone by making it to the ACC championship game, and then proceeded to play the worst game of football ever played, a 9-6 stinker that was won by Wake Forest.  Attendance dropped to 62,850.

In 2007, Boston College and Virginia Tech, two teams from the distant north, hooked up.  Attendance continued to plummet, but the one redeeming feature was that Virginia Tech won convincingly, which gave the ACC a highly-ranked team going into bowl season.  Immediately, Virginia Tech proceeded to get punked by Kansas in the Orange Bowl.

So they moved the game to Tampa.  But the same two teams hooked up again, and that was an even bigger fiasco for the ACC.  Attendance was 27,360, which means that half of the tickets sold were not even used.  Guess all those people had to stay home and work on their cottage cheese sculptures.

Well, this year the ACC finally got a somewhat respectable matchup in the championship game, with Georgia Tech in the top 10 and possibly the top five, and Clemson in the top fifteen.  And then both teams had to go and lose their instate rivalry games.  So while the SEC has No. 1 and No. 2 playing in their championship game, the ACC has two teams that just got punked by mid-level SEC opponents.

Maybe they’ll find somebody who’s interested in watching.  Good luck.

Those of you who have not yet seen the movie “Amelia” that came out this fall, don’t bother.  If the reviews that I have read are any indication, this is almost two hours of your life that you will never get back, no matter how desperately you want it.  And by the time you finish this movie, you will want those two hours back.  So let me do you a service and save you those two hours plus the 8 or 10 dollars that you would spend on a movie ticket by telling you how it ends.

Amelia disappears somewhere over the Pacific and is never seen or heard from again.

There.  Now you know all that you could ever possibly need to know about this movie.

Amelia Earhart was born in 1897 in the town of Atchison, Kansas, just a little ways north of Kansas City.  When she was 21, she saw an airshow and decided that she wanted to be a pilot.  Her early career was nothing to write home about, but by 1927 she managed to accumulate 500 hours of solo flying without serious incident.

In 1928 Amelia Earhart accompanied pilot William Stultz and copilot/mechanic Louis Gordon on a transatlantic flight, thus becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.  This happened just a year after Charles Lindbergh became the first person ever to fly across the Atlantic.  After this flight, Amelia Earhart felt bad about her limited role and was determined to one day complete the flight solo.  She did this in 1932, becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

In 1936 she began planning for a round-the-world flight.  In March 1937 she made her first attempt, flying from Oakland, California to Honolulu, Hawaii.  But she encountered mechanical trouble in attempting to take off from Honolulu.  She was forced to abort the trip and bring her plane back to California for repairs.

In June 1937 she began her second attempt.  This time she would be flying west to east, which meant that the Pacific would be the final leg of her trip.  By July 2, she had reached New Guinea.  She took off from there, intending to stop off at Howland Island, a small uninhabited island just north of the equator and right smack in the middle of the Pacific, to refuel.  She never made it to Howland.  To this day, no one knows what happened to her or her plane.

And what happened to the Georgia football team last Saturday is just as much a mystery as what happened to Amelia Earhart.  Where was the team we have been accustomed to seeing all season–the team whose offense can’t move the ball consistently, whose special teams can’t cover kicks, whose defense can’t cover–period, which spews out penalties and turnovers at a most dizzying rate?

Here was a team that came out and completely dominated an opposing team.  We have never seen Georgia do this all season, unless the opponent happened to be from the Ohio Valley Conference.  They racked up a grand total of 339 rushing yards and led 17-3 by halftime, largely because they were able to keep Georgia Tech’s offense off the field for most of the first half, and because Josh Nesbitt was knocked out of the game for a goodly portion of the second quarter.  In his absence, Jaybo Shaw threw an interception which set up Georgia’s second touchdown.

But this was Georgia Tech.  You knew how explosive their offense could be.  Last year Georgia held a 28-12 halftime lead and it was all gone in just a couple of minutes.  Just last week Georgia led Kentucky by two touchdowns at the half and wound up losing by one.  So you had to know that a 17-3 halftime lead was not safe by any stretch of the imagination.

