well that's what this guy thinks at least........ I think we will have a good shot at winning 9-10 games, but we have gotta correct the penalties, start winning the turnover battle and play better D............ A lot to ask, but I feel good about our upcoming season. This is a very interesting read and he does makes some points. Come on Sept......
Florida’s Fall Will Aid Georgia’s Return to Prominence
By Tom Poisal
Georgia’s Ascension to the Top (Part II)
With Florida inevitably falling back to the pack in the SEC chronicled in part I of this series, we now take a look at the team that will take advantage of the situation and begin their reign on the SEC East perch: the Georgia Bulldogs.
Let’s first peer at the two most prominently mentioned reasons for skepticism concerning Georgia: (A) a new quarterback in Aaron Murray and (B) a new defensive coordinator in Todd Grantham. (sorry but the nonsense that has gone around recently about Mark Richt being on the hot seat is purely asinine in nature)
The Murray Era Begins
As most people have read by now, Aaron Murray was one of the most highly recruited quarterbacks in the nation two years ago. Before he committed to the Dawgs, Florida fans saw him as the heir apparent to Tebow once they landed the home-state product. Instead, Murray decided to travel north to Athens to make his mark. Instead of quoting his high school statistics and a heroic return from a supposedly season-ending injury, let’s focus on what we know about Georgia and how Mark Richt quarterbacks have performed in their 2nd season at the collegiate level.
Exhibit A: David Greene
Greene redshirted his freshman year and took over in year 2 at Georgia. With that extra time to develop his body and learn the nuances of the college game, Greene’s redshirt season ended up like this:
59% completion, 3,077 passing yards, 18 TDs, 11 interceptions.
Those are stats that most senior QBs would be happy with, much less a QB in his 2nd year on a college campus.
Exhibit B: Matthew Stafford
Stafford was not as fortunate as Greene and did not have the chance to redshirt during that first year. He suffered through some growing pains that true freshman year as well. But let’s take a look at Stafford’s 2nd year on Georgia’s campus:
55.7% completion, 2,523 passing yards, 19 TDs, 10 interceptions.
This was also the year that Georgia defeated Florida in Jacksonville and saw Stafford begin to show glimpses of a 1st round draft pick.
With Murray, this will be his redshirt freshman season at Georgia. So far he has shown Georgia tremendous leadership at the QB position during the offseason but his production on the field in 2010 will be the barometer by which he is measured. Expect statistics mirroring David Greene and Matthew Stafford’s 2nd year on the Georgia campus at minimum. Murray has a much better arm than Greene but not as much as Stafford. His mobility is better than both and his intangibles are said to be reminiscent of Greene.
The 3-4 Debuts in The Classic City
After several years of very sub par defensive performances in Athens, Mark Richt hired Dallas Cowboys defensive line coach Todd Grantham as defensive coordinator. Most detractors have said that the switch from the 4-3 to Grantham’s 3-4 might take awhile to implement and master. That’s something we simply cannot predict at this juncture. Perhaps the learning curve will be somewhat steep but we are talking about a defense that gave up more passing touchdowns than any other SEC team while also creating the fewest turnovers in league play. There HAS to be improvement in those numbers this year given the athleticism Georgia possesses on the defensive side of the ball.
What we DO know about Grantham is impressive. Last year Dallas was 2nd in the NFL in scoring defense, 4th in rush defense and 7th overall in sacks. No, Grantham was not the coordinator last year but those are statistics you cannot have if you’re not winning the trenches.
In 2008 Dallas was 8th in total defense.
Player development? Jay Ratliff, a 6th round draft choice, has made the last 2 Pro Bowls in Dallas. Demarcus Ware tallied 20 sacks in 2008 under Grantham’s tutelage.
Grantham has been a defensive coordinator in the past as he led the Cleveland Browns defense for 3 years.
His defensive philosophy has been shaped by many great minds in the business, having coached under and with Frank Beamer, Bud Foster, Nick Saban, Romeo Crennel, Dom Capers as well as Wade Phillips.
The additional staff members added to the defensive side of the ball have impressive resumes as well.
The Dawgs added DB coach Scott Lakatos from Connecticut, he of the secondary responsible for holding Stephen Garcia and South Carolina to 129 yards passing in last year’s PapaJohn’s.com Bowl.
UCONN was 9th in pass efficiency in 2008, 10th in pass efficiency in 2007 while also 17th in total pass defense (all figures national rankings), 25th in pass defense in 2006, 4th in pass defense in 2005 and also in the top 20 in pass defense in 2004. Lakatos’ last Rutgers squad in 2003 was 2nd in the Big East in passing defense.
