The University of Georgia Bulldogs started fall practice today. It’s great to finally have football news coming in. The summer has been so long! In addition to the Dawgs taking the field, news just came out a few days ago that they were ranked #1 in the Coaches Poll!

Here’s what Mark Richt had to say about it: “”We are very excited about this season. It is the first time Georgia has been preseason No. 1. It’s exciting to have Knowshon Moreno on the cover of USA Today.”

Whoa? Knowshon Moreno was on the cover of USA Today? Holy crap.. I need to find a copy. Too bad when I go to their website I don’t see his picture slapped up at the top. If anyone picked up a copy of USA Today, was Knowshon on the front page of the entire paper or just the Sports page? Either way, that’s really cool!

The Gainesville Sun (ironically) ranked Georgia running back Knowshon Moreno as the #2 best player in the SEC, behind only Tim Tebow. That’s quite an honor coming from a Gator publication, who put Knowshon above Percy Harvin. You can check out the article and the rest of the rankings here.

Why is he #2? “As a freshman, Moreno rushed for 1,334 yards and 14 touchdowns on 248 carries. It was the second-highest rushing total for a freshman in Georgia history, behind Heisman Trophy icon back Herschel Walker.”

Our favorite SEC player and University of Georgia running back, Knowshon Moreno, was recently named to the first team by Southeastern Conference football coaches in their preseason poll. Moreno is only a sophomore and was 1 of 6 unanimous selections in the poll. Being named to the 1st team is an honor. It shows that coaches in the SEC respect what Knowshon did last year and believe he will still be a force to be reckoned with in 2008.

SEC Media Days kick off this week on Wednesday July 23. The University of Georgia is scheduled for Thursday from 8:40 – 10:40 a.m. (central time I believe). The Dawgs will be represented by Head Coach Mark Richt, WR M. Massaquoi, and DT Jeff Owens. Coaches tend to select seniors and team captains to bring to Media Day, but this isn’t always the case. Florida is bringing Tim Tebow.

So you have to wonder why Knowshon Moreno is not going to be at Media Day. He’s the guy everyone wants to talk to… not Massaquoi. Chris Low of ESPN.com said “Georgia running back Knowshon Moreno: Why even have a so-called Media Days if you’re not going to bring the best running back in the league and a guy who could push the 3,000-yard career rushing mark by the end of his sophomore season?”

It makes sense right?

Over the past week or so, IGN has been releasing a different “Play of the Day” to promote EA’s upcoming NCAA 2009 football game. On July 2, Knowshon Moreno was selected as a featured athlete in their play of the day video. You can check out there video here. Be sure to scroll down because it’s the second video shown.

The video is an awesome clip of Knowshon busting a 60 yard touchdown, untouched. Stafford hands him the ball with ease. After one or two jukes… he’s gone. I bet he’s one of the best running backs in the game. He looked lightning fast in this video.

I can’t wait to see Knowshon Moreno continue that streak in rea life against teams like Auburn and the Gators.

Even though we are several months away from the start of the college football season, many of the major publications have released their lists of early Heisman candidates. Our favorite Bulldog Knowhon Moreno is on every one of them. In today’s post, I’m just going to do a quick run down of where different websites rank Knowshon Moreno on the list.

Sportsline – They don’t have their Heisman candidates ranked in any specific order, but they do list Moreno. They mention that the Bulldogs should be preseason ranked #1 and that gives Moreno a great shot at winning a Heisman.

Rivals – They list Knowshon as the #4 ranked Heisman candidate. The only problem they mention is Coach Richt often likes to split the workload, and that could hurt Moreno’s numbers.

Sport Projections – They also have Knowshon listed at #4. I don’t really know much about this site to comment.

Scout – Scout.com did an early prediction a couple of months ago and had Knowshon Moreno listed at #14. A lot of things have changed since then, so once they get a new ranking out we’ll be sure to post it.

So there you have it. A list of some top Heisman Candidate rankings. I couldn’t find one for ESPN or Fox Sports, but I’m sure they’ll be out soon enough. It’ll be interesting to see how far Knowshon Moreno moves up the rankings as the 2008 season begins.

Knowshon Moreno is getting some much deserved publicity so far in 2008. Dawg Post has selected Knowshon Moreno to grace the cover of their 6th annual season preview magazine. This is Moreno’s second Dawg Post cover, but first appearance on the cover of a season preview edition. His previous cover came of the first-annual Next Big Thing edition last fall.

There’s no doubt that Dawg Nation has high hopes and enormous expectations of Knowshon this season. Anything short of a Heisman-type season will be a disappointment.

I think as we approach the opening of the football season throughout the summer, we’ll see Knowshon Moreno gracing the cover of several more magazines.

Red and Black posted an article the other day about a couple of UGA students who are making a website dedicated to selling Heisman merchandise. They hope on of their top sellers this season will be the “Knowshon For Heisman” hats that resemble the old “Herschel for Heisman” hats of the early ’80s.

Here’s a quick excerpt:

The Web site address is www.heismangear.com and will be launched within a month, according to Pritchett.

Neither Pritchett nor his friend and co-founder, senior Matthew Molony, are the typical business majors.

In fact, for the genetics and English majors, respectively, the Web site was born out of a love for Georgia football and later turned into a business venture.

“It came about one day when one of our good friends had the old school Herschel hat, and we’re both huge Dog fans, so to get the backing for Knowshon, we decided to get the Knowshon hats.” Pritchett said.

“We really want Knowshon to win the Heisman, so that’s was our main point to get people rallying around Knowshon at Georgia.”

After a SEC Freshman of the Year season in which he amassed 1,334 yards, Moreno is considered one of the early candidates for the 2008 Heisman. Pritchett said that he isn’t worried about a sophomore slump.

One of the biggest concerns for the site owners is that fans will be buying Tim Tebow merchandise too. It’s a tough pill to swallow for any UGA fan.

The Orlando Sentinel is predicting that Tim Tebow’s toughest competition for a Heisman trophy in 2008 is none other then our favorite Dawg, Knowshon Moreno. Here’s what they had to say:

He’s going to have serious competition for that award within his own division of the SEC.

Georgia running back Knowshon Moreno is a ‘Dawg to watch.

CBS Sportsline columnist Dennis Dodd has a good profile of Moreno, who to me looks like a reincarnation of Carnell “Cadillac” Williams without all the injury baggage. He even wears No. 24 like Caddy. I covered Williams when he was a star at Etowah High School in Attalla, Ala., and followed him closely through his days at Auburn and now with the Tampa Bay Bucs. I loved the way Carnell attacked the line of scrimmage and wasn’t afraid to take on larger defenders. He was fearless.

Moreno, for my money, may prove to be even better.

He’s my pick to take the Heisman because I expect Georgia to win the SEC and play for the national title in 2008.

Those are nice words for Knowshon. Being only a sophomore, he will have a lot of criticism. Will there be a sophomore slump? Can a sophomore win a Heisman again (Tim Tebow being the first and only to do that last year)? Avoiding injury, I think Knowshon Moreno has just as good of a chance to win the Heisman as anyone else in the country. All eyes will be on him.