Sure enough, Georgia Tech got the ball to start the second half.  Just three plays in, Demaryius Thomas caught a pass and broke loose for a 76-yard touchdown.

But this time Georgia answered.  On the first play of the ensuing drive, Caleb King went right through the middle of the Georgia Tech defense and ran 75 yards for a touchdown.  Who knew?

Georgia Tech drove for a touchdown to cut the Georgia lead to 24-17.  A couple of Blair Walsh field goals pushed it to 30-17.  Georgia Tech answered with a touchdown.  On the ensuing drive, Blair Walsh had a rare miss on a 55-yard field goal attempt that would have put the game away if it had been good.

Georgia Tech got the ball back with 3:03 left in the game and one last chance to score the winning points.  And Paul Johnson’s much-vaunted triple option offense went to work.  They moved the ball all the way to the Georgia 46, converting a fourth down along the way.  No surprise there, if you know Paul Johnson.  But then they started taking shots at the end zone.  And the Georgia secondary actually covered.  On one pass Reshad Jones used the sideline to great effect, forcing the Georgia Tech receiver out of bounds as he was attempting to make the catch.  On another, Reshad Jones came from out of nowhere to break it up.  On fourth down, Josh Nesbitt threw a simple possession pass to Demaryius Thomas that would have gained just enough yardage for the first down.  Demaryius Thomas never drops passes that are thrown his way, but this time he did.  Ballgame.

Of course there was still 1:22 left on the clock at that point.  But three straight kneeldowns by Georgia took care of that.

And now a whole host of issues and questions open up.  Why hasn’t Georgia been able to play like this all season?  Is this performance an aberration or an indication of better things to come?  Does one good game override a whole season’s worth of problematic performances by Willie Martinez, and problematic performances galore in the years before?  And can what happened Saturday really be attributed to Willie Martinez, or just to the Georgia offense’s ability to dominate and keep Paul Johnson’s offense (and, by extension, Willie Martinez’s defense) off the field for long stretches at a time?  And remember that Georgia Tech defensive coordinator Dave Wommack is believed by Tech fans to be just as ineffective as Willie Martinez, if not more so.

But for now those questions can wait.  Now is a time to celebrate.  And to hope that the team we saw for almost all of the season up to this point has disappeared, never to be heard from again.  Just like Amelia Earhart.

UPDATE: Willie Martinez is gone.  So are linebackers coach John Jancek and defensive ends coach Jon Fabris.

I’m sure that by now you have all heard the news that Florida State coach Bobby Bowden is retiring at the end of the season.  Jimbo Fisher, the offensive coordinator and coach-in-waiting, will take over as head coach next year.

This was something of a forced retirement.  Bobby Bowden was given the option to return next year, but his role would have been reduced to a strictly advisory capacity, with no responsibility for the day-to-day decision making within the program.  In other words, he would have been a figurehead.  He would have had nothing to do except walk up and down on the sideline and look pretty.  I don’t think they would have even let him hold the clipboard.  They might have given him a whistle, but it would probably have been one of those deals that doesn’t make any noise because it doesn’t have the little ball inside.  Of course Bobby Bowden didn’t want that, so he chose to retire.

Everyone knows that this is not the time that Bobby Bowden would have chosen to retire.  Bobby Bowden was hot on the trail of Joe Paterno for the highest number of all-time career wins, and he would have loved to stick around and see if he could make it.  He will not make it.

On the one hand, Bobby Bowden has been around long enough to have earned the right to determine when and under what circumstances he leaves Florida State, so it is unfortunate that it ended this way.  On the other hand, it is clear that the program has regressed in recent years under Bobby Bowden, and it is understandable that they would want to make a change.

But whatever your feelings about that, it is clear that Bobby Bowden has been around for a long time and has been very successful at Florida State.  He has contributed much to that program, and by extension to the game of college football.  Thus he is deserving of our respect, especially on this occasion of his retirement.

–Well folks, looks like the PETA peeps are at it again.  This time they have weighed in on the death of Uga VII, and they are asking Damon Evans to replace Uga VII with an animatronic robot dog.  What will those PETA peeps think of next?