The Dawgs defensive coaching turnover also includes adding LB coach Warren Belin from Vanderbilt. Belin has also been the recruiting coordinator for Vandy as well as special teams coordinator.
Belin’s player development skills have been quite impressive over the years at Vandy while not being given exactly top of the SEC-type talent. Some of Belin’s successes are as follows:
* 2008: Coached Patrick Benoist to All SEC honors as well as Chris Marve to the Freshman All SEC team.
* 2006-2007: Coached Jonathan Goff to the All SEC team and sent both Goff and Marcus Buggs to the NFL.
* 2004-2005: Coached Moses Osemwegie to All SEC team.
* 2002: Coached Hunter Hillenmeyer to All SEC as well as leading the SEC in tackles.
All of these changes on defense are going to add to the mystery that Grantham’s new 3-4 will create for opposing teams in 2010. Under Richt, the 4-3 scheme has remained relatively the same in concept under Brian Van Gorder and Willie Martinez with few changes over the years. Teams have pretty much known what Georgia was going to do on defense from game to game, year to year. However, with nobody really knowing what Grantham’s defense is going to look like from the start, this should soften the blow of any potential learning-curve that the Bulldogs may encounter, especially early in the year.
Murray’s Security Blanket
Murray may well be in his 1st year at the helm of the Georgia offense but he has what I like to call a massive “security blanket” to help him along the way.
Schedule
This isn’t the 2008 schedule the Bulldogs had to navigate. This schedule is one of the best in years for Georgia. Aside from the annual “neutral site” for the Florida tilt, look at both the home and away ledger for the Dawgs:
(H) La.-Lafayette, Arkansas, Tennessee, Vandy, Idaho St., and Georgia Tech.
(A) South Carolina, Miss. St., Colorado, Kentucky and Auburn.
While Arkansas looks to have a better team coming back this year than in the past several, they’re no LSU or Alabama. Tennessee is down big-time, Vandy is Vandy, Idaho State will act as a semi-bye before the Auburn game and Georgia gets their official bye before the Tech game. The home schedule looks like a great chance for a sweep.
The away schedule does have South Carolina but this is a team that Richt has handled with regularity over the years. (not always pretty, however) Mississippi State, Colorado and Kentucky are by no means a “Murderer’s Row” and Auburn is a tough game whether it is at home or on the road. (remember, the road team mysteriously holds the edge in this series in recent years)
Simply put, this schedule is tailor-made for a 1st year quarterback in the SEC.
Offensive Line
Find an offensive line that has more collective starts returning than this one. You can’t. The starting combo that clicked in the 2nd half of the season of Clint Boling, Cordy Glenn, Ben Jones, Chris Davis and Josh Davis returns everyone. The kicker to all of this is the supposed return to health of Trinton Sturdivant at LT, a guy that NFL scouts were raving about 2 years ago before his knee injuries. If Sturdivant returns to LT, that would probably move Chris Davis into a super-sub role on the line. In baseball you can never have too much depth in pitching and in football you can never have too much depth on the O-line. Murray should feel very safe behind this wall.
Running Backs
Caleb King and Washaun Ealey both return to split carries in the backfield. Ealey came on big time in the latter stages of 2009 and looks like a guy that will be very productive for several years to come. King improved as the year wore on and proves invaluable in blitz-pickup. These two backs combined with the offensive line to put up the following rushing numbers over the last 7 games of 2009:
Tennessee Tech (304), Vanderbilt (173), Auburn (169), Kentucky (196), Georgia Tech (339), and Texas A&M (208). The only game in the last 7 that didn’t compare was vs. Florida (121) where the recent lack of rushing success against the Gators can be partly attributed to playing from so far behind.
Throw in the contributions at fullback from seniors Shawn Chapas and Fred Munzenmaier as well as arguably the nation’s deepest TE corps in Aron White, Orson Charles and run-blocking beast Bruce Figgins and Murray will get plenty of help from the surrounding cast.
Special Teams
If you ask any coach breaking in a 1st year quarterback what he wants to go along with the rookie and he will probably say a veteran offensive line, good running game and great special teams. The former two are obviously in the cupboard which brings us to the latter.
In Blair Walsh, Georgia may have the best kicker in the nation. If Murray’s initial task is to protect the ball and just not beat himself, what better weapon to have than a kicker that not only nails most field goals but a kicker whose range extends to at least 55+ yards? Walsh was 20-22 on field goals and 4-5 from 50+ yards. He also converted 42 straight extra points. Walsh plans to win the Groza award this year in which last year he was a finalist.
