"We're Not That Far Away"

I think we aren’t that far off from either extreme. We have the talent to be very good, very soon. We also are very close to becoming Ole Miss/Miss St (before Mullen) bad, and by that I mean we slink around at 5-7, 6-6, 7-5 with the occasional good season every 10 years or so. I have been an ardent supporter of CMR over the past two years because of his track record. That being said one of my biggest frustrations with the Donnan years was the fact that we had a ton of talent but consistantly looked completely unprepared and were outcoached on game day. When CMR first arrived I remember making the comment “Well we may not win every week, but at least we won’t be outcoached or come out unprepared to play”. I am not sure that we don’t need a change for the sake of change (i.e. new voices, a new method of preparation). I have to admit that I am struggling with whether to send in my Hartman Fund contribution next month. With the contribution + tickets I am spending $1000+ to watch a sub par product….I can think of a lot of things to use $1000 on other than bad football.

I am definitely in the raving flip-flipper camp myself, so I agree with your cogent post. However, let me point out a couple of items of evidence on the hopeful side of the scales. First, we were not simply flattened in any game this year, as we were twice last year (UT, UF) and previous (UA, UF) and once even in ‘07 (UT); we were in every game, including AU. Second, despite occasional baffling play calls (20+ yards and send our RB between the tackles TWICE in a bowl game?) and a mediocre running game (mounting evidence that McClendon coaches his guys down), we’ve had an offense that produces a lot of points. I don’t believe in quick fixes, but a stud RB and genuine commitment to disciplined S&C would go a looooong way.

A lot of people are searching for what’s wrong with Georgia’s team. Let me provide two possible areas for concern.

1. Mental toughness: On two separate ocassions this year Bacarri Rambo stated publicly the defense was not mentall tough enough. They weren’t tough enough to be in the right position when they needed to make a play and when things looked bad they gave up. You can’t be a SEC Championship team if you’re not mentally tough.

2. Heart: If we have the talent some think we do, then they didn’t show it. I saw guys giving up on a regular basis this year. You can’t be a SEC Championship team if you’ve got no heart.

Boys, we have an identity crisis within the Georgia program. Are we Bobby Bowden’s FSU program of the ’90’s (finesse), or are we a power SEC team? When we hired Searles we tried to move away from the FSU finesse game to a more power oriented attack. What we got was a little bit of both and the results are there for everyone to see. Bama’s offense is even more predictable than Bobo’s, the problem for us is Bama has the personnel to run that type of power run oriented offense to perfection. UGA seems like a confused hybrid, with a weak undersized offensive line that can not run block and only provides marginal holes for our RB’s to get through.

Quite frankly, I don’t place a lot of hope that Mark Richt can turn this thing around with the type of players we have today. We are short on talent and long on bad attitudes. I hope Richt can make us all look like fools with our predictions of doom and gloom, but I’m not betting the mortgage on it.

Lack of discipline! When a team has this many arrests every year, and a top round pick sells his jersey, and key running backs are declared academically ineligible before a bowl game, etc., etc., discipline is an issue…and to win in football, discipline is the number 1 component in championship teams!! Bear Bryant didn’t have #1 recruits every year, but AJ Green would have been booted off his team. Players must depend on each other, bond a brotherhood, and focus on discipline to win, regardless of talent. If I am wrong, explain Mississippi State’s rise. When was the last time anyone ever seen Mississippi State blow out Michigan in the past 50 years?? I didn’t see any arrests or high profile players getting sacked by the NCAA for doing something stupid!!! If Mark Richt is to carry Georgia to a championship team, he must impose discipline at all levels!!

that Bear came VERY close to axing Joe Namath…not once, but twice. He did, however suspend him for the SUGAR BOWL in 1964…..there are more…many more…what about Rich Wingo? Read this excerpt from a new book coming out about the Bear….AJ Green??? He literally cost the Dawgs 2, maybe 3 more wins. Without him, teams didn’t need to double team, freeing up a safety or corner to plug any gaps, in effect cramping the running game. You may be right, but I believe AJ would have been shipped off (maybe not shipped off, in retrospect, but certainly canned for more than 4 games regardless of NCAA decisions…read this excerpt, it is the difference between Bear and Richt, which also includes winning…

“The best thing Coach Bryant did for me was kick me off the team,” said Wingo, a native of Elkhart, Ind., only 20 miles from the Notre Dame campus. "Right before my junior season, someone made the terrible mistake of voting me to be a preseason All-American, and I began to think I ‘was’ a preseason All-American.

