If you’re wondering why I posted that Mark Richt’s quote about Tray Matthews “becoming a very dependable guy” was one of the sillier things he’s uttered lately, well…
The short but tumultuous Georgia football career of Tray Matthews has come to an end.
The rising sophomore safety was dismissed from the team, head coach Mark Richt announced on Tuesday.
That quote is as blunt a statement as I’ve ever heard Richt make upon a player’s dismissal from the team, and you have to think, based on what he said a week ago, that this is over something more than Checkgate.
There’s something completely unsurprising about Matthews looking to transfer to either Auburn or Louisville, right? Unsurprising, but amusing.
I wonder when somebody decides to put together an “I was dismissed by Mark Richt” alumni party. Looks like they’ll need a bigger room for that.
Oh, yeah…
Thanks for the memories, guys. Best of luck.
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UPDATE: Presented without comment…
https://twitter.com/ShaqWiggins6/statuses/473945140843667457
Get The Picture 
That damn Richt is so lax on discipline. 😉
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Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ. Can the last player left on Scholly turn the lights out at Sanford?
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Nice drama queen post
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Hat tip to the coach for following through.
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Does this all but confirm we will have a walk-on starting in the secondary for the second straight year against clemson?
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Davis is a good kid if his knee holds up he’ll be a solid player, my son played with him in high school so I got to see his athleticism. Good coaching and I think his work ethic and determination will serve him well.
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No. Moore, Mauger, Terry, and either Fenteng or Sanders will be the top 4.
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Face. Palm.
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New plan…
Run a 4-4 and bring the house every play.
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We used to call that the ole’ Tenuta.
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“Trigga” got pulled …
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Well done sir.
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I believe I’ve been calling this one for a while now. “Trigga” was nothing but a pain in the ass from the second he arrived on campus. There was cultural rot in the secondary last year; I would love to know the whole story of what was going on in that unit last year.
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Seems fairly obvious Pruitt is laying down the law. I have no problem with it. In the end, there is always someone who can step up. After all, he is the player that “Snatched defeat from the jaws of victory”.
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The way Richt’s talking, I don’t think this call’s on Pruitt.
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I think it’s pretty obvious that Richt is beyond over it. I can’t say I blame him.
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Either way, as painful as this look on the talent side, I’m glad to see that we’re getting rid of what appears to be some entitlement minded players.. I don’t care how good they are, we don’t need it and I’m glad to see this cultural shift.
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Thats just it tho, they really weren’t that good
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Well said sir.
I’m gonna miss Trigga – was always good for a self inflicted bloody lip (LOL).
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Agreed. And I agree with other comments, it seems like necessary house cleaning. Get some guys with the right attitude working as a team. Eleven decent players working as one unit is better than a divided team of talented a holes. I still go back to that jerk trying to make a highlight play instead of batting it down to end the game. We have to see that for the rest of our lives here in Columbus. It really is awful. Thanks Trigger
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ATTENTION ALL WALK ONs: UGA’s the place to be, baby!
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Good riddance to all 3 of them. Our secondary can only get better.
“its not us, its THEM” -shaq wigs
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Shaq can get bent on Petrino’s Harley…
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Shaq failed so miserably in Grantham’s system. yet he and the rest of them seem intent on going to Louisville and continuing their crappy play.
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Poor Shaq…couldn’t sing and goof off at practice at UGA so he took his ball and went elsewhere.
Matthews though…I’m curious what he did to piss Richt off so much. Failed drug test? Fight? Inquiring minds would like to know…
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Exactly.
~~~
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Given that entitled 4-star kids can never be as good as 2-star kids who are amenable to coaching, it’s curious that it’s the teams with high recruiting rankings that succeed year in and year out.
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All you did is make our secondary weaker today Richt! Who’s gonna do it? You Senator? You Ivey?
This does hurt, and hurt big. While Trigga may have been a pain in the ass, he was certainly talented. Who said the secondary couldn’t be worse this season? Well, here’s worse.
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We didn’t exactly get a lot of production from Matthews last year. I’m not particularly high on Mauger, but he was at least as reliable as Matthews (which is to say he wasn’t reliable at all.)
