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
sane dawg
October 18th, 2011
12:38 pm
James Franklin. A household name, huh? Maybe in some households now. But, frankly, I didn’t even know who Vanderbilt’s head football coach was until shortly after the game ended Saturday night. What a wuss they have. But Vanderbilt deserves a wuss. Go Commies.
Lowcountry Bulldawg
October 18th, 2011
12:38 pm
TomB,
They hung withus? Good for them, last year they got beat 43-0. I am sure they where motivated to put on a better showing in Nashville. Use some logic next time mouth breather.
UGAmutt
October 18th, 2011
12:38 pm
VIRGINIA?!?!? AHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…TECH LOSERS. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Dean
October 18th, 2011
12:39 pm
Ga_Dawg10, I agree with you and I actually attended and graduated from the university. Time for a call-out! What do UGA graduates think of this? Do you think Grantham did the right thing or do you think it was a slap in the face to the image of the University? UGA alumni only please!
just sayin
October 18th, 2011
12:39 pm
Paul Johnson curses like a sailor during the games. He does it at the officials and at his players as they come off the field.
Once again uga coaches and fans show themselves to be
October 18th, 2011
12:39 pm
the lowest of the low. Nice job sticking up for a loose cannon. The downward spiral in the cesspool continues.
GA_DAWG10
October 18th, 2011
12:39 pm
Doc – that might be the accurate post yet. We’re all worked up, on both sides of the issue, over beating Vanderbilt by 5 (and getting kind of lucky to get the W). I wonder how Alabama would feel about a 5 point win over Vandy? Exactly.
straitroad
October 18th, 2011
12:39 pm
Mark,
Have you or comrad Schultz ever played the game? And flag football doesn’t count. I’m curious to know the answer to this question because it will go a long way towards explaining some of your nonsense. Franklin instigated the whole ruckus and now you’re warning UGA about angering him? Franklin is an emotional blowhard who gets too emotional to be a head coach. He started the fight and then played the victim card when someone else finished it. Had no one stepped between he and Grantham, Franklin would have ran the other way.
Bob
October 18th, 2011
12:40 pm
Grantham aside, CMR should immediately fire whomever is in charge of our special teams…period. We have become the SEC sucker for fake punts because we’re so consumed with Boykin or Smith running one back (they normally faircatch). Also, who is coaching our return men to run into the middle rather than use their speed to get around the end like we did last year? Number 36 should have been benched after his second personal foul…we are the league’s most undisciplined. I’ve been a Dwag fan for over half a century, but it’s past time to change this culture we’ve developed in Athens. Just my opinion.
just sayin
October 18th, 2011
12:41 pm
Franklin was simply trying to impress those recruits that were on “unofficial” trips. This was an obviously staged show. He had to do something after the UGA safety rag dolled his player.
piermontdawgny
October 18th, 2011
12:41 pm
this is so overblown and so overheat indexed…
gdawginkalamazoo
October 18th, 2011
12:41 pm
Good for Tech for running for 500 yards. They got their exercise didn’t they. And a big L on the scoreboard.
UGAmutt
October 18th, 2011
12:41 pm
VIRGINIA!?!?! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA…TECH LOSERS!
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
jtdawgfan
October 18th, 2011
12:42 pm
This is a crock and I cannot stand the fact that you would call for a suspension because two adults had heated words.
Fralnkin started with the attacks because he’s was po’d. Justified or not, Grantham stood up for his players and called TF on it.
Was it wrong? Probably. Should show better class than that – but this whole overblown “suspend coaches for jawing” crap is nonsense. I think the media is being ridiculous.
Fine him, sure, if Mark Richt wants to institute some control.
Suspend him?? Really? Yelling now warrants suspensions?? You have got to be kidding me?
Have we gotten so sensitive in this world that we’re not allowed to voice our opinions?
I guess he should have just given TF the “down twinke” hand singal instead.
What a bunch of crap coming from the same group who scream 1st amendment when a single censorship word is uttered. The same group who cried foul for a colleague another coach refused to acknowledge because of his past behavior?
There is just no pleasing the arrogantly hypocritical…
Lowcountry Bulldawg
October 18th, 2011
12:42 pm
Dean-
“Alumni only please”…
I think you forgot to put Wormer at the end of your name.
TomB
October 18th, 2011
12:42 pm
Logic Lowcountry? Ok, Vandy’s 1 ansd 2 star talent gave your 4 and 5 star talent a run for their lives. They hung with us…..yea you keep telling yourself that.
Really?
October 18th, 2011
12:42 pm
A coach does not say anything to the opposing team’s players. He should address all that with the coaches. The Vandy coach crossed that line and boom the situation was set off.
BSB
October 18th, 2011
12:43 pm
Mark , let me show the headline you would have use Monday if this was different ” Vandy Coach goes after UGA player and UGA coaches do nothing about it “. You would have followed this up with how lame and cowardly UGA coarches are. I think it is about time you pack your bags for another city. Your comments are getting old.
jtdawgfan
October 18th, 2011
12:43 pm
Oh, and your rag just censored my post because I call you and your colleagues out MB.
