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Saturday, November 3, 2007
Richt’s growth as coach keeps Dogs among elite
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Athens — Mark Richt proved he could win fast and win big, and the question you ask of someone who wins fast and big is: Can he keep winning with the next bunch of players? Richt did, winning the 2005 SEC title without most of the key guys from 2002. That done, there’s only question left for the firmly established coach: What happens when the roll becomes a slog?
Bad things inevitably happen even to the best programs, but what makes a program special is the capacity to absorb a blow and hit back harder. Florida had to fire Ron Zook for that to happen. Tennessee is still trying to regain the ground lost since 2001. And Georgia, which had little go wrong over four blissful years, has run into a series of ruts these last two seasons.
A year ago the Bulldogs were 6-4 and no cinch to win again. They’d lost four of five games. They had Auburn and Georgia Tech remaining. And then Richt won one of the two or three biggest games he’ll ever win, toppling the No. 5 Tigers on the road by 22 points.
Because those Bulldogs didn’t lose another, it was convenient to believe that Georgia was Georgia again. It wasn’t quite. The 2007 edition was overvalued early. Too many people focused on last season’s finish and not the rampant youth of this roster. Lo and behold, the Bulldogs lost two of their first four conference games and were pronounced dead in the SEC East.
The division was all but conceded to Florida, last year’s champ, or the upstarts South Carolina and Kentucky. But here it is November and the Bulldogs sit ahead of all three, not fully in control of their destiny but still with a shot to play in the Georgia Dome come Dec. 1. And the reason they are where they are is their coach.
It wouldn’t be enough in 2007 for Richt to coach the way he did in 2001. “The bar [in the SEC] has been raised,” he said, and he had to get even better or see his team slip. He has gotten even better. He ceded play-calling duties to Mike Bobo, and the effect is that the head coach now sees the bigger picture, not just down and distance.
The much-discussed celebration in Jacksonville probably wouldn’t have been ordered up a year ago. “He would have been more focused on the game plan,” said receiver Sean Bailey. “This way, he can be creative and think of something that will fire the team up.”
Whatever you thought of the method, you cannot deny that Richt’s penalized ploy had the desired effect. It changed the dynamics of a series that, from a Bulldog perspective, sorely needed changing. And that game changed a season, same as the Auburn game changed the last one.
“We’re coming to Game 10,” Richt said Saturday after his team fought through the inevitable post-Gators letdown to dispatch a pretty good Troy team. “And to still have almost all your goals in front of you, that’s a great thing.”
It is. It’s also the mark of an elite program to be in championship contention with a team not nearly its best. These Bulldogs don’t do anything particularly well — they don’t rank among the SEC’s top three in any significant offensive or defensive category — but they’ve been coached to something approximating capacity.
Yes, that’s testimony to Richt’s assistants, but mainly it’s another validation of Richt. He flouted personal tendencies with the orchestrated celebration, and that’s a sign of a coach working at his job. He took a risk. He accepted the consequences. He won another huge game.
And now he has more huge games to play. Sure, the Bulldogs could lose to Auburn next Saturday, but the important thing is that Georgia is, after a one-year hiatus, again playing games of importance in the nation’s best conference. “If we take care of business at home,” Richt said, “we’re going to end up having a tremendous year.”
If there were any remaining questions about Richt, they’ve all been answered. He stamped himself as a great coach five years ago, and he’s even greater now.
Permalink | Comments (118) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
This Tech script could finish off Gailey
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Georgia Tech has trouble, and that starts with T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Phootball. (Apology to “Music Man” and Meredith Willson. But there’s relief in sight. With any kind of execution — not that kind — the Yellow Jackets can turn the corner into an even .500 record in the Atlantic Coast Conference. But the damage has been done, severely punctuated Thursday night in defeat by Virginia Tech, mysteriously projected as the underdog, even with Georgia Tech’s two leading running backs out of it.
If Georgia Tech has delivered anything akin to an upset this season, it was the Clemson game, though that was a rather sluggish success. Notre Dame was startling at the time, then it developed that the Irish were in an historic plunge.
Now, look at the bright side: The two lowliest of ACC teams are left on Tech’s schedule, Duke and North Carolina. Even the conference record. Get one of those invites to another twiddling bowl game named for pizza or nuts or car repair. The natives are getting more restless, though I consider booing an act of cowardice. Their fever rose sharply Thursday night when, even before the first snap, quarterback Taylor Bennett called time-out. That’s a bad sign. (Where, oh where, has the Bennett of Gator Bowl promise gone? Of course, the answer may be found in Detroit, where Calvin Johnson now performs.)
It got worse as the evening dragged on to the humbling sight of the Hokies pulling their punches, letting the clock run down with the ball four yards away from another touchdown.
By that time, there weren’t enough of those of the Tech devotion left in Bobby Dodd Stadium to raise a whimper. The glare of the stadium lights on all those vacated seats was blinding.
The trouble is, this is the way Chan Gailey’s seasons have gone, almost in methodical monotony — 7-6, 7-6, 7-5, 7-5 then a breakthrough 9-5 and a division title last season, ending in defeat by Wake Forest. Through it all, there was the eternal promise and inevitable relapse of Reggie Ball. George Godsey was the last effective quarterback developed at Tech, and he dated to George O’Leary’s time.
