Happy New Year and welcome to 2019! Your gift to begin this new year is a match up with the number 5 (number 3) Georgia Bulldogs. So inject those Kyler tears into your veins and gird your underdawg loins because this one is going to be a literal dawgfight. Our opponent is led by Kirby Smart--my handle from the Smash Bros N64 days--and his 12 dollar Sports Clip haircut. That’s right, Mr. Smart’s contract stipulates that a healthy percentage of his compensation comes in the form of $5 off MVP Cut coupons. And yes, Kirby absolutely walks in wearing his visor and Shayleigh just cuts around it.

But don’t let the everyman haircut fool you, Longhorns. As the Dawgs will be quick to tell you, if they had made the playoffs they definitely would have won the championship. Obviously we know that’s a crock of bull; the only scenario in which you are allowed to claim alternative what-if championships is if your quarterback is injured early in the title game and prior to his injury you were clearly on track to rout the Rolling Tides by at least 4 scores. On an unrelated note, the Washington Redskins would have definitely won the Super Bowl this year on similar grounds.

In all seriousness, if the Horns want to beat some Georgia peach emojis today, we are going to need to play a flawless game. I’m talking Beyonce singing in Oprah’s personal book club while Tom Hanks photobombs a painting by a resurrected Rembrandt kind of game. There is one silver lining though -- the Dawgs are without their top defensive back, Thorpe Award winner Deandre Baker, who will sit out the game in order to guarantee himself stacks on stacks on stacks. This means Georgia is going to have to dig deep, scraping the barrel for one of their 19 five-stars on the depth chart to fill the void.

Not trying to paint a bleak picture - Herman is no stranger to outperforming in underdawg games, and there’s every possibility that trend continues today. We have a rested, largely healthy team for the first time in awhile. Our kicker’s name is Dicker. Andrew Beck knows sign language. We are a team poised for greatness. And if we lose? Well, we know that if we had made the playoffs we would have won the championship anyway.

Hook ‘Em

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Better Know a Roster

As we close out 2018 and look back on an eventful year, we at the Texas Pregamer realize we are thankful for many things. Thankful for life, health, happiness, Texas being byke, Chris Del Conte, Breckyn Hager having no more eligibility, and Minister Matthew McConaughey...But currently I am VERY thankful for this matchup that features a treasure trove of name riches that would make Blackbeard blush. As Tom Cruise would say “target rich environment.” Thank God for the SEC and it’s focus solely on the ‘athlete’ part of student-athlete. This is a roster worth knowing.

Daniel Gothard (OL, R-So.) - Poor kid. Not only is his name “Dan got hard,” (full name is legitimately “Daniel I. Gothard”) but he’s from DunWOODY, Georgia. You would think being 6’6 would shelter him from a majority of the phallic parody, but the young John Goodman actually went to his barber with the following interaction:

Barber: What’ll it be?

Gothard: Yo, give me that ‘Prez apparently looks like Toad’s mushroom head’

Barber: Say no more fam

Bill Rubright (P, R-Fr.) - Ok, I’m now convinced Georgia is messing with me and sent me some kind of bogus program because how is this real?

Ameer Speed (DB, So.) - We played Kansas’ Hassan Defense, so it only makes sense that we would now square off with Ameer “SEC Speed.”

UGA Frat Composite (Reid Tulowitzky, Mitchell Werntz, , Ed Ferguson, John Eager, Palmer Henderson, Prather Hudson) - Georgia is so SEC that they apparently just use the frat composite headshots to save on film.

Richard LeCounte (DB, So.) - LeCounte of Monte Crisco is so Georgia.

Jake Skole (DB, R-Fr.) - From the same marketing agency that brought you those Keith Stone commercials in the early aughts: we have Jake Skoal, catchphrase: “Enough is E-Snuff”

Terry Godwin Jr. (WR, Sr) - He’s a man. He looks 40. (No but seriously, did he stand in for his son Terry Godwin Jr. on photo day?)

DaQuan Hawkins-Muckle (DT, Sr.) - 100% named after that Key and Peele football sketch.

Payne Walker (SN, Fr.) - Pain Walker is an early name idea for Breck Hager’s WWE character. Still being workshopped.

Mecole Hardman (WR, Jr.) - Wasn’t he on Ben Stiller’s Dodgeball team?

Netori Johnson (DL, R-Fr.) - I’ve heard of kids dying their hair with kool-aid, but never with a suicide snow cone.

Owen Condon (OT, Fr.) - One letter away from being Rubber-necked as people walk past his cubicle, being Ribbed his entire life about him his name. Nearly a Magnum opus of a nom de plume, so close to bringing Her Pleasure (or pain). Of course, I’m suggesting you could turn the w upside down and call him Omen. Where was your mind at??

Koby Pyrz (N, R-So.) - I am somehow very upset just reading this name.

Isaac Nauta (TE, Jr.) - I wouldn’t even know how to describe this look to a blind man: “there is a line of demarcation separating an amish beard (with a Persian-like groomed ‘stache three razor settings closer) from a ‘receding-meets-Cali haircut.’” It’s like a tribal-armband tattoo, incarnate.

Jake Fromm (QB, So.) - Jake Fromm State Farm, amirite? “Khakis?” “He sounds hideous?” Nothing?

Rodrigo Blankenship (PK, Jr.) - I couldn’t leave one of my actual favorite players in the country out of this list. Roddy Blanks is an assassin, even if he looks like Shea Serrano wearing rec specs.

Wix Patton (TE, R-Fr.) - Wix is literally perfect. His name is Chris Weathersby Patton...but with that beard and that “sup mami” shit-eater, OF COURSE he goes by Wix. Also this sentence from his official bio is not made up: “His cousin, Gunnar Bentz, is currently an All SEC UGA Swimmer.”

Neyland Raper (Football Operations Assistant) - Look. I get it. According to your LinkedIn you did your undergrad at Tennessee. You didn’t get your dream job holding Butch Jones’ trash can. But this fake name that you are really leaning into is a touch on the nose and a smidge past “political correctness is ruining this country.”

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Predictions

Kyle Carpenter: Who let the (under)Dawgs out? Whom? Whom? Texas ties this one up to send it to overtime, but lose on the SEC/Big-12 points co-efficient where SECflation means Georgia actually won by 33.

VY Pump Fake: Texas hands out free Georgia visors to everyone on the sidelines. Georgia players can’t find Kirby for signals. Texas wins by 24.

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Parting Shot

A lot has changed for UGA since 2009, namely the fan base's stance on visors. However, Georgia is still in fact, VERY white. At least on their base coat.