LSU changed defensive coordinators; UGA still has Martinez
When last they met, Georgia and LSU mustered 90 points and 950 yards between them. When the offseason arrived, LSU coach Les Miles decided his defense was substandard and dumped his co-cordinators for John Chavis, the top free agent on the market. Georgia’s Mark Richt elevated John Jancek to co-coordinator but left Willie Martinez essentially at the tiller.
The teams meet again Saturday in Athens, and neither defense has been great. LSU surrendered 23 points to Washington, which seemed pretty shoddy until the Huskies up and beat Southern Cal, and 26 to Mississippi State and needed a goal-line stand to escape. Georgia did OK against Oklahoma State and Arizona State but yielded 37 points to South Carolina and 41 to Arkansas.
LSU ranks 49th nationally in total defense and 23rd in scoring defense; Georgia ranks 67th and 95th. The key difference: The Tigers are tied for fifth in turnover margin, having intercepted seven passes and recovered three fumbles; Georgia is 115th, having intercepted two passes and recovered one fumble. (Neither team has done much sacking: Each has five in four games.)
Here’s the difference: LSU’s defense stands to improve under Chavis, who was known as the Chief when he worked at Tennessee and whom former Vol coach Johnny Majors famously credited with saving Phillip Fulmer’s “job for the last 10 years.” Chavis has two SEC titles and a national championship on his coordinating resume.
Martinez, by way of contrast, has one SEC title as coordinator, that taken in 2005, the first season after Brian VanGorder left Athens. The years since have seen Georgia become less forceful on defense, which makes no sense when you espy the talent the Bulldogs keep attracting. (The LSU game of 2008, which Georgia won 52-38, was actually as assertive as Martinez’s men have been — linebacker Darryl Gamble returned two interceptions for touchdowns.)
But the belief in this space is that Chavis will instill the ethic of tenacity a big-time program must have. The belief is also that Martinez’s defense is based on the backpedal. Granted, Georgia held Arizona State to 204 yards and one offensive touchdown, but ASU might finish fifth (or worse) in the SEC East. There’s a higher standard in this conference, and Chavis has proved he can meet it.
This doesn’t mean LSU will beat Georgia on Saturday. (I picked LSU to win 24-23 a while back.) The Tigers’ offense is awful statistically (105th nationally) and the game is in Athens. And these Bulldogs are developing a knack for winning close. Over the longer haul, though, the program with the Chief in charge of its defense figures to be in good hands. Can’t say the same about the other team. At least I can’t.
The Georgia defense under Martinez is trending downward. Over the past 10 games, opponents have averaged — averaged — 31.4 points. In 42 games under Brian VanGorder, Martinez’s predecessor, only once did the Bulldogs yield 30 points in a game. (And that was in the 2003 SEC championship game against an LSU team that would win the BCS title.)
It must be said: Steve Spurrier needed seven seasons to win a national championship at Florida, and he did it only after hiring Bob Stoops to run his defense; it took Mack Brown eight seasons to win one at Texas, and he did it only after importing Gene Chizik as coordinator.
Last winter Les Miles, who already has a BCS title in his portfolio, moved to hire Chavis. Mark Richt, who’s in his ninth season and who hasn’t yet played for the national championship, claimed his coaching staff might have done its finest job in 2008 despite losing three games in which the opponent scored 40-plus points each time. And Willie Martinez got a raise.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
241 comments Add your comment
JB
September 30th, 2009
2:35 pm
BTW, I heard at last weeks game that Mr. Smart WILL be our DC, next year.
HBTD!!!
Dawg Fud
September 30th, 2009
2:38 pm
JB,
I am going to call B.S. on that but it did make me smile…if only for a second.
Now back to reality. Ain’t going to happen.
JB
September 30th, 2009
2:38 pm
JB, I’m JB…..who did you hear that from……..you damn well Richt is not thinking that far ahead…..
Josh Lopez
September 30th, 2009
2:40 pm
Let’s wait until the year is over and then decide?? It’s not like there are great candidates waiting in the wings
JB
September 30th, 2009
2:42 pm
Richt and Martinez go way back…college roommates, teammates, in each others wedding. Somebody other than Richt will have to fire him. Two names: Prez Adams or AD D. Evans. Bottomline. Richt will talk them out of it if they try. The guy is blood to Richt.
