DC Search Update

LSU has came out and stated that they will be giving John Chavis a raise to keep him at LSU. This ends any speculation that John Chavis is still the leading candidate for the open DC position. Richt has also came out and said that his hopes of having a DC in place by January 3rd most likely will not happen but is going to try and have one in place before January 10th. When asked if Rodney Gardner is a candidate he stated that he was not and that Gardner is aware of this.

Interesting Fact

Here is an interesting statistic that I came across courtesy of Chris Low from ESPN. Georgia is the only team in the FBS to have at least 8 wins every season in the last 13 seasons. The Gators only had 7 wins in 2004 and they are the second closest team in the SEC. I think this is a pretty good record to own, not even Texas, Oklahoma, LSU, Ohio State, Penn State or Boise State can claim this. All of the Bulldog nation needs to thank Mark Richt for the majority of these wins.

John Chavis

The new rumor circulating is that John Chavis, the DC for LSU, is the leading candidate for the open DC job at Georgia. I am not real sure how I feel about this. Yes, Chavis has been doing a good job at LSU this year and did a good job at Tennessee when he was there, but we will also be his third SEC team in three years. I still truly think that we can lure Kirby Smart back from Alabama once the National Championship is over.

Bud Foster

As much of the bulldogs nation knows there has been very little information leaked out of Athens in regards to the search for Georgia's new DC. ESPN reported today that the Bulldogs have been in contact with Bud Foster.
Bud Foster is the defensive coordinator for Virginia Tech. Foster has done an outstanding job there with his defenses. They have been ranked in the top 10 in total defense in 8 of the past 10 years.
I do not feel that Georgia has a real shot at him. Foster has been a sought after coordinator for the past 8 years and has never shown even a slight interest in leaving Virginia Tech.

Florida Players Leaving maybe

The have been rumors that alot of Florida players are going to be declaring for the draft. Tim Tebow and Brandon Spikes of course are seniors and will be gone no matter what. DE Carlos Dunlap and CB Joe Haden are expected to be leaving. Aaron Hernandez there ALL SEC TE is a serious possiblilty. Bruce Black the father of S Ahamd Black has been stating that his son will be leaving with the three other players who joined the Gators all from the same High School. These players are RB Chris Rainey and OL Mike and Maurkice Pouncey. If this is all true this is music to my ears.

Fighting Irish

Notre Dame has hired Brian Kelly, the head coach at Cincinnati, as there next head coach. It is not yet confirmed if Kelly will coach Cincinnati in the Sugar Bowl. Let's see how many seasons he lasts. Personally I think Notre Dame needs to lower there expectations they have not been a powerhouse in over 10 years.

Charlie Strong

Charlie Strong the defensive coordinator at Florida has taken the head coaching job at Louisville. The terms of his contract are not set yet, but he was introduced today as the new head coach.

Staff changes

According to Joe Schad, Willie Martinez, John Fabris and Jon Jancek's contracts will not be renewed in 2010. They have all been let go. They have been asked to stay on as coaches through the bowl game.

Gardner most likely gone

David Hale had a really nice post this morning about the potential coaching changes that may happen at Georgia. Here is the link:

http://dawg-extra.blogspot.com/2009/11/latest-on-coaching-rumors.html

The biggest thing about this article that got me going was Rodney Gardner. Gardner seems to me to be more about himself than Georgia Football. If Georgia has offered you a contract and you decide not to sign it then that is your fault. Gardner is always looking for something else every year. Yes, I will admit if we lose Gardner we might take a hit in recruiting this year, but the class we got last year has made a huge impact on our team this year. I would probably say that 90% of those recruits are not going to follow Gardner to another school. Gardner might be able to bring top recruits every year, but he obviously is not a great coach or he would have schools knocking down his door to offer him a position. What is the point of bringing in all these top recruits if we can not coach them to there full potential. If Gardner does decide to leave we should promote John Lilly to recruiting coordinator.

Damon Evans seems to be a little timid in wanting to shell out the cash for a top DC. I hope that he reconsiders this and makes the right decision. Georgia can go two ways right now we can either stay as a 5th or 6th place team every year in the SEC or spend them money and bring in good coaches and get as back in the hunt for the SEC championship and a National Championship.

Game Time for Georgia Tech is set

The game against Georgia Tech has been set for 8pm est Saturday the 28th on ABC. This should be real test of Willie Martinez's ability as a DC. Everyone knows that GT run the option, so lets how he does to stop it. We all know the outcome of last year's game.
The Auburn vs Alabama game is set for 2:30 est Friday the 27th on CBS.

Rambo and Green out for UK

Bacarri Rambo and AJ Green will not play against Kentucky this weekend. Rambo suffered a concussion against Auburn but has been released from the hospital. Green suffered a separation in his left shoulder but will not have to undergo surgery. Rambo is expected back for the Georgia Tech game, but Green's status is uncertain at this time.

Two Volunteer's Kicked off Team

Lane Kiffin has decided to dismiss Nu'Keese Richardson and Mike Edwards from the Tennessee Volunteer football team after they were charged with attempted armed robbery. The third member Janzen Jackson has been suspended from all team activities until Kiffin gets all the facts regarding his involvement in the incident.

Three Volunteer's Arrested

Three Tennessee Volunteer freshmen football players were arrested and charged with attempted armed robbery early Thursday morning. The three players were WR Nu'Keese Richardson, DB Janzen Jackson and DB Mike Edwards. The three players tried to rob two people sitting in their car in a gas station near the Tennessee Campus. When the officers arrested the players they found a pellet gun, drug paraphernalia and a plastic bag with what appeared to be marijuana.

On a up side this should really help on the recruiting trail. These were three of Lane Kiffin's recruits. Glad to see that Kiffin cares about character in his players also.

New Recruit

I am thinking that Georgia should go to New Mexico and look for some new defensive recruits. The womens's soccer team looks meaner than any body on the current Georgia defense. Look at this clip from the match between BYU and New Mexico State. Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNmPybFK2_o

Two Streaks that in jeapordy

This season as all Georgia fans know has been a huge disappointment. I was looking through some Georgia records lately and found two things out. There are two streaks that are in jeopardy of being broken this year if we can not pull out at least three wins in the last four games.

