That shouldn’t have been close.
And you can’t lay this one on the coaches.
- Bloviation for the Dawgnation
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“We remember the Sugar Bowl, I think it my junior year of high school, we let Alabama beat us twice,” Brinson said of a team that also lost to the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship game. “We’re not letting Alabama beat us twice. In the Sugar Bowl in 2018, they… thought they should have been in the playoffs and lost to Texas.” -- AB-H, 12/27/23
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Get The Picture · Bloviation for the Dawgnation
Get The Picture 
Finding ways to lose. It’s the Goff era all over again.
We should have been comfortably ahead by halftime, although I’m not sure it would have mattered.
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Funny, it’s the coaches that still haven’t figured out Samuel is best deployed on the bench.
Two promising drives that got us deep into Cock territory stalled when Crowell was pulled for Samuel. Two or three handoffs for 1 yard and a cloud of dust, and in comes Walsh.
We found our tailback today. Sadly, it will take until midseason before we hand him the rock 25 times a game.
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Mid-season? balance will preclude us from ever doing that. Shame, shame for the blasphemy toward our philosophy.
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Crowell only had 6 carries in the 2nd half (fumble didn’t help) and 16 total carries. Samuel had 11 carries. Lattimore had 27 carries. No other SC back had more than 2 carries. It would be nice to see Crowell to take Samuel’s carries and get 25 plus carries per game.
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I have to defend the coaches a little here, Crowell was injured and we don’t know the extent of his rib injury. It could have been hurting him bad enough to keep him on the sideline.
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I thought Crowell showed a lot of guts to be in the game at all in the second half.
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So why isn’t this one on the coaches exactly?
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Coaches can’t control turnovers. Just hope that the players dont make mental mistakes like that. I actually think that we should have won at least 42-21 with out turnovers. Most of that lays on Murray. But, he still had a pretty good game. We need more of those drives that he had later in the game.
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Aaaaah….the lovely retreat to mental mistakes. Just one response to that: Who’s in charge of, you know…coaching?
Funny, I rarely see “mental mistakes” from Saban/Meyer coached teams, yet I’ve seen them for 10 years under Richt. In the early years, we won the close games even with those mistakes (minus of course, the annual crap the field against Florida). Now, we lose them. Same dropped passes, same stupid turnovers, same “mental mistakes”….same outcome for 4 years now.
Pretty good game while giving the other team 14 points….that’s a lot to overcome.
Oh, and while I agree coaches can’t “control” turnovers, do they at least have some say in the matter? Did you ever get coached on how to properly carry the football or take handoffs? Or, if you were a quarterback, how hanging onto the ball with one hand is a bad idea (seen that a few times now haven’t we)?
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You must not have seen what an adventure the center-quarterback exchange was for the Gators last year.
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indeed, that was a pleasure. And yes, good call, Senator. Of course, that was one year for Meyer. Yet, they still managed to beat us. And we’re going on 4 years of the same for Richt, now.
My point is simply that well coached teams seem to have less mental mistakes than ours currently do, and anyone saying that coaches aren’t to blame for these types of situations may need to look at other teams as well.
Look, I love your blog and agree with not only your point of view, but your style and pace above 95% of the time. You’re by far and away the best blog voice we have.
But you made the statement this one isn’t on the coaches…..Who is it on and why not the coaches?
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Because the coaches can coach ball control, but they cannot control the ball. By this logic, which is all over the GA blogs tonight, anything that goes well the the coaches ought to get sole credit for, too. Sometimes you can see the bad coaching, like last week, and sometimes you can see valiant efforts by players that just come up short, or mistakes. I don’t think you can really blame one particular player for it tonight, but the sum total of blown punt coverage (which the coaches called, by the way, from some accounts, but the players still didn’t figure out) and the fumbles / interceptions cost us the game.
I agree with you that great coaching mitigates mistakes, but we really can’t know how much X more work in this area and X less work in that area would add benefit here and lose benefit there. The best we can hope for is the old meme – “put our players in a position to win” – which I think was evident in BoboResurgent tonight…I thought CMB called a Helluva game, frankly.
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So well said, but I simply disagree with what you post above. LIsten, the catch AJ made against Colorado had absolutely nothing to do with coaching…but it was great. So that refutes your “by your logic” point above.
I’m not arguing for more X in this area, or anything like that. I am saying that under Richt, we have a ton of mental mistakes, and under Saban, Bama has few. Richt’s winning teams had them too. So when they are routinely costing us victories, when is enough enough? We
Your arguments seems all or none. You say it was bad coaching last week where we got blown out. This week we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Yet somehow, coaching doesn’t play a part in that?
off topic, but in response to one of your comments….
