DEL.ICIO.USSEC FOOTBALL
UGA Football: 3 offseason keys
Staying healthy, finding replacements part of Dogs’ focus
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, January 12, 2009
The 2008 season just ended, and the 2009 season is about to start for Georgia.
Brant Sanderlin /bsanderlin@ajc.com
Richard Samuel is one of the key figures as Georgia looks to replace Knowshon Moreno.
How’s that, you say?
Offseason conditioning will begin soon at both schools, starting the grind towards spring practice.
Signing Day is less than a month away.
Spring games are about three months away, when players can get an early jump on moving up, or down, the depth chart.
As coaches the 2008 season and look ahead to 2009, here are three things to think about for fans of the Bulldogs:
1. Will the Bulldogs, injury-ravaged in 2008, be healthier in 2009?
By summer, they expect to be. But for spring practice, many of the key players injured this past season will remain sidelined.
Offensive tackle Trinton Sturdivant and defensive tackle Jeff Owens, whose torn anterior cruciate ligaments were perhaps the costliest of Georgia’s epidemic of injuries in ‘08, will miss the spring while continuing to rehab from their knee surgeries. Vince Vance, who replaced Sturdivant in the lineup before also tearing an ACL, will miss the spring, too.
Also an issue: Defensive end — a sore spot in 2008 and a position from which Georgia needs much improvement in 2009 — will be hamstrung again in the spring. Three scholarship DE’s — Rod Battle, Neland Ball and Cornelius Washington — will miss the drills after surgeries this month.
In all, 13 players already have been counted out for the spring. But at this point, all are expected back for the season.
2. So what will life be like without Stafford and Moreno?
From now until spring practice Georgia fans will ponder the replacements for Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno.
Joe Cox will start the spring as the No. 1 quarterback. A loyal leader who plays with passion, he’ll have fans and teammates pulling for him.
The job will be his to lose, with sophomore Logan Gray and newly arrived and highly touted freshmen Aaron Murray and Zach Mettenberger next in line.
The line is not so clearly formed at Moreno’s old spot. Caleb King and Richard Samuel, both of whom struggled in limited playing time in ‘08, are the frontrunners. Carlton Thomas, an ‘08 redshirt, will be prominent in spring as well.
“It always hurts when you lose two superstars like Matthew and Knowshon and another like [senior receiver] Mohamed [Massaquoi],” Cox said. “But the thing about football is: Once somebody leaves, somebody’s got to step up. And we’ve got plenty of guys to do that at every position.”
3. With Tebow back, is the SEC East a foregone conclusion in ‘09?
Tim Tebow’s decision to forego the NFL for his senior season as Florida’s quarterback ensures that the Gators will be the favorite to win the SEC East — and probably much more.
While the Bulldogs spent last spring and summer hearing the hype about their chances of a national title, this time they’ll hear the question of whether they have any chance in a division that includes Tebow’s Gators.
Georgia coach Mark Richt offered his answer on the same day Stafford and Moreno announced their departures: “There are a lot of things we can improve on as a football team,” he said, “that can give us an opportunity to win the East.”
Those things would include penalties (at which Georgia ranked No. 115 in the nation this past season), turnover ratio (No. 73) and sacks (No. 72).
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