Don’t want to read too much into this, because the level of effort required to be a D-1 starter is nothing to sneer at and it’s not as if his season was awful, but Jordan Jenkins‘ self-review of his season is interesting…
“I wasn’t mature about the offseason last year,” he said Friday.
He elaborated. There were too many voluntary workouts about which he heard “voluntary” and took it to heart. He specially mentioned workouts with speed coach Sherman Armstrong. And just in general Jenkins didn’t work hard enough, and it showed on the field.
“It humbled me more,” Jenkins said. “It made me believe that hard work and dedication is what pays off. It made me really look back to think about the offseason and summer and all the times I could have worked harder, versus sitting in the room, relaxing and playing games and hanging out. It just showed that you need to take advantage of those, and things aren’t going to be given to you. You need to work for them and put in the extra work.”
… especially in comparison with what they’re saying about Faton Bauta’s work ethic.
The point here isn’t along the lines of “I’d rather have a team of hard-working three-star recruits over those five-star kids any day”, but rather the simpler observation that talent only takes you so far, especially after you step up in class. Coaching and the examples set by teammates are nice, but you’ve still got to find something inside yourself. At least Jenkins is being honest about himself. That’s where it starts.
Get The Picture 
Self evaluation must be the story of the day. Even if he took the off season ‘off’, I think he’d still be a starter on 10 other sec teams. But he’s likely headed to the nfl in 2015, so may as well get used to the work regimen now.
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Seems like we used to hear this excuse every year as to why we sucked in one or two areas of the game.
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I prefer his honesty and self-awareness to happy talk and bold-faced denial any day, don’t you? I am not hearing any “excuses” from him – this is what it really means to “own” something – not just say the word but to know it, to feel it acutely and be able to articulate your shortcomings.
By the way – and this is not meant to be rude, you may surprise me with your answer…just take a guess – do you think these young men on average have a work ethic greater than, equal to, or less than your own? Because I think what they consider “slacking” is still probably pretty rigorous and requires a lot more willpower than what I’m generally required to expend to get by, and I generally feel like I’m working pretty hard, don’t you?
My point is, even if JJ isn’t living up to his own standards, I would be hesitant to throw around ideas about “excuses”, “sucking”, and laziness, especially with an introspective kid who seems to have a pretty clear sense of duty.
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Not trying to be arrogant but I’d say *most* D1 footballers have a work ethic equal to or less than mine when I was wrestling and playing football back in the day, although there are certainly some who definitely surpass me in this regard. I would drive 45 minutes one way by myself three days a week during the summer just so I would have a place to practice wrestling at though, so I probably wasn’t indicative of the average athlete’s work ethic.
My point however is that in years past there was a general theme about GA underachieving because the players tried to get by on talent alone (their words and the words of other players, not mine). You’d think someone would make the lesson sink in.
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Each group of kids is new to college ball, and each group has to learn for themselves. If young people actually learned from the advice and experiences of others, the world would be unrecognizable. Instead, they have to learn from their own experience, while we (and notice I said “we”) adults shake our heads and complain about how they never listen.
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{“My point however is that in years past there was a general theme about GA underachieving because the players tried to get by on talent alone (their words and the words of other players, not mine). You’d think someone would make the lesson sink in.”}
And a very good point, indeed.
~~~
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Forgive me if I don’t think your making that drive in the summertime is that big of a deal. Lots of kids do that to go to internships, night school, whatever. I’m glad you were motivated, I’m just not seeing that as evidence you are necessarily above average in willpower in relationship to the kids on this football team.
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Right. Because driving 45 minutes one way isn’t more difficult than walking 200ish yards from the athlete dorms on east campus to the Butts-Mehre building 😉
Sorry, but skipping practices where all of your teammates are at and you have your own personal trainer is lazy as shit. It’s not hard to exceed that work ethic.
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You can’t compare his effort compared to his teamates in one post vs his effort compared to yours in another. It’s ok, we are kind of reaching for something to argue at this point when we probably don’t need to.
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Well, I really don’t care about his effort compared to mine because 1) it’s irrelevant 2) how could anyone possibly know my level of effort, and 3) most importantly, he practically admits that he had nothing else going on except video games and hanging out and you are trying to excuse him by saying that he did (as if he lied for the interview for whatever reason). I also have no idea why he said what he said publicly given the circumstances.