–Another Michael Spencer post for your edification.  If a cohabitating couple showed up at your church, would they have to leave?  Would your church be the Body of Christ to them, or would you be too wrapped up in the business of accumulating positive morality points?

–Great win this week, Georgia.  Willie…ain’t nothin’ changed.

–Seriously.  You’ve seen Willie Martinez’s work over the past five years.  No way that one win undoes all that damage–even if it is a big win in a rivalry game.

–You know why it was 17-3 at the half?  It wasn’t because Willie Martinez cooked up a superlatively splendiferous scheme.  It was because Georgia was running the ball down Georgia Tech’s throats and keeping their offense–and, by extension, Willie Martinez’s defense–off the field.  In other words, Georgia’s offense didn’t even give Willie Martinez a chance to screw this one up.

–Maybe we should get an animatronic Willie Martinez.  That would definitely be an improvement over the real Willie Martinez.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent.

Last year I tried to draw attention to the season of Advent by linking some things that other bloggers were writing about Advent.  This year I am going to actually step up and try to write some Advent material of my own.  Those of you who are of a liturgical bent, I hope that you will exercise forbearance with me if these aren’t exactly proper Advent devotions; I am an evangelical and have been out of the liturgical stream for a while now, so I may be a bit rusty.  But it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?

Now I am sure that those of you who do not come from a liturgical bent are wondering:  What is Advent?  Why on earth should I have any concern for it whatsoever?

That is what I will address today.

Advent is the season before Christmas.  It consists of four Sundays, three full weeks plus whatever fraction of a week is necessary to get to Christmas.  If Christmas falls on a Sunday, then Advent consists of four full weeks.

Advent is a season of darkness.  Not the darkness of Lent, which is the special darkness which results from the shadow of the Cross falling squarely across our path, but rather the general darkness of a world where chaos reigns, a world waiting for the word that is Christ to speak light and order into it.  The darkness of a humanity that is broken and fallen because of sin and a creation that is subjected to bondage, decay, and frustration because of humanity’s sin, waiting for the coming Christ who was promised as early as Genesis 3:15.

Advent is a season of waiting.  For two thousand plus years, the Jewish people waited for their promised Messiah.  For the next four weeks we wait with them, remembering their waiting as we wait to celebrate the coming of Christ on Christmas Day, and waiting (for real) for Christ to come again at the end of the age, as He promised that He would.

In the first century AD, right around the time that Jesus first came on the scene, the Jewish people had waited two thousand plus years for their promised Messiah.  For most of this time they had prophets–people who delivered special messages from God that were relevant to the time they were delivered (and sometimes pertained to people and events very far off in the future).  But it had been over four hundred years since the voice of a prophet had been heard in Judah.  For the most part, people did not really believe that Jesus was coming anytime soon–it was just business, and life, as usual.

Nowadays, it is almost the same situation.  It has been almost two thousand years since Christ ascended to heaven after promising to return at the end of the age, since the Book of Revelation ended with the words “Yes, I am coming soon” (Revelation 22:20).  Though we acknowledge in theory the possibility of Christ coming back at any time, it is doubtful that any of us really believe it.  I don’t think any of us believes for a second that Jesus will come back before Florida wins its next national championship, before Georgia fires Willie Martinez and a whole bunch of other assistants, before the Cons get back to the playoffs, before I get married, before your teenage daughter learns to drive, before you get that promotion at work, before your parents move to assisted living…you get the idea.  We are all too busy living our lives and we aren’t even able to conceive of what is going on in our lives being interrupted by anything so mundane as the end of the age and the return of Christ.

Advent is a time for us to step out of the rat race that is life in this world.  We will let the world go on with all their running around, all their celebration and stressing out about Christmas, all of their rushing for Christmas presents, all their lights and decorations and Christmas music which have been going since last February.  We will look upon them and enjoy them, to be sure, but we will not allow ourselves to be swept up in all of that commotion.  Instead we will pull away.  We will quiet ourselves and wait.  Wait for Christmas when we celebrate the coming of the promised Savior who has liberated us from our sins and creation from its bondage to sin.  And wait for the promised return of our Savior at the end of the age.

