… Richt made a difficult decision in replacing Dave Van Halanger, his longtime strength and conditioning coordinator. Joe Tereshinski, who had worked at Georgia for decades, overhauled the offseason program to put an emphasis on how the team did in the fourth quarter.
The results so far speak well. The Bulldogs are outscoring opponents 60-57 in the fourth quarter this season, and 14 of those points for the opponents were by New Mexico State against the walk-ons and third-stringers. Last year’s team was outscored 92-68 in the final quarter…
All I will say is that the fourth-quarter scoring drive against Auburn – all runs – was a thing of brutal beauty to watch.
Get The Picture 
No, he should NOT be getting any love. He is not an ‘expert in the field’ and doesn’t use ‘cross-fit’ as the foundation of his program. Don’t bother us with results, we would rather be able to cling to narratives and pre-mature assumptions.
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I was 100% wrong on that front, I can assure you.
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So was I. I had doubts and was worried.
Of course, in this day and age, expressing doubts which are subsequently proven to be unfounded, is grounds for ridicule even if those initial doubts were rational.
There’s no room for shades of gray anymore; everything is one side or the other.
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Really, Raleigh?
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Yes, really. People are often wrong, but it doesn’t mean their concerns weren’t valid.
It’s the entire foundation of scientific testing.
I was concerned about Joe T because he had not been in chars of a S&C program for many years. I was wrong, and I couldn’t be happier about that. It doesn’t mean my initial concerns were irrational. They were simply wrong.
S
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We are all in this together now. “No recidivism” should be our cheer.
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Given the whole hindsight prism, maybe it is best if ‘we’ stay “Out of the Arena.”
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Can something unfounded also be rational? Can you reasonably believe something that is also baseless? Being skeptical us one thing. Shouting unfounded ideas from the rooftop is another. Not saying you were guilty of that but many were, hence the satisfaction of some in our apparent improvement in this category.
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I absolutely think you can have concerns about something that are initially rational but then turn out to be baseless. Absolutely.
In this case, I believe it was reasonable to be concerned about Joe T being put in this position after. It having served in that capacity for many years and not having a lot of S&C training.
Thankfully, wonderfully, those concerns turned on to be baseless. It doesn’t make them any less rational; it just makes them wrong.
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A fair response. That’s about what I expected you to come back with. I have no problems with concerns. I have many. I wasn’t jumping up and down either with his hiring, mainly because I wasn’t privy to the interview and hiring process so I didn’t really know what their process was or who the candidates were or even what Joe T’s qualifications were. I just figured, given Richt’s perpetual spot on the hot seat, he’d hire somebody he thought could get the job done. Wait and see was my m.o.
My big problem is how people responded and the gnashing of the teeth before Joe T even got a chance. Those responses, by our own people, which now at least seemed to have been disproved, added the the hot seat meme, which only hurts the program.
As to his pedigree as a S&C guy, is it possible Joe T DID have training and experience in S&C but was just never in charge of that aspect of the program until now? I just love it when people refer to him as “the video guy.” I’m sure Richt was in Radio Shack looking for a S&C coordinator and ran into Joe T. I mean it’s not like the man spent all his spare time going to tech conferences. If you read the article about how he helped develop Arthur Lynch’s body before last season, you’ll get the feeling he might know a little something about something.
As I always do in dramatic (or melodramatic as I was once called on here) fashion, I wanted to point out the unfounded vitriolic response of our fanbase to a decision by the winningest (by %) coach in program history. As a Disney Dawg (or Richt-o-phile) or whatever the hell you want to call me, I take great pleasure in the debunking of our lunatic fringe, which seems to have grown immeasurably in the past couple of years.
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Hear, hear!
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And I say fight lunatics with lunaticasy back at’em.
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Very fair. And you are totally spot on. I think your entire thoughtprocess is the right one. Well said.
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Thanks, Raleigh. You see you and I can actually engage in rational discussion, although I agree with you 100% it sadly has become one side or the other anymore. I blame Al Gore, inventer.
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This was what bothered me as well. It wasn’t so much the concerns, which were well-founded; it was the “what the hell is Richt thinking” tone many took (not necessarily anybody in this thread).
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While we are all in a Coom Bah Yea mood, I would like to apologize for calling some of you aholes “low life, disloyal, toilet drinkin, sons of mother f***ing c***sucking a**licking numbnutts bitches” . I said this at home mind you, and would never say it on here, but I’m sorry and ashamed just the same(looking down and making little circles with my toe in the sand).
