Holy cow. I had no idea things have gotten to this point.
Earlier this week, Georgia players held what receiver Michael Chigbu called “just a little small talk,” minus the coaches. Chigbu wouldn’t go into details.
“The season’s not going how we want it,” said Chigbu, a sophomore.
But after reading related comments from Jeb Blazevich, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
Blazevich said he once heard a coach – during the recruiting process – who summed it up this way: Eighty percent of the team follows what the rest does: Ten percent will be the hard-working leaders who don’t treat a bye week like a week off. The other 10 percent does.
Perhaps one benefit of the Vanderbilt loss, Blazevich opined, is that the right 10 percent will be followed.
“We’re trying to be the loudest ones, drown out these guys, weed these guys out,” Blazevich said. “And then we have everybody on board on the same page.”
The troubling word there is “perhaps”. As in, we may not see a fix until next season.
Shit. I hope I’m not about to head to my third depressing Florida game in a row. But I’m starting to brace myself for that possibility. Mentally speaking, this Georgia team is not in a good place right now.
Damn. To hear the players reference the bad apples like that is eye-opening. The rumors of lacking buy-in seem to be true.
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“We’re trying to…weed these guys out,” Blazevich said.
To which the aforementioned bottom 10 percent of players replied, “cool man…what are we smoking?”
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Haha, this is exactly what I thought when I read that. Had to read it twice to be sure.
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Perhaps this is the cross-road. Decision time boys.
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I don’t think this is that surprising since we are less than a year removed from all of the dysfunction on the coaching staff. This team was an absolute mess last year.
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It still managed to win ten games.
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Keep holding on to that.
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Holding on to what? They won ten games, no?
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It was so delightful, the way it all played out. See my comment below about the UF game. It has gotten our past 3 Coaches canned.
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Just not the right ten.
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What was your point in response to Adam? All he said was that the team last year was a mess and you disagree?
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What I disagree with is trying to imply that Richt & co. are the reason this team stinks. If you believe that winning requires a team loaded with 5 star talent, then I suppose Richt could be blamed. Although Richt managed to average 10 wins a year without it.
But I don’t think the Tennessee hail mary, or Smart/Chaney insisting on running Chubb into 8-man fronts can really be laid at Richt’s feet.
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I agree. No excuse for Vandy, Nichols, or Ole Miss.
The point of this post though was the dysfunction of the team i.e. the guys not buying in and working hard. I agree that those issues are not surprising considering a staff overhaul.
Which makes Blutarsky’s reference to last season’s 10 wins (as if they were against decent competition anyway) confusing.
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He was responding to post stating that last year’s dysfunctional staff is one of the main reasons this team stinks. But that logic doesn’t track considering the 10 wins the team achieved.
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Come on SB, you’re infinitely smarter than that. Last years team beat exactly zero P5 teams with a winning record, we had several very close, ugly wins over some really bad teams (Mizzou, GT) that could have easily gone the other way, and we needed OT to beat little Georgia Southern at home. As a result, we were awarded a bowl game vs. a mediocre at best team that lost something like 4 of its last 6 games to end the year.
Last years’ 10 win team was the biggest mirage I’ve ever seen; I’ve gotten more satisfaction over previous 8-4 type teams that I did that one, as again we beat nobody with a pulse. Hence, CMR was ultimately let go, much to the chagrin of all those national media types who screamed “how can you possibly fire a 10 win coach?!” The same media types who had been harping for quite a few years how stale UGA was, how it was type for CMR to step down, etc.
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This year’s schedule isn’t any tougher than last year’s. Georgia managed a win over Vandy and was never threatened by an FCS opponent.
I’m not making this argument to suggest 2015 was a season of greatness. But you’re being disingenuous if you don’t think this season finds Georgia in a worse place than we expected, even given the reality of the team’s quality last season.
By the way, Georgia finished 32nd in S&P+ in 2015. Right now, that would look pretty good for 2016.
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I understand that, but at least last years team had stable coaches in place (sans the new OC) — including the HC in his 15th season at the helm — a senior transfer Qb, and, IMO, better talent and overall leadership. This year we feature a new HC with no prior HC experience, an overhauled staff with new DC and OC, a true freshman starting at QB, and a substantial void in lack of talent/leadership at the upperclassman level; thanks in part to a 2013 recruiting class that went completely up in smoke, leaving a huge hole in the program.
Yet you are expecting this years team to equal last years results because the schedules are relatively comparable. IMO, that’s a bit unrealistic.
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Unrealistic?? You said yourself that they beat “exactly zero P5 teams”.
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Right — read my first paragraph again. Even so, at least this years team has beaten a team with a pulse (UNC) with a winning record, so in a sense they’ve already trumped the ’15 team in terms of accomplishments.
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One of the ’15 team’s accomplishments was beating Vandy…
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One of this years team’s accomplishments is they lost to Vanderbilt. A bad Vandy team.
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That remains to be seen.
Last year
Auburn was 35
Ga Southern was 39
Penn St was 30
UNC is currently 34.
UNC certainly has room to improve, but right now they are not that much different than teams UGA beat last year.
