Archive for April, 2009

Four ACC teams (Miami, North Carolina, Florida State, Clemson) have already ended spring practice and five more (Duke, Georgia Tech, N.C. State, Virginia, Wake Forest) have their spring games this Saturday. So the league’s 12 coaches got together on a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. As always, some interesting nuggets emerged. Here are five fun ones:

1. Another reason the fans and media like Paul Johnson. The Georgia Tech coach got the predictable question:  Won’t opposing defenses be better prepared for his offense in year two than they were in year one? In other words, is this the year that opponents figure it out?

Most guys would utter some kind of coach-speak non-answer. But you could hear Johnson smiling through the phone. In 12 seasons as a head coach, he had heard the question more than once.

 “When we were at Georgia Southern we played the same teams every year,” said Johnson, implying that things turned out okay in Statesboro, where he …

Continue reading Tech’s Johnson not worried that defenses are catching up »

Gainesville, Fla.—No one here will come out and say it but I will: Barring a series of catastrophic injuries talent, or the lack of it, will not keep Florida from repeating as national champions. As I wrote after the BCS national championship game last January, this program has separated itself from the rest of the SEC East when it comes to the sheer number of championship caliber players on its roster. While every other team in the SEC has significant holes to fill this spring, Florida may enter preseason practice in August  with only one significant position concern—and I’m not making this up—at long snapper.

The major worry here, with the spring game coming up Saturday, is the one that scares players and coaches the most.

“Complacency,” said senior linebacker Brandon Spikes. “We started talking about it as soon as the national championship game was over. And when Tim (Tebow) and I decided to come back, we started talking about it a lot.”

We tend to …

Continue reading Gators to fight complacency with rugged offseason »

Gainesville, Fla.—I’m spending a couple of days at Florida, the defending national champions. For a team that returns its entire defense plus the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback, there is a lot of stuff going on.

I spent Monday visiting with assistant coaches and attending the afternoon practice. Here are a few observations with Florida’s spring game coming up on Saturday:

The basics will not change under new offensive coordinator Steve Addazio, but there will be a couple of tweaks. Addazio takes over for Dan Mullen, who is now the head coach at Mississippi State. Addazio was the Florida offensive line coach but he’s been a coordinator before so he knows the drill. The transition is going smoothly because under Urban Meyer, putting together the offense has always been a collaborative effort. Everybody in the room adds their expertise and the coordinator’s job is to, well, coordinate.

“My job is to make sure everybody in the room is looking at the …

Continue reading Expect some tweaks to Florida offense »

Auburn, Ala.—The media narrative on Gene Chizik was pretty much set in stone right after he became the head coach at Auburn: Very good defensive coordinator; went 5-19 in his first two years as a head coach; going to Alabama where Nick Saban started 12-0 last season and was ranked No. 1 on Championship Saturday.

In short, Chizik’s got no shot.

But I recently spent an afternoon in the coaching offices at Auburn. I don’t think these guys are reading that stuff. I saw a group of people with a plan. Is it going to be easy? No. It’s going to be quite difficult, in fact. It’s always difficult for Auburn once the flagship in Tuscaloosa gets up a head of steam.

Here are just a few impressions I got from my time at Auburn:

Chizik’s Iowa State experience actually helps Auburn: Chizik, a former defensive coordinator at Auburn (2002-2004), left for Texas after Auburn’s undefeated 2004 season. He felt the move created the best path to becoming a head coach. He was …

Continue reading Chizik building Auburn for the long haul »

Tuscaloosa, Ala.—To Alabama football fans, it was a disaster. To the Alabama football players, it was an anti-climatic and desperately disappointing way to end a season. For Nick Saban, however, it was a teachable moment.

It was the 31-17 loss to Utah in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 2. Less than a month before Alabama had been 12-0, ranked No. 1, and in position to win its 13th national championship. After losing to Florida (31-20), the eventual national champion, in one of the best SEC championship games ever played, Alabama was less than inspired to be playing in the Sugar Bowl. Utah, however, was very excited about being there and their play on the field reflected that.

After the game, Saban had a stern lesson for his players.

“I told them it (the loss) showed what we can do when we are focused and play together. We did that 13 times last season. We didn’t beat Florida but it was a great game and we were certainly in a position to win it,” Saban said when I met with …

Continue reading Can Saban manage expectations at Alabama? »

After a 9-4 season that included a win over Georgia and a tie for the ACC Coastal Division championship, it’s a pretty safe bet to say that the Georgia Tech football program has been re-energized and is moving full speed ahead under second-year coach Paul Johnson.

