Obviously, we can file this in the temporary talk-is-cheap file until we see some results on the field, but it doesn’t sound like Joe Tereshinski’s clueless about what needs to be done on his end of things.
“Georgia used to be known that in the fourth quarter, they won,” Tereshinski said. “We’re going to press and challenge these kids every day to overcome. They’re going to have to overcome.”
There’s a lot to unpack from his comments. (I’m particularly curious about the position coaches “who have called me to support this decision.”)
Emerson’s right that while it all sounds wonderful, an ounce of skepticism is warranted until we see results. But I’m curious to hear from those of you who are furious about the decision: did Tereshinski hit the target here? Would you feel better if someone from outside the program was hired and said the same things?
************************************************************************
UPDATE: MaconDawg hits on the big picture issue here.
Get The Picture 
Coach T is Intense. I have no doubt he will be succesful.
LikeLike
Coach T.. Old school. I love it. GATA!!
LikeLike
I, personally, am more impressed with this quote:
“First of all, I have a pretty fresh perspective of our strength program,” said Tereshinski, who on Thursday was put in charge of the program, but has worked at Georgia since 1982. “When you know what’s going on, when you know your kids, you know the SEC … you know what it’s gonna take.”
He’s got a great point.
LikeLike
Is that, then, a shot at Van Halenger? Did he not know what was going on, not know the kids, and not know the SEC?
Until then, I think “same ole same ole”
LikeLike
More and more this is starting to look like the University of Tennessee, circa 2004, only difference being that Fulmer had won a national title and was generally considered a shady guy who won the job through ill-gotten means, but was also an alum, versus Richt who has not won a national title but is a peerless human being.
There has been an insistence on the “Georgia Way” for several years now, while simultaneously, the “Georgia Way” has produced diminishing returns.
One starts to wonder if the true definition of the “Georgia Way” is to hire yes-men who will do the job cheaply and keep their heads down and run into battle, even if they don’t have guns.
I am not furious about the decision, but I am a little frustrated at the way the situation has been handled. Coach Richt said on Monday night that there would be no staff changes, and then on Wednesday, there is a staff change.
Maybe Coach Richt was told that this was something that was going to happen on Wednesday? If that means what I think it means, then I do not see the program being much more functional next year. Sounds like Coach Richt may be approaching lame duck status.
LikeLike
No. And he wasn’t a lame duck about the decision, either.
LikeLike
Richt said he was not contemplating any staff decisions, not there weren’t any coming. If he had already made the call and was waiting to talk to halenger about it he could safely answer no.
LikeLike
Original, why do you cheer for Georgia? It just doesn’t seem like much fun to you.
If it works, cheer like crazy.
If it doesn’t, Richt will pay the price and we’ll go from there.
Either way, I’ll be in my red pants on the stands in ’11 and ’12…because cheering for my Dawgs is fun for me. It just makes me sad that it’s not fun for you.
LikeLike
i was not furious w/ the news yesterday, but was struck by the oddness of it all. longtime coach who is obviously tight w/ the head man gets reassigned so asst can take over. you wonder how effective a s&c staff it was if you have such opposing views on how to run the program. and the quote about other staff is just not something you say publicly i don’t think. it sure doesn’t make richt look like a great pro-active manager. like the d, did he wait til things had deteriorated so badly it was no longer defensible to a casual observer? i don’t know how anyone really knows at this point. lack of conditioning brings lack of focus, which has been the really growing pervasive problem the last 3 years. but it’s not like we were only unfocused in the 2nd half of games. bottom line, it’s something for us to talk about since we are 6-6 and it’s still 274 days until next year.
LikeLike
Strength and conditioning is, no doubt, huge. However, a systemic attitude change must take place for all of the training to really make a difference. You have to want it. You have to really, really want it. And as a coach, you cannot take failure as acceptable.
