“It’s not about what we as coaches know. It’s about what the players know,” said Pruitt. “You can’t play fast if you’re not in shape and you know what you’re doing.”
This season there are a lot of little things I’m looking forward to not missing – the frantic handwaving, Herrera chewing out a DB after a touchdown for missing a signal, a substitution penalty after a timeout, etc. And the towel. Always the towel.
Get The Picture 
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Maybe it’s the Kool Ade talking, but Lawd is that nice to hear! Simple yet undeniably true.
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As you said before Senator…how do I stop drinking the Kool-Aid when they keep filling my glass.
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From your lips to God”s ears, Wise One.
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Or: having great athleticism and not knowing your assignment means you get to the wrong place faster.
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as long as we don’t start seeing this…
http://www.businessinsider.com/funny-seeing-that-creepy-burger-king-on-oregons-sideline-last-night-right-2010-10
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I have heard a rumor Coach Grantham has hired a 20-year old coed to handle the towel at Luvalle…she also likes motorcycles and long walks on the beach.
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“a substitution penalty after a timeout,”
I’m going to miss those too. Guess the tighter discipline rules out the possibility of getting a celebration penalty after a timeout
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I won’t miss those, and there’s a lot more I won’t be missing. Can’t think of one thing, even one little thing, I’m not glad to be rid of.
~~~
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That’s three sentences, fwiw.
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Football: Knock down the guy in front of you. Tackle the guy in front of you.
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You forgot: On O, when you have the ball, avoid the guy in front of you.
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They missing a don’t in there? “You can’t play fast if you’re not in shape and you [don’t] know what you’re doing.” Because all that arm flapping right before the ball was snapped last year was the secondary not knowing what they were doing.
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I really hope the defense is better and I’m fairly certain it won’t be worse. I’m still withholding judgement on Pruitt until after I see the team actually play a game. I drank deeply of the Grantham kool aid, I know better now than to base my expectations on the quotes from the coaches and players. Last year, we were told the defense would be fine, maybe better than the year before because they were going to play as a unit, not a bunch of stars trying to do it on their own, and we all believed it.
I don’t believe anything about either side of the ball until I see it.
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It’s always like this 83. No coach ever says…”well, we’re gonna suck this year…our defense will be awful”…It’s always roses and perfume. I also partook of the Grathamaid…I thought he was the second coming of ERK..he may have had some of the muster, but not much more. The one bright spot was when he got after Franklin..but Franklin got the last laugh.
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I know, but after 41 years of listening and reading the annual preseason hype, I’ve become quite jaded over the “coachspeak”. Every season, at the local Bulldog Club meeting, the coach/es tout the talent, the commitment, the conditioning, pretty much everything. And every season, especially since ’07, the team comes out a couple of times a season and looks completely unprepared or one aspect of the team is terrible. I’m ready to hear some honesty.
I don’t expect to hear; “we are going to be terrible”, but it would be sort of refreshing to hear a coach say “our defensive backfield is going to need some help from the guys up front with some pressure because we really aren’t where we need to be in the secondary”. Or, to hear Richt say “until the playing field is leveled when it comes to disciplinary policy, we really can’t expect to play with the same talent level every game as some of the other, less strict teams”.
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Right?
The fans say “the kids looked confused!”.
The new DC says “We’re keeping it simple and going back to teaching fun-da-men-tal footbaw ovah heah now and (insert “gettin’ after it” quote here).
Well, terrific, great, okay, glad to hear it.
But if the fanbase meme was that the kids smell like used cars, I think we’d start hearing how much Nu Kar aerosol they were going through this year, how everybody was buying into the new scent, etc.
Not that there can’t be some problems obvious to everyone and real solutions implemented… but agree that more realism and specifics and substance would be nice occasionally.
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Why give out free information to us and other teams?
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Didn’t Pruitt say a couple weeks ago we only have one DB who is ready to play today? What else do you want?
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15-0, baby. It’s August, Book it!
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After i read Heren Pruitts quote, my buzz is nothing compared to the four “coffee shops” I walked by on Prinzengracht on my way home from work.
Next Saturday can’t get here fast enough. I just hope my koolaid consumption doesn’t give me a hank Williams jr size hangover on Sunday….
Hop Dawgs!