I really just feel like you and others are unwilling to ever acknowledge a fault, however minor, with anything UGA football. It makes debating with you pointless because you only see sunshine and rainbows. (This last part isn’t related to JJ specifically)
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I really do appreciate what you’re saying and I agree with a lot of it. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and the family.
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Well done. Some of us could “take a page from you book” there. I know I could. I’m entirely too “ham fisted” at times. As my youngest son has recently explained to me. He is officially accepted to Georgia’s law class of 2017. And I’m getting a lot of unsolicited helpful advice. 😉
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{“do you think these young men on average have a work ethic greater than, equal to, or less than your own? “}
What on earth does that have to do with anything?
Had Jenkins put in the work he should have, would he have been ahead of anybody? Would that have given him some kind of advantage? Heck no. All it would do is keep him level with everybody else who is doing what they are supposed to.
I’ll take it a step further. If Georgia, as a team, works as hard as they ever have this next year, will that give them any advantage going into the season? A penny for your thoughts …
And further still .. If even just a handful of guys do what Jenkins did this year, and there are likely at least that many, does that put Georgia at any degree of disadvantage?
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My point is whether or not we expect other people to have a greater work ethic than our own. If your friends, family, church deacons, neighbors, co-workers, etc, expected you to “give 1000%” every day or else they’d make disparaging comments about you, how would you grade out?
And I get that he’s a public figure with a very high profile on a big university sports team, unlike the rest of us. I’m not saying Jenkins shouldn’t work harder. I’m not saying we all shouldn’t work harder. I’m not an apologist for laziness and I’m certainly not a fan of the nannying that goes on in this country.
I’m saying that when somebody who already has a pretty rigorous life *volunteers* that he could have / should have worked harder, the response should be a nod of affirmation, not finger wagging, and I just wonder if we’re all the overachieving worldbeaters we expect these kids to be. Speaking of which, I spend entirely too much time posting on a football blog. 🙂
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So we sometimes say things like these kids “ought to be giving 1000%”. Okay, they agreed to be GA football players, they’re public figures, and in one way or another we’re helping send them to school – we should expect some real effort out of them. They have obligations, I get it, and I wish he’d gone to the voluntary workouts – I’m a serious advocate for people being not only productive but *ambitious* with their lives.
But like the GA football players, the rest of us have agreed to take on certain obligations at work, as parents, as neighbors, as churchgoers, whatever. A lot of those obligations are mandatory, and every one of them have facets and opportunities that are voluntary. And if you’re spending any time at all reading and typing on a football blog, or watching ANY football on Saturdays, you are probably not giving 1000% to your real obligations.
So although the scale and stage are very different, unless you are seriously overperforming in your own life, I think it’s a little weak to criticize a 20-year-old young man who *obviously* is trying on the field, and who I am certain has a pretty demanding schedule to begin with, when he speaks up and says he could and should do more.
I think that’s a reason to be proud of him, give him a nod and a pat on the back and tell him “get after it, then!” – not an opportunity to say “I told you these kids were lazy!!” and groan about how much the damn football sucks at UGA.
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Thanks for the thoughtful reply, but we just disagree, which is fine. I just don’t think that argument holds water.
{“not an opportunity to say “I told you these kids were lazy!!” and groan about how much the damn football sucks at UGA.”}
I respect your opinion. I hope you will respect mine, not just because I have one, but because it’s worthy. But please, don’t try to characterize my thoughts, argument, or opinion unless you really understand what I’m saying.
I didn’t say anything like that, it isn’t even remotely like anything I believe or anything I’ve said. Nor would I ever say anything like that, because I am never in that state of mind or opinion. I don’t go around looking for things to criticize.
If anything about the football program at Georgia sucks, I didn’t have anything to do with it. It isn’t my fault. But if that IS the case with something, is it not fair comment to point it out? Or should we just deny reality and pretend whatever it is that sucks doesn’t exist?
I point out, in the most honest and fair way I know how, what I see in the Georgia program, both good and bad. Quite the contrary from what some of you might think, I’m always looking for things that are good, things that are being done right. And I go out of my way to point them out when I do see them.
I’ve done this a long time, and there was a lot of that in the early Richt years, the first 5 years, because there were a lot of good things happening (the same kinds of things I talk about now which aren’t so good). But not so much the last 8 years or so, I’m afraid, with a few periods of exception.
