We're all in favor of coupling the storylines of the college football day with 1980s action movie cliches - after all, we're meme generators at heart - but Tennessee wide receiver and Calhoun, Ga., native Da'Rick Rogers might be a wee bit sanctimonious by trying to appropriate this weekend's UT/UGA game as his own Brian Bosworth revenge flick:
Rogers admits the Georgia rivalry is "a little personal" for him. He remembers "being booed by a whole stadium" last year in Athens.
"That was new to me," he said. "It was crazy to hear that. It didn’t really affect me. It was just a new environment, a new thing. But I’m ready this year, trained a lot harder. It will be a good game."
After all, it was Rogers who was publicly committed to Georgia until days before signing day, when he jumped to the Vols after they heavily recruited his close friend Nash Nance (not a character in a Hardy Boys mystery, we checked) away from Vanderbilt. Rogers followed suit but watched his Big Orange team get spanked in Athens 41-14.
"As soon as the clock went dead, I've been waiting to get at them next year," Rogers told reporters in Knoxville earlier this week."
Love the enthusiasm there kid, but in this case, you might be the anonymous henchman being tossed about carelessly, and not the devil-may-care, hero playing by his OWN rules in this particular tale. The guns-blazing, take no prisoners antihero? Mark Richt, aiming to silence his detractors and earn win #100.
Seriously. This works. MARK RICHT IS STONE COLD.