If Murray finds it difficult getting into Walsh’s range, he can always play the field position game and lean on Drew Butler, the nation’s best punter. Butler averaged a nation-best 48.1 yards per punt last year including 19 inside the opponent’s 20. Any time you KNOW you can flip the field at any time with your punter, you can cure a lot of ills.
Mark Richt
Last year’s 8 win total was only the 3rd season during the Richt era that the Bulldogs have not won 10+ games. In 2001, Richt won 8 but followed that with 13 victories and an SEC Championship. In 2006, Richt won 9 games and followed that with 11 wins and a final national ranking of 2nd in the land. With the changes that Richt made this offseason, look for the theme to continue with 10+ wins and an SEC East division crown as a minimum.
Richt has won 90 games in 9 years at Georgia, including a 48-19 SEC record. His critics love to point out the fact that he hasn’t won a national championship but all that’s been missing so far is luck in that regard. His 2002 team was ever so close to playing for the championship game and his 2007 team saw the teams ahead of the Dawgs lose their last games yet Georgia fell a spot back in the polls instead of naturally moving up in the rankings to #2 and a berth in the BCS championship game.
Richt has 2 SEC Championships, 4 SEC East titles and is a two time SEC Coach of the Year.
When talking national championships, I like to look at the coaching careers of the following coaches:
Coach A: 255-49-3…..didn’t win a national championship until his 22nd year…12-13 bowl record.
Coach B: 377-129-4….didn’t win a national championship until his 26th year…21-10-1
bowl record.
Coach C: 201-77-10….didn’t win a national championship until his 17th year…8-10-2
bowl record.
Mark Richt: 90-27……no championship appearances as of yet………………...7-2
bowl record.
Coach A is Tom Osborne, Coach B is Bobby Bowden and Coach C is Vince Dooley. I would say Richt is in pretty darn good company at this point in his coaching career. I would also say that he has it tougher than any of the above coaches in conference play.
Conclusion
Georgia is poised to re-take the throne in the SEC East from Florida. The key game in the season is South Carolina. If the Dawgs survive that test in the sauna that is Columbia in September, they will be off and running barring injuries.
The team you see in the final third of the season will not resemble the team that began the year. Murray will be entrenched as the QB of the present and future, the playbook will open, and all the pieces will fall into place giving Georgia an SEC East Championship and potentially more.
Florida’s Fall Will Aid Georgia’s Return to Prominence
By Tom Poisal
Georgia’s Ascension to the Top (Part II)
With Florida inevitably falling back to the pack in the SEC chronicled in part I of this series, we now take a look at the team that will take advantage of the situation and begin their reign on the SEC East perch: the Georgia Bulldogs.
Let’s first peer at the two most prominently mentioned reasons for skepticism concerning Georgia: (A) a new quarterback in Aaron Murray and (B) a new defensive coordinator in Todd Grantham. (sorry but the nonsense that has gone around recently about Mark Richt being on the hot seat is purely asinine in nature)
The Murray Era Begins
As most people have read by now, Aaron Murray was one of the most highly recruited quarterbacks in the nation two years ago. Before he committed to the Dawgs, Florida fans saw him as the heir apparent to Tebow once they landed the home-state product. Instead, Murray decided to travel north to Athens to make his mark. Instead of quoting his high school statistics and a heroic return from a supposedly season-ending injury, let’s focus on what we know about Georgia and how Mark Richt quarterbacks have performed in their 2nd season at the collegiate level.
Exhibit A: David Greene
Greene redshirted his freshman year and took over in year 2 at Georgia. With that extra time to develop his body and learn the nuances of the college game, Greene’s redshirt season ended up like this:
59% completion, 3,077 passing yards, 18 TDs, 11 interceptions.
Those are stats that most senior QBs would be happy with, much less a QB in his 2nd year on a college campus.
Exhibit B: Matthew Stafford
Stafford was not as fortunate as Greene and did not have the chance to redshirt during that first year. He suffered through some growing pains that true freshman year as well. But let’s take a look at Stafford’s 2nd year on Georgia’s campus:
55.7% completion, 2,523 passing yards, 19 TDs, 10 interceptions.
This was also the year that Georgia defeated Florida in Jacksonville and saw Stafford begin to show glimpses of a 1st round draft pick.
With Murray, this will be his redshirt freshman season at Georgia. So far he has shown Georgia tremendous leadership at the QB position during the offseason but his production on the field in 2010 will be the barometer by which he is measured. Expect statistics mirroring David Greene and Matthew Stafford’s 2nd year on the Georgia campus at minimum. Murray has a much better arm than Greene but not as much as Stafford. His mobility is better than both and his intangibles are said to be reminiscent of Greene.
