The Unfamiliar: #13 Georgia Loses to #9 Oklahoma St. 24 to 10

When students come out of the lunch line with their trays in hand, they seek a table with familiar faces. If one can not find those familiar faces, then one must look inward and do one of two things: either cross into bold frontiers and make new friends or become comfortable with one's self, isolation, and eating alone. The familiar faces in life come and go, like landmarks on the Oregon Trail, and the spaces in between can appear as daunting as a vast wilderness. Last year's Georgia team was defined by the familiar landmarks of Matthew Stafford, Knowshon Moreno, and Mohammed Massaquoi, but this year's team lies somewhere beyond Chimney Rock, out there in the unknown, beyond the point on a west-going route that an elementary school student, with a green-screened Apple computer, has ever seen or experienced.

This Georgia season may not follow neatly in the wagon wheel ruts carved out by Mark Richt's eight-year tenure as the top dawg. This team may not finish with ten or more wins like six of his eight teams have done. This team may not win the SEC East like three of his teams have done, and it may not win the SEC like two of his teams have done; but none of that means that this season's venturing westward is a voyage made in vain. Mark Richt's success has made Georgia fans familiar with being one of the top programs in the SEC, but familiar territory can grow stagnant and unchanging. Familiar territory can become a place of habit, with one wagon following the paths of all that came before it, never branching out into the unknown, and the unknown is where discovery takes place, not just of landmarks, geography, and Bowl games, but of one's self. The 2009 football season will offer every fan clad in black and red a chance to look inward and discover their true nature as a football fan.

Venturing off the worn path is never easy. The legs of the oxen tangle with briars and thorns, and the mosquitoes and gnats swarm to human flesh as if it consisted solely of honeyed sugar. Wagon axles will surely break, as was the case yesterday when the Georgia offense scored only a field goal after taking a touchdown lead out of the first quarter, but this rough journey into the wild should offer Georgia fans an appreciation for how well Mark Richt has guided the program in his first eight seasons.

Mark Richt's leadership has been as steadfast as the Duke's presence on a movie set. Yesterday's loss was only the fifth time Georgia has dropped a road game under his guidance. He's led the Bulldogs through hostile Comanche territory with the loss of very few scalps and come out of shoot outs with highwaymen as if he were a war wagon. While yesterday's defeat may have caused many Georgia fans to realize how hard this season may be, Richt's track record and a look at the remaining road games gives one the belief John Wayne will find Debbie, uttering the words, "let's go home," as she cowers in the darkness of the cave.

Georgia will come out of this season changed for the better. The current roster features only twenty seniors, thirty juniors, and seventy-seven freshmen and sophomores. They will go into the woods hungry and dragging muskets as tall as they are, but they will come back with coon-skinned hats, dragging the hides of buffalo behind them and a message from the Apple God of hunting: "You killed too much meat. You can only carry back 100 pounds back to the wagon." Looking at their schedule, this team should still find itself with seven to nine wins and headed for a Bowl game, just don't expect this team to reach the Pacific without a few bouts of dysentery, some broken bones, and a loss to Florida.

Those who have the patience to enjoy watching a team grow and develop a personality should find this Georgia season to be a thing of beauty, like watching a carpenter who discovers rocking chairs inside of tree stumps, or a stone mason who searches the edges of boulders to find stone steps hidden underneath--Mark Richt is building something in Athens that can not be judged by stats and numbers alone, but requires the sentimentality one uses to remember an archaic computer game and a frontier that disappeared long ago.

How we as fans react to this season will say much more about us than it will about our John Wayne.