Dawg Sports: FanPosts

36 Months . . . That Has to be at Least Two Decades in Blog Years

T Kyle King — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:18:37 -0000

Three years ago today, I turned three recent e-mails to a handful of friends of mine into my first day’s worth of postings at the weblog then known as Kyle on Football. The following December, Peter Bean was kind enough to declare that crude initial effort the "Best ‘Almost There’ Blog," and Dawg Sports debuted the following February. Roughly a year later, MaconDawg came over from his previous digs, as well.

By and large, I said everything I needed to say two years ago when commemorating one year in The Dawgosphere, but I didn’t want to let the anniversary pass unmentioned. I am especially grateful to MaconDawg for joining in on the fun, and to all of you for your readership and contributions. I trust a good time is had by all, but I know that, for the last three years, a good time most certainly has been had by me.

Go ‘Dawgs!

Back from Memphis with thanks.

MaconDawg — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:45:39 -0000

As I mentioned last week, my wife and I took a weekend trip up to Memphis recently. I solicited reader input on things to do, thinking someone might clue me in to a good BBQ joint. You responded with gusto. Needless to say, my wife and I didn't come close to doing all of the things you helpfully submitted. Ergo, we'll probably make a return trip sometime soon.

Thanks again for all of your suggestions!

MaconDawg (and Mrs.)

More Eavesdropping on the enemy...

DavetheDawg — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 16:31:39 -0000

Not really "eavesdropping," but definately conversing with the other side.

I just got back from a bid-ness trip to Orlando and met one of my new co-workers who graduated from UF in '01. I did not immediately reveal my affinity to all things Red and Black, but could hardly mistake this young man's connection to UF...seeing that his entire workspace cubicle was a virtual shrine to any/all things Gator. When the inevitable question was asked of me, "So, where did you go to school?" I proudly said, "UGA...class of '86." My new co-worker's happy-go-lucky demeanor immediately changed and a serious pall replaced his otherwise youthful, pink and rosy complexion.

"We've got to beat Georgia. If we don't win a game this year, this is the one. But of course, we've got an incredible offense..."

To which I replied, "Yeah, but defense wins championships. I think we've (UGA) got both sides of the ball covered."

By now, my young friend became a bit more uncomfortable with the whole direction of the conversation. But then, the predictable history lesson was summoned: "Well, we pretty much own you guys. 15 of 18 or something like that."

To which I replied, "Yeah, perhaps that era has ended. I think you'll find that a little research will reveal the streaky nature of this rivalry. And it is a rivalry again. But good luck to you, anyway." I still don't think the younger generation understands how important history is in a rivalry at all.

If he is typical of the general Gator consensus out there, the pressure is on. The sort of pressure we heaped upon ourselves as a fan base and team for nearly two decades. It's palpable.

How 'Bout EM!

A Postcard From the Front Lines of the Bacon Wars

T Kyle King — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:11:47 -0000

As everyone who knows me is well aware, I have an unhealthy relationship with bacon. I recently saw my son eating a fruit roll-up and it occurred to me that I wish someone would start making bacon roll-ups.

I was, therefore, quite pleased when my brother-in-law, Craig---a Texas native, Ole Miss alumnus, and current New York City resident---recently sent me the following e-mail:

I am in North Carolina right now and I just had my first chance to add bacon to a Chick-Fil-A sandwich. It was everything I hoped it would be. How have I lived this long and never done this?

I also was able to introduce another native New Yorker to Chick-Fil-A for the first time. We dined in, of course; per my recommendation, he got a #1 (no bacon - he wasn't ready for that yet) and enjoyed it so much that he went back to the counter for another sandwich and a 4-pack of nuggets.

We discussed the bacon/hot chicks theory. I opened the discussion by explaining the basic principle that any situation in life can be improved by adding bacon, hot chicks, or (usually) both. He began to wonder if there is a situation that is actually hindered by the introduction of hot chicks into the equation. "Perhaps marriage?" he queried. "You're married. Aren't hot chicks just a distraction?" To which I responded: "That's why I added bacon."

Go ‘Dawgs!

More Nike bat stuff, with your host.....Gordon Beckham!

loran smith — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:15:35 -0000

Recently, a friend showed me this video (I guess made a few months ago?) that CBS sportsline did with the baseball team. It is absolutely hilarious but I wanted to post this video to only FURTHER the conspiracy theory of these Nike bats. At the 50 second mark you can see Gordon Beckham expressing his displeasure with the bats.