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I loved that 4th quarter drive too, and I’m practically giddy to see us in the 4th quarter against GT. I expect annihilation.
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I have to think having an actual facility helped too.
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While watching the TV replay of the Auburn game, the camera panned to Joe T.
In that moment, one thing became crystal clear……he is in the game. He doesn’t have some fancy, smancy degree or an impressive resume as it relates to S&C. What he does have is the desire to see Georgia be all it can be on the football field. He demands excellence from himself and those around him. I am impressed with his product and would buy it without question. Like Joe T………..I’m all in.
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nothing personal, Red, but I think we should ban the term “all in” for use in reference to UGA. It’s too AU-tainted for me; every time I read it, no matter what the context, all it does is remind me of the grinning hypocrites in blue and orange last year screeching “CAM DIDNT DO NOTHING!!!!! THERE AINT NO PROOF AUBURN DID NOTHING!!!!!” Kinda makes me queasy, to be honest. I’m sure you don’t mean to associate us with them, but I see the words and it just makes me boil a little.
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2nd
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Point taken. Consider it removed from limited vocabulary.
Senator, please edit my post to read…”Like Joe T…….I’m on the bus.”
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now that is a term I can endorse! (which may be enough to kill it right there)
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I’m riding the Joe T bus to KickAssVille!
I didn’t know VanHalenger, but I know I didn’t like the results. I was encouraged when Joe T was named S&C coach just knowing his pedigree. The results so far have been great. I, too, expect us to grind the Yellow Maggots to dust in the second half. I watched VT run QB sneaks for 5 yards a pop against them. I can’t wait for us to get some of that.
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“I can’t wait for us to get some of that.”
Murray might have to get on some HGH for that to happen. That VT QB was the biggest I’ve seen since the Pilsbury Throwboy! 🙂
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Still… 15 yards and a TD on a QB sneak is pretty telling. Tech’s rush D is atrocious.
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I’m all in with those comments.
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Red, I could not of said that any better…
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“I have to think having an actual facility helped too.”
That can’t be overstated. That new weight room is fantastic, and generally people will work out harder when they’re in a quality facility. Working out in a dingy basement may seem hard and Spartan-like, but what it really does is make guys want to get it over with quickly and get the hell out of there.
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Yeah, but I ain’t gonna run up and hug Joe T until I get vaccinated for distemper. That Dawg was cheering those Dawgs to do something nasty, like snatch and jerk.
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In a dingy basement.
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It is a tight race between Joe T and Will Friend for position coach of the year in my opinion. Followed by Lakatos and Tony Ball. Lots of credit to go around.
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Agree, but don’t forget Olivadotti. What he has done with the young linebackers, especially with the injuries to Ogletree and Robinson, has really impressed me.
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Dang, the love just washes over us like the warm waters of the Gulf. What a great blog. Hope no one sends a bill for stress-lowering benefitting my glaucoma.
The computer robot says,” Ri-eat own”. Trying to teach it Southern vernacular is problematic. Using a Richard Pryor record (“That Nigger’s Crazy”) to teach a phrase to the robot and it comes out: “Yah-awl but-tuh git frum ‘ri-houn hay-uh, dis bee mist-tuh Gil-mo’s lan’.” in a dull monotone and after Richard’s imitation of a sharecropper seeing Superman land in front of him. The robot just can’t say it like Richard. No one can.
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Don’t forget that we physically dominated Florida in the 4th quarter, too. That, also, was sweet.
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Listening to Chuck and Chernoff on the way home last night, yes I know, but I listen to Arch as well. Anyway, some Florida fan called in and said that GA was lucky to beat Florida and should have lost to Florida. All I could think is, what. Did we even watch the same game? Florida had no offense at all against GA. You can not win on kick off returns alone and that as huge majority of their total offensive output.
They got man-handled at the point of attack all day, but this guy thought FU should have won. I just don’t see how.
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I must have watched a different game than that FU fan you’re talking about. In the game I watched, FU was lucky that they didn’t lose by a larger margin.
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Not even lucky, but purposeful since we killed the clock at the 1 yd line. Now THEY were lucky we didn’t beat them last year.
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Ok, just wanted to make sure I watched the same game.
