“Hopefully” being the operative word there.
This is how bad it’s gotten this year – Paul Johnson patronizes the Georgia program and you can’t really argue with him for doing so.
It’s time to man up, gentlemen.
“One thing about the game being exciting is hopefully they are competitive.”
Filed under Georgia Football, Georgia Tech Football
Get The Picture 
“Hopefully, Georgia can maybe be kinda competitive.”
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They won’t.
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I don’t believe PJ was patronizing us at all. I’m not a fan of his, but I didn’t read his remarks that way. Does he want to win? Of course. Does he want to provide us with bulletin board material? Of course not.
He even said that he expects this year’s game to be competitive as well.
And no, I expect our p*ssy coach and team to fold like a cheap suit when the going gets tough. No moxy from these guys whatsoever.
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“No moxy from these guys whatsoever” – –
That’s too broad of a statement. In both the AU and Arky games, we were down two scores early, never wavered, and pulled out victories.
I’ll go with no situational moxy, though, in that we can’t handle momentum swings for s***. Anytime we commit our now infamous stereotypical mistakes (i.e. personal foul, turnover), we are always so down on ourselves that we absolutely have no moxy in those situations. At this point, the fans are now included, too. We have been conditioned to expect that if we see one mistake, we can expect to see 100 more exactly like it.
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We just lost to KY at home for the first time since 1977, in a game where just a tad of moxy would have won it. Lot’s of bad “firsts” these past 4 years.
Sick of it.
Either you are a winner or you’re not. Situational moxy = occasional winner = loser.
We’ll see what this program is made of this weekend. There is nothing on the line to lose but pride. Do we have any left?
Does of Head Coach have any left?
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What we really can’t handle is a lead. Being behind is no trouble, but don’t let us be ahead with any time left because we will be sure to give back 95% of it…unless there’s an entire half left, in which case we’ll give it all back and then some.
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Hope they prove you wrong Damn Negative Nation!
I hope you hope so, too!
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I would hope so, but the weekly BS toll from pressers and whatnot have left me just not caring. I’m watching the GT game at a UGA BBQ basically for the food.
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Hopefully, Tech doesn’t get 400 yards rushing against us because we shall then have a moral victory realtively speaking.
Hopefully, our coach realizes that he’s lucky to have a laid-back fan base and doesn’t coach at LSU as The Hat does, at least presently, and get second guessed on comments…
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Video-Les-Miles-momentarily-possessed-by-clock-;_ylt=AiBhiRqugSeKfllZiVyJtwIcvrYF?urn=ncaaf,204141
Hopefully, we will beat Florida next year.
Hopefully, we can stop daydreaming and return to the reality-based community.
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Hey PJ….I hope it is competitive too…but doubt count on it!
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What he was saying is that rivalries are better when they are competitive and he hoped that this one was. He was simply saying that, hopefully, Tech is finally competitive in the series. They are. Probably more so that we’d like.
BTW: Did anybody notice the look on CMR’s face when Joe threw the last pick? I’ve never seen that look from CMR before. I’d bet if he could go back in time Aaron Murray would have started the Tennessee Tech game.
With all the talk about the state of the program, and there are certainly some serious issues, kickoff coverage probably being the most glaring, this is a competitive football team with a consistent qb. Joe is probably the worst qb we’ve had since Jeff Pyburn who I beleive was the starter the last time we lost to UK in Athens: 36-0. We won a National Title not to long after that. I am as frustrated as anyone else, but other than at DT which is a concern for 2010, I really think that we are going to turn this thing around and quick. Almost all of our best players (Rennie and the senior DT’s being the exceptions) are sophomores or younger.
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“BTW: Did anybody notice the look on CMR’s face when Joe threw the last pick?”
Unfortunately, i missed that shot. It must have been when i was focused on trying to pull my fist out of drywall in my home entertainment and torture centre. Was it similar to any of the Five Stages of Grief facial expressions he used during the Tennessee game?