Ridiculous witch hunt.
TomB
October 18th, 2011
12:43 pm
Lowcountry….trailer calling?
Cognitive Dissonance
October 18th, 2011
12:43 pm
What Coach Grantham did was commendable. I think that we should place a statue of Coach Grantham outside of our stadium with spittle spraying forth profusely from his gaping maw as he gives the traditional “choke” sign to passersby.
We could even hire some Tech nerds to come over and wire up a motion detector and sound system so the statue could bark like a rabid dog whenever anyone approaches it.
How cool would that be?
jtdawgfan
October 18th, 2011
12:44 pm
and you censor me again
Dean
October 18th, 2011
12:44 pm
I think most of us are just tired of the Bubba’s getting all the talk about UGA. Our mission is academics first and foremost. We shouldn’t be a football factory and the athletic side of things should further enhance our academic mission. Go root for another team. Bama seems to be fine with it being a Bubba program as well as do most other southern schools.
jtdawgfan
October 18th, 2011
12:45 pm
You rag just censored 2 posts from me for calling you journalists on your bloodlust the most hytpocritical group ever
T'Town Dawg
October 18th, 2011
12:45 pm
WOW Mark, you must need to get as many page hits, and comments as Jeff yesterday, go write for a Knoxville paper.
Dawg48, agree James Franklin is Lane Kiffin Jr.
This is minor news story, never picked up nationally, and outside of AJC is a non story….
Get to work…Falcons coverage blows from AJC.
Lowcountry Bulldawg
October 18th, 2011
12:45 pm
Reasoning skills….
last year in Athens we won 43-0…. (stay with me)
This year in Nashville, at night with a Vandy team better defensively and using trick plays to stay in the game almost pulled off the upset.
It took gimmick plays and blocked punts. The better team clearly won. Vanderbilt was using old slight of hand tricks to stay in the game. The did a damn good job of it.
UGAnSFLA
October 18th, 2011
12:45 pm
Mark Bradley, your calling for a suspension of CTG is ridiculous! Franklin has shown that he’s a jerk and he instigated this whole incident in the first place. Also, CMR’s on the field comments, apologizing to Franklin and not backing up or at the very least, waiting to comment after he knew all the facts from both sides is totally spineless. Over the last few years, I’ve tried to give CMR the benefit of doubt, but he needs to leave on his own accord or be fired at the end of this season.
jtdawgfan
October 18th, 2011
12:45 pm
Grantham sticks up for his players against a HEAD coach that crosses the line, but you want his blood?
Anon
October 18th, 2011
12:46 pm
Ok, it seems the “he started it” defense is in play. Sounds like 8 year olds. What about Grantham telling his players to go to the locker room? (and he go with them) That would have defused the situation. Just deal with it like men, when did trash talking and celebrating after every tackle become college football? (other than Miami, years ago)
Dean
October 18th, 2011
12:46 pm
If Grantham had done the same thing Franklin did then you all would be commending him. It’s laughable how two-faced you people are. Wrong is wrong.
jtdawgfan
October 18th, 2011
12:47 pm
By the way, I’ve yet to see one single article railing against Tony Franklin for him starting the fracas…
We should consider sitting players for their classless act, but chastizing a coach for defending them against another coach is preposterous.
Lowcountry Bulldawg
October 18th, 2011
12:48 pm
TomB,
No the only call I got was from your momma telling me I was your Daddy. Just like the Yankees to Pedro Martinez. Lowcountry is TomB’s Daddy. Now go back in the corner and talk with the girls and leave the heavy lifting to us men, son.
TomB
October 18th, 2011
12:48 pm
But gdawginkalamazoo, the SEC has such great teams and great defenses. There’s no way a high school offense could gain 500 yards is there? Not against a great SEC defense?
jtdawgfan
October 18th, 2011
12:48 pm
Grantham was wrong. Let him know, fine him if you have to even, but suspending him when he did little more that let an emotional point turn into a shouting match with another grown man is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.
Jeff
October 18th, 2011
12:49 pm
So tell me Mark….what about the Vandy coach….afraid to call him out….ahhhh that’s right- we cant do that…it would be discrimination…….this idiot watches his players chop block…….smack talk…and then he gets in one of our players faces….GIVE ME A BREAK……why dont you write about all that……NO GRANTHAM DOES NOT NEED TO SIT….FOR WHAT?????? TAKING UP FOR HIS PLAYERS???????????? The moron that is the head coach at Vandy needs to take some of the blame……but we cant have that….no sir…..BS!
DJDawg
October 18th, 2011
12:49 pm
No coach has the right to do or say anything to another teams players!!! This jack nut got what he deserved!! He trys to sit back now and say we are not going to take anything off of anybody when he was the one that got it all started!!! Hes lucky TG didnt sit him on his ass!!!!
TomB
October 18th, 2011
12:49 pm
Ha! Is that all you’ve got Lowcountry?
