Georgia is #1 in the Polls: the Twelve Labors of Hercules

"It's the dismal tide. It is not the one thing."


"You can't stop what's comin'. It ain't all waitin' on you, that's vanity."


--Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men


In No Country for Old Men, Llewellyn follows a blood trail to a brief case full of two million dollars. He takes the brief case, even though it's clearly weighted down with a death wish. The character of Chigurh then begins to hunt him down, as does a gang of Mexican drug dealers. Llewellyn puts up a good fight. He's a hard deer to catch, but is eventually caught and shot dead. Georgia is number one in several preseason polls, and I can't help thnking the ranking carries with it a tracking device, a two million dollar death wish.

I have never seen Georgia win a national title. I have never even seen them play for one. The closest experience I've had to watching them play for one was last season in an Arlington bar during the West Virginia-Pitt game. The bar is run by a WVU alum and is the northern Virginia headquarters for Mountaineer fans. I spent the whole night rooting for Pitt, which was a stupid act of bravery, considering my surroundings.

I rooted for Pitt because I thought a WVU loss would propel Georgia into the BCS title game. It didn't. Oklahoma and LSU both leapfrogged my Bulldogs in the BCS rankings, and we wound up playing mighty Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl. The experience felt like it all hinged on one of Chigurh's coin flips, an act of chance.

Fate is not always on our side. Destiny does not reward everyone with greatness. I risked my life rooting for Pitt in a WVU bar for nothing. Let it be known that this offseason has been very slow in passing, excruciatingly slow.

For months now, I've been counting down to the college season, but as it gets closer, as it gets more real, I find more reasons to doubt my Bulldogs' chances.

We got blown out by Tennessee last year. We played the first half of the season as if we were entitled. I've never seen us beat Florida two years in a row, six players are already suspended for games this season, and UGA VI died of heart failure. Why did it have to be heart failure? Why couldn't UGA VI have been hit by a car? Heart failure sounds too much like the way a football team might die on the field. These are bad omens I fear. I can hear CCR's "Bad Moon Rising" playing softly in the background, and I wonder, with a great deal of anxiety, how will this team play being the hunted and not the hunter.

I hope that this team's fate as the hunted does not match Llewellyn's. What really scares me is not the failures of past Georgia teams or the suspensions. Offensive lineman Clint Boling will miss one game for a wreckless driving ticket. I got a wreckless ticket once and wound up working in a law office that summer because of the ticket. Bad can be transformed into good, so no, what worries me is Georgia's schedule.

Hercules was born the son of Zeus, but not the son of Hera. Her jealousy of Zeus' affairs marked Hercules at birth as a blemish to be wiped off the earth, so she plotted and schemed against Hercules his entire life. Some might say her jealousy was misplaced. Afterall, Zeus and Hera were siblings, and Zeus going elsewhere for sex could be construed as the king of the gods finally becoming aware of incest as something dirty and ugly, the kind of thing that produces misshapen gods like Hephaestus. Zeus never made this argument, and Hera would not have accepted it. She looked at Hercules and saw a target for her rage, and the sum of her plotting against Hercules was his twelve labors at the hands of Eurystheus. Here are Georgia's:

Georgia Southern
Central Michigan...These two games will not be counted as part of the twelve labors. They are more like the serpents Hera places in Hercules' crib. He strangles them in the night despite being an infant. If Hercules had died in his crib, then he didn't deserve to be a hero. If Georgia loses one of these games, they don't deserve a championship now or ever.

@ South Carolina...In Columbia, South Carolina, Georgia will find their Nemean Lion. Last year, South Carolina came into Sanford Stadium and beat Georgia. It was terrible, and it was a huge reason as to why the BCS coin flip did not favor the Dawgs. I hope they bring Spurrier's skin back to Athens this year and nail it on the arches.

@ #16 Arizona State...In the desert, the Dawgs will find a many-headed hydra. The lesson on how to defeat the Sun Devils is laid out perfectly by Hercules and Iolaus: cut off the beast's heads and burn the stumps of its necks, so nothing grows back.

Alabama...When the Crimson Tide come to Athens, Mark Richt and company must capture the golden stag of Artemis. Alabama was once football royalty. If Georgia fleeces some more of this school's former glory, then Georgia continues its march to the throne.

#18 Tennessee...The Volunteers are the Erymanthian Boar. Hercules' job was to capture it unharmed, but in this tale that Matthew Stafford is writing, the boar may have to die.

Vanderbilt...Playing Vandy will be like cleaning the Augean stables in a single day. At this point in the season, sandwiching this game in the middle of Alabama, Tennessee, LSU, and Florida seems a bit degrading to the Dawgs; I hope they mop the floor with the Commodores.

@ #6 LSU...Tiger Stadium is known for smelling like bourbon, filled with thousands of drunk LSU fans, who yell the entire game like only the slovenly intoxicated can. This game will be like going to war. Hercules' sixth labor was to slay the Stymphalian birds, who belonged to Ares, the Greek god of war. These birds could shoot metallic feathers at their enemies and their dung was toxic, smelling as I would imagine Tiger Stadium does.

#5 Florida (neutral site)...Hercules' seventh labor was to slay the Cretan Bull. He strangled it in his bare hands. This strategy might be the only way to stop Tim Tebow. Dannell Ellerbe and Rennie Curran, have at it.

@ Kentucky...Kentucky is horse country, so what better place to go if one has to steal the Mares of Diomedes, horses that graze on human flesh.

@ #11 Auburn...The Dawgs will be going into Jordan-Hare Stadium to steal the girdle of the Amazon queen Hippolyta. That's right, the Tigers are a bunch of girls.

Georgia Tech... The Tenth Labor of Hercules was to obtain the cattle of Geryon. Geryon may be the stupidest monster ever. He's got three heads, six arms, three bodies, and one pair of legs, which sounds like the kind of monster silly engineering students from Georgia Tech might create. I bet Geryon couldn't even take Goro from Mortal Kombat in a fight.

SEC Championship Game (Atlanta)...The Eleventh Labor of our hero was to steal the apples of the Hesperides, which were guarded by a hundred-headed dragon. If Georgia makes it out of the SEC East, then they will likely be in for a rematch with either LSU, Auburn, or Alabama. It's hard to beat a team twice in the same year. The second time around it's like the team grew 99 more heads.

BCS Title Game...Hercules' last labor was to capture, without using weapons, the guardian of the Underworld Cerberus. Without Cerberus to guard the gates of Hades, one could pass among the living and the dead with ease. If Georgia wins this game, there are a lot of fans in red and black that will die happy.

Llewelyn chose to take the two million dollars, even if it meant risking death. Mark Richt and his players all chose to be at the University of Georgia. Because the BCS forgives a team easier that starts the season at the top, the preseason polls have given this team a good flip of the coin with the number one ranking, even if that ranking makes one a target. Hercules was once asked to make a choice between living a happy, easy life or a life filled with danger and glory. He chose the latter. The Bulldogs have to, and with the help of another coin flip or two, I hope it ends in immortality.

I'm still nervous, but it's a good kind of nervous, filled with the vain hope that this season is waiting for these Georgia Bulldogs to make it theirs.