“Tennessee showed it never was back, while Georgia has a long way to go…”

I’ll take “Headers I Can’t Argue With” for $200, Alex.

70 Comments

Filed under Because Nothing Sucks Like A Big Orange, Georgia Football

70 responses to ““Tennessee showed it never was back, while Georgia has a long way to go…”

  1. So Tennessee tried a 58 yard fg at the end of the game, notwithstanding the fact that SC had two starting DB’s out of the game and TN had completed a pass at almost the same distance against us for the win. And no one will mistake their kicker for Sebastian Janikowski.

    Booch has some ‘splainin to do.

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  2. Russ

    Serious question. I know Kirby (or any coach) avoids these types of commentaries, but how do they achieve self-awareness? I mean, certainly Kirby is convinced his way is the best, but at what point does he stop, look in the mirror and say “this shit ain’t working”? We have regressed in every area on offense and special teams. The defense is showing improvement. I was impressed by how well we covered the RPO on Saturday, with one defender dropping the receiver to pressure Del Rio, and another defender picking up the receiver. So there’s that.

    But beyond that, it’s a horror show. And spare me the “talent” excuse. Every team has holes (except for the one Kirby came from) and most teams learn how to work around the holes.

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    • PTC DAWG

      We beat one team that was probably better than us, we lost to Vandy who is probably not as good…not seeing much that I can’t explain. Our OL is not good and we start a true freshman QB…it is that simple.

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      • Russ

        Not seeing it. We are fundamentally unsound, especially in special teams. All I heard is we needed a special teams coach to fix everything.

        Also, we heard repeatedly last few years about how bad our line was. We have the same basic lineup (remember the OL was listed as a strength coming into the season due to all the starts returning) and yet we are significantly worse than even last year’s crappy offense.

        So, the play calling fits with your expectations? Special teams?

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        • Brandon

          I think the reason so many fans get so upset is because they continually buy into all the preseason kool-aid hoopla refuse to believe that we just aren’t that good despite whatever facts present themselves right in front of them.

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    • Gene Simmons

      Once again, had we hired a proven head coach, he may have known what to do by now. This OJT is really painful to watch.

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      • Mayor

        Handing the keys to the Georgia program to Kirby Smart is a little like handing the keys to your Ferrari to your teenage son. The son has ridden in the car with Dad many times and seen how Dad drives it. The son has a driver’s license and studied all the books about driving. He’s watched many Nascar races and because Dad is a racer himself the son has been in the pits many times, seeing all the work the pit-crew does. But the son hasn’t ever driven a manual transmission car before and certainly never been a driver in a race himself. But because the son has had all these observations and because the son is from the right family tree you hand him the keys and let him race at Road Atlanta. What do you think will happen? What did any of us think would happen when the keys to Georgia were given to Kirby Stupid? Actually, Kirby isn’t the stupid one, the guys that gave him the keys are (I’m looking at you Don Leeburn and all you other rich alums who hide behind your anonymity). Until we clean the mess up at B-M and start making decisions like a 21st century organization things won’t really get better. This is exactly what the Senator and others on this blog feared would happen. B-M blew the hire.

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        • PTC DAWG

          It will be three years before any us know anything definitively about Kirby as our head Coach…

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          • James Stephenson

            How is that possible. We knew in year 1 that Richt was the right choice at the time and he won the SEC in his second year. And Richt was an assistant for less time then Kirby was. I am just worried, we already F’ed it up and not realize it. Sure in 3 years, our defense will be NFL players from 1-11. But until then, gah.

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            • dawgfan

              UGA had 6 NFL draft picks in 2001, including 2 #1s and 2 #2s. UGA had 8 NFL drafts picks in 2002, CMRs first SEC championship year. All of these players were recruited by Jim Donnan. I think its fair to say that there was outstanding talent to work with when CMR arrived. It will be interesting to see how many UGA players are drafted after CKSs first 2 years. All UGA players drafted over the next 3 years are CMR recruits.

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              • Snoop Dawgy Dawg

                while true on its face, there is also nuance to this as well. Richt’s players were playing better in 01/02 than Kirby’s are, at least at this stage. Is that due to better players or better coaching? hard to say at this point if you’re honest, at least with regards those drafted players.

                Through some of Richt’s era, we saw players who were highly recruited, played namelessly in athens for 4 years, get drafted late, then excel in the league. Example #1: Cordy Glenn, NFL starter at Left Tackle.

