Heat Check: Grantham needs to sit; Johnson needs to chill
Todd Grantham is shown here debating the finer points of decorum.
Our weekly Heat Check arrives a day late due to Columbus Day. (Wait. That was last week? Never mind.) And we start at the obvious boiling-over point.
Todd Grantham, Georgia: He’s proving he’s a good defensive coordinator. (The Bulldogs rank eighth nationally in total defense.) He’s also showing he’s a bully. Giving the choke sign to an opposing player was bush league. Getting into it with the Vanderbilt coach — the Vanderbilt coach, I emphasize — after a victory tainted the whole winning effort and cheapened the Bulldogs’ brand, which had been in the process of undergoing some needed touch-up.
It’s one thing for players to get excited and stomp on a logo. (Georgia managed that trick at Vandy a while back.) It’s another for a grown man — Grantham is 45, which means he meets the Mike Gundy standard for grown-man status — to embarrass the program twice in 12 months. And I don’t buy the whole I’m-just-standing-up-for-my-players line: You can stand up for your players without baying at the moon.
(An aside here: I’d also be careful about angering this Vandy coach. James Franklin is going to beat some big names very soon.)
Don’t know what the SEC will do regarding Grantham. Don’t know if the SEC will do anything. Were I Greg McGarity and/or Mark Richt, I’d suspend Grantham for one game.
And who does Georgia play next? Florida. Yes, it’s a massive game for this football program. But sitting Grantham would also send a massive message: This is not how we do it at Georgia.
Now, do I think such a suspension will occur? Nope. But it should. Heat Index: Too darn hot.
Paul Johnson, Georgia Tech: His team lost at Virginia and looked bad doing it. His postgame briefing was a classic in sardonic semi-humor. A highlight was PJ’s description of the long field goal attempt that was kicked “into the back of the line.” The word “bonehead” was invoked. From a dispassionate perspective, these sessions are always entertaining. That said …
I wonder, not for the first time, how Johnson’s players take them. No, they’re not in the room for his media sessions, but I’d imagine they read the highlights somewhere. I also imagine they hear similar sentiments expressed by PJ himself behind closed doors. And it’s undeniable that the feeling around Tech is that the Jackets win only when they do what the coach says and lose whenever they don’t.
And that, if you’re a player, gets old. As smart as a coach is — and Tech’s coach is very smart — he’s not out there getting smacked by 500 pounds of opposing manpower. Johnson is a great play-caller, but somebody wearing shoulder pads does have to make even the clever plays of his work.
I’m sure it’’s a lot of fun to play for Tech when everything’s working and you’re gaining 768 yards, but I wonder how much of a treat it is to be around Johnson when his team just laid an egg in Charlottesville. Can’t blame a coach for wanting more and better — that’s pretty much his job — but I think he needs to cut his men a bit more slack. Heat index: A chill pill for PJ would not be unwarranted.
By Mark Bradley
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900 comments Add your comment
KINGDAWG
October 18th, 2011
12:15 pm
Thank you Chris Welton for setting the record straight! I’ll support our dawgs win or lose but some dawg fans need to look up the definition of fanatic in which the term “fan” comes from… its not an endearing term.
Lowcountry Bulldawg
October 18th, 2011
12:15 pm
TomB figured me out for sure. Tom you go back to your sensitivity training and giving out participation torphies. Meanwhile we would like to go back to playing football and not over analyzing every single thing that transpires on the field. Obviously you never stepped on a football field anywhere.
1eyedJack
October 18th, 2011
12:16 pm
Isn’t there a penalty for taunting? Shouldn’t the refs be the one to throw the flag? Franklin was just mad ’cause he threw everything but the kitchen sink at Georgia and he still lost. What? We lost? Again? I’ll blame it on Georgia’s players and deflect attention away from my coaching.
MarineDog
October 18th, 2011
12:16 pm
bamaguy
October 18th, 2011
11:54 am
Well said. Let the SEC and the perspective schools handle the situation. Both teams need to focus on their next game. For UGA, their next game is huge and can decide on whether or not they will be in the Dome in Dec. This story will only stop if we stop responding to these stories that don’t have all the facts. My last response to this story. I would much rather talk about the game of football. My guess is that the SEC will not release all of the facts even after the inquiry is complete. They want this story to go away.
