UGA blog finds new home
Morning all. As I’ve said a couple of times this week, we’re converting this blog over to a WordPress platform and it will be a permanent move the first of next week.
Those of you who are regulars probably know that I’m not what you’d call techno-wizard when it comes to these things. But from what I understand the technology offered in this new format should make the blogging and commenting experience better for all. Of course, I’ll be learning as we go along, too. But I’m hoping to provide more pictures and video and things like that which should bring the blog more to life.
Of course, this blog is nothing without all you guys so I want to heartily invite (read: beg) you to come over to the new site by CLICKING HERE ON THE NEW ADDRESS and save it in your browsers. As of Monday, Feb. 23rd, this will be the permanent home of the UGA blog you so love or, in the case of some of you, love to loathe. If you’d prefer to copy and paste or just memorize, the new address is: http://blogs.ajc.com/uga-sports-blog/.
See at the new place!
AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2007 > December > 20
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Searels speechless about O-line’s play
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just came from the Butts-Mehre Building and what essentially Georgia’s last practice in Athens. I say essentially because they’ll come back Friday morning and have a real quick workout, then disperse just as quickly to their respective homes for the holidays.
With the Bulldogs’ work here pretty much completed, it was an extremely laid back coach Mark Richt that greeted reporters after practice in the team meeting room. The only news of the day was that there was no news regarding academic casualties.
“Everybody’s going [to the Sugar Bowl,” Richt said. “It’s awsome. It fired me up. Just got the word today.”
After getting some comments from Richt on Kregg Lumpkin for a story I’m working on, the conversation turned to offensive line coach Stacy Searels. As he has all season, Richt just raved about the job Searels did with the offensive line, which featured three freshman starters. “It’s obvious he’s good at what he does,” Richt said of the first year coach.
Richt said Searels was deserving of at least a mention for the Frank Broyles National Assistant Coach of the Year award but nominations for such things have to go out early in the season. At the time, both Searels and the Bulldogs were still trying to figure each other out.
In retrospect, though, Georgia and Richt were very fortunate to be able to pluck Searels from LSU and bring him to Athens. The Bulldogs had lost previous O-line coach Neil Callaway to the head coaching job at UAB and, with the rebuilding job that had to be done, finding a good replacement was critical for this season.
“It was a crucial hire with all the youngsters we had,” Richt admitted. “But if you’re going to hire a new coach it wasn’t a bad time because we had just two seniors coming back. And I think Stacy would tell you he probably couldn’t have done it without [senior center] Fernando [Velasco]. He was a really big help.”
We’d like to tell you more about Coach Searels and the two true freshmen he coached up this season but Searels doesn’t do interviews and he doesn’t allow true freshmen to either, even 12 games into the season. But all you need to know is right there in black-in-white in the standings and stats.
So what do you think of the job Searels did? Any problem with his philosophy of not talking to the media or not letting the young pups be interviewed? And do you think the Dogs would have done as well had Callaway still been at the helm of the offensive line?
Don’t hesitate to ask questions. I’ll be sure to answer. In that regard, we’ll be getting into Hawaii more in the coming week.
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