DALTON, Ga. — Good news for Georgia Bulldog fans out there: legendary UGA football Coach Vince Dooley feels pretty good about the Dawgs’ chances in the Southeastern Conference championship game in this weekend’s rematch against the Auburn Tigers, though he stopped short of predicting a winner.

“I’ll tell you one thing for sure, we’re going to play a heck of a lot better than what we did the last time we played them,” Dooley said Wednesday, referring to Auburn’s 40-17 win on Nov. 11, while signing books and other memorabilia for fans at Kroger on Walnut Avenue. 

The source of confidence for the most successful football coach in school history is actually the fact that the Bulldogs lost the last game to the Tigers.

“Auburn had the benefit of learning from getting beat twice, and we had been undefeated, so we’ll benefit from getting our tails kicked against Auburn,” said Dooley, who played quarterback at Auburn i the 1950s. “We’ve got to take better care of the line of scrimmage, and I think they’ve been determined to do that.”

In a rematch from just three weeks prior, No. 2 Auburn and No. 6 Georgia face off in the SEC Championship game at 4 p.m. Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The game will be televised on CBS.

Dooley said he also likes Georgia’s chances in the College Football Playoff should they win the SEC Championship this weekend.  

“They’re in a position. In order to win it all, everything has got to fall in place,” he said. “They’re where they are so they have a chance, and they can do it.”

Outside of football, Dooley is a history buff, and he was in Dalton to promote a book he authored along with Samuel Norman Thomas Jr. titled “The Legion’s Fighting Bulldog: The Civil War Correspondence of William Gaston Delony, Lieutenant Colonel of Cobb’s Georgia Legion Cavalry, and Rosa Delony, 1853-1863.”

Delony was a young lawyer and graduate of Franklin College (the forerunner of UGA) who served the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under Gen. Robert E. Lee. He and his wife wrote to one another frequently during their time apart, and 167 of their letters still survive. The letters — most of those that survive are written from William to Rosa — paint a portrait of life on the front line of the Civil War as well as the impact left at home as men left to join the fight. 

Dooley and Thomas sorted through the letters to tell the story of Delony’s rise through the ranks to lieutenant colonel and sometimes acting commander of Cobb’s Legion of Georgia Cavalry, a group which fought in some of the war’s more well-known battles, such as Second Manassas, Antietam and Gettysburg. Rosa’s story of rearing the couple’s children and running the household and farmland also illustrate how the war affected the homefront. 

Dooley said his interest in Delony was partially inspired by the marriage of a great-great-granddaughter of Delony to one of Dooley’s former players, but also because Delony was so well respected by all who served with and for him.

“He was so loved, he was such a leader, as a colonel in the calvary, that they described him with three attributes: No. 1, he had superb generalship. No. 2, he had a commanding presence, and No. 3, he had the courage of a bulldog,” said Dooley. 

The book, published by Mercer University Press, is available now. 

Rolling back around to football, Dooley also said he has been following the coaching changes many college football teams have been making. He said the hirings and firings seem to get more interesting every year. Still, he’s not coming out from retirement, though at least one person wouldn’t mind if he did. 

“Every time my wife (Barbara) sees the salaries they are getting she looks a little mad,” Dooley said with a laugh. “She thinks I maybe quit too early. She wants me to go back and coach for a year or two and then get fired, get one of those big payouts they’ve been giving out.”