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Really not sure how any of this really matters. CMR would have still have had this roster to work with. Weak arsed OL…Freshman QB…lack of upper classmen leadership..all the same issues. 15 years into his tenure. Points to me of a similar year…as in, the same old same old.
I get it, some didn’t want change..it happened. I am behind the UGA Coach until he is not the UGA Coach.
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It sure seems like you weren’t behind the last UGA Coach until he wasn’t the UGA Coach. Look, I want the new UGA Coach to succeed, and don’t really see the point in continued comparisons to the past, but there sure are enough shifting goal posts around here – If only our placekickers could have the same.
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No reply button under Dawgphans post, I will readily admit being ready for CMR to find other pastures after the 2015 UF game. Not that any of this really matters now. Beat the Gators.
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Blame the roster all you want, but the roster and the talent on it had zero to do with losing to Vandy. It was the 7th game of the year, where’s the improvements. This blame Richt and the talent bull is just apologist for shitty coaching and preparation.
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Looking at overall performance masks how different this team was between September and the rest of the year. Think about October and Nov last year….close games that should have been easy wins? Check. Blow outs against great competition? Check. A gut wrenching loss to Tennessee? Check. This team is performing at about the same clip as last year’s crew after September. I would bet the S&P+ from October on was closer to 60s than 30s.
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Shouldn’t we expect to see improvement at the very least throughout this season? Instead, it looks like we’re declining mid-season. UNC——Vandy. That’s Coaching plain & simple.
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And, they won ten games against the schedule…no matter how you rate that schedule, they won ten games!! Now this team is evaluated by the number of wins against this schedule. You can only play what assigned to you…can’t compare to past years unless they’re consecutive.
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Last year we also only LOST to teams that were better or at least as good as we were. We’re only halfway through October, can you say that about this year?
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I was willing to sacrifice 10 wins this year, if it moves the program forward. 10 wins would certainly be nice but my eye is on the future. As someone who was in the fire Richt camp, the risk is down seasons which to me are worth the possible payoff of not being the bridesmaid. Time will only tell if Smart can do it.
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The odds are not in Kirby’s favor. Saw this on Dawgnation. In modern times, this is the list of first year HC’s getting a gig in the SEC. Richt is by far the exception. So, basically, we’re wanting Kirby to be the best on this entire list. Let CMR go. I get it. But go hire a proven HC. Look this list over. ADGM & BM dropped the ball in a massive way.
Alabama 1997-Mike Dubose
Ole Miss 1998-David Cutcliff
Georgia 2001-Mark Richt
Kentucky 2001-Guy Morriss
Florida 2002-Ron Zook
Mississippi State 2004-Sylvester Croom
Ole Miss 2005-Ed Orgeron
Mississippi State 2009-Dan Mullen
Kentucky 2010-Joker Phillips
Florida 2011-Will Muschamp
Vanderbilt 2011-James Franklin
Kentucky 2013-Mark Stoops
Vanderbilt 2014-Derek Mason
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While I agree UGA is not a learning on the job position, it is where we find ourselves. I was against hiring Smart but I am pulling for him to show me wrong.
BM and ADGM just did what the wealthy booster wanted them to do. Richt would likely still be in Athens if Smart wasn’t headed to S.Car.
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Mullen has actually done quite as Vandy outspent MSU when he arrived and having them ranked #1 at any point in the year is rather amazing.
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*quite well
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I would say Franklin, Mullen and Cutcliffe were all winners off of that list, but (a) you wouldn’t trade Richt for any of them and (b) the rest of the list is a barren wasteland of failure.
The most basic probability is beyond the grasp of our executives. UGA has lost the right to ridicule any other SEC school for stupidity.
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I was not willing to go 0-12 in 2016 for any purpose. You do not move an SEC team forward by going from 10-3 to 0-12.
Forget whether we won any games last year, and let me ask this. Have he complaints from last year about special teams blunders been satisfactorily addressed? Have the complaints from last year about coaches having 12 players on the field be satisfactorily addressed? Have the complaints from last year about the team not showing up for some games and not being mentally prepared and focused been adequately addressed?
I have not seen it.
You can blame the playing talent on hand, but if we have 12 NFL All-Pros on the field at the snap the penalty is just the same.
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And its not this year???
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A little surprised that we aren’t getting the buy in from the guys.
I honestly thought that coming into this season that we would see a few guys really buy in and have really big years with the new staff.
I always thought of it like getting a new boss or starting a new job and how some employees really snap back into shape, start coming in early, staying late, giving their projects the little extra effort.
it doesnt seem like that happened. I dont know why it didnt. I am sure some will blame the soft CMR players, some will blame Smart’s leadership.
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I can understand it. So far, Smart seems to be handicapping the team and daring them to win despite him. That’s not a great way to win loyalty from your players. It smacks of the days of Martinez when everybody in the stadium, including the opposing team, knew what was coming on defense. And then they blame execution when the opposing team ran the perfect plays to pick up first down after first down.
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The problem is there’s not a Shawn Williams, David Andrews or Aaron Murray type of leader on this team. I’m not even sure there’s a Jarvis Jones type of leader that can just take over a game and will his team to win.
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That’s because the senior leadership that would come from the 2013 class isn’t there. Because most of that class isn’t here.
