"That Just Happened!": Five Reasons for the Georgia Bulldogs' 2008 Collapse
by T Kyle King on Feb 2, 2009 9:04 PM EST
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PrintThe Super Bowl is behind us, which means football season is over in every form. Ladies and gentlemen, the offseason is upon us, which means it is time for reflection and for wrestling with such thorny questions as that recently (and regrettably) posed by C&F at Team Speed Kills; namely, "What happened to Georgia?" Writes C&F:
As one of the posts I'm working on for the last week or so of season-in-review pieces, a question for all of us to ponder, and I'd like your feedback:
What happened to Georgia?
This was, let's remember, a national title and SEC East contender that finished 10-3 with ugly losses to Alabama and Florida and a heartbreaker to Georgia Tech. The Dawgs' best win is, what, a 24-12 bowl win over Michigan State?
I'm not saying this to tear down Georgia, though doing so has never bothered me. I was on the bandwagon, too; I had them No. 1 preseason.
So was it the injuries, particularly those on the line? Or was there something wrong that some of us (self included) just didn't see before the season began.
Your thoughts are welcome.
As you might imagine, I have some pretty strong opinions upon this subject. I offer the following answer to C&F’s question, in five parts:
1. We were overrated. The Bulldogs’ strong finish in 2007 made us all forget the fact that, between October 29, 2005, and October 6, 2007, Georgia went 16-9 overall, 8-8 in conference play, and 2-7 against the S.E.C. East. All of us were unduly impressed by the sight of the ‘Dawgs hanging 42 points on a defenseless Florida club that also allowed 37 points to Kentucky and 41 to Michigan, as well as by the Sugar Bowl shellacking of a Hawaii unit that surrendered 44 points to Louisiana Tech. We weren’t as good as we looked in 2007, so we weren’t as good as expected heading into 2008.
2. The team bought into the hype. Not once all season long did the Red and Black play a complete 60-minute game in all three phases. Georgia won some games the Bulldogs had no business winning on the strength of great individual efforts---A.J. Green’s late touchdown catches against Kentucky and Auburn spring to mind---but there was never a point at which everyone on the field clad in silver britches looked like a member of a team, much less a national championship team. No. 1 got into their heads, but never made it onto the field.
3. There was a lack of leadership. In 2002, the ‘Dawgs went into the Auburn game knowing that the Eastern Division championship was on the line, and, with it, a shot not only at an S.E.C. title but, potentially, at a whole lot more. Georgia got down 14-3 at halftime and Jon Stinchcomb stepped up in the locker room at intermission, exhorting his teammates to remember what they came to play for and backing up his talk with his play on the field in the second half. The result was 70 X Takeoff. Six years later, the ‘Dawgs went into the Florida game knowing that the Eastern Division championship was on the line, and, with it, a shot not only at an S.E.C. title but, potentially, at a whole lot more. Georgia got down 14-3 at halftime. Who stepped up in the locker room? Either no one did or someone did and lacked the credibility to be heard and heeded. The result was 49-10.
Where have you gone, Jon Stinchcomb? Bulldog Nation turns its lonely eyes to you, woo woo woo.
4. This was the worst coaching job by the Georgia staff during the Mark Richt era. In 2002, the Bulldogs improved, going from squeaking by in the first half of the season to shutting down opponents after intermission in the second half of the season. In 2007, the Red and Black obviously finished much stronger than they started. The 2008 club never got better. The team that lost to Georgia Tech wasn’t any better than the team that beat Georgia Southern. Adjustments never got made. Such persistent problems as personal foul penalties, poor tackling, and ill-conceived kickoff strategies never got corrected. It was a season spent spinning our wheels without ever improving.
5. The Bulldogs were beset by injuries to a ludicrous degree. I list this one last because I believe it is the least important component of an explanation that exposes deeper problems in need of addressing. Nothing I saw in the first half against Alabama, in the second half against Florida, or in the third quarter against Georgia Tech leads me to believe that a fully healthy Georgia squad would have won any of those games. That said, the ‘Dawgs suffered from a rash of critical injuries, most notably the losses of Jeff Owens, Trinton Sturdivant, and Vince Vance. I would argue that this team lacked the heart and character of a champion, but, after all the injuries, the Bulldogs undoubtedly lacked the horses.
That, in a nutshell and in my opinion, is what happened. What do you think?
Go ‘Dawgs!
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One point of clarification
I agree with all of your points, Kyle, with one caveat. The poor coaching job this year was clearly performed by the defensive staff. With the exception of the first half vs. Alabama and the 3rd quarter vs. Georgia Tech, our offense performed relatively well all year. They adapted multiple times, and the talent of our skill players shone through on multiple occasions. In addition, our offensive line got measurably better as the year wore on, and our #3 tailback improved throughout the year to become our #2 tailback.