But any doubters that remained should have been with me Wednesday night at the Marist School.

It is April 8, the Wednesday night before Easter. A lot of people are out of town on spring break. The first round in Augusta begins this morning. The American Idol results show starts at 9 p.m.

With all that going on in this town, several hundred people turned out at Marist to hear Johnson to speak to about leadership and character on behalf of the Northside Athletes Foundation. The NAF was founded in 1990 as a charitable organization to help children through sports activities. One of the ways this organization raises funds is through a speakers series on leadership and character. Georgia’s Mark Richt spoke last …

Continue reading Johnson has fans, former players, buzzing about Georgia Tech »

Knoxville—Tennessee’s first game is still five months away but Eric Berry says that the Volunteers are in a good place right now under first-year head coach Lane Kiffin.

“We’re right on that borderline between confident and cocky,” said the All-America safety from Fairburn, Ga. “I don’t think this will be a cocky team. But our confidence will be right up there. That is what our coaches are instilling in us right now.”

Berry’s words carry some weight around here. He has never been a boastful player. When you’re the best defensive back in America and arguably the best to ever play the position at Tennessee, you don’t have to brag. You really don’t have to talk much at all. You just play and Berry is a helluva player, one of the best I’ve ever seen.

But Berry insists there is a new vibe here that was pretty obvious, even to the casual observer, during Tuesday’s indoor practice. The pace was quick. Almost everything is done at full speed. It is …

Continue reading Berry likes new energy at Tennessee »

Athens—When a season fails to meet expectations, as was the case at Georgia in 2008, fans and media tend to concentrate on what went wrong. And by any objective measure a lot went wrong on the Georgia defense last season after it finished 10th in the SEC in scoring (24.5 ppg).

Lost in shuffle of a “disappointing” 10-3 season was the fact that offensive coordinator Mike Bobo and OL coach Stacy Searels did some of their best work.

That’s because a team that played musical chairs with its offensive line, the way Georgia had to do last season, is not supposed to finish third in the SEC in scoring (31.5 ppg). And when left tackle Trinton Sturdivant injured his left knee in preseason, that’s exactly what Georgia had to do. Over the course of 13 games last season Georgia’s offensive line:

**–Had six different players start one of the two tackle positions.

**–Had six different players start at one of the two guard positions.

**–Had two different players start at center.

Continue reading Will this be UGA’s best O-Line since 2002? »

So what did we learn over the weekend?

At Georgia, the most important question of the spring will not get answered: I spent a chunk of time Friday in Athens visiting with the Georgia coaches. I’ll be sharing more on that visit later this week as I begin my Spring football tour around the South. But this much is clear to me. The biggest question I had about Georgia this spring is the biggest question I had about Georgia last spring. It’s the defensive end position and if you’ve been following the reporting of Tim Tucker and Chip Towers, you know that it is not going to get answered between now the G-Day game this Saturday.

I know people have been obsessed by the quarterback and running back situations, but I believe those will take care of themselves. Everybody in the building has confidence in Joe Cox at quarterback and one of those running backs is bound to emerge as the go-to guy because the offensive line will be very good. There is not a Knowshon Moreno in …

Continue reading Can Georgia develop at star at DE? »

Some burning questions as we head into the weekend scrimmages:

 Is the quarterback race over at Alabama? Coach Nick Saban will cringe if he reads this because nothing is over until coach Saban says its over.  But, barring injury, I think it’s over. Based on the numbers, junior Greg McElroy was impressive and showed a very good grasp of the offense in Wednesday’s first scrimmage, completing 22 of 33 passes for 214 yards and 4 TD (2 INT). Redshirt freshman Star Jackson completed 6 of 16 for 25 yards and an interception. Walk-on Thomas Darrah threw three interceptions in 20 attempts.

McElroy is ahead and he should be ahead because he has played and knows the offense. Saban and OC Jim McElwain want to keep the competition open so that the players involved develop as much as possible between now and Sept. 5.  That’s what coaches are supposed to do. But it’s hard to see Jackson or Darrah or any freshman closing that gap between now and the spring game on April …

Continue reading Is the quarterback race over at Alabama? »