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I’m not sure how great the senior leadership would be now if those kids had stayed.
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Excellent point actually. That class was seemingly filled to the tits with knuckleheads.
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Leadership doesn’t have to come from the oldest among them. Players have to have some pride on their own, and tomorrow’s leaders should already be stepping into the role. We have some top quality players who care, get out of their way and let them play…perhaps solicit some ideas from them about what could remove obstacles that keep them from succeeding.
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See I knew this was CMR’s fault. I just knew it.
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I didn’t say that, did I? Fact don’t have an agenda, they’re just facts. Unless you want to argue that the 2013 class is anything other than a smoldering dumpster fire.
It was a bust for a myriad of reasons. Certainly not laying all the blame of that class at Richt’s feet.
The fact that we had to sign such a huge class with so many reaches in it because we had let the numbers get down to 68? Yeah, that’s on him. But I’d love to hear your explanation as to why self-imposed probation was actually a good idea.
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oh those silly facts….
My point is that a recruiting class 3 years ago doesnt stop this team from having a leader or many leaders.
There could still be leaders on this team.
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You’re right, there could be leadership by underclassmen, but there is a reason that is rare.
Who knows, maybe there is.
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Richt did recruit said knuckleheads. Kinda is his fault.
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A certain amount of that happens though. Sabah gets knuckleheads sometimes too.
The problem was we only signed 19 in 2012 and then played that year with 68.
We signed the biggest class in UGA history in 2013, partly because we just needed the bodies, and a lot of those guys were projects that busted out.
To his credit, I do think Richt realizes how much he f’ed up with roster management and was trying to correct it, but has he not been fired, he was going to have to sleep in this bed too.
I’d venture to say the numbers at Miami will never get that low. That was a mistake that was costly that won’t be made again IMO.
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Oh, I agree and at the time I was all about loading up that class to make up for the low numbers we had. I was more responding to DawgPhan’s comment.
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And, I recall everyone was delighted with the recruits of 2013…ecstatic over the kid from Valdosta??..he of the double name and grandpa with Richt in church….each new recruit brought nothing but applause for the Dream Team…now, with hindsight….we all criticize his choices. Some are playing pretty good at other schools, eg, Louisville. Many of you have very limited memories!
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Dream Team was 2011 class. JHC was in 2012 class.
Matthews was a knucklehead that got into it with a professor. Shaw Wiggins didn’t like being coached hard. Ditto Kimbrough.
JJ Green was/is a good kid. I wish he hadn’t landed at Tech, but glad he’s doing well.
Floyd was a monster. Rest of class (what’s left of it) is a bucket full of meh.
2013 class set program back. That’s not an earth shattering statement.
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2013 was not the biggest class in UGA history. We used to recruit 45 a year when the rules allowed that many. It was the biggest UGA class of the 21st century, I will give you that.
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I’m dating myself here, but I remember back in the early 1970s when Johnny Majors took over a moribund Pitt program and promptly brought in a recruiting class of about 115, including a running back named Tony Dorsett (later on DorSETT). His first game was against against Georgia, and I think the Dogs were about a 5 touchdown favorite, and they were lucky to hold Pitt to a 7-7 tie. Dorsett ended his college career 4 years later with a national championship when they put a 27-3 beating on our guys in the Sugar Bowl.
The difference between now and then is that there were no scholly limitations at all and you could take more chances on diamonds in the rough. that ’13 class was a direct result of Richt being too particular when recruiting previous classes, and his reluctance to recruit over 2 or 3 o linemen when he should have recruited 5 or 6, at least. He was a woefully inadequate management of the roster was the genesis of his down fall imo.
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He still makes a good point.
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OK, I’ll argue it.
Here’s what’s being said about 3 of those knuckleheads: “Tray Matthews led Auburn with nine tackles against LSU on Saturday night.” “Wiggins is a crucial part of the Louisville defense because of his lock-down ability on opposing receivers.” “Georgia Tech returner J.J. Green gave the Yellow Jackets a lift in the second quarter by returning a kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown against Pittsburgh Saturday.”
Several of the other knuckleheads have gotten significant playing time: Kublanow, Floyd, Carter, Kimbrough, Bellamy, Atkins, J. Davis, R. Davis, Mayes, Mauger, Welch.
Several others are great special teamers or provide important depth: Ramsey, Rankin, Douglas, Bynam.
Tramel Terry got hurt, no fault of his.
Not a superb class, but not the disaster that some make it out to be. We just mishandled it.
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So your argument about it it being an awful class for us is to list the guys that are making plays for other teams?
I think you might have missed my point.
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We mishandled the class. They were not all knuckleheads. We ran off some guys we shouldn’t have. I also listed a lot of guys who are making plays for us.
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Aaron and Stafford were team leaders as a sophomores. Gurley was a leader in 2013 and 2014 as an underclassman. Jarvis was a leader from the time he stepped on the field for the first time. Sure, your leaders are typically going to come from your senior class, but in the absence of seniors, others have to step into those roles.
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Yeah, ideally. Maybe this will be the week that happens. It’s enough of a break to regroup a little.