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No it was different. There was anger with a touch of resignation that said, “I can’t say I’m surprised.” It was like, “I know the guy is terrible, but really? Do he just do that, really!?!” That throw may be the worst single play I have ever seen. Well, since the Joe Pisarcik fumble in 1978, its the worse play I can remember right now. Yes it was worse than Reggie Ball throwing the ball away on 4th down. It was that bad.
There was no rush. The guy wasn’t open. In fact, the play hadn’t even had the chance to develop yet and he threw it right to the UK player. It was inexplicable, inexcusable, but not that unexpected. How do you throw a four yard pass on first down to the wrong team in that situation unless you are just awful at what you do? I don’t think you could have suited up any ambulatory fan in the stadium who would have made that throw.
It is for that reason that I’m not getting too caught up in the “state of the program” issues. It has became apparent in the last couple of years that if you don’t have a qb, you can’t win and we don’t have a qb so why should we expect to win? If you can find a 9 win or a 10 win team out there with a qb is bad as we have I’d like to know, but I’d bet you can’t find one.
Once we get players like Evans and Joe Cox out of the program and if we still stink, then I’ll worry, but I really don’t think it’ll happen.
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The LB jumped the pattern, but it was obvious he was doing so. Cox just made up his mind he was throwing it there–no plan B.
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Was Aaron open on the route beyond King? Haven’t seen a replay, but it looked like he was. If so, not only did Cox miss the LB, he missed the better of the 2 targets WITHIN HIS FIELD OF VISION.
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I want to take a moment to defend Joe Cox. Here is a guy who was 30-0 in his last 2 years of HS. He won 2 state championships, as I recall. He was redshirted, then got beat out for the starting QB spot by another QB who ends up being the #1 pick in the NFL draft. Cox got virtually no playing time (started 1 game in 2006, played in 1 other in 2006) during the 3 years Stafford started, unlike Shockley who typically would play 1 or 2 series every game while Greene was the starter. Even though Cox is a senior, he is really a freshman in game experience. Worse, it has been 4 years since he really has played any significant amount of game football. The kid got thrown into the deep end immediately and never really had a chance. I recall that Stafford made some of the same kinds of mistakes in 2006 (particularly throwing the ball right to a DB or LB) and the fan base was vocal back then about it, but the saving grace was that everyone knew he was a freshman and would get better. Joe Cox doesn’t have that. I really think the fault in this was not getting Cox more game experience in prior years and in scheduling an opener away from home first game against what turned out to be a national power, instead of having at least 1 walkover game to get the kinks worked out. The first is the fault of the UGA coaching staff (particularly the HC and the OC), the second is the fault of the AD. Joe Cox is not the one to blame for either. He seems to me to be trying as hard as he can. In the first half the TV commentators were even talking about how good his ball handling and touch passing were. It’s just when the bad stuff started happening he reverted to the freshman mistakes which he seems to not having gotten out of his system yet.
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You know…As I was halfway through your post, I thought about making a snarky comment along the lines of, “But I thought it was Damon Evans’ fault….”
I’m glad you took care of that for me.
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Paul, for some reason people are giving Damon Evans a pass on this and frankly I cannot understand why. It is AD 101 to NOT send your team to open up on the road. Florida never does. The proper thing to do is have a tune-up game (Florida played 2 this year) before you start your regular schedule. This team was teetering on the brink all season and could have gone either way. The omission of the tune-up game in this case has certainly contributed to the problem, imo.
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That worked out well last year for Georgia, at least until the ‘Bama game. 😉
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Senator, historically (with only a few exceptions) the Dawgs have opened up at home against a walkover team to assess talent and make adjustments before starting the real schedule. Historically (again with a few exceptions) the times they have not done so it has worked to their disadvantage. I point to 2009 as Exhibit “A.”