1. With a 7-5 season regular season Georgia will tie the record for most consecutive winning seasons. Currently Georgia has had 12 consecutive winning seasons. Starting with 1997 season. The longest streak of consecutive winning seasons is 13 from 1964-1976.

2. With a 7-5 season Georgia is pretty much guaranteed a Bowl Game. Georgia currently has been to 12 consecutive bowl games which is the longest streak in Bulldogs history.

SEC officiating? Will it ever be correct?

I really do not know what to say anymore. I never thought that the SEC officiating crews could be in bed with Florida and Alabama but it seems more and more like that. Lane Kiffin and Dan Mullen were both reprimanded by the SEC today for speaking out against the SEC officials. Both of them had very good arguments.

In the Mississippi State vs Florida game, Florida intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown. This TD sealed the game for Florida, however when you look at the replay Dustin Doe, of Florida, was stripped of the ball right before he scored. If this had been overturned the touchdown would have been negated and Mississippi State would have had the ball at the 20. Mullen spoke out about this after the game and stated that the replay official should be suspended. The SEC did not see it the same way and reprimanded Mullen instead.

Next, in the Tennessee vs Alabama game, after Alabama blocked a field goal by Tennessee Terrence Cody of Alabama took off his helmet and threw it in the air. The game had not yet ended. This should have been a personal foul for unsportsmanlike conduct. Lane Kiffin spoke out about this and was reprimanded by the SEC also. When Kiffin was asked Sunday about him maybe being fined by the SEC Kiffin replied with "I'm sure we'll get one of those letters that means nothing, that Bobby Petrino got last week, but Florida and Alabama live on".

This is now two weeks in a row that Florida has had to been bailed out by the SEC officials. Lets not forget that LSU had help from the officials when they were a top 5 team. I am really starting to wonder now, do the SEC officials just really want a SEC team in the BCS National Championship? Do they want Alabama and Florida to meet in the SEC Championship game? Are they placing bets on the game and making sure that their teams win? Are they just that bad at there job?

I am not sure which one it is if any. I do know one thing though SEC commissioner Mike Slive has his hands full. It is not just the fans anymore that are in an up roar about the SEC officiating now he has SEC coaches becoming very outspoken about how bad the officiating has been. I hope that Slive knows that even the media is all over this now. He better do something or the NCAA is going to start an investigation if they have not already.

SEC Player of the Week

Geno Atkins was named the SEC defensive player of the week. Atkins recorded 8 tackles and one tackle for a loss. Atkins currently is tied for the lead on the team with 17 quarterback pressures.

SEC officials have done it again.

Anybody who watched the Florida vs Arkansas game and saw the personal foul call on Malcolm Sheppard of Arkansas knew right away that the SEC officiating crew had blown another call. I am very tempted to watch the game again and count how many times I saw Tim Tebow do the Gator Chomp after running for a first down, but as everyone knows there is no official that will ever throw a flag against "the best player ever in college football", according to some people in the media. I am sure that most SEC fans know now that this was the same officiating crew that called the Georgia vs LSU game. There are quite a few things about this that I am pretty fired up about.

1. How many times is the SEC going to come out and admit that there officials made a mistake when calling a game and not do anything to penalize the official or officials that made the mistake?

2. The SEC has come out and stated that there definition for "excessive celebration" is when a player directly makes a gesture towards the crowd or an opposing player. If this is what they are trained to call then why do only certain players or teams get this called against them?

3. Why would an officiating crew that blew a major call in a nationally televised game against two highly ranked teams be assigned to another game of the same magnitude? They should have been calling the Mississippi State vs Middle Tennessee State game last week. Supposedly this week they are calling the Tennessee vs Alabama game. You probably would not want to be the Tennessee Volunteer's this week. With the reputation the crew is getting if Tennessee is about to upset a top 5 SEC team they will make sure that it does not happen.

As many SEC fans know, we do have the worse officials in the NCAA, which I think is pretty sad considering that the SEC is year in and year out arguably the best conference in the NCAA. You do have to start asking yourself questions after the calls this year. Are there things going on with the SEC officials that people do not know. I have been reading some pretty interesting conspiracy theories over the past two days as to why the SEC officals are so bad but more importantly why nothing is being done to correct these errors. Perhaps the NCAA should be in charge of all officals and the conference no longer has a say.

Not just the Bloggers anymore

After the humiliating defeat the Georgia Bulldogs took at the hands of the Tennessee Volunteers it is not only the bloggers and fans that are turning on Willie Martinez, but the media is now also calling for his job. Here is an interesting article I read today:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/269939-by-the-numbers-is-willie-martinezs-job-safe-at-georgia

They stated the same stats that I put up a few weeks ago. They did state an interesting fact though that the winner of the SEC Championship game over the past years has been ranked constantly either #1 or #2 in total defense in the SEC.

What to do about the coaching staff?

Well, this has been an interesting season. First I would like to point out the fact that Georgia could easily be 0-6 right now, but our players have had such heart and determination that they pulled out 3 wins for us.  I am not putting blame on the players for any of the three losse. They have been playing there hearts out. As far as our coaches are concerned I am holding them totally responsible for everyone of our losses.

Coach Martinez again and again has proven that he does not know how to prep our team for games. We made Crompton look like an all-SEC QB this week with him having a career day against our defense. Pretty much every team, except LSU, has put up outstanding numbers against out pass defense. Today was the third time this year that our defense has given up over 37 points in a game. Martinez has always stated that he plays a "bend don't break defense". Well, Willie guess what, our defense has been broken and humiliated three times this year. Martinez must go no questions asked. If Richt will not do this then AD Evans needs to step in and take control of the situation.

Coach Bobo needs to do something about the offense, it has been completely stagnant the past two weeks. Joe Cox is not the answer, yes he did look very good against Arkansas but everyone can have a good game, also Arkansas's defense is worse than ours. Cox stares down his receivers every play. He is gone after this season, why not give some PT to the others QB's. Supposedly the word in Athens is that our two freshman QB's are not ready to play. Since Bobo is the QB coach I hold him totally responsible for them not being ready to play. He needs to also change up the play calling I can usually guess what play we are going to run before it is run. If I can do this so can every other DC is the SEC.

I am starting to get concerned with Coach Richt, he has no fire right now and looks almost like he does not care on the sideline. If Rich does not fire Martinez after this season there is a big problem. He has not changed the coaching staff since he took over. Changes need to happen and this is the responsibility of the Head Coach. 