Everyone is soooo hung up on Bobo’s play calling, which you allude to. Quite frankly, we’re leaps and bounds better statistically with him than we ever were with Richt (yeah, I know Stafford, Moreno, etc). Yes, Bobo the balancer and such is maddening. Why the hell we use Samuel IV the drive killer in key situations of the key game of the year, I can’t answer. All in all, I can’t say lack of points or offensive production has been a consistent problem under Bobo. Could it be better? Sure….
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You know…
Coaches DO coach players how to take a handoff. And how to look off a receiver when covered. And how to catch a punt. And when to cover up and take the sack and when to throw it away, you know, like on your own five-yard line and all.
I mean, I’ve never been in the arena…but they coach these things, don’t they?
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Some better than others it would seem.
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And I disagree about the Saban remarks. Your memory of Bama’s player mistakes don’t even go back a year . And before that and all the way back to LSU, we used to laud our coach for not throwing the players under the bus like Saban did. Where have all of you Saban comparers been during his press conferences going back for years? Wrong coach, wrong comparison. One thing I can say, at least you don’t watch their games or listen to their post-game conferences. Listen closely to Saban when he loses and you don’t have to go any further back than last year. Wrong guy for comparison, folks. Since you want to disregard the things he does that are comparable to what Richt does, perhaps you should go watch the lying, double-crossing sob. Just ask LSU and players that he has thrown under the bus at Bama as well. People who don’t know history are in danger of repeating it, except in Saban’s case they built a damned statue to him.
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He sure did. Offense was responsible for 56 points. Way to go.
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Because you dumbass, We turned it ove 4-5 times. Bobo called a great game! They couldnt stop us. We handed it to them. I just got home from Athens. What I saw today gave me a lot more hope than what I saw last week. We should have won the game. You cant turn it over like that. Even when richt made a brilliant onside kick call, it backfired. The spurrier outclassed us with his own fake punt. We’re snake bit.
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OK classy guy – so how exactly does any of that absolve our coaches?
Brilliant call, mistake on execution. Does execution not have anything to do with coaching now? Turnovers and preventing fake punts are more execution. Maybe they couldn’t stop us, but of course their defense did basically score 21 off of us too. Everyone is saying it’s not the coaching, but no one has said what it was or given a good reason why it doesn’t point to coaching.
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Would you have had CMR bench Murray and Crowell for their turnovers? Players, yes even good players, make mistakes. Are you hoping to see UGA fans trash certain players on here for some obvious mistakes? Do the turnovers need explaining or a reckoning for you?
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Who is asking for any of that here? Certainly not me. Based on the last few posts, it seems people are blaming this on turnovers (the Senator never specified). So please explain how they don’t reflect on coaching whatsoever. The Awesome Stadium Rocker seems to have the best post as an answer so far, but gastr1 pretty much sums up my feeling on it….So yes, please explain away. Especially the ones you see two weeks in a row that lead directly to 7 points for the other team. Explain away.
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Turnovers are the obvious game changer here. Hence their prevalence in this thread. Check the stat sheet on the game – virtually even. As Senator noted, even good coaching can be trumped by the mistakes of 18-22 year old young men (UF last year). So, some incredibly costly turnovers made the difference in this game. If good, or great, coaching can be instantly undone by a mistake on the field by a player, should we skewer that player? I vote no. You can continue to either a) try to pin a player’s costly on-field mistake on the coach or b) begin to point fingers at individual players. I find no sense in that. A lot of football in front of us and some tangible improvements from the last game. Not a perfect game, but our players fought hard. I am proud of them. And I echo The Awesome Stadium Rocker: “I feel like, for as much criticism as these kids got, that I’d like to get a bunch of us together and make a big long sign to put on the bridge over the stadium (across from Tate) that reads “Dawgs, we are proud of you! – The Old Folks Fans” so they’ll see it when they go to class on Monday.”
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Well said. One of the few sane responses so far. First off, no one is skewering players here. You won’t find that from me and I’m not asking for it. I’m always proud of our effort, but I am not proud of our results.
That said, for your a) above, I would agree if it were an isolated incident. If you look at ONLY this game, I would be in utter agreement with you (although the sheer number of mistakes made it one game is almost debatable).
But what about a trend? Costly mistakes are the norm under this program. It’s big mistakes at the most inopportune time. It’s not getting stops when we need them most. It’s the dropped pass on critical 2nd/3rd downs (going back to, oh, forever). It’s the opposite of “clutch”. Is Richt the luckiest (2001-2005) coach alive and unluckiest (2008-2011) alive simultaneously. Or is there a simpler explanation?
Every program will have players that make mistakes. Some will cost games. As I’ve made clear here before, we make it look so routine in comparison. **Sips scotch, sadly thinks about Edwards and Florida 2002**. Still possibly the most painful, although for sheer mathematical fun, tonight definitely takes the cake.