If Coach T can fire guys up AND get them big and strong, great. If you have ever watched the games closely and seen him on the sideline, you would wonder who in the world that old man is on the sideline that is so engaged in every play.
I also take this as a positive: Coach T is older, no doubt. But, he works the video system. If he does that, he must be technologically advanced. They don’t use the old reel to reel and clicker anymore. Heck, my VCR, er, DVD player still flashes midnight and I am a spry 40 year old.
LikeLike
One piece of electrical tape will make you look technologically smarter, imo.
LikeLike
You’re dead on, Brad. Our video system is one of the most advanced in college football. And it didn’t get that way because Joe T “DIDN’T” make sure he was up on all the latest techno gadgets. He’ll put in the hours and research it takes.
I’m convinced that there are going to be more hires, too. I think one of our biggest problems is that our strength staff is too small.
LikeLike
“- Tereshinski, who has been the video coordinator, said they’ll start recording the player’s weight room work, and using that to help improve their performance.”
What the hell? I go to the gym once a month and I record my my weight room work. How did we not do this before?
LikeLike
I don’t know if I’d have told that Spence.
LikeLike
+ 1
LikeLike
Well it was a lie anyway.
I do run a 4.24 though.
LikeLike
I am assuming they mean record with video while you thought they meant record how much weight and how many reps on a piece of paper or something?
LikeLike
Yes.
LikeLike
Possible implication that players weren’t being honest in reporting their workouts.
LikeLike
GATA Coach T!
LikeLike
Well it is what it is and time will tell if indeed this was a great choice.
Obviously, Coach T has deep roots in Georgia Football and understands what it takes to win, but it does beg the questions…..What are these other SEC schools doing that Georgia is not? and…….Will a Bulldog insider who has never worked outside of Athens, be as knowledgeable as someone that may have worked with other football programs?
All we can do is hope that Coach T, is not another great former Bulldog mistake.
LikeLike
He already said he was talking to people outside of the program.
LikeLike
I wasn’t furious about the decision, but I was deeply puzzled about the fact that Richt finally made a change in that program and didn’t take the chance to bring in a truly fresh perspective. I’ll take what all of the former players are saying at face value, I’m willing to buy the idea that he’s an intense worker and motivator, etc. But how fresh can your perspective be on the strength and conditioning program when you’ve been an employee of UGA athletics since 1982? This isn’t a knock on Tereshinski or anyone else, but any perspective you have on virtually any topic, but certainly anything football-related is going to be colored by what Georgia’s done if you’ve never been anywhere else besides Georgia. Well, there appears to be a consensus on this board that the S&C program was slipping in some way, whether it be dramatically or only slightly. What fresh perspective can you offer when you were in the room when it started to slip and apparently weren’t a part of the solution, at least, not a big enough part to actually get it solved?
LikeLike
+1. That’s my concern. CMR could start the presser by saying – ‘After a nationwide search, interviewing dozens of highly qualified candidates, and exhausting every effort to get the absolute best person we could possibly hire, we decided to switch positions with my buddy from down the hallway.’
LikeLike
After all the complaining about losing top talent to other schools, would you really want Richt to spend all that time and energy doing a overly-exhausting job of looking for a new guy when everything Joe T Jr. says sounds great? Give the man a chance.
And like many others have said, if you’ve seen these guys in the dining halls, it’s no wonder they’re not in top physical shape. Eating all of that crap, while very delicious makes you very tired and sluggish. From hearing Van Hal talk, he seems it wasn’t as concerned about conditioning as he needed to be. Cleaning up the eating is about the best thing I could have heard any coach from anywhere in the country say.
Bring in Cromwell, bring in Drew, and bring in Rome and you’ve got great talent to go into your new S&C program. Win-win.
LikeLike
Reminds me of that tweet Pollack sent to Jeff Owens, last fall, about staying away from Five Guys and eating salads… or something like that.
LikeLike
+1,000 on the nutrition.
If he can crack down on that, the workouts will get better.