Season is not even close to over

The fact that all I have been reading in blogs lately is that we are destined for a 7-5 or 8-4 season is just ridiculous. The Bulldogs are not in the position where I would like them to be, but are in the position that they are in. The Bulldogs are still in total control of their own destiny right now which is where any team would like to be. The only team that does not have a SEC East loss is Florida. The Bulldogs are tied with South Carolina right now in the East with one loss each. The Bulldogs do have a tough road ahead of them with Tennessee, Florida and Auburn still on the schedule, but they are very capable of running the table and finishing 10-2 for the season. If the Bulldogs win the rest of the games they will be in the SEC Championship game.

The Bulldogs have to adjust a bunch of things especially the kick off coverage. David Hale wrote a good article about our recruiting and kickoff coverage at http://dawg-extra.blogspot.com

Mark Richt needs to unleash the Dawgs and let them get more aggressive and play free. I am not saying that he needs to lose control but showing some emotion and letting the boys get after it would definitely help. 

Three things to get to the SEC Championship:

1. Establish some type of running game

2. Kickoff coverage has to get better

3. TURNOVERS; these have to stop

What has happened to loyalty?

I have always watched college football over NFL due to the fact that there use to be loyalty in college football. People are more loyal towards college football programs than NFL. This is true in regards to players and coaches. You tend to see programs recruiting former players brothers or sons if they are available. At the University of Georgia we have had brothers and sons all go to the University. Some examples are the Bailey brothers, Stinchcomb brothers and the Tereshinski family. The reason I am talking about this is in regards to Bobby Bowden.

How can Florida State University even start to listen to a board member about calling for Bowden's retirement or even forcing him to step down. Yes, Bowden might be off to rough start this year but overall he was the person who single handily put Florida State on the map and made them a national powerhouse. Since taking over the Florida State program he has 18 ten win seasons, won 20 bowl games, has an award named after him and has won two National Championships. He is also second all-time in wins behind Joe Paterno. When a coach has a resume like Bowden's you do not force him out, you let him retire when he is good and ready. Florida State needs to remember that without Bobby Bowden they would be getting stomped by Florida and Miami every year and not able to bring in top recruits every year. 

I can see something like this happening in the NFL but not in college. The NFL is all about money and wins. Coaching changes happen every year, sometimes you can even lose your job when you win 13 games, as Marty Schottenheimer found out in San Diego a few years ago. Bowden has nothing but good intentions for the program when he thinks he is no longer able to bring in top recruits and compete for the ACC and National Championships he will step down.  The board of trustee's needs to just sit back and let Bowden do his job and stay out of the football program. 

Caleb King Injury

It has been confirmed that Caleb King fractured his jaw and suffered a concussion in the loss to LSU. He is day-to-day right now. Mark Richt has not ruled out King playing against Tennessee this week if he is cleared by doctors of post concussion symptoms. Richard Samuel will be starting against Tennessee.

Tebow's Concussion

I have never in my life seen such media attention to a concussion as there has been since Tim Tebow was leveled by a Kentucky linebacker a little over a week ago.  If I did not know any better I would think that he had fractured his skull or had been injured in a way that no player has ever been injured before. Tim Tebow is not the first player to ever have received a concussion and I am sure that there have been worse concussions to happen in college football than Tebow's.

I am not a fan of Tebow at all but I will give credit where it is due. Tebow is good football player but is not the second coming of Fran Tarkenton, Dan Marino or any other great NFL quarterback.  Tebow as of right now is a low first round or high second round pick.  I do not understand why every time I turn on ESPN all I ever hear is Tebow this and Tebow that.  He is a great leader and a very good COLLEGE football player. I would not put him though in the same category as Jim Thorpe, Herschel Walker, Vince Young or Red Grange.  These players could single handily win games for their team.  Tebow will never be a good NFL player he will join the league of Florida QBs that amount to nothing in the pros.  Must I remind everyone of Jesse Palmer, Rex Grossman and Danny Wuerfell.

I just do not understand why they are making such a hype about all this.  I had a concussion in high school that knocked me out cold for a couple minutes and was back playing the next day.  I admit that concussions are serious but I do not think that anyone players deserves 24 hour coverage about if he can eat or read yet due to an injury.  However, every one commentator and expert in football worships the ground that Tebow walks on. 

On a side note, I just hope that the next time Tebow scores and does the Gator chomp towards the ground that he is called for unsportsmanlike conduct due to making a "gesture" towards the crowd.  I mean that is what the rule states but some how when Tebow does something it is ok. I mean it should be he is TIM TEBOW.  

What to do about the celebration rule?

As I am sure everyone has already heard the SEC has officially come out and stated that they made a mistake and A.J. Green should not have been flagged after his touchdown catch against LSU. I appreciate the apology but that does not change that fact that this single call might have cost Georgia the game. I have watched the replay a dozen times and do not see anything close to what the officials stated they saw. Supposedly A.J. Green was penalized because he gestured toward the crowd. How could he have made a gesture toward the crowd he was getting hugged from all his teammates and could not even raise his arms. This is not the first time that the new celebration rule has cost a team a win. Washington was robbed of win last year against BYU for the same call.

I see there are two things that need to be done:

1. They NCAA needs to change this rule and adopt the NFL rule. This is what I think should be done. Pretty much, the NFL states that players can not use props when celebrating a touchdown. They are allowed to make "gestures towards the fans", they can jump in to the stand like in Green Bay and they can dance all they want. Only thing as I stated earlier is that they can not use props.

2. The review booth needs to be able to review calls made by the officials. Coaches are allowed to challenge certain calls that the officials make, so why can coaches not challenge when a referee throws a flag. I understand that officials are only human and mistakes will be made. I do not think though that these mistakes should be able to change the outcome a game.

I am pretty certain that both of these will not happen but the NCAA seriously needs to do something about this rule. If the outcome of two games have already been changed due to this rule why would you not change it. Also if you are not going to change the rule then officials need to be fined for making bad calls. 

Should Oregon sacrifice its program?