One slightly off topic (or maybe not) question: has anybody seen or hear anything from Pyke this season? If seen some interviews with Kublanow, but I do think it’s strange that Pyke appears no where to be seen.
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Pyke has done several interviews. They have a couple on Bulldawg Illustrated if you want to check them out.
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10-4, thanks. Just hadn’t noticed it. Thx
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Before CKS had met or talked to the first player on the team every thing that he said about them were very negative. Some of it may or may not have been warented. That may be the reason a lot of them are not buying in .that and the fact that every thing that I read and hear it’s his way or no way. A lot of coaches have lost a lot of good players that way .i have no direct knowledge of this just my $.02 . Hope for the players I’m wrong####
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I don’t know if I agree with that. When he took the job, he rightly said that he wished he had more big bodies on the LOS. I think his quote was something to the effect that 6’7″ offensive tackles don’t grow on trees. At that point, he probably should have said something to the effect of “I expect Coach Pittman to bring out the best in the guys we have.” I do give him some of the blame when he says the loss is all on me as if he’s expected to say that and then he rips the players in a press conference.
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I thought in his first team meeting he told the players that the difference between them an Alabama was the narrow space between his thumb and forefinger he was holding closely together.
The revisionist thought on the Danztler and Butler radio shows, and by other folks, is that Smart was 100% wrong and the diffference is as wide as the Pacific Ocean.
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I don’t even list to the two of them anymore.
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*listen
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Many of these young men don’t see their first name buddy as an authority figure.
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I can see where first name meme is becoming the new religious coach meme.
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That coach is too churchy.
This coach is too friendly.
That coach is too kissy.
Goldilocks and the 3 coaches…except we dont like any of them.
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First name thing is way overblown to me.
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I certainly hope so. With young people, someone who has earned the respect of team has to take on the enforcement role.
Right now, it is not clear who that individual is.
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Would Coach Kirby be acceptable sort of like kids now call their parents’ friends, Mr. Joe or Ms. Jane?
Just because I call someone by their first name doesn’t mean I don’t respect them or their authority.
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@eethomaswfne: Me too, I had coaches I called by their first name, and I was still scared shitless of them. So were the other players.
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@Senator: Well there has to be one. Just think of all the cynical mileage you can get out of it.
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First name buddy? What is this in reference to?
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That everyone calls Kirby by his first name. A huge nothingburger.
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Oh man. That’s a thing? Jesus…
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Yeah, the UGA fanbase is now entering its Lord of the Flies phase as we fight over conchs and try to determine who is going to play the role of Piggy.
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“Filled to the tits with knuckleheads” and now a Lord of the Flies reference. You are on a roll my friend.
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LOL, well done.
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I’m not trying to make a huge burger-thingy out of this and have not even though about it prior to this, but…Kirby having the players call him by his first name, in and of itself, is not the problem. There may be a hidden perception here. If Kirby’s approach with this is for the players to see him as ‘just one of the boys’ then he may not be getting the respect as a head coach. In my younger days, the assistant coaches would be-friend us, like a buddy. We often called them by there first names or nicknames because we felt they were just a little above us. And we would argue with them about certain plays or exercises…but when the head coach came around we straighten up and gave it our all. We had a desire to impress him and we definitely never complained in front of him…just saying. It’s no so much about what the players call Kirby, but how they perceive his authority.
Disclaimer: I’m not at all saying this is what is wrong with our team or program. It could possibly be that Venus is 3 degrees out of alignment with Mars.
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It’s a lame reference to this:
As the Senator said – it’s going to be the new religious coach meme for the rubes in the fanbase too lazy to come up with real criticisms.
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Real criticisms are all too easy to come by. No need to expend too much effort to find them.
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I blame the visor.
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Then just say it and stop with the nonsensical memes. I’ve not made it any big secret that I wasn’t a big fan of the way this hire happened, but I also know that just because a coach prefers to be addressed in a certain way doesn’t indicate some lack of quality in his abilities. Fair criticism is fair, but giving him shit because he prefers to be called Kirby is just stupid to me.
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Is it ok to say that a man who was suppose to “take care of the details” losses some points ,with me at least, for not being willing to accept the moniker of Coach?. To me a leader of young men should embrace the name Coach. Several of the men I respected most in my life I called Coach. I actually understand Kirby the recruiter wanting to be called Kirby….but I truly do not understand why the Head Coach at the University of Georgia would not revel in having his team and the individuals on said team refer to him as Coach. When I coached my kids I realized I really enjoyed being called Coach much more than I enjoyed being called counselor in Court. Yes it is far being our major problem but it is still a “detail” that I would have liked to seen handled differently. Your mileage may vary.
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You do you, man – beauty about this place is that everybody’s free to express his / her opinion.
I just think of all the things that we could be criticizing Kirby for not doing so well as a head coach right now, his preferred nomenclature falls on a list titled “dumb shit to complain about”…same as when people ripped on Richt’s religiosity as a sign of being soft.
As you stated – my mileage clearly varies. I’ve managed a lot of people in my career and I couldn’t care less if they call me Mr. Dawg, Audit, or boss. I just care that they do their jobs well, learn something from me and my experiences, and advance in their careers.