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Mayor, I don’t know how many years you factor into a historical counting, but here’s what I found going back to 2002:
2002: Opened with Clemson at home; finished 13-1
2003: Opened with Clemson on the road; finished 11-3
2004: Opened with Georgia Southern at home; finished 10-2
2005: Opened with Boise State at home; finished 10-3
2006: Opened with Western Kentucky at home; finished 9-4
2007: Opened with Oklahoma State at home; finished 11-2
2008: Opened with Georgia Southern at home; finished 10-3
A couple of things jump out at me with that list. First of all, I’m not seeing any sort of pattern of the kind you suggest. The worst record of the bunch came in a year that had a cupcake opener; the best came in a year against a rival team. Second, Georgia during that period didn’t play in a SECCG in years with cupcake openers.
I would describe every year on that list with an opener against a decent opponent as being at least generally successful. 2009 will be the first year that doesn’t follow that pattern.
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Senator, you only went back 7 years. My recollection is that there were problems about this during the Goff years and possibly even further back. I will research this more specifically and get back to you.
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Mayor, how is the Goff era relevant to Damon Evans and Mark Richt?
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Senator, please see my post below.
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Senator: No retort to the naked truth?
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Senator, I generally respect your opinion on most things even when I disagree but this time your response to quote Spock, is “illogical.” I have used the entire history of UGA football. In your response you only used 7 years and only 1 of those years had a season where the Dawgs opened a game away. And they won that one. Come on! What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Admit it. My logic is superior to yours on this.
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Sorry for the out of sequence. The thread is malfunctioning.
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Mayor, the difference here is that you’re trying to establish a point, while I’m simply questioning whether the data backs up your hypothesis.
I might also note that you’ve changed your proposition from “the model is to open with a cupcake” to “the model is to avoid opening on the road”. That’s a subtle difference, but it does allow you to avoid having to explain all those seasons when Georgia opened against weak opposition but still had a poor or disappointing year. The problem with that, though, as has been pointed out, is you’re left with a sample size too small to draw any meaningful conclusions from.
Sorry, but I don’t think you’ve made a convincing case here.
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Some truths are eternal, like what goes up must come down.
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That eternal truth is as much a law of parcel deliveries as John Steinback’s confusing and perplexing writing that it was the best of times and worst of times, now get this, at the same time…
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Best of times…worst of times is Dickens, not Steinbeck–from A Tale of Two Cities.
Maybe it is the wisdom of age, and 38 years as a teacher,that helps me to savor the good moments and support my school through the hard times. I see the future in our young Dawgs’ eyes and I like what I see.
Many of you “know it alls” should submit your resumes for the coaching vacancies available this year OR switch allegiance to a “win at all cost” program. Kiffin is looking for some more season ticket holders.
I am proud of the UGA program and the product that CMR turns out that matters in the long run–good, young men of character.
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melodygodawgs –
believe it or not, and i barely do because i was a bill nigh science guy before they banned me from the lab, through my extensive history of studying Cliff Notes i actually knew that one and was trying to make fun of the Detroit Lions head coach in his post-game press conference about Stafford’s return from the dead in the Brown’s game.
The Lions head coach mentioned John Steinback, corrected himself to say John Steinbeck (but he missed the trifecta by not calling him John Steinway) but then blew it by attributing the Call me Dickens quote to Steinbeck.
For the first time, I felt like the smartest guy in the room but then i realized that i was the only person in the room, as usual.
We, as do you, like and appreciate Mark Richt for the purposes you mention; however, some of us have convinced ourselves that while he is a great guy, he does give too much slack to his assistant coaches and players and needs to tighten up the rope. After all, he’s not paid $3,000,000.00 + or – to be a nice guy to the assistant coaches he hires or the players he recruits. Heck, some of us here, not including me, could meet the nice guy qualifications although on second thought, maybe no one here is actually qualified to be a nice guy.
