1. Is the absence of Dowtin and Dent going to be more important than we think? When you consider what Tennessee does best on offense – run the ball, screen passes, and short-yardage passes – not having two of your better linebackers available seems to be a pretty big deal.

2. “What’s wrong with Georgia’s special teams?” is a topic that can and has been discussed all week, but there’s one area I’ll focus on here: punt returns. Georgia’s 2001 and 2005 wins in Knoxville each featured a Georgia punt return for a touchdown. In 2001, that Damien Gary return enabled Georgia to get back off the carpet from an early deficit and prevented the game from following the script of so many trips to Neyland. Thomas Flowers’ return in 2005 came in a tight 13-7 game and gave a strong Georgia defense the cushion it would need to close out the game. Are the days of Flowers and Mikey Henderson that far gone? Did the fake punt by South Carolina rattle Georgia that much?

3. Is it likely that another big return will help Georgia this year? Not if current trends continue. The Dawgs are so frozen in nearly every element of special teams that even once-explosive units like punt return are stuck with trotting out a backup quarterback to field fair catches because “Georgia is using essentially its regular defensive unit to prevent a fake.” I understand situations where you’d want to play the fake, but it was disheartening to see Prince Miller call for the fair catch after LSU punted from its own goal line to start the second half.

4. Which development is going to make a bigger difference in the game – Washaun Ealey or Tennessee’s higher-tempo offense? Ealey was credited with being a second-half “spark” for the Georgia offense. (What does it say about the state of the Georgia running game that ~30 yards and a 4 YPC average is enough of an improvement to stand out?) Meanwhile Tennessee got things going with a little more pace towards the end of the game, and the words “no” and “huddle” are getting thrown around a bit this week in Knoxville. Then again, Tennessee’s success with an up-tempo offense came with the game pretty well in hand.

5. How many college players are being mentored or otherwise involved with Deion Sanders? Sanders has been a mentor and spokesman for former Texas Tech receiver Michael Crabtree. Sanders also nearly became the legal guardian of Noel Devine. Now he’s at the center of the Dez Bryant eligibility issue. I don’t question Deion’s motives or claim he’s doing anything but looking out for some guys with very troubled backgrounds, but all we need now turning up in related stories is M.C. Hammer. What’s that you say?

6. Is the kickoff scheme so complicated that even Georgia’s best players can’t get it right? Richt talked about the experience and youth factor on kickoff coverage, but was that the problem on Georgia’s last flawed kickoff? For starters, junior linebacker Rennie Curran appeared to go the wrong way and was the cause of the formation penalty. That left the Dawgs shorthanded on the right side of the field with just three players – Prince Miller, Baccari Rambo, and Nick Williams. Rambo and Williams aren’t the most seasoned Bulldogs, but they’re not exactly freshman walk-ons either. I don’t know where Blair Walsh was supposed to put the kick, but it was relatively deep (it would have been fielded on the 2 or 3 were it a normal kickoff), and the ball went to the center of the field from the right hash. It didn’t take long for the returner to head left towards the sideline where Georgia was shorthanded essentially putting most of Georgia’s coverage unit behind the play.

Assuming that Walsh didn’t put the ball exactly within the 3-inch landing zone prescribed by the strategy, two of the bigger mistakes on the play were made by 1) Georgia’s starting placekicker and 2) the SEC’s leading tackler. Is that really a question of experience?

7. Does the relative success (and I use that term very loosely) of Ealey play into the discussion of what’s wrong with the offensive line and specifically run blocking? I don’t mean to imply that the blocking has been there all along, but were the struggles of King and Samuel really mostly to do with the line?

8. Is this the week Crompton puts it together? Every pessimistic prediction this week has had a variation of this: “Our defense and Willie are going to make Crompton look like Joe Montana this week.” The problem with Crompton though hasn’t been one of coverage. He’s had his open receivers, and the broadcast of their Auburn game took pains to point out the open underneath crossing routes. Crompton just isn’t hitting them, or they’re being dropped. It’s possible that this is the week that he finally starts hitting open receivers in stride, but that would have a lot more to do with Crompton than the coverage. If Georgia’s pass rush continues to show signs of life, it’s reasonable to expect that passing game to continue to struggle.

9. Has Georgia had a touchdown drive this year without a play or return of 20+ yards involved? David Hale digs up the fact that “well over half of Georgia’s drives are five plays or less,” and those include a few scores. If you wonder why the offense bogs down for stretches, consider how feast-or-famine things have been. Of course sustaining drives goes back to the running game…

10. Does the news of Dez Bryant’s ineligibility affect Georgia? Heismanpundit thinks so – at least indirectly. Whether or not Bryant is able to regain eligibility, HP speculates that the incident “probably narrows the Biletnikoff Award field [for the nation’s top receiver] to Golden Tate, Eric Decker and A.J. Green.”

How about this performance by an offense:

212 total yards.
208 yards passing.
4 yards rushing (net of 35 gained, 31 lost).
2 fumbles, 1 lost.
2-11 on 3rd downs.
4 sacks surrendered.
5 drives of 3 plays or less.
Avg. starting position: own 29.
No drives started in opponent territory.

