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November 1, 2009

So...about those uniforms


It didn't work that day in Jax either.
(Image: Andrew Davis Tucker, ABH 11/1/98)

Preface: This is NOT my biggest issue from this weekend. If you wrote a list, this would probably be 20th on the list of 20 things. But it's topical and timely and I've already written about #1. But here's my thoughts anyway.

Blutarsky nailed this one. Well, technically Gator Ryan Stamper nailed it when he said, "That’s a bunch of fake juice."

You had an entire year to get mad about Meyer's timeouts. You had two weeks to prepare and get focused for your bitter rival. You had the excitement of playing the #1 team in the country.

And you felt that it would be a wardrobe change that would tip the scales in our favor? When they came out in their Halloween costumes, I was totally deflated. Because I knew that meant the coaching staff felt we needed a trick to give us an edge.

You know what gives real confidence?
Being prepared.


Mark Richt puts a great deal of emphasis on helping our players become good men, good fathers and good citizens. Aside from our inability to locate a nearby DMV office for drivers license related issues, he does a pretty good job. Michael Lemon's problems were an obvious glaring exception, but generally speaking Richt should be commended because he sincerely does care about his players beyond simply football.

But this is one area where he's doing them a huge disservice in preparing them for the real world and giving them a lesson about sports that will most certainly serve them well beyond the arena. And that's about preparation.

You want to be a better public speaker? Get more prepared. Know your material inside and practice your delivery. You want to be a better negotiator? Think about what your opponent or client wants/doesn't want and how you can handle his objections before the meeting. You want to be a better salesman? Know your prospect's business inside and out before making the first call.

You don't win in business by going shopping. There is no store that sells "Lucky Ties." Your lucky tie becomes lucky after you close a big deal. Not before you close your deal.

We didn't lose because we wore black outfits. We lost because we weren't prepared for the Gators. Maybe we lost because they are more talented. Maybe, but they aren't THAT much more talented. More importantly, there are teams with less talent than Georgia who gave them much tougher games.

If we win, no one cares about the unis. I only care because it screams desperation. It doesn't scream confidence. And this team needs confidence much more than it needs fake juice.

The other thing that erks me on this one. I think special uniforms should be worn by special teams. You beat the Gators, you can have a blackout against Auburn. You get a Sugar Bowl birth, you can have a blackout against Hawaii. You come into the Bama game undefeated with ESPN Gameday in attendance, then sure...a blackout is fine.

But 4-3 teams shouldn't get special treatment. They should just work harder. And by team, I mean coaches and players.

See Also:
-- You're missing the point of the uniforms - HacksawDawg (DawgVent $)

PWD

42 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen,

The moment this team ran on to the field with those highschool uniforms, I knew the game was up. If we spent half as much time in preparation as we do trying to make fashion statements we might be alright. Totally depressed and embarassed.

Anonymous said...

Lost interest the second I saw Texas Tech's uniforms run oh the field. Stupid, irrelevant gimmick. And we still don't tackle well.

The passive-aggressive bullsh*t with the fans has got. to. stop. Someone get Richt to watch pressers from Fulmer's and Tuberville's last years. See anything similar, coach?

Andy said...

I just want to know why CMR and crew thought the unis would give some extra juice?

I honestly do not understand how a grown man that makes a helluva lot more money than I do can actually believe in that nonsense? Extra juice? WHAA? I would be fired if I pulled something like that - though, I'm not calling for his head.

That uni-thing has bothered me all day; I just don't get it. I would be fired if I pulled a stunt like that at my job, and I would know going into it that this could mean my job.

So, I just don't know why he did it, or why he/they even thought it was a good idea, but I do want to know what that was about. Other than juice...

Anonymous said...

I posted the following earlier today, but the message needs to get out. Go you purple britches!

Claude Felton has given the following information for fans to "get jacked" and coordinate fashion with the team for the remainder of the season:

-11/7 vs. Tenn Tech = "The Grape Out"
purple unies, purple pants, purple helmets.
-11/14 vs. AU = "Now You See Me, Now you don't"
camo jerseys, silver britches, camo helmet
-11/21 vs UK = "Orange Crush"
Orange helmets, orange jerseys, silver britches
-11/28 @ Tech = "White Lightning"
white jersey, white helmet (no logo), white pants.