“It was a morning practice and we were in linebacker drills, where Coach (Brother) Oliver would throw one of us the ball and we’d sprint off the field. I’m sure I wasn’t hustling, although I certainly wasn’t consciously thinking about it. After doing that several times, Coach Bryant said, ‘Wingo, go out there and do it again.’

“That’s the first time he’d ever made me do a drill again. Everybody got completely quiet. So I got out there by myself, in a linebacker stance.

“Coach Oliver said, ‘Hut,’ he threw me the ball, and I sprinted to the sideline, and handed Coach Oliver the ball back. Coach Bryant said, ‘Do it again.’ You could have heard a pin drop. I did it again, and Coach Bryant said, ‘Get off my field.’ So I stated jogging off the field. After about 20 steps, I looked back and everybody was just staring at me. That’s when I realized I’d been kicked off the team.

“I went to the showers and my friend Tim Garl, one of the student trainers, came in and said, ‘Do you realize you’ve just been kicked off the team? No one’s ever been kicked off and allowed to come back on except Joe Namath. And you ain’t no Joe Namath.’

“I got dressed and waited for Coach Bryant after practice,” Wingo continued. "He asked me what I was doing there. I told him the last thing my dad told me before I left home years ago that no one’s going to fight for Rich Wingo any longer except for Rich Wingo. I said, ‘I’m here to fight.’

“He let me come into his office and he told me to sit down. I had been on that couch too many times – for the wrong reasons – so I sat in a chair right next to his desk. We spoke – well, he spoke – for an hour and five minutes. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. All the time he’s talking I’m thinking, ‘Am I on the team or off the team? How am I going to tell my parents?’

“So he’s leaning in his chair, smoking that Chesterfield, and he says, ‘Rich, I think you’re a good football player. And I think I am a good coach. They say you are a preseason All-American, but that doesn’t mean squat to me. I just don’t know if I want you on my football team.’ He was that blunt.

“He explained to me that I was just ‘content’ with being a starting inside linebacker and that’s the way I’d play. He said he wanted people on his team and those around him to be ‘committed’ instead of ‘content,’ people who wanted to get a little better every single day. For the first time, I realized exactly what he was talking about.

“So he put his hand on the phone and said, ‘Tell me where you want to go. You want to go home, back to Notre Dame? One phone call and you’ll be there tomorrow. Michigan? Ohio State? Back to the schools that recruited you? One phone call. As a matter of fact, if you want to stay in school here, we’ll pay your way through school. I just don’t know if I want you on my football team.

“I just sat there, not saying a word. Finally, I said, ‘Coach, this is my family. This is my fourth year. If I can’t play here, I don’t want to play anywhere.’ He looked at me and said, ’I’m going to go home and pray about it, and talk to (wife) Mary Harmon about it.’

“Then he said, “Be in my office tomorrow at 9 o’clock and I’ll tell you what I am going to do. It’ll be my decision.” I got up and left.

“That conversation impacted my life. The concept of being ‘committed’ and not ‘content’ is a major part of my testimony today. He wanted people who were totally sold out on the program. He said, ‘Rich, I’ll take people who aren’t the best athletes, but I’ll win with those guys if they are sold out every day.’ He was telling me that he didn’t think he could win with me. It just crushed me.

“So I met him in the parking lot the next morning at six a.m. He got out of the car and slammed me right off the bat. He said, “I thought I told you 9 o’clock!” I came right back at him and said, “I’ll wait.” I figured I didn’t have anything to lose.

“He said, ‘Follow me to my office.’ So I followed him up that steep coliseum stairwell. It took forever; he wasn’t the fastest walker. We got to his office, he closed the door behind us, and said, ‘Mister, if you want to be on this football team, you be on that football field today and we’ll pretend like nothing ever happened. And if you don’t, that’s fine with me. It’s your choice. Now, get out of my office and close the door.’

“I went out to practice that day thinking I’d be way down on the depth chart and would have to work my way back up. Well, I was still the starting inside linebacker, just as he said, like nothing had ever happened. Starting that day, I went from being ‘content’ to being ‘committed.’ I learned how to practice and get better every day. He took a chance on me, because he certainly had 10 guys who could have taken my place.

“All of my friends told me that after I jogged off the field that day, they had the best practice of their entire career at Alabama, because they didn’t know who was next.”