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AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2009 > January
January 2009
A challenge for Damon Evans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I never like to see a good man lose his job, though with the kind of buyout clauses big-time basketball coaches have in their contracts, the sympathy is measured.
Dennis Felton is, by all accounts and appearances, a good man.
He just wasn’t a very good head basketball coach for an underperforming program at a big school in a major conference. As an administrator, Felton appeared to be a bit too inflexible, judging by the number of players he ran off over the past few years. OK, maybe some (or all) of them deserved to be run off. But that probably means Felton wasn’t recruiting the type of players he needed for his type of program.
He sure wasn’t recruiting the talent needed to win big in the SEC. Or, this year, to win at all in the SEC.
As a game coach, the verdict on Felton was mixed. I’ve seen games where he looked at times like a master strategist and others where he appeared out of sync with or even indifferent to what was happening on the court. I heard someone say he couldn’t have done much worse this season if he had picked his starting five, headed out the door and just let them play.
So now comes the hard job of finding the right coach. Ideally, Damon Evans and Michael Adams will find another Bruce Pearl or Tubby Smith, a coach who can quickly turn things around, attract some of the major talent growing up in the state of Georgia and, more importantly, ignite a fire under the UGA basketball program and get the Bulldog Nation excited.
And do it all without bending rules or signing questionable characters.
And then, once we’ve found him and he gets the program on solid ground, we need to keep him. With Smith, I’m not sure any amount of money would have dissuaded him from taking the job at Kentucky, the Mount Olympus of college basketball. When a dream job is offered, there’s not much you can do, as Florida may find out when Notre Dame comes calling for Urban Meyer. But Evans and Co. need to commit to funding a big-time coach and keeping him happy if they want to have a big-time program.
Time for Evans to prove he’s the man for his job by finding the right man for the basketball job.
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A matter of perspective
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After spending the past week sitting with my two brothers as our 86-year-old father is tended to by the doctors and nurses of the Intensive Care Unit of Athens Regional Medical Center, I feel a bit disconnected from the world at large, including the sports world. But believe me, when someone you love is seriously ill, the ups and downs of college athletics are less than a top priority.
Not completely out of mind, though. My brother Jon the gymnastics fan has kept us up to date on the Gym Dogs. And sitting with our uncle the other day talking about Dad, we still managed to touch briefly on the football prospects for next season and the budding disaster that is the current UGA men’s basketball team. We even caught a few minutes of that best-forgotten game against Kentucky between hospital visits.
Before Dad fell ill last week, I had planned on writing about the always-next-year nature of the basketball program under Dennis Felton … and that was when they were still two games up in the win column. The point of discussion was to be the standard excuse for Felton’s teams that they’re “very young.” Unfortunately, because of players lost to injury, academics and clashes of will with the coach, Felton’s teams seem never seem to grow up. Georgia basketball has become sort of Dennis Felton’s Never Never Land.
Earlier in the season, I thought the current team’s youth and the promise of Trey Thompkins might buy Felton at least another season. But now I’m not so sure. The dismal effort shown by the Dawgs since they entered conference play seems to be a symptom of more than just youth. They don’t look very well coached.
It might come down at season’s end to whether Damon Evans and Michael Adams think anyone better than Felton is available and willing to embark on yet another rebuilding project in Athens.
But, then, we had come to that conclusion last year before the Dawgs’ remarkable run to the SEC Tournament title changed all that. For a while at least.
If I’ve had any lesson reinforced in this past week, it’s that you have to take things one day at a time and that you should never lose hope, no matter the odds.
A good thing to keep in mind.
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No, the sky isn’t falling
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So we know now that thanks to Matt Stafford and Knowshon Moreno leaving early for the NFL draft and Mohamed Massaquoi graduating, three of the Dawgs’ Fab Four will be gone next season.
Sounds dire, but I’m not so sure the Georgia offense is going to be as bad off as some folks in the Bulldog Nation fear. I think Joe Cox will be fine at QB. He’s not as talented as Matthew Stafford, granted, but he throws a nice ball and knows the offense. And he’ll still have A.J. Green, Michael Moore and Kris Durham as big targets, not to mention any other receivers that step up.