I have been pretty opinionated about the situation that happened to LaGarrette Blount and the Oregon football team in its season opening loss to Boise State. For those who have not been following college football this year, LaGarrette Blount a RB for Oregon, punched a Boise State player and knocked him to his knees after Oregon lost to Boise State. Blount while walking to the locker room, was being taunted by the Boise State fans, went after a couple fans in the stands and had to be restrained by one of his coaches and security personal. Blount was suspended from the team for the rest of year the next day by the University of Oregon. Blount was also suspended in February from the team for "failure to fulfil team obligations".

Chip Kelley, the head coach for Oregon, has released an announcement stating that if Blount fulfils all the requirements that he and the University of Oregon have laid out for him, they will consider reinstating him for the Nov. 7th game against Stanford. I think this is huge mistake on the part of Chip Kelly and the Oregon program. Perhaps they should have not suspended him for the year, but since they did they need to stick to the punishment. You can not go back on your punishment once it is handed out. If you say he is suspended for the year then stick to this. The message you are sending to all your players and future players is that you can do what you want when you are a part of this program as long as you are remorseful afterwards. This is not the message that you want to associated with your program. I think the punishment fit the crime, if Blount had just punched the Boise State player suspend him for 4-6 games, but the fact that he went after the fans is totally unacceptable. Blount should be happy that he did not have assault charges brought against him for the punch he threw. I know if I was out and a guy started mouthing off to me and I knocked him to his knees with a punch there is a pretty good chance I could be spending the night in jail. Blount needs to just stay in shape and enter the draft in April and hope that someone drafts him, this will be a bigger problem then most think since he is going to be known now as a player with character issues.

I firmly believe that Kelly and Oregon Football need to seriously reconsider reinstating Blount, they will sacrifice there program and how University of Oregon Football is viewed nationally if they do reinstate him. Next time something like this happens take more than 24 hours to issue a punishment and make sure you issue the right one, but you can never go back on a punishment once it is handed down or you lose all control of your players and what they think they are allowed to do.

SEC vs All other conferences

So here is the great debate is the SEC the best conference in college football, many people like to say so. People have been debating this for years I am of course biased since I am a Georgia fan but I have done some research to see who is the best conference by breaking it down in to specific categories. These categories are as follows: Most National Championships, All Time Wins, Most Draft Picks, Most Bowl Games, and Best Bowl Game Percentage.

 Most National Championships since 1940:

SEC 17

BIG 12 12

BIG 10 9

PAC 10 8

ACC 5

This with all current teams in there conferences. The SEC has also been the powerhouse in the 2000's with them winning 4 out of the 9 National Championships

Most NFL First Round Draft Picks all Time:

BIG 10 296

SEC 286

BIG 12 228

PAC 10 227

ACC 229

The Big 10 takes this one but just by 10 picks. On side a note for all UGA fans Georgia is currently leading all SEC schools with the most players currently active in the NFL.

Most Bowl Games:

SEC 348

Big 10 336

BIG 12 293

ACC 204

PAC 10 193

Best Bowl Game Win Percentage:

SEC 55.9%

PAC 10 53.9 %

BIG 10 49.7%

ACC 49.4%

BIG 12 46.6%

All Time Wins:

Top 25 Top 50

SEC 6 8

BIG 10 3 6

BIG 12 5 5

ACC 2 7

PAC 10 3 5

To explain the way that I broke this down I took the # of teams in the top 25 and top 50 all time wins from each conference. This is way it is not favored with just your traditional powerhouses. 

I am going to use a point system to determine which is the best conference. 5 points for 1st, 4 points for 2nd, 3 points for 3rd, 2 points for 4th, and 1 point for 5th. So here are the following standings.

SEC 24

BIG 10 20

BIG 12 14

PAC 10 12

ACC 8

I have tried to be fair in this I know I am sure that I will get crap that I choose these categories due to the fact that they favored the SEC but I honestly thought these would be the best categories to determine who the best conference is. 

The WINNER is the SEC

Preview of LSU at UGA

The Bulldogs have a huge came this weekend with the #4 LSU Tigers rolling into Athens. Some interesting facts that I have learned are that the Bulldogs have not beaten a top 5 team in Athens in 25 years with our last win coming against #2 Clemson in 1984 with a game winning field goal by Kevin Butler. Now that we have Butler's son on the team hopefully we can change this trend of losing against top 5 teams at home. Over the past ten years LSU is 9-13 against top 20 teams on the road, however the are 2-0 against UGA in Athens during that time span.

Comparing the team stats of the two teams the look pretty even:

P/G Pass Yards TD Rushing Yards TD

LSU Off:         28.8       179             8                   130                    3

UGA Def:        29.8             243            10                 112                     4

UGA Off:        30.8             245             9                   112                     4

LSU Def:        15.3               198            3                    134                    3

My first glance at this is that we are going to have to be able to move the ball through the air. LSU is notorious for having one of the best DL's in the country every year, however they have not shown it this year as they are tied with Georgia with just 5 sacks and have played no body that is even close to breaking into the top 25.  LSU has picked off 7 passes this year and Cox has had some problems keeping the ball out of opposing players hands. This could be one of the deciding factors in the game. Chad Jones is the best secondary player that LSU has and is tied for the lead in interceptions this year. Trindon Holliday the speedy return man for LSU could pose a big threat for the bulldogs as there kickoff and punt coverage has been mediocre at best this year. Georgia is going to have to shut down the running game of Brandon Scott and force LSU to beat us through the air. I know that we have been giving up huge junks of yards through the air, but I am confident that this is the best approach to the game.

Tebow might be back for LSU

Florida coach Urban Meyer stated today that Tim Tebow could be back for next weeks game against LSU. Florida has a bye week this week, which could not come at a better time for the Gators. Florida has been battling the flu bug the past couple weeks and would be without Tebow this week if they were playing. Tebow took a hard shot during Florida's win against Kentucky and suffered a concussion. Meyer is not 100% certain if Tebow will be able to play yet.

Week 4 Rankings

Good weekend in regards to the Top 25 lots up sets and a number of Top 25 teams lost this weekend. This did not really help the Bulldogs out to much due to the fact that we barely won against a non ranked opponent. We moved up a couple spots. This is how the top 10 and the SEC looks in the Top 25 right now in both polls.

