Todd Gurley, being a normal human being, has some regrets.
“I had a pretty good career. I mean I’ve got a couple regrets, but then again I don’t,” Gurley said. “I feel like I had a great career here, could’ve done a lot of things better. But nobody goes through college thinking they went through it perfectly…”
Not to say that Georgia was cheated when he was suspended – Nick Chubb made sure of that – but if you look at Gurley’s game stats before the suspension, he was on his way to a monster season. After Vanderbilt, he was averaging 18.8 carries and 154.6 rushing yards per game; project that over a 13-game season and you’re looking at 244 carries and 2,010 rushing yards. And that’s just running the ball.
Again, with the way Chubb stepped up, I don’t know that the stats would have made much of a difference, overall. I wish I could say the same about the team’s psyche after being let down about Gurley’s suspension not being lifted for the Florida game. Ah, well.
Get The Picture 
I still don’t blame Gurley. I blame an A.D. who’s dopey enough to think you can lay the entire case out for the ncaa and they’ll respond with some level of benevolence.
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As much as I like to play by the rules, I have to agree here. The rule is broken and our willingness to throw ourselves at the mercy of the NCAA has been shown foolish every time we’ve done it.
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Aggree with Russ 🙂
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Yeah, I said it a while back, but the biggest mistake McG and crew made was letting the belief hang out there that it was going to be a 2 game suspension. Pretty much everyone expected that to be the case. Then when we requested reinstatement after the 2nd game, it reinforced the belief even MORE – lots of even the national writers said something to the effect “Yep, Gurley is coming back, you don’t even request reinstatement unless you know it will be granted”. So when it all came down, it was literally like Gurley was suspended twice. The team was resilient the first time, the 2nd was just too much for their psyche. I’ll always believe that if the team had just been prepared mentally to be without Gurley for at least 4 games, that the game in Jax would have been different. Can’t prove it though. Oh well.
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I just don’t buy the “team psyche in jax” argument. That’s a game that turned on awful edge play on defense and an unfortunate, momentum-zapping fumble from Chubb. Once the lead became insurmountable, then the team’s psyche went down the tubes. That’s in the defense; sometimes, you gotta sack up when the offense’s game is off during the first half.
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I think the team psyche may have had some effect on the awful edge play; a “damn, I gotta make all the plays myself” attitude. You Cannot prove it did not just as I cannot prove it did.
The “Hey, Guys, Gurley’s not coming back to play against us, we have a chance! ” effect on Florida’s confidence level probably helped it a lot. Florida did not fold when it got down early as I expected it to.
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Agreed.
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AMEN!!
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Wrong place.
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yes
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A Heisman would have been nice to add to the trophy cases at B-M.
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Even with the big stats, he wasn’t winning the trophy. The WWL wanted Mariota to win it and was going to do everything in their power to make it happen.
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McGarity table talk that Gurley was back after the Arky game got back to the team. The consequent letdown when that turned out to be the case is understandable.
Then our DE’s play selfishly or stupidly or a combination of both, take your pick, and 5-6 big runs hurt us bad, our D can’t get the 3rd down or 4th down stop, and Bobo’s offense goes on walkabout for most of the first half.
I hate to lose but especially to the hated gators.
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Andrews getting hurt was the real blow in that game. Threw the entire blocking/offense off. We could’ve slow down their momentum if we could have kept the ball.
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This^^.
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AMEN
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So it’s Greg McGarity’s fault we lost to Florida last year. Glad to know that.
As I said at the time, I seem to remember, the disappointing thing about Todd Gurley’s two-year autograph signing escapade was not that he broke the rules and got caught, but that I would not get to seem him play.
It is a strange world us football fans live in. One kid breaks a rule… smokes a little dope… gets sent to Louisville, another kid, knowingly, breaks a rule, pockets the money, becomes a hero. Has a hashtag and all.
We say, some of us, that making money off your signature is your right, that it is morally wrong to punish you (and us) for doing something you should have the right to do if you want.
