Old Wine in New Bottles: Why the Georgia Bulldogs' Change of Strength and Conditioning Coaches Inspires More Hope Than Confidence

Pollack was a demon in the weight room and went to the NFL before bigger D lineman from top programs were drafted. He’s still recognized in Iron Dog pictures in Butts-Mehre as the top Iron Dog during his years at UGA. Maybe he was like Herschel in deciding he was going to out train everybody or maybe he benefitted from great coaching. Regardless, his perspective is one that should be important in this discussion and I’m glad you included it. Your stats make a point but “when the ball bounces funny sometimes” is a real part of the game and I didn’t see our guys gassed or dragging in the 4th. I’ll stand behind our coaches and when someone who’s walked that mile has an opinion on UGA s&c, I’m all ears.

Good and fair post, Kyle. I don’t know that much about S&C best practices, but I have a feeling they’ve evolved a lot in recent years. Maybe Joe T II will work out just fine, but loyalty to the program is an overrated asset in a coach unless you’re worried they they might leave.

Or maybe I’m just forever haunted by the performance of Marion Campbell as DC in 1994.

Let’s hope Mr. T has got a new bag of tricks, or is smart enough to acquire one.

He mentions that one source is saying another hire for S & C may take place. This could mean Coach T gettin the title and letting him pick up 2 people to work directly under him. One is John Kasay, does anyone know who this 2nd person could be?

. . . I would split hairs over characterizing Damon Evans as an in-house promotee who “did not work out.” To me, that implies his job performance was poor. But it was his out-of-office, out-of-town shenanigans that got him canned (and I’m certainly not defending his conduct in that regard). He was a pretty good athletic director as long as he was sitting in his office in Butts-Mehre, though, and his view of out-of-conference scheduling in football was more in line with many of the readers of this blog.

… better 4th-quarter scoring is going to require more than just well-conditioned athletes. It’s tough to tell the players to go out and kill the clock in quarters 2 and/or 3, then ask them to shift gears to scoring mode in quarter 4. If we want motivated players, let the kids try to score on each drive — did anyone else see Ben Jones jump 2 feet in the air and spint to the line when Richt decided to go for it on 4th down late in the Tech game? I didn’t know our line was conditioned enough to jump! Could we develop a goal-line line-jumping play? Would Tech attempt to cut block our jumping line? These questions need answering.

(Before I get hit for it, Jones’ juiced-ness explain the errant snap on that 4th down play. But damn, motivation!)

Alternatively, is it S&C’s job to teach the players to focus for 60 minutes? It’s always been my impression that the want to win on each play is on the players — all S&C can do is (a) give them the physical tools to win and (b) be mean enough to make them fear losing. Then, S&C hands these players over to the position coaches, who teach techniques, and the position coaches hand the players to the playcallers, who are calling the plays best designed to win the specific game we’re in. Somewhere in there, the 4th quarter got lost.

In other words, I’m for re-promoting CVH to “Focus Coordinator.” His job: focus on the program until he finds that lost 4th quarter!

And before I forget: old bottles won’t break with new wine. Old wineskins may. It’s really a question of how well the leather is conditioned …

Knowing your Biblical acumen and subtle wit when unimpressed with an action, I thought “bottles” for “wineskins” was a conscious substitution. Frankly, I was hoping to get a star for being the one to point out that both wineskins and defenses fail their missions at critical times unless they’re (clears throat) properly conditioned. [Waves off booing audience members] Having read your response, however, I will settle — settle, mind you — for 4 quarters of focused offensive production. A preexisting duty, after all, will never serve as consideration.

that the position coaches (Grantham and Serles) were complaining about the S&C of their players and Coach Van refused to change, then any change could be good. Over the last few years we seem to have been playing ourselves into shape. Early on we are not a fit as later in the season. I have also wondered what was so special about the mat drills after having seen the Fox special. They seemed to be very routine exercises that most health clubs offer. One of the players, I’m sorry I can’t remember his name, mentioned that he had taken an UGA ROTC course and the physical exercise had really impressed him. I knew right away we were in big trouble. Lifting weights is not conditioning. Running and running and running some more is conditioning. Run them till they puke. The mat drills are suppose to build team work and accountability but they are only performed for a brief time in February. If any player screws up punish them all. It works wonders in the military for team building. If we had one goof off and we were punished for his mistakes we had to get him to stop goofing off. There are many motivational things a coach can do but the team can motivate a single player better than any coach ever could. George O’Leary knew this and told the Atlanta TD Club that he coached his kickers because he hated kickers. No man’s game should ever be decided by some soccer kicker who steps in at the last minute to win or lose it. Since he hated them he wanted to make sure that were invested in the team. He did this by having the FG Kicker try for a 35 yard FG at the end of every practice. If the kicker makes the kick everybody is finished for the day. If the kicker misses it the whole team runs 30 minutes of gassers. He said he only had a kicker miss in practice once in his career and it was not pretty what the team did to the guy. The team must take charge not the senior leadership or the BS we have been fed for the past 3 years.