Although I was beaten to the punch by mdhenshaw, it bears repeating that Connecticut secondary coach Scott Lakatos has been brought in by Mark Richt and Todd Grantham to oversee the Bulldog defensive backs.
As noted by Kimberley Nash at the Bleacher Report, Coach Lakatos’s Husky secondary was last seen in the PapaJohns.com Bowl holding South Carolina’s Stephen Garcia to 16-of-38 passing for 129 yards, no touchdowns, and an interception. The ‘Dawgs, by contrast, surrendered 313 aerial yards and two touchdowns to Garcia on his 31-of-53 night in Athens in September.
Coach Lakatos, who played his college ball under Paul Pasqualoni, is a 1988 graduate of Western Connecticut who has coached defensive backs at Rutgers and UConn for the last nine years. His ties primarily are to New England---Coach Lakatos coached at seven northeastern schools, including three in the Nutmeg State---but the new Red and Black assistant appears ready to take up this next challenge. Of his hiring, Coach Lakatos said:
I am now very excited to begin our next journey with the University of Georgia. We are excited to become a part of a great university community as well as a nationally respected program and an SEC power.
For all the benefits of having assistant coaches with Southern ties, there is virtue to hiring some staff members who aren’t from around here. Coach Lakatos is a native of New Jersey, the state that produced Knowshon Rockwell Moreno and Kade Weston. His presence on the Georgia staff may well aid in furthering the Georgia tradition of recruiting nationally.
This looks like another quality hire and I am beginning to become enthusiastic about the Bulldogs’ prospects for next fall. In the interim, though, we need to get to work on developing a new nickname for our secondary to replace the "break but don’t bend" moniker with which our defensive backfield was tagged.
I will leave it up to DavetheDawg to determine whether he will put butter on his morning Laka-toast, but, for me, I am hoping Bacarri Rambo leads a Georgia secondary that is Lakatos-intolerant when it comes to surrendering passing yardage.
Your superior suggestions go in the comments below.
Go ‘Dawgs!