Sounds like they went up against pretty good defense, doesn’t it? That’s what Georgia was able to do to Arizona State in last year’s game at Tempe.

The defense isn’t magically going to turn it around, but something approximating last year’s effort shouldn’t be too much to ask especially since we’re back on home turf. Of course last year’s defense started out much stronger with a big outing at South Carolina and Arizona State before the wheels came off against Bama. Can this defense come up with anything close to what they were able to do in the last meeting?

It’s also worth noticing that Arizona State had to start every drive last year on their side of the field. Georgia had zero turnovers and didn’t allow any kickoffs back across the 50. The Dawgs, meanwhile, blocked a punt and recovered a fumble in opponent territory to put the game away in the 2nd quarter. More of that would be nice, too.

There’s enough blood in the water after a disappointing loss, and it’s easy to panic over the perception of a program in disarray that makes for good column and sports talk fodder. The coaches (and even the players to some degree) seem fine with chalking a lot of problems up to execution, but getting the coaches on the same page, even in analysis after the fact, has been a story that won’t go away.

It wasn’t just the first start in three years for Joe Cox or the debut of Branden Smith; it was also the first game in which Tony Ball served as Georgia’s receivers coach. Not much went well for the offense, but Ball in particular seemed to have a rough go of it. Georgia struggled to get production through the passing game, and leaving two promising receivers on the bench for the entire game didn’t help matters.

“Coach (Tony) Ball’s in the box and he didn’t have direct contact with us,” (Michael) Moore said of Georgia’s receivers coach. “He kind of didn’t realize that until the end of the game. … We didn’t know what the rotation was going to be and we ended up sticking with basically three guys.”

“He said the game was moving so fast and he was trying to find out what plays worked and what didn’t work, and he said he just forgot, it slipped his mind,” (Marlon) Brown said.

It should be pointed out that this isn’t Ball’s first rodeo as a receivers coach. He’s had the job at before at a major program (Virginia Tech). Position coaches at Georgia have a lot of freedom to set their rotations. It’s possible that Virginia Tech handled things differently when Ball was there. Still, it was an embarrassing oversight, and I don’t blame the players for bewilderment over the news that a position coach with only six scholarship players available forgot about two of them.

This isn’t just Ball’s failure though. Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo is sitting right next to Ball in the booth. With playcalling resting with Bobo and position coaches deciding on their own rotations, an experienced coach of offense like Mark Richt should be able to have a better big picture view of the offense and speak up when those in the booth get bogged down in the details.

I’m not the first to raise the communication issue, but it goes beyond getting a couple of freshmen on the field. Take another example from the game. Oklahoma State DB Perrish Cox, who was assigned to A.J. Green most of the day, was out of action for a series or two. Many fans noticed it, and the broadcast team did too. Georgia didn’t do much, if anything, to test that side of the field. It makes sense now – if Georgia’s coaches in the box didn’t have a good grip on their own personnel, how could they ever note the absence of a key defender and come up with a plan to test a possible weakness?

From player rotation to playcalling and even down to the approach to kickoffs, Richt delegates and yields to his assistants. That’s not necessarily a bad thing of course; you hope to hire a staff of professionals with the experience and skills to do their jobs, and the head coach cannot hope to micromanage every aspect of the program and game plan. I don’t mean to suggest that Richt is well down the Bobby Bowden path to oblivion. This is still his team though, and it does seem that some of the pieces are disjointed. We joke about Evil Richt and his various personalities…right now, the team could use a good kick from Assertive Richt.

• “Flying under the radar.”
• “Embracing the underdog role.”
• “The star of the team is the team.”
• Richt’s road record (always with an asterix for Jacksonville).
• Off-season discipline and distractions (which team looked as if it had just dealt with a week’s worth of distractions?).

When I hear people pat the defense on the back for a good job, it sounds like most are just relieved that it didn’t turn into a 2008-style meltdown. The defense did play well, and the stats back it up. At the same time, there’s this: Georgia was the only SEC team that didn’t force a turnover last week. If we’re going to bang on the offense for not making plays, we really can’t overlook that the defense did very little to change the momentum once it swung to the Cowboys.

When offseason talk invariably turns to strong and weak schedules, we’re almost always talking about the nonconference part of it. The conference schedule gets treated like a monolithic block that’s more or less the same for each team in the conference. The presumed strength of the conference serves as a proxy for the strength of the rest of a team’s schedule.

But with the exception of the Pac-10 and their round-robin nine-game conference schedules, the road through a single conference can look very different depending on the division and the luck of the rotation.

