Boy, these opening of spring practice stories sure take on a different flavor today from when they were written, don’t they?
And doesn’t Damian Swann sound a little prescient?
Asked if the scheme was too complicated for last year’s defense, Swann said it depended on the player.
Sigh. I sure hope there’s a little Dawg porn coming out of today’s practice. I could use some cheering up.
Get The Picture 
Why is Swann always quoted as some sort of “go to: guy on all things defense? He is one of the most erratic, and that is being polite, defensive players we have. Doubt me? Look at the last couple of years. Didn’t he muff the punt against Vandy? Get burned in the SECCG against Bama and gave up the winning TD? Who decreed him an expert?
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Swann has his good games too – had an INT and sack against fu in 2012.
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Based on his play and absolute disregard for fundamentals (like tackling) at times, I think Swann is referring to himself.
I would recommend that he stfu and get to work.
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Allow me to remind you of Swann’s response to the same question last fall:
“Before we knew what we can do, it had started to become too late.”
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That happens to me and my posse all the time
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My God people. Don’t you think that the coaches make certain players available to the media to answer questions? Swann, being a senior, is obviously one of those guys. He is just trying to answer the questions he is asked.
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Pardon me for interrupting the flow of picking on players, but I found this pretty interesting…
“Grantham’s NFL background got him used to using a smaller roster and thus a smaller rotation.”
Interesting comment on more than one level, cause he’s offering an explanation for Grantham’s substitution system, and at the same time wondering what Grantham was doing.
I’da put it a little differently….”If you got quality depth, and he did, why would you be a bonehead and not use the depth like everybody else does?”
The towel musta blocked the bench.
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With today’s headlines I am thinking that maybe the scheme wasn’t too big under Grantham. The players (some of them anyway) may have been too dumb to catch on. If you don’t think someone will notice that a check they wrote has been cashed twice, that is just plain stupid. Here’s hoping that the rest of the team is in a better place to think and reason and maybe the scheme can be mastered.
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Oh yeah. I’ll say. Like one Swann comment, “Once we get acclimated to the system and get everyone playing, I think we have a chance to be one of the best in the country”. Hard to be more prescient than that.
It would be a little bit prescient coming from an All-American, if we had one. Coming from someone like Swann, who only last year refused to engage and tackle a WR, hence giving up a long TD in a big national game we lost by 3, and who had the kind of year he had, and has yet to demonstrate to anyone that he’s a competent SEC player, yeah, it sounds very prescient.
We don’t have anybody on our team who has any business thinking like that, much less talking like that, whether it’s true or not. Not even Gurley, until he returns to form and fully demonstrates he is back to 100% .. if he ever does.
What it does is demonstrate a totally wrong mindset (though to be fair, we can’t expect the ingrained mindset to have changed before spring even begins). I’m hopeful that Pruitt’s influence will have an impact, and before too long, we’ll hear a lot less of that kind of talk, at least from the defense.
It’s been going on far too long. WAY too long.
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I think you missed my point. The “prescient” referred to his “depended on the player” comment in light of Checkgate.
Purely tongue-in-cheek.
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You’re right, I completely missed your point. I was already influenced, having read the article yesterday, before the Checkgate news broke.
I hope you don’t miss mine.
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Your a very good writer. You seem to like to joust with the Senator. Just an observation. I mean nothing by it. Interesting to follow though as Bluto is a quick wit as well.
Thanks.
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Good writing is one of the many things you get with an Ivey Leaguer
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Thanks, DiF.
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Thanks for the compliment. I appreciate it.
It’s more like the Senator likes to joust with me. He enjoys that type of thing, and though it’s not my cup of tea, I’ve come to enjoy the back-and-forth with him, as well. It’s pretty playful most of the time, and I find him to be a straight shooter.
He certainly does. I’ve never minded being held accountable for what I say, and I know that any weakness will be pointed out (always been that way, my style has a lot to do with it). Or sometimes he might just flat disagree, but that doesn’t happen often. But yeah, he keeps you on your toes – all of us – and that’s a good thing. It makes it fun.
So, thanks again. My goal is to get a compliment from the Senator sometime in the next 3 years, by January 2017. I expect it to be a wire finish. 🙂
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You’ve made it often enough. 😉
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Yeah, changing the ingrained mindset is one of the most important things Pruitt has to do, IMHO. And Richt the same, but I suspect it’s more on Pruitt.
But the mindset we need (to return to) is more of a product of good teaching, good leadership, and good coaching. It’s very hard, if not impossible, to teach it by lecturing or preaching. It’s a natural outcome of a lot of good things happening, in terms of teaching and coaching.
It’s not totally exclusive to the defense, but that’s where the current mindset originated, and has mostly resided. I might be wrong, but I don’t think the mindset that has caused us so much pain in the past will be allowed to survive under Pruitt. It was tempered somewhat under Grantham for a spell. But Pruitt seems like a no-nonsense kind of coach.
So yeah, it’s a big thing, a key thing to keep an eye on, since it always shows up on the field. Sooner or later. And for us longsuffering Dawgs, it’s usually shown up sooner, and all too often.
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