You know, it was that key coordinator bolting the Georgia program a few years ago for what he thought were greener pastures that’s knocked Mark Richt back. Yeah, it’s a shame Brian Van… excuse me, who?
… And has anyone else noticed that Georgia hasn’t quite been the same since Neil Callaway left for UAB?
To answer your question, Kevin, no. Even after you asked it. No.
Get The Picture 
No, we have not been the same.
Partly because we do not have an Upper Class Offensive Tackle because Calloway did not recruit a SINGLE OFFENSIVE TACKLE FOR 3 CONSECUTIVE RECRUITING CLASSES.
Good grief. I have never shied away from hyperbole and conjecture, but this guy has really jumped the shark.
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Facepalm.
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I’ve heard this idiocy spouted on the DawgVent, too. Along with “Why doesn’t Richt call the plays? I miss Richt calling the plays!”
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I believe you are missing an ‘sh’ somewhere in the title to this post.
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Maybe so but then it would sound better if ‘on’ was replaced with ‘in’.
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According to those in the know, Callaway was a hard ass and we need that desperately. It wasn’t all on him to recruit his position and from what I remember, we had some pretty stout OLs under him.
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Yes, it was.
Name them.
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Does Daniel Inman count? 😉
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Who are those guys…referred to below unless, of course, that’s just your typical ministry of sports communication disinformation or misinformation…I see Stinchcombs….
“Courtesy: UGA Sports Communications
Release: 06/22/2006
Veteran SEC coach Neil Callaway was named offensive coordinator and offensive line coach at UGA in January, 2001, and has developed the Bulldog offense and offensive line into one of the SEC’s best. In his five years at UGA, he’s had seven lineman play in post season all star games, a first round draft choice, second round draft choice, fourth round pick, a finalist for the Rimington Trophy, and a total of nine players sign professional contracts.”
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Sacks allowed in a season Under Mark Richt
2001: 12 games, 15 sacks allowed
2002: 14 games, 31 sacks allowed
2003: 14 games, 47 sacks allowed
2004: 12 games, 21 sacks allowed
2005: 13 games, 20 sacks allowed
2006: 13 games, 17 sacks allowed
2007: 13 games, 15 sacks allowed
2008: 13 games, 17 sacks allowed
2009: 6 games, 5 sacks allowed
Interesting.
Maybe Searels has them practicing pass blocking too much?
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That 2003 number just makes me chuckle. For my money, still Richt’s (or BVG’s if you want to be honest) best coaching job.
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I will not get into the argument about Calloway vs Searles because I just don’t know and accept those who say CSS is one of the best. I do know this, our OL recruiting was lacking during the early years with CMR, mostly coming out of the Donnan years, but also early into CMRs era. We also lost some key OL guys to injury, guys that never contributed.
I also remember CSS being credited with being brilliant about patchworking what little he inherited. Great, I felt very warm about that, and confident of the direction we were going. That said, this OL is the worst at run blocking of any unit I can remember. There have been key injuries both last year and this year, but Knowshon saved the OL last year by breaking tackles behind the line and gaining 3-4 yards. This year we don’t have a KM type back, the runners are not getting hit behind the line very much, but there is ZERO push, and never a hole between the tackles.
Phil Steele rated this the #3 line in the country, and virtually everyone had them best, or top 3 in the SEC. If any of those evaluations about potential is even close, this is a VERY underachieving unit. We cannot pick up one yard or less against a single opponent so far this year, much less sustain drives, improve field position,, or give the defense any time to rest or look at photos of what the other team’s offense is doing. We have to have the most 3 and outs of any team in America.
I am not blaming CSS, just stating how much of a problem this is. It has shut down the offense completely, and has added to any defensive problems we have and limited playcalling. With all the starting experience we return, I just don’t understand how this could have happened and have to think the coach has some solutions he can work with. If we don’t have any answers, I don’t see how we can improve much, except on STs and with turnovers. (To be fair, the pass blocking has been pretty good but without play action being respected, we don’t have many options to throw to. Also in the spirit of fairness, I feel our FBs have not blocked as well as expected)
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Run Blocking = Smashed mouth football. UGA not so much, see last years UA UF games. See this year every game but UT in particular. Our OL gets hit in the mouth and they don’t get mad and hit back they just jump the count, a lot.
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If Calloway were still here our Oline would consist of two freshmen, a walk on, a tuba player and some random guy off the street.
Does anyone not remember our “depth” in ’06? We had 6 healthy scholorship lineman.
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as we pine, i offer the comments of a beaut’ of a former uga coed from lunch today;
“we’re not rebuilding. we’re still unraveling.”
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Senator.
Well, for starters we won the SEC championship TWICE with him and I could pretty much stop there and I really don’t want to do the research to prove you wrong, although I see someone above me has done some of it.
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Kevin,
Good point, although I’d say the Defense was more responsible for those championships.
Our offense, aside from this year, has maintained very good consistency. Fortunately for Callaway and Richt, they had BVG’s D to benefit from.
And no one can dispute the effectiveness of the BVG defenses vs. the WM defenses.
Give me a BVG D with last year’s O and we win the NC.
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Neil Callaway leaving was one of the greatest things that has happened to us in recent years, his offensive lines always underachieved, with the arguable exception of this year Stacy Searels’s lines have overachieved, while the run blocking this year is certainly not great, I think the big difference in the run game is the MAJOR drop off in talent from Knowshon to his successors.
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