Check out the PILE of broken bats in the corner of the locker room. That has to be like what 20-30 bats just sitting there shattered? This is absolutely ridiculous that our team has to put up with Nike and its crappy baseball bats. I haven't played baseball since high school but I'm pretty sure it's a sign when no I knew on my team or the other team EVER used Nike bats. Besides, I have only seen ONE shattered metal bat in my entire life let alone a pile of 20 or so.

I'm not saying let's dump Nike completely (I like our apparel just fine) but this crap they call bats is preposterous. And while I'm ranting, I saw a commenter that said that Nike is still supplying our swim team's gear. Has anyone been paying attention to the Olympic swimming trials lately? See any Nike gear out there on Michael Phelps or ANY other top swimmer?

Kaltefleiter on Nike Bats (ABH)

FisheriesDawg — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:30:54 -0000

About time somebody raised this issue:

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/070308/baseball_20080703020.shtml

Unfortunately this is probably going to sound like sour grapes, but this issue has been around since long before we even thought about Fresno State. The AD has basically blown off every single person who tried to raise the issue. I realize baseball is nowhere near as important in the grand scheme of things as football (basketball is arguable at a place like UGA), but that doesn't mean you should force your team to use inferior equipment.

Mark Richt's Record Broken Down

Year2 — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:51:59 -0000

Hello, Dawg faithful. I've been doing some coach record analysis lately, and yesterday I got to Mark Richt. If you want to see my whole analysis and interpretation it's here; if you get past some light ribbing near the beginning you probably won't have a problem with it.

But, the main deal is a table that breaks down his record by site, and another that breaks down his record by quality of opponent. Only games against I-A competition were included.

I give you the tables here if you want to provide your own analysis, though I think Kyle's well-documented fondness for him probably covers the sentiment pretty well.

By site:

Site	Wins	Losses	Totals
Home	34	7	41
Away	25	4	29
Neutral	4	6	10
Bowls	5	2	7
Totals	68	19	87

The neutral site games are the annual Florida game in Jacksonville and the SEC championship games Richt has been to.

Here is by tier of opponent. A first tier opponent is a team that finished the year with a winning percentage of .750 or better, a second tier opponent finshed from .500 to .749, a third tier opponent finished .250 to .499, and a fourth tier opponent finished .249 and below.

Tier	Wins	Losses	Pct.	Avg. Scored	Avg. Allowed
First	9	10	.474	24	21
Second	32	8	.800	28	18
Third	18	1	.947	28	13
Fourth	9	0	1.000	37	14

Not too shabby, eh? If I were a betting man (and if I was, I'm sure Richt would frown on me for it), I'd probably wager that he'll pass up Vince Dooley the coach by the time he's done.

See y'all in Jacksonville in November, and may you have the best season that the second place team in the SEC East can have.

Request for Blogroll Recommendations

T Kyle King — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:12:05 -0000

When Dawg Sports made the jump to SB Nation 2.0, we pared down the blogroll on the right-hand sidebar, but now we're giving thought to beefing it up again.

That's where you come into the picture. There are so many sports weblogs out there that no one can keep up with them all and some diamonds in the rough may be toiling in relative obscurity, much as MaconDawg and I were at our respective former weblogs.

What's out there that's good? I'm not looking to limit this to Georgia blogs, or even to S.E.C. or Southern teams. I'm already familiar with all the SB Nation blogs, but, aside from the blogs within this network and the well-known weblogs with which we all are familiar, who's caught your eye who might not have caught mine?

Let me know in the comments below. Thanks in advance.

Go 'Dawgs!

College Football Preview Luncheon with Lee Corso & Mark Richt

ATLSports — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:21:40 -0000

Join the Atlanta Sports Council on July 28th at the Hilton Atlanta as we kick off the 2008 college football season. Hear the experts' predictions and the coaches' expectations for the upcoming season. Attendees receive a complimentary 2008 Athlon College Football Preview Magazine.

Scheduled Guests:
Tony Barnhart - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lee Corso - ESPN College GameDay
Paul Johnson - Head Coach, Georgia Tech
Mark Richt - Head Coach, University of Georgia
Bill Curry - Head Coach, Georgia State University

Registration begins at 11:30am & Doors open at 11:45am
Lunch Program from 12:00-1:30pm
Event Tickets $30 ASC Members & $40 for Non-Members

To purchase your ticket please call 404.586.8470
or complete a ticket order form (click link below) and fax it to 404.586.8508
http://image.exct.net/lib/ff2e1c7270...der%20Form.pdf
Email epeterson@macoc.com with questions.

