We need more of this. (Image: Hipple)
We're about to enter Year 7 of Richt's tenure. From the very first SEC home game when Terrence Edwards dropped the game winner vs. South Carolina to last week's Chick-Fil-A Bowl, the Georgia Bulldogs have been absolutely plagued with game changing and season altering dropped passes.
The talent is there. Reggie Brown, Fred Gibson, Sean Bailey, Mohamed Massaquaoi, and Tony Wilson were all big time, elite recruits pursued by the best programs in college football. Something has to change here for the Dawgs to reach their ultimate potential as a program. Will it? Who knows.
The good news -- Sean Bailey returns next year. His performance in the SEC Championship game in 2005 was amazing. We only lose Mario Raley from this year's WR corp so experience shouldn't be an issue. Incoming recruits Israel Troupe and Walter Hill should help our cause.
Troupe has been described as a game breaker. However, he may have some tough decisions related to a pro baseball career vs. the Dawgs offer to play football. While Hill will probably need a redshirt year to grow into his body as either a TE or WR. Regardless, we have the bodies to overcome this issue.
PWD
See also: Israel Troupe video on HS sports show
13 comments:
PWD - what is your take on the cause & the solution for the drops?
I don't understand why we are still dealing with this - why Richt hasn't solved this tremendous problem yet. What so you think?
Not to cop out, but I'm hardly qualified to propose a solution.
I know some folks say "fire this guy or fire that guy." Hell, I don't care if all our coaches stay for ever.
It just drives me nuts that the same thing is the same problem for so long, and it rarely changes.
I will say that I don't think Tennis balls are the solution.
Paul, can't recall the team, but did you see the facemask covered in masking tape that some coach or other thought was a good idea? I don't know if it worked or not, not remembering what team it was, but I know UGA has to do something to get this working. As you said, with our WR recruting, the passing game should be a strength for us, not something that hamstrings us in big games.
just a thought, but i saw a story on Javon Walker who developed his own tool for catching the ball correctly. He cut a tennis ball in half and put rubber bands on them so he could strap them to the palms of his hands. with the half tennis ball in the way, he was forced to catch every ball with his finger tips. I thought it was pretty inventive, and possibly very effective.
i think our WRs dropsies are more a mental problem than anything else. Just like winning is contagious, drops are contagious too. somehow we've been able to win big with Richt while also dropping a lot of passes.
While I'd have no problem with no Eason - I agree with hdaddy - that it is mental more than anything right now. The talent is more than adequate to be a + core for us in the conference.
You look at the AU game and the last drive of the GT game and you wonder where this is at times like last Saturday night.
The problem IS coaching, and specifically Eason not being held accountable for the performance of the receivers. As long as Eason is the receivers coach, Dawgs will drop passes. Definition of insanity is doing the same thing each year (coaching by Eason) and expecting different results. How many other programs would keep the same WR coach if he averaged 5-6 drops a game? But I agree with the article - IF Dawgs ever get around to solving this problem it will probably lead to a National Championship.
I'm not ready to say it's coaching yet. Don't forget that one of our recent graduates, Reggie Brown, has emerged as one of the NFL's top young receivers.
It's mostly mental, and it's actually improved as the season went on. I think if you compare our drops per game to other teams, it's probably not out of the ordinary.
everyone drops passes. heck, look at who's leading the pros in drops:
1. T.Owens 17
2. D.Jackson, T.Williamson, A.Johnson 11
5. S.Smith 10
all pro-bowl players (williamson the exception). all KNOW how to catch and it's their job to catch them...but yet they all drop passes.
but all of them also had qb problems or bad qb play, off-the-field problems, injury problems, etc.
its easy to blame the coaches, but guys drop passes. confidence is a big part of it - they obviously know how to catch because they show flashes of it. but when they catch, they'll catch everything, when they drop the drops come in bunches.
interesting side note, here's some former dawg receivers in the nfl, and the number of drops they had:
AFC
T2.Randy McMichael 8
T10.Ben Watson 6
NFC
5.Reggie Brown 9
16.Mack Strong 6
apparently hines ward is not dropping too many. :)
All of those Dawgs in the NFL have a different WR coach, too!
Reggie Brown was not near as good a receiver at Georgia as he is now.
Watch receivers of other teams and they go after it - we look lazy & unskilled. Eason needs to go!!!
At one point early in the season, our WRs were dropping 30-40% per game (depending on the player)
That's not the same as TO dropping 17 of 85 or Jackson dropping 11 of 62.
They've improved since then. But geez.
First time poster here. I followed the link from Dawgbone.net. I've had this debate myself with some friends and I'm pretty confident it's mental. Tennis balls, blinders aren't going to work. I propose that a coach or a fan put together a high light tape of receivers making catches...easy ones, acrobatic ones etc. Players watch it before the games and visualize successful catches. Visualization works better than threatening punishment. (example: in golf...could you hit a fairway easier after watching video of it successfully done repetively or if someone said "if you miss you run"?
Howard Twilley used to hold two footballs out laterally from each side, drop them, and then catch them with his fingertips on the way down. He would do this thousands of times a day every day for years. By the time he reached the pros they said he had some of the softest hands in the business. "Soft hands" are actually hands with muscular development of the fingers. Those muscles can be trained like any other muscle in the body.
maybe coach eason should throw wrenches at them. as Patches O'houlihan said "If you can catch a wrench, you can catch a ball." or something like that.
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