Anonymous said...

I didn't believe this would be possible, but those uniforms managed to taint the 2007 victory over Auburn.

Black ain't beautiful.

Will said...

I immediately texted my friends in the rest of the stadium (we didn't sit together) and pointed out that this was another uniform we'd never see again.

Mad JaxDawg said...

The uni move was so Donnan-esque circa 1998 Florida.

So we beat them in '97 and Donnan breaks out those stupid black pants and has f*cking Bill Goldberg lead us out and Florida proceeds to score three consecutive TDs in about 7 minutes.

GAME OVER.

Fast forward 11 years later AND WE ARE STILL PULLING THE SAME PATHETIC SHIT!

ENOUGH!

Either beat this team Mark Richt or get the hell out!

No more excuses. I cannot believe I am saying the same sh*t I said when Goff and Donnan were our coaches.

Anonymous said...

Although I don't like the uniforms, I don't necessarily agree entirely with your post. Your entire post is working under the assumption that the coaching staff wasn't working that hard/to their ability on the game and instead are having discussions on how to give us a boost with unis. I bet this was a 15 minute conversation a week prior.

I think the bigger issue isn't the jersies, rather the fact that we lost in every aspect of the game. If the coaches truly gave their best effort, and once again we lose by a ton... that is the issue.

The Watch Dawg said...

Oh, jeez... ligten up. I liked the uniforms. They meant nothing in regards to winning or losing. They looked pretty cool. And besides, when people are watching the highlights of the 2009 Gators season, maybe they won't notice that the guys in black helmets and black pants were the Georgia Bulldogs.

Whining about the uniforms = lame, and and easy talking point for the discontent. I'm not happy about the loss either, and I've got a host of stuff to talk about. None of it involves the uniforms.

The Watch Dawg said...

Lost on all of you seems to be the simple fact that football is supposed to be FUN. The uniforms were a way of making it more fun. So what? Get over it.

Unknown said...

WatchDawg,

You know what else is fun?

Winning.

Shopping is fun for girls. Winning football games is fun for boys.

There is no WAY that we were prepared to play that game, and that's why we lost. I'm not saying that we lost because they spent their prep time shopping.

I'm saying they weren't prepared and Meyer's bunch was. And that's why they won and we lost.

And we didn't bring out the unis because they were fun. They did it for Juice. Which is stupid.

JaxDawg said...

Watch Dawg,
the point, which you may have missed, is that real programs don't have to rely on gimmicks and tricks to get their players fired up or to encourage playing hard against a team that had WON THE PAST 16 OF 19 GAMES.

Bama, USC, PSU, USC, TX, OK - not a single traditional power program has ever relied on uniform trickeration to inspire their teams. They are above that and for good reason.

I desire is that we NEVER abandon our silver britches and red helmets. We are better than that.

Boogers said...

PHEWWWIIEEEEE
If you would have won..you would have called Sir Richt a genius for doing such a clever act to hype up your team...like stated in several posts above..keep bitching about the Unis and don't focus on your real problems...we will just sit back and continually beat your ars....

GO GATORS

Andy said...

Fun? If you want to have fun, that's fine; but, I don't think it's fun to play dress-up when we're 4 and 3 going into it, and now 4 and 4 after.

If football was fun, I might still be playing. From what I remember, getting all-Hell-knocked-out at 8 in the morning when it's 96 degrees in July IS not fun - it's time for pansies like me to go home and get a paper route.

Maybe that's just me, I don't know. . .

TDawg said...

I have to say that I agree with The Watch Dawg - complaining about how lame you thought the uniform change was is kinda lame in and of itself. Personally, I like when we switch things up.
But we all know what ails our Dawgs this season isn't even about what their wearing. I was hoping that the switchup would help mentally shake our boys awake just by virtue of it being something different (in some kind of left brain v right brain way), but unfortunately it felt more like they hit the snooze button and went back to sleep.