H-Town Dawg
October 18th, 2011
12:16 pm
TomB = Tech douche. That’s their pathetic broken-record “argument.”
Bulldawg Rick
October 18th, 2011
12:17 pm
MBradley – You sir – are full of S$it…
I take it you’ve really never played the game.. & the cry babies on here have not either..
How bout suspending Will Muschamp for his F-ing rant on the refs??
The “Problem” today is there’s a camera & mike 3 – 5 feet from the “Action” & it’s picked up for all to hear!! It’s the nature of the beast…
FYI – If you watched the game you’d see that the refs did not call 10 – 12 chopblocks on Vandy…
But Milton Bradley, we all know you’ve never ’strapped it on”…
Mad Dog One
October 18th, 2011
12:17 pm
Mark you are a D.A.. The vandy coach is a liar that anyone can see in the vedio. Have any of you wimps that want CTG to be “sat down” ever talked trash with a fan of another team, I thought so. I know these blogs are for the hits but some times you want to say enough but I know you can’t fix STUPID!!! As always GO DOGS & GATA
bamaguy
October 18th, 2011
12:17 pm
Amen GA_Dawg10. I have long bemoaned many of those in the Alabama “fan base” chief among them the imbecile tree poisiner. Anyone with a diploma on the wall from UGA would be embarrassed by that display. Those defending Grantham are “dawg fans” not “University of Georgia” fans. Good for you for being a proud alumnus and a University of Georgia fan.
droc
October 18th, 2011
12:17 pm
Mark, funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Sit a coach for a game for confronting the head coach of another team for mouthing off at one of your players in front of you. How quickly would you jump on someone if they started barking at your kid? I understand your goal is to help sell the ajc, but try to do it without being quite so obvious next time. Try harder. Heat Index: too hot.
P B Orr
October 18th, 2011
12:18 pm
Johnson doesn’t have to pass a calculus midterm either.
Barf
October 18th, 2011
12:18 pm
If Grantham is a bully than good, in case you never noticed a good defense is a good bully!
Snoop Dawg
October 18th, 2011
12:20 pm
I’m disappointed in Mark Bradley. Grantham’s a bully, huh?
Er, uh, he’s a FOOTBALL COACH stupid. Something that Mark Richt and Bobo are not. Richt and Bobo are neutered PC employees of the UGA athletic department. Todd Grantham is a FOOTBALL COACH.
If UGA wants a winning program, we need FOOTBALL COACHES, not PC wimps.
Figure it out.
It is despicable that Richt called the Vandy coach to apologize for something the Vandy coach instigated. Sounds like something Obama would do on the international stage.
We need winners, not apologists. After all, this is FOOTBALL.
Sounds Familiar
October 18th, 2011
12:20 pm
The whining dog fans sound just like Auburn fans last year when the Cam Newton story broke.
“Cam and Cecil Newton are both fine, upstanding gentlemen – and you can’t prove anything!”
Gbal
October 18th, 2011
12:20 pm
GT Bob – Do you really think Bradley and Shultz are worried about whats happening to UGA’a immage???
If an image problemm is being created, it’s these two (ajc) that are creating it.
The home town vandy paper is supporting Franklins actions as supporting the team. As if its a good thing.
And we all know that for Franklin to address a UGA player directly and not thru the coach is the problem and what created this whole issue.
GSO Dawg
October 18th, 2011
12:20 pm
You continue to be ridiculous MB. Calling for a suspension!? You’ve lost your mind.
1eyedJack
October 18th, 2011
12:21 pm
A high school team just attacked and nearly killed a rival’s coach for Christ’s sake. I’ve seen film of PeeWee games where the parents rush the field and attack the referees.
This sort of thing is the function of the society we live in. Get used to it. And it’s only going to get worse. No civility, no manners, no respect.
Neither side is without warts here. We are in the midst of the fall of the Roman Empire.