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I can’t argue with you, Dave, that we have had a disproportionate number of costly mistakes (penalties, turnovers, drops, etc.) over the last few years. Tonight’s turnovers were about as costly as they possibly could have been. Remember one player (IC) was seeing his first action as a true frosh ‘tween the hedges (and plenty amped). Murray’s a sophomore and his mistakes were hard to watch, but he recovered admirably with some nice poise and consistency. I agree with your “trends” argument in regards to coaching. I went into this game with little enthusiasm after last week, and certainly not looking to give any coaches a pass. But I believe their gameplan was strong and a huge improvement from last week. Which makes the costliness of the turnovers that much harder to fathom/accept in the end.
I see reason to look forward with some optimism IF the game planning remains strong. We can’t expect to see turnovers hurt us that badly in the future, can we?
I was happy with the coaching tonight versus last week (and going much further back). I will toast my bourbon to your scotch tonight and hope for continued smart schemes by the Dawgs with fewer mistakes in the execution.
As an aside, is the ability of SOS to coach college football diminished by Garcia’s turnovers? CMR has left himself open to lots of criticism for many things that I won’t bother to chronicle here, but I don’t think we can lay the enormously costly turnovers at his feet tonight.
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No, you can’t, but Dave wants to and he is dead wrong. All teams have player mistakes and you don’t see any fans going after the coach for player miscues. You want the coaches to chew a player out for being imperfect? You have the wrong game, sonny. It’s best to leave his psyche scarred only by his own miscues, you don’t have to hack it up and make him useless for the rest of the game. It’s a smart and knowledgeable coach who knows which players to kick in the psyche to get more out of them and to know when not to do it. Case in point last night occurred right after Murray threw the interception that went for a td. Murray went right back to work , going 8/8 for 8pts And the coach didn’t say anything to get that response because he is the coach and knows individual players better than anyone on these cute blogs.
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Well said. Agreed.
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Bobo did not call a great game. Number 1 saved his ass from another embarrassment. If not for the early running game, we sucked. The quarterback threw an interception for a touchdown and fumbled two balls which lead to two touchdowns. Who coached him and called the plays. Stop protecting this idiot. If we go 0 and 12, it is the players and not the coaches.
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I’m sorry, but everything you just said is really stupid.
And screw you for even making me sort of defend Bobo.
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Hard one to lose.
I think we can lay the fake punt disaster on the coaches though, right (Boykin’s dive excepted)? Now that I think about it, have we ever stopped a fake punt under CMR? Seems like they’re always converted on us.
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I think against Auburn in 2003.
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Doesn’t matter whose fault it is. We’re 0-2, Richt is our leader and HC, and his job is hanging by a thread, if that.
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This is certainly true, right or wrong as it may be.
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I am proud of our team – they Played 4 quarters of football for the first time in a long time. Unfortunately we lost a game we used to win. We made a ton of mistakes and probably deserved to lose as a result but at least we played and coached like we cared.
There is still hope – and I’d you had told me back in january that we would be 0-2 and I would say we still had a shot I would have said you were crazy
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I agree. I’m pretty proud of these guys too. Some things just didn’t go their way, but they grew up A LOT today. I expect good things in the next games to come!
Good close game where the guys didn’t quit!
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Yea! Stubborn downers don’t win Dawgs’s minds. Good Dawgs!!
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This indeed,
There is still hope. If we play like this the rest of the year,and we get a little “regression to the mean” in the TO game, we should win all of our games with UF and AU being close calls.
Atlanta is still the goal, and no, I am not a current player spouting propaganda.
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I am not convinced that this UGA team isn’t still going to win the SEC East. USCe has to play several very difficult SEC teams. If UGA runs the table with its remaining SEC games the Dawgs will likely win the East.
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I couldn’t agree more…I thought the same thing. We have to take care of business and hope this very bearable SC gets 2 l
osses.
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Surely you mean “beatable.” I was at the game tonight, and SC is anything but bearable.
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Its their fans that are UN-bearable.
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Agreed, but I have opined that Miss St was the toughest on our schedule this year. Not after yesterday. They are all beatable with this team.
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+1
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I thought Bobo called a good game. The mere fact that after gift wrapping 28 points to Carolina we were still in the game was amazing. I hate being 0-2 but I will be damned if I am going to jump off the ship with the way these guys fought and scrapped tonight. There is plenty of time to talk about coaching changes…tonight was not the coaching folks.
Now, we need to run the table till Jacksonville. We can and we should.
And btw, Boise is much better than Carolina. It ain’t close.
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+1
Carolina’s not that good. They were lucky to win today, and I’m not a guy that usually says that kind of stuff.
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+1.
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+1 again
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+1 again, and again.