I cut out soda and lost 10 pounds and I’m several years removed from college-age.
If they can get in a nutritionist who’s read Tony Gonzalez’s book and gets the players sticking closely to that, while working their asses off in the weight room, we will improve.
Would love to see them get some outside ideas too (especially if they figure out what kind of cardio training Oregon does to play at that tempo.)
LikeLike
I’ve made this comment elsewhere, but I’ll repeat it because it addresses your concern.
I’ve been working the same job for more than a decade now. Even though I don’t agree with everything my bosses (present and past) have told me to do, I still did it. But I assure you that if I was put in charge, I would do things quite a bit differently.
I would assume that things might be the same for Coach T. I say give the man a chance. But then again, I don’t post on the AJC. (That is not a knock against you, by the way.)
LikeLike
I agree that the comment about position coaches calling and offering their support is a good sign. I imagine that Searles was the first to call and beg him to get his guys moving in the right direction. From my viewpoint, this portion of the program has been killing us the most and I welcome any change.
LikeLike
This is what gets me:
—
What the players eat “will be closely-monitored,” he said. The staff will have graduate assistants at meals, and will record what players are eating. They’ll weigh players every day, and test their body fat.
—
So this is a new practice in Athens and around BM?
Sweet God. My local YMCA does this for the Silver Sneakers, a collection of kind spirited senior citizen walkers. Kind as they are, the Silver Sneakers are not known for the game faces or conditioning.
No wonder why, despite our embarrassment of talent in 2008, Saban and Meyer ripped our living guts out.
They were high in saturated fats.
LikeLike
It’s always go time for the Silver Sneakers
LikeLike
I was happy to see that we are going to make use of a nutritionist. I cannot believe the guts many of our lineman have. Think about it. You are at an SEC school, an elite athlete, you exercise daily, AND only 20 years old, but, you appear to be 35 year old chef.
LikeLike
“You are at an SEC school, an elite athlete, you exercise daily, AND only 20 years old, but, you appear to be 35 year old chef.”
Hahahahahahahahahaha
LikeLike
And we ain’t talkin’ Rachel Ray of Sandra Lee either.
LikeLike
Clearly CLEARLY, our problems are b/c of Coach Van.
Casper and Jasper Brinkley were 3 star guys from Thompson GA who went to Sakerlina cuz Georgia wouldn’t take both (both in the NFL now).
Akeem Hebron is a 5 star guy from Maryland and hasn’t sniffed a significant play in 5 seasons.
Obviously this is Coach Van’s fault.
They know how to weigh guys and tell em to do power cleans at Sakerlina.
LikeLike
Mike, I don’t think you’ll find a single Georgia fan anywhere who is pinning things entirely on Coach Van.
Do you think the Strength and Conditioning program was performing so well as to not merit any change?
LikeLike
The S &C complaint has been season long by some. I have know idea if we are good or bad at it, I defer to CMR that he felt things needed to change.
The larger point is that the reason our defense sucks is because our defenders suck. This is the least talented group we’ve trotted out on the pitch since 1995 0r 1996. Houston is great. Boykin is pretty good. Tree WILL be amazing. The other guys are just meh.
know too many athletes to believe that a S&C coach is the determinative factor in making a guy go from blah to bamf. Georgia is not correctly identifying talent.
LikeLike
And yet a lot of our guys were just as highly recruited by other big schools as they were by us. I’m not saying that Georgia is always great at identifying talent, but lots of other schools have just as many busts as we do, we’re just not aware of them because we don’t pay as much attention to them as we do to our own guys. Just go and troll a Bama or UF board sometime to hear the complaints about the same misindentification of talent.
LikeLike
How can anyone defend this limp, uninspired non-move? Richt’s sensorium is clouded, his level of consciousness is bordering on comatose, and he has severe retrograde amnesia. He is unaware of his surroundings and has difficulty organizing his thoughts. Speech monotone and lifeless. Events of the external world have not been processed in nearly a decade. Floating in his narcotic-induced dream-world, his latest move proves that he just doesn’t give a sh*t anymore.