Take Arkansas for instance. After a gimme against Missouri State, the Razorbacks will run this gauntlet:

Sept. 19: Georgia
Sept. 26: at Alabama
Oct. 3: at Texas A&M
Oct. 10: Auburn
Oct. 17: at Florida
Oct. 24: at Ole Miss

The “easiest” game of the bunch looks to be a nonconference road game in College Station. Regardless, they’ll start the SEC slate by hosting a top 15 Georgia team and then must travel to play three preseason top 10 teams. They’ll start the season 1-0, but delivering on the hype surrounding Ryan Mallet and finishing 7-5 or better might require them to come out of that stretch at no worse than 3-4. A season-ending road trip to LSU is still out there, and the Tigers will remember last year’s meltdown.

LSU is the only other SEC West team that will face both Florida and Georgia this year. If the Tigers manage to regain the top position in the West, they’ll have more than earned it.

Ole Miss is a preseason top 10, and their SEC schedule lends itself to a promising year. Though they’ll have to face strong Alabama and LSU teams from the SEC West, they’ll host both of those games. The Rebels’ schedule doesn’t include Georgia or Florida from the East; they’ll play South Carolina, Vandy, and Tennessee instead.

Kentucky, though not a contender, might still find some success thanks to the schedule. They’ll face Alabama and Florida within the first four games of the season but will face only one more preseason top 25 team the entire rest of the season (Georgia). Though Alabama will have a tough opener against Virginia Tech, their only ranked SEC opponents will be fellow SEC West contenders Ole Miss and LSU. The Tide’s tougher SEC East games (Tennessee and South Carolina) will be in Tuscaloosa.

No one is calling Georgia’s overall schedule easy (especially the September part of it), but the Dawgs also get a bit of a break by avoiding SEC West favorites Alabama and Ole Miss. They’ll still have to play LSU, but they’ll get the Tigers in Athens. The Dawgs also get a bye week before playing Florida; last year they went into the WLOCP right off a trip to Baton Rouge. It’s still no picnic, but the SEC schedule looks slightly less difficult for Georgia than it did a year ago.

Lopsided conference scheduling isn’t just an SEC thing. Nebraska is the presumed favorite in the Big 12 North, and they’ll only face one of the top three teams from the Big 12 South (Oklahoma). Their top competition in the North, Kansas (Oklahoma and Texas) and Colorado (Texas and Oklahoma State), each have to play two of the three Big 12 South favorites.

Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, FSU, and Clemson are the preseason top four in the ACC, and only one of those four teams (Georgia Tech) will play the other three. Virginia Tech won’t face Clemson or FSU, but they’ll make up for it with a nonconference schedule that includes Alabama, Nebraska, and East Carolina.

There’s not much to add to the discussion about Rex Robinson’s analysis of Georgia’s kickoff woes. He knows what he’s talking about, and he does a good job of laying out the rules changes that make touchbacks so infrequent. We know that, with one exception, SEC kickers couldn’t get a touchback even 15% of the time last year. So it’s correct to assume that you’re going to be covering your kicks more often than not.

Here’s where the Bulldogs ranked among the SEC in kickoff coverage over the past few seasons:

02: 4th
03: 6th – first year after Kirouac
04: 3rd (though the stats here seem incomplete)
05: 4th
06: 9th
07: 9th
08: 11th

If you listen to a lot of fans, the directional kick has been the scourge of Georgia football since Richt and Fabris took over in 2001. For the first several years, it was actually pretty effective at least in the coverage unit’s place among the SEC.

Obviously something’s been different since 2006, and as Robinson notes, the rule change from a 2-inch tee to a 1-inch tee went into effect that year. Does that explain the drop to the bottom half of the conference rankings? Possibly. It’s also possible that the kickers (Bailey, Coutu, Walsh) over that time haven’t been the best at kickoffs.

The staff is hedging towards the belief that maybe it *is* the kicker. They’ve used a valuable scholarship to add a third scholarship kicker solely for what he can bring to the table on kickoffs. Will he reverse the trend that’s headed downward since the shorter tee was introduced?

But is it all about the kicker or even the hated directional kicks? We talked about this during last season. Plenty of attention has been paid, thanks to Robinson’s post, to the actual kicking, but not much has been said about the makeup of the 10 guys heading downfield to get to the returner. If you want your difference between Georgia and the better coverage units, look at the field position where we first engaged the blockers.

If the kick coverage improves this year, I expect a good bit of the improvement will come from a larger and (hopefully) healthier pool of younger defensive players. It’s a point Richt made certain to emphasize during the Road Tour. If you look down the roster at the back seven positions on defense, the number of players unavailable last year due to injury or redshirting could almost make up a coverage team of their own. Robinson, Rambo, Dewberry, Pugh, Commings, and Banks are just a few who could give the unit a shot in the arm this year. Even true freshmen like Branden Smith could help, and I expect you’ll see them out there.

Blutarsky voices the concern that’s buried down deep in a lot of our subconscious minds: Georgia is counting on a lot of injured players to come back healthy at key positions.

It’s something I’ve thought about too. We know that as many as three potential starting offensive linemen missed spring. Sturdivant and Vance haven’t played period since last fall. The starting five most seem to agree on has never been on the field at the same time. Is this line suddenly going to materialize in three months and be ready for a road opener against a Top 15 opponent?