All that said – I guess I should be expecting Fran Tarkenton’s hot take on how Gus Malzahn doesn’t allow himself to be called Gus by his players any minute now…
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I’m guessing you weren’t coaching men. It’s much different for 8 year-olds to call a coach by his first name than it is for 22 year-olds.
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yes and no…..they were older(8-13) and these Kirby’s kids ain’t 22, the majority are not legally adults …depending on the context. I get your point but you are bending facts to fit your own predisposition.
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18 is the age of majority. Most (all?) of the UGA players are that age. And some are 22. I’m not inventing things.
You coached small children. Smart coaches adults who can all vote and many of whom can drink. There is a difference.
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life is complicated ; context is complicated
12 YOA to be charged as a Designated felon
16 YOA to consent to having sex and drive
17 YOA is the age of criminal responsibility;punished as an adult in Court
18 YOA you can sign a contract and vote
21 YOA you can drink and get a gun license
25 YOA you can rent a car
26 YOA you got to get off your parents insurance
38 YOA I had my first kid and I actually became an adult.
my position is that very few of your players are really adults and words matter. Your mileage may vary.
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@Napoleon: as stated above, called our coach by his first name and was in the age group 19-22. We were still scared shitless of him. Respected the hell out of him, cause he did not scream, holler,, etc. He just explained this is what you do and if you can’t then someone else can. a benevolent dictator of sorts.
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If we’re seeing these same issues playing out next year at this time, we’ll talk.
Fixing a house with a crack in the foundation is messy.
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The 10/80/10 applies to every organization. The bad apples will be culled before next season if Kirby follows the Saban roster management model.
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I know he’ll want to, but I don’t know how easy at is to do no without being able to oversign the way you once could.
I don’t completely understand all those rules anyway.
The good news is that it seems to me that the young guys have bought in. So hopefully a lot of the “bad apples” will be leaving the system naturally.
This does kinda jive with what Butler was saying postgame about some guys having to be tolerated this season even though they weren’t all onboard.
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Senator, overwhelming odds are that you are heading to your third depressing game in Jax.
By my count, we have won there twice since 1990 when we were underdogs- 97, 07. We may be double digit underdogs this year.
Even the games we were favored in and won- 04, and the semi- recent 3 game win streak -each of those games were tooth and nail for us.
I pray I am wrong but that game has been maddening for 25 years now.
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I would contend that the UF game, that game alone, is the reason we are where we are right now. Maddening is a good word for that game from a UGA fans perspective.
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What is maddening about it? We are playing a top caliber program on essentially their home field every year. WTF did you think will happen if someone is stupid enough to do that? I know there are those out there that point to all those years where Dooley waxed Florida every year but that was a different FU program–a team that had never even won a single SEC Championship. Now that program has won numerous SEC Championships and at least 3 natties that I can remember. Playing the Gators in JAX every year is like playing Auburn in Birmingham every year would be–stupid. If it is such a great idea why don’t we play UT in Nashville every year? The BS defenses by those self-serving UGA fans who own property on Sea Island or Ponte Vedra to rationalize losing that game just so they can have a fun week at the beach astound me. Don’t you want your team to win the game? Or is your personal aggrandizement the only thing important to you? YOU are holding the program back.
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I am holding the program back?
I’m on an iPhone and can’t tell if your response was to me or what. If it was, you certainly have some nutty thoughts. If it wasn’t meant for me, disregard this response.
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Directed the me I believe…re my UF game comments and getting Coaches fired.
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Not really directed to anyone in particular–but those who are guilty know who they are.
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What has our record been vs ranked teams been the last 10.5 years no matter where we play…not good unless my memory is fading.
Blaming the location is a non starter to me..I have zero say in the matter anyways.
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You have more say than you think. If the fan base collectively rose up and said “enough” the suits at B-M wouldn’t renew the JAX deal. But until that happens, the greedy bastards will continue to allow money to be more important than winning and go blithely to JAX to accept UGA’s beating in exchange for a nice check–just like Western Kentucky does when it shows up in Athens..
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Hmmm, I bet that line doesn’t open at double digit. UF -8.5 or so feels about right. I guess we’ll see
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UF was 7-0 and number 2 in the country. We handed them their only loss that year.
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^^ in 2011
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Nope, that was 2012.
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Well, that Georgia team was pretty f#cking good in 2012–5 yards away from winning a nattie.
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That 2012 team was damn good at the end of the season. There were defensive struggles early as Rambo, Commings, and Ogletree were coming off suspensions. Other than struggling against an NFL quality offensive line in the Dome, that defense was really good at the end of the season (even with Towel Boy at the helm). That offense was relentless except for the one game in Columbia. Murray with Gurley and Marshall and those receivers were incredible. The line was solid but unspectacular.
They were the 2nd best team in the country that year … no doubt.
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No ee. The Dawgs were the BEST team in the country that year–they just didn’t get the accolades because the coaches held them back.
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It was not out for the realm of possibility for Ga to lose to ND in that bowl. It’s not like we have been some awesome, consistent winning machine where we could just count that game in the bag. Yes, we caught fire in the last several weeks of the season and put on a very gutsy performance in Atlanta.
do you recall ’12 was shaping up to be very disappointing until Shawn Williams called out the team before UF game? Remember getting trucked in Columbia?
do you remember we had our NG suspended for that bowl and had very little DL depth?
