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Monday, October 27, 2008
Florida is hot. Georgia should stay cool.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Five things we learned over the weekend:
1. Florida is hot. Georgia should stay cool: Somebody asked me Sunday night how Georgia, which faces a Florida team still fired up about last season’s end zone “celebration,” would be able to match the intensity of the Gators at the beginning of Saturday’s game in Jacksonville.
My response?
They shouldn’t. They don’t need to.
Florida’s Urban Meyer has put a gag order on his team not to talk about last year’s events, which Meyer chronicled in Buddy Martin’s new book “Urban’s Way.” Martin is a master storyteller who got unprecedented access to Meyer to do the book. It’s clear from the chapter on last year’s Georgia-Florida game that the episode did not set well with the Florida coach. He is trying to keep his guys pretty buttoned down for one of the biggest Georgia-Florida games in a long, long time. And that’s fine because it is consistent with his coaching personality.
Georgia’s Mark Richt, however, should take the opposite approach this week. Be happy. Have fun. In my experience with this game it’s usually the team that stays loose that plays the best. Why do you think Steve Spurrier went 11-1 against Georgia? Spurrier expected to win and so his team expected to win.
2. Matthew Stafford is the best quarterback in college football: I say this with all due respect to Tim Tebow, Colt McCoy, and Sam Bradford, who are all great football players. But when it comes to the entire package that you’re looking for in a quarterback—strong arm, game management, coolness under fire, Stafford proved he is the best quarterback in college football last Saturday against LSU. It took a few minutes for Stafford to calm himself down, but after that he was in complete control of that football game. When the LSU defensive coordinators tried to throw a wrinkle at him, Stafford checked off into the play to beat the defense. It was easily the best game he’s played at Georgia. I write all of this knowing that Stafford could come back and struggle this Saturday in Jacksonville. But when he plays the way he did in Baton Rouge, he is the best in the game, period. If he played with the Big 12, where receivers run free as the wind, he’d be in the hunt for the Heisman Trophy. And another thing: For all those out there complaining about Mike Bobo’s play calling last week against Vanderbilt, just sit down and watch the entire LSU game again.
3. It’s hard to see Fulmer returning as Tennessee’s coach: Phillip Fulmer is an old offensive lineman which means he will work and fight until the last game is over. But what I saw Saturday night in Knoxville was a sense of resignation that Fulmer will not be able to get the program at Tennessee turned around. In case you’re keeping score at home, Fulmer is now 3-5 against Mark Richt, 0-4 against Urban Meyer, and 1-4 against Nick Saban. The defense played hard but the offense is so bad it makes one numb to watch. And there is no reason to believe it is going to get any better. Tennessee (3-5) has four games left (South Carolina, Wyoming, Vanderbilt, Kentucky). The Vols will be lucky to win two. And here is the clincher: I was on the field for the last five minutes of Saturday night’s game with Alabama. I couldn’t believe how much Crimson was in that stadium and how loud they were. When you’ve got Tennessee people selling their tickets to Alabama fans then Mike Hamilton (Tennessee athletics director), you have a problem.
4. We love Joe Paterno but….. It would be a great story to see Penn State’s Joe Paterno, 81, play in the national championship game and then call it a career. But let’s have a dose of reality here. If No. 1 Texas (8-0) and No. 2 Alabama (8-0) both win out and finish 13-0, the voters in the human polls can’t get all sappy and want to put Joe Pa in the big game just because it would be a nice thing to do. That is simply not going to happen. Texas and Bama would be undefeated against two of the toughest schedules around. Penn State’s best win will be against an Ohio State team that will finish 10-2 at best. Hey, I love a good story line as much as the next guy. But good story lines don’t trump good football. Texas and Alabama are both better teams. Now if one of them loses, Penn State will definitely get in the big game at 12-0. And if an undefeated Penn State gets left out of the BCS championship, Joe Pa can have a conversation with his commissioner, Jim Delany, who fought hard against the SEC/ACC proposal for a four-team playoff.
5. Georgia Tech fans must stay patient with Josh Nesbitt: When Nesbitt has three turnovers as he did against Virginia, there is the temptation to go the safer route with freshman Jaybo Shaw at quarterback. But coach Paul Johnson will stick with Nesbitt because he knows the payoff is coming down the road. If you talk to the defensive coaches around the ACC, they will tell you that the Georgia Tech offense has an extra home run dimension when Nesbitt is running it. Georgia played Matt Stafford as a freshman knowing that he was going to make mistakes. But you play through the mistakes until the quarterback masters the offense. Nesbitt will master this offense and when he does, it’s going to be scary.
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