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What about three drives that ended up in field goal attempts the first half? We blew our chance early when Garcia was struggling. now we get to blame all the second half struggles on the players. This is bulls$&t. We should capitalize, but we don’t. Hey dint look now but Walsh is coming out for another field goal attempt… Oh wait we don’t have Van Gorder to bail us out anymore for early offensive ineptitude.
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Jeebus Dude, did you not see that Murray was not on his game early. For God’s sake. How the hell are you supposed to play call around your QB not hitting the WRs? Or when he did, it getting dropped.
Maybe I was watching a different game, but with Murray out of rythm early I thought we did pretty good to get the points we got early. Was I frustrated, hell yes. But damn, look at what was happening early on.
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Some of these comments are not coming from people interested in analysis, only blame placed on any coach no matter to what it may be attributed. But, I’m afraid most of their swords have been blunted by damn good Dawg spirit for a good bunch of players and coaches.
Can’t wait for the next SEC game now that the team has shown up.
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Is it bad to feel encouraged about this team after watching this game? Still disappointed just thought there were some mental lapses by a few players
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I think its a young team that has a LOT of talent. Just needs molding. Hope Richt & Co. can get it done. How awesome is Crowell?!
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What I saw…the big playmakers for this team will get a lot better with more experience as the season wears on. Maybe this will serve as a ’07 Vandy turning point game? I hope
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I have no problem with the way our team played tonight. The fake punt and turn overs did is in, our boys out played the Chickens and they know it. Crowell is gonna be really good!!
I’ll say it now. 10-2. We don’t drop another one this year.
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No problem? None? At all?
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Yea, I’ll say a problem with stopping Lattimore. Other than that, no. None at all.
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Different person, but you have very interesting expectations of your team.
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Gawd, no kidding.
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I second that. 10-2
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Serious question: How do you think this season (and Richt) be perceived if we finished 10-2?
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I’m with you Rocket Dawg. See no reason why not. Of course, shit can happen in most games and will in the future, but I don’t see any analysis of other teams that would lead me to believe we can’t beat them. You downers pick a team and let’s go at it.
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Long overdue improvement.
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same result.
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Keep trying. Maybe you’ll coax more of us out on the ledge.
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no ledge…I just think we can do better than the last 4 years.
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+1, Dave. Sick of looking better. Like hungry caveman, Gastr want wins.
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If that’s all you want, go pick a team (but I’m afraid that you will find that they all have imperfect players and coaches). This team played well and proudly yesterday and made miscues that cost the game. So what else is new in college football? This team is composed of good players and coaches. Why don’t you relax and watch the games?
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yeah, we won 42-45.
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Really only 17 points given up by the defense and the team scored 42. Pretty good game by the defense, offense, and coaches. Goes to show, turnovers will kill you. Should have won but didn’t. This is a team to be encouraged about. It’s kind of funny…I feel less desperate tonight at 0-2 than last week after the Boise game even though last week was only 0-1.
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Totally agree, but one disheartening fact is that we needed a stop 3 different times at the end (28-28, 35-31, 45-42), and never got it. That has been a noticeable trend under Grantham.
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THAT I will agree with you on that one. D gave up big plays that should have been stopped. Especially to Lattimore. And especially when we NEEDED a stop.
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YES.
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Yeah I’ve noticed that trend too. Parts of this game look eerily simlar to the alst two minustes of Arkansas 10 and LSU 09. Defesne shas perfromed fairly well all day but when they NEED a stop they can’t.
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It’s called college football, folks and while I agree on the premise about stopping Lattimore on SCs last sets, there ain’t no trend. Trending is a part of the science of Statistics and you can ask your friendly blog actuarials about that. Tendencies, maybe, but trend is an incorrect term.
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Crowell is the only player I’ve seen similar to Moreno that gets 3 yards out of nothing. Man he’s fast. Gonna be fun watching him
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Absolutely. Glad we’re gonna get at least 3 years out of him.
And with all that speed and power Samuel is gonna make a great linebacker.
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I thought he did that well last week as well. He looks very, very good.
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The only coaching gripe I had with Bobo was not sticking with Crowell in the first quarter on short yardage plays.
Crowell needs to let his feet do the talking. Didn’t like his shit talking and apparently neither dud the coaches
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In “Bulldawg Nation” v. Mark Richt I believe we have a hung jury. As with everything the last few seasons, why can’t I shake this nagging feeling that the mental lapses, bad luck, and failure to execute that ultimately lets our highly talented team lose is somehow related to this coaching regime? I was thrilled to see some significant improvement and adjustments not only between the games, but between the halves, and on both sides of the ball. Yet….why only now? Is this 2008, or another clusterf**k we’re headed for?