                Does that happen again 5 years from now? Some of these guys make it to the league and somehow turn out to be good players again after the leave Athens?

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                • Gaskilldawg

                  Is that a different nameless Corey Glenn from the Corey Glenn who was All-American and All-SEC in 2011 and All-SEC in 2010?

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          • @PTC: I agree with you, but everyone now wants instant gratification. Most programs need three years or even four for a new coach.

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            • 1smartdude

              Very true. You’re leaving one important fact out though, most teams hiring new coaches are losers. They’re not replacing coaches because they can’t get over the 10 win hump, they’re replacing them because they they like making bowl games……

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          • Gaskilldawg

            We know he is a poor head coach at this moment. That does not mean he is condemned to being a poor coach in 2017. I know that we are going to win that Natonal Championship in 2018, so there is that.

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      • PTC DAWG

        Like the guy or guys UT hired?

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  3. Tronan

    All is well. All is well!

    I just hope it’s as simple as needing a talent infusion on OL (receiver, too) and Kirby getting past his rather disappointing learning curve.

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  4. John Denver is full of shit...

    Go Falcons!

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  5. “change and Hope” ain’t working and with all due respect never was. I appreciate the Senator’s post regarding apathy because I think he nailed most of the fan base’s reaction but god help me I haven’t move on yet…..I’m still pissed. The wizards of wise at B-M literally chose this regression to the mean. Now let the Smart apologists begin making excuses if it makes you feel better but there is no excuse for this drek. The only thing left to do is clean house in the AD’s office only this time let’s do a REAL search for McGarity’s replacement. If his replacement comes from anywhere within the Athletic Dept we will be F***ing up again….national search for an AD who is capable of changing the entire culture.Weasel for President. The Senator for AD. It couldn’t be worse ,right.

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  6. Not sure if y’all have seen the rumors floating around regarding Tennessee holding a players only meeting, but sounds like Booch has damn near a mutiny on his hand. What a weird season.

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    • D.N. Nation

      Those of us said that Butch was actually a bad coach look to be proven completely correct. At least I’ve got that going for me. That UT/USC game was quite amusing.

      The guy’s the concept of “fake juice” stuffed into an ill-fitting, bloated human form that looks like it’s always about to pop open. That he ever gave jobs to DeBord, Jancek and WillieMart says volumes. (Though the Shoop hire was solid; took him long enough.) The only legitimate victories they’ve had in four years under Butch have been at home, and required the use of that busted turf.

      Know who beat Butch when he was at Cincinnati? Derek Dooley.

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      • Know who beat Butch when he was at Cincinnati? Derek Dooley.

        Actually – Derek Dooley’s Tennessee team beat Butch Jones.

        I agree with the rest of this. He hasn’t recruited at the level of Florida, or how Georgia appears to be recruiting, since 2013. If it didn’t happen this season – it’s never going to happen for them under him. Georgia might not be the one to unseat him given how bad our hire currently looks, but I don’t see any way that he’s consistently getting over the Florida hump.

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    • David K

      Kirby is struggling and I think any other SEC head coach with the exception of Butch and Muschamp would be an upgrade.

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  7. SouthernYank

    Rumors flying that Hurd and Kongbo transferring. Hurd? If he leaves, Butch may soon follow.

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    • rpcpisme

      I have seen/heard those rumors also. Why would Hurd not just turn pro?

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    • The Dawg abides

      I hope not. We need for them to keep Butch, at least another season. Although it’s taken a hit, we still have the new staff recruiting mojo in the East. It’s crucial for things to stay that way for this year at least. Even an uninspiring hire like Butch produced good recruiting classes for a couple of years. They aren’t doing much in Georgia this cycle. If Butch stays, it’s going to be an ugly offseason for them. We don’t need for anything to disrupt that balance.

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  8. Billy Mumphrey

    Detached still seems quite prolific for you Senator 😉

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  9. The Truth

    It’s easy to rag on the OL — they stink. But we may have the worst group of college receivers I’ve ever seen. It’s easy for a 53-yr-old to say something stupid like this from behind a keyboard, but I think I’d catch more passes out of 100 than Jayson Stanley.

    But the biggest problem to me is that our coaches do not seem to have the first clue about how to get the best out of what we’ve got talent-wise. And I can’t be convinced that John Theus and Kolton Houston made THAT much of a difference.

