Like the retirements of Michael Jordan and Floyd Mayweather Jr mine won’t last very long…OK it’s a lot more like James Harrison’s. But I’ll be taking the next week off to pursue my dreams of living on an all-liquid diet for the Kentucky game and in preparations for the Florida game. The chances of columns and podcasts are extremely low but the tweets are definitely still in play. Here’s the gameplan. (more…)
After a winning week in the SEC last week the Football Jesus is confident he’ll keep the streak going with his picks this week.
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Georgia Men’s Tennis Coach Manny Diaz joins me to discuss last years improbable NCAA tournament run and the new players who hope to lead Georgia back to titletown.
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It’s here, it’s live, it’s Georgia football and I’m a little late. Nod to the networks for another 12:00 start leaving me without time between radio and kickoff. Hence, no pregame notes.
Georgia brilliantly blows a timeout 46 seconds into the game on a second down play. Defensively. Against Vandy. Ummm…? Then give up a 26 yard pass play but end up forcing a punt. That’s way too much to happen when I’m running late. Come on fellas.
Woooooo, Murray finally hits Kris Durham in stride after a pretty pump fake fools two defenders. 55 yard gain. Beautiful.
WOW after an incomplete pass Georgia lines up and takes another timeout. Evidently second-down plays are a bit scary today. Yikes.
Do Georgia realize you only have three timeouts per half? Because they just used another one. There’s 9:44 to go in the first quarter. #confused.
Murray misses a couple of open guys and Georgia settle for a 3-0 lead courtesy of Blair Walsh.
Christian Robinson returns a fumble all the way back for a score. Problem is, it was an incomplete pass. Student section chants something about a bull but the call was correct, receiver never had possession. Vandy punts to Logan Gray. On a related note, this is turning out to be the longest first quarter in the history of quarters.
AJ Green just dropped a pass. More confused now than when Georgia used all three timeouts after 5 minutes. It leads to a punt which took a lucky roll all the way down to the 4-yard line. SOMEHOW Ty Frix picks up a personal foul so it comes out to the 18. Extraordinarily lackluster performance thus far for the Dawgs.
3rd time today Vandy’s had a wide-open receiver down field. Getting ridiculous.
Georgia defense looks like they’ve had enough. Couple of big hits including a sack from Justin Houston which forces a punt. Georgia takes over at the 27.
Washaun Ealey busts out the first big run of the season, a 58 yarder down to the 15. Carlton Thomas follows big Ben Jones down into the end zone on the following play for an awesome 10-0 lead. 2 plays, 73 yards, 45 seconds. Boom!
Vanderbilt appear to have taken the challenge to under perform the underwhelming Dawgs and snap the ball into the endzone for a Georgia safety. #Doh! 12-0 Dawgs. By the way, it’s still the first quarter.
Georgia run the same play that gained them 55 yards with Kris Durham. This time, Vandy doesn’t fall for it so Murray scampers for 12. No big deal. End of the first. Big deal.
Picturesque drive from Georgia with shades of last years domination over Georgia Tech. Thomas and Ealey are running all over Vanderbilt and Murray caps it off with a touchdown to Kris Durham. 19-0.
Another beaut from Georgia. They’re running the ball at will, over 150 yards in the first half, and they appear to be running out the clock (which is very kind considering the first quarter). With 22 seconds left, the have to settle for another field goal to go up 21-0. AJ Green had a couple of shots at scoring, though one was ruled incomplete much to Green’s dismay and the other was well defended.
Georgia picks up right where they left off with two big plays. Kris Durham catches a floater over three defenders and somehow AJ Green found himself wide open across the middle of the field and takes it 38 yards for the touchdown. It’s amazing how one player has completely changed the offense for Georgia. Fun to watch. 29-0 Dawgs.
The Georgia offense can’t seem to do any wrong. Durham is wreaking havoc all over the field with big play after big play. He’s got 112 yards (compared to Vanderbilt’s 76) and a touchdown.
Tavarres King gets Georgia inside the ten with a(nother) big catch and Carlton Thomas flies into the end zone for his second score. Pretty sure I can hear a fat lady somewhere. 36-0 Dawgs.
Sanders Commings gets his second pick of the season on the 32 yard line. Georgia is teeing off on Vanderbilt, firing on all cylinders. Ealey gets on the board by leaping over the O-line. 43-zip. #Boom.
