The big story today is that Coach Richt is spending more time with the offense and in the quarterback meetings. But after reading his quotes in this post at Hale’s blog, I’m far more intrigued about the opposite – that he’s spending less time with the defense.
“I was actively coaching the quarterbacks in the very beginning. After some time, Mike was coaching them and I was basically an observer. It had been that way, and then I’d say the last maybe two or three years, I was not just sitting in every single meeting. I’d spend more time looking at defense or whatever. Now I’m just going to get in the offensive room where I feel I can add the most value from the knowledge I have of coaching over the years, and I’ll spend time with the defense after scrimmages and after games watching film with them as they grade and things of that nature. Same with the kicking game.”
Let’s summarize. The head coach has decided he can afford to spend less time being involved with the defense that’s being coached by three newcomers, including a new coordinator who’s installing a scheme that’s a fairly radical departure from what he’s had in place since coming to Athens than he did with a bunch that for the most part had been with him from the inception running a scheme that had been in place since 2001. Hmmm. Why do you think that’s the case?
***************************************************************************
UPDATE: David self-kibitzes about his initial post here. He makes some solid points in doing so.
I hate to disagree with David a little bit here, but my sense is that Richt felt he had to involve himself more in the defense the last two or three seasons because it was clear that the results on the field were diminishing. In other words, the change is less about the new guys and more about the old ones. It was something he didn’t want to do, but it was clearly a buck-stops-here approach.
Now that he’s made the change, he’s going to sit back, relatively speaking, and see what the new defensive coaches are able to achieve. In so doing, he allows himself to get back to what he loves the most. As David put it,
Richt said he has not missed a single offensive team meeting or individual quarterback meeting this spring, and that will continue into the season. From what he says, he’s not running the meetings, but he’s getting a firsthand feel for how the meetings are run and how the players respond. He’s closer to the action now, and it really sounded to me more like that’s what it was about for Richt. He missed being there.
I think that’s right. I don’t think it’s about Bobo much at all.
Get The Picture 