Mailbag 4/14

What did you wear in the enemy's lair?

I wasn't nearly as obnoxious as I could have been. I wore a neutral shirt that was blue. I have worn my Tech gear in the area before, however, and have gotten some interesting reactions.

I was coming from this cookie place called Insomnia, which is downtown, with some friends of mine. We were crossing Broad St. and I see this older gentleman. I don't think much of it, but apparently, he didn't like the fact that I was wearing my Tech hoodie. He glares at me and then spits in my general direction and says, "F------ Georgia Tech? You out of your damn mind?"

I thought about giving some sort of retort, but I'm better than that. It was really funny. I thought my friend's wife (who was pregnant) was going to flip out on this guy, but she didn't, so whatever.

uga always seem to have some star waiting in the wings at QB. The AJC seems to think it's unsettled for this year. What's your impression?

The way I see it, uga is trying to buy time at QB until next season when Jacob Eason comes in and will, presumably, start for them.  Right now, it's pretty much a two-horse race between Faton Bauta and Brice Ramsey. Neither one was particularly impressive yesterday.

I think what is likely to happen at QB is that Bauta and Ramsey will share QB duties for at least the first part of the season. And then, after neither of them is really getting the job done, Richt will elect to go with redshirt freshman Jacob Park, who had a couple nice throws in the spring game.

Then next season when Eason comes in, it will be a battle primarily between those two. Should Park win that battle, I would expect to see them redshirt Eason to put another year in between the two of them.

Pre-season number for uga?

Probably No. 1. Or at the very least top 10. But until they find someone who isn't a stopgap at quarterback, they shouldn't be a top-10 team.

Will the doggie D be better, worse, or the same in defending our attack?

It's tough to say. Their D-line absolutely blew up the starting O-line, which was much different from our game with them last season, but they also weren't getting the same kind of consistent beating that they got from Tech's O-line.

Lorenzo Carter, who looked terrible against Tech last season, didn't seem to look nearly as lost as he did against Tech last season. He was going up against uga's best O-lineman in John Theus for most of the game and seemed to hold his own.

The secondary made some pretty good plays on the ball, but couldn't ever seem to finish, with the exception of Park's interception that went well over the head of his intended receiver.

Given the recent slew of injuries to our O-line, particularly the Chris Griffin injury, who are your expecting starting five for the season opener?

Well let's go ahead and name the people we know will be starting. Freddie Burden will be at center. The only reason he's been playing guard recently is because his cast inhibits him from snapping the ball properly. With Griffin getting hurt, that means that Errin Joe will likely start at right tackle. I've heard that Trey Braun has moved over to right guard, and he will definitely start. Brian Chamberlain will also start, though I'm not sure if it will be at left tackle or at left guard.

So one spot is left open: whatever spot Chamberlain isn't starting at. Now let's take a look at some of the contenders for those spots.

At left tackle, should Chamberlain be at left guard, contenders for that spot would include Trey Klock, Jake Stickler, Will Bryan and Eason Fromayan. Out of these, I would say that Klock or Fromayan would be the likely starter with Stickler coming off the bench and Bryan redshirting.

At left guard, should Chamberlain be at left tackle, the contenders are more limited, including just Shamire Devine and Gary Brown. This is really a battle that could go either way, but if Devine can continue to cut his weight, he should be the starter.

So, to answer you question, I think that with Griffin's injury, Chamberlain will stay at tackle and that either Devine or Brown starting at left guard. The rest of the line will be Burden, Braun and Joe.

UPDATE (even though I haven't actually posted this yet): I read somewhere that Trey Klock has been filling in for Griffin at tackle, so my updated prediction is Klock at left tackle and Chamberlain slid into guard. The rest is the same.

Given the choice between having to attend every uga home game in their student section this fall or having to take a cut block from Dennis Andrews every morning for two weeks, which would you choose?

I would go to every uga game in their student section on the contingency that I didn't have to pay for it. I actually have quite a few friends that are uga students (hard not to living in Athens), so I would be able to get by in the student section.

I've seen Dennis Andrews absolutely destroy some people with his cut blocks though, and I would not look forward to facing that every morning for two weeks. That just doesn't sound like fun.

What would you guess the spring game attendance will be this year?

I think it'll definitely be higher than it was last year for two primary reasons. First, we are coming off of a much better season than we did last year. With that, I also feel that there is more intrigue with this team and less pessimism.

Another big factor will be the weather. It's probably going to be raining again this year and while that is going to suck, it's not supposed to be 40-something degrees like it was last year.

Together, I'll say that they'll get somewhere in the 5-10,000 range. Maybe I'm being optimistic, but who knows.