You can, however, be absolutely certain, that there’s no one in the Dawgosphere who wants that to change that, to flip that equation around, more than me.
~~~
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“I didn’t say anything like that. It isn’t even remotely like anything I believe or anything I’ve said.”
Straw men are a favorite among the disney dawgs here.
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If Jenkins’ effort is a reflection of the Georgia program, why isn’t Bauta’s?
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It’s not a reflection on the GA program in general as much as specific coaches in general (CTG).
I mean AM and the offense worked their asses off last season and, when healthy, they put on one of the best offenses in the country. The defense, on the other hand, was a straight up liability most of the time and a supposed leader of said defense publicly states that he was playing video games instead of practicing and working out last offseason?
Poor form IMO. He should’ve kept to himself.
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So what would have have done if you were Grantham? Benched him for failing to attend voluntary practices/workouts?
And if this was a shortcoming of the DC that Richt knew about and tolerated, how is that not a reflection on the program in general?
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If it happens once I blame the player, but wasn’t there some variation of this argument with the defense last year too? And pretty much every year for the past 7-8 years for some phase of the game?
It may be hard to motivate a single player but the rest of the unit should still be on board enough to hold him accountable. I mean could you imagine a receiver saying this about last year? No way this year’s offense would have let a player slack.
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And I doubt he was playing video games by himself so this isn’t really an issue with a single player. If an entire unit is lazy after an entire season of underachieving, you don’t think part of that falls on their coach?
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And now we enter the realm of speculation – “an entire unit is lazy”. What was that you said about straw men?
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So the players on offense don’t communicate with the defensive players in the offseason about their work habits?
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Perhaps not the entire unit but to think the issue was isolated to just him is naive. Who was he hanging out and playing video games with? Someone else was clearly skipping too.
And the offense can’t drag him to their workouts because he does different stuff. What, are they gonna make him run routes? The other LBs are in the best position to hold him accountable.
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He admits he wasn’t showing up for S&C stuff with Coach Armstrong. You think that’s strictly reserved for defensive players?
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And he also said “just in general,” whatever that means. I would assume it include some combination of drills, film study and playbook study though.
I’m sure people on both sides of the ball slacked, but it sure didn’t show on offense this year. Plus the offense didn’t underachieve last year so an offensive player with the “natural talent is all it takes” mindset would make more sense than an average defensive player on an underachieving unit.
I really hope Jenkins turns the corner, but what was it about 2012 that made him think he has the natural talent to slack off and still be succesful?
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{“If Jenkins’ effort is a reflection of the Georgia program, why isn’t Bauta’s?”}
They both would be, in that superficial sense, I guess. But your question fails to frame the issue.
~~~
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I wasn’t necessarily referring to you specifically with that particular quote, btw, just making a larger point.
For what it’s worth, I am leaning a little closer to yours and Bulldawg’s argument than I was at the outset.
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Cool. Sorry if I misunderstood that.
~~~
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I typed it under your post, so it’s my fault…I was just thinking out loud…
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For the record, please don’t make the mistake of thinking I give a shit about what you think of my effort in high school. You’ve made something out of my statement that I never intended and you asked for my opinion beyond what I had already given, so I gave it.
Honestly, I’m proud that he’s made an honest assessment of himself and that he’s resolved to do better. I hope he follows through and has a great season and sets himself up for the NFL, but you’re acting like he had so many other obligations this summer when he admitted himself that he was just playing video games. He can be as lazy as he wants for 22 hours each day and still make HUGE improvements as a player over the summer. To compare him to an adult with 40-50 hour per week work commitments and probably family commitments on top of that is excessive. And to say we can’t point out on a blog a seemingly recurring theme with UGA because we spend time on a blog is pretty ludicrous.
And just to be clear before you turn around and say “wah don’t knock players,” just understand that YOU’RE the one who brought an individual into this. Not me.
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Exactly. It doesn’t mean he will, but one thing’s for sure – he’s not going to get better until he realizes there’s a need to do so.
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Listen, it’s taking a lot for me to not cuss back at you, so I will try and tone this thing down if you will.
I was not looking for an opportunity to insult you – I was just trying to reflect on whether or not we ask these athletes to be more motivated than we are. I didn’t ask you to give me a personal story, that was your idea. Once you threw it out there…well, no, I don’t think that’s such an obvious example of some sort of herculean effort that sets your desire apart from what Jordan Jenkins’ life looks like the other 9-10-11 months of the year.