    As far as “The Process,” I guess it goes back to the question of how much pain are you willing to endure for the gain. When CMR was in his dying days the question my circle of Dawg friends always returned to was this:
    How many losing seasons would you be willing to endure in a 10-year stretch if you knew you’d also win 2 SEC titles and 1 Natty in that stretch? Auburn’s recent roller coaster ride helped shape that question, which is really about expectations of sustained performance over flashes of greatness, even epic greatness.

    I’m like Nuke LaLoosh, “I love winning…it’s like, better than losing.” Give me the 10-win seasons and I’ll trust everything will work out to go all the way at some point. Right now, I fully expect UK to beat us on merit this Saturday, then AU will curb-stomp us the next week. That’s not fun.

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    • Rick

      And there is the tragedy of your circle of friends: you cannot trade bad seasons for titles. Chizik was a freak occurrence borne of illicit payments and a great OC. Titles flow to coaches who win games. Period. The last dude won games.

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      • Charles

        Exactly. There’s averages… and then there’s variance. The distance to a national title is a hell of a lot closer from an average of 10 wins a season than… well… you know… less than 10 wins a season.

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    • D.N. Nation

      “How many losing seasons would you be willing to endure in a 10-year stretch if you knew you’d also win 2 SEC titles and 1 Natty in that stretch?”

      I root for one team that conforms to that boom-or-bust paradigm, the Carolina Hurricanes, who have made two Stanley Cup finals, winning one, and have been dreadful otherwise. Is it better? I find myself ignoring the team more often than not, but also saying “well at least I’ve got that Cup” when hockey is brought up. All things considered I’d rather be a fan of a more consistent team, but being a fan of boom-or-bust feels easier.

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    • Q

      The receivers are shit. Yet they were all sought after kids. Coley is one of our coaches that I’d like to go against, along with Shane and the angry fat man.

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  10. Uglydawg

    The whole SEC E is a cold mess. There isn’t an even “very good” team in the division..maybe not even a “pretty good” one.
    Kentucky may be the rep that gets to take the pounding from Alabama.
    Tennessee was never as good as their luck, and help from the refs, made them seem.
    South Carolina plays very hard..but has a talent gap (however that young QB looks fantastic).
    Florida has a boring offense, but their defense may keep them in games.
    Georgia’s standing is well documented on this blog.
    Vandy is as Vandy does.
    Missouri is awful.
    Florida or Kentucky is on their way to an embarrassing ass beating in ATL.
    Something in me makes me regret it won’t be Tennessee getting their second dose. SC did Sgt. Carter a favor.

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    • PTC DAWG

      Agree about the East…UF is the best team..the rest..mediocre at best…

      I think UF’s D is legit.

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    • BrightOwl

      I kind of think that Nick Saban ruined the SEC. Think of all the great coaches that led teams in this conference in 2007. Now think of how many of them lost their jobs because of how high Bama raised the bar in the meantime. For crying out loud, the guy who was probably the best in 2006 faked heart trouble after losing a game a couple years later, “retired,” and took a job at a place with (at the time) less competition.

      For a coach to keep a job in this conference, it’s not enough to win games. He has to win championships. Ask guys like Fulmer, Tubberville, Miles, and Richt. Those guys were winning championships before Saban was hired. Afterwards, not so much. Now they coach elsewhere or not at all.

      Note that I don’t blame Bama, or Saban, for this situation – it’s their right to be as good as they can be. But the people associated with other schools who made the decisions to fire an excellent coach and replace him, in almost every case, with someone less excellent, have dragged down team after team until the B1G!!!! now wins more than its share of bowl games against the SEC.

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      • Uglydawg

        That’s a very interesting take on what happened to the East. You may have hit the nail on the head…but why are teams in the West largely more competitive?

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  11. Redcoat Ricky

    Hell, we missed several easy touchdown catches, 2 plays away from beating a top 10 team. Also beat North Carolina. Real close, guess it depends on who’s looking.

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  12. Scorpio Jones, III

    I posted this earlier this morning, but it has stuck in my head.

    To understand the following, youse gotta agree that Vince Dooley was our version of Paul W. Bryant (yeah, I know all that, but for us…for Georgia, Dooley is as close as we get without going back to leather helmets.)

    So…Alabama, that which we all wish for…has had eight head football coaches and two athletic directors since Bear went away. Eight.

    One of the coaches Bammer ran off, Gene Stallings, won a national championship (although there proly ought to be an asterisk in their somewhere).