It’s not just a problem for the offense. Jeff Owens hasn’t played a snap since September. The defensive end position is even more unsettled than the offensive line. Other than the emergence of Justin Houston during the spring, can anyone even pretend to know anything about the rest of the group at this point?

When we talk about players like Sturdivant and Owens and their ability to change the game, we’re talking about them at their dominating best. Yes, even at less than 100% they can be very effective players. That’s not the same though as the elite level of play that’s going to make the difference against Georgia’s toughest opponents.

Of course the ability of the lines to play at their best impacts other positions. On offense you have a new starting quarterback who still has no idea what kind of protection he can expect. You also have a group of inexperienced tailbacks who won’t know for several months where the best holes will come from. It’s a similar impact on the defense. There will be two new starters in the secondary with a lot of young depth behind them whose success and confidence will depend on the ability of an unknown group of defensive linemen to get pressure.

I’ll put it this way: limiting the amount of practice time missed by linemen this August might be the top key to success for this year’s team. Most everyone should be cleared to play in plenty of time for preseason camp. If the lines can get several weeks of consistent work together, they might be able to make up a lot of the lost ground. But every day missed by even the most minor hamstring injury or stinger or complications from last year’s injury will hurt Georgia more than it would other teams because of the time already lost.

If we’re hearing things like "90%" and "probable" about potential starting linemen in the weeks leading up to the season, it’s going to be a big red flag. There isn’t time to rest and rehabilitate during the season, and those problems that nag during August tend to linger on into the season.

The good news is that the reports are all positive at this point. Everyone is ahead of or on schedule to return, and the players, Sturdivant and Owens in particular, seem to understand the importance of getting back on time and in shape. I don’t doubt the ability of coaches Searels, Garner, and Fabris or the resolve of the players involved. As talented and committed as they are and for all the talk of leadership and attitude and intensity since last season, everything’s still at the mercy of the human body and its limits.

With G-Day in the books, how did the Dawgs look? 13-3: was it great defense or lousy offense? Did all of that leadership and focus we heard about over the past three months show up in the team’s first public performance since the bowl game? Your thoughts are welcome…here are a few of mine:

• The absence of any major injuries makes G-Day a success in my eyes. The real work of spring is done away from our eyes, and this scrimmage is just a dawg-and-pony show for the fans (and, in this case, ESPN). Getting through it without any more players going down for the year is always a plus.
• The crowd was better than I expected. I’m always skeptical about expectations for big G-Day crowds, and even the presence of ESPN didn’t lead me to expect much this year when the game coincided with Easter and the Masters. But the turnout was solid, and the crowd which spread out would have packed the north and south stands. I think about 35,000-40,000 people showed up, and it was a perfect day for football.
• Unfortunately those who turned out didn’t get much of a show. ESPN producers were probably considering a switch over to highlights of the 2007 World Series of Poker to give viewers a relative shot of excitement. It looked as if we might be in for an interesting day after the flea-flicker on the first play, but when the red team could do little to capitalize on that one long gain it set the tone for a snoozefest.
• You were especially disappointed if you came expecting to see a show from either of Georgia’s two legitimate stars. It’s not that A.J. Green or Rennie Curran played poorly; you just didn’t hear much from either. After a nice catch on the first play of the scrimmage, Green wasn’t heard from again. With the ESPN guys talking about how this broadcast was more of a "show" than a "game", Georgia left its best star largely out of the show. Ordinarily I wouldn’t care about a thing like that from G-Day, but the program invited ESPN and their national coverage. I think we owed them a little better show.
• Injuries of course had already taken their toll on the team, and it was necessary to take the lineups and results we saw with a grain of salt. Just for an example as many as three offensive line starters (Sturdivant, Vance, and Davis) were all out, and the impact trickled down the depth chart. I was thrilled to see Marcus Washington back out there making plays, but I would hope that a senior could get past the true freshman offensive lineman in his way.
• Logan Gray’s nice afternoon was a treat to see not because it creates a quarterback controversy but because it keeps us from doing the usual fan thing of overlooking the reserves in favor of the shiny new freshmen. It also serves to quiet, at least temporarily, those who would rather get Gray on the field at a position – any position – other than quarterback. The guy belongs under center (or in the shotgun, if you prefer). It’s up to the staff now to make creative use of Gray’s skills at quarterback.
• The completed flea-flicker made the first play a success, but Caleb King appeared to make a huge mistake on the play. While King turned around after the pitch back to Cox, a defender shot through to King’s left and would have taken Cox’s head off if not for the no-contact rule. With other backs like Carlton Thomas (and let’s not forget Richard Samuel) showing ability, these are the kinds of things that will affect playing time during the season.
• The play of the secondary – especially Commings and Boykin – made me feel a bit better about the departure of Asher Allen. How much did they have to do with the lack of production from the red team’s top receivers? If there were holes in the defense, they were underneath and in the areas covered by linebackers.
• Though the drops were a big storyline, I’m not especially concerned. Only one drop was by a scholarship receiver, and Aron White hasn’t shown the tendency to drop in the past. If it were Green, Moore, and King littering the field with drops, that might be something. But most of the guys dropping passes aren’t going to be big contributors in the fall.
• It doesn’t take much imagination to see that the tailback position is headed back in the direction of a RB-by-committee. As is usually the case, that says more about the absence of someone stepping up and claiming the position. At best, we’ll see the "three-headed monster" days of Brown, Lumpkin, and Ware. Hopefully it won’t head in the direction of 2003 where a committee of Cooper, Browning, and Lumpkin were far less effective. Carlton Thomas definitely had an exciting debut, but I’d fear for his longevity if he’s forced into an every down role. Used situationally and on returns he could be a very exciting player.