“Honestly, I’m proud that he’s made an honest assessment of himself and that he’s resolved to do better.”
That wasn’t your original post, though. Your original post was about excuse-making and sucking, and the thrust of my original response was that Jenkins was doing the REVERSE of making excuses, and that we consider that perhaps their baseline work ethic may in fact be equal to our own, and that we don’t always leap at the opportunity to volunteer to do extra work that is not required of us, either.
I also tried to temper and qualify my original comment by saying you “may not have been going where I thought you were going”.
By the way, I’m hardly a Disney Dawg and have no problem criticizing the program or individual players. I didn’t think criticism was an appropriate response, here.
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Herculean? I’m not that arrogant 😉
Sorry for the harsh words. They were uncalled for on my part. Happy holidays to you as well
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+1
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ps – sorry if I read too much into your comment – you may not have been going where I thought you were going.
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Sorry, but I found it refreshing that he said this about himself as opposed to the players talking about others who had moved on and their work ethic as part of the summer happy talk. Jordan is one of those guys who will take this year as a lesson to prepare for this offseason. If 85 guys have this mentality, you will see excellence.
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Fair point and that’s something I didn’t really consider. There’s a big difference between saying it about yourself and saying it about teammates after they’ve moved on.
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Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.
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Bobo has got Bauta pegged for some Gator a Bowl time? Interesting. G-Day is already shaping up for some new memes to appear. BTW, can a UGA meme ever be positive?
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Can we initiate a Start Bauta in 14 movement just to mess with all the people that were in the start Mason club for the last 3 years?
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If we don’t win by 30+ you can bet that initiative will be under way before the final whistle. But changes will include 5-6 coaches, 3-4 ST players, and at least one whole unit, either offense or defense, to include the coordinator. Bowl games are a great time to get some playing time for key personnel that we don’t have much film on. Should help the coaches during Spring Practice. I really wish coaches would make a push for the NCAA to waive the redshirt restrictions for all bowl games. It would not only reward them for all the hard work at practice, it would spur new fan interest and maybe increase ticket sales.
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Macallan, great work as usual. I had never thought about lifting the redshirt restrictions for a bowl game. That’s an awesome idea. They get to go to the game and participate in bowl practice. These games are supposed to be “exhibitions” anyway.
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Here is a man telling you how it is done.
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Despite the fact that Bear often mispronounced names and became distracted with his commentary sometimes lagging behind the on-screen action (circa Verne 2013), the same arithmetical and geometrical principles applied when it comes to preparing for a party and you need a party plan to pull your party together to have a bluffin with my muffin poker face
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Is Jenkin’s admission telling at all? Does it say anything about the program and what’s demanded and what’s expected?
It’s nice he’s seen the light and will ;put the work in starting now. But, observing Jenkins play on the field this season, is anybody surprised at his confession?
~~~
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Only if you want it to.
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Sorry, but that is a plain stupid remark.
Either you are being difficult on purpose, or you are not as insightful and knowledgeable as I once believed. It could be a bit of both. But I suspect the former is involved for sure.
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You ever had to motivate people? Some people can’t be led; they have to find something within themselves to drive them.
Unless you know the people involved, how can you know what Jenkins’ comment says about anyone?
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Perhaps the good professor studied the film. I’ve been told it’s the ONLY way to know. 😉
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{“Unless you know the people involved, how can you know what Jenkins’ comment says about anyone?”}
Is that a serious question? Are you really that dull? I don’t think so.
You want to pick. That’s fine. I really wish you were more interested in tossing around substantive thoughts and ideas. But that’s OK. Go ahead and pick away. Just understand that’s it’s recognized for what it is, and you aren’t taken seriously when you do it.
But I’m curious, is it because you’re a “Disney Dawg” as I’ve heard others say, and a reality POV threatens that paradigm? In the immortal words of Briscoe Darling, “just so I knows where I stand.”
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That’s it. You’ve found me out!
I’ve been blogging for more than six years, with more than 11,000 posts under my belt. If you can’t figure out my point of view, you ain’t tryin’.
As far as this dullard’s question goes, if you’re looking to cast a wider net than Jenkins, it seems to me the program can be held accountable if the opportunities aren’t provided for the kid to better himself. That doesn’t seem to be the case here, as Jenkins admits Armstrong had stuff for him to do that he chose to brush off. That leaves motivation, which you seem to believe – or at least imply – is as much a fault of Richt and his staff as Jenkins himself.
