June 20, 2008 · 7:04 AM

A little love for Rodney Garner

Rodney Garner gets some respect from Dennis Dodd – as the best defensive line coach in the country.

And these’s nothing like a quote from Colt Brennan to support a point.

“The SEC is probably the fastest conference in all of college football, and we got a first-hand taste of that tonight,” Brennan said after the final college game of his career.

Garner helped make it that way. The 41-year-old is at the pinnacle of his career. The Bulldogs are a trendy pick for preseason No. 1 based largely on a dominating second-half defensive performance in 2007. Georgia’s defense led the SEC with 42 sacks last season. Defensive end Marcus Howard became the Sugar Bowl’s first defensive MVP in almost 30 years. All-SEC defensive tackle Geno Atkins might be the next great one produced by Garner, who is entering his 11th season coaching Georgia’s defensive line.

3 Comments

Filed under Georgia Football, Media Punditry/Foibles

3 responses to “A little love for Rodney Garner”

  1. dean
    June 20, 2008 at 7:25 AM

    I would say we have one of the best coaching staffs in the country. I’m biased of course but we have the best D-line coach, one of the top 3 O-line coaches in the country, a damn good D coordinator and an O coordinator that’s quickly making a name for himself. Not to mention the head coach or other position coaches.

    This is great for RG. It’s nice they also mention his talents as a recruiter. I’m going to hate to see him go when the time (or right head coach job) comes.

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  2. Groo
    June 20, 2008 at 1:03 PM

    While I’m glad to see Garner get some much-deserved credit, it’s a glaring omission that an article about Georgia’s defensive line neglects to mention DE coach Jon Fabris even once.

    Dodd writes, “Garner has overseen a unit that produced Howard, SEC defensive player of the year David Pollack (2005), Quentin Moses (all-SEC, 2005) and Charles Johnson (second team, all-SEC, 2006). ”

    Garner deserves no end of recognition for his work with the line and as a recruiter, but you can’t tell the story of Howard, Pollack, Moses, and Johnson without Fabris.

    Having a designated DE coach isn’t *that* unusual (UT and AU have one as well). Garner and Fabris have been a helluva team.

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  3. Mike
    June 21, 2008 at 12:43 AM

    Agreed, Groo. Nice to see RG get national love, but Fabris deserves a lot of credit for those guys as well. I’m sure RG gives him tons of credit.

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