Some Thoughts and a Question

wlayton wrote:

Yeah, plus wasn't it in '02 when Musa was out, Gibson played injured along with a couple of OL that cost us THAT game. We have had a BUNCH of bad breaks with injuries for the UF game.

Neither Musa nor Fred Gibson played that game. Oddly enough, both of them had thumb issues; Gibson had to have surgery on his. I don't think it's \"bad breaks\" so much as it's the heart of the season after eight straight games in the SEC in one of the most difficult stretch runs possible: Tennessee, Florida and Auburn within five games of each other (broken up by Vandy and Kentucky, who beat us up when they don't beat us) every single year. Is it any wonder we don't have more SEC or national titles? Shoot, it'd be easier to win with a Taser in your jock!

Layton,
Very well said as usual. You know more about the details of our coaching shortfalls than I do. And I am glad to learn your view on it. I can certainly believe it's true. It just seems to defy reasonable logic that Bama and UF can have such greatly superior talent than us. Can they have better talent? Yes; of course. Especially in the short term, one to 3 years say. But not year after year, especially, when their coaches are newer on the SEC scene than ours.

Here is another opinion that confirms mine:

3. Lack of an Attack Mentality on Every Down -- On Sunday, Blutarsky said we have a crisis of faith. He explained that by saying:

\"It's a systemic doubt: the coaches lack faith in the players to execute and the players lack faith in the coaches' ability to deploy them efficiently and effectively.\"

I agree with him; although, I'd use a different phrase. I'd say we're coaching and playing scared. Scared of failure. Scared of giving up the big play. Scared of freshmen mistakes. Scared of everything. In the LSU game, we had Logan Gray fielding punts at mid-field in an obvious designed fair catch where we also didn't attempt to block the punt. That's as passive and submissive of a coaching move as you'll see. We're not attacking on special teams. We're not consistently attacking on defense. We're not consistently attacking on offense. We're not making the other guy uncomfortable.
The good news. All of this is fixable. And all of it is fixable by Mark Richt. In 2001, that's the kind of coaching staff and program he was building. But somewhere along the way things just sort of slipped.

georgiasports.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-3-...s-about-program.html

I think we recruit great athletes.
I think we prioritize the offense. Some of the offensive players could play defense.
Coach Richt's mindset is offense, which is fine, BUT, defense wins championships.

averagdawg, you are right......did you see where they may put Samuel back at LB next season. He's probably better there anyway, played most of his HS ball at that position, I believe. It's obvious he likes to hit people.


DS, I do certainly agree with you about the aggression issue, believe we are definitely on the same page. I'm just emphasizing that if you coach extreme aggressivenes to ALSO coach the kids great schemes and how to read cues from the OL blocking schemes they are facing etc, so they can react aggressively AND intellegently instead of running willy nilly out of position and getting burned. Unfortunately it doesn't seem as if our DC knows how to mix the two.

GatorinGA, our D will make Tebow look like the Heisman winner he is. He will propably complete 98% of his passes. His receivers will be wide open for at least 10 years for our great Zone will let him and the gators move the ball up and down the field. The win ya'll get to the 10 yard line, all he has to do is just run the ball up the middle. It will take a miricle and some of the best coaching in 4 years for the UGA team to win anymore games much less the game against UF and that Defense. If you have kept up with us, you would see that when we play a top notch D, our Offence can do nothing. We can;t even pick up at first LSU and Tenn in the first half.

My beloved UGA has been going down hill for the past 3 years and if things don't change which I don't see happening, it will be 4.

Dawgs forever

Duck

Duck, your words are quite scatheing and harsh towards our beloved dawgs. Probably, you are accurate though, and that is very sad.

wlayton,
Yes, of course you are correct about mentioning the vital importance of playing intelligently and with discipline. It is just as absurd to think that you can blitz on every play and charge at full speed without regard to assignment responsibility. I would suggest our performance against UT quarterback Crompton is a perfect example. On every bootleg, we had people charging, but they either were not instructed (dare I say it, \"coached\") to play assignment football, or they all slept through those \"coaching\" sessions. When you are well-coached, you can play with greater aggression. You know what your assignment is, and you can unleash yourself in trying to carry out that assignment. Yes, there are times when a player, a group (i.e. linebackers) must play containment, because that is his assignment on that play or that series. It's just when the whole team is coached to play that way for virtually the entire game. It's similar to what happens when a Major League Baseball pitcher throws the same pitch time after time. Regardless of how good he throws that pitch, whether it is a 100 mph fastball, a wicked slider, a curveball, or a changeup, if he continues to throw it and nothing else, he will be knocked out of the game within a few innings if not a few batters.