Today’s question is pretty simple and straightforward:  Is it worth it to you to see Georgia beat Georgia Tech this year, if the price we have to pay for that is another year of Willie Martinez?  Or would you rather see Georgia lose to Tech if it means that Willie Martinez will be fired sooner?

I expect this to be a very provocative question.  So I want to see some discussion!!!!!

Okay.  Discuss.

Today we are going to hop into the time machine and take a ride back into the past.  Way back into the past.  Think peace, love, hippies, flower children (oops–wrong decade), gas rationing, bell bottoms, disco, shag carpet, lime-green polyester suits (Okay, I’d better stop there.  I don’t want to cause anybody to have nightmares.)

Yes, my friends, the year was 1977.  Fleetwood Mac came out with their blockbuster album Rumours.  The Clash came out with their debut album.  The space shuttle Enterprise went for a test flight atop a 747 at Edwards Air Force Base.  Miami actually got some snow.  Pavarotti made his American debut (Wonder if he was wearing a lime-green polyester suit that night?  Oh sorry, don’t want to cause anybody to have nightmares).  Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad.  The Pompidou Arts Center opened in Paris.  James Dobson founded Focus on the Family.  Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as president.  Menachem Begin took over as prime minister of Israel.  Led Zeppelin performed their last ever US concert.  Elvis died.  (Or did he?)  The Atari 2600 was released.  Gavin DeGraw, Shakira, Kanye West, and Coldplay’s Chris Martin were born.

And Georgia played Kentucky in Athens one fine November afternoon.  Prince Charles and James Brown were in attendance, and Kentucky punked Georgia 33-0.  To show you how far back that was, Prince Charles was still a bachelor.  Princess Di was not even on the scene yet.

That was the last time Georgia had ever lost to Kentucky in Athens.  On that day, Georgia fans walked out of the stadium in utter humiliation and disgust, thinking to themselves, “Never again.”

Well, “never again” just happened.

And Prince Charles didn’t even need to bother showing up.  Neither did James Brown.  All we needed was Willie Martinez and a few other incompetent assistants who have (hopefully) coached their final game in Athens.

Kentucky took the opening kickoff and raced to an easy touchdown.  But they botched the extra point and you thought to yourself, “Okay, we can hang with these guys.”  Georgia got it going on offense with a field goal, two touchdowns, and another field goal.  The defense stiffened up and did not allow another point for the rest of the half.  By halftime, the score was 20-6 and Kentucky only had 73 total yards.

Going into the second half, you knew that a 14-point lead was not safe.  Teams come back from two touchdowns behind all the time.  But no one could have foreseen the complete and utter meltdown that happened in the second half.  It all started when Branden Smith fumbled the opening kickoff of the second half at the Georgia 14 yard line.  Just two plays later and Kentucky was in for a touchdown.  But by 7:03 in the third quarter, Georgia had scored again to push the lead back to 14 points.

And then all hell broke loose.  Not only did Kentucky come back to beat Georgia, they managed to make it look so easy peasy that the Geico cavemen could have done it.

It started when Georgia failed to cover the ensuing kickoff, and Kentucky started out at midfield.  Five plays later and Kentucky was in for another touchdown.  Georgia and Kentucky traded a couple of punts.  Then Kentucky got the ball at the Georgia 36 and needed only 5 plays to score the tying touchdown.  60 yards came on one play.  On the next series, Joe Cox needed to answer the challenge.  He answered with an interception that was returned to the Georgia 8.  Three plays later and Kentucky was in the end zone.

Later, Georgia would drive all the way to the Kentucky 1, only to fumble on an errant pitch by Joe Cox.  Kentucky recovered.  Georgia got it back one more time near midfield.  On the very first play of the drive, Cox threw another interception.  Game, set, and match, Kentucky.

The meltdown is now officially complete.  With this loss, what would otherwise have been a disappointing season has now turned into a complete and utter train wreck.  Already Mark Richt has lost the most games of any season during his tenure at Georgia.  The fewest wins he has had in any season was eight back in 2001, and in order to keep from missing that mark he will have to pull an absolute miracle in the ATL, and then win the bowl game.