2012 was awesome from Jax to the Secc but to say “we were 5 yards from a nattie” is idiotic.
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We were 5 yards away from a shot at a national championship … I don’t think it was a given we would beat ND, but I do think we likely had a good shot at beating them.
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I totally agree.
But, I was just trying to point out to Mayor that we were not “5 yards from winning a nattie”.
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I figured that was your perspective. I did think that BCS championship game was a complete mismatch. Bama was a terrible opponent for that ND team who was slow and really didn’t have the athletes on offense to match up with the Tide. They didn’t have a Todd Gurley type of running back who could give them some balance.
TG3II had games with gaudier stats and more highlights, but that night in Atlanta I thought he was the best player on the field and it was probably his best game in a Bulldog uniform.
I remember Nick said it would be a 15-round heavyweight fight and he was right.
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Sorry Hard. Anybody who doesn’t recognize that ND was a paper tiger that year is dead wrong. ND was the weakest team to every play in the BCSNCG and whover the opponent was would have waxed them.
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Let me break this down for you, O Wise One:
Georgia lost to Alabama in a close game in SECC. We got an invitation to the Capital One Bowl, not the National Championship Game. The National Champ Game was held in Miami that year about a week later than our game in Orlando. Orlando is farther than 5 yards from Miami. So, your dumb statement of “we were 5 yards from winning a nattie” is factually wrong.
Now, as I already said, we had a great shot of beating Notre Dame IF we had beat Bama. We didn’t . And, it would not be totally uncharacteristic for Ga to have somehow lost that game against ND- have you been able to actually watch the games over the past several years through those red and black lenses?
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I think if you take these comments as well as recent observations from Kevin Butler and put them in the context of the ‘mutiny’ remarks at the end of last year, then look at our on field performance through that lens, it would seem we are not yet functioning as a team. I remember Richt reached a point where he needed to let a few guys go. I suspect we may something similar this off season.And frankly, that’s not exactly unexpected with a new coach and staff.
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I take everything I here from Kevin Butler with a grain of salt…..and a lime.
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Golf clap…
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And some tequila.
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I thought the “mutiny” comments were directed solely at Pruitt, but who actually know?
Someone one of these days needs to spill the beans about that 2015 coaching staff and what really went down leading up to and immediately after UF.
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I thought so too but I guess the point I was trying to make is that maybe we still have some of Pruitt’s guys on the team who aren’t all that interested in being Kirby’s guys. From the outside, we see the team as “Georgia” but on the inside personal relationships are often more important than we realize. Perhaps some of these players don’t really want to play for Kriby. This year he doesn’t have much choice but to play them anyway. Next year and the year after that, Kirby can fill fill the roster with guys he recruits.
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Yeah that’s what happens when you fire a beloved coach and bring in an entirely new staff. Not everyone buys in. This should not come as a surprise.
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This is a good thing
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While painful to watch right now…. a necessary evil for real change to take place IMO
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Agreed, and time will only tell if it does payoff.
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Exactly, we have 2-3 more years of this same discussion. Not sure I am up for it. Need to beat UF and change the narrative.
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You mean some of the team isn’t buying in to their HC who throws them under the bus?? If Kirby can’t win some games with Richt’s players then he won’t get this elite talent he’s talking about.
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Ron Zook couldn’t win shit and he recruited his balls off. One doesn’t necessarily impact the other.
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^This.
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I guess I’m supposed to get real worried when I hear Kirby is egging on fights at the Pi Kappa Phi house, then?
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Yeah, that would be a red flag
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Key word being “necessarily”.
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Right. But what have you seen in Kirby’s history that would suggest he’s not an exceptional recruiter?
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He looked impressive on the sideline, though. And he said lots of tough things, and had lots of big plans. Hadn’t he been a DC for Spurrier, so he “knew what it takes to be a winner in the SEC”? Plus, he was hired by Jeremy Foley and that guy who was Foley’s right hand man. No way a sharp looking, tough talking, great recruiter dude with experience at the right hand of glory could miss at a place where homegrown talent is abundant.
I guess there might be a lesson there, someplace. Something about hubris.
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Your point was that you can’t recruit if you don’t win big. Zook didn’t win big but recruited at a level that Meyer one a NC with a ridiculous defense full of Zook’s recruits.
I get where you’re going with your comparison there, and honestly I have no idea. Kirby as a coach might be a total bust. Kirby as a recruiter and roster manager gives me no such pause.
Right now, UGA needs more talent (a sentiment shared by both Pruitt and Kirby) and needs to manage its roster in a way where we start having depth at all positions.
I trust Kirby 100% to do that, even if he turns out to be a Zook (who incidentally went 2-1 vs UGA).
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Senator, I have a 2 year old and a 1 month old at home. I’m getting no sleep. I’m watching my beloved dawgs regress as the season goes on, when they didn’t start in a good place. My mother in law is at my house roughly 2 days a week or more and has been for 6 weeks now. My car needs a new transmission or to be replaced and my wife wants a new car.
