Forgiveness Fridays
This has certainly been an interesting week. Georgia Fans expressed strong feelings about my perceived attack on Coach Mark Richt. I consider this “attack” an aggressive defense of Blair Walsh and nothing more. Anyone that is a regular reader of RTK knows that I respect Mark Richt as a man and a coach. You also know how much I have written about my support of Coach Richt. But does that mean I have to agree with everything he says or does? Or does it mean that if I do disagree, I have to just to keep my mouth shut as some have suggested.
Well, you can forget that. As I said earlier this week, if I’m going to do this blog, I have to be honest and say what I really feel. There are some real problems going on in Athens. I am not privy to any strife that could be contributing to our struggles as a team and/or coaching staff.
If the Dawgs suddenly click and play a complete game, a lot of you will feel differently about things. Winning always cures what ails you the most. But what most of us complain about are the symptoms of the problems in Athens. There is something systemic that has gone awry.
One thing thats important to add is this. I don’t think Blair Walsh has performed his job perfectly. There is always room for improvement. But even when he has kicked perfectly acceptable kick-offs, our coverage has been lacking.
Many Georgia fans have called for firings of certain coaches, while I have not. You will never hear me cry for the amputation of the “withered limb” that failed us last week as some fans do. I just want to encourage the “head” to make it stronger, and not ignore it.
And above all else, don’t blame the toe for what the arms aren’t doing.
CMR has said MANY times that he wants every player to compete for the starting job. I am sure Walsh got that message very clearly. And he has won the job. If Fabris and CMR have someone that can best Walsh put him up there and let them compete with Walsh. If NOT then TAKE the BLAME if your are not satisfied with your poor recruitment choices.
Stop passing the buck and tossing the players under the bus. Be men and coaches and take the responsibility for giving a full scholarship to a young man that they claim they only saw tape of. Hey, don’t we have the money to send scouts to S. Ca to observe…or go to Chris Sailors kicking camps to observe? This is just another indication of poor preparation and coaching.
Kick return coverage is so weak due to coaching efforts not kicking efforts.
Rex, thanks for a thoughtful well researched blog.
Go DAWGS !
10/11/2009 at 7:10 AM
Yes we love our dogs, and because of that show concern, and say what the staff will not , their must be big changes. ESPN stated tonight that Georgia has no offense going for it, no defense going for it, and no special teams, they didn’t know what needed to be done after this Tennessee loss, but said it was rather serious. We are fundamentally an UNSOUND team with “great talent”, say compared to IOWA which is very fundamentally SOUND, with NO stand out players, but is #12 due to good coaching, point taken by ESPN.
10/10/2009 at 8:02 PM
Great blog. I’m still concerned with the terrible “celebration” call on Green last week, and how that might’ve affected our kickoff strategy. Haven’t heard this question asked, but would the strategy have been to simply kick the ball low & straight down the field (hopefully through the end zone as we’d done earlier in the game) if we’d been able to kick from the 30-yd-line? Possibly, since we had to back up fifteen yards, we can’t reach the endzone with the straight-ahead kick; so the coaches thought the best play was to kick toward the sideline, hoping to hem the returner against that sideline & prevent a long return; but we messed up the kickoff formation & had too few players in position, on that side of the field, which allowed the long return & also cost us 5 yards on the penalty.
Just saying: if we’d been kicking off from the 30, maybe we wouldn’t try that type of kick, and maybe the return never would’ve happened.
CHOPDAWG
10/10/2009 at 9:03 AM
Dbalcer, you are going to run out of blogs to read soon, then. Because there won’t be many not asking for Willie, Bobo, and Fabris to be replaced.
You know you’ve had a rough 4 years as a fan when the possibility of losses, as depressing as that is, has the silver lining of “well, at least the more they lose, the sooner we can get better coaches in place.”
What makes me angry about it is the players are giving absolutely everything they have. You can see it on the field. They deserve better.