Unknown said...

TD,

"I was hoping that the switchup would help mentally shake our boys awake just by virtue of it being something different"

Why do we need to do that?

Why can't wanting to beat the ass of someone you hate who is ranked #1 be enough?

Anonymous said...

Watch:
There are countless threads to vent about talent, coaching, etc. I appreciate this post hi-liting the silliness that our coaches arr using. Of course it's not the reason we lost, but it's symptomatic of a staff up a creek without a paddle trying to win a speed boat race.

Re: fun
Winning is fun. You compete to win. These kids want to win and I doubt they care what color ensemble they have. But this wasn't dreamed up by the players. The coaches thought this up. Grown men making hugecmoney thought this would cause a team to play better? It's worse than I thought

D.N. Nation said...

I remember back in '05, when Florida wore those ridiculous orange-on-just-one-sleeve jerseys, that they did it for "juice" or whatever. I knew then, even though they beat a Shockley-less Georgia, that those guys were completely toast in the division. Which they ended up being.

Anonymous said...

You know who loves to mix up the unis?

Clemson.

Nuff said.

Boogers: I don't think you'd have any fan over the age of 23 saying the unis was cool. The red helmets are too revered. We looked like (and played?) like damn Grambling.

Jon Gruden '10 said...

PWD- you think us not being prepared falls on the coaching staff.. you said we werent as prepared as meyers bunch.

you should use this RICHTS bunch wasnt as prepared as meyers..

you are worse than brett favre with this flip flopping, you call me dumb for saying that richts job should be in jeopardy, but then here you are critical of him..

and dont say, it was only 1 game.. we havent been prepared for a big game since the fla in 07..

Im with watchdawg here, the uniforms didnt make a lick of difference, it is a fun thing, i however thought they looked dumb.. but who cares, we had the same issues we've had for well over a year..

that falls on richt.. its his job to fix the problems and he is not doing that

S.E. Dawg said...

PWD,
I do believe you're in the ballpark. You have to EARN THE RIGHT to play in special uniforms. Until that happens they need to stay in mothballs. When the team has it's swagger and can back it up then break out the special uniforms.

I also hope CMR is praying really hard on changes to the staff. He needs to sacrifice the few for the many, few being certain staff members and the many being the program, players and the fans. But any way you slice it change is needed.

Anonymous said...

I cannot believe that there is actually a UGA fan who would try to find a way to defend those abominations we wore on Saturday.

Besides the fact that they looked like absolute ass-crack, PWD has eloquently explained the so many reasons why wearing those things is unacceptable.

I bet there will not be 80,000 fans in Sanford on Saturday. When the bottom line starts getting affected, changes will be inevitable.

Anonymous said...

We looked and played like an XFL team.

Anonymous said...

Coach Schtick.

The guy is a complete joke to people outside of Dawg nation.

Real talk.

DrummerDawg said...

The best part about losing Saturday is that we won't ever have to see those uniforms again. The black jerseys against AU in '07 were different: they were a special, one-time event that triggered an unbelievable response from the team and the crowd that afternoon (still my favorite memory at Sanford).

But Saturday's jersey change just felt like a desperate gimmick to spark the team from a coach that's beginning to feel pressure from supporters and the media. I'm not saying Richt is feeling pressure in the sense that he's on the hot seat for his job, but it seems to me that he's starting to panic a little due to fan reaction of his team not living up to the standards that he has set for the program.

I can't say exactly why we are struggling to be competitive in certain games this year, because I only have a small view of program -- that is, I only know what I see on the field on Saturdays. We didn't lose because of the jerseys. But we weren't going to win because of them either. It's a tradition: we wear the silver britches. That's who we are, it's what we do. We've won championships in them and I hope that we continue to wear them with pride.

Saturday, I simply watched a team that was outcoached on defense. The first couple of UF drives really exposed just how off we were. It wasn't really because of poor tackling. We just couldn't seem to call a play that matched their scheme, resulting in some incredibly wide open Gator receivers. Later in the game, we watched Tebow run in a TD with no one around him once he made it past the offensive line.

