I’m sorry, but this Grantham comment from today deserves its own post.
Grantham’s tenure at Georgia ended with a bit of a flop — the young Bulldogs surrendered 29 points and 375.5 yards per game last season — as fans and media questioned his job security throughout the 2013 season.
“We obviously had a really young team last year and we kind of faced some veteran offenses, some veteran quarterbacks, and because of that, we had to take some shots with those guys, but I think they got better for it,” Grantham recalled. “They were able to mature and I think that’s one of the reasons they’re able to have some success right now.”
An example of how they got better for it? Well…
Alone in the SEC, Georgia’s defense didn’t give up a pass play that gained over 40 yards this season – Louisville yielded eleven of those, by the way – so, I guess if you want to say that being epically embarrassed to work hard enough to never show your ass like that again is a sign of maturity, then Grantham taking credit for Georgia’s defensive improvement in 2014 makes some sense.
Or you could just say the man has some chutzpah.
Get The Picture 
Well, he was 4-0 against Georgia Tech…
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Yep. All by his lonesome.
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I just don’t see why Dawg fans remain so salty about the guy. CTG is gone. UGA hired a DC that everyone seems to to like and who did a great job this year. Meanwhile CTG did a really good job as well (admittedly with mostly Charlie Strong’s players) on a team that had to transition a new coaching staff and a new conference.
Everybody seemed to have gotten what they wanted: UGA is rid of CTG, and UofL didn’t take a major step back on defense.
I don’t expect Georgia fans to be happy for the guy or anything like that, but enjoy what you have in Pruitt and move forward.
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What would be the fun in that? 😉
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That is true 🙂 At least it adds some talking points for what would probably otherwise be a mundane bowl conversation.
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Honestly, you don’t think it was in the back of some of the minds who put the game together?
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No doubt that it absolutely was. Just like how the NCAA manages to put together juicy match-ups in the hoops tournament (despite their claims otherwise).
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The Auburn alums in SEC office wanted to go to a warm new years day bowl.
That’s why we were sent to Charlotte.
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I think we all just got sick of seeing Grantham behind the towel, flapping around, while the players looked over to the sideline like they had just been freaking teleported into a football game and had no idea what the hell to do. That chit go old. It’s one thing to be inept, and his defenses weren’t, but they sure looked the part at the pre-snap read.
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That was a lousy last sentence. My point is the defense looked inept pre-snap. Everyone was looking at the sidelines, looking at each other and waving their arms. When you’re allowing big plays it’s best not to look that out of sync because it reflects on the guy in charge of the unit.
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That last sentence was awful. The defense looked liked the most confused bunch of people I’ve ever seen on the field. How many players looking over to the sideline? Waving their arms? Looking at each other? Tons. If you’re giving up big plays in a steady stream like they were last year, it’s not good to looked so ill prepared. That lack of readiness or state of confusion sure reflected on Grantham, right or wrong, and stuck. He did a decent job here, no more and no less. It was time for a change and both parties got what they wanted. It was a classic win/win.
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You has me at “they had just been freaking teleported into a football game and had no idea what to do”
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That did explain it perfectly
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I was laying here in bed with Mrs. Cosmic Dawg and I was laughing so hard it took me several tries to read it to her. She is reading David Sedaris’ Holiday On Ice and that post made her laugh the most.
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That teleport line wins the interweb for today.
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And 3-1 versus fu.
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His gives me reason to want a win in an otherwise meaningless bowl game.
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You are correct. We get to build up to the game where CJP will show CTG what it is all about, with some pretty talented players. It is that Alabama connection with Georgia that has gone on since before the WAR.
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I deserve just as much credit as Todd Grantham for Georgia’s defense improving this year, and I wouldn’t know a blitz from a blatz.
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Be nice if Mason uses this game to beat out Gurley for the longest pass play this year. I think that mark should always be held by a QB.