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There was a poll and 65% of UGA fans still support CMRand only 20% want him gone–and that was before the South Carolina-Georgia game. I suspect that the approval figure is even higher now based on the team’s effort against the ‘Cocks.
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I’m feeling sort of like I did back in the late ’80s … a creeping ambivalence toward this team. It seems like I’m becoming more interested in other stuff on Saturday afternoons.
I’m also still on the fence regarding Richt. The one thing that keeps creeping into my mind though is that $3,000,000 a year salary. Are we getting our money’s worth?
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Then you are in the 15% that doesn’t have a clear opinion either way.
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When you watch the replay, Bluto, you will find it difficult to assign blame.
My impressions?
-Special teams gave up 7 points.
-Their defense scored 21 off turnovers (two on TD returns).
– UGA is stacked with playmakers, on both sides of the ball. Mitchell, Figgins, Bennett, Smith, Boykin, J.Jones, Commings, Robinson, Rambo, etc.
– We have ourselves a BONY-FIED tailback.
-The UGA mistakes all occurred at the worst time, in the worst field position.
Losing to BSU was painful. But I feel Cakalakey is a better team, and am encouraged by the attitude and effort tonight.
UGA ran for 188 yards, passed for 248, and had 206 return yards, while
SC got all the breaks (with help from Wagers), and won by the measure of a head-scratching shank by UGA’s stellar field-goal specialist.
Sometimes luck just ain’t on your side.
I’m goin’ down the road feeling better times are just around the bend.
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It appeared that a bad snap threw off Walsh’s timing. The snap got placed ok on a good play by the holder (Drew Butler?), but it messed Walsh up anyway.
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I bet we beat Coastal Carolina.
At least the cupboard will be stocked for the incoming staff.
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You Disney Dawg, you.
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Yeah, I don’t know. I just “have a feeling.” I really think we can pull off a win next week.
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Can anyone say Dan Mullen?
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Yeah, he is a real genius. What a great goal line call to lose the Auburn game.
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All Relf had to do was dive, and extend his arms, and he’d have the TD. Did you watch that game, or are you just going off the SportsCenter highlight of the last play of the game? ‘Cause for the 59 minutes prior to that play, Relf was basically a lock for 2-3 yards per carry. Auburn had no answer for him on 3rd-and-short all game long. They just came up with a very lucky block there at the end. Absolutely nothing wrong with Mullen’s goal line call.
Never mind the fact that he’s turned a joke of a football program into a legit top-20 team in just a couple years. MSU appears to be trending in exactly the opposite direction of Georgia, despite having far less talent.
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Umm…, I think that call is a little premature, don’t you, Turd? Miss State just lost to the supposed worst Auburn team from a personnel standpoint in years–a team that needed last minute heroics to beat Utah State. I say Miss State falls back to earth this season. They already lost to Auburn. Are they gonna beat Bama, LSU, Arkansas and (dare I say it) the Georgia team we saw yesterday? That’s 5 losses right there.
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Right, Mayor and the Dawgs have a bead on all of them.
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On the bright side having given up instant points on turnovers we allowed our offense to run more plays.
Seriously, this team gave us something to cheer for and I feel a bit of hope.
Speaking of bad luck does anyone ever wonder what would have happened if Goff hadn’t lost Edwards and, gasp, Bobo so early in the season in ’95?
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Yeah, I mean, our offense couldn’t get off the field to rest!
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I wonder now what might have been last week if Bobo had run Crowell out of the I-formation about 25 times.
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Surely I’m not the only one that has noticed that the one trend that we have had over the last few years is exactly what happened tonight.
We come out one week and play like we’ve never been in a big game before and it’s a foreign concept to us. Then we come out the next week and play our asses off. Win or lose, (tonight we lose) we play with passion, and all seems right with the world.
Then, slowly but surely we quit. We play three quarters, then one half, then half ass.
I HOPE I’m wrong, but I don’t see us running the table right now. Come Dec 1st I hope I’m eating crow, but right now I don’t see it.
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Exactly. Of course, the other “trend” (despite which Dawgs we see) is losing anything that approaches a big game. Run the table? I’m still hoping that we finally WIN one game against a team with anything close to our talent.
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We only face one team near or at our talent level all season. The rest aren’t close.
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Maybe. But given this team’s history, I’d say those “other” games have become true toss ups–meaning that we should win easily, but will somehow turn it into an L half the time.
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And that’s the central issue, isn’t it?
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Oh – and no maybe there….make no mistake about our talent level. It’s higher than any team by far save Florida. We have playmakers all over the field that will be playing on Sunday.
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I’m a little more concerned with them playing consistently well on Saturday before they start playing on Sunday, at which point I shake my head and ask how we never won anything with that kind of talent.