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Senator: I have the information you wanted. UGA has been playing football since 1892, a period of 117 years (not counting this season). In that entire time, UGA has only opened the season on an opponent’s field 17 times. (That says something right there, I think.) Most of the time, they won. (They are, after all, the Georgia Bulldogs, one of the winningest programs in college football history.) It is when they opened up on an opponent’s field and lost that is telling. That happened the following times with the season results in parentheses: 1956 (3-6-1); 1958 (4-6); 1960 (6-4); 1962 (3-4-3); 1964 (7-3-1);1970 (5-5); 1990(4-7). Do you see the pattern here? This is why top programs almost always open up at home with a walkover team. This is why (with the exception of 1970) VD put an end to the practice of opening up on the road when VD showed up as Coach in 1964. Have there been exceptions? Have the Dawgs opened on the road and gone on to win that game and have a good season? Yes. But clearly there is a correlation between opening up on the road and losing, then going on to have a bad season. By the way, there has been 1 tie on the opponent’s field in an opening game–UGA tied the Citadel in the early 1900’s and went on to a 1-4-1 season.
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By the way, there were a few times that the Dawgs played the first game of the season at a neutral site (they almost always won). P.S. Did you know that UGA played FLA first game of 1904 in Macon? Beat them 52-0. We played them in Savannah, too. Maybe we ought to explore playing at a “neutral” site that is a little more neutral for us. Just a thought.
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“UGA has only opened the season on an opponent’s field 17 times. (That says something right there, I think.)”
Yes, it says that this is far too small a sample to actually prove anything, and that you are trying to use inductive reasoning to produce a truth.
“Most of the time, they won. (They are, after all, the Georgia Bulldogs, one of the winningest programs in college football history.)”
Right. Most of the time they won. Right there you can stop, really. But you don’t–you go on to claim that there is and undefined “correlation” to a losing record the rest of the year. But how can you know? It’s one program that may have lost those games because they just weren’t any good, among other things, or maybe the other team was just better (did you look up THEIR records?). You can’t use inductive reasoning to produce a truth:
We always open the season on the road and lose.
Therefore, we will always have a losing record.
See? No worky.
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Mayor, no offense, but this is pretty weak beer you’re offering.
The ’56 and ’58 games came during the long run of bad football that characterized the twilight of Wally Butts’ career (remember the Drought against Tech?) and ’62 came in the middle of a three game losing streak that cost that head coach his job. Those teams didn’t have losing seasons because they opened with a loss on the road; they lost because they flat out sucked.
You don’t have much of a sample size to go on here. And, again, I still don’t see the relevance of playing the Citadel in the early part of the last century to the current regime.
Bottom line: until this year, MR’s teams when they’ve opened
on the roadagainst decent opponents have done just fine. [NOTE: My mistake, Mayor – I was responding to your initial point about opening against cupcakes as a tuneup.]LikeLike
..and in the absence of truth, you have to use a huge sample size to produce a rule.
You know, like twelve games or whatever over 50 years isn’t really a huge sample size. That’s called “anecdotal.”
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stafford made up for his freshman mistakes by having enough talent to make some great plays.
he won some games for us as a freshman. outside of arkansas, i don’t really think that you can say the same for joe. and he’s definitely lost a bunch of them for us this year. keeping the defense on the field the whole game with 3 and outs, throwing picks when we need momentum back in our favor, throwing pick-6’s, etc.
joe has been a KILLER on our team this year. it really sucks.
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Former Redcoat, to quote Bill Clinton: “I feel your pain.” The first thing a football team needs to be successful, according to Coach Darrell Royal “is a QB who won’t beat you himself.” So we got a QB who broke all the HS passing records in NC and won 2 state championships, back to back. Whose fault is it if that kid, when a senior, makes freshman mistakes? I don’t think it is the kid’s fault, is all I’m saying.
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This is in response to the Senator’s post above but is out of sequence because of a thread failure. You missed the entire point of my analysis, Senator. That point is: Don’t start the season on another team’s home turf. Start the season at home with a cupcake. When they don’t do that and lose the first one, they tend to have a bad season. Nothing scientific about it–just reporting the facts. Look it up yourself if you want.
