I think the punishment is too harsh for the individual act that Caleb committed. Ultimately, he's guilty of being stupid. However, at some point Mike Adams, Greg McGarity and Mark Richt have to say enough is enough. Ultimately, it stops being about 1 arrest. You have to look at the big picture.
If you're a UGA football player you know that unpaid tickets result in suspended licenses. You also know that suspended licenses result in jail time, and you know that Richt, the administration and the fan base have had just about enough of the arrests. You've been warned that subsequent arrests will be dealt with more harshly.
So you can't be pissed or shocked that you get whacked for two games for essentially being dumb.
Eleven arrest this season is complete and total non-sense. I recognize that there's a MASSIVE disconnect (as Blutarsky called it) between the UGA Administration and the surrounding police force for this to be an issue with Caleb. I also recognize that at many other schools this never results in an arrest. But it doesn't matter. Eleven arrests is eleven arrests. And it's not all paperwork and boys will be boys stuff.
It's already hurting us with recruiting as Bama is using our arrest problem to help sway Crowell. And that's why I care the most.
I also care because I think it speaks to the leadership of the program at the player level. The team needs a gigantic kick in the ass, and it has needed one for a long time. At some point, that kick in the ass has to come from a guy like Shockley, Pollack, Greene, Gilbert, etc. There's a black hole in terms of leadership within the team that's existed since the 2007 season ended.
Don't think so? We were in a four game losing streak without a players only meeting being called. That's incomprehensible to me. As a point of comparison, LSU was 5-0 and had a players only meeting after almost losing a game.
Teams with great leaders have fewer off the field problems, and they win more on the field.
Until our Mark Richt and our Strength and Conditioning program get back into the business of producing real leaders, I don't expect that our on the field discipline or our arrest record will improve. And yes...that's what the S&C program used to brag about the most. Not the size of our players or fictitious 40 times, but the program's ability to develop true leadership.
PWD
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9 comments:
If "come to Alabama and our police won't arrest you when you do something that might get you arrested" is all it takes to sway Crowell then good riddance...
I agree wholeheartedly with your points on leadership, though. The players should be all over each other about all these mistakes hurting the team. It should be an environment where your first thought should be "my teammates are going to be pissed that I let them down" and not "I wonder how many games I'll be suspended for."
Thanks for raising the leadership question. I've been thinking about this for a little while, and it may have been bandied about around here. I'm going to put it out there, though, to see if anyone has any thoughts or is willing to blow it out of the water.
Looking back at that 2007 team, there was a ton of talent on that team, especially Stafford, Moreno, and MoMass on the offensive side of the ball. That team's finish led folks to call for a preseason #1 that led to a three loss campaign (three bad losses, as you'll all remember).
I don't remember there being a lot of leadership on that 2008 team, and then we complained about it in 2009, too. What I'm wondering about is if the staff AND players got mesmerized by the talent on the field and thought that there was no need for a leader to rise up amongst the ranks. And now, three or four years later our upperclassmen never had an example of a leader, so there aren't any folks who saw an example there to fill that void.
The early Richt years saw some strong leadership from Stinchcomb which went down to Pollack and Greene and others that went to Shockley and others. Since 2006, though, it hasn't really been around, and no one has picked up the mantle.
I'm hopeful that someone like AM, who has soldiered through injury and carried this team to the brink of victory a couple of times already, will be able to shoulder the leadership for the coming years. Someone has to step up. If someone doesn't, then there is no one for anyone to learn from.
Go Dawgs.
King is the "victim" of being arrested at the wrong time. In a way, so was Demetre Baker. Any other time, maybe their punishments wouldn't have been so severe.
But, Richt and the Georgia fans are tired seeing these kinds of stories. And suspensions and dismissals seem to be the only way to get the message across to the players that they have better be on their best behavior at all times.
So, I'm fine with the two game suspension.
None of us know anything about "leadership" or the lack thereof on this team. None of us have been in the lockerroom day in day out or on the practice field day in day out.
This is another example of how people draw all sorts of ridiculous conclusions based on nothing but the number of wins and losses. Just because we're losing doesnt mean we dont have any leaders.
How do you know there havent been any players only "meetings"? How do you know Ben Jones hasnt taken somebody by the throat? How do you know Akeem Dent hasnt dressed down the entire defense after a team meeting, with no coaches present? Just because there isnt a "players only meeting" that's been called and revealed to the media (and, thus, to us), doesnt mean there arent leaders on the team taking the bull by the horns, with no urging from the coaches. You dont have to have an announced, contrived, hokey players only "meeting" to have leaders--that's the epitome of form over substance...
In the words of Red Foreman..."You Dumbass!"
Best read on this site in a while now. You can hear the passion and frustration bleeding through! Sad that we can not see the same passion and frustration on the field from this team.
Have you read the Red and Black article today? May shed some possible light into the 2 game suspension.
I think this is a great article. It's clear that our team has lacked leadership for a while now and this isn't the first season of multiple arrests. It's rather sad when you have almost as many arrests as you do touchdowns by this point in the season. I agree that we don't know what goes on in the locker room, and we don't know how the players feel-- but whatever is going on behind closed doors isn't working. So, we beat Tennessee. Congratulations. The previous week we lost to a team that got shut out by a medicore Big 12 team this past Saturday. It's not enough to get angry and win after 4 losses, it's not enough to apologize for stupid mistakes, and it's not enough to push the blame to assistant coaches/head coaches/other players whatever. Whether they want to claim us right now or not we're a part of the SEC and with that comes a sense of power and responsibility that we haven't lived up to in years. Each season has been worse than the season before where everyone proclaimed how awful it was and it couldn't happen again. 8-4 is looking like a blessing at this point isn't it? The only reason we had unexpected success in 2007 was the God given talent of the players. Any decent coaching staff could have taken the 07 and 08 teams to the National Championship. Everyone is all for Richt calling his own plays again and firing Bobo, but I still haven't forgotten that illfated Auburn game that caused him to hire an OC in the fist place. I'm not even sure if it's a leadership problem or the fact that it seems the players (nor the coaches for that matter) have any respect for the school and conference they play for. I won't deny UGA's status as a party school that makes us more susceptible to mistakes, but I fail to comprehend how anyone who has that much responsibility to a team and a school can make those mistakes so easily. It's 4 years of your life that you're devoting to your school and your own career... That's also 4 years of free tuition that as a former out of state student pisses me off that you take for granted just how much this school is giving you. I have never been so embarassed to wear a Georgia shirt around my grad school campus.
As for Steve who thinks Bama is pitching covered up arrests... Bama doesn't have to pitch such a morally flawed campaign for recruits. It just has to pitch it's record. Fairly disciplined (Georgia is the worst for arrests in the COUNTRY) with productivity on the field. Nick Saban came in and in 2 years had them undefeated in the regular season and in 3 years they'd won a National Title (and produced a Heisman Trophy winner). What has Georgia really contributed to SEC Glory as of late? A couple of SEC titles, a Sugar Bowl win against the insanely overrated Hawaii team and a national title win 30 years ago? At this point why would anyone pick to go here over the other SEC schools? Even the LA Times called us out a few weeks ago stating "Every conference has it's weak links for instance the SEC currently tolerates Vanderbilt and Georgia." Their words not mine.
This needs fixed or we're one step away from being the next fall from grace much like Notre Dame (which by the way their stadium is still filled no matter how awful their season and they've won a championship more recent than us!).
I think a suspension for the rest of the year would have been justified.
Suspension would be for being really stupid and irresponsible and shedding more bad light on a program already down on so many fronts.
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