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What’s good in coolaid? Rum? When I was in the Navy in Nam, all we had to drink was coolaid..usually green…and tainted with diesel fuel. We called it “bug-juice”. No ice…ever…just warm bug juice. But I’ll drink a gallon of it, sans diesel and on ice, if the Dawgs put a big hurt on Clemson.
Think the Dawgs will board a bus and circle SStadium a couple of times before unloading? Maybe they could all rub a statue of ERK’s head or at least the UGA statue on their way…Naw…that would be like Clemson, inventing a bunch of phoney “traditions”.
I feel good about the matchup..but I’m going to be very nervous.
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Even if we went around the stadium three times, it would not be enough to give Brent the boner he had at Clemson last year when he saw the school buses. I’m glad they shipped his ass off after last season but not so glad that he ended up with the rest of the flotsam and jetsam co-stars on The SEC Network.
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Ain’t that the truth. Talk about sensationalizing a major design flaw in their stadium into some kind of cool tradition. Dumbest thing I ever saw (both the stadium design and the ridiculous banter). But there’s nothing Mush Mouth can’t sensationalize, even if it does come across phony to many.
I’ll guarantee Athens and the Sanford tradition won’t get anywhere close to the 20 minute full coverage (and publicity) Clemson got.
~~~
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Look it’s all bullshit until the game starts and we see the defense period!
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So far all the guy has done is run his mouth, very similar to Grantham. When half of your secondary are players that were playing offense, or recruited to play offense, you should stop sugar coating everything and tell it like it is. The secondary sucks, and unless Pruitt the great recruiter gets some 4 or 5 star talent for next year’s class, which i don’t see any on the horizon, the problem will still exist next year. UGA is what it is under Richt, a nice team, but always lacking depth in one or two areas of the team. O.L.. and secondary this year, always O.L. under Richt, but usually one more position is weak. Have fun drinking the juice, but nothing is going to change at UGA until Richt hangs it up.
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I think you are dead wrong.
If you really believe that, then all I can say is you haven’t been paying attention.
Every bit of that is dead wrong. Either you don’t know what’s going on, or you have no idea what you’re taking about.
The secondary will be much improved. Already, the talent level is, IMHO, greater than it was last year’s 4 and 5 stars. That’s because Pruitt, first of all, knows what real talent looks like, and second, knows how to develop it.
Yes, we need some big-time talent in the secondary, and to that end it couldn’t be going any better. Pruitt’s only been here one offseason. We’re gonna be fine, better than we’ve been since VanGorder was here, because Pruitt knows how to recognize real talent.
~~~
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How can you honestly say the secondary talent is better now? we lost a 5 star safety in JHC, a 4 star safety in Mathews, a 4 star corner in Wiggins, and now we have a corner that is a walk on, a senior that was pitiful last year as the other corner, a running back turned safety in J.J Green, another sr. in Corey Moore that has never done anything at the other safety, and guys like rico johnson, sanders, terry(another converted wide receiver), and Parish, and Fenting(Spelling), all unproven. Yet you think this new D.C. knows talent when he sees it. Give me a break. If you think for one second that UGA has the talent in the secondary, or the talent on the D.L. that FSU had last year that this guy inherited, then you are dead wrong. Why do you think he said that nobody on the defense deserved an MVP award after the spring game? One day, all of the UGA fans will realize we don’t have the talent on defense that our rivals do. If you keep up with recruiting you would know that UGA has lost an all SEC first team defense to it’s rivals. (Adams, Lawson to Auburn, Nkemdece(spelling) to Ole MIss, and the list goes on and on. When the wonderful Richt gets only 1 of the top 10 recruits in the state 2 years ago, and only 2 last year, it will start to show this year and next year. Keep drinking the juice, after 13 years of Richt and his lack of leadership and knowledge of how to manage a football program, we will all be sitting here making excuses after S.C. kicks our asses for the 4th time in 5 years. S.C. for God’s sake!!!!!!
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Be careful 1953, when you start talking facts about our beloved coach and his ability, folks will get upset with you. At this point, I’m expecting another four loss regular season and another mediocre bowl game and another off season of “if only” and “wait til next year”. We have become what we used to laugh at in SC fans.
