Oh, how quickly the Bulldog Nation forgets.

How quickly arms are thrown up in celebration that the beloved Georgia Bulldogs are now “bowl-eligible” as if the football program has suddenly transformed into Utah, fighting for the BCS’ mysterious computer to pay attention to the squad down in Athens.

It’s been an up-and-down season. (Duh, Captain Obvious.) Fair-weather fans have reared their ugly heads while they sit comfortably in their seats inside Sanford Stadium (and on their couches during away games) and scream horrible things concerning Joe Cox’s gingerness, insulting everything about the players from their manhood to their collective football ability.

But Georgia defeated Auburn – like every player wanted, every coached desired and every fan was thirsty for – and people in their red and black get-up are dumbfounded that the team actually accomplished something fans should all come to expect out of the Georgia football team very season.

Hasn’t Mark Richt built a program that should be bandied about in national title talk from year to year (or held consistently as a top-10 team)?

Didn’t his predecessors lay the foundation for Georgia to become one of the most widely-respected programs in the country?

Lest we forget the mantra “Finish the Drill.” It’s imprinted on the backs of T-shirts and plastered across enormous billboards. And finishing the drill includes making it to the sorriest excuse for a postseason that college football has to offer.

After you lead a squad to a bowl game in each of your eight seasons as the head coach, winning becomes habit and anything less is unsatisfactory and simply preposterous to some. Fans build expectations off of numbers and results like that, and the postseason is then taken for granted as Georgia has come to be expected to advance to bowl games every season.

This season, more so than any other in recent history, the fan base has called for the heads of various coaches, shown bookoo amounts of frustration and given up on the troops before the battle has been won.

Georgia players work to win. They expect to win. They do not bust their hump in practice each week to be treated like a rag doll on Saturdays. They are more disappointed in a loss than fans perceive, especially when they have the dreams of those aforementioned fans on their shoulders everyday.

The disconnect between the fan base and the football team is greater and more noticeable this season than in recent years. Fans bellow out epic boos during the first quarter of an SEC home game and players are forced back on their heels, growing defensive about the unit they are a part of.

That spark, that “extra juice,” has been lacking, undeniably so, the majority of the season, not only on the football field but also in the stands.

Maybe the lacking element is that disconnect. Entering a season with skeptical eyes and ears can only add to the pressure of a season already under the microscope.

Maybe that flare could come in the form of eliminating the separation between bitter fans and defensive athletes.

Eliminating the disconnect starts with a proverbial handshake that must take place for Bulldog Nation to enter battle as one.

- Rachel G. Bowers is a sports writer for The Red & Black