Consider this:  From the start of the 2002 season (we’ll give Mark Richt a pass on Year 1), it took Mark Richt 49 games to lose 8.  That eighth loss did not come until nine games into the 2005 season.  But since (and including) the failed blackout against Alabama back in 2008, Georgia has now lost 8 games.  And it has taken Mark Richt only 20 games to get there.

Never again.  I wonder how long it will be until “never again” happens again.  Given the current state of this program, it probably won’t take another 32 years.

–Is it women’s gymnastics season yet?????

–The last time Georgia lost to Kentucky in Athens was in 1977, the same year that Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad in Utah.  I would love to see Willie Martinez executed by firing squad for his defense’s performance (or lack thereof).  I would love to see a bunch of other assistant coaches executed by firing squad as well.

–I have a lot of friends who are Georgia Tech fans, and believe it or not, they are actually worried about the upcoming Georgia-Georgia Tech game.  I suppose I can understand; I would be worried too if my team had just endured six years of Chan Gailey and all the horrors entailed in that.  But do these people have any idea just how BAD this Georgia team really is???  I think they will be very pleasantly surprised.

–Tryptophen is the hormone in turkey meat which causes you to feel sleepy after having had a full turkey dinner on Thanksgiving day.  To counteract this effect, marinate your turkey in Red Bull for 24 hours prior to cooking.

–Paul Johnson isn’t going to Notre Dame.  Why?  First, the people up there aren’t convinced that his offense works, even though it does.  People aren’t convinced that you can recruit talented players to play for a team that runs that type of offense.  And people aren’t convinced that people will want to watch that sort of offense (which runs the ball about 85 percent of the time) on TV.

Second, Notre Dame already tried hiring a Georgia Tech coach a few years back.  He lasted for all of three and a half days.

Finally, we don’t need for Notre Dame to hire Paul Johnson.  We need for them to come and get Urban Meyer out of our hair!!!!!

–Which says very bad things about the present state of the Georgia football program.  We don’t have a prayer of competing with Florida as long as Urban Meyer is on the scene–our only hope is to pray for him to be abducted by aliens or hired away by Notre Dame.  Think about that.  Isn’t that sad?

–Maybe Georgia should defect to the Ohio Valley Conference.  At least we know we would rule that conference, just like Florida State ruled the ACC back in the 90s.  And if we joined the Ohio Valley Conference, that would bring them to twelve teams, which would enable them to have divisional play and a conference championship (if they have such things in Division 1-AA).

–Here’s another thought:  Up until the early 90’s or thereabouts the Virginia marching band was known for doing silly, spoofy shows–kind of like the Weird Al Yankovic of marching band.  But they sometimes did things that were a little bit over the edge, and one year in West Virginia (Virginia and West Virginia are big rivals, kind of like Florida-Georgia) they did a show that was so offensive that the governor of West Virginia had them banned for life from the state of West Virginia.  The next year, the administration at Virginia suspended the marching band.  They brought in other bands from area high schools and colleges to perform at halftime during every home game that season, in order to show the Virginia band how to perform good, tasteful halftime shows.

My thought is that we should just suspend the Georgia team for the upcoming Georgia Tech game.  Forfeit the game up front, and play the game as an exhibition with some other team (Florida, Alabama, LSU, Ole Miss, Tennessee, hell–why not Kentucky?) playing in Georgia’s place to show them how to play like a real football team.

–So how’s the weather in Amundsen-Scott Station, Antarctica?  High:  -30.  Low:  -33.  Windchill:  -58.  They’re having a veritable heat wave down there, aren’t they?

–The last time Georgia lost to Kentucky in Athens was in 1977.  Prince Charles was on hand to watch Georgia get punked by Kentucky 33-0.  This time we didn’t need Prince Charles in attendance–all we needed was Willie Martinez.

–That Auburn win last week was special.  But bear in mind that at the beginning of the season this one projected as a gimme.  And at 31-24, this was no gimme.

–Don’t worry, my friends.  This sorry excuse for a football season is almost over.  And (hopefully) there will be major changes to the Georgia coaching staff to follow.

–And there’s always women’s gymnastics.