Scooter
September 30th, 2009
2:42 pm
Other papers have changed writers. The AJC still has Bradley. I’m just saying…
innocent bystander
September 30th, 2009
2:45 pm
To Ronnie Gardner UT beat us 9 straight not ten straight.GDawg in Kalamazoo- I have never met Mark Richt. I was following Georgia football before Karthryn Richt was born.We had not won an SEC championship in almost 20 years before Mark Richt arrived. He won one his second year. He has now won two. It’s harder than you think. Ask Steve Spurrier since he moved to Columbia. If I’m not mistaken Coach Saban has only one. He should get his second this year.
JB
September 30th, 2009
2:45 pm
boy, read the Baton Rouge paper, The Advocate……..They ain’t happy over there either………….They’ll be pumped Saturday. I hope we are…………………
69 Dawg
September 30th, 2009
2:47 pm
WILLIE’S GOT TO GO!!!!!!!!!! NOW!!!!!!!! ON THE NEXT BUS!!!!! YES, I’M SCREAMING…. He’s killing us with his backpeddeling, soft, play off the receivers defense. He can’t make adjustments. He’s the worst I’ve ever seen at Georgia in my fifty years. Why, why, why can’t CMR and Damon Evans read the hand writing on the wall. What will be Bulldog Nation have to do to get one change in three years? One man is not worth the entire team. I’m sick and tired of CMR’s excuses and justification of Martinez. Why don’t he ever say, “Willie and the D had a tough game … they’ve got to improve”. How many people could perform like Willie and still keep their jobs”?
Weird Sal
September 30th, 2009
2:49 pm
Fire Willie! Keep him in house… give him a spot in the UGA cafeteria
69 Dawg
September 30th, 2009
2:49 pm
Why wait til the year is over … DO IT NOW! It couldn’t be any worse than it is …. FIRE WILLIE NOW!!!!
69 Dawg
September 30th, 2009
2:51 pm
Willie Martinez couldn’t defend the concession stand cash drawer. We should see 10,000 responses to AD Demon Evans and see what could be done. Friendship/loyalty just ain’t worth it to the Dawg Nation.
Weird Sal
September 30th, 2009
2:53 pm
Anyone who supports Willie has spent to much time in the Church of Mark Richt. Out with the Richt Regime
heeldawg
September 30th, 2009
2:54 pm
Agree with Bradley on this one–Martinez is the anchor dragging Mark Richt’s program into the depths. His defense reminds me most of Kevin Ramsay’s–except we don’t have a Joe Kines in the booth to step in as interim DC.
Special teams are awful, too. Fabris needs to go.
For God’s sake, Mark, get us a real SEC-caliber DC! Kirby Smart, Stoops, Muschamp (if blood and money are thicker than being head-coach-in-waiting), or even Tommy Tuberville, who is a friend of Richt’s and is looking for a job at last report. That’s the difference between the early Richt years and the present day team–which is a mere shell of the dominant Georgia teams of 2002-2005.
Hillbilly Deluxe
September 30th, 2009
2:55 pm
Way to go Mark. Really nice the way you worked in Archie Bell and the Drells, from Houston, Texas. They not only sang…..oh well, you know the rest.
shards1967
September 30th, 2009
3:01 pm
The UGA party for 2009 will soon be over with U of T and LSU back to back. No way we ( UGA ) win two in a row vs top flight SEC programs ………no way. Either we win vs LSU and then head to U of T and get blown out due to player apathy ( see #9 ) or we lose to LSU and then win vs U of T. Either scenario ….we lose at least one and very likely, two in a row.
Lose two in a row and that will seal the fate of at least two head co ordinators at year’s end. The “word” to make these eventual changes will come down from above ………..spelled Dr. Adams. Lose to Tech and Auburn and Florida, then that could seal the entire coaching staff’s fate and it should. Life can be rough sometimes. They know what they need to do. Go out and do it CWM and CMB and CMR. Do it.
They have jobs to do like we all have ……….let’s see what they have the next two weeks.