So I’m wondering on what basis you’ve come to that POV. I’ve raised three kids and run a business of my own for more than 20 years. Some people can’t be motivated by others. They can only do it themselves. You can try different things, lead the horse to water, so to speak, but there’s no guarantee they’ll go along with the program. What do you know about what was done in Jenkins’ particular situation?
If you’ve got a slam dunk, no-miss means of motivating 19-year olds to do the right thing, you’re wasting your time here. You ought to write a book and make millions from it, because I guarantee you there are a whole bunch of folks who’d love to know your secret.
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Coaches cannot go to Jenkins’s house, rouse him out of bed and drive him to summer practices. They “enforce” summer practice requests by giving playing time to the guy who plays the best and often the summer practice causes one guy to be better than the other. The dilemma is when the guy who slacked during the summer is still a better player than the guy behind him on the depth chart. I ask you do you demand that coaches play the lesser player to reward him for the effort or do you demand that the coaches play the guy who gives them the best chance to win? Would you complain if the coaches played the lesser player to punish the better player?
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Fair questions, Gaskill, and valid points. I’ll be addressing them here.
~~~
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The enforcing part needs to come from the team leaders. It’s not easy to “make” him go, but they need to find his button and push it.
The penalty part has to come from the coaches. They have to find away to get a slacking player scared that he is going to lose his spot. The problem is that the slacking player often knows the level of competition below him. ie. Clowney
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All true. Certainly part of it.
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What I’m curious about is what the coaches are supposed to do about a kid that doesn’t attend voluntary workouts. By NCAA rule, they are prohibited from punishing him in any way for a failure to do anything voluntary. And I can’t see Richt breaking the rules and making voluntary workouts into mandatory workouts.
So, given that Richt is required by the NCAA to ask kids to attend, and tell them that absolutely nothing will happen to them if they don’t attend, what exactly does a kid’s refusal to do something voluntary say about him?
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Good questions. I’m working on an article about this which should be published tomorrow. It covers all this and other questions so far, but here is a short answer:
All it says about Jenkins is he is a normal teenager in college who plays football. The coaches don’t have access to the players, so that’s out, and they can’t break the rules.
Without getting into it, the way its done is, broadly speaking, twofold .. the expectation from the head coach on down through the position coaches is such that a player is scared to lay out, and two, a starting player knows if he lays out his position is immediately up for grabs.
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Interesting… the only way to make that threat credible would be to bench some starters, right? How would you explain the benchings to the public?
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It’s a disciplinary issue. I’d say whether or not it goes public is not important. Some coaches might make it public, others wouldn’t.
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How is benching a starter not public? Don’t you think people would have noticed if, say, Jenkins hadn’t started against Clemson?
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Didn’t mean that. Of course people would know they guy didn’t start. But they may or may not know why .. what the real story was. Internal, team matter, whatever.
But I don’t really know. It could be handled any number of ways. That part isn’t really important.
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Well, it is, in that you’re violating NCAA guidelines by making summer workouts mandatory.
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You’re getting off on a tangent now. Nothing I’ve said requires summer workouts to be mandatory.
FYI, the idea that a player is not entitled to a starting position is nothing new. That’s been around longer than you have. And it’s still all over the place, including the SEC.
And that IS the idea.
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It’s not mandatory, but if you don’t attend, you’ll lose your starting spot. Got it.
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That’s the mindset that I don’t understand. Players don’t have to attend summer workouts. But, if they don’t, it reflects badly on Richt. If Richt adheres to NCAA rules, workout attendance is completely out of his control. We might as well blame him for the game time weather.
Now, two roughly equivalent players at the same position might have a natural consequence of the backup working out, improving, and replacing the starter on the roster. More of that probably occurs at schools with higher roster turnover than UGA.
But I don’t think Richt would intentionally run afoul of the NCAA by replacing starters as punishment. Also, it wouldn’t make much sense. Because Jenkins didn’t use voluntary workouts to improve from an 80 to an 85, Richt should replace him with a player at a 75 level?
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I don’t have any more direct knowledge of the parties involved than IL does, but it seems to me on a general basis, competition is the best motivator. Can anybody name Jenkins’ backup without looking at a depth chart first?
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{“I don’t have any more direct knowledge of the parties involved than IL does…”}
Careful. You don’t know what, or who, I know.