Want to be a member of the Atlanta Sports Council? Visit us at
Atlanta Sports Council - Home

Event Flyer
http://image.exct.net/lib/ff2e1c7270...c43b4623-8.jpg

Order Form
http://image.exct.net/lib/ff2e1c7270...der%20Form.pdf

UGA VI Passes

fotodog — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:58:45 -0000

from Josh Kendall, Dawg Post

ATHENS – Uga VI, Georgia’s beloved English bulldog mascot, died Friday night in Savannah, Cecelia Seiler confirmed to Dawg Post Contributor Josh Kendall on Saturday morning.

“He didn’t suffer,” Seiler said of her 10-year-old dog. “He lived right here in my den with me for 10 years. He was a happy dog.”

Uga VII’s readiness to take the field for the 2008 football season is a topic for school officials, Cecilia Seiler said, and none could be reached immediately Saturday morning.

Sonny Seiler, whose family has owned all the dogs, was at his office Saturday morning, his wife said, and could not be reached for comment or to add details on the dog’s death.

Uga VI took the reins from Uga V early in the 1999 season. He turned 10 in July and would have been the only one of the dogs other than Uga I to serve past his 10th birthday.

The line of mascots has long garnered national attention, culminating with Uga V’s appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated, which named Uga as the nation’s best mascot.

First Playing of "Red and Black March"

ugaweatherguy08 — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:11:08 -0000

Taken from the UGA Office of Public Affairs: News Service:

Media Advisory: Professor plays “Red and Black March”
Writer: Larry B. Dendy, 706/542-8078, ldendy@uga.edu
Contacts: Lloyd Winstead, 706/542-3966, winstead@uga.edu; Martha Thomas, 706/542-2760, mlthomas@uga.edu
Jun 20, 2008, 15:34

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Athens, Ga. – University of Georgia music professor Martha Thomas recently played a piano version of the “Red and Black March,” which was composed 100 years ago and is believed to be the University of Georgia’s first school song. Thomas’ performance may be the first time the piece has been heard in decades because the music was thought to be lost.

A video of Thomas’ performance, and background information on the march, are available on the Web on the UGA Home Page, www.uga.edu. The video can also be accessed at http://www.video.alumni.uga.edu/page5/page5.html.

The march was composed in 1908 by R. E. Haughey, UGA’s first band director. No copy of the music was known to exist until Lloyd Winstead, associate director of UGA’s Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, found it for sale on eBay and bought it for $12.50.

The four-page sheet music is scored for piano and is not an arrangement for band. Thomas performed the piece June 13 in the Ramsey Concert Hall of UGA’s Performing Arts Center.

Poll

Do you think "Red and Black March" could be a successful and recognizable tune to the Bulldog Nation?

Andy Landers's Lady Dogs Are No. 1 in the Nation!

T Kyle King — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:31:09 -0000

That's right . . . Andy Landers has guided the Georgia women's basketball team to the No. 1 ranking in the country.

No, he hasn't won that elusive N.C.A.A. tournament title.

A national basketball championship is about what happens at the end of the season, but we're talking about what happens at the beginning of the game.

Folks, it's official. The Lady Dogs have the best pregame intro video in all of women's college basketball.

So we've got that going for us, at least.

Just having a little fun with you, Coach.

Go 'Dawgs!

It's the quarterbacks, stupid

TomReagan — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:07:13 -0000

I've somehow lost my old Stuntman moniker, so I've assumed a new identity. My first post concerns what I think is one of the most overlooked aspects of SEC dominance over the last several years.

Constantly we hear of the dominance of SEC speed and sometimes (and more accurately) overall athleticism and DEPTH of athleticism as the driving force behind SEC power. That is true, to an extent, but when, exactly, has the SEC NOT had the quickest, most athletic athletes in the nation? It's been a constant, but the league hasn't always dominated nationally like we have lately. What, then, is different now?

First, and this is a topic that has actually been discussed in the blogosphere a little, but not as much as I think it deserves, is the tremendous collection of coaches in this conference. Spurrier, Fulmer, Saban, Meyer, and Miles all have national championship rings. Tubberville has an undefeated season, which is something that neither Miles, Saban, nor Spurrier can claim. Richt is widely regarded as the equal of any of the coaches named above. Throw in Johnson, Croom, Brooks, and even Nutt and now Petrino and you're looking at a group that may be unmatched in the history of the country. This current collection may one day be looked at like the old crop of Bear, Butts, Dodd, Dooley, Vaught, Neyland, Dietzel, McLendon, Jordan, etc. from the 60s through 70s.