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Grantham also takes credit for Murray’s great season last year and Bob’s scoping offense this year, “If it wasn’t for the poor defensive effort I had our guys give in practice Murray would never have the confidence to play like he did. And one step more, if not for the lack of quality play calling he would have never felt the need to score so many points, something that I believe has carried over to this season.”
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Grantham took a Charley Strong-trained defense this year, right, and did so-so with it. Gave up 40 to Kentucky in the last game, same as it would have been in Athens for him. On the plus side, he held some vicious ACC offenses to 21 or so, and really shut down Florida International. Our defense had its moments this year, but the improvements in pass coverage (other than early against SC) and particularly in takeaways were dramatic. It would be really nice to see our guys get up for a bowl game the way they did up until recently.
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Actually it was only 26 to Kentucky as the Cayuts scored 14 on a pick six and a fumble returned for a TD.
I know, semantics…
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Valid point. We gave up 31 but at UK and mostly in the second quarter. Can’t remember the circumstances. UK was still looking at a big season when they played us. Louisville got ’em at home a bit deflated.
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Out of that secondary that learned so much from it, 3 of the starters (at least…I lost count) aren’t even here to account for the improvement this year. And they didn’t grow from it at all during the season last year. Grantham wasn’t an awful coach overall but I have no clue what kind of coaching our secondary received. But it wasn’t good. At all.
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Man, watching that clip is a painful reminder of how bad our safety play was last year. Mauger just wasn’t ready, it wasn’t his fault. Shoot, he really wasn’t ready until about halfway through this season.
I really hope he and Sanders stay healthy. Give Pruitt a couple of experiences safeties that he can trust to make the right reads in the back end, and I think we’ll see some really fun things out of our D.
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A couple of “experienced” safeties.
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I’m not defending CTG and I’m happy he’s gone, BUT his defense was smashing faces against fu down in JAX. It was a welcome change from the decades when our coaches seemed to piss their pants whenever we went against fu.
So I certainly hope we’ll see the confused screw-up version of CTG’s defense instead of the smash mouth approach he brought to JAX.
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smashing faces, breaking arms and derailing the Driskeling
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Grantham deserves some credit… He was a step up from Willie… And he did some great things with great players, he recruited well. No me was but thirst over him leaving, but his parting shots and inflated resume (the whole backbone comments) really rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way. So it’s not that we’re sorry he’s gone and want him back… It’s that we want to knock his d@&! In the dirt for being a pompous ass when Mark Richt paved the way for that job.
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I am glad Leweyville hired him myself. Time to move on.
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Is there any question CJP > CTG? Grantham was (is) a great coach, but however he left we ended up with a better one. Plucking Pruitt from FSU is still amazing to think about. He could have gone many other places, but chose UGA. Here’s to him improving the D in Year 2.
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If you paid me about $1,000,000 per year for mediocre results, I’d have chutzpah, too. And mental toughness to boot!
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Un…ba…leave… a…bull. He is a buffoon and a fool. Should have been fired after his first season.
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Why?
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See the muckbeast comment below at 7:21. His 4 points were exactly what I was thinking of when I posted.
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I had 3 problems with TG:
1) a lot of talk that he never backed up – he talked about teams being glad their game with us was over after we got after them
2) his failure to understand how to stop the zone read – we were terrible against read option teams with a pulse
3) his failure to become Lakatos intolerant – Lakatos had the best personnel grouping in 2012 and wasted them
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I just hope we run the wheel route right down his defense’s throat.
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This guy is such a piece of shit.
1) Takes credit for other people’s accomplishments.
2) Doesn’t take any responsibility or hold himself accountability for his own mistakes or failings.
3) Things its ok to get in fights with kids (other team’s players).
4) Beyond no class (e.g. throat choke signal to a kid playing on the other team).
I have to admit, his shit talking bad attitude really makes me care about this game.
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but points wise – wasn’t 2013 the worst UGA defense ever?
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