Big Albany Dawg
October 18th, 2011
12:50 pm
Mark. Welcome to testosterone. GET SOME
Jaime
October 18th, 2011
12:50 pm
Mark, it would help out a lot time wise if you would insert intermittently among the readers comments your comment on the comments…what you have to say pretty much tells me what the others had to say and I don’t have to read so much….junk. I’ll just look for the blue screens of death…:)
BigDawg
October 18th, 2011
12:50 pm
This is the most idiotic column I’ve seen on this topic. I never post on these things, but reading any sports writer suggest that Grantham should be “suspended for one game” is too sophomoric to pass on. If you suspend him for a game, you might as well fire him. He will not be back the following year, and it is unlikely that any coach facing “suspension” would stay on the rest of the season. This guy can go elsewhere, he doesn’t need Georgia. And if you think that we don’t need him for the rest of the season, you are DEAD WRONG. His defense is imperfect but miles ahead of Martinez. If he leaves, you can forget winning the rest of the season. If he is suspended for the Florida game, you can forget winning that game too. Then, you can forget the SEC championship race, and you can forget Richt too, because he will be fired for losing too many games AND hiring a coach that needed to be suspended “to make a point.”
The silliness surrounding this football program needs to end. Richt and his staff, Grantham included, need to focus on one thing and one thing only for the rest of this year – winning. We don’t do that, you can forget any more “dream teams” and Georgia will be irrelevant in the SEC for a decade or more. I for one and sick of losing and sick of all this external bs that weakens our program. Muschamp, who caused everyone in Dawg Nation to cry when he went to Florida has even less class than Grantham – screaming on the sidelines about every single little thing – telling his players the played horrible during a halftime when they are up 39 to 0 against a D2 team. Sanction him.
I was glad to see Richt and our AD downplay this. They both know that an SEC sanction or a “suspension” ends our season.
Armanidog
October 18th, 2011
12:50 pm
I am so tired of Marc Richt, the Bulldogs, and Michael Adams (president of UGA-Athens) . The UGA Bulldogs have turned into classless losers. Most penalties in major college football. Recruiting thugs to play football. 3rd down and 64 yards to go. Stupid college president begats stupid football coach who begats stupid football players.
I would rather lose with class than lose without class. I would rather win with dignity than win with a sour taste in our mouths. Fire Adams, Richt, and the rest of the coaching staff. Start over.
jtdawgfan
October 18th, 2011
12:51 pm
Dean that’s false.
Alot here chastized him pretty good last year about the stupid chicking sign he’s giving a 21 year onld student
and he should have been. Franklin goes after a player and the coaches are supposed to let him have at it???
That’s laughable. I wouldn’t want my son to be on your team. I actually want a coach who cares about him and is willing to stick up for him if need be, not let an opposing coach thrash him. That’s his job.
Kyle
October 18th, 2011
12:52 pm
(An aside here: I’d also be careful about angering this Vandy coach. James Franklin is going to beat some big names very soon
way to go mark…praise the next coming of a vandy coach…….wooooohooooo…all on board with the vandy coach…..you are a sorry excuse for a sports writer…..
TomB
October 18th, 2011
12:52 pm
Yea right Lowcountry Vanderbilt has suddenly recruited 5 star players? What you mean to say is the better coached team lost, and I agree with you.
Lowcountry Bulldawg
October 18th, 2011
12:52 pm
All you need to know about TomB
He mentioned Franklin as a replacement to Richt if he where fired. Hello, that only gives me the victory here bud. Done arguing with a troll and a uninformed one at that. Enjoy the day and remember to pick up your knuckles, they are dragging.
jtdawgfan
October 18th, 2011
12:52 pm
Let’s put it this way….
If your child was in a school play and I walked up to him at the end of the play and started jawing him out because he giggled during my daughter’s solo part, what would you do? Let me sit there and have at him and lambaste him???
1eyedJack
October 18th, 2011
12:53 pm
“Het UGAmutt, Tech ran for almost 500 yards last year against your great SEC defense with its 2nd string QB.”
And lost.
TomB
October 18th, 2011
12:54 pm
Lowcountry, when it comes to recruiting Vanderbilt = GTech. Have you ever thought for one second what Vanderbilt or Tech would do with UGA’S recruits?
MattMD
October 18th, 2011
12:54 pm
Grantham isn’t going to get fired, that’s pretty extreme. The guy does look like a punk, though. Two outbursts in one year looks like a trend to me.
Let’s put this BS of Georgia having a “top 10″ defense to rest: Georgia has beaten teams who are collectively 1-13. It’s statistical anomaly.
Johnson needs to recruit some NT’s but the Tech defense weren’t the ones who lost that game last Saturday.
Muschamp is a clown. I’m surprised UF hired him, Florida is not a starter job.
bitter liberial bias
October 18th, 2011
12:54 pm
tipical “AJC” comment—–lets see you dont like loosing—–butt you dont like “erk” like fire
———bradley shut up and go back to your single wide and start typing about land scaping
——————–try and stay away from man up subjects———momma’s boy——–hahahahah
———————————GRANTHAM——rules—————bozo and saint richt are pus____you get it