AP

1.    Florida

2.    Texas

3.   Alabama

4.   LSU

5.   Boise State 

6.   Virginia Tech

7.   USC

8.  Oklahoma

9.   Ohio State

10. Cincinnati

18. UGA

21.  Mississippi

27.  Auburn

28.  South Carolina

USA Today

1.    Flordia

2.    Texas

3.    Alabama

4.    LSU

5.    Boise State

6.    Virginia Tech

7.    USC

8.    Oklahoma

9.    Ohio State

10.  Cincinnati

14.  Georgia

18.  Mississippi

28.  South Carolina

29.  Auburn

Urban making excuses

Chris Low from ESPN wrote a great article about Urban Meyer, after his win against Tennessee, and why he did not have to open up the Florida offense. I provided the link below:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4492076

Urban made comments that he did not feel he had to open the Gator offense due to the fact that Lane Kiffin was not trying to win the game. Meyer stated "When I saw them starting to hand the ball off, I didn't feel they were going for the win". Meyer made this statement because after Tennessee recovered a fumble on on their own two with 11:37 left in the game. Kiffin opted  not to go straight to his passing game to move the ball because they had not been very effective in moving the ball through the air. Tennessee still scored on that position to cut the lead to 23-13. I have to support Kiffin on this, if you were not having success in the passing game then why would you start throwing the ball and risk an interception. 

You have to love Meyer after all the hoopla all week about how his team was going to score 60 points and embarrass Kiffin and Tennessee on Saturday he only could only score 23 and win by 10 points. Urban you still got the win, why do you have to make excuses, maybe Tennessee is a lot better than you thought. I have never liked Urban Meyer and this kind of stuff just reinforcing why he is an arrogant coach and not a good example of how a SEC coach should act. Try to show some class next time Mr. Meyer.

Time for a new DC

Well, I have been up and down when it comes to Willie Martinez for the past two seasons. I am now in full support of firing Martinez, he needs to either resign or Mark Richt needs to fire him. Coach Richt needs to start to understand that Martinez is bringing him down in regards to his legacy at Georgia. Richt has done a great job since taking the reigns over at UGA, but hiring his best friend as DC was not a smart move. I am hoping that maybe since there is a co-defensive coordinator this year maybe Richt is thinking about transitioning Martinez out.

I have been doing some number crunching this morning and found out that our defense slowly has gotten worse every year since Martinez took over. Here are the defensive ranks for Georgia and points allowed since Martinez took over

Year        P/G              Y/G          Rank 

2005        16.4      313 yds       11th

2006        17.6            258 yds        9th

2007        20.2           323 yds      20th

2008        24.5           312 yds       28th

2009        34.0           406 yds      97th

If our defense keeps playing this year as it has those would be the final numbers (see above).

I looked at a lot of other numbers in regards to the defense. The number of sacks dropped by 18 since last year and we have slowly intercepted less and less passes every year since Martinez has taken over.  Martinez runs a defense that is reactive to what the offense is doing, your best defensive coaches run a defense that make the offense adjust to what they are doing. You have to be aggressive and take it to the offense every time that they take the field. Martinez is more of a coach that wants to give up a small plays and sit back in zone, wait for the defense to make a play or the offense to make a mistake and let them try to pick you apart. This is exactly what has been happening in our last two games, luckily though we have been able to out score our opponents. I firmly believe that Martinez is just not smart enough to be a DC in the SEC. He is just being out coached in most of our games.

This is one of the biggest things that I do not understand about Martinez. If you are going to play a defense that is straight reactive than you need to make defensive adjustments at half time. I am pretty sure, he has not made one this season. In fact, if you ask me, this is just ridiculous! When you are getting embarrassed up and down the field you might want to change something for the second half. 

Here is my solution, Martinez will not resign, he is going to have be fired or demoted to another position in the staff. Here are some candidates that we should go after:

Tommy Tuberville; currently unemployed as a coach

Dick Bumpas; DC, TCU

Norm Parker; DC, Iowa

Mark Banker; DC, Oregon State

Justin Wilcox; DC, Boise State

I would prefer us to go after Tuberville or Bumpas. Tuberville would be an expensive acquisition  but well worth it.

   

Week 3 AP Poll is out

The Bulldogs moved up two spots taking over the #21 ranking. Here is the breakdown of the Top 10 along with some SEC schools and there ranks.

1.    Florida (55)

2.   Texas (2)

3.   Alabama (3)

4.   Mississippi

5.   Penn State

6.   California

7.   LSU

8.   Boise State

9.   Miami (FL)

10. Oklahoma

21. Georgia

28. Auburn

Couple side notes. Florida lost three of their first place votes and 10 regular votes since the preseason poll came out.  The SEC as you can see has three of the top four spots in the the latest poll and 5 teams in the top 25, which ties us with the BIG 12 for most teams in the top 25. Who would have thought the top two conferences in football would make up 40% of the teams in the Top 25?  

Georgia vs Arkansas

Final: Georgia 52, Arkansas 41

Offense: Can not say too many bad things about the offense. Georgia racked up 530 total yards of offense. Joe Cox threw for 375 yards and five touchdowns. He connected with Green seven times for 137 yards and two touchdowns. Richard Samuel and Caleb King added a nice ground attack rushing for a combined 163 yards and one touchdown. The penalties on offense are getting ridiculous. We had holding and false start penalties all night long. They were killing us all night long. The offense also has got to do a better job of protecting the ball with the Bulldogs turning the ball over twice inside their own 30 yard line which led to 14 points. 

Defense: Hmmmm, where should I start with our defense? Defense has always been the strongest part of all Georgia teams until Willie Martinez took over as defensive coordinator. I am convinced now that our defense from the Oklahoma State game was just fluke. The only good thing about our defensive performance tonight is that we did not give up 100 yards on the ground. However, this does not do too much when you let Ryan Mallet throw for 408 yards and five TDs. I am pretty sure that I can count the amount of times we blitzed on one hand. We can not consistently get a pass rush with just our four lineman. So why Mr. Martinez may I ask, would you just let Mallet sit in the pocket and pick apart our defense without even trying to provide any type of pressure. You have got to stop running zone coverages all game and just letting the defense sit back and wait for plays to happen. Try to take a proactive approach and have a proactive defense instead of a reactive one. If we give up 35+ points all our games we will lose games I can promise you this. Martinez you have to do something different, we have the players to have a great defense.  