Second, and this is the point that the college football world refuses to acknowledge, is that the SEC has become a QB hotbed. I suppose the reluctance to accept this fact is because it would redefine concept of the conference as a pound it out, three yards and a cloud of dust meatgrinder. The SEC is still the home of the most violent defenses in the country and some of the most rugged games, but it's also become the home of the best group of quarterbacks in the country. A team must have good QB play to be successful on a national level. If you doubt that, ask FSU or Penn State what good tremendous defenses will do for you with a joke at QB. Check out this analysis done over at SundaymorningQB. He looks at the improvement rates of freshmen QB. The analysis itself isn't important for this post, but the names are.

The names on that list aren't all world beaters, and we mock some of them. But, realistically, that's a damn good list of college quarterbacks. Look at last year--Tebow, Stafford, Flynn, Woodson, and Ainge, to a lesser extent, lead their teams to better than expected or very successful seasons while guys like Cox, Wilson, and Dick all disappointed on otherwise talented teams. In a league where the ypg differential is so small , QB play is at a super premium. You're not going to out-athlete anyone in this league, and coaches are realizing that and are putting in the necessary resources to pull the best in the country into the conference. And it's paying off big time.

Now I'll jump off my soapbox.

UGA football great Rauch dead at 80

fotodog — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:24:52 -0000

From Athens Banner Herald:

By Lee Shearer

Wednesday, June 11, 2008
John Rauch, one of the University of Georgia's greatest football players, has died at the age of 80.

Rauch died unexpectedly in his sleep late Tuesday night at home in Oldsmar, Fla., said Jane Rauch, his wife of nearly 61 years.

When his four-year college football career was over in 1948, quarterback Rauch was the NCAA's career passing leader with 4,044 yards and had led UGA to two Southeastern Conference championships and four consecutive bowl games.

After a brief stint playing professional football, Rauch began a long career in college and professional coaching, including tenures as head coach of the Oakland Raiders and the Buffalo Bills.

In 1967, Rauch was named the American Football League's Coach of the Year after taking the team to the AFL championship and the second Super Bowl. The Raiders lost to Green Bay in Vince Lombardi's last game as the Packers' coach.

He is survived by his wife, a son, a daughter, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Published ion OnlineAthens.com on 061108

What a difference 3 days makes

loran smith — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:35:08 -0000

With tonight's evisceration of the nats, let me be to first to say congratulations to the Georgia Baseball team tonight. I wrote what could probably be characterized as knee jerk reaction Friday evening after witnessing a four seed really beat the national #8 seed. But the Dawgs hung tough until the avalanche erupted in the 7th inning of the Louisville game. After Gordon's 3-run blast, the floodgates were opened and the Dawgs never looked back.

Hats off to that entire team for sticking in there and not giving up with their backs against the wall. The crowd tonight was absolutely electric and IMO was probably one of the most fun baseball games I had ever been to. The UGAAA needs to contact the owners of the green and brick houses above Kudzu Hill and thank them for their creative support for the Dawgs during the regional. As I'm sure many of you have heard of by now, their hilarious signs along with their impressive speaker system loudly playing each Georgia player's walk up music really fired up the crowd tonight and really got under the skin of the jackets.

Congrats again Dawgs, but it's not over yet. We gotta keep this going in to the weekend against the Wolfpack.

Funny/ ironic note: How appropriate that MaconDawg writes an article this morning enlisting the help of Knowshon highlights to help everyone make it through the day. Well, guess who happened to be sitting 5 rows in front of me, front row above the UGA dugout this evening? You bet, KM24 sporting his newly received Playboy Pre-Season All American Tshirt proudly.

Embarrassment at Foley

loran smith — Fri, 30 May 2008 23:40:08 -0000

If you would have asked me would the Dogs win if they scored 7 I would have said, "Only 7?". With that said, the Dogs laid a huge egg today at Foley. In my opinion Dodson looked like he was sleep walking out there today. He had the hardest time keeping his pitches down and every time his control was off, Lipscomb made him pay.

A few of the hits were bloops and seeing eye singles but I don't care what team it is if you leave your pitches up, you are asking to get punished.

Who would have thought leaving the bases loaded in the first would come back and hurt so much?

