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AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2006 > October > 15
Sunday, October 15, 2006
When does the ‘rebuilding’ start?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OK, now that we’ve hopefully flushed out all the bile and anger and “Fire Mark Richt” nonsense engendered in the Bulldog Nation by Saturday’s sorry Homecoming showing, let’s all take a deep breath and take a look at where the UGA football program stands.
We can’t say we got beat by the better team this time, that’s for sure. Vandy did their best to give that game away like they usually do, but the Dawgs refused to win it.
Willie Martinez and his “read and react” defense have drawn a lot of the flak. And deservedly so. Martinez seems out of his depth as a defensive coordinator. His game plans are poor, and he’s slow to adjust. Even when we weren’t playing “prevent” defense (and we all know the truism about that), our so-called man coverage Saturday saw us giving Vandy’s receivers a ridiculous cushion. And we never got to their QB. (Brian Van Gorder’s Georgia defenses were so overly aggressive that they sometimes drew needless penalties; we’re playing the exact opposite of that now.) When you can’t stop VANDERBILT from converting fourth-and-five with the game on the line, the prospects for the rest of the season don’t look too good.
We’re not just talking about the past two games, either. Going back to last season, the Georgia defense’s performance against top teams since Martinez took over has been lacking, the only exception being the SEC championship game against LSU (which, of course, had the weakest offense among the conference’s upper echelon). Sure, our defense put up some impressive numbers early this season with a couple of shutouts, but that was misleading because it was against weak opposition. And that’s the most devastating thing about the Vandy game; now our defense is coming up short not just against top offenses, but against a bad one!
But Martinez and his defense by no means get all the blame for UGA’s loss Saturday.
What we’re looking at over the past couple of weeks with the Dawgs is a complete systemic failure. Richt and his coaching staff and players saw every aspect of their game fail Saturday: The special teams were awful (there’s not much we can do about Andy Bailey, but surely we can do a better job covering kickoffs!). Despite a couple of key interceptions (attributable mostly to the Vandy QB’s poor decision-making), the defense failed, particularly in the red zone. (Or, as Richt understated in his post-game press conference, “Our red zone defense was not what it should be.”). And the Dawgs’ offense was mediocre at best and mostly ineffective, particularly in the red zone. Again, some of Richt’s playcalling was pretty suspect, but the major problem seemed to be familar problems: dropped passes and lousy blocking by the offensive line.
Can we get a group rate if we send Martinez, Neil Callaway and John Eason all out of Athens?
Looking at Joe T.’s numbers, you might agree with Richt in his post-game assessment that the starting QB didn’t look bad. But if you were there, you saw a quarterback whose much-vaunted senior leadership was pretty invisible and whose physical talent just isn’t going to produce many points. It’s obvious Matthew Stafford is the future, even if he’s still green, so why delay any longer? Play him now so we can reap the dividends NEXT season.
As for Richt, well, the honeymoon obviously is over. Yes, he’s won two SEC championships, but that was with more talented teams and with a generous assist from other teams losing key games. So far, he doesn’t seem to know how to win with a team of middling talent. As my son said Saturday, UGA’s current season — with its muddled QB situation and the team floundering — is beginning to resemble Tennessee’s last year. Can Richt bounce back next year, like Phil Fulmer has this year? Sure. But Fulmer was willing to fire someone to turn things around. I’m not sure Richt will act that decisively. And if he doesn’t, well, we got rid of poor old Jim Donnan because eight wins a year wasn’t enough (and Jim Donnan NEVER lost to Vanderbilt!).
If Richt has an overriding weakness (besides his insisting on calling the plays), it’s that he doesn’t seem capable of lighting a fire under players who are underperforming. I’ve never been a fan of Tommy Tuberville, but I must say his candor in telling the ESPN interviewer how awful his defense had looked at the end of the first half against the Gators Saturday night was refreshing. And the lambasting he gave his team at halftime appeared to work wonders. It’s hard to imagine Richt doing that.
Obviously, we’re still in the demolition stage of this “rebuilding” season. While this is obviously not a great (or even very good) Georgia team, there are individual players on it of the highest caliber. Maybe some of them will rise to the occasion and the Dawgs will not only beat the two teams we should be favored over, but upset one of the Big Three.
As a fan, I hope it happens. But right now, with injuries starting to take their toll, the odds look kinda long.