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thanks, mayor. i’m disappointed in joe’s play this season, but, like you, i don’t think it’s fair to joe or our coaches to conclude from it that he was never a legit prospect in the first place who not only shouldn’t have been playing this year but should never have been on the team (which i what i’ve heard from a lot of people).
when i look at joe’s body of work, i don’t see anything wrong with him as a more-than-serviceable sec starting qb that a meaningful numbers of snaps in game play the last two years wouldn’t have cured.
let me see if i can turn this around on willie. . . . joe didn’t get enough game time the last two years in part because we were having to out-score so many teams to win.
there. that wasn’t so hard.
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+1.
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14 interceptions with two more games to go, and an INT in every game but two (one of which was an FCS team). Stafford only threw 13 INTs as a true freshman.
Shockley had five in 2005. Greene had 5, 11, 8, and 9 (reverse order).
It’s fair to assume Cox gets another two INTs this year. That alone is what has been difficult with Joe.
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Problem is, Cox appears to have regressed along the season. He was improving game by game for the first four or so, and then he started making new mistakes on top of committing his old ones at a higher frequency.
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“… trying to pull my fist out of drywall in my home entertainment and torture centre [sic].”
+1 *changes pee-soaked pants*
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Thanks…I misspell enough words b/c i haven’t figured out how to deploy spelchek on this, but i do think ‘centre’ was correct because i do have English furnishings in the entertainment and torture room such as one couch, equipped with a specially designed faux Tower of London leather restraint strap so i cannot easily escape, one foot-stool replica from the Elizabethan Era and one Lazy-Boy from the Rooms-To -Go Era sans anti-escape strap.
When i have had inflicted enough masochistic punishment on myself in the room, which over this season is half the time when watching us play who’s got the ball, I sometimes bellow for my wench, Susan, to bring some ale, other stuff and English-style food like hogshead cheese and ruffled Golden Flakes to me and my no-good friends in my ‘centre.’
She, of course, ignores my request but not before bellowing some unsolicited comments back at me such as, “You and your no-good friends are too lazy because you’ve smoked two joints before you smoked two joints before you smoked two joints before, you self-centred assho!e.”
We try to reply in unision, “How do you expect us to watch this team without getting high?” She ignores, someone stumbles out to go get two more to enjoy in the centre to get ready for the visual torture that is our kickoff coverage and to prepare for the audio-torture from the Davie Jones Locker combo…
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As “crappy” a QB as everyone says Cox is, has anyone else noticed that he only needs 4 more TD passes to tie Staff for the all-time UGA record?
Joe’s hot and cold. I can’t think of anyone who threw a better deep ball in the past 20 years at UGA except for Greene and Zeier, he just seems to crap his pants at times. Not knowing when to heave it in the seats or just eat it has been his biggest problem. Richt and Ealey both admitted that it was Ealey’s fault on the fumble. Branden Smith’s fumble? Can’t blame that on Joe, or Willie for that matter. The pick to the DL was inexcusable. He was under pressure and should’ve just taken the sack.
I love Joe Cox and his story, but it hasn’t had the fairly tale ending we all hoped for. I agree we probably would’ve been okay taking our lumps with Murray under center after the UF game, but it’s too late for that now.
Solve the T/O problem and we’ll give Tech a run.
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If Joe threw the deep ball like Stafford, Shockley, or Carter we’d be 3-8. Yes he can throw a nice 9 route, but you have to be able to do more than that to win. Joe’s biggest fault isn’t his arm, its his head. He’s just a very, very poor decision maker under pressure. And I don’t buy the experience angle at all. Its not that he hasn’t learned how to play qb. Obviously, from practice the coaches had a lot of confidence in him. He is perfectly capable of doing the job until things get hard and he just unravels. Joe is the anti-Brady. Some guys have ice in their veins and things slow down for them under pressure and some guys just freak out under that pressure and the head and body get all disconnected. That is Joe.