UGA,class of 73
JB
September 30th, 2009
3:06 pm
Josh, they’re 25 High school coach’s in Georgia that could outperform him. I think the problem is bigger than GAME DAY. It’s his whole approach. We are not prepared on a good Scheme. We are really lacking in Fundamentals, packages prepared to answer a certain thing hurting us. ANYONE remember the Carolina game last year where their TE was just wearing us out catching ball after ball ?
Willie had NO answer. Your gonna have bad games, but geez, it’s every game. It gonna get heated as the next 6-7 weeks unfold. I would love to be wrong.
MATT31
September 30th, 2009
3:08 pm
weak defenses under willie martinez are nothing new. also, i don’t think they looked that great at asu. follow asu for the rest of the season and see how they score.
it’s time for a change and if richt won’t do it, then let’s get someone who will.
VolsNow
September 30th, 2009
3:11 pm
Chavis? What a joke! I’m glad he’s at lsu and not UT—he plays a soft, bend but don’t break D, and goes to a prevent early, usually with total failure. He will be run out of town down at lsu after a year or two.
Mark Bradley
September 30th, 2009
3:19 pm
Remember the late Ricky Bell, tailback at Southern Cal and for the Buccaneers? He was Archie Bell’s brother, Hillbilly.
JB
September 30th, 2009
3:21 pm
A guy, who is pretty well informed, at my tailgate says so. Obviously a rumor at this point but he’s been right about this kind of stuff before.
HBTD!!!
jack bull
September 30th, 2009
3:28 pm
what happens if, uh when, the UGA defense holds LSU to 220 total yds and under 20 pts?? will willie get some love then? or will folks just say that LSU was over-rated? again, i’m not a willie martinez apologist, but the facts are this, our turnovers have been the direct cause of all the points given up, and you simply can’t argue that.. the defense has played pretty well this year, minus a couple of blown coverages that has given up big plays… you may have an argument for the Arkansas game, but that’s about it…..
GO DAWGS… UGA-27 LSU-20….
LifelongDawg
September 30th, 2009
3:33 pm
Whoever wins, it’ll be a blowout. With one exception, the last few have been that way. UGA has been fortunate enough to do the blowing out lately.
southgadawg88
September 30th, 2009
3:37 pm
Tenn is getting a lot of love for not getting blown out by Fla…they did LOSE to UCLA and had problems with OHIO…maybe it’s more likely that the Gator Offense is weaker this year than anything else.I for one think we have better players than LSU coupled with the fact that Richt has a winning record over both Miles and Chavis…I just don’t see what is going to change much in the matchups…we have beaten them 3 straight and their strength is running the ball with that big back they have but stopping the run is our one strength on D so far.We either have more TO’s and win a close game or have no TO’s and win comfortably.Richt is the superior coach in this matchup and you will see it Sat.
JB
September 30th, 2009
3:47 pm
TO’s can lead to points but leading to FG’s, some of the time, as opposed to generally being TD’s would be nice.
It also looked real bad when the AR recievers were running around with no one within 15 yards of them.
Just sayin’.
HBTD!!!
jack bull
September 30th, 2009
3:50 pm
FIRE 69 DAWG,,,,,AND WEIRD SAL!!!!!!!! i’m sure they deserve it……. i’ll bet they’ve never done anything wrong,,especially at work………
Dawgs will be fine,, we will be playing for the SEC Championship this year, i’m tellin ya, there’s just something about this team i like….
HH
September 30th, 2009
3:55 pm
71 Dawg: Sure, Richt has won 10 games per season. That has been said enough to kill a horse. A lot of those wins were against nobodies of lesser conferences and cellar dwellers of the SEC—i.e. Vandy, KY and “big boys” from nobody conferences… i.e.Boise State & Hawaii. He has won a few “big ones”…i.e. LSU and Auburn & UT. However, he has lost as many “big ones”, if not more, then he has won…some embarassingly so…how about FL and ALA last year and West Va in the Sugar Bowl a few years back. If I am not mistaken, he has won 2, maybe 3, against FL in going on 9 years. Florida is the benchmark of SEC football since Spurrier was there. Not counting Zook. That is the reason he is “overrated” so far as I am concerned. Sometimes 10 wins ain’t what they seem. I think Richt’s lucky he doesn’t go up against Saban and Meyer(?) every year.
Dawg 70.
