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AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2008 > November > 30
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Running out of options
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just imagine what it would have been like if the Dawgs hadn’t had two weeks to prepare for the triple-option!
Makes you shudder, doesn’t it?
A lot went wrong for the Bulldogs on a miserably rainy Saturday when the Dawg Walk was canceled and the seniors didn’t even get to pose for pictures on the field with their parents. The offense certainly wasn’t perfect despite record-setting days by Matthew Stafford and Mohamed Massaquoi. As brilliant as he was at times threading the needle to MoMass, Stafford also made some awful throws and a pick-6. Of course, he was under considerable pressure much of the time with too many Tech defenders in the backfield. Knowshon Moreno continued to develop as a double threat, running and catching, but Georgia never really established the running game. And those holding and false-start penalties certainly didn’t help.
But the offense didn’t lose to the Jackets. Bottom line: If you’re an SEC team and you score 42 points, you should win the game.
This one falls squarely on the defense, which looked completely hapless in the second half, and on the special teams’ play, which was awful as usual.
The lack of discipline displayed much of the season by the team in general reared its head again in the third quarter as the Dawgs once again wilted in the face of a revved-up opponent. Now, it’s true that lack of execution falls on the players. Assignments were missed. Tackles weren’t made. Defenders tried in vain to shove a runner out of bounds instead of taking him down.
But those flaws point to a bigger problem for Mark Richt’s program: His defense does not appear to be well-coached. And the entire philosophy of special teams at Georgia is wrong-headed. To get to the heart of those problems, you have to look at the coaching. Georgia played four major games this year and had fatal meltdowns in three of them for losses. And even the LSU victory saw our defense hemorrhaging points. Ditto in the win over Kentucky.
On the matter of special teams, coach Jon Fabris just doesn’t have a clue. Georgia’s approach to kickoffs, with high, short kicks (when they don’t go out of bounds) and mediocre coverage by a team dominated by walk-ons, routinely results in superb field position for the opponent. Meanwhile, we have a 17-year-old kid back there receiving kickoffs for us who hasn’t even been coached on where he should line up before the kick, resulting in catching the ball while running backwards and then not knowing where to go. And then he fumbled on top of that.
Fabris also coaches defensive ends, and while that position has been a disappointment for Georgia this year, a lack of talent seems to be the main problem there. In the past, he’s produced some terrific DEs. Richt needs to let Fabris focus on defensive ends and find someone else to handle special teams. And maybe he needs to take a page out of Urban Meyer’s book and realize that special teams require more time, thought and emphasis than Richt has been willing to allocate so far.
As for the defense, the strong finish the past two seasons after faltering early in the year now appears to have been an aberration. The Dawgs started out this season mediocre and never got better; in fact, they appeared to get worse. Willie Martinez has shown little imagination in scheming and apparently isn’t able to teach his players how to fix what’s wrong. And, like Richt, he appears incapable of demanding his players perform in a disciplined manner. Maybe that’s because when they make blunders, there are no repercussions other than “loving” them more.
Martinez needs to go.
Richt, meanwhile, remains in some sort of la-la land of denial, sticking by his buddies on the coaching staff even when it’s obvious things aren’t working. And, knowing how stubborn Richt is, it’s likely to remain that way until the day that Michael Adams calls him in and tells him point-blank he needs to make some changes on his staff.
Frankly, I hope Adams doesn’t wait for another underachieving season before he does just that.
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