That won’t be Aaron Murray. I guarantee it. This will make you feel better. Watch these clips of Murray as a HS junior. Watch how he keeps his head downfield. Watch how he feels the pocket and moves around. See how accurate he is from the pocket and on the run. There is hope on the horizon and his name is Aaron Murray.
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Thanks for this, Derek. I hope everyone on this blog watches this.
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P.S. I had the opportunity to watch Eric Zeier play numerous times in HS and Aaron Murray reminds me a lot of Zeier.
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Plus, all accounts are that this kid is an uber-competitor. I think we would have seen him earlier this year but he was hurt so the RS stuck.
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Notice the tight, short windup and quick release on every pass. Even on the long balls, no chicken-wing motion from this kid.
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I think what we are all so frustrated about is the fact that Joe will throw interceptions to the opposing defense when there is no Georgia receiver within 10 yards of the player making the interception. How many times have we seen him throw a ball into not one, not two, but three, or even four defenders with no red jersey in sight? Just poor decision making.
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Staff also had Knowshon Moreno (eg a competent running game) all of last year. We didn’t have a competent running game this year until about 2 games ago, and even then they are not on the Knowshon level…yet. We’ve had to rely on the pass more this year, as AJ is/was our most valuable–at times, only–viable offensive weapon. So on the macro level that record (if he gets it), while good for him, really doesn’t say anything.
And throwing the deep ball? Stafford comes to mind as having a pretty good one, and Shockley had a pretty good deep throw to.
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Hale suggests on his blog that he melts down when he presses–lots of defensive pressure, a big mistake, etc., and things get out of hand. “A fifth-year senior making freshman mistakes,” he calls it.
I’m inclined to agree with that assessment.
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In an unrelated story. Here’s a potential assistant coach for us. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4678227
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OC? i’m not sure we’d want him… outside of DII he’s unproven in all kinds of bad ways.
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Did anyone come out of mourning long enough to see what Stafford did on Sunday? 5 TD’s, even if it was against the Browns, and he escaped from the team Dr. to throw the game tying TD on the last play of the game. The highlights of that game were incredible.
http://detroit4lyfe.com/articles/detroit-lions/i-dont-think-you-understand-how-tough-matthew-stafford-really-is.html
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Man, that is great. Not only that, I love the link to “The Wayne Fontes Experiment,” a great name for a blog in the village of Detroit.
Stafford is one tough SOB. We knew it from the Kentucky game his freshman year when he got his head and face smashed in but that was nothing compared to what he got on Sunday. That looked like a kill shot had it been laid on anyone else and to me it looked like it should have crushed him flat. It’s unbelievable he came back in the game. Wonder what Culpepper was thinking when Stafford came back in.
Which leads me to another thought, how in the world could we not win the SEC East when he was…, but never mind, that may have been covered before…
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Coaching and circumstances. The coaching issues that coincided with the Stafford era have been well documented. But (and this might have a little to do with coaching, as well) during the three years Stafford was here, we were never a complete team on the offensive side of the ball (last year was close), particularly as a result of inconsistent line play. I think we can all admit that Stafford, and by extension Moreno as well, made the line look a lot better the past couple of seasons than it would have otherwise.
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After the game, Schwartz said of Stafford’s play:
“It was like Mark Twain’s classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, he came, he saw, he conquered”
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Enough, already, with the terribly wrong literary allusions. Harper Lee, not Mark Twain, wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. Did you graduate from UGA? Seriously? I almost feel like I am reading Corrine Brown’s postings.
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Mel:
Oops, sorry about that.
I’m just hopin CMR gives the team Roosevelt’s famous “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech this week in prepartion for the Tech game.
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Forget it, he’s rolling.
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melodygodawgs,
As you may have noticed, this is not the Georgia Review. Around here the general theme is that it takes a village with a really big tent over it to raise idiots like us. And as far as Rep. Brown with subtitles is concerned, she is so much better at it than the rest of us are that all the Go Gator down here try to disclaim responsibility for her too but can’t…
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C’mon, man, who made that video? That was “gussly” after “Percy Harvey,” not “gusty.” Jeez, get it right!