Pi$$onaDawg
September 30th, 2009
4:03 pm
UGA should be 11-1 at the end of the year with this schedual. UGA has cupcakes like every team. Throw in So. Carolina, Kentucky, and Vandy every year, then the Dawgs should have 6 easy wins every year. Okie State & Arizona State were not crap when they were put on the schedual. Add Tenn Tech and it is almost a real bad joke that UGA should be ranked at all. UGA lost to an average COWBOYS after having the whole summer to prepare. UGA’s next 3 games came down to the last play to win or lose against crap teams. UGA never loses to So. Carolina, Kentucky, Vandy, and G Tech. You Dawgs talk your overall record against these teams and how you dominate them. While on the other hand you try to tell us how tough these teams are. Which is it? I really want to know. Will a DAWG admit that they have the easiest shot of making it to the 7 wins to go to a bowl over any other SEC team?
Richard Dawson
September 30th, 2009
4:16 pm
“Nick Saban is famous for being tough on employees.” I wish the same could be said about CMR. Heck, I wish the same could be said about UGAA. We like to fire our coaches when they have 7 years left on their contract because we give them annual extensions. Country dumb, and one reason I will never contribute one dime to UGA.
CMR always sounds like the biggest fanboy talking about his coaches and team. Does he ever get upset at any of them? Does he have any fire in his belly? Does he even care?
southgadawg88
September 30th, 2009
4:22 pm
hh 10 wins is no big deal huh?Go back 5 years and we are 4-0 over LSU,3-2 over AUB,1-1 with ALA,4-1 over GT,3-2 with TENN,4-1 over SC and 2-3 against FLA.So that stuff you are saying sounds good in THEORY but when you actually look at the records head to head it tells a different story..Richt has not been losing a lot of these ‘big’ games and a win in JAX puts UGA 2-2 against Tebow and 3-3 over the last 6 games against the Gators
LifelongDawg
September 30th, 2009
4:26 pm
HH, do some research. UGA does play UF EVERY year. And 10 wins a year is exactly that- 10 wins a year. Unless you want to downgrade the conference, the Dawgs have finished first or second in the SEC East every year since Richt’s first. That means beating a lot of teams regularly, not just patsies.
Cuz
September 30th, 2009
4:32 pm
A win in JAX are you kidding me.
A win in Jax?
Doing my Jim Mora imitation.
Let’s just concentrate on LSU first.
Now where is my Coors Light?
AltamahaDawg
September 30th, 2009
4:38 pm
Mark, I think when faithful was asking about “demanding”, he was talking about a little more than cartoons in a chat room.
C
September 30th, 2009
4:38 pm
Martinez = No national championship EVER again for UGA.
southgadawg88
September 30th, 2009
4:40 pm
CUZ I have been out front since june saying FLA will lose at least 2 games this year and haven’t seen anything to change my mind thus far.Beating LSU is not an upset even less so than SC over Ole Miss.
Billdawg
September 30th, 2009
4:52 pm
Would have been nice to grab Will Muschamp befoer he went to TX. If, I know it’s a big if, who do you see out there to take CWM place?
J Dog
September 30th, 2009
5:17 pm
Southgadog88, I agree that Richt has won a lot of big games through the years and has a good record to prove it. But if you want to win or at least play for championships on a regular basis, you have to have defense. Check the average pionts allowed or average total yards allowed for past SEC Champions. The winners are almost always at or near the top in those defensive catagories. When we had VanGorder at Georgia, we too had a defense at that level of play, and every few years we played for an SEC championship. The first year VanGorder was not at Ga, the year we won out last SEC Champonship, our defense still was dominated by players he had coached. Every year since, our defense has played progressively worse. We now have a defense that will prohibit any chance of championships in the forseeable future. We should be playing Alabama and Florida in close games, instead they now blow us out, and on average will continue to do so until you know who is gone, and a deserving replacement is found.
Tom, Resident Georgia Fan
September 30th, 2009
5:29 pm
Todd: It’s “lose” not “loose.” You will “lose” your car tag if it is too “loose.” Get it now??????
Pi$$onaDawg
September 30th, 2009
5:46 pm
Tom shouldn’t be: Todd Lost his Loose VeJayJ Wife and then was at a Loss to know why the Trailer Park Pimp always seems to Lose his keys under Todds bed.
