In the spirit of enhanced sharing of information and the free flow of the internet, Dawg Sports and House Of Sparky have interviewed each other to find out if the grass really is greener on the other side of the Mississippi.

T Kyle King is a very respected blogger, and Dawg Sports is the best Georgia blog out there. Without further ado, lets get to the House Of Sparky Hot Seat, where Kyle has agreed to answer all our burning questions. As for my answers to his questions, they are located at Dawg Sports.

Georgia showed a lot of guts against South Carolina on Saturday, but failed to impress fans of college football who saw it as a less than dominating performance. This is also shown by their slide from #2 to #3 in both polls, as the voters were disappointed in the closeness of the game. Take your Georgia hat off and discuss the team's performance, and then put the hat back on and give us your biased take.

First of all, I don't fault the voters on this one. I voted Georgia No. 3 on my BlogPoll ballot, as well, although this was due to the fact that Southern California and Oklahoma looked extremely good rather than because the Bulldogs looked particularly bad. An SEC game that ends 3-2 is hallmarked by inept offense; an SEC game that ends 14-7 is an old school classic.

I certainly can understand how, from a neutral perspective, the Red and Black's accomplishments so far this season appear comparatively meager. Georgia Southern is a Division I-AA team, Central Michigan has a penchant for giving up gaudy point totals to BCS conference teams on the road, and South Carolina has lost seven of its last eight games, including six conference contests in a row. Given the closeness of Georgia's game against the Gamecocks, I won't fault a neutral observer for dinging the ‘Dawgs in the rankings.

Nevertheless, I believe any doubts about Georgia are premature. 80,250-seat Williams-Brice Stadium is a tough place to play and close, low-scoring defensive struggles historically are the norm between the Bulldogs and the Gamecocks. Half of the Georgia-South Carolina games played in the last 20 years have been decided by a touchdown or less, including six of the last eight. The Classic City Canines always get the Palmetto State Poultry's best game and Georgia found a way to win with three stout defensive stands at the end.

Many elite teams seem to have that one opponent with whom they struggle despite routinely having a marked talent advantage. Even when the Irish have been good, Notre Dame has found it difficult to beat Michigan State in South Bend. Texas always seems to need a furious second-half comeback to beat Oklahoma State. Vanderbilt often gives the Gators a scare. For Georgia, the game that annually seems more challenging than it should is the early-season outing against South Carolina.

Even so, the closeness of the Bulldogs' tussle with the Gamecocks is seldom indicative of the quality of the Georgia squad. The ‘Dawgs had to overcome a 16-0 deficit to pull out a 20-16 win in Columbia in 2004, but that Georgia squad went on to beat Louisiana State and Florida to finish with ten wins. The Red and Black lost to South Carolina at home last season, yet the Bulldogs were as impressive as any team in the country during the second half of the year.

The bottom line is this: Georgia beat South Carolina by margins of 7-0 in 1966, 21-20 in 1968, 20-12 in 1976, 13-10 in 1980, 13-7 in 2002, and 17-15 in 2005. The Bulldogs won six SEC titles and one national championship in those half-dozen seasons. There's no reason to think a close call against South Carolina means anything at all.

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