That's Coach McClendon (Image: Hipple)
Thoughts on the various moves:
- John Eason - Moves to Director of Football Operations. Coach Eason took a lot of grief from Dawg fans over the years, but he's a good football man and an undervalued recruiter.
The wide receiver drops that plagued the team intermittently from '01-'06 were often pinned on him by fans. Some of that is probably fair, But let's be honest. Terrence Edwards was dropping passes before Eason got to Athens. Martrez Milner and Tripp Chandler dropping passes at tight end was not his fault. It's also not his fault that Fred Gibson refused to fully develop his considerable gifts.
The SEC career leader in receiving yards played for him, and the WR corp was consistently the least "in the police blotter" group among all positions. He was a steadying influence on the staff, and he's a good person. Other than substitution patterns from '05 thru mid-'07, I don't have any big beefs with him. - Tony Ball - He has around 11 years of experience coaching wide receivers, so we're in knowledgeable hands. Most recently, he spent 7 years coaching WRs at Va. Tech. The VT WR corp wasn't known for blue chip players, but that was true of most VT positions at the time. He'll have more young talent to work with here than he's ever had with A.J. Green, Tavarres King, Rontavious Wooten and potentially Marlon Brown. The VT receivers were known as strong blockers and active / aggressive participants on special teams. Ball was already active in the recruitment of Marlon Brown.
- Bryan McClendon - Coach Richt could've had his pick of WR or Running Back coaches across the country, and he went with 25 year old B-Mac as running backs coach. That's a tremendous endorsement of the guy's potential. It's not a risk free move, but the last time he took a chance on a young guy it was Mike Bobo. Bobo was only two years older than B-Mac when he got the QB role. I'm pretty sure that Coach McClendon has been involved with recruits on campus for several years, and they speak highly of him. I love having a young guy who's hungry to make a name for himself pounding the phones and pavement. Plus, I like bringing fresh young energy to the staff.
- Rodney Garner - A rumor we heard several times last week and Dean Legge confirmed tonight in his "What We're Hearing" note....one of the things that annoys Rodney and many of our assistant coaches is the lack of multi-year contracts and the lack of a pension plan for assistant coaches.
It's common for programs with less stability to pay more than stable programs like UGA. Georgia not being a leader in compensation doesn't worry me. However, not having multi-year deals, competitive retirement packages *and* being a salary laggard isn't a healthy combination. For all the complaining about Rodney's wandering eye, it should be noted that he's come back to UGA three times for less money than he was offered by the other school. We were more competitive across the board financially three weeks ago than we are today because of the compensation explosion at UT, LSU and AU, but this is an issue that the Athletic Board will have to address soon.
15 comments:
I've heard it said by the coaching staff that the drops problem in 2006 was because of the different balls thrown by three different QBs. And if how think about how different the ball would be coming from JT3's arm versus Matty Cannon's, I think it makes sense that the drops diminished when the position stabilized.
Could be wrong, but I think Earl Bennett from Vandy has overtaken Edwards as the top SEC WR.
hobnail,
maybe, but the point is basically the same.
The drops were because he had them catching tennis balls not footballs.
PWD - This is the kind of blog entry we are all looking for! Great Work.
Anon 9:12,
"We" all want different things. The blog used to be much funnier, and I'd prefer to be much lighter. But it's easier to be funny when you're good than not as much.
It's also much harder to make time for more intelligent discussions. That takes longer to write. This blog isn't my full time gig.
That said, I do appreciate the reasonable, rational feedback. It's helpful.
I've got a series of articles that I'm trying to write about '09. If I get about half way through, I'll start publishing them.
PWD
Awesome breakdown!
Re: coaching salaries and compensations, I think it's a shame that there's not some sort of retirement plan or matching plan going on. With the resources that UGA has, we should be watching out for the future of our coaching staff. I'm not too concerned with the lack of multi-year deals (one should assume that under this regime you'll be back even if you screw the pooch one year), but the retirement plan should be a necessity.
Of course I don't know all of the details of the financial package up in Athens, but I think most of here can agree that should be addressed before anything else on the field needs to be addressed.
Ben
Also, I believe I read in David Hale's interview with McClendon earlier in the season that McClendon's father is a coach (high school, I think). So, in addition to his playing days, he has been around coaching for presumably his whole life. I like the occasional promotion from within. Particularly with a young guy who has grown up with the program and can attest to recruits first hand what a football experience at UGA is.
Willie Martinez is still defensive coordinator and DB coach. Our defense sucked and our DBs cannot cover. Can't we get rid of this guy? Can't we send him to some place like Western Carolina, Eastern Kentucky, or the seventh ring of hell? Anyplace would be better than the Georgia sidelines!
As an employee with UGA, aren't the asst. coaches in Teacher Retirement? May not be as good as some other plans, but it's not like they have no plan at all,right?
"Also, I believe I read in David Hale's interview with McClendon earlier in the season that McClendon's father is a coach (high school, I think)"
I take it you arent a lifelong dawg fan...
Willie McClendon was not only a DGD, but he coached under the Ray Goff regime (or umm, maybe we should call it 'era').
I used to see little Bryan McClendon running around when i was at UGA football camp back in the early 90's.
PWD,
Just for your information, I don't think you are giving Tony Ball enough credit for his success as a WR coach at Virginia Tech. Although I completely agree with you in the idea that VT is not at all known for their offenses, I think you should know that they are know for creating NFL wide receivers. Coach Ball has mentored several great wide recievers such as the following that are STILL on NFL rosters: David Clowney (Jets), Andre Davis(Texans), Justin Harper (Ravens), Josh Morgan (49ers), Eddie Royal (Broncos), and Ernest Wilford (Miami Dolphins). How many NFL recievers from UGA are still on rosters? 2 and Hines Ward is one of them. (source: ESPN)
So, I think its a little unfair to belittle VT's NFL recievers when compared to high school blue chip prospects that have never stepped on a college field.
In Coach Ball's hands, I think we will be fine. He is by far my favorite UGA coach, besides Richt of course.
I totally agree with Scott.
Using the words 'Martinez' and 'retirement' in the same sentence is appropriate. IMO, CMR's principled loyalty to a seemingly incompetent DC diminishes the players year round efforts and work to win.
"...the lack of a pension plan for assistant coaches."
Who besides civil servants and the UAW (for now) still have pension plans?
I can only assume the assistant coaches can participate in a 401(k) w/ a match.
But seriously, if you're talking old school pension plans, you're living in a fantasy land multiple decades behind the rest of the contemporary American workforce.
Yes, that statement requires more specific language. Carter is right that they would have 401k/match plan and as full-time employees of the university there's no way they wouldn't have anything at all--everybody gets some kind of retirement benefit and health coverage.
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