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 > 2008 > November > 03
Monday, November 3, 2008
Dogs: Lack poise or not very good?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Bulldogs have played two games this season where virtually every eye in college football was focusing in on them, against Alabama in Week 5 and against Florida in Week 10. In both cases they laid a proverbial egg. They lost the two games by a combined 90-40, including blowout halves in which they fell behind by a combined 66-7.
That got me wondering: Does Georgia have a problem from the standpoint of poise and composure when comes to playing on the biggest stages? Or are those two teams simply that much better than the Dogs?
I posed that question to Mark Richt Sunday night. Here’s his (long) answer:
“I think part of it is just the fact that we’re young up front,” he said. “You don’t want to make excuses but the bottom line is we’re playing a bunch of puppies up front offensively and that hasn’t helped us. And you have to give the other teams credit, too. When the season’s over history might prove they’re the two very best teams in the country, at least two of the top five anyway. We had a chance to be one of those with a victory in either one of those games.”
The schedule we’ve all alluded to all season may have contributed, too, Richt said.
“Both of our games where we didn’t play extremely well came off of long road trips that were pretty emotional games,” Richt said. “The way our schedule went, we go to Arizona State, get back at 7 or 8 o’clock in the morning, then we go play a game against Alabama. Then we went on one of our longer road trips to LSU in a very emotional game and then we came right back to Florida. It’s just tough to peak week after week after week. And we didn’t. I’ve got to do a better job of getting them to do that. But that probably had something to do with it, too.”
CMR was asked if such humiliating losses caused him and his staff to do some “soul-searching.”
“We’re always soul-searching,” Richt said. “You’re always going to be critiquing what you do. We do that every week in the coaching business. Not only do we have all our fans in the media to do that, we do it ourselves, too. It’s just part of the game. You have to review film and the film doesn’t lie. You watch what happened and you make judgments on how well players are playing, how well they understand what they’re doing, the kind of effort they’re giving, do we need to make any changes, how we’re approaching it scheme wise, do we need to make any personnel changes, do we need to allow one guy to play a little more than he’s been playing in the past. All those things gets critiqued every time we play a game and really every time we practice. Coaches don’t get much sleep during the week trying to figure out what’s the best action to take.”
Those were Richt’s answers to some of my questions. Like I do every week, I’d like to solicit your questions for CMR and/or specific coaches or players. As always, I’ll determine which ones are most asked and do my best to get answers during our main media opportunities Monday and Tuesday.
P.S. In case you haven’t noticed basketball season is upon us. The Bulldogs are holding an open practice for anybody who wants to come into the Coliseum and check them out tonight from 6 to 8 p.m.
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