Dear Opponent: Georgia

This work of epistolary comedy is dedicated to the KillerFrog Fan Forum Literary Review Board

With love,

DISCLAIMER: THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN WRITTEN FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY; ANY ATHLETIC WISDOM OR INSIGHT OR KNOWLEDGEABILITY THEREIN, NOT DIRECTLY QUOTED BY MY COLLEAGUES, IS NOT ONLY PURELY ACCIDENTAL BUT UNFORTUNATE.

"I have come here to chew bubblegum and talk trash. And I'm all out of bubblegum."

--"Rowdy" Roddy Piper

Hey Bulldog,

It is a great, inestimable pleasure to deliver unto you the good news: no one, and I mean no one, in the country outside of Georgia is going to be cheering you on Monday. And there are a few reasons for that:

You're boring.

I have actually written about you before, here. I know, that would require more reading, and please don't take offense when I say that Georgians are not exactly notorious for their reading skills (indeed, I am already awaiting, with bated breath, the indignant comments all over social media by people with strong opinions and a weak sense of irony).

In short, you played in the National Championship last year. And nobody cared. And I mean, outside of the Deep South, no one. Zero. Nada. The last thing that inspires a country of sports fanatics is the same three to four teams on the same carousel year after year, taking turns accepting invitations to the same bowl games and the same championship competitions. It brings new meaning to the term "circle jerk." Believe me, no one outside your school gives a damn about you. Or Alabama, for that matter.

You're arrogant.

Boring people are not necessarily arrogant, but arrogant people are always boring. They never learn but think they can teach, never listen but can't cease speaking, never read but can't stop writing, never grow but look down upon those around them, like bulldogs staring down ants while the rest of the animal kingdom stands, jumps, and flies above them. They never lose but have been cheated and never win but they're owed.

You're spoiled.

On the owed bit, you seem to be of the persuasion that because you've won in the past, it necessarily follows you should continue winning into the future. In this regard, you're not unlike a child throwing a fit to find, upon the introduction of a new sibling to the family, he has to share the toys.

And, honestly, of all the dogs in the world, you chose to name yourself after the ugliest breed on the planet, a marvel of Darwinian devolution, that can hardly manage a decent breath on its own. To this, you remind me of that delightfully snide line from the Dylan song, "Idiot Wind": "It's a wonder you still know how to breathe."

Now, it's probably worth mentioning, aside from these flattering accolades, I don't really know anything about you. I didn't give two tickles or a dime about sports prior to a year ago, and because you are quite clearly one of the four or five most boring teams in the United States, I've not felt the need to learn much more. Having said that, a cursory glance at your Wikipedia page has garnered the following information: you have two Heisman Trophy winners. But considering Max Duggan failed to win the award, though he sent his team to the National Championship, while this year's Heisman recipient failed to lead his to a victory over Tool Lane, color me unimpressed.

Additional to that, you have 16 conference championships to your credit, 14 of which were earned within the confines of the SEC. But as the dispute between us is whether the Big 12 is competitive with the SEC in the first place, it would be a matter of stellar circular reasoning to maintain that admittedly considerable achievement as anything more than it is: your ability to beat the same old teams on the same old carousel mentioned before.

And now I find that you have been to 59 bowl games, the second most in college football history.

Okay. You're good. I admit it. But I'm not going to go on any further about your merits lest this article condemns the preacher.

Further, TCU has a few things going for us that I think will not only make us competitive but will galvanize us to victory.

We have everything to prove. As we demonstrated at the Fiesta Bowl against Michigan, our boys never underestimate an opponent. We have a chip on our shoulder roughly the size of the state we play in, and we're going to make you pay dearly for it.

We have heart. All heart. That is the deepest core of TCU's culture. We don't give up. We fight, no matter how seemingly invulnerable the competition. We upset expectations more often than an orphan in a Dickens novel.

We will have the whole country rooting for us, we mighty UnderFrogs. Everyone loves the outcast, the little guy, the upstart. Every American sports film worth watching is about the guy who proves his worth against insurmountable odds.

Mark my words: when this season is immortalized in a film or TV series, as one day it will be, not even you will want Georgia to win.

The author wishes to thank Nathan Starmer for his generous suggestions.

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