When the Lady Dogs starters get introduced before games, they run out along a red carpet that lists the years of Georgia’s Final Four and SEC championship seasons. That carpet hasn’t needed to be updated for years. Since coming up devastatingly short of both an SEC Tournament title and a Final Four trip in 2004, the Lady Dogs haven’t come close to challenging for either.

It’s been ten years since Georgia’s last visit to the Final Four – the longest drought under Andy Landers. The last SEC championship for the program was in 2001. It’s not that the program has disappeared in the meantime. They’ve made the NCAA Tournament every year and only last season had a streak of Sweet 16 appearances snapped. But there’s no question that the program has slipped, and getting it back won’t be a simple one-year fix.

When Dennis Felton was let go earlier in the year, it was easy to conclude that recruiting and attrition were at the heart of the problems that led to the end of the Felton era. Other than a brief period in 2006-2007, Felton was never able to assemble and retain anything resembling a complete team. Signing and keeping quality players has been an issue with the men’s team for decades. But now the same problems are creeping into the women’s program despite a tradition of success.

The Georgia women’s basketball team announced yesterday that sophomore guard Angela Puleo would be leaving the program. Puleo was put into a tough situation out of the gate as a freshman. In most programs, she would have been brought along as a situational 3-point shooter off the bench. But the roster situation at Georgia thrust her into a starting role immediately, and it was impossible to fill the shoes of Cori Chambers, the most prolific outside shooter in Georgia history.

Puleo’s departure means that the entire 2007 recruiting class of four players, rated by some as a top 10 class, has dissolved and will contribute nothing to the program as juniors and seniors. Puleo will transfer. Jasmine Lee was dismissed. Nicole Stroud’s career was cut short by injuries. Top 20 prospect Brittany Carter barely contributed as a freshman and transferred after one season.

The impact of the evaporation of that 2007 class is more significant when placed alongside the classes that surrounded it. Put it this way: Georgia will have a nice senior class next season of Angel Robinson, Ashley Houts, and Christy Marshall. There will only be three other players on the roster with any meaningful experience – starting or otherwise. Once again incoming freshman will be counted on for significant minutes.

For a number of reasons we’ll get into below, Georgia had hit a dry patch in recruiting. The obvious example is Lawrenceville’s Maya Moore leading UConn to the national title last night. But it’s no longer just other elite programs prevailing over Georgia for local talent. Georgia Tech welcomed the #6 class in the nation in 2008 which featured three players from Georgia all rated among the nation’s top 100 prospects. Meanwhile the Lady Dogs’ sole signee in 2008 was a guard from Alabama. That’s turned around this year with a top 5 class, but can the staff keep it up? And can they avoid the attrition in the incoming class that wiped out the promising 2007 class?

Attrition is as much a part of recruiting as actually signing the classes, and it’s a problem that has hit the Georgia women’s program hard in recent years. Even if Georgia missed out on other prospects, those they’ve signed have been plenty good enough to keep the program competitive. The trouble has been keeping them around. Below is a list of some of the players Georgia has signed but lost over the past few seasons before their eligibility expired. Some played for a while; others never made it into school.

• Recina Russell – Big 10 freshman of the year
• Brittany Carter – national Top 20 prospect
• Amber Holt – JUCO All-American
• Angela Puleo – starting shooting guard
• Jasmine Lee
• Nicole Stroud
• Erica Brown – McDonald’s All-American guard

That’s quite a team in and of itself. It’s unfair to put this attrition all on the coaches. Recruiting is an inexact science, and you can never predict who will be able to cut it at the next level. Injuries, academics, and personal issues are risks you take, and they’ve all played a role in this attrition. Regardless, the sum of this attrition and the results in recruiting has been to leave the program with little depth at best and with critical holes at worst.

Part of the problem has had to do with turnover on the staff. In 2005, longtime assistant and top recruiter Michael Shafer was hired away by Richmond. Since then the Georgia staff has been a story of on-the-job training for a number of inexperienced assistants. I don’t think there’s any coincidence that the dropoff in talent has happened under an unsettled and green staff. Finally in 2007 Landers hired Kim Hairston away from Cal, and Hairston’s experience began to pay off and was in part responsible for the incoming top 10 recruiting class. The question remains whether enough has been done to shore up the staff. It’s still relatively inexperienced, and player development has been questionable. With Mark Fox’s arrival on the men’s side, we’re getting a reminder just how important the composition of the staff is to success on the court and in recruiting.

