I keed, I keed.
Seriously, how’d you like that massive data dump that emanated from Butts-Mehre yesterday? We’ve got defensive players lining up every which way, players getting reassigned to new positions, lots of “nothing is etched in stone” talk from the head guy, the ghost of Fabris being exorcised with the new special teams coaching assignments… you name it.
There were even tactical changes announced, for those of us looking to grasp at any post-Martinez straws we can find:
On the secondary:
“It’s going to be a little different philosophy. We were more of a boundary corner and a field corner, not to say that we won’t continue to do that, but the boundary corners in our old scheme were counted on to do a lot of run support. I don’t know if we’ll doing quite as much of that. … We still may go left-right in that regard. I think we’re going to be experimenting a little bit at the corner position. You’d like to have safeties that can play both the strong and the free. That’s ideal really in any defense. …We’re just going to be mixing and matching with these guys a little bit to see who can do what.”
Certainly, any talk-is-cheap caveat you want to toss out about now is appropriate. But one thing that strikes me after reading this…
Georgia’s players aren’t the only ones getting used to all the changes around the football offices. Richt said he has done his best to soak in some new ideas that Grantham and fellow first-year assistants Scott Lakatos and Warren Belin have brought to the table, too.
“It’s a healthy exchange of ideas,” Richt said. “A lot of times you spend a lot of money to fly around to different schools to get details of what’s going on, but how much can you get in a one- or two-day period compared to a guy just being there, living there.”
Richt already has decided to implement two suggestions of his new staff.
First, he’ll be going back to a Monday through Thursday practice schedule, with walk-throughs on Fridays. Last season he had the team practice on Sunday and gave the players Monday off, but he has since reconsidered the plan in light of some input from his new assistants.
Grantham also suggested revamping the daily meeting schedules, so rather than open with special teams work, Richt will address the entire team first, then break off into special teams and segment meetings. Richt said it’s a schedule used in the NFL and makes organizing meetings much simpler…
and this…
–Wondering why Georgia is starting spring practice Thursday before the university goes on spring break and then is resuming workouts on March 16?
Bobo said the main reason is that it allows for extra meeting time.
“We’ll basically do that first practice again when we get back,” he said. “We’re going to install the same thing twice.”
… is that it appears the coaching staff is shedding some of the complacency that dragged it down the past few seasons and starting to think about and question the way the program goes about its business. There are no guarantees that any of this winds up making a big difference, but in my mind it still beats the “when you’ve got enough talent, the rest will take care of itself” attitude that’s characterized Georgia football for a while.
Now if they can just get past the “all he’s ever wanted to do” mindset…
Get The Picture 
Fantastic news on the changes. With the exception of Searels, none of the most recent coaching hires have had the cachet to say “let’s try something different.”
McClendon was even a guy who was brought up in the Georgia Way, as CMR likes to say, which is not always a good thing when hiring assistants.
None of the new guys are particularly beholden to CMR (can we ignore Grantham’s salary?), as they are professionals who have forged reputations elsewhere.
Will these changes work? I don’t know, but I am excited that it shows a new evolution of CMR as head coach.
I get the feeling that laziness had crept into the ranks the last couple of years and CMR was too loyal to call guys out for it. The new guys are young and want to make names for themselves, so I don’t think complacency is going to be as much an issue.
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it appears the coaching staff is … starting to think about and question the way the program goes about its business
Ahh … good old critical thinking. Refreshing …
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A few years ago we heard that Coach Richt spent time in the summer visiting high level executives to learn what he could from their companies successes. That led to Richt giving up the playcalling duties to Bobo. I’d like to think the general idea he learned was that successful chief executives delegate, delegate, delegate.
I know the jury’s still out on Bobo, but my point is that delegating is still the right idea. George Washington had a knack for finding the right people. Lincoln went through how many commanders before Grant? The North won, but the casualty rates in Grant’s army were like Stalin sacrificing 600,000 peasants to give him Berlin. George Marshall, in my opinion the greatest American, civilian or military, of the 20th Century, was comfortable with himself and had the judgment to pass over dozens of men to pick Eisenhower.
Back to football. A few years ago, Richt learned to delegate. After that he had to learn the hard way that the person you delegate to is as important as delegating itself, and sometimes you have to make hard choices. All famous coaches have gone through lulls in their success. If 8-5 is Mark Richt’s low point, his legacy will be sound.
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No question delegation is a necessity of any organization of size, or diverse responsibilities, but the difficult part isn’t just putting someone in charge of a specific discipline, or giving them authority. An effective leader has to stay in close touch with each unit’s progress/plans without usurping the authority he has delegated. It requires some skill, far beyond just the actual “delegation”. In truth, there is never a 100% surrender of accountability by any CEO because he always should reserve the right to intervene and veto.
This doesn’t mean he cannot stay out of that unit’s operational way and let them stand on their own (almost), only that the group is always under his umbrella of influence and responsibility. For instance, letting Fabris try his directional kicking theory was fine, but never altering it when the results didn’t prove him correct, or adjusting that philosophy when the kicker’s leg strength, game situations, or wind factors dictated something different should be done, that is where CMR fell short. Great to delegate, but there comes a time the authority delegated must be diminshed. All “delegates” will not be proven competent; there is nothing wrong with supplying additional training, quietly, behind the scenes so as to not undermine the subordinate in front of his people.
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“all he’s ever wanted to do” seems a lot like “she has a great personality”.
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OT, sorta- Georgia’s basketball team has now beaten Tennessee, Bama, Tech, and now Florida in the same year. Any way Thompkins/Leslie can suit up for football?
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