Or, as Mark Richt put it, “All hands on deck.”
Richard Samuel to fullback. Ray Drew to defensive end. Malcolm Mitchell “experimenting” with some time at cornerback. It’s all on the table.
G-Day will be fun to watch, that’s for sure.
I don’t have a problem with the moves, as long as they’re well thought out and justified, as opposed to the “see what happens if we stick him there” approach we’ve seen before.
“We have got to make sure that we take the entire talent base of our football team and get the best players out there in whatever situations that we need them in,” Richt said. “If that means a guy playing both ways or two positions on defense — whatever we’ve got to do to get the best players on the field. We’ve got to take advantage of everybody’s abilities.”
I think what we’re seeing is the Granthamization of Georgia’s approach to utilizing personnel. We’d better hope that the strength and conditioning program can keep up.
Get The Picture 
I’m already missing Orson Charles. Sigh.
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Maybe Rome will make us proud.
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I love Orson, DGD, etc. but he wasn’t the world’s best blocker.
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This year’s team is probably going to be about the same as last year’s team as far as record and bowl game.
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Really? I think we shave at least 2 losses off our total from last year. What makes you think this team is not going to be any better than last year’s?
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Richard Samuel at fullback? Could he finally learn to lower his shoulders?
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I just hope “Granthamization” includes teaching the offense to go for the win and not playing not to lose. IMHO much of the grief Bobo gets is because the offense tries not to lose the game once they get a lead and starts playing conservatively. If Grantham were offensive coordinator, I would bet the philosophy would be different. I am also all for playing the 11 best players on every down, even if it means Mitchell plays a little corner. He seems to me to be the kind of athlete who could be all SEC at receiver or DB.
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You must have missed the posts about the offensive philosophy being a function of Richt as head coach. If there were another OC, Richt would almost certainly charge them to milk the clock and protect the lead late in games, just like he does with Bobo.
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Is this Granthamization or Belichikian?
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Kiante Tripp’in. I see what you did there.
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G Day is something to look forward to for so many reasons. I just hope we don’t use the “playground method” again to select the squads. While it would be great to see the team divided by offense and defense to give us 1 vs 1 and 2 vs 2 matchups, I at least want to see units that will play together in the Fall work intact in the Spring Game. Even what we were doing for so long is better than last Spring’s method.
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Yeah, but we don’t want #1 Offense vs #1 Defense for obvious injury reasons. While not guaranteed, at least it lessens the prospects.
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You may not, but if we cannot take hits against our number 1s in April and be ready to go by September, maybe we should schedule all cupcakes during the season. These guys need to show they can push the better players back in practice because they damn sure haven’t been able to block when it is showtime. I am not convinced there is any more chance of injury with 1s against 1s than at any other time. Let’s find out who can produce against comparable talent.
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There’s a big difference, here. Past switches have been coupled with comments from coaches about quality depth, these people seem to be getting moved to where they’ll probably start or make a major contribution.
I don’t expect the same results here as with “Tripp” type moves.
Beyond the Missouri game I don’t expect Mitchell will play D any more than Boykin or Smith played O last year; probably only coming in for crucial third and longs or big stands at the end of halves/games.
Samuel probably starts at fullback and it’ll be pretty slick having one who can run and catch.
We always knew if Drew grew he’d go to end. He grew, now he’s at end. And we’ve got as high quality depth as you can ask for, along with a senior and an all american at the starting spots, at the position he left.
I may be in the minority, but I like all three of these moves a lot.
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Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think Samuel’s running style is well suited at all for fullback.
Florida showed the best way to deploy him as a runner: line him up deep in the “I”, give him room to get up to full speed as he takes the handoff and hits the line and blast him between the tackles. At fullback, he won’t have the spacing to do that.
As a receiver and blocker out of that spot, he’ll do just fine, though.
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True. I remain confident in even Samuel’s move, though. He’ll likely do something other than ride pine, and do it well, as opposed to some moves like this we saw in the past.
Its worth noting that the most recent major (and spot duty) moves like this have actually worked very well; Figgins made a pretty good fullback, and Ogletree to linebacker needs no explanation. Wasn’t Jarvis Jones originally slated to play in the middle? Also, Samuel’s last move, while it was simply for depth, ultimately helped win us a game in Jacksonville. And wasn’t Kwame Geathers an OL recruit out of high school? Didn’t Boykin win a Hornung award this year? Hasn’t Sanders Commings moved back and forth between safety and corner pretty frequently?
As bad as Tripp got “Tripped”, along with Samuel until this past year, I think we owe the coaches a little faith in their ability to move players around at this point.
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We are one and the same in thought, HK, and letting Jarvis have a little roaming room may fit in as well. What hath Richt, Bobo and Grantham wrought?
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From the AJC teleconference transcript:
“The one thing they all want to do a better job of is finish. We could’ve finished better in our last two ballgames as a team, not just defensively. Our defense knows, at the moment of truth, when we’ve got to get a stop, we’ve got to get a stop. Same thing offensively; when we’ve got to score, we’ve got to score. Defensive statistics are good and all that kind of thing, but the bottom line is we all know, whether it’s offense or defense or special teams, some time in the course of a game, somebody’s got to rise up and make a play. So I think everybody feels the need to be ready to rise to the occasion.”
The man is now officially pouring bourbon in my cool-aid.
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I’ll drink some of…..uh…to that
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With regards to RS:
1. He had a hard time keeping his weight below 240 last year. He could be 250 pretty easily (if he’s not already there)
2. All things considered, he will be 5th on the depth chart at RB once fall gets here (assuming health and eligibility are not concerns)
3. He can move back to RB in situational running plays (a la UF game) much easier than he could move down to FB for situational plays (a la catching passes out of the backfield).
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5th on the depth chart can become 1st with a simple twist of a zig-zag.
Sorry I couldn’t resist…
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I think you should add “Granthamization” to the lexicon. Antonym: Third and Willie…
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Any way you slice it, it gets the imagination juices flowing.
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Translation of the Richt quote above from Coachspeak to English: “We f#cked up and didn’t sign enough players because we haven’t used all available scholarships to sign recruits, so when I run off/suspend/kick guys off the team I have to move players around to cover up the deficit.”
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In his defense, CMR plucked a young David Pollack from fullback and moved him to DE just to “see what happens if we stick him there”. I know, I know, it doesn’t always work, but it’s not like it never works.
Having said that, I hope he feels THAT good about WR depth to consider moving toying around with Mitchell. As far as Samuel, maybe it’s just about getting him on the field somewhere.
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Need to apply this line of thinking to special teams.
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