So how was Fantine making out while Valjean was busy trying to get to Arras?  Not very well.  Her appearance had changed drastically just in the last few months:

A few months earlier, when Fantine had lost the last of her modesty, her last shame, and her last happiness, she was a shadow of herself; now she was a ghost of herself.  Physical suffering had completed the work of moral suffering.  This creature of twenty-five had a wrinkled forehead, flabby cheeks, pinched nostrils, shriveled gums, a leaden complexion, a bony neck, protruding collarbones, emaciated limbs, dun-colored skin, and her fair hair was mixed with gray.  How illness mimics old age.

Not a pretty sight.  I think you get the idea.

Compare this with how Fantine looked back when we first met her:

…Her splendid teeth had evidently been endowed by God with one function–laughter.  She carried in hand, rather than on her head, her little hat of stitched straw, with long, white ties.  Her thick blond tresses, inclined to blow about, easily coming undone, obliging her continually to do them up again, seemed designed for the flight of Galatea under the willows.  Her rosy lips babbled with enchantment.  The corners of her mouth, turned up voluptuously like the antique masks of Erigone, seemed to encourage impudence, but her long, shadowy eyelashes were discreetly cast down on the lower part of her face as if to check its festive tendencies.

See the drastic change that has come over Fantine on account of her moral and physical degradation.

Fantine was eagerly expecting Madeleine (Valjean) to show up at 3 PM as per his usual custom.  When he didn’t show, her spirits fell considerably.  In a poignant scene, Sister Simplice was moved to tears as she heard Fantine sing a lullaby that she had sung to Cosette as a baby.  Finally, at around 6 PM, Sister Simplice got word from the servant that Madeleine had been seen leaving town early that morning; some had seen him on the road to Paris and some had seen him heading toward Arras.

Now Sister Simplice was caught in a dilemma.  She did not want to tell Fantine the truth that Madeleine had gone away and no one knew where; that would be a devastating blow to Fantine in her condition.  Nor did she want to say that Madeleine was tied up with city council business, as the servant proposed–this was a lie.  And we will remember that Sister Simplice was extremely averse to the idea of lying.  She worked her way out of this by simply saying that Madeleine had gone away, and letting Fantine draw her own conclusions.

Of course Fantine drew the conclusion that Madeleine had gone to fetch Cosette, and this threw her into rapturous ecstasy.  This ecstasy caused her to look a whole lot better, even to the point where the doctor thought there was a chance she might pull through after all.

As averse as Sister Simplice was to the very idea of telling a lie, no matter how small, this situation was something of a crisis for her.  Yet she managed to come through with her virtue intact.  In a few chapters we will see how she makes out when there is much more at stake.

Meanwhile, over in Arras…

It was 8 PM and Valjean (Madeleine) was just pulling into town.  It had taken him fifteen hours to go sixty miles–a trip which should have taken less than eight hours.  (Granted these travel times seem strange to those of us who live in the automobile age and are used to doing sixty miles in one hour or less, but there you go.)

The first thing he did was go to the post office and reserve a seat for himself on the mail coach back to Montreuil-sur-mer which would be leaving at 1 AM.  Then he went about trying to find the courthouse.  He did not know his way around Arras, so he had to stop and ask directions.

Now as it turned out, the courthouse was undergoing renovations, so the court was temporarily relocated to the city hall, which had been a bishop’s palace prior to the Revolution.  There is a significance in this, which we will unpack a little later.

But for now, suffice it to say that when Valjean arrived, the court was still in session.  By asking some of the bystanders, he found out that the case had finished.  But it wasn’t the Champmathieu case–they had worked two cases into the same day, and the Champmathieu case was now in progress and about to wrap up.