I never tire of hearing her say “corch” or “Urban Myers.” God love America.
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While we have digressed defensively over the last few years, our offense has actually improved with Bobo calling plays. This is especially so in the red zone. Our kicker is no long the annual leading SEC scorer. He might not be perfect, but Bobo it doing a pretty good job under all the circumstances he’s faced.
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+1 Derek.
We’ve also eliminated the putrid stretch play from the playbook.
However, I think our offesnsive coaches are unaware of something I call the “game clock”. An avg team (and we are almost avg) understands that football can be a game of keep away. Holtz was notorious for this in his SC days. He knew his team lacked talent so he milked every offensive series as long as possible. To wit, if the GC was running, the QB would never snap the ball before the clock was under 5 seconds. CMR never did this and Bobo doesn’t seem inclined to so either. It’s understandable that CMR doesn’t understand this. FSU dominated his entire tenure. And he really hasn’t had the combo of bad D, ST and O in 1 season until now. And yes, I know that when you are trailing you don’t bleed the clock. But we had a good lead w/ UK and they weren’t even a good UK team.
I think MR and Bobo should’ve been wise enuff to recognize the limitations of this team and try to limit what they are asking of them. In fact, they are paid lots of $$ to do just that. Just not sure if the Memo about limitations of our 2009 Dawg’s has reached Butts-Mehre yet.
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I don’t think Joe Cox is a horrible QB, I don’t wish the guy ill. Though I’ve certainly cussed him a lot this year during games I just felt sorry for him the other night watching his Senior night game turn into a nightmare. From my admittedly unknowledgable opinion, Joe Cox just isn’t that physically gifted: he has a rather weak arm, a slow release, and he seems to lock in on a receiver.
The “problem” I have with Joe Cox, and the coaching staff by extension, is that in college football, when you’re sold the bill of goods that a not all that physically gifted 5th year senior is your best chance to win, said QB is generally a caretaker type that makes good decisions, doesn’t take stupid chances, and protects the ball…the type that doesn’t LOSE games for you.
That was NOT Joe Cox this year. I don’t know whether that falls more on Cox himself, since he does seem to have a feisty attitude, or the coaching staff for asking him to do more than they should have. But the fact is, Joe Cox did lose games for us this year with poorly thrown balls and bad decisions. Again, I don’t totally blame him and maybe don’t really give MUCH of the blame to him at all, but for whatever reason, a lot of whether we won or lost games this year was on HIS shoulders, and he came up short in several games.
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I can remember leaving the stadium after losing to South Carolina in Richt’s first season and thinking that we had hired a great coach. Even in a loss, you could see it. With Richt we could score so fast. Richt was always going for the jugular. If he got the ball with just a few seconds left before the half, he went for a score and usually got it. We put so many teams away early in the game. Remember how we overwhelmed Alabama in the first half at Sanford Stadium, and likewise, overwhelmed UT in Knoxville. We either blew teams out, or worst case scenario, lost a nail biter. We never got embarrassed.
The trademark of Richt’s teams, as least for me, has always been how much the team improved over the course of the season. We were like a locomotive. I remember watching us play Arkansas in the dome and it was like we had extra players on the field. We were so fast and fundamentally sound. I have not experienced any of these feeling the past few seasons. I am trying to avoid writing in past tense, but it seems appropriate.
The decline in our defense became noticeable to me in 2005, when we slowly got worse as the season progressed, and Auburn and WVU put up some big numbers. Certainly, most every other major college coach would have made staff changes after the debacle of 2008. We gave up far more points than could be attributed to just injuries. Tony Barnhardt wrote a column earlier this season about how top tier coaches like Saban and Mack Brown are quick to change coordinators. That being said I can also see the benefit of continuity of a coaching staff. But 4 years of Martinez was enough. Richt should have pulled the trigger last offseason.