Overrated Gators

Florida 23 Tennessee 13

What happened to the Gator stomping, Urban?

If you ask me they should just be happy that they got a win AT THE SWAMP!!

For a team that all experts have been saying is the best team in nation hands downs and maybe the best team in the past decade. I was very unimpressed with their first showing against a legitimate opponent. The Gators only produced 322 yards of total offense. Tebow led the team in passing and rushing with 115 yards in the air and 76 yards rushing and one touchdown. Tebow turned the ball over twice, throwing an interception and fumbling during a run. The Gators gave up 210 yards in total defense. This is not even the season low for the Vols, with UCLA last week holding them to 208 total yards. So, let's get this straight a PAC 10 defense from UCLA holds the Vols offense to less yards than a Gator defense that returned all 11 starters from a year ago. I think Florida is good but I am not jumping on the media bandwagon until they prove that they are hands down the best team in the nation. From what I saw today they are one of the best teams but I would not put them as the consensus #1. Your QB should not be your number one rusher in the spread offense that they run. Tennessee just showed the nation that the Florida Gators are very beatable. 

Tennessee vs Florida

I do not think that I have seen a SEC conference game that has ever had a spread of 28.5 points. That is the current Vegas line as of right now. Most people are predicting that Florida will chomp Tennessee in to little gator bites. Yes, Florida will win this game, but all that Tennessee has to do is keep this game some what close and they will get a moral victory. The Gator's will be out for blood and playing with a lot of emotion, this type of game can work for you or against you. Let's hope for Tennessee's sake that it is the latter. 

Georgia Recruiting

Currently the Bulldogs are ranked #7 in both polls for 2010 recruiting. This is not a bad spot right now, with many recruits still undecided at this point. Georgia will be losing 20 seniors this year, with these being the top people leaving

QB Joe Cox, S Bryan Evans, WR Micheal Moore, CB Prince Miller, LB Marcus Washington, DT Geno Atkins, DT Kade Weston, and DT Jeff Owens

The QB situation is already taken care of with Georgia having three underclassmen waiting for there shots

Losing Micheal Moore will not be that big a problem, since we have Tavarres King and Marlon Brown still coming around.

As for the DL, this will be a bigger issue. Losing Roderick Battle might not have been a terribly bad thing, now we can get some experience for other guys that might not have got a shot until next year. We are losing our top 3 DT which will be a huge blow. We have people to fill the gaps but will be running low on bigger guys. If we get hit by an injury we might have to move an end to the tackle spot.

The linebacker unit should stay in tact unless someone leaves early, Rennie Curran will be the only person the might forgo his senior year for the draft.

The secondary will be another issue with us losing our best CB and S. We might lose both S if Reshad Jones decides to leave early. 

Verbal Commitments: The Bulldogs are off to good start right now. They have two verbal commitments from 5 Star recruits, Garrison Smith is the #1 rated DT and Alec Ogletree is the #2 rated S. The Bulldogs have 11 verbal commitments from 4 star recruits with 7 of these coming on the defensive side of the ball. 

Georgia is still in the running right now for the #1 RB Marcus Lattimore, #10 RB Eduardo Clements, #4 WR Christian Green, #5 WR Chris Dunkley, #10 T Chaz Green, #1 C Bradon Linder, #11 DT Micheal Thornton, #1 DE Jackson Jeffcoat, #2 DE Ronald Powell, #4 DE Corey Lemonier, #10 DE Wayne Dorsey, #2 OLB Jordan Hicks, #1 MLB Jeff Luc, #2 CB Lamarcus Joyner and #5 CB Johnavon Fulton. 

If the Bulldogs can sign even 3 of three guys that will help us out in recruiting. Total we have 18 verbal commitments right now.   

SEC Recruiting Rankings

I am going to be running updates about once a month about the recruiting rankings for the SEC.

Current Rankings from Rival and Scout

Rival:                                         

#2    LSU 

#3    Tennessee 

#4    Alabama

#7    Florida

#7    Georgia

#23  Auburn

Scout:

#3    Tennessee

#4    Alabama

#5    LSU

#7    Georgia

#9    Florida

#25  Auburn

No Luck For Battle

Mark Richt has said that is does not look good very opportunistic for Roderick Battle to get a medical red-shirt and be able to come back for a 6th year. This is not a definite yet, as more information released it will be posted.

Heart and Soul of Defense

I can assume most Dawgs fans know this will be about, none other than Rennie Curran. Curran coming out of Brookwood H.S., in Snellville, GA, was a highly sought after recruit ranked #5 at his position nationally and the #11 prospect n nationally. Curran now just two seasons later is on the watch list for the Lott Trophy, Chuck Bednarik Award, Butkus Award and Bronco Nagurski Trophy, not to shabby for a junior. Curran is considered small for position at 5'11" 225lbs, but so was Zach Thomas and Randall Godfrey and we know how those stories played out. Curran had 113 tackles last year and is on pace this year to have right around 150. Curran is a great leader for the Georgia locker room and knows how to get the defense up for every game. He does not care about his personal statistics but only about the defense as whole. He knows that we gave up to many yards and extremely to many points in some of our contests last year, and he feels that we will able to shutdown many of the opposing offenses this year.

I will be reviewing one of the UGA players every week.

No Respect

I love that Georgia is right back where we usually are getting no respect at all. Last year was such a fluke for us Dawg fans, with everyone talking about Georgia all preseason and all season long. I love now that I am reading stories about us again on the web and through blogs saying that we will be just a mediocre team this year. Last week all the stories were saying that Georgia had to win this game to save our season. So, let me get this straight we were on verge of maybe losing two games and all the sudden our season would be lost. That makes a lot of sense if you ask me. In our third game we are the underdogs by 1 point in the latest Vegas lines. So we are ranked 23 and Arkansas is 46. Arkansas has only played Missouri State, who a good high school team could beat. They have a QB that has never thrown a pass in the SEC yet, but is the second coming according to all the Arkansas newspapers.

I agree we did give up a lot of points against South Carolina but we also scored 41 points as well. The South Carolina QB, Stephan Garcia, was very mobile and Georgia has always had problems against mobile QB's, so I was not surprised about that. Our defense should be chomping at the bit for Ryan Mallet and his 6.4 second 40 time. Arkansas has a lot of their defense returning from last year, however this is not a good thing since they were near the bottom in total defense. They did lose a CB and S and have had to replace them. Our offense should be able to but up at least 31 against Arkansas. Now we just need to make sure the Lee Corso does not pick Georgia since that is a death wish if he does.