Valjean tried to get into the courtroom, but it was crowded and they were not admitting anyone else.  There was, however, one seat in the section reserved for dignitaries.  Reluctantly, Valjean asked to be admitted as Monsieur Madeleine, mayor of Montreuil-sur-mer.  The judge granted this request, and the bailiff showed him in through the back way to the counsel chamber.  Here Valjean struggled profusely with his conscience once again:

…The decisive moment had arrived.  He vainly tried to collect his thoughts.  Particularly at those moments when we have sorest need of grasping the sharp realities of life do the threads of thought snap off in the brain.  He was in the very place where the judges deliberate and decide.  With a glazed tranquility he gazed at the silent and formidable room where so many lives had been shattered, where his own name would soon be heard, and which his fate was crossing at this moment.  He looked at the walls, then he looked at himself, astonished that it could be this chamber, and that this could be he.

…He went up to a black frame hanging on the wall, which contained under glass an old autographed letter written by Jean Nicholas Pache, mayor of Paris and minister….He was reading without paying any attention and without knowing what he was doing.  He was thinking of Fantine and Cosette.

While still musing, he unconsciously turned, and his eyes took in the brass knob of the door that separated him from the hall of the superior court.  He had almost forgotten that door.  His expression, at first calm, now fell.  His eyes, fixed on that brass knob, became set and wild and little by little filled with dismay.  Drops of sweat started above the hairline and rolled down his temples.

At one moment, with a kind of authority united to rebellion, he made that indescribable gesture that says and says so well, And who says I have to?…

He left the counsel chamber and walked back into the hallway, intending to leave.  But when he slowed down, he could hear the silence and it was too much for him.

He had reflected all night, he had reflected all day; now he heard only one voice within him, saying, “Alas!”

A quarter of an hour went by this way.  Finally, he bowed his head, sighed with anguish, let his arms droop, and retraced his steps.  He walked slowly and as if overwhelmed.  It was as though he had been caught in flight and brought back.

He entered the counsel chamber again.  The first thing he saw was the door handle.  That handle, round and made lf polished brass, shone out for him like an ominous star.  He looked at it as a lamb might look at the eye of a tiger.

His eyes could not leave it.

From time to time, he took another step toward the door.

And then, before he knew what he was doing, he opened the door and was in the courtroom.

This was huge.

But then, it usually is whenever Georgia and Auburn mix it up.  In 1982, sugar fell from the sky when Georgia beat Auburn in Auburn.  In 1983, Auburn beat Georgia and that marked the first of several SEC championships that they would win under Pat Dye.  In 1986, Georgia beat then-no. 8 Auburn in a monumental upset and “Superman” became a permanent Redcoat tradition and the water cannons came out.  In 1994, a tie with then-no. 3 Auburn saved Ray Goof’s job–for another year.  In 1995, a loss to Auburn on a cold and blustery day when very few Georgia fans bothered to even show up (let alone stay to the end of the game) sealed Ray Goof’s fate.  In 1996, a win at Auburn provided Jim Donnan with a signature win in his first year at Georgia and helped to finish a losing season on a positive note while providing momentum going into 1997.  In 1999, a very bad Auburn team punked Georgia and served notice to all the world that Tommy Tuberville, then in his first year at Auburn, was for real.  In 2002, a win at Auburn “blew the lid off” a long-frustrated program and staked Georgia to its first SEC championship in 20 years.  In 2006, a win at Auburn helped rescue a season gone monumentally wrong and provided then-freshman Matthew Stafford with positive momentum going into 2007.

This game was no exception.  A win for Auburn would mean a signature win for Gene Chizik in Year One, which would include the possibility of huge recruiting gains here in Georgia.  A win would also mean a potential upgrade to Auburn’s postseason plans.  For Georgia, a win would mean postseason eligibility–period.  A loss would mean two losses to first-year SEC coaches this year–and what a disaster that would have been for Georgia.  Lane Kiffin is already moving to maximize the recruiting advantage gained by his 45-19 punking of Georgia earlier this year, while Auburn’s recruiting footprint in Georgia–already Sasquatch-sized–would have grown even bigger.  If Georgia were reduced to the state of having to scrape together a team from Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Auburn, and Georgia Tech rejects, it would be a long time before they make any sort of noise in the SEC East again.

Furthermore, a loss would have deeply hurt the prestige of Georgia’s program.  Supposing that Georgia had been unable to beat either Lane Kiffin or Gene Chizik in Year 1–can you imagine what things would have been like in Year 2, Year 3, Year 5, or beyond?  I think we can get an idea from looking at Georgia Tech.  Georgia was unable to take care of Paul Johnson in Year 1; now in Year 2 he is more formidable than ever.