UGAmutt
October 18th, 2011
12:21 pm
Please…this is a SHOUTING match for crying out loud. If Franklin was a ref and he made a bad call, people would be applauding CTG for ripping into him like that. Franklin tried to call out one of the players AFTER the game when it was a moot point anyway. He deserved to get his a$$ chewed for not walking honorably to his locker room in disgrace. Maybe it wasn’t the most prudent thing for Grantham to do by retaliating, maybe he should have taken the high road. Richt’s been doing that for years and we’ve become a mediocre SEC team because of his lack of killer instinct and terminal guidance. Todd is the ying to Richt’s yang. Someone has to balance his weakness out.
DodgerDAWG
October 18th, 2011
12:22 pm
Bradley I am Glad you are not Richt or McGarity. Everyone is painting CTG as the bad guy in this and you and the AJC are playing your usual crap and fanning the flames with mis-information. The SEC is investigating. I hope they investigate the entirety of the game. I hope the investigate #39 from Vandy for instigating a fight on the kick-off with Zander (the play that led to one of Williams PF). If they do that should lead to corrective actions against the officiating crew. Two refs watched the entire exchange and only moved in after Williams entered and then only flagged Williams. I hope the SEC investigates the reasons that would make a calm, cool head coach (Franklin) chase a play in action down the field yelling at the defender (Franklin chased Williams down field during coverage, yelling. The ref WARNED him….should have been a PF on the bench for the coach leaving the box). And mostly I hope the SEC investigates why a head coach feels he has the right to point and shout at a player once the game is over. I said it after Franklin’s press conference and I stand by it; he is a classless, tacky, moron who is acting like a spoiled brat when he gets called out for his actions. He cannot claim innocence after acting the way he did the ENTIRE game.
Could CTG have handled it a little better…..SURE, but I respect him more for the way he did handle it.
dawgfan
October 18th, 2011
12:22 pm
Maybe the AJC should suspend M. Bradley for a game or two since he doesn’t seem to report facts – just his lame *ss opinion. No one questions that Grantham’s was inappropriate. But the events that precipitated Grantham’s behavior remain in doubt. But certainly Franklin shares much – if not most – of the blame for instigating the situation. If he bad a beef with Georgia player “rubbing their nose in it” he should have taken it up with Coach Richt – not an assistant. And he sure as hell should not be talking to, yelling at, or pointing at, players from the opposing team. Here’s a prediction: this want be the last situation of this type that Franklin will be involved in.
TroupDawg
October 18th, 2011
12:22 pm
TomB hopefully one day you will learn what it means and takes to be a real man. Like a Campus makes a man..please son that was about as stupid of a statement as suspending CTG.
GA_DAWG10
October 18th, 2011
12:22 pm
If you attended UGA, have a degree, give money to the school, attend alumni functions, own season tickets to football and basketball and hire UGA students – feel free to disagree with me about whether Coach Grantham is a good representative of the University. I say he is NOT, but you are free to differ. I love all TRUE Bulldogs. If you’re Joe Redneck who has never set foot on campus or taken one class – you have no business representing and embarrassing our school like this. Though you are hilarious.
Dogs Beat Florida!
October 18th, 2011
12:23 pm
suspend grantham for the fla game??? get real–the dawgs need his D bigtime in that game. Fla’s terrible and Grantham’s D will shut them down cold. They may not even score!!!! Dawgs win easy: 34-3!!!
Snoop Dawg
October 18th, 2011
12:23 pm
Mark Bradley blew whatever credibility high order with this stupid allegation that Grantham is a bully.
He’s a football coach, stupid. He’s something that Richt and Bobo are not.
Richt and Bobo are wimps, and that’s a big reason our football program is in the state it is in.
Now we know that Mark Bradley is nothing more than the AJC PC Kommisar. He’s stirring the pot just to sell papers to idiots.
Cdpridg
October 18th, 2011
12:24 pm
I am ready for J ville….and YES we will be taking our alpha, brash, hot headed, in your face, leave our players alone, Bulldawg of a defensive coordinator with us! Ask Vandy and the calculated Mr. Franklin how that worked out for him!!
TomB
October 18th, 2011
12:24 pm
Right H-Town Dog, you keep telling yourself that. Nevermind the fact that UGA recruiting classes have been in the top 10-15 for how many years now? Compare that to Vanderbilt’s why don’t you? You tell me who UGA has beat this year that’s any good. Lets start there big shot.
TomB
October 18th, 2011
12:26 pm
TroupDawg, keep talking please because your making my point better than I could.
