Man, I am so tired of reading stuff like this:
“The coaches really want to see us succeed, and they’re always available for us,” said junior outside linebacker Jordan Jenkins, who had Grantham as a position coach the past two years. “They’re just going the extra mile compared to last year. … The coaches and the players we got now, we never really held each other accountable before; we’d let some people slide. If somebody’s acting up, not doing something right, we get onto them. On and off the field, you’ve got guys looking out for each other and always holding everybody accountable.”
I’m glad they’re buying in to what the new coaches are selling, but, still, what do you figure the over/under on the number of posts I’ve written at GTP on the subject of accountability is?
Get The Picture 
IDK, but I bet it’s a high number, because this has been going on a long time.
It’s interesting that Jenkins was a chief slacker himself last year, and now he’s talking the talk as if he’s leading the pack. Mentioned this several months ago, and I’m still not sure what to make of it. Guess I’ll see it as a positive thing until something indicates otherwise.
But it does seem that, in addition to the new energy, we have a new culture forming because of Pruitt. And hence, the beginnings of accountability. You have to start somewhere.
So my theory that BVG’s absence began the cultural slide 9 years ago is still holding up. It’s just that Martinez and Grantham couldn’t get it done, for whatever reasons. We seem to have some synergy going for the first time since Richt’s early years.
I’ll continue to be happy about it until something happens to change what we have going right now.
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Bear in mind that young men at that phase are prone to thinking that their personal discovery of worthwhile concepts is novel and has never happened before. It takes a few years of hard knocks to figure out nothing is new. My point being that we might have had decent accountability in prior years.
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Groups don’t work according to Newton’s first law of motion. You don’t just plug certain values in at the beginning and expect them to carry on for all time. Concepts like accountability have to be constantly recharged and reinvigorated.
Richt brought in new values and new energy in 2001. Grantham brought in a “recharge” in 2010, and it looks like Pruitt is doing the same thing now. More valuable, I think, was Richt’s approach during the 2011 offseason (“Get on the bus”). We need new insight into motivation and development every offseason, not just in hot seat years.
If Murray doesn’t cut it in the NFL, they should bring him on as a Quality Control guy to do Organizational Psychology. When you’re trying to run a team, organizational “conditioning” is equally as important as physical conditioning, strategy, etc.
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Nice post … spot on. Whatever your goal is picking them up and putting them down always has a price.
I think Murray will at the least equal Zeier’s pro career. Yes it would be great to see him between the hedges again.
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Ben has it right. Every year we hear that this is the best offseason ever, and that no one ever held anyone accountable for now, and that Joe Cox is leading the early morning running, and that there was never good attendance in the weight room until this summer. And the thing is, there’s always at least some bit of truth to it. This isn’t a zero-sum game. As Ben stated, Grantham did recharge the batteries in ’10. Changes tend to refresh things, and with the stability of our staff our problem has been going stale. I’m excited about what I hear from practice, and feel a lot of optimism, but I’ll hold my certainties for September.
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Well, I think we’re all like that. It’s unusual for me to buy into hype, in fact I’m normally immune. And the sentiment of your post is is certainly understandable, and I’m sure widespread. How could it not be.
To me, so far, the last 60 days haven’t been hype. I may end up wrong, but this looks like the real thing to me. I never bought in, totally, under Grantham, preferring to wait and see. Never bought into OL hype every year, etc..
But, regardless of how many good reports, etc., we have, or how much guys like me insist it’s genuine, none of us will know anything for sure until at least mid-September. And then, we still won’t know everything.
So we’ll see how it goes from here. But again, I’ve stuck my head out there already, that this is real, and FWIW, it’s been a long time since I was wrong. I’ve been calling for this for at least 6 years. So to me, unlike the past 9 years, I feel relaxed enough to sort of enjoy what’s happening right now.
There’s a long, long, way to go from here. More than most of us can visualize. Nevertheless, it sure looks to me like the ship has been righted and set to sail in the right direction. It’s up to Richt to see that it stays on course. What that means for the 2014 season and beyond, we’ll have to wait and see.
But I’m having fun for the first time in what seems like a hundred years.
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I agree with you. Don’t mean to sound like a doubter–I do believe there’s a very solid foundation for optimism. The biggest problem was defensive coaching, and a whole new D staff has brought in new energy, which has infected the rest of the team. Off the bat it sounds as if spring practice will be twice as productive because of the format. And we usually don’t count on spring for much of anything but keeping the rust away. We need to keep folks healthy in August (and out of trouble) because it sounds like the new approach is very physical, ones vs. ones, more full-speed, etc. I do think we’ll be more ready for September than usual that way.
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That’s what I thought you meant, though I wouldn’t blame you or anybody else for being a doubter at this point, not until it shows up on the field.
It’s hard to explain, but the sense I get, and this hasn’t happened since the early Richt years, is that this defensive staff knows what it’s doing. The offense has been in pretty good shape for a few years now (except for the OL, of course). As a result, the staff as a whole is on the same page, for a nice change. And hence the sense of synergy of the team, to this point. That’s what you want.
But my position isn’t inconsistent with waiting until mid-September, and then December. Because you have to keep it going and consistent for a whole season. Then you know it’s ingrained and your foundation is solid.
It may be that it takes more than one year to build that foundation. But it might not. I’m just happy because we suddenly have a chance, and a reasonable expectation, to see some solid football. I’m so sick of giving games away and beating ourselves I’m beside myself. Or was.
That’s another telltale sign, BTW. Regardless of how the season turns out, if we quit doing that, we’ll know we’re on the right track for sure.
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Dang rational discussion and thoughtful, insightful posts! What happened to the innernets?
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Thanks, Skeeter.
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LOL at “it’s been a long time since I was wrong.” Your wife probably disagrees.
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Not about Georgia.
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Better question: How often have we read quotes like this the past six years? This ain’t the first. I’m tired of hearing, ready to see proof.
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It was only a few months ago that Richt stood beside TG and agreed another year was needed in order to determine his future.
This cultural change sounds good but I’m not optimistic that anything will change. Just seen too much of the same thing for too long. Sorry for pessimism.
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Cool. And no need to apologize, it’s how you feel. And it’s justified. There’s no doubt in my mind we were headed right down the toilet, and had been saying so.
And then – suddenly – everything changed. We’ll see if it’s real.
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Blah,blah, blah.. Your actions are so loud I can’t hear what you are saying. I’m looking at you Swann!
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I’m convinced that UGA beat writers take the spring and summer off and just post articles using a Mad Libs-style template. Plug in this year’s names and grab some thesaurus entries for “excitement” and “accountability” and boom! Beach day.
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The more I hear the word “accountability” out of our athletic department the less I am convinced someone over there actually knows what it means.
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