I mentioned back in January when Richt was receiving hiring advice/criticism from AJ-C columnists that I’d keep track of how his eventual choice for defensive coordinator stacked up against the three established names that Richt was rumored to have made offers to: Smart, Chavis and Foster.
So, as promised, here’s the first installment (stats via the NCAA):
TOTAL DEFENSE
- Alabama, 12th
- Georgia, 16th
- LSU, 33rd
- Virginia Tech, 45th
SCORING DEFENSE
- Alabama, 1st
- Georgia, 17th
- LSU, 24th
- Virginia Tech, 80th
Yeah, it’s early, but those numbers are nothing to be ashamed of. And Grantham hasn’t publicly freaked out about his players, either.
Get The Picture 
Kirby Smart’s status as his own man is unproven, so I’d put an an asterisk by Alabama’s entries.
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What are you talking about? Kirby Smart is totally ready to be Georgia’s head coach next year once they fire Richt. (No, really, I think this.)
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That Is totally absurd.
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Kirby is a hand puppet. Little Nicky still coaches the damn DB’s and you think he isn’t making the D game plan. Kirby will get a HC job and he will be good because he has been sitting at the feet of the Master. Of course he will not know how to deal with the media since Little Nicky will not let his assistants talk to the press. I would seriously doubt that he will ever get a chance at UGA again.
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The schedules are fairly comparable, too — each team has played one ranked team and one cupcake, more or less.
I’m impressed by how solid Bama’s defense looks despite losing all that talent to the NFL, though as commenters above have pointed out, we still don’t know how much of that is Kirby Smart’s doing and how much is Saban’s. LSU’s numbers are suspicious considering that the UNC and Vandy offenses were among the worst in the nation last year; I respect Chavis a lot, but it’s starting to look like his hiring might end up being a deck-chairs-on-the-Titanic thing in the long run. And while Bud Foster deserves a little slack for a) having to play one of the best offenses in the country in BSU and b) constantly being put in bad situations by miscues on offense and STs, it’s clear that this year’s Hokie D has taken a significant step back from it’s glory days.
End result being, of course, that we got a good coach in Grantham, and despite Marcus Lattimore’s big day, there is no reason to assume that the sky has irrevocably fallen in Athens.
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What are you trying to do here by bringing data and facts into the argument? Raw, unbridled emotion that is not bound by logic and reason is so much more gratifying. I say fire him. You think Bama would put up with such results? If there is not stark improvement by week 3 then he needs to go.
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Bud’s lucky he didn’t take Mark’s offer because if he did and had two bad games like BSU and JMU here, he’d be gone in five or six years.
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haha
+1
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Trust us Kirby Smart can coach a defense or he would not be at Bama. Their record speaks for itself. So can TG and the current D staff.
Here are a few questions some of us alums have.
1. When was the last time we beat a SEC East division team? From 08 thru 10 what is our record in the East? How many games have we finished behind UF in those years?
2. What were the sets we ran inside the 25 yard line at SC and the personnel in those sets?
3. When was the last time we started a season with somewhat of a full roster of starters? How many players have we lost in the past three seasons from the end of one season to the beginning of another due to suspension or dropped from the squad due to violations? What good does it do for the whole team when a player gets full reps and is not there for the games due to suspensions?
In the NFL their season is a little longer and more difficult, but some players think that in college you can get there by shaving that number down.
It was not long ago that if you were a premier team in the SEC East you were probably an easy pick for the Top 10 nationally. So look back a little like three years and see if you can recall or see a game that we lost that has become a demarcation game. For some of us it was when were blown out by Bama in the first half and could not come back.
SC sent a message last week during and after the game that they have the players and the staff to compete at the top in the east. We all know UF has been making that statement for awhile.
We agree with Coach Richt this is a big game. It reminds some of us of the opportunity Coach Dooley had when he took a Dawg squad to Jacksonville and pulled down a ranked UF squad with a Heisman QB with the initials of SOS.
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We think if you are on Coach Grantham’s squad you can not wait until Saturday to play and to light up someone.
We agree Coach Grantham and his position coaches are good. That is why SOS made that post game comment. The errors in the SC game will be taken care of.
But Coach Johnson at SC is good, too. It is interesting to read former NFL QB Gary Danielson’s comments about the Dawg’s defense.
We found his comments about the turnover down on the goal line and the offensive line play somewhat more interesting. To quote, “Their offensive line did a decent job against a powerful front seven that South Carolina has at home. I think if Green had played that game, he would have made the other 10 guys that much better and they would have won that game on the road.”
That is why some of us have complained about the roster and the suspensions. And some of us, like Danielson, do not put the entire blame on the offensive line and their blocking. There is more to the rushing game than that.
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