Alphare
October 18th, 2011
12:26 pm
34-3?
Grantham’s D gave up 27 points to mighty Vandy’s O, how many points are you prepared to give to FL?
Snoop Dawg
October 18th, 2011
12:26 pm
@GADAWG10.
I meet all your criteria, and I disagree with you. As a matter of fact, people like you are the enablers for the total rot that the UGA football program has become under the eunich leadership of Richt. You my friend contribute to the stink. You are nothing less than a laissez faire loser.
That, my friend, is worse than a redneck.
Butthead
October 18th, 2011
12:26 pm
Woh it’s todd. Kick his ass todd.
Beavis: yeah yeah. kick that vandy coaches ass.
trey
October 18th, 2011
12:26 pm
Suspend Grantham…. LMAO
At least none of our coaches call their players names like that dweeb Johnson does.
Oh and HOW BOUT THEM CAVS!
GTBob
October 18th, 2011
12:26 pm
GT Bob – Do you really think Bradley and Shultz are worried about whats happening to UGA’a immage???
Worried about it, no. But they will report on it as its their job to. Saturday night on national TV, the defensive coordinator of UGA was seen acting crazy and had to be separated from the other coach by police and players. It has been mentioned in the national media as well as on TV. Sorry, but that is something the local sports writers are going to talk about.
Ernest T. Bass
October 18th, 2011
12:26 pm
Nevermind the fact that UGA recruiting classes have been in the top 10-15 for how many years now?
And we have finished in the Top Ten most of those years.
Whats your point ?
Ernest T. Bass
October 18th, 2011
12:27 pm
Grantham’s D gave up 27 points to mighty Vandy’s O, how many points are you prepared to give to FL?
Not many. They couldn’t even score on Auburn.
Lowcountry Bulldawg
October 18th, 2011
12:28 pm
TomB that was a terrible segue. You cant go from drinking Aplletini’s with the girls to wanna discuss recruiting with the men. Go back to your corner and talk scrapbooking.
AidDawg
October 18th, 2011
12:28 pm
Mushmouth in florida Wears the refs out every game. you cant show the stuff hes says on TV.
And the SEC and Florida do what?? Thats right show the young men if you cuss the loud and enough you get your way.
James
October 18th, 2011
12:28 pm
Do you think Muschamp should sit one for dropping F bombs on TV Saturday night? It’s all on video.
Snoop Dawg
October 18th, 2011
12:28 pm
Hey Dawgs, let’s punish Mark Bradley for his below the belt trash by not blogging on his site for the rest of this season…
Bulldawg Rick
October 18th, 2011
12:31 pm
Ditto Snoop Dawg @ GaDawg 10
10 – you lose!!!
Lowcountry Bulldawg
October 18th, 2011
12:31 pm
Snoop,
As lazy as he showed himself to be to write this article he would enjoy the vacation because if it where not for UGA fans on the AJC Sports page they may even have to shut the online service down.
UGAmutt
October 18th, 2011
12:31 pm
TomB
we’ve won 5 straight games and four of them are SEC league games. I’d say that’s beating someone that matters. As for Tech, I’d say they’ll be lucky to keep it a game with Miami this week. 34-21 Hurricanes blow by your “awesome” squad.
TomB
October 18th, 2011
12:32 pm
Lowcountry spelled segue. Wow. Truth hurts right, Lowcountry… you don’t want to talk about how Vanderbilt gave the mighty bulldogs such a fight.
Ernest T. Bass… you finished in the top 10-15 for how many years now? You’ve been trying to fire your coach now for the past three years.
Bulldawg Rick
October 18th, 2011
12:32 pm
Snoop – Good idea… MB might lose his salary for a weak…. I mean weak writing!!!
robinva
October 18th, 2011
12:33 pm
Seems to me that we are long past being able to save sportsmanship ( the very cynical among you can just substitute self-control for sportsmanship.” Time was when, for the most part, players just came out and took care of business. There was little if any showboating, hotdogging, overt taunting and the like. When outstanding play was celebrated on field it was genuine. It was not the contrived “everybody look at me” act that it has become. This was even true (and some of you might want to sit down for this) in professional sports. What is even more galling is that if you check out a highlight reel you’ll find that some of the best displays of self-glorification occur in games that the team ultimately loses.