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While we certainly didn’t see the kind of performance against Boise or South Carolina that we did against Auburn, I will give Joe T his props. At the time he was announced as our new S&C coach I was completely underwhelmed. Joe T is a wonderful guy but I didn’t think he was the guy we needed in that position. Glad to see him prove me wrong. That said, despite being a huge CMR supporter (been called a Disney Dawg and considered it a compliment), I was unusually pessimistic about his chances of still being our coach at the end of this season. After the 0-2 start I was downright depressed. Being in the stadium Saturday was pretty much an out of body experience. It looked even more impressive on the replay. So I say the entire staff deserves a WHOLE lot more love. They’ve all stepped up. But hey, we still need to fire Bobo don’t we? I’m not sure why. We just do. I mean, we gotta fire somebody, right?
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All of this. I could not agree more.
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CBS gave him some love during the broadcast.
You bring up a sore spot with me about this move though. CMR made the change, which is great. I just wonder how they assess coaches in the program. UGA has become reactive when a problem arises instead of proactive to find problems before they surface.
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OK. Explain to me how they were supposed to find the problem with strength and conditioning before it surfaced.
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Bring Miss Cleo on staff.
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It’s called Kaizen. Constant improvement in all facets of your organization. You are being proactive by assessing yourself constantly instead of waiting around for problems to come up.
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I am truly amazed we don’t have more GTP commenters on the football staff than we do.
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I concur.
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Hell, I thought Kaizen meant related as in, “She was my First Kaizen ,but I loved her anyway.”.
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I read a little abou this on Wikipedia (I know) after reading your comment. Couldn’t this turn into a constant tinkering with things that could cause the very problems it’s intended to address?
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We need to replace Coach Hartman. Can’t we get Kevin Butler to volunteer his time like Hartman did all those years? KB seems to have a lot of time on his hands, and he certainly doesn’t need the money. Even one day a week would help greatly in my opinion.
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Pretty sure the reason we don’t have a volunteer kicking coach is because the NCAA no longer allows it.
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You are correct, sir.
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Yep. Hartman even enrolled in grad school so he could qualify as a graduate assistant coach at least one year. Now there was one tough DGD!
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On the drive in this AM I heard a beat reporter for the Gators on the Bill King show. King was asking him about the Gators schedule and what he thought of UGA’s chances of upsetting LSU in the title game.
The reporter thought we stood a chance agaisnt LSU, but he also noted that he was on the sidelines for the Gators versus LSU, Bama & UGA. He said that he was amazed at how big the LSU & Bama players were and was equally as impressed at how big the UGA players were.
Guess that’s the eyeball test …
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“Brutal beauty”. That’s the best description of it that I’ve heard. The entire game against Auburn was choreographed violence, executed nearly flawlessly.
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Like The Nutcracker Sweet?, no less. It is getting to be that time of year, you know.
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Speaking of Joe T, Senator, did you notice his response to the INT celebration you discussed about 3 posts ago? The man, um, pointedly reminded the players that there were over 30 minutes left in the game. Even the Germans I was watching with (I’m proselytizing UGA FB over here) were impressed with his focus.
And as for toughness, compare Carlton Thomas’ approach to contact with Ontario McCalebb’s. Again, the Germans were amazed that “euer Knirps” (“y’all’s dwarf”) would lower his pads full-speed into a safety, whereas Auburn’s bigger RBs headed for the sideline. I used the moment to convince them that Auburn is essentially the Dutch national team of the South–all inferiority complex and dirty play. They understood.
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McCalebb’s got a long-standing reputation for weenieness (weenieity?).
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weenieosity
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weeniousity?
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I freaking love this.
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Me too.
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do we now call the Wild Elf formation with Thomas “the Bull Elf formation”?
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Elf Them formation?
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Seeing as Harton AND Thomas are now running the ball, maybe it should be the Elf U Formation?
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You got it , Puffdawg. Hell, we could become known as Elf U, but Miami would probably object.
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What is the Deutsch phrase for “Go Dawgs”? Los Hunden oder Gehen Hunden?
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The whole “Go [your team here]!” phrasing never really caught in DE. We agreed the best translation was “Auf geht’s Bulldoggen!”
See, “der Hund” is a pet. Or a sheepdog. “Eine Dogge,” on the other hand, refers to a mastiff/doberman/large mean guard dog. And “eine Bulldogge” is what we are. In other words, the German language assumes that if you say “bulldogs,” further saying “mean-spirited junkyard dogs” would be redundant. I’ll toast to that also being the case soon in the Southeast.
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Mein Gott! Dis ist der besten eine Bulldogge sinz der Herschel (ol’ “Spitzin und Sparkin”). Ist nicht fur dumkopfs.