It seemed, at times, like our defensive coaches just “forgot” to teach their players fundamentals like wrapping up with your arms when tackling. To be fair, Mark Richt admitted during the period between the Tech game and the bowl game that before the season began, the coaching staff didn’t focus on tackling fundamentals, and didn’t go full-contact in preseason practice much due to injuries. What concerns me is that we again have a lot of injuries to key players going into the spring. We can certainly hope, however, that they’ve learned from their previous mistake this time around.
You're absolutely right . . .
. . . and I should have said so. Stacy Searels deserved the Broyles Award and, although the ‘Dawgs still struggle with some red zone problems, Mike Bobo has grown into the offensive coordinator’s role to a greater extent than his critics will admit. The receiving corps had a pretty decent year, too.
While I place some of the blame on the special teams coaching, and while the buck ultimately stops at Coach Richt, you are right that the offensive staff vastly outperformed their defensive counterparts.
Go 'Dawgs!
I don't think we were overrated coming into the year based on our play from 2007
That 2007 team earned every bit of its #2 final finish (and the #1 coming into this season). Remember, those Kentucky and Michigan squads that hung those points on Florida were pretty good offensive teams in 2007. Granted yes, Hawaii wasn’t very good but we all knew that anyway—it was the way that we looked against them and over the course of the second half of ’07, though, that captivated us and made us believers, if you will. Now this season, with the confluence of your other factors (which I totally agree with) that beset us, well, yeah we became overrated.
So to recap, yeah I agree we were overrated this year, but not last year—although our play last year led us to be overrated this year. Whew
5 things
1. The youth and inexperience on the O-Line finally caught up with us. There is an old saying that you can count on one loss for every freshman you have on the Offensive Line. We dodged that bullet in 2007, but weren’t so lucky in 2008. A freshman center against Mt. Cody just isn’t going to go your way.
2. Injuries. Not much can be said that hasn’t been already. The injury bug gets every team eventually. 2008 was just our year for it.
3. Scheduling. I know our schedule ended up not being as hard as we thought it was going to be, but it was still plenty tough. More important than who we played was when we played them. We got Alabama after going to Columbia and then going 3/4 of the way across the country. You can’t convince me that part of that craptastic first half wasn’t tired legs. We played Florida the week after going to Death Valley, which is criminal. The SEC office should be ashamed. The SEC office says that they never want a team to play 3 consecutive conference road games. FL in Jax bits us in the ass there since we were the “home” team. A home game 350 miles from home after going to Baton Rouge and before having to go to Lexington and to Auburn the next two weeks? Brilliant. But hey, it’s a tradition, right? Who cares about the actual effect it has on the team.
4. Bad Defensive End play. Everything above and below probably contributes to this, but this was probably the most glaring issue all season. We’ve had fantastic Defensive Ends for 7 years, we were due for a down year.
5. The law of averages caught up with us. We had beaten Alabama 3 straight times before this season. We had beaten Saban twice in a row. We had beaten Tech 7 straight years. Statistically, it was about time for us to lose those. Much like Tennessee not being able to win close games forever, the law of averages has a funny way of always holding true. Our current troubles with Florida is a different animal however.
Couldn't you also say that...
…the injuries might have attributed to a couple of the other reasons listed? I would venture to say that the coaching was bad partly because of the injuries and that maybe the lack of leadership could have also been affected by this. This was far from Willie’s best coaching job, no doubt about that, but I would say that he and the other coaches were making adjustments all year. It’s hard to make adjustments with play-calling, penalties, etc, when you’re constantly having to move around and bring in new players because they all keep getting hurt. And who knows, maybe someone like Jeff Owens was what we needed in the leadership department. I also agree with UgaMatt on some of his points. As much as people want to say that our schedule turned out to be easier than we thought, it’s not easy to play 100% after an emotional road game, especially one that was halfway across the country. Florida is a very talented and hard-working team, no denying that, but did you see their schedule last year? Or this year’s for that matter? A lot of home games, easy away games, easy out-of-conference games. That kind of stuff makes a difference, I think. I’m excited for next year, though. A lot of the “problems” everyone has mentioned are fixable and I think Mark Richt will dedicate the time this offseason to do so.
One thing about the 2002 Auburn game...
Sean Jones saved our bacon that day…is he the most underrated Dawg ever?
He dominated the 1st half of that game or we have been down 28-3 at half-time.
Ummm "Yeah"
And I hope the quotation marks properly convey my sarcasm.
by joecoxforheisman on Feb 4, 2009 3:39 PM EST reply actions
#1 and #5 are related
I’d simply argue that the roster that was ranked #1 in the PREseason never materialized. Had we been at 100% would we have still be overrated? Is it overrated to have a Top 5 roster and be ranked #1? Yeah….I guess….but worth using the “overrated word?”
Not sure.
The other issues were mostly as you outlined. I’d say complacency, leadership, expectation, and dedication. Which are really all the same thing said in different ways.
If we had been healthy, the UF and Bama games wouldn’t have looked gruesome, but we wouldn’t have been slaughtered either. As for GT…..there’s nothing that explains what happened in that game defensively except that it was a$$.
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