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I feel like, for as much criticism as these kids got, that I’d like to get a bunch of us together and make a big long sign to put on the bridge over the stadium (across from Tate) that reads “Dawgs, we are proud of you! – The Old Folks Fans” so they’ll see it when they go to class on Monday.
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“Got previous to this week” – and for as much as they showed us today. Shoot, as long as I’m replying to myself, I may as well give myself a +1000 here, right?
+1000 – love you, man.
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Don’t just talk about it, be about it. Put that sign up. I agree with you. I’m just writing about what I’ve seen.
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Has Richt ever won a game that a kicker missed a field goal?
The guys did a great job. The players played hard. I was very impressed with the effort they gave, baffled at why they don’t play that hard every game (or even 90% of that effort gives them several more wins). But I was impressed.
The game plan was great and Bobo called a good game. Grantham had a good game plan and called a good game. Maybe if some of the holding calls were made against the sc oline it would have helped. The dline was molested on several plays but that should not be an excuse as it happens both ways all the time its just hard to watch sometimes.
Now match that efffort by players and coaches the rest of the year.
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Great game by the offense tonight, 63 points is amazing in the SEC. Too bad 21 of those points went to SC.
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I don’t know if I should laugh or cry about that statement Bourbon. 28 points we coughed up on special teams and by the offense and another 3 on special teams(missed fg). We need to steal the rabbit’s foot that is stuck up Chiziks ass (did anyone else see the “first” down that when they measured it was short of the first down but given to AU anyway) and insert it up Richt’s. I am depressed as hell yet at the same time looking at the rest of our schedule and the way we played at times tonight and think, damn we could win them all. Of course I could also see us losing 4-5 more. *sigh*
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at least the effort was there tonight. sharp contrast to dome where players and coaches mailed it in!
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Not so sure about our effort in the Dome. Yes, Boise dominated us. And we physically dominated SC today – unfortunately just not on the scoreboard. My gut says yes, scheme and effort are to blame since the Boise game was so one sided. But if you think it about it, that could be the easy way out. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I would like to see others chime in rather than just saying we had no effort against Boise.
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ABH ARTICLE FROM A YEAR AGO AFTER COLORADO LOSS; WE LATER WALLOPED TENN AFTER CHANGING OUR PRACTICE REGIMEN —
ATHENS, Ga. – With Georgia’s team at the bottom of the SEC standings, Bulldogs coach Mark Richt is admitting to a few decisions he’d like to have back this season.One of them involves preseason practice.
Citing the Bulldogs’ continued issues with blocking and tackling, Richt said Tuesday that his squad did “the least amount of that in camp than we’ve ever done” for fear of injury before the season opener.“Is it biting us in the rear end right now?” Richt said. “Probably so.”
After Saturday’s 29-27 loss at Colorado dropped Georgia to 1-4 and sent more heat in Richt’s direction, the coach switched gears Monday and held full-contact, full-pads, 11-on-11 scrimmage drills pitting the first units on both sides of the football.
“I thought the players responded beautifully,” Richt said. “I thought it pumped some life into those guys. I think they had fun playing football and blocking and tackling. We haven’t been blocking and tackling good enough. So I’m going back to my original philosophy when I came to Georgia and that’s when I would say, ‘It’s hard to get better blocking and tackling without blocking and tackling.’”
Richt’s opinion was changed over the years by injuries being logged during the preseason. For the 2010 season, he cut out two-a-days for the Bulldogs.
Players also noticed a difference in contact work at practice this year.“In recent years, it was a lot more live tackling and tackling to the ground,” senior linebacker Akeem Dent said.
“A lot of it had to do with the one season when we had 32 guys hurt going into the year,” Richt said. “You start out with camp and another one goes and another one goes, and you’re like, ‘My gosh, what are we going to do?’ There are different schools of thought. One is you have to block and tackle to block and tackle well. The other one is ‘Hey, let’s get everybody to the gate healthy and let’s kind of play our way into this thing and pick our shots’ when we do those types of things.”
Despite Richt’s regrets about the preseason, linebacker Christian Robinson put the blame more on players that aren’t producing.
“We had designated times to tackle and hit and scrimmage and things like that (during preseason),” Robinson said.
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Maybe we can wallop Coastal Carolina. Woo hoo!
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I am disappointed but hopeful. In a way, it helps to be able to put a finger exactly on what went wrong and prevented a Dawg victory: you can’t turn the ball over repeatedly and beat a quality team. No mystery to this. Take away the pick-6 or the scoop-and-score and the Dawgs win.
What a great game Crowell had!
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In the movie Major League, as the opposing teams smashes a game changing home run a small band of die-hard fans in the outfield debate the height of the ball versus the depth of the field before one remarks:
“who gives a sh*t, it’s gone.”