As is always the case with stories like this, bad luck seems to find its way into the picture. Mike Mercer’s knee injury brought a cruel end to a promising season and was, in retrospect, the beginning of the end for Dennis Felton. Similarly, an unprecedented rash of injuries to the Lady Dogs frontcourt in 2005 affected the program for years. Talented players like Tasha Humphrey and Megan Darrah were forced to play out of position for much of their careers, and those teams were never complete enough to advance beyond the Sweet 16.

If all of this sounds like a lack of faith in Andy Landers, it shouldn’t. I believe he’s more than capable of turning it around. The addition of Hairston and the incoming recruiting class is evidence that there’s plenty of fight left. It’s more than just one class and one season though. The top 5 class coming in will temporarily raise the talent level, but the departure of the rising senior class will require another big recruiting effort in order to sustain anything that’s started next season.

I have to be honest…as much as I convinced myself that yesterday’s story was a meaningless plant, part of me was wondering how I’d come to terms with Frank Haith as Georgia’s next coach. No matter how I spun it, the thought was depressing.

Fortunately we don’t have to worry about making such a mistake. Mark Fox is the guy, and I have to agree with Paul here: I like it. He’s maintained a strong mid-major program, recruited well at that level, won NCAA Tournament games, and has beaten several major programs along the way.

Fox is hardly a no-name. He might be unfamiliar in these parts because, let’s face it, who in this part of the country knows anything about West Coast hoops much beyond UCLA and Gonzaga? But he’s been a candidate before for other major positions (Nebraska, for example), and he was even mentioned as a possible candidate at Arizona this week. We can’t let our own provincialism keep us from recognizing a decent coach.

The main knock against Fox seems to be recruiting – specifically, will a guy whose roots and experience don’t go much further east than Kansas be able to hit the ground running in the talent-rich state of Georgia? This is a valid concern since missing out on key in-state prospects has been a problem plaguing Georgia basketball for decades. Still, I think the concern might be overblown to some extent. Why?

• First, Fox – as an assistant and head coach – has been able to attract quality, even NBA-level, talent from several states to a mid-major program in Reno, Nevada. The conference, location, resources, and local talent base are all comparative advantages for Georgia. It will take time getting up to speed and making the connections in the area, but the skills are there.
• Second, and this is a key point many are overlooking, is that Fox won’t be the only one recruiting. Fox likely will not command the $2+ million dangled in front of Mike Anderson, so there should be more than enough room in the budget to bring on at least one proven assistant with experience and connections in this area. It couldn’t hurt to call someone like this.

Rough edges

Fox’s reputation unfortunately includes incidents where his temper has gotten the better of him.

It’s true that Fox’s Nevada team beat Anthony Grant and VCU head-to-head just a few months ago. It’s also true that Fox missed the last eight minutes of the game after getting tossed with his team down 60-51.

No big deal, coaches get tossed all the time. But more disturbing was a March 2007 incident in which Fox "yelled profanities and appeared ready to use force toward a police officer and game officials" after losing in the WAC tournament. Fox admitted fault and added that "I’ve got to realize when the game ends, it ends."

If you’re winning and your coach is intense, emotional, and confrontational, fans love it. He’s a fighter and driven out of his mind to win. If you’re losing, the same coach is out of control, reckless, and an embarrassment. If the coach is Bobby Knight, he’s all of those things. Fox doesn’t have Knight’s win total yet, and both Georgia and the SEC won’t have much tolerance for an explosive coach who can’t control himself. With Damon Evans’ vision of a "CEO of basketball", those rough edges are going to have to get polished up quickly.

The Process

With all but the introduction left, people are beginning to look back at the process and ask did Damon Evans accomplish what he set out to do?

I keep seeing the claim that Damon Evans vowed to "make a splash" with this hire. I’ve read Hale’s interview with Evans. I’ve seen what Evans had to say to Jeff Schultz. I definitely see evidence of Evans’ lofty goals for the program ("I want to win championships," he said. "I think we have to awake the sleeping giant."). I also see some specific things he was looking for in this coach.

Evans said he wants a coach who has experience running a major program. He wants someone who understands how athletics and academics work together. Finally, he wants someone "who can get out there and recruit players and bring some talent to the university."

So I’m looking for a CEO of basketball, someone who possesses outstanding leadership, understands the role of athletics as it relates to being at an institution of higher learning the academic component someone who is going to help our young men grow and develop athletically and academically, and someone who has a great knowledge of basketball, someone who can recruit players to this institution and, just as important, someone who can gauge the Bulldog Nation.

What I don’t see is evidence of Evans promising to make a flashy, big-name hire that makes a splash. If you can point me to it, I’d appreciate it because it seems as if everyone but me heard him say it. Of course such a hire would have been nice. A big, recognizable name would have been a clear success (as far as the process goes), but the lack of one doesn’t necessarily mean failure. If you go by what Evans actually said, we’re not that far away. One can quibble whether Fox has "experience running a major program," but you’d have that same discussion with someone like Anthony Grant.