10/10/2009 at 5:16 AM
Rex,
I thank you for doing your blog and agree with everything that’s you’ve posted concerning the issues at UGA. I do support Coach Richt and don’t want him gone, but I am starting to see him do things that I never thought that I’d see him do. What are these things? How about blaming individual players for poor performance while not accepting responsibility as coaches for doing poor jobs, making excuses as to why we lost a game and making comments that make absolutely no sense whatsoever (like throwing Blair Walsh under the bus for the long kick-off return in the LSU game)!
What I like about this blog is that you say things that so many other fans are thinking and saying. With you being a former player, it legitimizes everything that we, as fans, are talking about because you have been there and we have not. My question to you is, why are the most obvious issues with the football program not obvious to the coaches? Is it because it’s harder to see from the inside what we can so clearly see from the outside? Or do they see the same things and keep it internal? If that’s the case, that’s fine, but I do think that calling out certain players for poor performance is a low blow from their own coaches.
10/09/2009 at 8:56 PM
Rex,
You were and are dead-on accurate. Do not let a few know-nothing morons keep you from speaking your mind. Any true DAWG wants what’s best for the program and an honest assessment of our current station leads any rational observer to one conclusion – we have major problems. Like you, I fear that our HC doesn’t “get it” and will not make obviously needed changes this offseason. He has been absolutely stubborn and ego-maniacal in his refusal to make changes to his staff and approach. His stubbornness is not a virtue. It is a sign of weakness and hubris. If he does not change his approach, his seat will continue to get hotter and hotter (as it should). Nobody is bigger than the program. NOBODY.
Great job Rex. Keep it up. The REAL Dawgnation is behind you! Screw the rest of ‘em.
10/09/2009 at 8:43 PM
Well, put Rex.
Go Dawgs!
10/09/2009 at 6:56 PM
Rex, if you are going to make your strong feelings so public, you have to be prepared for other people’s opinions that don’t necessarily agree with yours, and that your opinions may upset some people.
It’s the nature of the beast in making your strong opinions known. I agree with you in this case. I don’t think CMR should’ve said that Walsh kicked it to the wrong spot. Sounds very “Fulmerish” to me to single out one kid. He has another scholarship kicker…if this one isn’t getting it done, he should put the other one out there and not call a kid out.
10/09/2009 at 2:30 PM
Oh I agree. When I considered whether or not to do this blog, I knew there would be the occasional hot topic and a dissenting voice. That’s fine. But when the dissenting voice becomes a shallow name-caller, unable to muster enough wisdom or intellect to argue a point, it proves that not all Georgia fans are worthy of the name.
10/09/2009 at 2:42 PM
Rex, nobody with even just a bare pulse mentally speaking has ever doubted your unninterrupted supoort for your OWN TEAM. One of the neat things about your blog is that you frame it in terms of being an ole school Dawg like many of us which is great – but at the same time you are always able to put in your own experience applied to the Dawgs’ challenges of today and your own observations from the Glory Yeaqrs to the present.
Question: it doesn’t have to take any skin off of Blair’s nose to let Bogotay kick off at least once per game, does it?
Thanks again.
10/09/2009 at 1:28 PM
No. In fact, I have nothing against Brandon. If he had won the job, so be it. If Blair truly slips up and Brandon wins it the future, so be it. What I got upset with is the notion that Blair was even a major contributor to our coverage woes. I just don’t believe it to be true.
Thanks for your comment.
10/09/2009 at 2:25 PM
Metaphors are great!
10/09/2009 at 12:25 PM
AMEN!
10/09/2009 at 12:06 PM
I think talking about problems is ok but amputations are not good. I agree if you don’t talk then why blog but am so tired of seeing so called fans calling Coach Richt a has been. I don’t understand how they can say that. He is an awesome coach and his teams have been in the top of the SEC and polls. I have not you seen call for the firing of any coach which is one reason I continue to read your blog. I have stopped reading some because of that issue.
GO DAWGS.
10/09/2009 at 11:48 AM