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AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2007 > May > 17
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Losing Oliver hurts
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The UGA athletics office made it official today that, as rumored, senior cornerback Paul Oliver failed to meet NCAA academic eligibility requirements in order to play this fall, and instead he plans to petition the NFL for entry into the supplemental draft this summer. That’s a real shame since Oliver had passed up the chance to enter the NFL draft as a junior in order to play his final season as a Bulldog.
While Oliver didn’t end up being quite as dominating a player last season as some of us had expected, he finished strong (shutting down superstar Yellow Jackets receiver Calvin Johnson, who ended up with only two catches for 13 yards). Oliver’s academic troubles weren’t really a shocker, though, as he missed some practices and a scrimmage during the spring while trying to catch up on classwork.
A case of a player just not making the grades, or did the coaching staff not stay on him hard enough about his academics? Those of us outside the program don’t really know.
The departure of Oliver will leave only three returning defensive starters for Georgia. On top of the suspension of rising linebacker Akeem Hebron, this will leave the D (which didn’t look so hot at G-Day) even more vulnerable.
For those of you who didn’t make it to G-Day this year (and who have access to the CSS cable channel), the telecast of the spring game will be repeated again at 5 p.m. Sunday.
Spring games are fun and sometimes even give you an inkling of what sort of team will take the field in the fall, but you have to keep in mind you’re only seeing part of the team play another part of the same team. The suspicion here is that, at least at the start, the Dawgs’ offense might not be as awesome as it looked at times at G-Day. And the hope is that the defense won’t be nearly as porous (though losing Oliver certainly won’t help).
Anyway, the cybergoblins that sometimes afflict blogs and Web sites managed to obliterate all trace of the G-Day Blawg about a week after it was posted on April 8, so I thought I’d re-post some excerpts below concerning the matchup of the Red and Black teams.
ON THE G-DAY GAME:
With the chilly temperatures and gusty winds, it looked like it took a little while for Red starter Matthew Stafford to get on track, with his first couple of passes badly underthrown, but then he started threading the needle (particularly on a throw to Mohamed Massaquoi), and the first-string offense pretty much had its way with the first-string defense in the day’s good news/bad news scenario.
Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo threw in some twists, with passes thrown by a split end and a halfback and Kregg Lumpkin pitching to Sean Bailey on an end-around on the first play. Stafford directed four touchdown drives for the victorious Reds, Joe Cox directed three touchdown drives (one for the Reds and two for the Blacks), and Blake Barnes, who got a surprising amount of playing time, led the Blacks to one score. Stafford and Cox both looked good and both threw the ball away when necessary, avoiding interceptions. All in all, there was 624 yards of total offense and 55 points scored in the 34-21 game, which made for an entertaining afternoon (except when you shuddered at the thought of some other school’s offense lighting up our D like that).
Highlights included a 60-yard scoring pass from Cox to Kris Durham, the day’s leading receiver with six catches for 137 yards; a 32-yard halfback pass from tailback/fullback Jason Johnson to Tony Wilson; spring best all-around offensive player Mikey Henderson streaking down the field on that 60-yard TD catch (unfortunately, right past DB Asher Allen); tight end Tripp Chandler catching three balls for 74 yards (including a 52-yarder from Cox and a low ball that he caught by the laces) and doing some nice running after the catch; a nice catch and run by Brannan Southerland on a 43-yarder from Stafford; and some impressive cuts on a slashing 20-yard run by Knowshon Moreno.
Lowlights: The first-string defense gave up five scoring drives. And the punting game needs work.
Looking at the running game, Moreno ran 11 times for 68 yards. Lumpkin looked good in flashes racking up 53 yards on 13 carries.
Most impressive players of the day? Defnitely Moreno, who showed speed and good moves. And Kris Durham also looks to be a comer at split end. On the defense, Rashad Jones had the day’s only interception (though on a wounded duck pass thrown by Durham), broke up another pass and made three tackles. It’s not surprising he was named most improved defensive back this spring.