We had our share of offensive woes, but we were able to move the ball at times. The offensive struggles really came when the game's outcome was more or less already determined. It was just another week that made me think: we have so much talent on defense, why aren't we cutting it? We had two weeks to prepare, and we had available film of teams that defended the Gators well. Yes, UF is probably a more talented team. But the talent level isn't that imbalanced.

I don't like saying I people need to be let go, but we have too much defensive talent to be often torn about by other SEC offenses. Yes, we played good D against Vandy and LSU, but what happened against USC (excluding Rennie's game-saving play at the end), ARK, UT, and UF? We're fortunate the offense and STs played tremendously in the two wins of that bunch games. From my perspective, it's time for a change of coaching on defense.

But I'm merely going by the results on the field, because that's really all I get to see.

Muckbeast said...

This is how I feel about "special unis":

> The other thing that erks me on this one.
> I think special uniforms should be worn by
> special teams. You beat the Gators, you can
> have a blackout against Auburn. You get a
> Sugar Bowl birth, you can have a blackout
> against Hawaii. You come into the Bama game
> undefeated with ESPN Gameday in attendance,
> then sure...a blackout is fine.

I love the idea of doing fun, different stuff with the uniform. 1 or 2 games a year max. It is fun for the fans, fun for the players, and makes the school look fun to recruits.

But you gotta earn it. It is that simply. Being 4-3 with multiple chokes already is not "earning it."

jlossanto said...

Hey, come on. Grambling did very well against Florida.

Anonymous said...

In order to evaluate the coaching staff vs. the player's performance, what do you think the outcome would have been if the georgia and florida coaching staffs switched teams? The Florida team coached by UGA coaching staff and the Georgia team coached by the florida coaching staff.

I personally don't think the outcome would have been much more different

ChicagoDawg said...

If I had to make a list of the top 1,000,000 problems with this season/team -- the uniforms would not be on the list. That is, until we decided to rip off Grambling and looked completely ridiculous in front of the entire country. The idea of some that this is harmless fun for the kids is B.S. 18 & 19 year olds would like to do a lot of things that are just harmless fun, but that does not mean they should be allowed to do them. This team needs to understand the hard lesson in life that work and performance come first and then comes the time for fun. They need to be singularly focused on the fundamentals of performance and until they are performing to the best of their ability, on a consistent basis, things like black helmets with red facemasks are a complete and utter distraction.

I have never questioned CMRs judgment on leadership until this weekend. Not to over state this, but he HAD to have realized that this would be viewed as silly, desperate and likely to be ridiculed as such -- especially if they lost. So, when he had all of the other issues to sort out with this team, this is the message that he sent -- let's switch up the uniforms. Strange.

Anonymous said...

Who freaking cares about the uniforms? You're spending way too much time and energy on something that utterly does not matter one way or the other. I have lots of problems with what's gone on this year, and i have significant issues with the staff, but the uniform choice (a decision that Richt probably took 15 seconds to make) aint real high on my list. Did you think it "meant the coaching staff felt we needed a trick to give us an edge" going into the blackout game against Auburn?
If you think we are the only team that uses "gimmicks" (or "fake juice"), you are sorely mistaken---even Florida--recall the offseason 188 sit-ups and pushups to remind the Gators of Knowshon's big day? UT wearing black and requesting to wear orange at Bama? Penn State whiteouts? "Enter Sandman" for Va Tech's entrance? Big fat gimmicks, and those kinds of things happen all the time).
Let's quit all the pseudo-psychology about what "message" the uniforms sent or didnt send, because that is all a bunch of nonsense.
Bottom line: No point in discussing the paint scheme on a disabled ship--let's talk about the gaping hole and how to patch it up and who exactly can get it done. We need to play better and coach better and I don't give a damn what we're wearing when we do and neither should anybody else.

Will said...

I think essentially the problem is that our team doesn't care the same way about this game that we do. No question, they don't like losing, but reading Moore and Owens comments on Twitter following the game convinced me that this game means miles and away more to the fans than it ever has to the players.