Over-generalizing the lesson of the Tech game and taking it to its logical conclusion, he has decided that lid-blowing success depends not on giving up on just one play, but giving up on the entire program. I have refrained from writing what has been painfully obvious for years now: The man does not appear to be very smart. Perhaps, however, the issue isn’t below-average intelligence or a closed head injury as I’ve often thought, but a severe and disabling addiction to sedatives. Nearly every decision he makes is poor, and the more our beloved program has been exposed to this slow-learning cadaver, the worse we’ve gotten. Please, Catherine, administer the smelling salts, so that Richt can be aroused enough to admit to his Higher Power the exact nature of his wrongs and remove his defects of character.
I can’t look anymore…it’s just too embarrassing.
LikeLike
Yesterday, you called him a thief. Now he’s a drug addict. Very nice.
LikeLike
This is some inspired trolling. Well done.
LikeLike
Though, you should’ve closed with your choice for new head coach. The more ridiculous, the better. VanGorder, maybe?
LikeLike
Like hell, Jim AND John Harbaugh.
LikeLike
Herschel for Head Coach!
LikeLike
How about Bernie Madoff or Tyrone Biggums? 😉
LikeLike
Al Golden. Definitely Al Golden.
LikeLike
Don’t you have several dozen of your rejected novels lying around somewhere in your mother’s basement you can pleasure yourself over? BTW, if you conducted even a scintilla of research, you would know that Mrs. Richt’s name is Kathryn.
LikeLike
http://dogbytesonline.com/tereshinski-intends-to-take-back-fourth-quarter-39772/
This quote seemed like a pretty fair rebuttal to the argument that we should have gone outside:
“I see every single play that our guys do during practice at least four or five times,” he said. “So I have a pretty good understanding of our team, our individuals, and so no, I don’t agree that somebody from the outside should have been brought in.”
LikeLike
Coach Van knew them, too. Familiarity with the players means you’ll do a great job? Often, coaches succeed when they go to a new place where they don’t know the kids. Why is that? I’m not saying that Coach T won’t be a success, but to me, that doesn’t seem to be a good reason why he will be.
LikeLike
Please consider the context of his comment, which I helpfully pointed out in the beginning of my post: This is not an argument why he’s more qualified than Van. It’s an argument why he’s more qualified than an outsider. The better-than-Van arguments are pretty liberally sprinkled throughout the article I linked.
Understand, until I see us slamming the door shut in the 4th quarter in Jax, I’m not in anyone’s corner on this. I’m just noting that the gentleman had a cogent point vis-a-vis going outside.
LikeLike
yippee…we won another presser…
LikeLike
1. The Joe T / Coach Van swap is a compromise thats budget driven; ie we didnt have to fire Coach Van and free up his $$$ to hire a replacement. Lets hope it works.
2. Heard Shane Matthews today saying every time he saw Spurrier at UF the first thing OBC asked was “what did you eat today ?”… so someone was focused on nutrition even way back then… ahead of his time ?
LikeLike
“I’ts go time ” – Mandelbaum’d
LikeLike
Nice.
LikeLike
Graduated from UGA with a PE degree. Took weight training under the great Sam Mrvos – BTW he did not like John Casey – Mrvos said the weight program was too soft back then (~89-90). I’m ok with Coach T as long as he can make our players look and play like Bama or LSU.
LikeLike
Hey, I remember Coach Mrvos! I had weight training with him too. He was a trip.
LikeLike
The players will like it a lot more next September than they do now.
LikeLike
Coach T may be dated, I don’t know, but I know Coach T sure as hell ain’t no yes man! I wonder if Coach Van’s health problems led to slippage in the S&C program? I do like having someone keeping up with the players off field. After so many arrests something had to be done. Assistant coaches don’t have the time to chase after 100 kids.