All that to say, this post is not helping my state of mind.
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Ah, these are the best years of your adult life. Cherish them.
lol. I remember when people told me that bullshit. I promise it gets easier.
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It certainly does. IMO when they get to around 2 1/2 – 3 years old, that’s when the fun starts to outweigh the work. Basically around when they are potty trained and/or no longer sleeping in a crib.
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Guess what? I’m moving in!!!
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I hate you. I’m sitting here in a cold sweat right now trying to decide if you are really my mother in law or not.
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Dude, I’ve been there…still am in fact in a sense with a 3 and 1 year old. Appreciate the fact that you have your MIL there to help out…we had nobody within 200 miles of us, which sucked.
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heh, I consider life to be pretty good these days.
This post still stands as a fresh kick in the nuts after having my day start at 4AM. 🙂
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I’m at the other end. My children are 30 and 28. You will undoubtedly look back on these as your halcyon days. No kidding. And when you start to approach 60 suddenly your days start at 4 a.m. all over again. Because that’s when your body decides to get up. It’s a feature.
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Kirby and the Dawgs better show up in Jacksonville. I can live with a loss, but I’m done watching them limp into that game. I expect Kirby to get this and bring everything next Saturday. This is the one game on UGA’s schedule that should be circled because it almost always impacts the East, it’s a huge rivalry, it’s the 3:30 game, and the fans are tired of losing to the Gators.
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I’m predicting a win next week. Feel quite strongly about it.
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Senator, is it time to revisit the August “Happy Talk” posts, or just move on to “Wait Till Next Year!”?
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I’m already thinking wait until 2018. It will take that long to fix the OL.
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These posts are beginning to resemble the poster of two buzzards talking. “Patience Hell I’m going to Kill Something.” I would just appreciate the coaches trying to win with this team rather than just trying to weed out the guys who don’t fit into the Process. I think they have demonstrated that we are not Alabama. Lets just see if they can coach or not. So far the best coaches seem to be the ones retained from Richt’s staff. I certainly would swap the RB, WR and TE coach for Thomas Brown, McClendon and Lilly. Frankly I’d swap back all of them but Chaney, Pittman and Kirby.
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Had the”Patience Hell” poster on my un-air-conditioned wall in Reed Hall. I hadn’t thought of that in years….made me smile. I have to say patience is not very well represented on the intertubes.
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The 3 you would keep? Bwahahahahaha. You must have really envied that 2012 Tennessee team too.
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Well Kirby is not going anywhere there are too many big money guys that are going to look like shit if that happened. As I have said before when a defensive coach becomes HC he wants certain things from his OC and then the fans blame the OC when he is merely doing what his boss wants. So yes I keep him at least until the Kid can read a defense. If next year we still suck on offense then off with his head. Pittman is the best there is at what he does which for us is trying to turn chicken shit into chicken salad.
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I’ve been amazed at how many fans are losing their shit this week b/c we may not go 9-3 or 8-4 again.
Also, this is the 3rd time we’ve lost to Vandy in 11 seasons and some people are acting like we just experienced one of the seven signs of the apocalypse.
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No kidding
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you guys do realize that this is NOT what we were sold,right? We were told that…. sure Richt beat Vandy the 13 out of 15 times but he didn’t win the right ones. None of the bashers said that the dawgs would now not win the “right ones”(i.e. Ole MIss) but now we’ll lose the wrong ones too.. Bait and switch tends to get people perturbed.Deal with it.
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Were there a lot of people predicting Georgia would go 11-1 this year, or something? Admittedly, I tuned out from the offseason chatter, but I seriously doubt they were. After the Missouri game I thought there was a decent possibility of 7-5 with an embarrassing loss somewhere along the way. And here we are. Next year is when we’ll see a step forward. Or we won’t, Smart will ultimately fail, and they’ll bring in another coach.
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Actually, it was after the Ole Miss game.
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It’s the middle of year 1- too soon to hit the panic button or throw in the towel.
If this is happening in 2018/19 then we will know.
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So, if I haven’t yet built my bunker and stocked it with canned food do I still have time? I can binge watch Doomsday Preppers this weekend if I need to.
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You’re right. Playing like we haven’t all met before the game, and losing to Vandy are signs every thing is going great! Thanks, Dr. Pangloss!!!
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Maybe the STAFF needs to have a closed door meeting. Because that’s where I’d assign most of the blame for the vandy loss.
Right now, I think our ST and O coaches need to show they belong in cfb. Beamer is a liability. Pittman hasn’t showed me shit. He’s got 12+ large bodies to work with and can’t put together a line that can push Nicholls around! Coley is the worst WR coach we’ve had since Eason. And Chaney is only slightly better than schotty. They may be all-world recruiters, but we need at least a couple assistants who can scheme, adjust, teach and motivate. These ST and O coaches need to get some pointers from the D staff.
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The statistics so far would indicate that Schotty is miles better than Chaney. Schotty was doing significantly better than this -1 Chubb and +1 Lambert.
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that maybe the scariest stat I’ve seen….can’t improve on Schotty with Chubb back….can I start drinking now?
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Still reserving ultimate judgment for 2018.