I have a real problem with lumping Grant into the "big name" category which includes others like Capel and Anderson. Grant, though successful within his conference and respected as a recruiter for his job at Florida, is no more accomplished as a head coach (and perhaps even less so) than Fox. Grant’s advantage is his aforementioned experience recruiting in the SEC which is no small thing but also not enough to call him an obvious missed opportunity.

Regardless, Fox won’t be able to escape comparisons to Grant as long as both coach in the SEC. Fox’s performance, recruiting, and accomplishments will be measured out of the gate against Grant. Georgia’s not exactly short on rivals, but now even the Alabama game is going to carry a little extra significance.

Did Evans and those involved with the search aim high and miss? Sure. There was nothing wrong with that, and, given the outcome, it didn’t hurt to try. The commitment to the program is there, and we ended up with a quality coach.

Expectations

While I agree with Evans’ goals for the program, I have my own expectations for Fox and the program. Some are longer-term, some are not. With the talent in place and only a short recruiting period left before next season, it could be another long year. I realize that. There are opportunities though for some immediate results. We eventually want Georgia men’s basketball to be a championship-level program and perform at the level of many other Georgia programs, but these are some milestones along the way.

• Assemble a staff that can recruit the state of Georgia out of the gate. With major holes at both shooting guard and small forward/wing, filling those holes is job #1 just to be competitive next season.
• Beat Tech. Let’s not forget the most important thing for a coach of any sport at Georgia. The Dawgs haven’t lost to Tech in Athens since the series went home-and-home in 1995, and I don’t plan on that changing next season.
• Embrace Georgia. Dennis Felton, right or wrong, was criticized early on for being flippant with and even standoffish to the fan base. Silly things like the lack of red in his wardrobe were pointed out. While these were trivial things (and the death of Kevin Brophy cemented him as part of the Georgia family), they served as footholds for future complaints and negativity as Felton struggled to build his program.
• Improve performance on the road. Paul’s done extensive work showing just how bad Dennis Felton’s road record was. He also points out a glimmer of hoepe by highlighting some of Fox’s bigger road wins at Nevada. The ability to win on the road is the mark of a successful and disciplined program that doesn’t need its own crowd in order to be motivated for a game.
• Drastically reduce attrition. You can’t build a program by starting over every few years. As important as recruiting is, keeping the student-athletes in school, out of trouble, and on track to graduating is just as important.
• Sustain a winning SEC record. The competition might have increased with the addition of Calipari and Grant to the league, but the SEC still offers plenty of opportunities to win games. Look…we’re not even asking for a conference title (yet). Just get us above .500 in the league and keep us there.
• Finally…make the NCAA selection show must-see TV for Georgia fans.

Yesterday in getting to know new scholarship kicker Brandon Bogotay, I posted that he tallied 20 touchbacks on 52 kickoffs. That’s a 38% clip. For a guy who’s supposed to be able to kick it through the end zone, that 38% rate might seem a little low. Someone on the DawgVent asked why we were using a scholarship for a kickoff specialist who only gets touchbacks around 40% of the time.

At the time I didn’t know whether 38% was low, high, or average. We know it was a sight better than we had last season. How would it compare to the competition around the southeast?

• South Carolina (Succop): 25 touchbacks on 61 kickoffs…41%
• Ole Miss (Sparks): 10 touchbacks on 72 kickoffs…14%
• Florida (Sturgis): 12 touchbacks on 90 kickoffs…13%
• Auburn (Byrum/Hull): 4 touchbacks on 48 kickoffs…8%
• Georgia Tech (Blair): 5 touchbacks on 62 kickoffs…8%
• Clemson (Buchholz): 5 touchbacks on 64 kickoffs…8%
• Tennessee (Cunningham): 3 touchbacks on 40 kickoffs…7.5%
• LSU (Jasper): 4 touchbacks on 76 kickoffs…5%
• Georgia (Walsh): 4 touchbacks on 75 kickoffs…5%
• Alabama (Tiffin): 2 touchbacks on 75 kickoffs…3%

Observations:

• Tennessee and Auburn had really, really bad offenses last year…sheesh. It can’t be said enough.
• All-SEC placekickers (Colt David and Joshua Shene) didn’t handle kickoff duties.
• A kicker who can get touchbacks more than 15% of the time seems to be pretty rare in these parts. I’ll leave it as an exercise to someone else to find out if 2008 was a down year for touchbacks.
• If Bogotay can maintain his touchback rate at Georgia, he’ll be one of the best in the nation. If he is only half as effective at Georgia, he’d still likely be the best in the region.

Of course you have to have all sorts of caveats when comparing JUCO stats to those of SEC and ACC kickers. It’s not as poor of a comparison as high school stats and video though. You’re kicking from the same spot regardless of the college. We also don’t know what happened on the kickoffs that weren’t touchbacks. Were they shanks? Out of bounds? Line drives that were returned to the 40? Or were they also kicked deep but returned anyway?