Other thoughts: I thought the hitters were not patient at all. Most of the time, the Lipscomb pitchers were just throwing junk way out of the strike zone and a lot of our guys would swing trying to be a hero. UGA needed to be patient and not try to all be heroes and hit HRs to tie the ball game back up. More frustrating was the fact that today's SP for Lipscomb had a plus 5 ERA for the year and had given up 100 hits and 94 walks in 91 IP. More frustration- One of Lipscomb's homers was by a guy that had a .213 average.

The Dogs just looked bad bad bad. Very Mets-esque coming down the stretch from last year (well, I guess not. At least the Dogs made the playoffs)

2008 Men's Tennis Champs

loran smith — Wed, 21 May 2008 03:48:18 -0000

While the debate raged on all night about the BCS, I was busy watching the Georgia men's tennis team win its sixth National Championship defeating Texas. This makes it back to back championships for the Dogs, and in the process they became the first team to repeat since the 1998 Stanford team did it. The team lost the doubles and the first singles point but rallied for four straight singles victories to win the title, 4-2.

Nobody expected Coach Diaz to have his team in the tournament much less the championship match against the Longhorns, having lost #1 singles and doubles player (and veritable giant John Isner). #4 UGA defeated #1 ranked UVA Monday in Tulsa to advance to tonight's championship match.

For having watched 0 college tennis in my life, the passion and emotion of collegiate athletics was at its best Tuesday evening. I watch a good bit of pro tennis and needless to say, despite my bias, the tennis that was played tonight did not disappoint. A truly exciting atmosphere and the drama of watching Georgia trying to win a NC made everything that much more incredible.

Hats off to the Dogs!

EDSBS charity contest

BCDawg97 — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:26:12 -0000

While we should all be donating just because its the right thing to do, we should also be doing our best to make the Dawgs #1 in any sport or competition! UF is in the lead. Hell, even USC and LSWho are beating us right now (of course it just started today). Step up people. It only takes 10 dollars.

http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2008/05/12/the-swindle-industries-charity-bowl/

Pass the word along to other dawg fans You have until Wednesday.

DID I MENTION EDSBS WILL PUT UP A GEORGIA LOGO AND CHANGE THE COLOR SCHEME TO RED IF WE WIN?

DVD's

oceandawg — Sat, 10 May 2008 13:36:55 -0000

I'm looking for a DVD or VHS of the '07 Fl. and/or Auburn games - anybody where I can get them? I've looked all over the net . DVD's of the sugar bowl are all over but not of the season games. I'd like to find them to show to my brother who was overseas and could not watch. Can't wait for this season to see what Merino and Caleb can do. We should be very good.

Welcome to the new Dawg Sports and SB Nation

clockwerks — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:37:49 -0000

Hey Dawg Sports,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

Before we begin, I want to let you know we still consider this a beta platform, so don't be surprised if you find a few bugs or if everything isn't exactly right yet. We hope you'll take the time to report any problems you encounter at bugreport@sbnation.com. We'll be continuing to make changes and improving things.

Please take a few minutes to read about what's new below. But if you just can't wait to jump in, here are some quick things to check out:

Sign up for your SB Nation network account and claim your old blog accounts
Once you're logged in, press your Z key in any thread with new comments
Explore your dashboard and setup your profile
Read the guide to the new FanPost editor
Install the FanShot bookmarklet and post videos to Dawg Sports from YouTube or images from Flickr
Click the "Rec" button on posts and comments to help other people find the good stuff.
Customize display options on your Edit Settings page

What Has Changed

SB Nation Network Accounts - the Big Change

Readers across all of our blogs told us they wanted one account to use on every SB Nation blog. To make this work, we're requiring that everyone create a new SB Nation network account. In most cases you should be able to keep your old username, but a few of you may have to choose something new, since every other community in SB Nation will be going through this same transition. We tried to be as fair as possible in deciding who gets to keep which name, using a formula that takes into account length of membership and frequency of activity.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to participate on all of our blogs, but we don't want to encourage everyone to start visiting rival team blogs and initiating flame wars. To maintain friendly communities we ask that you explicitly join each blog in order to participate. It's a two-click process, but it does means accepting each blog's community guidelines. Just as you join each blog individually, you can be banned on each blog individually.

You can claim old accounts from multiple SB Nation blogs, and your new username will be retroactively attached to all your old comments and diaries. So now you'll be able to access all your writings from your single profile page... like magic.

To get started, click here to claim your old blog accounts and create a new SB Nation network account.

FanPosts (the Section Formerly Known as Diaries)

We changed their name. Why? Because we took this major upgrade as an opportunity to leave behind some vocabulary that never made much sense for a sports blog. SB Nation is the network of, by and for fans, and these are the blog posts we make. So we call them FanPosts. When you're at a bar telling someone to check out your online sports opinions, you don't have to suggest they read your diary.

