Richt said he has done his best to soak in some new ideas that Grantham and fellow first-year assistants Scott Lakatos and Warren Belin have brought to the table, too.
"It’s a healthy exchange of ideas," Richt said. "A lot of times you spend a lot of money to fly around to different schools to get details of what’s going on, but how much can you get in a one- or two-day period compared to a guy just being there, living there."
Richt has already decided to implement two suggestions of his new staff.
First, he’ll be going back to a Monday through Thursday practice schedule, with walk-throughs on Fridays. Last season he had the team practice on Sunday and gave the players Monday off, but he’s since reconsidered the plan in light of some input from his new assistants.
Grantham also suggested revamping the daily meeting schedules, so rather than open with special teams work, Richt will address the entire team first, then break off into special teams and segment meetings. Richt said it’s a schedule used in the NFL and makes organizing meetings much simpler.
David Hale on the changes in the Georgia football program.
One of the most frustrating aspects of practicing law for most attorneys is the frequency with which clients choose not to heed the good advice given them by their lawyers. Not only do such situations often end badly, they leave attorneys wondering why their clients bothered to hire them if the clients weren't going to listen to them.
Well, Mark Richt hired new assistant coaches because changes were needed . . . and he is listening to his new assistant coaches. It's one thing for, say, Tommy Tuberville to hire a spread guru as his offensive coordinator yet saddle him with existing assistants and refuse to allow him to implement his system; it's quite another for Mark Richt to put his pride aside and say, "Todd, I'm hiring you because you know what you're doing. Now tell me who you want me to hire to help you, and I'll hire them, too. Then the three of you can put your heads together, study some film, and tell me what we need to do to improve, and that's what we'll do."
I don't know that it was hubris that caused Coach Richt to retain Willie Martinez at least one season (and arguably more) too long, but it was humility that caused him to hire Coach Grantham and let the Bulldogs' new defensive coordinator do his job.
Leadership involves accepting the responsibility for decisionmaking that necessarily accompanies having the power to decide, but leadership also involves identifying and hiring competent subordinates, delegating to them, letting them do their jobs, and heeding the input they were hired to provide.
All the usual crap about how the team is working harder than ever and is more unified than before and is hungrier than it was a year ago is just so much meaningless noise; every player on every team says that every spring. The immediate impact of the new defensive coaching staff, though, is a big deal and it says a lot about the capability of the man leading the Georgia football program.
Go 'Dawgs!
almost 2 years ago
T Kyle King
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Yes, after last season.....
…I don’t think any of us Dawgs will be paying much attention to the off-season rah-rah bullshit abot “team” or “senior leadership” or (my own bete noire) “he’s waited his tuuuuuurn!” That crap really blew up in our faces last fall. But serious info on what our new staf on D is doing to change things in Athens is more than welcome news, as is the competition at QB. How ironic that a year ago the head position on O was handled much like the previous five-minute “search” for a new D-Coordinator in 2004 – to be frank, it was simply handed over like a property being passed along under feudal laws of primogeniture.Our program suffered from this nonsense in both instances, hopefully now for the last time in a long time to come. I for one am really looking foward to watching the new regime in Athens start winning back the credibility that was pissed away over the course of the last two seasons.
But the real question is
Will QB’s still have Wednesdays off to rest their deteriorating shoulder muscles?
/snark
"We have a lot of passionate fans at Georgia and we look forward to giving them something to be positive about."
-Todd Grantham.
by RedCrake on Feb 27, 2010 1:24 AM EST via mobile reply actions
We've got the offense
Already in place. Yeah, I know we’ve got a RS freshman QB to train, but this is where Richt is at his best.
Defensively, it sounds like CTG et al have a pretty good idea of what they’re doing. And the best players are going to play. No favorites, no “upper classmen” loyalties, no coddling. Music to my ears.
We’ve always had the talent. Trouble was, they were often doing us no good standing on the sidelines.
"If we score, we may win. If they never score, we'll never lose."
-Erk Russell
by DavetheDawg on Feb 27, 2010 8:12 AM EST via mobile reply actions
While I generally agree with your statement, “…but leadership also involves identifying and hiring competent subordinates, delegating to them, letting them do their jobs, and heeding the input they were hired to provide.” In real life, that is a completely true statement.