Since touchbacks and kicking it through the end zone are actually not as common as we might have thought, we can’t forget that most of the time – even with the best of kickoff specialists – the coverage unit is still going to be just as important as the guy kicking off. I’m fine with not getting a touchback, but if we can at least get the ball close to or slightly inside the goal line, hopefully we’ll see far fewer returns like this next season.

…is right there in the bracket.

Three bids. Three. Total. The Big East received three number one seeds.

Every single one of the SEC’s potential bubble teams – Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina, and Auburn – were excluded. And given the seed Mississippi State received for winning the conference tournament, it’s reasonable to conclude that they would have been the fifth SEC bubble team excluded had they not earned the automatic bid.

No SEC team earned a seed higher than LSU’s 8 seed, and even the regular season SEC champ is not likely to be much of a favorite against Butler. LSU is an 8, Tennessee is a 9 (and draws a hot Oklahoma State team), and Mississippi State sneaks in with a 13.

That Mississippi State team, at 23-12 and 13-7 against SEC teams, won the conference tournament and received a 13 seed, just slightly better than the 14 seed Georgia received last season with a 17-16 record and 12 conference losses.

Please don’t mistake any of the above for outrage. It’s the reality of SEC basketball right now that you take all of that in, think for a moment, and admit, “yep…that’s about right.” Let’s not forget that the SEC commissioner himself was in charge of the whole process. This was as good as it was going to get for the conference.

If there’s a silver lining and a Georgia angle to all of that, it has to be about the potential for pretty immediate results for the right coach. Georgia’s returning roster and current mindset is far from perfect, but in this environment of conference-wide mediocrity and imperfection how far would just a little bit of success and improvement go?

We might’ve expected John Jancek to get a little raise beyond what was announced last weekend after South Florida offered him the defensive coordinator position.

But was it really necessary to name him defensive co-coordinator?

If there’s one coach towards the Willie Martinez end of the fan appreciation scale, it’s Jancek. Part of that naturally has to do with the “he’s not VanGorder” factor. But also linebackers have only occasionally been a bright spot since he took over. The debate over talent / injuries / coaching can rage elsewhere, but the perception of a dropoff is there.

The obvious question is, “what does Rodney Garner think?”. He’s been on staff for over a decade and produced truckloads of NFL talent. He’s interviewed for the Auburn head coaching job, got offered the defensive coordinator position at LSU, and passed up a high-paying gig at Tennessee. It’s true that he holds the title of “Assistant Head Coach.” But for someone who’s heart is on the defensive side of the ball, he’s been passed over here, at least in title, in favor of a questionable position coach who interviewed with a flash-in-the-pan Big East school.

If the promotion is just to give wiggle room for a raise, does a flirtation with USF really merit anything above the increase already announced? We already know that a) Martinez will still make the defensive calls, b) Jancek will still report to Martinez, and c) Jancek doesn’t “anticipate a whole lot of change at this point” in terms of duties. The coordinator title seems about as ceremonial as Neil Callaway’s offensive coordinator role, but it still sends a signal. If it’s intended in any way to deflect fan criticism of Martinez, it’s not likely to work that way.

Your mission: find a Georgia fan over the next day who understands/wholeheartedly supports this move. Mark Richt will supposedly have a press conference on Wednesday, and surely he’ll go into more depth about these events then. As for now, it’s a complete headscratcher.

We learned over the weekend that the football coaches, some more than others, got a bump in compensation. The key word is "value" – we get a quality staff for a reasonable amount. Georgia is by no means playing on the leading edge of compensation, but they are competitive and capable of paying to keep the top assistants around.

Coaching is ultimately just a job. There are employees, bosses, meetings, paperwork, and all of the fun stuff that everyone else deals with in the working world. The bizarre saga of Mike Leach is a reminder of that. A loose cannon employee who happens to be a high producer doesn’t get along with his boss. It happens in coaching, creative work, programming, sales, you name it. This time it’s just out in the open and those who have the benefit of impartiality can only shake their heads.

These coaches certainly notice the escalating pay scales, but they also have families, and a spot on a stable staff in a positive environment can be a rare and valuable thing (though it must never be allowed to decay into complacency). Last week we pointed to Rodney Garner’s comment about turning down a higher-paid position at Tennessee.

"The attraction of Georgia to me is Mark Richt," Garner said. "I’m going to be honest with you, I love the community and I love the institution, but I work for a great man and that’s the main reason I stayed."

Academic discussions about motivation will inevitably get into Herzberg and his satisfiers, and salary is only part of the picture (and is often not a motivator itself). Of course you’re not going to get away for long nickel-and-diming the coaches; this isn’t exactly volunteer work. But given that Georgia’s compensation is competitive and in light of Garner’s comments, working for Mark Richt seems to carry a significant value that you’ll never see on these compensation reports.

UPDATE: Garner and Searels weren’t the only Georgia assistants to turn down overtures from other schools. According to FootballScoop.com, linebackers coach John Jancek recently turned down the opportunity to become the defensive coordinator at the University of South Florida.