Georgia On My Mind

Just a memory on my mind....



At College Nationals 2006 in Columbus OH the Southwest Region had 3 bids which went to Colorado, UCSD, and UCSB.

Our first day schedule was game-bye-game-game. We lost a close one to Oregon 15-13 in a game we could have won had we warmed up properly and had any fire at all. After the bye we faced Georgia who surely had a chip on their shoulder from the out-of-nowhere thrashing the Squids handed them the previous year at Nationals.

After they break us to make it 6-4 Dylan Tunnel starts the cheer "These guys are tiiiiiiireeeeeeedddd!!!" as we walk 70 yards. I remember thinking 1. Fuck That*! We aren't tired, we just got off a bye and its early in the game! and 2. That's a really good cheer to fire your team up and make the opponent get down on themselves. The game has many momentum shifts. At 13-13 Dar, a big beast of a D receiver, completes a 35 yard shot for the win but it gets called back on a contested stall. He has Chucky, maybe our most consistent handler, WIDE OPEN behind him for a dump, but because of the noise and confusion of the situation, sends the same pass into double coverage for a turnover. They win 14-13.

Georgia would then go on to beat UCSB Black Tide in the Pre-Quarters 15-13 which scheduled them for Colorado in the Quarters.

The Squid's Pre-Quarters matchup is Michigan State and while it appears even for the most part, I get that feeling at 10-10 that there is no chance in hell we would lose that game. I swear to you I would have bet $1000 dollars on it. When our studs decided they wanted to win, we did. We just did. 15-13

Well, there is only so far Studs will take you. Wisco crushes us 15-5 in the Quarters - I think everyone on the team was mentally ok with this loss to end our season - the Hodags were a much much better team than us. Still, it would have been nice to score a few more.

So we are done and get to watch the Colorado-Georgia game - yes, Mamabird is our regional rival, but it would be cool to see them get to the finals again. And it was a lock - how could they lose? Here is a list of people who were on Colorado:

Beau
Jolian Dahl
Adam Chicken Simmon
Rabbit
Mac Taylor
Pebbles (6Mama-4Wisco)
Some other dudes... Did I mention BEAU?

EDIT## How did I forget #17 Martin Cochran (13:10 - 13:45) ?

We crack some beers and prepare to watch them smash Jojah. Long story short: Beau plays handler and while they got lots of free dump passes, they get beaten 17-16. Every single player watching that game was wondering when they were just gonna jack it to Beau, and they just didn't.

That sucks, especially beacuse Colorado's loss, combined with Oregon's to Stanford in another Quarterfinal, mean we must play EGO for the strength bid. Uh... our cleats are off and our beers are open... maybe you could have told us about this possibility before 13-13??? I guess the UPA staff didn't think Mamabird was gonna lose either.

So the Squids and Oregon go to another field for the most frustrating game I've ever watched from the sidelines. The guys who were graduating didn't really want it and resigned themselves to lose even though our pool play loss was by only 2 points. Long story short: Aaron Bell does a chicken wing pull, EGO is blasting the tunes and having a good time, and I don't get to play a point while I watch the Southwest go from 3 bids to only 1 which leads to a very unfair outcome of regionals next year for a great Black Tide Team.


Heres the real interesting memory though:
Georgia beat each of the Southwest teams by a combined score of 4 points. It turns out that we would have retained a Strength Bid if we had won any of those games. In fact, if ANY of the SW teams had won ANY single game that they lost, we would have retained the strength bid. Any single win. Haha


I don't know why Georgia is on my mind, but thinking about this little tid bit of history makes our win vrs Jojah at Nationals in 2009 all the more sweet. 15-11, we avenged those 4 points.