As I said last week, I’m more concerned with the falloff at tailback, though the tandem of Caleb King and Richard Samuel certainly has potential, and I’m betting Washaun Ealey doesn’t redshirt like Moreno did. The young offensive line, while not exactly top-caliber, should be markedly improved after this season’s baptism by fire. Plus Trinton Sturdivant should be back.
The defense? Well, the bowl game was encouraging. And hopefully Jeff Owens will be back. But that side of the line of scrimmage is still a wait-and-see proposition.
And, of course, we’ve got to hope the injury situation this season was a fluke and not some indication of a faulty conditioning program.
So the outlook for next season remains unclear. But that would have been the case even with Stafford and Moreno back. Now it’s just a bit murkier.
As for our former quarterback and tailback, I wish them well. Their time at Georgia didn’t entirely live up to its promise, but they gave us some great moments.
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Game ball to the defense … finally!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The temptation after Thursday’s Capitol One Bowl was to say that there was nothing wrong with Georgia’s defense this season that playing against a Big 10 offensive line couldn’t cure.
But that’s not completely fair. While it was obvious that the Dawgs’ defense was faster than its opposition, notching six sacks mostly without blitzing, there was more to Georgia’s shutdown of the Michigan State offense than that. Stung by criticism of their play this season, especially in the last game, and publicly disrespected beforehand by Spartan players, Willie Martinez’s players stepped up and performed with an urgency and efficiency that had been missing much of the time this year. They swarmed the ball carrier. They wrapped up tackles. And in the first half they managed to hold State to just 6 points, despite the fact their bumbling brothers on the Dawgs’ offense and special teams kept giving the Spartans the ball in Georgia territory.
Whether this defensive turnaround was the result of individual effort on the part of the players or a product of better coaching by Martinez is hard to say, but since he’s shouldered the blame for the lousy D Georgia played the second half of the season, we should give the defensive coordinator credit for this return to the kind of play Bulldog defenses have been known for in the past. For the program’s sake and Martinez’s, let’s hope this wasn’t a one-game aberration.
Some other observations on the bowl game in Orlando: Inconsistency has dogged Matthew Stafford throughout his time at Georgia and that was the case again Thursday. With his already shaky offensive line hit by another injury and the Spartans blitzing, Stafford seemed hurried and unsure, several times missing wide-open receivers. But after Georgia adjusted its protection in the second half, Stafford again showed the brilliance that has had NFL scouts drooling ever since he emerged from high school, particularly on that touchdown pass to Michael Moore where he pump-faked and then delivered a perfect strike. Still, most observers seem to think he’d benefit from another year of college play. Let’s hope he reaches that conclusion, too. … Why is it Mark Richt’s teams have such difficulty putting together two good halves of play? Georgia was obviously the better team Thursday but kept the Spartans in it through turnovers, penalties and poor special teams play in the first half. Speaking of which, Georgia’s kickoff game continued to be a woeful mess. One went out of bounds and then there was that ridiculous pooch kick that gave the Spartans the ball near midfield. Richt badly needs a come-to-Jesus moment on special teams before next season. … What is it with Mike Bobo and the red zone? Georgia came out looking great in its no-huddle offense and raced down the field, only to go away from the no-huddle and sputter once they were inside Michigan State’s 20. We’ve seen this time and again, where the offense is cooking and then Bobo goes away from what’s working. … That last series of the first half was a puzzler. Georgia gets the ball near midfield with nearly 2 minutes left and proceeds to eat as much clock as it possibly can running just three plays. Richt explained it by saying he didn’t want his defense to have to come back on the field. So what was he saying, that he had no faith Bobo’s offense could get a first down, much less score, with that much time on the clock? He figured it would be three-and-out and so told them to take their time? Strange. … Nice to see Michael Moore step up at wide receiver when Michigan State took MoMass and A.J. largely out of the game. … If that was Knowshon Moreno’s last game as a Bulldog, as many people believe, he’ll be missed as much as a receiver as he will a running back. That touchdown catch battling for the ball sure didn’t hurt his NFL stock any. He’s a special player. It’ll be a shame if we only get two years out of him.
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