But, we’re talking about college football, not real life. If you look at the winners of national championships over the last several years, this is the opposite type of leadership provided by the head coaches of those schools. Think Nick Saban sits around debating meeting schedules with the assistant coaches? I don’t. Nick Saban has a system, and it’s a proven system. The fact that we’re 10 years in and CMR is still clueless about the system he’s running tells me that he doesn’t have a system. Let’s hope he does learn something from Grantham so he can GATS (get after that system) so he can instill a winning culture.
Maybe.
I think we have a coach who isn’t built for centralized control. I doubt many coaches are. Maybe Saban and Meyer are so built (although I would suggest Meyer actually is not so built as (perhaps) evidenced by the toll his job has taken on his health). Maybe Saban, because he reserves such tight control for himself, has greater flexibility in whom to hire as assistants; maybe Richt requires the right supporting cast to get the job done. I think our coach has a different kind of drive and ambition that is a little less singlemindedly focused on victory and championships. Some complain about that, and it’s a legitimate complaint. I don’t mind. It just means that Richt has a little less margin of error when selecting and retaining coaching personnel.
With the right supporting cast, I think our coaches can be as good as or better than anybody else out there. And in the meantime, our recruits have a better-than-average chance of qualifying, our players are less likely to get into the kind of serious off-field trouble that brings embarrassment to the program, and our head coach does and says things that makes the entire college football world (media, coaches, fans) respect and admire him (which reflects enormously well on our school).
There's more than one way to skin a cat
What made Bill Parcells a successful coach was the ability to run off the guys who didn’t respond to his approach to coaching and bring in the guys who did. The reason he was so insistent upon “buying the groceries” was that not every Pro Bowl-caliber player was the type of player Coach Parcells could take to the Super Bowl.
Nick Saban’s system undoubtedly works, but, if we make a list of all the coaches who have been successful in the college ranks, we will come up with a list of men with very different styles, not one style repeated over and over again. (Mack Brown springs to mind as a recent example of a Mark Richt-style coach who was won a national championship.)
One reason Coach Saban’s system is so successful so consistently is that he has never stuck around one place long enough for him to need to change. (Note to the Alabama fans who read this comment: I AM NOT SAYING NICK SABAN WILL NOT FINISH HIS CAREER IN TUSCALOOSA! I AM OFFERING NO PREDICTIONS! I AM MERELY STATING FACTS ACCURATELY ABOUT NICK SABAN’S PAST! This has been a public service announcement.)
Mark Richt isn’t “debating meeting schedules”; he’s listening to the advice of assistant coaches with proven track records. Coach Richt isn’t “clueless”—-clueless coaches do not win 90 games in nine years to become the dean of SEC coaches—-he’s willing to change with the times. What worked ten years ago doesn’t necessarily work today. It is fair to fault Coach Richt for not adapting quickly enough, but to say “he doesn’t have a system” after he ran one of the most effective offenses in the country in the 1990s and revived Georgia football in the 2000s is a dubious claim, to say the least. Recognizing that the system needs updating isn’t the same thing as not having a system, not any more than the ratification of the Bill of Rights meant there was no Constitution.
Go 'Dawgs!
by T Kyle King on Feb 27, 2010 12:15 PM EST up reply actions
I think you're making some huge assumptions.
Mostly in assuming that college football, or perhaps even all of football, has a military-like administration where the top general just gives orders to be followed.
I mean, come on. You’re sounding as if Grantham and Belin and Lakatos had never been anywhere and just knew they were supposed to keep their mouths shut and listen to the guru—if things were “right.” That’s just ridiculous, and frankly, rather insulting to the abilities of the new coaches, don’t you think?
And no, I don’t think Saban does it your way, at least when he hires someone beyond a GA. Even Kirby Smart got a huge raise—if the guy were nothing but a pawn in a system (as many seem to think), then why did Saban pay him after he had already rejected UGA?
I think you misunderstand what I meant
I think that bringing in the defensive coaches, and listening to what they think is exactly what he should be doing. The reason I think that is because I don’t think that CMR has a system that works. I am glad that he’s making changes based on input from people that have been successful and that know what they’re talking about.
I do not mean that Saban runs a military camp. What I mean is this. In college football, the time with the players is extremely limited, both due to rules imposed by the NCAA and by the fact that the players are student athletes and must have time to devote to their readin’, ritin’, and rithmetic. In order to be successful as a college football coach/team, the time for coaching must be maximized to the fullest extent. That’s the type of system the successful coaches have, and that’s the type of system I hope that CMR can develop (quickly) here. That is not to say that the HC has to be totalitarian, but it is to say that he structures team time in the most efficient way possible, and then lets the coaches coach in that system.