Chan Gailey has never been able to coach his way into the hearts of the Tech colony that gathers in the West Stands. Peaking on occasion, then just as suddenly, collapse. He has never been able to beat Georgia. Beating Tech is not that urgent in Athens any more. Florida is first on the list of villains. Old Tech grads and the young still hold the Bulldogs first on their hate list. Haven’t been able to celebrate since 2000, with O’Leary. Then he bailed out. Tech coaches used to stay forever. From 1904 to 1966, Georgia Tech had three coaches, since then eight.
A rumor broke the other day that Gailey would be fired after this season. There followed a rather heated exchange between Gailey and an interviewer on Tech’s “flagship” radio station. Later, when Dan Radakovich was interviewed, the athletics director responded, “We don’t make such decisions until after the season.” A rather limp vote of confidence, at best.
Meanwhile, Tech has made a move toward wooing the younger audience, “branding,” they call it. The premise is to appeal to the 25-to-40-year-old set, though a creditable survey will determine that those grayer in the thatch and more inclined to be entertained on a less thunderous scale have been the backbone of Tech contributors over the years. (And that the most appealing kind of “branding” is known as winning.) They got their eyes opened Thursday night when Big Boi, of a group called “Outkast,” turned the halftime show into a field of hip-hop — at, I might say, a cost of $43,000. And then, there is the game interruptions by a guy doing a county-fair-type Q&A on the open screen with some fan for a prize, and occasionally revealing what is known as the “official Georgia Tech burrito,” while the athletes stand around waiting to run the next play.
A newly employed young woman, with a Cal-Berkeley background, is the said perpetrator of all this. All of which has little to do with the course of Georgia Tech football, and Chan Gailey’s future. It is not right bright at the moment, but then comes the transfusion that will follow dates with Duke and North Carolina, projected to be followed by the depression that accompanies another match with Georgia. This time, though, the Bulldogs bring their game to Atlanta. Probably the most critical game in Chan Gailey’s tenure.
Permalink | Comments (120) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
Sanest Falcon runs into Cuckoo’s Nest
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
It has been over a year since Warrick Dunn last ran for 100 yards (18 games). He has had more surgeries (two) than touchdowns (one) since January. His protracted career climb to 10,000 yards? Even he jokes, “I’m approaching it. I’ve been approaching it since Week 1.”
Now, if we were to compile a list of what has gone wrong with the Falcons this season, Dunn would be way down the list. He may not even make Page 1.
But it speaks to the altered state of things that when the Falcons prepared this week for their game against San Francisco, Dunn went through some drills as a third-string quarterback. If nothing else, the Falcons are, at 1-6, the land of opportunity.
“I did it in high school,” said Dunn, an option quarterback in Baton Rouge. “One game my senior year, I had five carries, three touchdowns and 200 yards in the first half. My coach told me at halftime to just pitch the ball. I have the film if you want to break it down.”
Dunn running the option. And you wondered what Bobby Petrino’s last thought might be before he found himself sitting in a rec room with Cheswick and Martini.
The Falcons have nine games left.
The first seven have only seemed to take a millennium.
If you’re a respected NFL running back, 11 years into a career, what are you thinking?
Dunn will leave the game ranking among some statistical greats. He will leave as one of the best ambassadors the NFL has ever had, or ever will have.
But right now Dunn is playing for the league’s punchline. The Falcons need a makeover at best, a wrecking ball at worst. Making things more ominous for a player, the head coach has no allegiances to anybody, let alone a 5-9, 32-year-old running back who can see the finish line.
Dunn acknowledges this year might be it for him. Regardless, it’s not the exit he would have written.
“There have been times this season when I’ve thought, ‘This is my 11th year, and this is what I have to deal with?’?” he admitted. “You think about all of the years I played. You hate to go out this way, but there’s so much going on here. That’s the frustrating thing. We all expected it to be a lot better. When you’re a veteran and you haven’t won a Super Bowl or accomplished certain things, you realize you only have so much time left.”
Technically, Dunn has a year left on his contract worth $4 million. But if you worked for a fledgling dot-com, think of that contract as stock options. Just paper.
If Petrino returns next season, he’ll flush this roster. He already has dumped defensive tackle Grady Jackson, who hardly was the worst player on the team.
Stick around for the rest of the endangered list: Dunn, Joe Horn, Keith Brooking, Wayne Gandy, Lawyer Milloy, secretaries, landscapers, the cafeteria lady.
DeAngelo Hall has talked his way out of town. Alge Crumpler may have limped his way out.
Dunn hasn’t had a three-digit rushing game since Game 5 last season (146 against the New York Giants). He has only 292 yards in seven games this season. But it’s not like this offensive line has plowed earth for him, or anyone.
Of needing only 247 yards to hit 10,000 in his career, he said: “Honestly, I thought I’d be closer or would’ve passed it by now.”
His final chapter may read like this: Surgery for a torn rotator cuff in January. Painful rehab followed. Jogging led to back pain, which led to more surgery in July, this to shave a disc and remove bone particles. So much for training camp.
Dunn lost his conditioning, his timing and his best chance to acclimate to a new coach and offense. Only now is he starting to feel good physically. Mentally? Forget about it.
He went through 2003, when Michael Vick broke his leg and the team imploded. Dunn missed the last five games with a foot injury. He figured that would be the worst season of his career. Oops.
“That was bad, but this is the worst now,” he said. “It’s like a bad Hollywood script. Or a bad dream.”
Except there’s no waking up from this. And he deserves a better ending.
Permalink | Comments (58) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
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