This is so good, it almost makes me cry.
… Gone will be the philosophy of directional kicking. Belin plans to use place-kicker Blair Walsh’s strong leg to his advantage. And gone will be the plan to play mostly walk-ons and underused reserves on kick coverage. Belin, a former special teams coordinator at Vanderbilt, wants the best players on the field at all times — including offensive and defensive starters when possible.
“I have a philosophy … of using a guy that does that particular drill or that particular scheme the best, whether he’s a starter or a back up or a young man who’s shown he can develop as a walk-on,” Belin said. “If he’s a guy that can cover and avoid blocks and go make tackles, we need to find a spot for him. I’d love to use all the starters we can, but if those starters aren’t ready to fit that position, I’ll use the next guy who does it the best scheme-wise.”
Sanity. What a refreshing concept.
Get The Picture 
Agreed.. Special teams, including the kick off team, will all be special in a positive way from now on.
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File under: “Frustration and Insanity”
“…fans frustrated by two years of brutal kick coverage — Georgia ranked 117th nationally in kickoff coverage and lost to LSU due in large part to a botched fourth-quarter kickoff…”
“Sanity. What a refreshing concept.”
For the last 2 years we witnessed the insanity of over-coaching, innovative tinkering, complicated schemes, and the debunked philosophy of playing upperclassmen because they know the playbook?
We hope and believe there is a new coaching culture in Athens: simplicity, fundamentals, toughness. Block and tackle like warriors on every play. A “WarDawg” mentality.
Cant wait to see the new Dawgs 2010.
Only 148 days till Sept 4.
Go You Hairy Belin Dawgs!
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I’m really upset.
Now we don’t know where our ‘challenges’ will come from.
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Predict that next ‘challenge’ will be when Belin tries to get the offensive coordinator and the defensive coordinator to let him use their starters on his special teams.
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Talk in April is cheap, but at least its comforting that the cheap talk indicates some logic behind unlike the last two years in Athens. We’ll see if this all translates in the fall, but it’s reassuring to hear our coaching staff use more common sense than in the past.
If nothing else, the last two years in Athens have proven that it should be mandatory that every sports team has an executive position for one of its fans coined by Bill Simmons as the “GM of Common Sense”.
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Y’all seem thrilled with it, but the quote from Belin sounds to me like you will see walk ons on special teams:
“I have a philosophy … of using a guy that does that particular drill or that particular scheme the best, whether he’s a starter or a back up or a young man who’s shown he can develop as a walk-on,” Belin said. “If he’s a guy that can cover and avoid blocks and go make tackles, we need to find a spot for him. I’d love to use all the starters we can, but if those starters aren’t ready to fit that position, I’ll use the next guy who does it the best scheme-wise.”
Sounds more like a political sound bite than any absolute guarantee of excellence. But hell, we couldn’t be any worse than last year, so I am as hopeful as anyone.
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I don’t care if we have walk-ons or not, I just want someone who gives a sh*t about cracking skulls and is taught how to do it.
I still go back to the bowl game when we got an off-sides on a kickoff, and it brings a tear to my eyes. Under the G.A.’s, we had already eschewed the practice of kicking the ball off the tee while the coverage team was 7 yards behind Walsh.
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The Dawgs have had plenty of very good walk-ons, like Haynes and Wall. Not sure an abundance of walk-ons or backup QB was appropriate for the kicking team. But it was the coaching that screwed up the kicking game, not the players. Any school with UGA’s level of talent that finishes #117 was very poorly coached – I can’t see how anyone could argue otherwise.
We echo it every day now, but it’s soooo good to see the new coaches shaking things up. I hope it lights a fire under our returning coaches too – and some of them really needed a wake up call.
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The fact that it took so long to fix this issue is rather troubling
Our D players talk about learning FOOTWORK and how to CATCH INT’s and other issues that 99% of the DC’s in D1 already teach
What a joke we had at DC
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This is an outrage. I’ll not have Warren Belin coming in here and talking about taking the challenge out of kickoffs. That’s not how we play Georgia football. If I could only get coach Richt to answer his phone, I’d put an end to this.
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