LikeLike
It’s always possible that Coach Van’s health led to the slippage. Meyer’s health sure didn’t help the Gators this year.
LikeLike
Reading between the lines, I think there was a debate about S&C within the program and the problem that was isolated was not numbers, but attitude. I think that they are not necessarily expecting higher bench press numbers for example but rather expecting achieve a level of suffering that breeds an expectation of winning. They want the guys to make an investment in their success and I don’t think that they thought that DVH was mentally demanding/challenging enough. It came to point where the desicion was made that a punch in the mouth would get better results than a pat on the ass. We may lose some prima donnas over this change, but I think it’s worth that risk.
LikeLike
+1
Donna shouldn’t be on the team if pats on the ass are out.
LikeLike
Maybe it is just me, but what exactly is a “fresh perspective” when it comes to strength and conditioning? There is no shortage of information about what to do – legal and maybe not so legal and, yes, I am talking about you Barry Bonds – and for that matter, the University has professors and researchers in the Physical Sciences that know as much as anyone. So technique really isn’t anything that is going to make a difference. And as far as the actual equipment is concerned, we can’t spend enough money on weight training facilities; they are always being upgraded.
The only thing that can make a real difference is attitude. Coach T has that in spades by all reports. Talk is cheap, but that is all we can get from anyone right now, and there is reason to think this is a step forward, and that going ‘outside’ would be nothing more than a stunt, like another blackout, or faked 40 times.
LikeLike
+1
LikeLike
Fwiw. A coworker sent me an email pre season he got from a friend (I know don’t say it) who sat at World Bar talking to two s&c coaches. That was painful to type. Anyway these guys just ripped coach VH. In a bar. In public. I guess they aren’t the first guys to bitch about the boss over a beer, but what they said was painful to hear/read. More painful to remember after 6-6. It’s important to remember the s&c coach is the only coach the players see on a regular basis in the summer. VH is clearly a good man and I wish him nothing but the best in his future roll a UGA.
LikeLike
Insider video of S&C program:
Skip to :55 sec. for the serious stuff, and have your sound up so you can hear the pain.
LikeLike
Had Coach Mrvos for a few classes of weight training [S&C]. Thought it was good, and at least it helped in USMC. But I’m not sure about Coach T. Do any of these coaches ever get t0gether or do they all work alone. If he has been there since ’82 what does his 401(k) look like. This is another in house hire. And these guys have produced nothing the past 3 years. No doubt they need to work on strength, but their conditioning is subpar. Never hear them mention LSA work and running,and I mean to the point they throw-up all those little crunch bars. Maybe I getting to the point where the whole house needs to swept out. Another 6-6 season, and that will happen. So Coach T had better load those guys up wiht spinach.
LikeLike
I don’t want to compliment our enemy but acknowledging a good idea is not such a bad thing. When Paul Johnson took over at Tech the Nerds has a reputation for being skilled but soft. The first thing Johnson did was to institute a mandatory daily 6 am workout regimen that was a killer and included running the stadium steps repeatedly. Several of the guys that were thought to be among Tech’s best players either quit or transferred. I remember a friend of mine who went to Tech lamenting at the time about “What have we done?” Even though Tech had about 10 players less than a full team that season that Tech team went 9-4 and tied for the lead in their division, losing the tiebreaker or else they would have played in that year’s ACC Championship game. All that happened because they were in better shape than their opposition. The Tech players said so in interviews on TV and in the paper. Frankly, I thought that there was a “fatigue factor” in the UGA loss to Tech that season and that was why Tech ran up and down the field against the Dawgs in the second half. Why do I bring this up? I believe (rightly or wrongly) that this UGA team is where Tech was under Gailey and there has to be a S&C change. That change has to come from the top to be successful. The fact that CMR is making this move means to me that the head man recognizes that there is a problem and is moving to fix it. This is clearly a step in the right direction.
LikeLike