There are rational, intelligent folks who believe punishing a kid for smoking dope is as morally corrupt as punishing a kid for taking money for his autograph.
I hope Todd Gurley’s situation helped provide some impetus to get the money thing for players straightened out, that in time, Todd Gurley gets to be a multi-millionaire in the NFL Business if that’s what Todd Gurley wants.
And I hope, going forward, if Greg McGarity is gonna get us beat, he picks someone other than Florida.
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So, it’s McGarity’s fault we lost to Florida, the refs imaginary holding call’s fault we lost to SC and I guess we’ll have to go with the fans not showing up fired up for kickoff as the reason we lost to tech? Surely, these have to be the reasons.
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No (even though everyone here knows you have an ax to grind with CMR)
We lost to USCe because the defense couldn’t get a stop when it needed to and Bobo made a terrible call on the goal line when we had a chance to steal the game. Anyone who saw the game saw the official missed the holding call on the Gurley TD run.
We lost to Florida because we flat got whipped on both lines of scrimmage. The Gator o-line hadn’t shown that ability to block all season.
We lost to tech because we fumbled inside the 5 twice and kicked a FG after a beautifully called and executed fake FG when we had 1st and goal inside the 5. Once again, we had a chance to steal one and CMR made a poor decision that he owned up to at the end of the game to allow them to tie the game at the end.
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LOL, the defense gave us the chance to win the SC game. Gave the offense the ball on the SC 4 with 5 minutes to play and our brain trust coaches don’t put the best rb in the nation on the field. Blame it on Bobo, but Richt is the head coach and should have a say in what goes on. The holding call was wrong, but I’m sure the chicken fans could point to several other missed calls that went against them.
We lost to Florida after having two weeks to prepare. One of the head coach’s jobs is to make sure the team is ready to play, they weren’t. Blaming the players is what sorry coaches do.
The tech game, two words, pooch kick. Winning with 18 seconds to play, tech has not returned a kickoff for more than 11 yards all game and has an offense that has a hard time moving the ball quickly. Richt calls for a pooch kick to give them the ball on the 40. Brilliant!
I don’t have an axe to grind, I simply recognize that Richt is not a great coach. The coach lovers refuse to see it in spite of evidence to support it year after year after year and blame everyone and everything but him for the losses to teams we should easily beat. He’s good enough to not get fired and he’s not going anywhere until he’s ready to retire, but he’s not going to win anything of consequence either.
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You also don’t have much self-awareness, apparently. Interjecting your same talking points into EVERY single post about Georgia football, regardless of context, that the Senator puts out here as an indictment on Richt is not grinding an axe? You’re certainly entitled to your opinion, but to pretend you have’t beaten that damn horse to a bloody pulp is kidding yourself.
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I’m only following the never ending deflection of blame from where it lies to anywhere else. The comments here are almost universal in their blame of McGarity, the NCAA, the refs, anything except placing the blame for losses where it should be. Every loss is not Richt’s fault, but some definitely are and there are lots of people here who cannot admit that.
The horse is far from dead. The coach lovers are riding it every day.
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USCe – The defense was horrible in that game. Even Pruitt said that loss was on him and the defense. The offense did what was necessary to win the game. Richt & Bobo made a mistake not giving the ball to #3 on 1st down. No one’s perfect in their job.
UF – Richt never blamed the players from what I saw and read after the game. That’s just a cheap shot.
tech – The pooch was a poor decision and Richt took the blame. What else was he supposed to do? Commit hari-kari for the decision and how it turned out. You would have lambasted him if we kicked deep and they ran it back.
I’m not a coach lover, but I am realistic about what Richt has done in his 14 years. It’s pretty damn good in my opinion. The only thing Richt hasn’t done is win a national championship. I don’t know if he will or not, but he’s gotten us closer than we’ve been since 1982.
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You’re not a coach lover? He hasn’t won a conference championship in 10 years. Good grief.
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I bet you wanted to fire him in 2012. He didn’t win the SEC.
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Nice straw man. You took my complaint about not winning the conference in a decade and attempted to frame it as a complaint about not winning the conference in one particular year.
