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AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2006 > October > 05
Thursday, October 5, 2006
Even millionaire coaches can be wrong
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No, I don’t get paid $2 million a year to coach football.
But you know what? Just because you get paid millions of bucks to do something doesn’t make you infallible. (Witness: “Gigli”. Martha Stewart’s version of “The Apprentice”. And Saturday night in Oxford, Mark Richt trying to run the fullback out the shotgun. Like the Ole Miss fan sitting next to my friend J.P. put it: “What in the hell was that?”)
And just because you don’t get paid millions to do something doesn’t mean you can’t make valid observations about it. Otherwise there’d be no movie or music critics and certainly no sports columnists.
Now, the Bulldog Radio Network’s Neil “Hondo” Williamson, in trying to defend that particular call on last Sunday’s “Bulldog Brunch” call-in show, said that we fans in the stands don’t spend hours studying film and don’t know what all went into the call, in terms of personnel on the field, etc.
No, we don’t. But maybe the view from the stands occasionally provides a little perspective that the million-dollar coaches lose down there on the sideline, all wrapped up in their X’s and O’s. Maybe occasionally they’re wrong (gasp) and the rest of us are right! You don’t have to be a millionaire to figure out that if you’ve got the wrong personnel on the field for a particular play, you probably shouldn’t call it.
And you don’t have to be paid millions to know that when you need to kill the clock, throwing low-percentage passes isn’t the best way to do it.
So with that justification for us unschooled amateurs analyzing college football, here are some thoughts about this Saturday’s Georgia-Tennessee game:
Tennessee no doubt will put eight men in the box to try and slow down Kregg Lumpkin, and dare us to throw it to our unreliable receivers. We need a receiver to break away from the pack and start making some catches. But we shouldn’t just rely on that. Increase the odds by throwing lots of quick 10- to 15-yard dink passes. They may not be as pretty as those longer passes Richt prefers, but they’ll move the chains, and they make us less reliant on our poor offensive line. It also would build our quarterbacks’ confidence and should loosen up the UT defense and make more room for running Lumpkin, which the Dawgs should do early and often. Richt himself said this week that “we’ve just got to feed him the ball a little more,” so let’s hope he does it. And like I said a few days ago, we need to use Thomas Brown as a receiver, not a running back, and throw it to him in the flat, where he can use his speed.
Our defense has been the strength of this team (and should keep us in this game), but what’s been wrong with our defensive effort mainly is the play of the linebackers. Tennessee hasn’t had much of a running game so far, and it’s up to the linebackers to make sure that doesn’t change, because their quarterback will keep our secondary plenty busy.
So there it is. The view from the stands. Free of charge.
MORE ON TAILGATING: Blawg correspondent Graham Coffey visited the famed Grove at Ole Miss last week and reports: For those that don’t know, the Grove is a large oak-filled grassy space on Ole Miss’ campus a short walk from Vaught-Hemmingway Stadium. At Georgia, the administration is slowly trying to kill tailgating. At the University of Mississippi, they cherish it. Even Georgia fans, which there were plenty of, couldn’t help but be impressed by their opponent’s setup. Travis Dean, 24, an Athens native and Georgia graduate, said, “Tailgating at Georgia doesn’t compare to this. We have the championships, team, and stadium, but this is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.â€? Mark Wyatt, a sophomore at Ole Miss said, “This is what we do. Some of these people won’t even go into the game today because our team is down right now. Georgia has the better program, but this is what we do right.â€? And who can argue with him? The sight of tents as far as the eye can see mixed with the aroma of perfume, bourbon and barbeque is a wonderful thing for anybody who loves tailgating. And don’t worry, even if you drink too much, the portable Hotty Toddy Potty, named after Ole Miss fans’ favorite cheer, is right across the street.
MORE ON ACADEMICS: With all the talk about how poorly the Georgia athletes who entered 10 years ago ended up doing, I thought I’d just remind everyone about an item that ran in the AJC a few weeks ago. It said UGA’s 489 athletes (the ones enrolled last spring, not a decade ago) combined to post a 2.91 grade point average, the best in the SEC. It’s what’s happening now that counts the most.