That’s what it feels like to me now. Whatever UGA was at one time under Richt, it’s not anymore. Coaches, players, execution, play calls, luck, timing, recruiting, weather… who cares why we’re here, we’re here. We’ve lost 9 of our last 15 games.
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A-Men!
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Seeing all this “we’ll get better” and “we played hard” makes me wonder if I’ve stumbled into a Vanderbilt message board. or a local YMCA message board.
I don’t have to have been ‘in the arena’ to know going .500 over the last 2 years is a signal for a change.
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GFY.
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guy is entitled to his opinion, no matter how much you disagree. news flash: he is not alone.
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GFY, too.
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Does GFY mean “good for you?”
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Nope. GFY=Goofy.
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Biggest problem in all of this: grown men finding their self-worth in the success or failure of a group of kids. It blows my mind how personally offended some people get when their team loses. Grow up. Football is a game. If you are actually angry about any of this, you need to check your priorities.
I don’t know how some of you ever even enjoy a game. Seriously, what if we won every game? What would that change in regard to your life? That you could brag that you are a Dawg fan? That’s dumb, trust me, no one gives a crap who you pull for.
Some of you people need to sit out a few plays; put the rest of the season tickets on stubhub, and try and get some perspective.
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Truth. I, for one, had a great time today in Athens.
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AMEN, and +1,000.
A few rows behind us there’s a whole group of people now that seem to be infuriated on every play no matter what happens. Did Crowell get 15 yards on a run? Why didn’t he get 30? Why wasn’t that touchdown thrown sooner? Will we even make the extra point? And katy bar the door when Samuel has the temerity to touch the ball.
I do not know why they are at the game–season tickets aren’t cheap, and unless it’s a night game, even the environment is unpleasant until mid-October. Why go to that type of trouble just yell something negative at kids who cannot even hear you for four hours? Twitter must be a godsend to these assholes.
Some of us are there to support the team, no matter what happens, because we love our alma mater, because we grew up going to games, because our tailgate and our company at the game are types of family, because watching college football is so much fun. Is it disappointing to lose? Hell, yes. But it’s a game, and supporting the Dawgs is the point. And I don’t think for a minute that it could possibly mean more to me than it does to the kids on the field. Why so many carry that delusion is beyond me.
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amen. and walking out before the game was over when we were driving down the field and still had a chance? stay classy.
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A-double-men!
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This.
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There’s certainly some truth to what you say. But of course, it’s not always a matter of “self-worth.” Some fans, for instance, may have given a lot of money to this program over the years, much of which they consider an investment. And I don’t know about you, but I generally want to see a return on my investments. And when I don’t, I get upset. And then I start considering changes.
Also, we really need to be careful with the “I handle sports the ‘right’ way, so if you don’t handle it like I do, you handle it wrongly” mentality. Next thing you’ll be telling me is how a “true fan” is supposed to act …
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You’d think with all that money “invested” in their team that they would stay to see the whole game.
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Aw, come on Turd. Let me tell you again.
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Sorry Jordan, you don’t get to decide what the appropriate level of “fandom” is.
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He certainly had a good stroke at it. He wasn’t deciding for you, just blogging well enough for you to read and decide.
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0 and 2 to start the season for what? the 12th time in uga’s history. we are paying our d coordinator 750 G’s a year. He is averaging 40 points given up a game. Does anyone think we have seen am play like a 1st team qb this year.
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The defense gave up 17. The other 28 was for 2 returned fumbles, a fake punt and a pick 6. CTG’s unit was not on the field then. You are the poster child for ignorant fandom.
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plus a missed FG by Walsh means a 31 point swing based upon our players, not our coaches.
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While I get what you are saying, I think our first four third down plays today were run out of the shotgun, with unsuccessful results. We got better about playing out of the shotgun later in the game, but it sure wasn’t working early on, while having Murray under center produced more effective results. You don’t know what would have happened had Bobo a) called for more Crowell and b) called for more I-formation, but the odds seem good we could have turned one of those first few possessions into a touchdown or two rather than field goals.
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Whoops, hit return too early. That was me.
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F-U-M-B-L-E!!!!
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Coaches change their gameplan to adapt to what the defense shows them. They have a plan going in, then, they adapt. So, the gun wasnt working in the beginning, they switched to i-form. Wishing they had run it the entire game? Hindsight is 20-20.
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Your telling him what football is about won’t help what he’s working with.
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Ugh.
I’m going to have to swear off the blogs and such this week. I should probably lay off the bottle as well.
I’ll also say that Penn Wagers can continue to suck it. Can’t stand that guy.
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+1,000,000.
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100 comments , only 1.5 (well 2.5) mention wagers. That could be a record. Saban won and was upset , over a td in last 2 minutes. UGA is happy with “we played well” ? 6-9 last 15 says it all.