{“… it seems to me on a general basis, competition is the best motivator. Can anybody name Jenkins’ backup without looking at a depth chart first?”}
Yeah. DeLoach, who was making a run to be a starter in camp. It IS fair to say that we are short on OLB’s who can play in the League, if that is your point. [Of course, this has nothing to do with Grantham, we are just unlucky not to have any SEC-quality competition at THE key position of his 34 defense.] It’s also reasonable that could have had something to do with Jenkins starting (though I suspect Jenkins job was never in jeopardy).
But you’ve set up a straw man here. So we all should keep that in mind. I never said Jenkins shouldn’t start. What I said was, “perhaps his job should be up for grabs”. That’s a different ballgame altogether. IDK what the details were at the time, personnel-wise, and I’ve made no inquiries.
Whatever happened in this case, whatever the details, is not the important point. The straw man aside, it’s the principle, along with the fact that this sort of thing has gone on for years, and has affected us negatively on the field for years, that matters.
And you can deny that all you want, but it’s a matter of record. The film always tells the truth, and doesn’t lie.
I’ll say this, no better than Jenkins was, especially the first 8 weeks of the season, it doesn’t reflect very well on our depth at OLB that somebody couldn’t beat him out (assuming Grantham allows that sort of competition and doesn’t play favorites).
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I asked what you know in an earlier comment, which you’ve not answered. As far as your straw man goes, “I never said Jenkins shouldn’t start. What I said was, “perhaps his job should be up for grabs”. That’s a different ballgame altogether.” is dabbling in semantics. If you say it’s a big difference, I’ll defer to your intent.
DeLoach was beaten out by Floyd. He’s not behind Jenkins in the two-deep. Josh Dawson was listed as Jenkins’ backup going into the Clemson game.
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It seems the main objection here has switched from voluntary workout participation to recruiting and/or player development. It’s valid to criticize coaches for the latter two issues. Although, it’s not fair to criticize Grantham for Jenkins’ results, but fail to give him credit for Jarvis Jones’ last year.
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We need a leader to step up on the defensive side of the ball during the offseason just as Aaron Murray did with his receivers. Lead the defense in the weight room and put in the effort.
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I am anxious to hear the excuse/reason John Theus played the role of a turnstile this season.
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Theus talked about how his broken foot affected him this year in a article earlier this week. He talked about what he needed to do for next year.
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His body looks absolutely horrible. But if Theus says his foot didn’t allow him to workout, we should accept that, IMO. I can see how a foot injury could hinder workouts.
Look at what the high ankle sprain did to Gurley in just a month. It was nothing short of shocking.
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The NCAA keeps the coaches from even knowing what the players are doing in the summer time. The S&C coaches are not suppose to even keep track of attendance. That’s why they call them voluntary workouts. JJ’s problem this year was that he did not have an All-American on the other side that made teams ignore him to stop Jones. Once he became the Man he found out how much Jones was better than him. Now he knows that his talent is not enough to make him an All-American without hard work. Too bad he didn’t catch on sooner.
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I wonder if the late Bear’s players or even Saban’s players slacked off in the summer? How about the old ball Coach’s? Could it be a reflection engendered by the head coach himself? Maybe winning is no big deal? Just wondering.
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Really? Sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.
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I’m sure he thinks the Junction Boys who quit were all wimps.
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{“I wonder if the late Bear’s players or even Saban’s players slacked off in the summer? How about the old ball Coach’s? Could it be a reflection engendered by the head coach himself? … Just wondering.”}
IMO, those questions are both fair and necessary to any honest discussion of the issue.
~~~
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A fair question? About Steve Spurrier’s players slacking off? After watching Clowney this year? Hahahahahahaha, now that was a good one!
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I agree with you and Ginny that Clowney slacked off this year, big-time, and because of that was not even close to being the same player. Very much the same as Jenkins, who wasn’t the same player, either, by a long shot.
That Jenkins wasn’t close to the same player he was last year should not be forgotten for even a moment when thinking about this. It’s not just what he did, it’s the outcome of what he did, and how it affected the defense and the team overall (hint: it wasn’t good).
Some here (and I don’t mean you guys) seem to be ignoring that important fact, or at least not keeping it in mind. The outcome, in this case, was manifested on the field, similar to what happened with Clowney at SC. And more importantly, but less clear, is the intangible effect it had on the defense and the team overall.