I heard Richt tell Colin Cowherd in a radio interview that one of the biggest misconceptions is that coaches remain static – that coaches do not improve or decline. Fans just think a coach is either good or bad. Richt strongly disagreed and told Cowherd that he is always trying to get better as a coach and self-evaluating.
Richt needs to take these words to heart and really evaluate this program and its staff after the season. We can all relate and admire his loyalty. He is a good man. Unfortunately, I fear that having the traits of a snake like Saban might be more suited for competing successfully in the current SEC.
Final thought. We are all UGA fans and intelligent enough to support the greatest team and university. As much as I may disagree with Texas Dawg or Daniel, if I met them, I would just smile and shake their hands. We are all friends here.
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+1, Scott. The fundamentals are missing right now on both sides of the ball and special teams. We need to start from scratch in Bowl practice (Hopefully) and in the offseason. Get back to basics and back to coaching properly.
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I honestly don’t know what to expect this Saturday, and I have the largest range of possibilities I have ever had. Surprisingly, I feel it is equal between we win by 10 to lose by 24. This past weekend will have our guys as ready as they can be, and GT’s defense can be had. We are pretty solid against the inside run, and lousy on the perimeter. We can sell out against the outside run and make them beat us passing, risky, but gives us the best chance.
All you negatrons don’t laugh, FSU and Wake pushed them to the end, and Miami wiped up with them. I refuse to go into any contest and concede. I am convinced some almost hope we lose just to make them believe there is nothing right at UGA, that isn’t the way I roll. I am not from Missouri, but they will have to “show me”. Go Dawgs!!
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“All you negatrons don’t laugh, FSU and Wake pushed them to the end, and Miami wiped up with them.”
Clemson should have beaten Tech too at the start of the season. After Auburn and until the last interception v. Kentucky, I knew we were going to win out. I don’t think we blow up in two straight. Other people must feel that way too because the spread is only 7 between a 10-1 at home against a 6-5 us.
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The key, obviously, is stopping the run. Our run D has actually been pretty good this year, on the whole. If we can do that and not have any pass coverage breakdowns (they really have only 1 good receiver), I think we got a good chance. Everyone be optimistic. GO DAWGS!
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While I agree stopping the run will be important that is not the key to this game. The absolute key to this game is to not lose the turnover battle.
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Joe is just an innocent bystander to a train wreck. We were all pulling for him and he is guilty of just trying too hard. He was able to bring us back in a few games but he was just like Matt in that he would try to do some things that were just not possible for him to do. How many SEC QBs are there with a degenerative shoulder problem so bad that he could not throw everyday? Uh 1 ours. Joe could throw the long ball with the best of them but he could not put the mustard on the short to medium ball and that got him in trouble. That and the fact that Bobo thought that this shoulder thing went away on Saturday so calling 30-40 passes wouldn’t be too much for Joe. Joe got worst later in games as he tried harder to overcome his weak shoulder.
It’s the coaches that can’t take a perfectly healthy Logan Gray and make him better in two years of practice either because they didn’t try or they knew that Joe by paying his dues was going to start come hell or high water (see Joe TIII). Joe Cox unlike Joe T managed to stay healthy. So thanks Joe and let’s try to not recruit any more QB’s named Joe.
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I know this is sort of off the point, but what has happened to Montez Robinson?
Last seen being asked what he was thinking by stoic Mark Richt as Montez was coming out of the game following a sort of personal foul.
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I didn’t see any bulletin board material from Johnson.
Having coached for years in one the nation’s highest profile rivalries (Army v. Navy) I think he understands the importance of the rivalry to alumni, students and supporters. His club will be ready.
But the good news is that I believe the Dawgs have one good game left in them. Its obvious that both offenses match up favorably with the other teams defense. So then what it comes down to is converting in the RZ and turnovers. The Auburn game showed what we can do if we don’t turn it over. I think we’ll get our share of points. If the turnover bug bites Tech for a change, I think we can win this thing.
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