Apparently, this whole "no comment" thing this week extends to more than just UF football players.
With one of the biggest UF-Georgia matchups in history looming Saturday, we here at the alligatorSports Brand Picks column wanted to take the opportunity to remember a Georgia legend.
Longtime Bulldogs radio broadcaster Larry Munson retired earlier this season, after 42 years at the microphone. For perspective, the man was there for Herschel Walker's first touchdown as a college freshman.
It seems the end of an era with Munson and longtime UF supporter Mr. Two-Bits hanging up their spikes this season. Both are 86 years old.
Unfortunately, our attempts to interview Munson were declined by his son via e-mail, who said his father is doing well and enjoying retirement but "we haven't really done any (interviews) so I don't want to open up everyone calling him and me right now. It's really died down right now, even during FLA week."
We like to think we're big stuff, but apparently appearing in our picks column leads to numerous other media outlets seeking interviews. We wish Mr. Munson well.
For what it's worth, Mr. Two-Bits happily answered every question by reporters during halftime of the Kentucky game.
Just saying.
So we turned our attention to Georgia's lovable mascot, Uga VII. Since we guessed he doesn't understand English too well, we tried to interview Sonny Seiler, his owner. He was quite nice, but unfortunately the big-time attorney (his day job) was too busy to participate.
Therefore, we figured maybe we'd turn to our Athens brethren to see how Georgia's student newspaper was dealing with this ridiculous stuff.
When we went to the Red & Black's Web site Thursday, we found a link to directions and cutouts for Georgia students to make their own "Urban Meyer Dartboard," complete with Urban's face, a picture of jean shorts, a tear, Tim Tebow, and the Gator logo.
Anyway, Michael Fitzpatrick, the Red & Black's sports editor, said the Bulldogs players were not necessarily under a gag order, they just said they knew UF would be angry.
Uh, yeah guys, a bit of an understatement.
"Personally, I loved (Georgia's end-zone celebration), because the past decade or so Georgia's been really uptight," he said. "It was something that opened them up."
We assume he was talking about the football game and not … well, we won't go there.
But credit is certainly due to Fitzpatrick, as he had the guts to pick the Gators this week.
Now, on to the picks!
In first place, clinging to a small lead with a 47-23 record, is Assistant Sports Editor Evan "Give me Phil Trautwein or give me death" Drexler, who will undoubtedly be crushed that this weekend's "road trip" will be fewer than two hours.
Coming up second at 45-25 is Karl "I haven't used slang since middle school" Hyppolite, who has officially been "outblacked" by his sports editor.
Once again sitting in the middle at 44-26 is Phil "I turned my phone off after the Rays' game to avoid harassing text messages" Kegler, who, we've got to admit, took the loss pretty well. That's what he gets for insulting the NHL. He'll be driving by himself to this weekend's game because - duh - he's better than everyone else, baby.
Stuck in a tie for dead-ass last place with a record worse than our random guest pickers is Mike "YMCA track suits are back in style" McCall, whose winter-weather outfit choices are questionable at best. We liked him better when he was wearing hats from colleges he never attended and a short-sleeve ECU shirt every other day.
Also in a tie for last place at 42-28 is Sports Editor Brian "Doing poor imitations of black people is my calling" Steele, whose black-person voice sounds more like a grumpy old Cajun man. It's really, really pathetic.
| ED | KH | PK | MM | BS | MF | |
| Ten-SCar | Tenn | SCar | SCar | Tenn | Tenn | SCar |
| FSU-GT | FSU | FSU | FSU | FSU | GT | FSU |
| Tex-TTech | Tex | Tex | Tex | Tex | Tex | TTech |
| ECU-UCF | ECU | UCF | ECU | ECU | ECU | UCF |
| Aub-Miss | Aub | Miss | Miss | Aub | Aub | Miss |
| Pitt-ND | ND | Pitt | ND | Pitt | Pitt | Pitt |
| WVU-UConn | WVU | WVU | UConn | UConn | WVU | WVU |
| Mia-UVa | Mia | Mia | Mia | UVa | Mia | UVa |
| UK-MssSt | UK | UK | UK | UK | UK | UK |
UF-UGA ED: UF 38-24; KH: UF 35-21; PK: UF 38-31; MM: UF 42-17 ; BS: UF 31-30; MF: UF 41-38