Mark Bradley dismisses the stomping of the opposing teams logo as being “one thing” It is one thing that should be left to enthusiastic if somewhat childish fans in the student section.
I lament the passing of sportsmanship. It would be well to consider the wisdom of Joe DiMaggio’s famous (perhaps apocryphal) remark to a rookie. After watching the kid hotdog his way around the bases for his first major league homer Joe D. turned to him and said, “Kid. Act like you have done this before.
Dirty Dawg
October 18th, 2011
12:35 pm
I still say that Vandy ‘coached’ their guys to try and ‘bait’ Georgia’s players into ‘over-reacting’…and it worked.
I also say that if Georgia’s DBs, as was claimed by one of the Georgia-based Vandy recruits at Saturday night’s game, were jaw-bonin’ and taunting the Vandy bench all night, then there-in lies the fault and that’s where changes need to be made. Do our defensive coaches, DBs and DC, ‘teach’ that crap? If so then that ‘crap’ needs to stop. Do your job, play the game, knock their d$cks off, but STFU when it comes to mouthin’ off. That’s the thuggery that demeans the players, the coaches and, indeed, the entire institution.
doc
October 18th, 2011
12:35 pm
funny, the way the players were acting was like they had just beaten the university of alabama for the sec championship for a right to play for a national championship not poor little ole vandy. yup, that is how far uga football had fallen and where it is now. what is missed is the brand of uga has fallen and continues to fall with these classless scenes that have overwhelmed the program once proud, festering up thoughts of continued fall ins with the law, ad’s caught dui with red thongs in their laps and a coach on the hot seat.
yup, that is what is lost on the bulldog nation as they continue to squaulor and rile around like stuck pigs rather than really look deeply at their program and what others see in it. maybe they are blind hogs instead of stuck pigs. today it is about the brand and that is what is at stake here for the present ad and adams to ponder. losing and winning poorly is not what they are interested in, all uga followers seem to overlook as well and what mark bradley is pointing to. it is a message all better get in line with, is my guess, if they want a job, no matter how hard and long the blind hogs wail.
guys, dont you realize your comeuppance is against vandy? all this for a 5 point win against vandy? heh heh
Fleming Island Dawg
October 18th, 2011
12:35 pm
I guess Florida will have to suspend Muschamp for 2 games. Halftime at TN he went after the refs and had to be pulled off of one by Florida’s Director of Football operations. That ref would not repeat what Muschamp said to him becaus ehe said he was a family man. Then he went after the refs this past weekend and his language was caught on tape. So is it OK to go after Refs?
TomB
October 18th, 2011
12:36 pm
Het UGAmutt, Tech ran for almost 500 yards last year against your great SEC defense with its 2nd string QB. If the SEC were really that great you would think your bulldogs would blow Tech out at home. Just give me a break about how great the SEC is.
Fleming Island Dawg
October 18th, 2011
12:37 pm
What teams don’t celebrate wins? Any wins? These are young kids who get abused if they are lifeless and abused if they show life. Go watch tennis if you wnat to see calm. Or maybe not.
gdawginkalamazoo
October 18th, 2011
12:37 pm
GA_DAWG10, I don’t think anybody outside of Nashville or Georgia cares about this. Two grown men having an argument at the end of a heated football game. These are big boys have your say and move on. Look at Muschamp every weekend. You put a mike on him and record his sideline lanuage, he sure isn’t reciting scripture. It is Div I football people get emotional sometimes, people express those emotions, foul language is used, so what, use the Kleenex to dry your eyes and get off the field. Franklin is in no way innocent in this entire manner. Smart arses have a way of provoking people. He is a grade A smart asrse. I don’t know what the big deal is. More important things to deal with in life that a shouting match with Vandy. I am more embarrassed by our offenses ability to run 10 yards against Vandy’s defenseto kill the clock than anything else that happened Sat.
night.
AH
October 18th, 2011
12:38 pm
Mark, I have talked to friends that play for PJ and they have said the majority of the team do not like him as a coach or person. They buy in cause they want to win and he is the only coach they have, but if he was to be fired, leave, whatever, they wouldn’t lose much sleep at night.