The 3-4 Debuts in The Classic City
After several years of very sub par defensive performances in Athens, Mark Richt hired Dallas Cowboys defensive line coach Todd Grantham as defensive coordinator. Most detractors have said that the switch from the 4-3 to Grantham’s 3-4 might take awhile to implement and master. That’s something we simply cannot predict at this juncture. Perhaps the learning curve will be somewhat steep but we are talking about a defense that gave up more passing touchdowns than any other SEC team while also creating the fewest turnovers in league play. There HAS to be improvement in those numbers this year given the athleticism Georgia possesses on the defensive side of the ball.
What we DO know about Grantham is impressive. Last year Dallas was 2nd in the NFL in scoring defense, 4th in rush defense and 7th overall in sacks. No, Grantham was not the coordinator last year but those are statistics you cannot have if you’re not winning the trenches.
In 2008 Dallas was 8th in total defense.
Player development? Jay Ratliff, a 6th round draft choice, has made the last 2 Pro Bowls in Dallas. Demarcus Ware tallied 20 sacks in 2008 under Grantham’s tutelage.
Grantham has been a defensive coordinator in the past as he led the Cleveland Browns defense for 3 years.
His defensive philosophy has been shaped by many great minds in the business, having coached under and with Frank Beamer, Bud Foster, Nick Saban, Romeo Crennel, Dom Capers as well as Wade Phillips.
The additional staff members added to the defensive side of the ball have impressive resumes as well.
The Dawgs added DB coach Scott Lakatos from Connecticut, he of the secondary responsible for holding Stephen Garcia and South Carolina to 129 yards passing in last year’s PapaJohn’s.com Bowl.
UCONN was 9th in pass efficiency in 2008, 10th in pass efficiency in 2007 while also 17th in total pass defense (all figures national rankings), 25th in pass defense in 2006, 4th in pass defense in 2005 and also in the top 20 in pass defense in 2004. Lakatos’ last Rutgers squad in 2003 was 2nd in the Big East in passing defense.
The Dawgs defensive coaching turnover also includes adding LB coach Warren Belin from Vanderbilt. Belin has also been the recruiting coordinator for Vandy as well as special teams coordinator.
Belin’s player development skills have been quite impressive over the years at Vandy while not being given exactly top of the SEC-type talent. Some of Belin’s successes are as follows:
* 2008: Coached Patrick Benoist to All SEC honors as well as Chris Marve to the Freshman All SEC team.
* 2006-2007: Coached Jonathan Goff to the All SEC team and sent both Goff and Marcus Buggs to the NFL.
* 2004-2005: Coached Moses Osemwegie to All SEC team.
* 2002: Coached Hunter Hillenmeyer to All SEC as well as leading the SEC in tackles.
All of these changes on defense are going to add to the mystery that Grantham’s new 3-4 will create for opposing teams in 2010. Under Richt, the 4-3 scheme has remained relatively the same in concept under Brian Van Gorder and Willie Martinez with few changes over the years. Teams have pretty much known what Georgia was going to do on defense from game to game, year to year. However, with nobody really knowing what Grantham’s defense is going to look like from the start, this should soften the blow of any potential learning-curve that the Bulldogs may encounter, especially early in the year.
Murray’s Security Blanket
Murray may well be in his 1st year at the helm of the Georgia offense but he has what I like to call a massive “security blanket” to help him along the way.
Schedule
This isn’t the 2008 schedule the Bulldogs had to navigate. This schedule is one of the best in years for Georgia. Aside from the annual “neutral site” for the Florida tilt, look at both the home and away ledger for the Dawgs:
(H) La.-Lafayette, Arkansas, Tennessee, Vandy, Idaho St., and Georgia Tech.
(A) South Carolina, Miss. St., Colorado, Kentucky and Auburn.
While Arkansas looks to have a better team coming back this year than in the past several, they’re no LSU or Alabama. Tennessee is down big-time, Vandy is Vandy, Idaho State will act as a semi-bye before the Auburn game and Georgia gets their official bye before the Tech game. The home schedule looks like a great chance for a sweep.
The away schedule does have South Carolina but this is a team that Richt has handled with regularity over the years. (not always pretty, however) Mississippi State, Colorado and Kentucky are by no means a “Murderer’s Row” and Auburn is a tough game whether it is at home or on the road. (remember, the road team mysteriously holds the edge in this series in recent years)
Simply put, this schedule is tailor-made for a 1st year quarterback in the SEC.