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Ridiculous. Every fan is supposed to have the same perspective as a coach? I guarantee the UGA staff is not “happy.”
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Looks like we won’t be the only program searching for a HC. Texas is 2-0 but look for them to drop several before season’s end. Their supporters and administration, as opposed to ours, will not tolerate such mediocrity from a program that they know should compete for titles each year.
Should Texas be in the hunt, look for them to have first choice of the available candidates. We will have to accept their reject(s). It’s the mindset folks, and we only have ourselves to blame.
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“look for them to have first choice of the available candidates.”
Are you saying they might hire CMR?
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yeah, that’s what I’m saying.
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Your mindset Jax Dawg, no one elses.
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Have ourselves to blame? How does that work? I’m supposed to drop what I’m doing and start calling HC candidates before Texas beats me to it? Yeah, I’ll get right on that. Tell Peggy to hold my other calls.
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This is what I saw:
1) Bobo called a good game.
2) The defense gave up 17 points to what some consider the best offensive players in the SEC East (Lattimore and Jeffries)
3) Players were in position to make plays on defense better than I have seen in three years.
4) Lattimore got his yards but wasn’t a dominating player like last year.
5) Crowell is going to be better than really good. If not for bruised ribs, he may have been what Lattimore wasn’t.
6) Coaches went all out to win. The onside kick was a great call and caught Spurrier flatfooted. If Rambo was offsides it was only by an inch.
7) Players showed guts and never gave in despite multiple opportunities to quit. I give Murray some credit for that since he could easily have tanked after his two major gaffes.
8) This was the best Georgia team I have seen on the field in several years and IF they stay focused they have a chance to be really really good.
All that said, they still lost the game due to turnovers and going to sleep on the fake punt. Someone tell Smith he is the safety on a fake and he is supposed to make an effort to tackle the guy. Tell Murray to tuck the ball and fall when Clowney comes in unblocked (of course it would help if someone touched Clowney too).
I felt so much better after this one than last weeks. This week UGA was clearly the better team, better prepared and out fighting SC. I just hope they keep it up.
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And I guess that is the issue – the best team we’ve seen in years is 0-2.
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I saw improvement, but the thing that mattered was the result. This is staff has developed a knack for making a team bi-polar. The only problem is that when they appear to be executing at a high level they still find ways to miss the target, a win. Because of my experience watching this over the last 3 years I have no faith they’ll run the table. UF is probably improving, same for Tennessee and Vandy. The only saving grace for this season is that they dodge the best teams in the West. If they go 8-4 with this schedule I won’t be able to call this “improvement”. It will have been a mirage.
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“And you can’t lay this one on the coaches.”
Yea, right. How many times will CMR get burned by fake punts before he assigns more importance to this aspect of the game?
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You’re kidding right?
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Yep, I’m joking. Whenever I see an opposing team’s player running down the sideline toward the endzone unobstructed, it makes me want to post a joke on the internet.
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Before that play, Richt had just reminded them to lookout for the fake punt. That’s why he threw his clipboard on the field and went and retrieved it himself. What more could he do, hit the runner with it?
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Pingback: Georgia fumbles their way to a 45-42 loss to South Carolina
I suspect that two things are contributing to the current situation at UGA. Vince Dooley the winningest coach in UGA history coached there for 25 years and was AD for another 25. UGA is in the 10% of FBS schools with a coach that has been at their respective university for 10 years or more. The current decline (which will happen everywhere) has never been seen by the vocal and displeased fans. One could suppose two things from this, the hubris of the young is annoying or the end of an age may be approaching.
JoePa is the longest tenured coach in FBS and many would say that his role is that of a mascot. Mack Brown’s situation is similar to Richt (although he’s been at UT for four more years than CMR). Frank Beamer isn’t going anywhere but there has been grumbling about Stoops on and off for the last few years. Schnellenberger is an anomaly and will coach ’til infinity.
Throw all of that in with the characteristics of old and young alike and you get “make a change now dammit” and “stand by your man mentality”. All I know is I’ll watch next weekend and take ribbings about being a Dawg fan until I am the one giving the ribbings again.
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Agree with a lot of what you said but one think I completely disagree with is UGA was more talented. At worst the talent is even. Tell me UGA wouldn’t love to have Lattimore, Jeffrey, Ace Sanders, Devin Taylor, Clowney, Ingram, Allen, Gilmore and there a few more.
UGA brought it’s A game and looked good. You will win 9 games. USC brought it’s B+ game and won. Good teams find a way to win on bad days.
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You honestly think you saw Georgia’s “A” game yesterday? Oy.
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We have twice that list number, jagofflover. You got our C game from this bunch of athletes.
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What the hell is a jagtar plover? Sounds like a weird bird that’s not in anyone’s book.
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