Finally, a loss would have left Georgia fans wondering just how bad things would be in Atlanta in a couple of weeks, while a win would have had Georgia fans feeling as if their team would have at least a ghost of a chance.

Simply put, Georgia’s football program was fighting for its very life Saturday night.

In the first quarter it looked as if it would be very ugly.  Auburn took the opening kickoff and drove right down the field, with Chris Todd finding former starting quarterback Kodi Burns in the back of the end zone for a ridiculously easy score.  Kodi Burns was so wide open that all he had to do was walk to the end line after making the catch.  Three plays after the ensuing kickoff, the ball was back in Auburn hands again.  This time Auburn covered 82 yards in 11 plays, with Chris Todd finding Terrell Zachery for a 31-yard score.  Three plays after the ensuing kickoff, it was Auburn ball again.

At that point, Auburn had run 20 plays for 156 yards, while Georgia had run 6 plays for -2 yards.  The defense was being booed profusely.  Nightmarish visions of Tennessee and Florida were forming in the heads of Georgia fans the world over.  Surely it seemed as if the game, the season, and perhaps the entire Mark Richt era as well, were coming unraveled in an ugly heap of offensive ineptitude, nonexistent defense, and ugly penalties.

But this was a football team fighting for its very life, and they would not give up so easily.  Sure enough, Willie Martinez and the Georgia defense figured some things out.  For the rest of the night, Auburn would not score another offensive touchdown.  And the Georgia offense managed to find some traction.  A. J. Green was lost for the remainder of the game, but other playmakers stepped up to fill the slack.  On the play after A. J. Green was knocked out, Joe Cox froze the Auburn defense with a nifty pump fake and then found Israel Troupe down the left sideline for a 50-yard score.

Washaun Ealey channeled Knowshon Moreno.  Caleb King, he of much hype and little substance, had some nifty runs as well–none more so than in the fourth quarter when he burst through the Auburn defensive line, made one guy miss, and was gone, just like Tim Tebow did to us a couple of weeks back.  This put Georgia up 31-24 and left it up to the defense to win the game.

In the next six minutes Auburn went from their own 25 to the Georgia 22.  It seemed as if the defense was reverting back to the ugly form they had shown back in the first quarter.  But then Bacarri Rambo took one for the team.  Chris Todd found Mario Fannin wide open at the goal line, but Bacarri Rambo arrived simultaneously with the ball.  The ball popped out and the pass was incomplete.  Bacarri Rambo did not make out so well; he lay on the ground for almost fifteen minutes and had to be removed on a stretcher.  He is now doing well, having suffered only a concussion; he will sit out this week and go from there.

The defense finished up with two outstanding plays.  A sack of Chris Todd on third down took Auburn all the way back to the Georgia 30 and set up 4th and 18.  A false start penalty backed Auburn up some more and set up 4th and 23.  But even with that, you knew that the game was not safe yet.  Just four years ago Auburn had faced 4th and 10 from their own 34 and got 62 yards on the play to set up a game-winning field goal.  Sure enough, Chris Todd found Mario Fannin streaking to the right corner of the end zone and sent it flying over in his direction.  But this time the ball was batted away harmlessly, and everyone could breathe a massive sigh of relief.

Georgia would win.  There would be no humiliating loss to Gene Chizik in Year 1.  There would be no hemmorhaging of Georgia recruits leaving to chase the big white Gene Chizik limo.  There would be no postponement of bowl eligibility for another week.  Georgia fans could leave the stadium knowing that their team just might actually have a ghost of a chance in Atlanta two weeks hence.

There still remain serious issues which must be dealt with if Georgia is to return to its previous place as an SEC power.  Serious staff changes need to be made, and it remains to be seen if Mark Richt has the will to make these changes.  Specifically, if this week’s win turns out to have saved Willie Martinez’s job, then one will wonder if it was such a good thing after all.  But for now, this week’s win was a very positive highlight in a season that hasn’t had too many of those.