Offensive Line
Find an offensive line that has more collective starts returning than this one. You can’t. The starting combo that clicked in the 2nd half of the season of Clint Boling, Cordy Glenn, Ben Jones, Chris Davis and Josh Davis returns everyone. The kicker to all of this is the supposed return to health of Trinton Sturdivant at LT, a guy that NFL scouts were raving about 2 years ago before his knee injuries. If Sturdivant returns to LT, that would probably move Chris Davis into a super-sub role on the line. In baseball you can never have too much depth in pitching and in football you can never have too much depth on the O-line. Murray should feel very safe behind this wall.
Running Backs
Caleb King and Washaun Ealey both return to split carries in the backfield. Ealey came on big time in the latter stages of 2009 and looks like a guy that will be very productive for several years to come. King improved as the year wore on and proves invaluable in blitz-pickup. These two backs combined with the offensive line to put up the following rushing numbers over the last 7 games of 2009:
Tennessee Tech (304), Vanderbilt (173), Auburn (169), Kentucky (196), Georgia Tech (339), and Texas A&M (208). The only game in the last 7 that didn’t compare was vs. Florida (121) where the recent lack of rushing success against the Gators can be partly attributed to playing from so far behind.
Throw in the contributions at fullback from seniors Shawn Chapas and Fred Munzenmaier as well as arguably the nation’s deepest TE corps in Aron White, Orson Charles and run-blocking beast Bruce Figgins and Murray will get plenty of help from the surrounding cast.
Special Teams
If you ask any coach breaking in a 1st year quarterback what he wants to go along with the rookie and he will probably say a veteran offensive line, good running game and great special teams. The former two are obviously in the cupboard which brings us to the latter.
In Blair Walsh, Georgia may have the best kicker in the nation. If Murray’s initial task is to protect the ball and just not beat himself, what better weapon to have than a kicker that not only nails most field goals but a kicker whose range extends to at least 55+ yards? Walsh was 20-22 on field goals and 4-5 from 50+ yards. He also converted 42 straight extra points. Walsh plans to win the Groza award this year in which last year he was a finalist.
If Murray finds it difficult getting into Walsh’s range, he can always play the field position game and lean on Drew Butler, the nation’s best punter. Butler averaged a nation-best 48.1 yards per punt last year including 19 inside the opponent’s 20. Any time you KNOW you can flip the field at any time with your punter, you can cure a lot of ills.
Mark Richt
Last year’s 8 win total was only the 3rd season during the Richt era that the Bulldogs have not won 10+ games. In 2001, Richt won 8 but followed that with 13 victories and an SEC Championship. In 2006, Richt won 9 games and followed that with 11 wins and a final national ranking of 2nd in the land. With the changes that Richt made this offseason, look for the theme to continue with 10+ wins and an SEC East division crown as a minimum.
Richt has won 90 games in 9 years at Georgia, including a 48-19 SEC record. His critics love to point out the fact that he hasn’t won a national championship but all that’s been missing so far is luck in that regard. His 2002 team was ever so close to playing for the championship game and his 2007 team saw the teams ahead of the Dawgs lose their last games yet Georgia fell a spot back in the polls instead of naturally moving up in the rankings to #2 and a berth in the BCS championship game.
Richt has 2 SEC Championships, 4 SEC East titles and is a two time SEC Coach of the Year.
When talking national championships, I like to look at the coaching careers of the following coaches:
Coach A: 255-49-3…..didn’t win a national championship until his 22nd year…12-13 bowl record.
Coach B: 377-129-4….didn’t win a national championship until his 26th year…21-10-1
bowl record.
Coach C: 201-77-10….didn’t win a national championship until his 17th year…8-10-2
bowl record.
Mark Richt: 90-27……no championship appearances as of yet………………...7-2
bowl record.
Coach A is Tom Osborne, Coach B is Bobby Bowden and Coach C is Vince Dooley. I would say Richt is in pretty darn good company at this point in his coaching career. I would also say that he has it tougher than any of the above coaches in conference play.
Conclusion
Georgia is poised to re-take the throne in the SEC East from Florida. The key game in the season is South Carolina. If the Dawgs survive that test in the sauna that is Columbia in September, they will be off and running barring injuries.
The team you see in the final third of the season will not resemble the team that began the year. Murray will be entrenched as the QB of the present and future, the playbook will open, and all the pieces will fall into place giving Georgia an SEC East Championship and potentially more.
That's why they still play em...