Golf clap.
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No straw man – why is 10 years long enough but 8 isn’t? I was ready if he didn’t turn it around in ’11 for him to leave gracefully. He won 2 division championships after that. In my opinion, that showed me things were moving in the right direction.
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Long enough for what? You said the only thing he hasn’t done is won a national championship. I told you he hasn’t won the damn conference in a decade.
Acting like he’s a legend is beyond ridiculous. He’s won 2 conference championships in 14 years and hasn’t won one in a decade.
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Did I say he was a legend? Did I say he was larger than the program? No.
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“…I am realistic about what Richt has done in his 14 years. It’s pretty damn good in my opinion. The only thing Richt hasn’t done is win a national championship.”
If you don’t think he’s a legend, you’re awfully close.
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If he does win a national title, he will be a legend. Coach Dooley is a legend and has one. Coach Butts is a legend and has one. Coach Richt has a better record than either of them at this point in his career and will be a legend if he gets one.
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He also plays more creampuffs than Dooley or Butts did.
Butts won a national championship in his 4th year and had 3 conference championships after 10 years. Dooley won his 3rd conference title in year 13 and his longest drought without one was 7 years.
Probably shouldn’t get into how much the state of Georgia has changed in the last 20-30 years. Lots of advantages now.
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Pruitt took the heat off of Richt and Bobo, threw himself on his sword so to speak for SC. Not having Gurley on the field, much less carrying the ball, is inexcusable and terrible coaching, no matter how much you want to say otherwise.
I didn’t mean Richt blamed the players, I meant the coach lovers blame the players for the coach not having them ready to play when the win would have pretty well locked up the SEC East.
tech, yep, he took the blame, again, like he does over and over again for making bonehead decisions that cost us games we should win.
You should be proud of being a coach lover, it’s what you want to be, don’t deny it. We haven’t won anything of consequence in 10 years. You are correct, we have done “pretty good”, unfortunately, that’s about it. Richt had us moving toward the national championship up until about 2008 and then he got lazy or lost interest or something, I don’t know what. 2012 was a good chance too,we got lucky after another wtf game against SC, but Bama was better and deeper, partly because we were down to 60 or so recruited scholarship players thanks to Richt’s self imposed scholarship reduction in the 2012 class, another wtf moment from him.
I agree with you; he’s “pretty good”.
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There’s more to life than Heisman trophies and conference championships.
The Georgia Way.
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They ought to put that on a sign and hang it over the entrance to B-M.
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Sigh.. What could have been.
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I blame Gurley for making the decision to break the rule. He shouldn’t have done it, but we’ll never know unless he says what he needed the money for. He comes from a part of NC where $3,000 is a lot of money, and his family may have needed the money.
Regardless, the rule is stupid and serves no one but the NCAA. Student-athletes should be able to do what any other student can do.
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I don’t have any evidence to support the statement I am about to make but nevertheless I do believe this: I think college football players are signing autographs for money with impunity. Just look at what is on Ebay. Jameis Winston had way more autographed materials for sale than Gurley did. What happened to Winston? Nothing. I do not advocate schools (including Georgia) breaking NCAA rules but damn, it looks like Georgia ferrets out any broken rules by players it can find and then makes a point of reporting it to the NCAA and the media. How many toes does McGarity have left? Wait…that’s right…he isn’t shooting off HIS toes, he’s shooting of OUR toes.
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Just ask any FSU fan, they’ll tell you Jameis signs all those items out of the goodness of his heart. Did you know he stays hours after baseball games to sign items for fans? I’ve always said the only difference between Gurley and Winston, in regards to autographed items, is that Gurley had someone with an agenda against him to throw him under the bus. It’s naive to think that players aren’t getting paid to sign, it’s more than likely happening at every major school.
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Damn that McGarity for making Gurley break the rules and making a collectible seller rat out Gurley and making the NCAA suspend him! Everything bad is McGarity’s fault! If we had a different AD, we would have beaten SC, Florida and tech this season.
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