    As of today, we are on our fourth coach since Dooley retired from coaching and our third athletic director. No national championship (in football), but fewer coaches.

    So, in re: the process, are we ahead of pace or behind? Eight coaches since 82….34 years (hmmm)…Four coaches for us since 1989…well, 1990, which is what? 26 years.

    Hell, we are more stable than Bammer, which, this morning does not make me skip down the hall.

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  13. John

    Last year we were a 10 win team that was 5-6 plays away from being a 6 win team. This year is the reverse. When you factor in new coaching staff, freshman QB and graduations… it doesn’t seem hard to understand when you look at it objectively.

    I am confused by people who saw our team last year and assumed we had some sort of breakout potential this year. A useful exercise might be to name a position group where the talent that left was replaced by equal or better talent? Maybe DL and ILB come to mind but other than that….

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  14. Aladawg

    I have just watched one of my favorite movies ” conspiracy theory” and I have figured out what is going on with CKS and ADGM at UGA. CKS has stubbornly set the Offense to fail so while going 5-7 or 6-6 he can show next year when going 6-6 or 7-5 that there is improvement as he purges our bowels of the evil spirits left by coaches and players caring about people (the fans wanting an experience on Saturdays), having fun, and repreresenting our school in a positive manner. Then he will be able to present the Crystal Football to all of us by 2025 when ticket seat donations are jacked to $1,000 per seat and ADGM is named University president, Morehead becomes the US secretary of Education, Tann Farkenton is Governor and Don Leebern assumes his throne in Oz. Is it a dream or is it real? Only Hillary and Donald know for sure.

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  15. rchris

    “it’s not as if the Bulldogs were worthy adversaries”. Ouch!

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  16. illini84

    Goddamn ya’ll are some bitter folks.

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  17. Dawg da bounty hunter

    Did anyone seriously expect to be in contention to win the east this year? Anyone who knows football knows what Kirby said when he took the job was 100% true! the lines were undersized and not up to sec caliber… and the wide receivers needed help. Would I be happy with a 9-10 win season absolutely! But it’s not happening this year not even if Sabian was the coach.. we will see a big improvement to next year on defense and offense can’t get much worse so let’s pray for a top notch juco transfer at left tackle that will give Eason more that 1 second to make a read and throw. I think people are getting a false hope we were gonna be like Florida was last year and win the east with a new head coach… but sad to say we weren’t left with an elite defense and a descent offensive line like they had.. give it time for God’s sake we gave Richt 15 years

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  18. lakedawg

    At signing day Kirby said we were this close to Bammer, about 2 inches between his thumb and forefinger. Guess suddenly the roster regressed from that point.

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    • Gaskilldawg

      Thank you. Smart did, in fact, say that, contradicting the internet and Butler/Dantzler meme.

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      • Key word in that whole exchange…”were”…in 2012 we were that close. 2013 and beyond, we regressed in several areas and it shows. Look, I’m not happy with the way the season is going but I’m also not going to sit here and bash a coaching staff that has been in place less than a year for not winning the National Championship in year one. It was never going to happen. As bad as Theus and Houston played last year, they were still better than what we have trotting out on the field this year at tackle. We don’t have a Malcom Mitchell, a Leonard Floyd, or a Jenkins. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Give the coaches time to recruit their players and instill their mindset into the program. If in year 3 or 4, we are still this bad, we will start a search to find a new coach.

        R.E.L.A.X. and give them time.

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        • Gaskilldawg

          Sorry, but Smart did not say to this year’s team, “The difference between Alabama and a team Georgia fielded when most of you were in high school is just the difference between my thumb and forefinger.” He was telling them and you and me that those players could achieve Alabama’s success by practicing as he wanted them to practice.

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  19. From an observer, folks give it time. If Smart has not moved forward by year 3, then get all bent out of shape. The team is just not that good(viewed from my seat). It is going to be shaky next year also. I look for a number of player forced desertions this winter and some coaching changes. It takes time and I imagine Smart will have to “take some advice” over the next year or two. On the job training can suck. For a note: Not a Richt supporter, not a Smart supporter, just an observer.

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    • Gaskilldawg

      Give what time? I am not evaluating the coaching of the 2018 team that finishes Number One, I am evaluating how the 2016 team is coached.

      I should have argued with the UGA law school to use the Kirby Smart rationale and refused to sit for finals my first year in law school because it was not fair to grade me until I took the bar exam.

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