We all would have loved to have seen this year look like we hoped. I think we all hoped CKS would inject some kind of magic sauce and we’d be competing for the SEC East this year. Short of that we at least hoped not to regress. Short of that, we at least hoped to look like a respectable football team.
But those hopes were not well-founded. At least, they certainly weren’t founded on anything approaching reality.
We knew CKS was a first-time HC. We knew he was inheriting years of poor roster management. We knew he was inheriting a soft culture. (Yeah, that’s right! I said it!) We knew he’d be starting either 1) an underwhelming Lambert or 2) a totally unproven Skinny QB. We knew that all the coaching changes for 2016 piled on top of changes from recent years would take a long time (if ever) to solidify into a system that worked well together. We knew ADGM sucked (had to throw that in). We knew we didn’t have a kicking game. We knew our OL was a giant question mark.
And all that doesn’t even account for the “shit happens” side of things that we should have expected coming into the year. There was no way for us to know what might happen, but we should have counted on some craziness. The UT Hail Mary. Poor clock management. God-awful Special Teams. Chaney criminally misappropriating one of the best backfields in the league. The list goes on and on.
I worked in construction for 11 years. And guess what. I loved working new construction. Loved it. Building something from the ground up was fun.
You know what sucked? Renovation and remodeling! Stuff never turned out quite how you planned it, and having to adjust to all the crap that you found along the way but didn’t plan on just royally sucked.
This team is a huge rehab project. I liken it a huge building that is structurally sound (for the most part) and quite beautiful architecturally. The house has “good bones.” But, boy, does it need a lot of work. Kirby came in with a plan. But once he started tearing the plaster down and pulling the floor boards up there’s a lot more crap – and different crap – that needs attention than he planned on. And it requires that he makes adjustments on the fly. And sometimes he’s having to take one step back to make two steps forward.
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Oh, forgot to add my predictions that this will be Chaney and Beamers only year at UGA.
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Beamer is a total waste except he can really recruit. Chaney is doing what the HC wants. He was brought in to teach the kid to be a pro-style QB. He is running a pro-style offense because the HC wants one. This blame the OC is bullshit. Kirby told us he wanted to run over people like he did at Bama. So in each game we have tried to run over the opponent. After the total shit show that was the Nichols’s game we still tried to run over everybody but now there was a plan B for when we couldn’t. The worst thing that happened in the Vandy game beside the punt and kick-off coverage, was that Blankenship finally made field goals. If he had missed the first one maybe just maybe we would have tried to score touchdowns. If Kirby learned anything from his buddy Muschamp it is to NOT change OC’s just because fans hate them. If he didn’t learn it we will be looking for a new HC for 2019.
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I’m not saying he should be fired. But he will be.
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I couldn’t watch the game, but I did follow it some on the gametracker. When I saw that Mackenzie ran for no gain on the final 4th down play, I thought, “Surely he didn’t run Mackenzie as a deep back again.” So I pulled up the final play online, and sure enough, he did. Running Mackenzie out of an I with Chubb at fullback on 4th and 1 in a crucial game situation seems like a firable offense to me.
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Yup.
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Definitely will be staff changes, along with player departures. Just the way of a new staff and shaking out cruise.
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Unfortunately for us Kirby didn’t bring Kiffin with him from Bama. Apparently Kirby wasn’t paying much attention to the offense at Alabama. Lord Saban, bless be his name, has let his (Kiffin) offense adapt to the new football being played these days. They have a true freshman who is in the Heisman talk now. Why? Because Kirby’s former boss has seen what Kirby missed. He does not want to face another Clemson or Ohio State without the ability to out score them offensively. Kirby had better adapt or he will be Muschamp 2.0. not because he is an asshole but because we will be mediocre. By the time Kirby realizes the old pro-style offense is gone with the wind, it will be too late. By the way Pruitt saw this coming and was trying to get UGA faster defensive players to stop the spread and look what he is doing at Bama. Kirby might do great at recruiting but if the benchmark Bama now doesn’t want the same guys because they have changed direction we will get them because Bama doesn’t want them anymore.
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Alabama appears to be doing the same thing under Pruitt as they did under Smart, i.e. playing really good defense. It’s a lot easier when you have five stars at virtually every position. So far, the defense hasn’t been that big an issue this season. As for pro style offenses, you play what your personnel dictates. Right now, Georgia doesn’t have a dual threat QB. They have a drop-back passer who is a freshman and a mediocre to bad offensive line on any given day. They also have an offensive coordinator who seems average at best, though I think the team will be better off in the long run if they give Chaney time and find out if it’s personnel or buy-in or youth or something that’s causing most of the offensive problems. Constantly changing coordinators is usually not helpful.
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If your bitching about this season doesn’t begin as follows, spare me:
1. We have a Rhode F’ing Island grad transfer playing LT. Read that again.
2. We have a starter at guard who is 6’2″, 280
3. We have another starter at guard who was recruited as a DT
4. Any 300lb+ DT puts our center on skates.
5. The RT was all SEC at RG
6. THIS IS THE BEST LINE WE HAVE
7. Our Fr QB and all world backfield play behind the above.
8. The former 15 year veteran HC is why the above is true.
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