Richt has to pump them up because playing the #1 ranked Gators with a chance to deny them the MNC isn't enough for enough of them to make a difference.

Pathetic.

Rick said...

Guys, we're not Grambling. Cuz they're 5-3 right now. :-(

Anonymous said...

every strength CMR has as a coach leads me to believe he would be a great preacher. Give up coaching, Mark. Your true calling is in the clergy, because you sure don't know how to prepare or motivate a football team anymore.

the magic is gone.

Anonymous said...

Nobody is making fun of those horrible jerseys that Tenn brought out. Thats what happens when you win. If UT had lost, then everybody would have been on Kiffen for another dumb decision.

Anonymous said...

Why are we UGA fans so dumb??We didnt have those black uniforms on the last 17 out of 20 years against Florida.Props to CMR for bringing them out..Its a great recruiting tool for us.People talking bad about those black hats remind me of some grumpy old men!Change is good and it was past due.Nobody would be saying nothing if we won the game.I hope to see those black hats again.Uniforms have nothing to do with performance.Fire Willie and Mike Bobo asap.

Muckbeast said...

We need to new, qualified, talented coaches at:

Defensive Coordinator.
Offensive Coordinator.
Special teams.
Strength and Conditioning.

Our defense is terrible. Our offense is predictible. Our special teams rot. And our players are clearly outconditioned and under strengthed against similar quality programs.

Anonymous said...

It is NOT about the uniforms!

Anonymous said...

My first thought when they ran out on the field was, OMFG we look like Grambling.

The upside is that we will never see those uniforms again.

My brother sent me a text at the beginning of the game saying, "Somebody needs to reintroduce Richt to the University of Georgia Bulldogs. We wear red, we play defense, we run the ball and we DON'T DANCE!"

I agree 100%

kevin said...

Desperation is the key word here. That's what this whole move smacks of. I never thought I would see Mark Richt act desperate. He's always so calm and in control. He's great about not letting things get too out of balance whether things are going bad or going great. That's why this bothers me so much. When it comes to penalties and discipline issues he has already said he doesn't know what else to do. Perhaps Florida is so much better than us.......again.......that he doesn't know what to do about this either.

Perhaps he has lost this team. And that would be a shame because Richt can do great things in these kids' lives. But right now he and his staff are just one disappointment after another when it comes to play on the field.

Sam (my actual name) said...

Fire everyone! Fire the water girl!

Wait, is she still there? Maybe that is the missing element.

I like the uni changes within reason. As someone noted, you beat UF, you get a special uni the next game or if you are honoring a past team for an anniversary (like my beloved red pants to honor the 1980 national title).

Gruden? I still say give it up.

Chris Peterson? The track record on former Boise coaches in the big time is not that great. Nutt has had some monumental collapses. Koetter did not last long at Arizona State. Hawkins has been a disaster at CU (I live in Colorado so I keep tabs on CU). Peterson might be different.

Let's get a new DC at least and reassign some duties. Also someone needs to remind Searels of how to coach or get new linemen.

Normaltown Mike said...

kevin: agree it was move of desperation, but the on-side kick against UF last yr was the first sign (for me) that CMR didn't believe his team could stop the turds. Yes, uniforms can be fun to mix up, but not before you've earned anything. The 2007 blackout was the players idea. Not the coaches. The 2009 "Grambling Out" was the coaches idea. These are grown men making huge money. And this is what they thought would "juice" the players? Its worse than I thought.

Sam: CMR's wife Katherine is the water girl. So I guess if we fire CMR, she would probably go too.

For a guy that seemed to have his hand on the pulse of bulldog nation, he now looks like a complete outsider. If he starts challenging fans to "come down to the Butts-Mehre building", I won't be shocked. I don't see the axe falling this yr, even if we go 1-3 down the stretch. But without some coaching change (even a minor one) and if he loses to 3 of our 4 primary rivals this and next year, he's gone.

Adams may be an a$$hole, but he'll throat punch somebody if they aren't meeting his standards.

Anonymous said...

Ya'll are a joke at UGay!

 
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