It’s a small point, but Spurrier was not my example. The question of whether Bear, Saban, or many other coaches, past and current, let this sort of thing go on as if it never happened is a fair one, and naturally a part of any thought process on the subject.
FWIW, IDK what went on with Spurrier and Clowney, or who was behind Clowney, etc.. But I do know that Jenkins is no Clowney.
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As you crap all over Jenkins’ season, remember that the coaches picked him second-team All-SEC.
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LOL. And how much stock do you really put in that? LMAO.
Bacarri Rambo made All-America, and made a bunch of All-SEC teams, but was never close to being the best safety in the League (heck, he wasn’t even the best safety on his team, he might’ve even been the 3rd best, behind Williams and Commings).
I suppose you think those coaches sat down and evaluated the film of Jenkins season, so they could cast an accurate ballot? Besides, you can see plainly on the video that Jenkins himself doesn’t think he deserved it.
You keep getting further and further out there, but keep reaching.
It was Jenkins himself that crapped all over his season, Bluto. If you don’t like it, take it up with him. I just pointed out a couple of obvious things about his play that you can see on film.
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How much weight would you have given it if he had said he deserved it?
We obviously differ on the quality of his play this season.
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No, you differ. I agree with Jordan Jenkins.
Not that I needed to hear him say it. His honesty just confirmed what some of us already knew.
And I don’t know about your hypothetical, since we’re already out on a tangent anyway. The only weight I gave anything, in terms of the video, is that Jenkins appeared to be honest and forthright.
And for that he should be commended, as I’ve said any number of times already.
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I must have missed where Jenkins said “… the outcome of what he did, and how it affected the defense and the team overall (hint: it wasn’t good).” about himself.
Did he have a disappointing year in light of the promise he showed in 2012? Sure. Do I think he’s disappointed that he didn’t meet the goals he set for himself in the preseason? I do. Do I think he agrees with your harsh assessment? I doubt it. But again, you seem to know his thoughts better than I do…
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Well, by all means go ahead and doubt it then.
But there’s no doubt, really, that he agrees. For all intent and purposes, he said so himself, as much as it’s possible to say to reporters in that situation.
But that’s not really it. What little I’ve said about his play is confirmed on the film. And all I’ve said is a few superficial things – elementary, if you will. He’s a football player and apparently a good, honest kid.
Jenkins is not going to deny or disagree with anything that shows on the film. He’s much more critical of his play than I am, we know that from his actions and his attitude.
We don’t have to worry about Jenkins, IMO, because I believe him. He can never make up what he lost this year, but he’ll get with the program and start becoming the player he should be.
It’s the bigger picture that worries me. And should concern anybody who understands the primary cause of why we suffered through the 2008-2010 seasons (when we reached the bottom of the pit) and doesn’t want to see us go in that direction again.
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I would feel very confident saying that Jadaveon Clowney slacked off this year. Probably more so than Jenkins.
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And who might the “Junction Boys” be, prey tell?
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Oy.
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Oy??? You better write in English, Blutarsky, unless, of course, you prefer German.
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LOL. I’m sorry, is that a threat or a plea?
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I’m going to take the high road here….
The Junction Boys refers to 1954 when Bear took his Texas A&M team to summer practice in Junction, TX. High, heat, drought, oppressive conditions but Bear was intent on “toughening them up”. Many got heat exhaustion and quit. ESPN made a movie about this…interesting story to read/watch.
My sarcastic point to your comment was two-fold. First, implying that Bear Bryant is a model for how to treat “slackers” is amusing in this day and age. So is holding out Spurrier as a model of program control. Saban now seems to coddle felons…but let’s not get thrown off by my straw man example…it offends some around here.
Second, taking one kid’s comments in an interview and implying Richt does not think winning is a big deal is not just ludicrous, but is really just trolling…thus my use of sarcasm instead of a more thoughtful, insightful response.
You hate Richt. Goody. Want to pick at him. Go ahead. But if you’ve got sound, reasonable arguments as to why he is failing this program, and specifically, who you think can do better, then please offer some intelligent analysis and you’ll get plenty of responses.
Or you can pick a fight with the blog owner and get banned.
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Losing as many starters on the D from the previous year had a huge effect on this year’s team. Here we see lost leadership and how vital that leadership is to spur others onward, especially with voluntary workouts.
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