The new kid on the block has some big shoes to fill.
Richt said that Warren Belin will coach the kickoff-coverage team, Bryan McClendon will handle the punt return and block units, and John Lilly will coordinate special-teams meeting and practice schedules. All of those roles previously were handled by Jon Fabris, fired in December.
The good thing is that there’s nowhere to go but up.
Get The Picture 
Funny, I just saw this article and was going to suggest you look into it further. However, when I come to your site you have already posted it (nice).
Here is my question: How can the punt return/block units coached by this man be pretty dang succesful when the kickoff-coverage was soooooo bad.
I mean I know the whole “He was stuborn argument”, but is it really that simple. If that is the case based on the results he was 2/3 succesful and 1/3 crazy.
reipar
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Well on most occasions the punt return team was ok unless you want to count the number of times we got a fake punt run on us because we would rush one man. Seriously, West VA killed us with this and SCU made it look easy last year.
Oh yea and the QB fair catch was not real genius either. The only thing that Fab could do was get them to block some kicks but then again we did that in the bowl game without his help.
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I am sure you are right about our punt return team, but weren’t we in the top 35 for the last three years (including two in the top 25) on average return. I imagine one could dig into it further and look the the number of fair catches (that may not have caught), or the number of punters we faced that were worth a damn, etc, but it still seems to me that we had better (much better actually when you look at the numbers) punt return team.
I cannot find any stats that speak to how many fakes worked against us v. how many other teams had them against them. I do know there is generally a risk v. reward that comes into all decisions like this, but based on our ranking in returns and the number of fake punts I can recall (was WVU Fabris or another coach as our defensive staff was different back then?) and the ones you mention it seems like a more tan fair trade off.
So I guess my point remains that it seems that punt return/block was far better than average and kickoff-coverage seems like it was coached by someone with no idea what a football looks like. How is this possible unless he was: 1) riduclously stubborn; or 2) Better than we realize. Guess we will find out pretty soon.
reipar
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“Seriously, West VA killed us with this and SCU made it look easy last year.”
Don’t forget Vandy!
I think situational awareness regarding fake punts falls squarely on Richt, especially since he has given up play calling duties. He’s supposed to be the “big picture” person now during games. It’s should be a great role for him, but Richt seems to keep missing the big picture, with the result that the coaching staff looks dumbfounded no matter how many times an opponent runs the fake on 4th and 4 from the 45.
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I feel good about this already!!!!!
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All very good choices, especially a LB coach handling the kick off coverage team. Good open field tacklers with speed like LBs &DBs are needed.
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I know that Belin was “Special Teams” coordinator at Vandy for a while, but don’t know what his role was last year.
FWIW, Vandy was 4th in the conference in kickoff coverage, with only 3 touchbacks, while UGA was 8th in coverage, despite leading the league by a wide margin with 17 touchbacks.
I think that the G.A. coached KO coverage team pretty much showed us the problems we have had. I stood up and applauded when we got the offsides penalty in the bowl game, because throughout most of the last couple of years, our coverage team has been 5-7 yards BEHIND THE KICKER when the ball left the tee.
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