FanPosts are displayed differently on the homepage - we include your avatar to give more credit for the time you spend writing great posts. The new post editor has a WYSIWYG view that provides easy formatting. It also auto-saves drafts so you don't have to worry about losing your work when you compose a post within the web browser. And you can now associate teams, players and games with your posts: these tools promote your FanPosts on our new team, player and game pages - across the entire network.

The new system does not work like the old diary editor. For example, in HTML mode the new editor doesn't auto-create a new paragraph from two line breaks. But it does offer a whole array of new features. Look for the blinking help button on the right side of the FanPost editor for quick tips, and take a look at our full guide to writing FanPosts on the new platform.

IMPORTANT - if you write your posts in Microsoft Word or some other off-line editor, you will get the most reliable behavior if you cut & paste your post into the HTML view of the FanPost editor. And if you do that, remember to wrap <p></p> tags around each paragraph so your text doesn't run together.

Visual Redesign

This one is probably the most obvious change of all. Like other major websites working to improve readability for their audience, we've adopted a fixed-width layout optimized for the 1024 x 768 resolution used by the majority of Dawg Sports and SB Nation network users. Use the switcher below the user menu if you prefer the wider layout designed for 1280 monitors. We've introduced a top navigation bar with quick links into old and new sections of the site. We also polished a few edges, made some things larger, others smaller and moved a few boxes here and there. More changes and adjustments to come.

Search

We've completely replaced the old search engine with a new one. We're excited to make it easier to find old posts and comments, but we've only taken our first pass on the tools we're offering. We're focused on making search even better than what you had before, so please know that we're aware search is missing key features and we're working on it.

What's New

Schedule, Scores, Stats and Roster

Dawg Sports now has all the basic information about the Georgia Bulldogs and hundreds of other teams. During games you'll see a regularly updated line score, and as the season progresses we'll track team stat totals and leaders. This is just our first step, so look for us to publish more detailed and archival stats in the future. The best part about all this sports data is that we've integrated it directly into the blog so. We now have special pages that aggregate all blog posts written about games, players and teams.

Recommending FanPosts

Some writing deserves more attention and more conversation. If you want to bump a FanPost up to the top and keep it there for awhile, just click the 'Rec' link under the body of the post. When a FanPost receives enough recommendations it will make the recommended list.

Auto-refreshing Comments

You no longer need to refresh the page to see new comments. If you're logged in, new comments will automatically appear on the page every few seconds. When you post a comment, the page will not refresh either. If you want to quickly cycle through all the new comments, you can press the C key on your keyboard. Unmark a new comment after you've read it with the X key. And use the Z key if you want to umark comments as you're cycling through them.

As you use these shortcuts to cycle through comments, press the R key to reply to the current comment. All these helpful keyboard shortcuts are listed at the top of each comments section for reference.

Recommending Comments

Now you can reward those folks who take the time to look up stats and make smart arguments in the comments. Next to each comment there is an 'actions' link that you can click to find the recommend and flag options.

Flagging Comments

To help the moderators on a site, we've built-in tools that let you flag comments that are spam, trolling or just plain inappropriate. Only moderators can see those flags.

FanShots

Many members of the community just want to post that one link, video, photo or quote, but don't need a full FanPost. We've got you covered: FanShots let you share YouTube videos, Flickr or PhotoBucket photos, quotes from articles, portions of chat transcripts, top 5 lists and simple links. If it's a video or image we'll put a thumbnail on the homepage when you post it.

For those of you who are experienced internet hunter-gatherers of Georgia Bulldogs material, install the bookmarklet onto the links bar of your browser and share FanShots with the community from wherever on the web you find that killer quote or photo.

Avatars

Upload an image so folks can see your custom avatar on your profile, your FanPosts, and all your comments.

Network Profiles

Now that we have unified SB Nation network accounts, your profile will be your central hub for all of your activity on any blogs where you are a member.

Network bar

The top bar stays with you on all SB Nation blogs. It's a quick way to login and logout. When you're logged in, you'll see your avatar and screen name which links to your profile. The icon to the right leads to your Dashboard area where you can edit your settings, profile, account details and any FanPosts or FanShots you've published. As we add more blogs to the new SB Nation network, the My Blogs menu will be a handy way to navigate between the blogs you've joined.

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There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

And in case you missed it, you'll want to start by claiming your old blog accounts and creating a new SB Nation network account.