Offense, special teams, and especially defense contributing to a spectacular meltdown…now where have I seen this before? Once – hey, it happens. Twice – hm. Three or four times in a season? Trouble.

The best minds of the Bulldog nation are already hard at work figuring out the why of the 2008 season. Was it players? Sure…we’ve been down that road. Was it coaches? Most fans sure seem to think so, and they’ll be disappointed to learn that Richt expects no changes on the staff. Was it injuries? Sure, they contributed, but injuries didn’t have much to do with the problems that showed up (again) in the Tech game.

When such problems show up time after time, there are usually deeper things going on, and Richt admitted as much on Sunday.

“I’m not sure we tackled enough [in practice this year],” Richt said. “We had so many injuries early on in fall camp … that we were more cautious than we had been in the past in terms of live tackle-to-the-ground drills. And in hindsight I think we missed that.”

I doubt that will be the last area Richt will identify to revisit during the offseason. This 2008 team was operationally shaky in many more areas. Penalties were frequent and costly. Kickoffs were train wrecks. The Dawgs had to burn two second half timeouts against Tech leaving them with only one for the stretch.

Does Richt’s lack of action when it comes to the staff indicate complacency? I don’t think so, though others will have their say on that this week. I certainly hope not – Massaquoi and those who played their hearts out on Saturday deserve much better than the conclusion that everything is OK.