When I walk thru the UGA coaches offices nowadays, I almost need to request name tags to match up names with faces. In the last two years, there has been so much turnover to the extent that only two guys are holdovers from 2013—Bryan McClendon and John Lilly.
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Interestingly, nobody has been fired during this time. Head coaching opportunity for Mike Bobo brought about his taking line coach Will Friend with him to Colorado State. Todd Grantham and Tony Ball accepted opportunity at Louisville and LSU, respectively. Scott Lakatos retired from coaching, and Kirk Olivadotti returned to the Washington Redskins.
[su_spacer size=”40″]Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, football coaching staffs make different impressions. It doesn’t matter a staff’s energy, intellect and inventive savvy—they will be evaluated on their ability to win football games. Even with losing valuable assistants, I, nonetheless feel that Mark Richt has assembled his best staff since he came to Georgia in 2001. This takes into account coaching AND recruiting. Time will tell if this is a correct assessment.
[su_spacer size=”40″]There is a new modus operandi these days with the addition of auxiliary staff in the form of 15 quality control and other assistants having been added to the staff. There is more recruiting information being churned out, all of which requires auxiliary personnel working non-stop each week. It smacks of ridiculousness that high school kids actually keep count of emails and text messages. But they do. Which means, to make sure you keep pace, you have to address the real world circumstance. You gotta email, within the rules, as much as your opponents do.
[su_spacer size=”40″]While I miss my old friends who have moved on, I do like the refreshing atmosphere I find when I wander about the current coaches offices. There is an air of confidence that Georgia can compete for championships. That actually is nothing new, but there seems to be a certain buzz in the air when you walk the halls these days.
[su_spacer size=”40″]The new staff is big on the recruiting potential in our state. They see limitless opportunity and conclude that high school football in the state of Georgia is as good as it is anywhere–better than most states. They are buoyed by the alumni support. They like it when they travel the state and see all those mailboxes with the Georgia “G.” “Remember,” says Jeremy Pruitt, defensive coordinator, “I coached at Alabama, but you can’t find more advantages than what you find at Georgia.”
[su_spacer size=”40″]Winning aids and abets recruiting and vice versa. The consensus is that Georgia has a tough challenge this year when it comes to personnel across the board. Next year, the forecast is that there should be more talent and more depth, hopefully, a break-out year.
[su_spacer size=”40″]This year’s schedule is quite challenging, although it is nice to have two tough SEC opponents, South Carolina and Alabama, playing between the hedges. There are never any guarantees, and playing Tennessee in Knoxville after Alabama will be one of the greatest challenges a Mark Richt team has ever had.
[su_spacer size=”40″]It was the Volunteer’s great coach Gen. Robert Neyland who always said, you never schedule two tough opponents back-to-back. In his day, he could manipulate his schedule. No coach can do that today.
If you want to know what makes Nick Saban so successful, consider that he is probably a better recruiter than he is a coach. This is not to take away from his astute coaching ability, but nobody in the SEC in the last ten years has enjoyed more depth across the board than Alabama.
[su_spacer size=”40″]What General Neyland was saying about scheduling is that it is tough to get your team ready emotionally to play a peak game on back to back weeks. Your team is just not going to be sharply competitive on successive weekends. That is why Saban has the best record in our league lately. He has enough depth to win when his team has an off day. That is where Georgia wants to be. I believe Mark Richt has the staff to give him that advantage. This year, however, he will have to get by on coaching and a few breaks.