Return of King

The word coming out of Athens, GA is that Caleb King's status for Saturday's game is "very probable". King has missed most of fall practice and the first two games of the season with a hamstring injury. King was the backup to Knowshon Moreno last year and the #1 RB coming in to the fall. King will add another dimension to the Bulldogs backfield of Carlton Thomas and Richard Samuel.

Pass Rush Key to Arkansas Win

The Razorbacks have a new QB in Ryan Mallet who transferred from Michigan. Mallet is a big QB at 6' 7" and 238 lbs, but also is extremely slow. He has never faced an SEC defense before and as I am sure all y'all know we have the fastest defense's in the NCAA. Mallet was 17 for 22 against Missouri State and threw for 309 yards and a touchdown. He would have put up bigger numbers but was pulled in the second half. Mallet is not very good at avoiding the rush but can shake off arm tackles due to his size and strength. Georgia is going to have to get pressure on Mallet or we will not stand a chance against him as he will pick apart our zone coverage. The Arkansas line gave up a lot of sacks last year and they pretty much have the same unit in tact, but did lose their starting center from a year ago. Our quick ends should be able to provide more than enough pressure to disrupt Mallet and force some bad throws, especially with Justin Houston back this game.

Kiffin vs Meyer

Well I am sure everyone has heard about how Lane Kiffin has loved to run his mouth ever since he was hired at Tennessee. He went after Florida immediately, and also made comments about South Carolina and Georgia. I can sort of see where he was coming from by trying to get his name out there and get the media to start talking about the Volunteers again, but I seriously doubt that he will be able to back up his words when his team takes the field against the SEC powerhouses. If he had that much trouble against a mediocre UCLA team who plays in the PAC 10, then he is in a very rude awakening when SEC play starts.

Kiffin not only attacked Florida but attacked Urban Meyer directly, by saying that he violated recruiting rules when a recruit was on Tennessee's campus and Meyer called that specific recruit. Meyer as all Georgia fans know can hold a grudge for a while. As he did against us when we brought the whole team out to celebrate two years ago in the end zone. Meyer's answer was to make us live every minute of the stomping they gave us last year by calling timeouts when they were up by 40. I personally can not stand Urban Meyer I think he is a cry baby, but he is a good coach and can get his team up for games. Meyer is going to make Kiffin eat every word that he spoke in the off season by humiliating his Volunteer's on national TV. Kiffin was right the media will be talking about the Vol's, but not about good things, mostly about how Meyer is going to welcome him to the SEC with a 45 point a** whipping.

SEC Week in Review

Florida 56 Troy 6:
For the second week the National Champions scheduled a scrimmage against a no body. Must be nice to start the season with two teams that I could play QB against and score at least two touchdowns. This is the Florida way, they have always done this. Makes it a lot easier to go undefeated when you only play decent competition once conference play starts

UCLA 19 Tennessee 15:
I caught parts of this game off and on. Tennessee started strong but overall did not have a very good performance putting up only 200 yards of offense. Compton looked pretty bad for most of the game throwing three interceptions. The Tennessee defense looked pretty good holding UCLA to 186 yards total offense and not giving up a lot of points considering the field position that they were starting with many times. Next for the Vols is the Gators lets see how that game goes, since Kiffin was running his mouth all preseason. I would say Florida wins by at least 24.

Alabama 40 Florida International 14
This game started a lot closer than many people were expecting with Bama leading only 20-14 at half. Alabama held them to 1 yard rushing for the game and put up 275 yards on the ground against them. Bama played typical SEC football just punishing FI on the ground and wearing down there offense and defense with physical play that not many teams can handle for 4 quarters. Next up for the Tide is North Texas

LSU 23 Vandy 9
Vandy was in this game until the 4th Quarter. The defense of Vandy did a nice job of shutting down the LSU offense and frustrating the LSU QB. Vandy could never really get there passing game going but did rush for 126 yards on the ground. LSU played a pretty even game putting up nice numbers in the air and on the ground. Next up for LSU is Louisiana Lafayette and for Vandy is Miss. St.

Auburn 49 Miss. State 24
Auburn man handled Miss. State in this game putting up 589 yards of total offense with 390 of these coming on the ground. Not to much you can say when you give up 390 yards on the ground except that you got punched in the mouth by the other team again and again. I really don't think that Auburn is that good. I think its more that Miss. State is just that bad. The Auburn defense did a good job of limiting the Bulldogs offense and forcing two turnovers.
Next up for Auburn is West Virginia and for Miss. State is Vandy

Tip of Fate

Well, I will be the first to say I did not see the game going that way at all. I was pleasantly surprised that our offense actually can score some points. I was on point with one comment that our defense would win the game for us, as Rennie Curran did in the final seconds.

The offense looked better, but was not exactly clicking. We only produced 308 total yards of offense. We had 107 rushing yards and 201 passing yards. Samuel looked really good I thought, he was punishing the Gamecock defense with his power runs. Samuel only had 15 carries but did average 4.3 yards a carry. Caleb King did not play again hopefully will be able to play by the next game. Green looked outstanding as usual, minus the fumble in the first quarter. I am not sold on Cox, especially since he will be gone next year. I would much rather see some of our younger QB's start getting some snaps and let us prepare them. I would like to see Gray get some more snaps in and let him run the wildcat a few times or some type of option package. We keep hearing about this kid, but unless I missed something he only took one snap the whole game. Green is obviously the go-to-guy but defensive coordinators are going to find a way to stop him and then we are going to be out luck in the passing game. We need to start getting Tavarius King and the two freshman Orson Charles and Marlon  Brown some more action, so we can take some of the pressure off of Green. We have always been a run first team and again we have the O-line and the personal to continue this tradition. Brandon Smith, not to much I can say about this kid, but man is he FAST. I think he is one of the fastest players I have ever seen wear the red and black. Let's just for say for the time being, keep him off returns until he learns how to handle the ball properly.