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Its ABSOLUTELY going to be better. You mentioned in your paragraph that all these guys this year are unproven, what the heck do you think they were last year?? Last year game 1 you started Connor Norman, Tray Matthews, Brendan Langley and Damian Swann. Two true freshmen making their first starts ever and a walk on. Then JHC came back and they put Wiggins in for Langley. Oh yeah, Wiggins was a true freshmen. Now you have Swann a year older, Mauger and Corey Moore who ended up playing a bunch, Shattle Fenteng who is older than both Langley and Wiggins and you added JJ Green, Malkolm Parrish and Dominick Sanders and Rico Johnson. Aaron Davi was a walk on because of his injury, do your homework, he has a ton of talent. Sheldon Dawson is a year older and Tramel Terry is a 5 star player as you love to throw out about Matthews and JHC. Plus ALL these DBs are going to be coached by a MUCH better DB coach that will know how to get them into the correct positions. They won’t be perfect, they will make mistakes but I GUARANTEE you they will be light years better as will the front 7. I agree talk is all talk until the games start and many bought into Grantham the same way but Grantham didn’t have NEAR the pedigree that this guy does. He took FSU from a -6 turnover ratio to a +17 in one year. 25 INTs. That doesn’t happen without a fundamental change in coaching.
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Because talent is more than HS stars, size, and athletic measurables. Part of it is in the head, and in the heart. So when we talk about our secondary talent, that is the context.
This is how I see our secondary today, as we speak, with 2 weeks left until we play, in terms of the best talent.
Safety – Aaron Davis
Safety – Dominick Sanders
Corner – Damian Swann
Corner – Rico Johnson
Corner – Shattle Fenteng
Star – JJ Green
Star – Malkom Parrish
Those guys have the characteristics it takes to be solid players, and not just the athletic side of it. That wasn’t true with JHC, Matthews, and Wiggins.
We’re losing some size with Matthews, and size & length with JHC, but gain size with Wiggins. We gain speed with all 3, meaning we’ll be faster at those positions than we were last year, or if the 3 were here today. For all 3, we gain in ball skills.
For all 3, we gain the mindset and the heart to go hard every play. For all 3 we gain the ability to think, and to learn the defense. For all 3 we gain the innate football instinct that you need in the secondary, that has been sorely missing for so long.
So yeah, I don’t think there’s a dropoff in overall talent. I see an increase. A large increase, IMO, if we’re talking about the ability to play the positions.
At the time, I was glad to see all of them leave, and knew we would be much better off without those 3 dumbasses. But the progress of the secondary has been a very pleasant surprise. I’m delighted to this point.
Now, we’re super short on experience, mind you. And I don’t underestimate that, especially the way we open the season. However, it’s trade-off I’ll happily make. At some point, you’ve got to play your best and most-talented players.
Nobody has written and complained more about the secondary than me, 1953. Nobody has been more frustrated, pointed out more flaws in coaching, recruiting, and play on the field the past 8 years.
And I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised with our secondary this year.
~~~
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100% agree.
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And don’t forget, Mauger and Moore have a lot of experience.
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Well, they do, especially Moore. But very little of it is good experience, which tempers it greatly in my mind. It’s gonna be interesting how Pruitt uses them, Moore in particular.
I think Moore has a valuable place on the team, but not so much as a safety. He’s been helpful around the new guys, and seems to be a DGD. I’m also wondering if Pruitt will use Moore at the Money position (one of the ILB’s when we’re in the 4-2-5 Nickel) in certain situations due to his size.
For example, I could see Moore playing Money and being effective in those 3rd-and-long situations, where teams like to pull one of our ILB’s out of the box, isolating the other in the middle tier (last year it was Herrera). From there, it’s an easy check to a slot receiver slanting across creating a huge mismatch and usually an easy first down (Alabama did it to us in 2012, and got a TD out of it, IIRC).
But a big safety, like Moore, would be a much better matchup for us, giving us a good chance to stop the play. So, the Money position will be interesting, what type of player Pruitt uses there. I suspect it’ll be several. BTW, it isn’t Mauger’s fault he got terrible coaching last year. He did his best, and seems a DGD. I don’t think his talent is on par with those I mentioned, or with Terry or Wilkerson, for that matter.
But it’s going to be interesting to see how Pruitt uses the experience of Moore and Mauger.
~~~
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