You can certainly take parts of this “10 things we’ve learned” piece on Smart with a grain of salt – Lord knows, I do – but this story intrigues me, even if not to the point of breaking out the champagne Kool-Aid:
Broadcast game copies of each turnover created that week in NFL games led every Alabama meeting. The Crimson Tide handed out a wrestling championship replica belt to the player who created the most turnovers in practice each day. The same applies to the offensive side of the ball. What are those guys doing each day to prevent turnovers? That will be emphasized, too.
Players will be trained to avoid turnovers with more than old school strip drills. The new model is creating adverse game simulations. Chase drills. Challenge drills. Managers will be swatting quarterbacks with a bag to simulate the chaos of a collapsed pocket. A defender in a drill will be assigned to make the tackle. Another will be tasked with trying to punch the ball out. Players that show the tip of the ball to a defense are regarded as “tip violators.” When Alabama learned from Garrett that a large percentage of fumbles by backs came in the midst of a stiff arm or the player putting his hand on the ground, they practiced those situations.
“You have to simulate the act that causes the fumble,” Smart said.
That’s not the only emphasis that should follow Smart to UGA.
When interceptions occur, Smart’s teams will be coached how to set up a big return. Run to the sideline? Meh. The new model is getting to the numbers and tasking the rest of the unit to block high away from the return and give an athlete the space for a big return. “Find blocks and don’t watch,” Smart said.
Would I like to see some obsessive attention paid to little details like those? You betcha.
Maybe Trevor Lawrence is on to something.
“Coach Smart kind of has that Nick Saban side to him and a Mark Richt side to him,” Five-star quarterback prospect Trevor Lawrence said. “He seems like a mixture of both men. Nick Saban can be a little intimidating sometimes, but you know Coach Richt was real nice and down to Earth. He’s just kind of a mixture of both of that. It makes him real easy to talk to, but I can see how he could have that Nick Saban side where he stresses every single little thing as a coach.”
Be still, mine heart.
Get The Picture 
“…a little Richt in him…” High Dive? Clock management? Lazy look on sidelines? Bone-head calls? Christian? Bad OL recruiting? Goodness… the list of potential flaws for critics to assign are endless!
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As someone who has called for CMR’s dismissal dating back to ’10 and has taken quite a bit of flack for opining as such in recent years, please stop with this nonsense. And frankly, its not even funny at this point. CMR certainly had his flaws, but he represented us well and, not surprisingly, handled the transition with utmost class.
Attitudes like this are akin to breaking up with your girlfriend, who was an incredible person but simply not the one for you, and immediately dating someone else whom you were more attracted to. Yet, for no reason at all, you decide to publicly trash your previous GF even though she handled the breakup with complete class and dignity. Utterly stupid.
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+1
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+1
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Methinks your sarcasm meter might be broken.
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+100
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Your sarcasm meter is broken, but at least did elicit a proper response to a lot of the comparisons that have been going on since “the break-up”.
Read it again…I was calling out the critics, not acting as one.
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“flaws for critics to assign…”
You are absolutely right — my apologies. Actually my meter wasn’t broken (I’m perhaps a bit too sarcastic myself), but I simply failed to read that last bit. Oops, as Rick Perry would say.
That’s actually the second similar type of screw up I’ve made this week. On Tues I submitted an RFP bid for a big account we were trying to win, and at the very bottom in bold letters it said something like, ‘overnight delivery via UPS only…all other methods of delivery will immediately be disregarded and thus eliminated from consideration.” So what does a genius like me do? I naturally sent it in a rush via Priority USPS, and calls/emails in attempt to explain things to them have (rightfully) been ignored.
Oops.
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Missed the last line. I was surprised by the start because you had not been a hater. Sorry.
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LOL…shame on me! 😉
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Very thoughtful and very correct.
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I appreciate both your March 4th 3:41pm post and your 11:48 AM post. We changed coaches. I agree we need to look forward and handle ourselves with the class and dignity both the former and current head coaches have exhibited during the transition.
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SOFT
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I have a problem with you listing “CHRISTIAN” as a weakness. Seriously. That was stupid.
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I understand your objection, but in AusDawg85’s defense he was not saying it was a problem. He was mocking those who have cited it was a problem during the unfortunate “we need to fire Richt” era.
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Yes. We are now in the “looking back, Richt was awful” era and thus my attempt to mock. Alas, worked for some, others it failed.
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WELL THAT’S JUST ONE DAY OF THE WEEK WASTED PRAYIN TO SOME SKY MAN YOU COULD BE GAME PREPPING
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Being a Christian isn’t a flaw…
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Is Trevor in charge of making the kool aid, because it’s working.
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Turnovers. Turnovers. Turnovers.
Erk is smiling down from the big Snooky’s in the sky.
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“Managers will be swatting quarterbacks with a bag to simulate the chaos of a collapsed pocket.” Welp…Lambert’s f***ed.
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Ok that made me laugh out loud.
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Me too! Haha
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We got a turnover deep in Bama territory early in the game and couldn’t do a thing with it. Don’t know the numbers, but Bama didn’t seem to do a good job of taking care of the ball last year. How many did they give up to Ole Miss? 5?
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Their only loss, hell yes they are important.
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Didn’t say they weren’t important, I said Bama didn’t do a good job with turnovers last year. They were good enough to overcome it obviously.
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On the topic of changing up the drills Charlie Trippi said that Wally Butts used to have them running drills where they specifically had to pass under pressure. Always thought that was interesting.
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You’ve gotta practice harder that you will ever play in a game. I often though that if I were a track coach, I would like to have a running track that was (for practice) ten yards longer than the standard (old 440). I would never tell my runners (of course the word would eventually get around). Also, if I built a practice field for football, I would have the lines drawn at 7 yard intervals instead of 5 yard intervals. That would mean having to get 14 yards for a first down in practice. In a game, ten yards would look much easier. If you bowhunt, you probably know that you practice at a much more distant target than you would ever shoot actually hunting. Then when you have a 25 yard shot, it seems much easier. Makes sense. Practice hard, play well.
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I think that’s why Forest kept on running, he thought you had to run 150 yds for a touchdown.
Chan Gailey used that theory in opposite. To make it easier in practice by giving an extra down and you see what happened.
Joking aside I don’t know how old you are and if you remember Vince but one thing I’ll say about Dooley is he didn’t seem to mind players getting banged up in practice, they knocked the shit out of each other.
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Obviously you missed your calling.
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Being a former musician, I can relate to some of these mental battles. Typically, when you practice, you begin running through your material already well fatigued and mentally distracted. It is well known that one never performs on stage under pressure at 100%. So, you take your best playing in the practice room and decide if a 90% representation of your work would be considered competent on the stage. Naturally, there’s a books worth of notes I could make here but mental and physical performance, whether it be a performing musician or an athlete, is nearly identical from an individual perspective. Lots of Gallwey’s “inner game of tennis” stuff.
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Really just curious – how can you be a ‘former musician’? Isn’t that a little but like being a former bike rider or former swimmer? Yeah, maybe you don’t compete any more, but you haven’t forgotten how to read music or how to play your instrument I’ll bet.
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