Keepen ze mitzens auf Bobo.
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Well done.
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Agree with Go Dawgs! here. UGA players routinely benched 400+ under Van Halanger. When he first started countless lifting records were broken. Mat drills were widely considered an innovative team building and conditioning program for years. So what happened? It just got stale, maybe. Maybe DVH lost the fire. Who knows? But problems in S&C weren’t really evident until the last couple of seasons; and Richt made a change. Now, the new program seems to be working; the players look massive, and we seem to be pushing teams around in the 4th quarter.
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I think any program gets stale over time. DVH worked wonders for a while, but not so much lately. Joe T’s approach seems to be working great, and probably will for a while, but eventually it will also need to be changed. Either Joe T changes it, or a new person will come in.
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Presentient. Good post.
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It was obvious that the quality and quantity of that win over those Aubums was so unexpected by most fans GA or Aubums alike, that it was the best retribution a team can do to punish another team and a bunch of coaches. Try reading the Aubum blogs they are essentially 100% distraught and already in extreme mourning even before the Iron Bowl is played.
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I’ve been rolling around in them like an oledawg scratchin’ his back on the throwrug. Just think how they were towards us and our blogs after last year’s game. Hooo Boy!! Talk about fun reads. Think I’ll have a glass of port with this revenge. And they still don’t have a clue because they are in denial that The Dawgs pounded their ass silly. El Toro was the only guy on that team worth his salt. And ‘Tree just cleaned the would-be blocker in his own backfield. It still stands out how aggressive Thomas was when he looked for someone to hit while running the ball. Cheez!
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They should be. Alabama is going to crucify them. They have had to hear Auburn fans yapping for a year, and Saban is not capable of the mercy Richt showed Saturday.
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Wow. You are absolutely correct about this. Bammer’s offense isn’t as explosive as Georgia’s, so Saban might not be able to hang 60 on them. However, Richt could have done it if he wanted to.
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We had 35 at the half and their defense was flat dead in the 4th quarter. 70+ was in play. I’m sure Chizik has sent Richt a thank you note.
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A pretty good argument could be made that the main difference between this year’s team and last year’s team is the fitness/conditioning issue. If they are not gassed at the end and finish the games physically dominating the other teams like the ’11 team is doing the ’10 Dawgs probably win at least 10 games.
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Mental toughness brought about by intense physical training.
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And a badass running the S&C program. Joe T is an intimidating dude and he’s really intense on the sideline. No offense to DVH; he is a DGD and did wonders for the program when he got here. But man… Joe T on the sidelines is a thing of beauty. Never saw DVH that intense.
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I’d say the biggest differences between last year and this year come down to three things, not necessarily in order:
1 A & B. Defensive players know what they are doing and have the personnel with which to do it. Jarvis Jones was spot on when he mentioned that they are prepared so well that they can play at full speed. That sounds kind of obvious, but it’s really a big deal versus thinking, even for half a second, “where am I supposed to be?” The front 7 are beastly. The addition/emergence/maturity of Jenkins and Geathers means the world.
2. S&C – They do pass the eye test. All of ’em. The entire defense is big, fast, aggressive and (don’t leave it out) disciplined. The O-line, as thin as the ranks have been, has held up very well. In fact, they look stronger now than early in the season.
3. No assholes policy – now there’s a t-shirt that Boom MF should think about. There’s just nobody in the back of the class causing problems, which sounds small, but it’s not.
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Add to that the confidence they exhibit plus there is probably an added bonus of unit pride which ends up as a teaching tool to others who aren’t up to top SEC speed. Good attitude is growth-promoting.
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Agreed. This group of players just seems smart and eager to learn and then prove themselves. Many strike me as real students of the game who are able to watch film, break things down in practice and then learn to speed them up for actual games. This is just the sense I get from the player interviews this year versus previous years. Many of the stars seem to play with the hunger of a walk-on. GATA!
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Jarvis Jones is also almost definitely our best defensive player. And this is his first year actually playing for us. Adding a player like him certainly helps the team immensely.
He seems to be a damn good leader too. Hard worker, smart player, fast, aggressive, hard-hitter… Dude has it all we’ll all be proud of him when he goes in the 1st round and dominates in the NFL.
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And his loyalty statements for Georgia leads me to believe he may be here a little longer than is necessary for his own presonal career NFL goals. DGD one way or the other.
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I was certainly one of those “we hired the video guy” people. looks like I was wrong.
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