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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2009 > January > 07
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
UGA loses its glitz, but may gain ferocity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Athens — Mark Richt told reporters Monday his staff might have done its best coaching in the season just completed. We can debate that premise until Groundhog Day, but what’s beyond dispute is this: Somebody’s going to have coach awfully well if Georgia is to win 10 games next time. And both things could happen.
For two seasons the Bulldogs didn’t worry overmuch about precision, believing one of their two big-name skyhooks would do something breathtaking to save the day. Georgia will miss Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno, yes, but it won’t necessarily miss the let-them-do-it attitude that grew from having two such talents in the same backfield.
“I just don’t think we executed as well as we needed to,” said Joe Cox, the redshirt junior who’s now the No. 1 quarterback. “I felt as a team we weren’t as hungry as we needed to be. That’s something we need to work on.”
Then this: “It’s going to be a big help not being preseason No. 1.”
Talent is a wonderful commodity, but we’ve just seen that talent doesn’t necessarily yield championships. Stafford and Moreno won a lot of games but never even a division title, and it was significant that on the day of their announced departures Mark Richt was moved to say: “There are a lot of things we can improve on [in 2009] that might give us a chance to win the SEC East.”
It wasn’t that Stafford and Moreno didn’t work hard and play well. But the trouble with having terrifically gifted players is that such a team comes to see itself as terrifically gifted. Lest we forget, Tennessee won the national championship the year after Peyton Manning exited. And didn’t some team win the SEC in Year 1 after David Greene and David Pollack?
“In certain games it seemed like we were flat,” said Cox, speaking of the three seasons he mostly stood and watched Stafford work. “Hopefully I can bring some of the way I like to play [to bear], maybe bring some fire.”
About Joe Cox: He’s a redhead, and you know what they say about redheads and their temperament. He conceded he’d been penalized “a couple of times” in high school for emotional excess, and if you check the famous photos you’ll find No. 14 smack in the middle of the Gator Stomp.
Pointing to Cox’s apprenticeship, Richt likened him to D.J. Shockley, who waited four seasons behind Greene to become MVP of the 2005 SEC title game. “Joe’s become one of our leaders without being a starter,” Richt said, and that was likewise said of Shockley.
The 2005 Bulldogs might have been sixth-most talented team, but it maximized resources. The 2008 Bulldogs did not, and now the two most precious resources are bound for the NFL. This means Georgia, as Cox suggested, won’t be nearly as highly regarded in August, but seasons, as we well know, aren’t made in the heat of summer.
“I feel like we’re in very good shape,” Richt said. “We’ve got four [tail]backs in the program who have to be thinking, ‘My time to get more carries may be here.’ And Joe is a team guy all the way whose senior year has just taken on a whole new light.”
Then, casting a wistful eye both forward and back: “It would have been fun to see what [Stafford and Moreno] would do behind the [2009] offensive line … It would have been pretty to see.”
It would, sure. But there’s a prosaic beauty in seeing a team commit 40 percent fewer penalties, in seeing a bunch of guys strive to break into the Top 10, as opposed to being installed there. Much of the glitz is gone from Georgia football, but the ferocity might just be coming back.
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