Sport: How 'Bout Them Dawgs?

A freshman flash helps put Georgia back on top

With one game left to play in the 1979 season, the University of Georgia and the University of Alabama faced the prospect of a tie for the Southeastern Conference championship. The title carries an invitation to the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. But under Sugar Bowl rules, in the event of an S.E.C. tie, the team that had been to New Orleans most recently would be ineligible. Thus Alabama, ranked No. 1 in the nation and Sugar Bowl hosts two straight years, would stay home on New Year's Day unless it could win its final game against Auburn.

Normally, such a situation would lead to rejoicing in Georgia. But for all their success in the S.E.C., the Bulldogs had been cuffed around by non-conference opponents. "This time last year," Georgia Coach Vince Dooley recalls with a rueful smile, "we had a shot at going to the Sugar Bowl with a record of six wins and five losses. It was embarrassing. Alabama won its last game, though, and spared us. This year, things are a little bit different."

Indeed they are. With a single game remaining, Georgia is the only unbeaten and untied major college team in the country. Undisputed S.E.C. champions, the team has in hand an invitation to play No. 2-ranked Notre Dame. For good measure, Georgia has replaced Alabama as the top-ranked team in both the Associated Press sportswriters' poll and the United Press International coaches' poll, the first time since World War II that the Bulldogs have led the national rankings. Jubilant Georgians are unfurling bumper stickers that marvel: HOW 'BOUT THEM DAWGS.

The Bulldogs' remarkable seesaw began with preseason events both ridiculous and sublime. Dooley nearly lost six players because of disciplinary infractions. But he gained one player who has, almost singlehanded, put the Georgians on top once again: Herschel Walker, one of the flashiest running backs in the history of college football. The best news is that Walker is only a freshman.

A quiet young man from Wrightsville, Ga. (pop. 2,106), Walker was the most sought-after schoolboy player in the country last year. The 6-ft. 2-in., 220-lb. running back rushed for 6,137 yds. in high school and set national records by scoring 85 touchdowns, 45 of them during his senior year. He was also state champion in the shotput (54 ft.) and the 100-yd. dash (9.5 sec.). Son of a chalk-mine foreman, Walker graduated with honors.

So intense was the recruiting war for Walker that the mere sight of an out-of-state coach in Wrightsville could set off a small panic. When a man named John Robinson checked into a hotel in nearby Macon, local newspapers announced with alarm that the University of Southern California's coach had come to cart Walker away. John Robinson turned out to be a salesman from Huntsville, Ala.