The defense could not stop the pass for anything. We gave up 313 yards in the air to what I believe is a very mediocre offense, which had two touchdowns called back due to penalties. Martinez needs to learn to switch his schemes up and not play zone all game. Yes, we did not give up a lot of big plays, but we got smoked on the short and intermediate routes all night long. The longest pass they completed might have been for only 20 yards,  but the average was 10 yards a completion. Nothing like averaging a first down every time you complete a pass. Giving up over 100 yards on the ground when we have what I consider one of the best tandem of DT's in the conference is pretty poor. Week one I would give our defense a 'A-' grade and Week two a 'C'. I just hope that this is not going to be another 2008 where we had two different defense and we never knew which one would show up. If we are giving up 37 points to South Carolina then it is going to be an extremely painful year when we play Florida or LSU. 

Oh the savior of the day for us. THANK GODNESS FOR SPECIAL TEAMS. Blair Walsh hit his second 50+ yard field goal of the year and Boykin I think will be one heck of a returner. Boykin alone averaged 46.75 yards a return on four returns which is just outstanding. Smith I would like to be our second choice when it comes to returns. He has the speed to return balls but made a really bad choice of trying to return one kick that was seven yards deep, by fumbling the ball. Luckily the defense held them to only three points on that costly turnover. When the opposing team has to only punt the ball one time you also might be having a problem on defense, but I think I have addressed that enough as it is. 

Overall I would give us a 'C' grade for the day. Offense still needs a lot of work for us to compete against the SEC. Defense needs to get more pressure on the QB and be able to stop the run. Also though is we can stop the run play some more man and blitz so we can cause some turnovers. If we cannot stop the pass we are in for long day against the Razorbacks but more on that later in the week. 

 

Battle out, but Houston Back

Georgia has lost another player due to a knee injury. Roderick Battle has a torn ACL that will cost him the rest of the season. Battle was a fifth year senior this year, Richt is not sure if Battle will be able to get a medical red shirt and be back next year.

Justin Houston, a sophomore, has served his two game suspension and will be back in the lineup for the Arkansas game. Houston is one of the best rushers we have. With the the loss of Battle, Houston could not have come back at a better time. 

Cox has injured shoulder

Cox has hurt his throwing shoulder, it is a problem with the nerves in his rotator cuff. This problem started during spring practice. Cox believes that he has not lost any velocity on his throws or that it is affecting his accuracy. The coaching staff still believes that Cox is the best option in terms of QB.

Defense is the key against South Carolina

I am happy to hear that our defense is not satisfied with their performance against Oklahoma State. I actually was pretty happy with it considering that we only allowed 307 yards against an offense that was ranked 9th in the nation last year and returned all their top play makers. 24 points does seem like a lot of points but they were held to 24 points or less just twice last year and averaged 40 points for the year.
Next up we have South Carolina who had only 256 yards total offense against North Carolina State and only scored 7 points. The Gamecocks averaged only 20 points a game last year. I do not see why we can not hold them to 3 points or less. Our defense will only get better every game. Brian Evans has been reviewing film all week and is very confident that they will be able to force more turnovers against the gamecocks, as he saw a few missed opportunities against OSU.
As all Dawg fans know this has turned into a more heated rivalry over the past few years especially since the Ole Ball Coach came back to SEC. If the Dawgs can score 10 points we will win this game. We have Caleb King back in the rotation for the running game. Losing Trinton Sturdivant again will be a blow but the Dawgs are deep when it comes to the O-line. The only thing I am worried is our QB situation. The rumors coming out of Athens about Cox and his shoulder have me a little worried. Sometimes that is all it is, just a rumor but then again there is usually a little truth behind all rumors.

Cox starting against Gamecocks

Joe Cox supposedly has been nursing a shoulder injury which might have kept him from starting on Saturday against USC. Mike Bobo texted the AJC stating that Cox would be starting. If there is any truth to these rumors that Cox has a shoulder injury it might be time to start looking at Gray, Murray or Mettenberger. I have nothing against Cox and am still hoping for a repeat of the DJ Shockley experience when he helped us attain the SEC Championship as a fifth year starter.

New rule that is gonna hurt the game

To start out my blog I am gonna address the hit by Reshad Jones on Justin Blackmon in the first UGA game. To ya'll that don't know the NCAA has established a new rule for the protection of defenseless players. I have provided the rule below. Here is a link to the hit so that if you can watch the hit again as I have many times.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uppzu_pGDc


NCAA Rules and RegulationsPROTECTION OF DEFENSELESS PLAYERS

The 2008 committeeintroduced a separate rule prohibiting initiating contact with and targeting adefenseless opponent (Rule 9-1-3).The following are situations in which defenseless players are susceptible toserious injury:

• The quarterback moving down the line of scrimmage who has handed or pitched the ball to a teammate, and then makes no attempt to participatefurther in the play;

• The kicker who is in the act of kicking the ball, or who has not had areasonable length of time to regain his balance after the kick;

• The passer who is in the act of throwing the ball, or who has not had areasonable length of time to participate in the play again after releasing theball;

• The pass receiver whose concentration is on the ball;

• The pass receiver who has clearly relaxed when the pass is no longercatchable;

• The kick receiver whose attention is on the downward flight of the ball;

• The kick receiver who has just touched the ball;

• The player who has relaxed once the ball has become dead; and

• The player who is obviously out of the play.
These players are protected by rules that have been in place for many years. Itis of the utmost importance that participants, coaches and game officials carefullyand diligently observe safety rules.


Ok, the biggest problem I have with this rule is what exactly do they mean by "the pass reciever whose concentration is on the ball". If you watch the clip from a technical standpoint they called it correct. I mean Blackmon touched the ball with his hands, but did not catch it immediately. However when you watch the clip his "concentration" was still on the ball after he touched it. So, do the DB's now have to wait until the reciever catches the ball to make contact. This is how you could interpret it the rule. Pass interference reads that once the ball is touched in flight you can make contact with the reciever. This rules pretty much contradicts it. I understand that they are trying to protect the recievers but I mean really. I am just hoping that this was a bad call which I firmly believe it was. The worst thing is about this rule is that it will definetly change the outcome of more then one game. Don't get me wrong this call did not cost the Dawgs the game. If we hadn't been called for a block in the back on the punt return or throw an interception then we would have been right in the game. This call did though give OSU a pretty easy chance to score again.