That 4th down tackle Matthews missed against Clemson hurt us big time, and I really can’t think of any plays he made that stand out to me. In fact, his biggest strength – his hitting – has essentially been neutralized in today’s game.
All that said, I’m sure he’ll go star at Auburnville…
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Richt is CEO. He has to get rid of self absorbed a holes regardless of “potential”. Let me ask you this, what did TM do that makes him so indespensible? Looks like he averaged 3 tackles a game with 4 PBU and one INT. Other than that, all I saw from him was a penchant for consistently getting beat on long runs passes and TDs. He looked slow and out of place most of the time. When he was in place, he was able to assist Auburn on one of the worst hail mary plays this side of the LSU Ky game from 2002.
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He is a CEO, but he needs to be involved. A good coach handles the discipline before it gets to the point of dismissing players a regular basis. If you are going to dismiss this many you better be signing the limit too.
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This.
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Starting to wonder if it’s not a coincidence that these “attitude” dismissals are all in the secondary. One dismissal, fine. Two? Chalk it up to chance. Three? I’m not buying that this doesn’t have something to do with Pruitt taking over the secondary.
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Yeah, wtf is Richt doing with all his time? He is obviously not riding around with 85 athletes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, raising them to do what even their parents could not.
I think we “fired” the wrong guy, here, people.
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I trust that you are being sarcastic, sir. At least I hope so…
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That INT if you recall was just a happened to be in the right place at the right time. It was a bad over throw by a QB on from one of the crappy non-conf teams we played. The other INT he miffed on cost us the game. He is also stupid enough to be talked into trying to cash a check twice…like no one would notice.
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I wouldn’t be so sure “Trigga” was talked into anything. Given he was a pain in the ass from the second he arrived and that he seemed to be neck deep in wannabe gang culture, is actually be shocked if he wasn’t the ringleader of the whole thing.
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when did TM help us last year he was suspended for 3-4 games???? Auburn? yeah sad to see him go (sarcasm)
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2nd drama queen post
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This is coming from the same guy who faults Richt for not making our discipline policy more draconian to “teach these kids a lesson”. Now you’re bitching because he’s kicking kids off them team and the attrition hurts. Pick a side and stick with it.
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I love that the second these guys leave the program they were no talent hacks.
Pruitt better field one hell of a defense this season.
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Hacks, yes. But not without talent. And if they all end up at Louisville with Grantham, they can be assured that their talents will be developed to the absolute fullest extent possible. After all, Grantham did that for us. That’s why Bulldog Nation was so stricken when he left. How could he?
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I am guessing you did not see our D play last year…
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My sarcasm obviously needs further development. Maybe I should transfer to Louisville too. And yes, I saw our defense play last year.
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Not you Cannon, his reply was to the post from the guy who probably saw, but still doesn’t get it. Too much into forgiving the shaq’s and trigga’s of the world. Would rather blame the coaches. I did really hate to lose JHC, he did exhibit some talent but must have turned out to be a negatron. If we have to play all newbies and walk-ons, get this culture cleaned out of the UGA locker room Coach.
I am with the comment earlier, I cannot remember one single play that made me think, we got a good one in that Matthews kid. Heard a lot of noise from in last August, but his contribution was more for Auburn memories than UGA. Shaq entered Athens last August running his mouth on social media and never shut it, although opposing receivers did, continually.
It is pretty funny to see how CTG seems to be magnet for wayward juveniles. Wasn’t he supposed to be some tough guy, disciplinarian when he came to Georgia? Another misfire from the guy who got a raise for getting his ass handed to him.
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WELL SAID, SIR
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If I no longer dread 3rd and long it would be an improvement. Imho.
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Talent without discipline and integrity won’t make a team.
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So is this the partial result of Trey not following thru on community service and letting kids down??
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No Shaq, it’s definitely you and your gang-idolizing, immature secondary mates.
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HIT THE ROAD! When a guy who has worn the Red & Black is announcing he’ll be at AUBURN next – well, he can go to hell.
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Who vets these kids? Is it that difficult to find similar talent with an attitude that will fit Richt – or that will find Richt the right fit? We’re burning tons of game reps on dead ends. Enough already.
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All these guys know Teddy Bridgewater is no longer at Louisville, right? Enjoy playing in the Beef O’ Brady bowl, if your lucky.