Hutson Mason is getting loose on the sideline. Looks like we’ll see a lot of second string in the fourth quarter which pretty much means I’m going to wrap things up. I’ll report anything crazy, but Georgia’s taking this one to the bank.
Well, that was fun! Georgia finally proves me wrong in a good way, displaying a semblance of offensive prowess and a defense that looked like they knew how to tackle. It’s really amazing what blocking and tackling can do in practice for a team accused of being timid by it’s head coach. But just as Georgia seems to take a step forward and get in the win column, Caleb King shoots them in the foot and gets arrested, bringing Georgia’s tally to eleven (thus far) and the frustration level of Coach Richt to an all-time high. Never before have I seen Richt end a press conference early following a series of one or two word answers about discipline problems. But somehow, I think these two issues are related. Arrests haven’t been a part of Richt’s entire tenure. They’ve been a recent development taking place over the last few years. We didn’t hear about that during the Pollack and Greene era and for whatever reason it became more of a story/issue during the Stafford/Moreno era. Which is the exact same time Georgia stopped hitting as much in practice. (more…)
The Football Jesus looks to get the free picks back to their winning ways in the SEC.
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Coach Fox kicks off today’s Heatin’ Up discussing the upcoming basketball season which gets underway for the Dawgs this Friday for their first practice. Unfortunately my recorder filled up midway through Coach Richt’s press conference so I didn’t get all of that nor any of the players (twice as bad because Trey Thompkins and Gerald Robinson were also available). Richt got a little testy today when being asked about the discipline issues and even ended his press conference early for the first time since I’ve been going to Tuesday pressers.
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KLSU Sports Director Jason Templet joins the show to break down the SEC from top to bottom including power rankings, top players and SEC Championship predictions in the most thunderous podcast in Heatin’ Up history.
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It’s garbage time in this football game for the Dawgs now. They are killing the clock as there is now 4:19 left in the game. The Dawgs have played a really solid game. They’ve won the turnover battle and had the ball in Tennessee territory numerous times. This game was a much needed hiatus from the 4 game losing streak that had plagued Mark Richt’s team. Georgia will go to 2-4 on the season.
GEORGIA WINS THE GAME 41-14 OVER TENNESSEE. …exhale dawg fans…the losing streak is over.
Sitting at 1-4, with bad losses to Mississippi State and Colorado, it’s easy to provide reasons for why Coach Richt should be fired. The new defense that Richt chose to go with hasn’t been any improvement over last years, the offense has been unimaginative (aside from one small play by AJ Green) and even last years strength, special teams, appears to have taken a step back.
A lot of times, with coaches as successful as Coach Richt, people will stick to what’s taken them to the top. Richt has won two SEC titles, 3 SEC East titles and owns a 7-2 bowl record: why change now? But Richt isn’t taking his job forgranted and isn’t taking his criticism lightly. I mentioned the defense before, and while it hasn’t had the desired affect Bulldog nation has hoped, switching schemes takes at least a year to get going. Nick Saban seems to be the poster child for doing everything right in the coaching world but people seem to forget that installing the same scheme Richt is attempting to pull off led him to a 7-5 season in year one. How can we honestly expect more from Richt when defense is top priority in the SEC? Richt has also switched up his recruiting tactics. Initiating a “Dream Team” strategy, Richt is going back to locking down the state of Georgia and focusing on keeping the talent in state, rather than watch Saban and Urban Meyer pick pocket the region. Finally, Richt let on that this weeks practice indicated a(nother) change in philosophy. Richt has put his players in pads and hitting each other three times this week. Not only has Richt never had pads on a Monday, he’s never had players hitting each other 3 times in a week. In his press conference on Tuesday, Richt talked about this change, saying the team needed to get better at blocking and tackling and the best way to do that was blocking and tackling. Richt got away from this train of thought when he began the season in 2007 with around 30 injured players. But no more will Richt’s boys be pushovers. Better to be hard and hurt and soft and healthy (See our offensive line).
So yes, there is some merit to hiring a new coach. But I would rather have a coach who’s won in the SEC, humble enough to admit when he’s wrong and make changes for himself. In speaking with current and former players, I know they all have his back. So maybe it’s time we do also.
After a horrendous week last week, my record is down to 10-9-1, though still above .500 unlike the Dawgs. This weeks lines are much more favorable and I’m feeling confident about rebounding (red flag!). (more…)