Gator Hater
September 30th, 2009
5:48 pm
Hey St Simons have Beat a dead horse over the Tech Terds 8th victory over the Dawgs since 1979. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. To all of the arm chair football coaches in the bulldog nation,please get off of Cmr and Cwm back. The team is finding a way to win, if they ever put all three phases of the game together and clean up all of the mistakes we can beat anyone in the country.No matter what this team does someone has to find something to complain about. Coach Richt has done a wonderful job leading this program with double digit wins 6 out of the eight years he has been here. So please get off of our coaches back and let the season play out. The dawgs will beat LSU,Tenn,Fla,and the tech terds. Go Dawgs
Joe
September 30th, 2009
6:24 pm
Todd, you are blind my friend. You keep falling for the turnover excuse and our defense will keep getting worse.
Ted Striker
September 30th, 2009
6:46 pm
I’m going to leave all the debating about UGA’s defensive coordinator to you “experts.”
Who am I to offer a point of view that might contradict a group of bloggers who’ve never lost an SEC game as defensive coordinator or head coach.
thinker
September 30th, 2009
7:03 pm
Overall records always play out big (win/loss numbers ie)
One of the things that’s kept both Richt and his buddy off the hotseat however has been the healthy win record against Auburn and GT. It’s sort of like the powers to be accept UGA’s football team as: always getting beaten by FL + 1 or 2 other slip-ups, as long as those slip-ups are NOT consistently AU and GT.
So while a 3 loss record has been, and will likely continue to be “great”, you let those 3 losses begin to include AU and GT and FL together, and you WILL THEN see some serious coach changes.
Until then, everybody may as well pee up a rope as waste time and energy dreaming about who you want CWM replaced with.
But for God Sakes don’t run Richt out of town. If that happens, you can bet your first born son that the dumb arses in charge will promote BOBO to HC.
scramdawg
September 30th, 2009
8:08 pm
Richt and Willie were room-mates and Richt was Willie’s best man in his wedding, I tell ya boyz mediocrity and cronyism is here to stay in DAWGNATION. Gawd Help us!
HH
September 30th, 2009
8:31 pm
Saban AND Meyer. I know they play FL every year. Richt is lucky he does not play Saban AND Meyer every year. So far as it goes, you can prove anything with statistics. The reason they finished in the east so many times is because UT has been on a slide for the past few years. What UT may turn into with Jr. remains to be seen. In addition, the same can be said for GT now that “fat boy” has taken over. The same for Auburn. I still maintain CMR is “overrated” and, if that offends one’s delicate sesibilities, how about I substitute “overhyped”. That better? So far as it goes, we’ll see what the results of this season are and what transpires thereafter.
meansonny
September 30th, 2009
8:39 pm
Didn’t Willie Martinez have a better defense than John Chavis at Tennessee during the 2005, 2006, & 2007 season? What is the point of this blog again?
meansonny
September 30th, 2009
8:42 pm
Joe,
What’s wrong with the turnover excuse?
If you notice… the turnovers are getting worse… and the defensive points allowed goes up, too.
It used to be that we give up 3 turnovers in our losses. Now it’s 3 turnovers every game.
Macho Man
September 30th, 2009
8:48 pm
Scramdawg
I here what your saying brother but what Cool Willie and the Gang are going to find out soon is that UGA Ranks #2 among all the 120 1A schools in the amount of money that goes into the Athletic Department.
Money Talks and you know what walks and if the coordinators do not straighten up, the high dollar boosters of UGA Im afraid to say are going to be in Damon Evans face.
And a change will be made. I hope Willie can get it together.
meansonny
September 30th, 2009
9:01 pm
Didn’t LSU have a better defense than that Chavis one at TN all of those years?
Mark… I’m still reaching for the point of the blog. They hire a guy who was not producing at a level suitable for their expectations.
This would be like firing Willie Martinez and hiring Arkansas defensive coordinator Willy Robinson.
They didn’t hire a coordinator better than the expectations that the program sets for itself.
What’s so special to setup a blog about that?
Dawgystyle
September 30th, 2009
9:17 pm
Richt will never fire his old buddy, willie martinez. More mediocrity to come from the two average coordinators: bobo and willie. Maybe UGA can make a bowl in tampa or atlanta this year.