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Attention, we have to coach and train players that actually want to play the damn game. These guys obviously didn’t care about the team or they would have not gotten suspended as many times as they did. Football is a team sport in spite of ESPN’s best efforts to make it an individual contest. A well trained group of players will kill a bunch of 5 stars that don’t know what to do but are damn fast. I seem to remember somebody saying that a guy that runs a 4.3 40 but is running in the wrong direction is just taking himself out of the play faster. We are not going to win the National Championship with these guys heck we had them last year and went 8-5. Let’s at least wait to see the 2014 D play before we concede the season.
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Wasn’t Richt talking recently about how Tray needed to take more responsibility in his own hamstring recovery? That signaled me that Tray wasn’t buying in. No surprise here.
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Yeah. I mean the kid missed pretty much every important game last year and managed to piss all over Murray’s epic comeback against Auburn trying to get INT #2 for the year.
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………and summer is yet to begin. The saga continues.
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He should go to Auburn. After all, he made one of their biggest plays last year.
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He wont even need to send the highlight reel. Just call em up, “hey guys, remember me?”
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The only problem is that UGA has been slitting it’s own throat for more than a decade to “clean up the locker-room” or “find guys that want to do it the right way”.
UGA is going to start another season under 85 scholarship players, walk-ons on the 2-deep, and a secondary that spent more time getting ready for prom than they have SEC football.
At some point this coaching staff is going to have to take some responsibility in keeping these guys on the team. Sitting back and washing their hands of the whole thing and saying these kids are just bad apples is getting us nowhere.
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Are you advocating over signing, or tolerating bad behavior? Otherwise you are letting the inmates run the asylum. You have either never managed people or taught school, one thing you learn very quickly is that everybody “don’t want to be learned or trained”. So we can act like many other programs and sweep this under the rug, or we can show some character and kick their sorry asses out the door to separate them from the better kids. If you prefer the TN, FU, and Auburn approach you should buy some different colored hats and polos.
Your naïve, utopian like approach to wanting to save every single player regardless of their continual spitting in your face is not commendable, it is simply a cover-up for wanting to win so badly that you will sell your integrity and principles for a W. No one can ever accuse CMR about not wanting to help all the young men he comes into contact with so it is easy to see how bad some of these apples are when he has to finally cut them loose. None of us know what straw broke the camel’s back in this case but coming so quickly on the heels of Richt’s encouraging remarks about Matthews it wasn’t something minor. Like others above, I will support taking the strong stance with discipline when a player doesn’t respond.
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Good go, Mac. Support your entire statement. Class will eventually win out at UGA that reflects alumni pride.
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“Are you advocating over signing, or tolerating bad behavior?”
This is a false dichotomy if there ever was one.
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This. Phan makes some fair points.
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Mathews was an idiot. As was JHC, as was Shaq…..just a group of thug culture, self-absorbed underachievers. Getting tired of people turning to the coaches and asking them to “fully vet” the players, to figure this out in advance. These guys are not getting dismissed over minor stuff- remember fraudulent check cashing? multiple reefer incidents? – what do you want, DawgPhan? Druggies, thuggies and sexual predators on your team? Richt is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Or so it seems. Not catering to prima donna, rule breaking morons is good practice, not a mistake. If you want Auburn, or Tuscaloosa, you can have it. Over there, the police look the other way and players are taken to the coach first not the station. Ask anyone who is connected. That doesn’t help the young man who is guilty. But it might help you win games and puff yourself up.
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Nicely stated Jeff, agree totally.
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Hell, I’m more screwed up than Trey. I thought JH-C’s finger tips deflected the ball away from Mathews’s certain interception. How did he start to get blamed for what another player did to him and us? I don’t fault JH-C for trying either. “Shit happens” is true in that play, but we all forget the part where it rolls downhill.
Team discipline is Richt’s to impose. Other coaches can help him, but he can’t delegate. This is sad all around, but Richt can’t eschew his responsibility. I feel badly for Mark, the ultimate CEO.
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You are right, these situations have to hurt CMR more than anyone. There is nothing like the level of disappointment you feel when someone you went out on a limb for let’s you down. Very discouraging.
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