Overall, that's fair . . .
. . . but to say Mark Richt doesn’t have a system that works is just crazy talk. In the last nine years, the Bulldogs have won 90 games, won two SEC championships, won or tied for four Eastern Division titles, and played in three Sugar Bowls. Who did that if not Mark Richt?
He has been structuring team time efficiently, and his new coaches (who are running a new system, which may affect the most efficient use of team time) have suggested a way to make it more efficient, and he has listened. I believe we are all agreed that Coach Richt waited too long to fire Willie Martinez. Other than that, though, how is this anything other than evidence of a good coach getting better?
Go 'Dawgs!
by T Kyle King on Feb 27, 2010 12:32 PM EST up reply actions
And we might just need to agree to disagree about what "works" means.
His system has won lots of games. That is a true statement. His system has created a very impressive record, if you look at W/L. I realize this is just one man’s opinion, but CMR has been just good enough to make UGA a Tier II SEC school. We are not on the same level as UF. We are not on the same level as LSU. We are not on the same level as Bama. Heck, we’re not on the same level with UT. We’re just not. Until he can figure out how to beat the best teams in the SEC, consistently, we will remain a Tier II SEC school.
I will concede that a Tier II SEC school is better than most teams in the nation. I will concede that we are not the only fans to bemoan consistenly losing to UF over the last 10 years. I will not concede that, right now, CMR is anything more than a pretty good coach and a damned fine man. He will not be the best until he can beat the best. He will not beat the best until he learns that he must beat them M-F to beat them on Saturday. He will not beat the best until he learns that he must out work, out scheme, and out smart them rather than out gimmick them with black clothes.
All this being said…I am a fan of CMR. I want to believe that a good man can lead us to the top. I want to believe we’re morally superior to Florida, Alabama, and Tennessee because we didn’t hire Meyer, Saban, or Kiffin. I also cannot make myself believe that being morally superior means we have a Tier I football team in the SEC. I want to believe that all of our ills were caused by inept defensive coaching and scheming, but I can’t. It’s systemic.
Really??
That winning record that Mark Richt sports against every SEC school not named Florida (he’s .500 against LSU) leads me to believe that Georgia football under Mark Richt is not a “Tier II SEC school” as you seem to believe. Maybe it’s just those two UGA degrees I obtained, but I thought a winning record meant beating the best teams in the SEC, consistently. If somehow Florida has morphed into more than one team, then your argument is valid. Otherwise, your point is invalid.
Also, your early comments just reek of the “I’m going to complain about everything because I can” fan syndrome. Because Mark Richt is shaking up the meeting schedule based on the advice of men that he hired all of a sudden he “is still clueless about the system he’s running tells me that he doesn’t have a system”? Excuse me while I puke. What’s the old saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty damned good at my career (excuse me while I toot my own horn). If you believe that I haven’t evolved in my methodology over my career to be successful, then I’ve got some beachfront property in Arizona to sell you. The idea that Mark Richt is “clueless” is laughable and I question that you have a logical argument to bring to the table here other than being the fan that wants to complain about anything and everything.
http://hobnailboot.wordpress.com/
To add to this...
I am a high school basketball coach. To run the same offenses and defenses over a period of 10 years is to allow every team you play to adjust to what you are doing and find ways to exploit your team. I still use some of the same stuff, but by and large, we have moved to a less predictible mode of play. That being said, the “stuff” has to be adapted for the players who are there. I know, college football coaches recruit players for their systems. HOWEVER, sometimes you recruit guys who are great athletes and great tacklers and do other fundamental things in such a great manner that to pass on them would be foolish. In those instances, adjustments have to be made to help them fit the system.
Coach Richt is doing just that. He’s adjusting what he’s been doing. The entire defense is changing. I’m sure that while discussing things with these new coaches, he’s also asked about what they see from the defensive side of his offense. That’s where these guys help twofold. Get excited Dawg fans! We are moving on up, and Florida, even with it’s tremendous recruiting class, needs to pay attention.
Tankertoad is happy. I read this article and smile. 2010 - 2015 is going to be a great time.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
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