Monday Thoughts - - - Kirby Smart is SMART

Have rolled this thought around in my mind for a couple of days.

Jacob Eason was not the MVP in the Army Game. That honor goes to the quarterback that will play for Ole Miss. Liked him, cool dude, aware of what needs to be done.

Jacob also has some "things" he had to face that I feel sure he has not faced in high school.

From where I sit, I think what happened in the Army Game was the best thing ever that could have happened to Eason prior to playing in the SEC.

Do not care who you are . . . . someone knocks you on your butt, whether football or a fist fight, you never forget. You either get better or . . . . get your butt kicked again. Jacob Eason is not a dumb ass.

Offensive coaches will "teach" Jacob Eason a thing or two.

Exactly...Buc....JE has already acknowledged he needs

To get to work ...in the weight room..in the film room..

Getting coached.....love that he didn't do any whining

No excuses..... So far not a head case....good news

He understands he has to earn respect from teammates

Go Dawgs..... Roll Tide.....

Buc wrote: Have rolled this thought around in my mind for a couple of days.

Jacob Eason was not the MVP in the Army Game. That honor goes to the quarterback that will play for Ole Miss. Liked him, cool dude, aware of what needs to be done.

Jacob also has some "things" he had to face that I feel sure he has not faced in high school.

From where I sit, I think what happened in the Army Game was the best thing ever that could have happened to Eason prior to playing in the SEC.

Do not care who you are . . . . someone knocks you on your butt, whether football or a fist fight, you never forget. You either get better or . . . . get your butt kicked again. Jacob Eason is not a dumb ass.

Offensive coaches will "teach" Jacob Eason a thing or two.

Buc,

Good points in the entire post. Let me expound on those points a little bit.

When I was in high school, we had a pretty stout basketball team and our main rival had an absolutely dominant 6'-10" center that my county, and frankly, the state of Florida had rarely seen. He still holds FHSAA records in basketball. He declared that he was going to play power forward/center for Georgia Tech and there were no shortage of people who said this guy was the next Kevin Garnett. I was always skeptical of this, but like I said, the fan base was just filling his head full of how awesome he was, and how the world was his oyster.

Well, he joined the nerd herd on North avenue and quickly found out that guess what - just because you were 6'-10" and dominated high school ball against the vast majority of opponents who would never go on to play college ball, doesn't mean that its a foregone conclusion that you're going to do the same at the collegiate level. Now, he did do alright at the trade school, and still holds the school record for blocked shots in a career, but he was the shell of the dominant presence he was in high school. He was drafted in 2001 and had a very sub-par and short-lived NBA career. He played only one season, averaging 1.1ppg in 23 games with the 76ers. Career over.

Moral to this story is this - yes, we can all be hyped up about JE coming to Athens and I think it's justified. But keep it in perspective. It's not a foregone conclusion that he's going to be dominant. Could he? Yes. but he has to earn it and prove it. When you get to college in the SEC, everyone is good.That young man learned a valuable lesson Saturday; despite the whole world of Skinny QB superfans telling him that his crap doesn't stink --it actually does. Honeymoon is over sweetheart. Guess what - now the work begins. That was a very inexpensive lesson he learned Saturday and he took it like a man in all that I have read thus far. Very classily, he complimented Shea Patterson on his performance. Good for him. Humility will take him a very long way in both life and sports.

Bottom line - JE is raw talent. Raw as raw can be. I'm glad that raw talent is playing for UGA. Let's let Chaney & Co. polish it and make it game ready for SEC play.

All true about Eason... and we've all known it. It's why so many of us here urged caution whenever some other folk started talking about this kid as if was going to ride in week 1 on a white horse swinging a mighty broadsword.

I'll tell you one thing now though..'his learning curve will be accelerated if he has a line in front of him. I also think our new coach wont just hang his hat on one player at that position. Eason will also have a better chance of being coached up now. We all know our last QB guru had sort of left that sort of thing up to Shotty.

I think Eason will eventually be an excellent QB.
Having said that, I don't think for a moment that Kirby isn't looking at other QB prospects.
Depth .
I wouldn't mind having a true scrambling QB as backup / alternate. Like it or not that's where the college game is headed.
Watson put on quite the show last night.

Liked the quote from Kirby Smart below . . . .

“We’re bringing energy, passion and maybe trying to do it a different way”.

The "Georgia Way" is about to take on a new meaning. A new approach to the term "Coaching Up".

Watson guaranteed himself a huge payday year after next. Here is hoping that players like Watson are offered sooner because there are coaches in Athens that recognize talent like he has displayed, both in high school and college. Will allow this paragraph to speak for itself.

Go Dawgs, Coach'em Up . . . .