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
1eyedJack
October 18th, 2011
12:54 pm
“Het UGAmutt, Tech ran for almost 500 yards last year against your great SEC defense with its 2nd string QB.”
And they still lost.
gdawginkalamazoo
October 18th, 2011
12:54 pm
Dean, alumnus here. This is the most overblown thing to come out over the weekend. So Grantham didn’t like some things that went on during the game and he let Franklin know about it. And IMO that Franklin is a grade A a-hole who promoted a lot of went on during that game. Best example is the chop blocking/clipping. In my 4 decades of watching football I cannot recall how many times a player has not been thrown out of the competition for balantanly throwing a punch like Geathers did on #60. Yet he remained in the game and the penalty was offset. Must have been a such cheap shot/career ending block from the Vandy player that the refs agreed with Geathers.
As for the foul language? Heck its used in football by just about every coach & player that steps onto the field. Muschamp sure as heck isn’t quoting scripture on the sidelines.
So for Grantham people need to chill and get over it. Its part of football like it or not.
Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!
October 18th, 2011
12:54 pm
We’re still talking about this?
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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Whatta
October 18th, 2011
12:55 pm
TomB
October 18th, 2011
12:03 pm
I love all the crybabies on this blog. They chop blocked us all-night long, they deserve what our coach did. Whaa! Whaa! Whaa! Its Vanderbilt for crying out loud.
Do you even know what a chop block is? If they were actually “Chop Blocking” they would have been called. They were cut blocking, which is not against the rules.
jtdawgfan
October 18th, 2011
12:55 pm
Mark Bradley,
If I walked uo to your daughter after a school play and jumped her tail because she giggled at my son during his solo performance, I guess you’d stand there and let me scream at her??
Then you say something to me about it I guess should get you banned from her next performance then, huh? Or better yet, what you and your colleagues purport, we should just ban you from school grounds, altogher, since that’s what it seems your agenda driven azz is intimating.
GA_DAWG10
October 18th, 2011
12:55 pm
The football team has so many GREAT young men who will become outstanding adults soon. It’s too bad they are being overshadowed by a few thugs on the team and one out of control coach.
South Georgia
October 18th, 2011
12:56 pm
Will the SEC suspend Will Muschamp for his gutter language toward referees? I don’t think so. Enough said.
T Mann
October 18th, 2011
12:56 pm
Dallas Dawg, I agree. It really was not that big a deal. MB, CTG needs to be on the sidelines for GA_FL!
TomB
October 18th, 2011
12:56 pm
I never said anything about Franklin, Lowcountry. That was your fellow alumni Dean, genius.
bitter dawgs fan
October 18th, 2011
12:56 pm
@1eyedjack—-your last year 2nd string QB—-looked like he still is a 2nd string after last two games
————————————just saying
MattMD
October 18th, 2011
12:57 pm
No you idiots, acting like a punk is not a part of football. If it were, then the UGA AA and CMR wouldn’t be having to apologize for that douche of a coordinator.
Kyle
October 18th, 2011
12:57 pm
Can we get a heat index on so called sportswriters……at the AJC they are all pretty much morons….Bradley….why dont you head up to nashville or better yet, Kentucky so we dont have to read crap like this…….you are so far up the vandy’s coaches ……………………… you stink! It would be different if you wrote a balanced commentary…like calling out the chop blocks, Franklin in our players face…..hmmmmmmm where is all that Bradley?
Whatta
October 18th, 2011
12:58 pm
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.
The video I saw showed the Vandy coach talking to Grantham, not in the face of the UGA player.
Terry
October 18th, 2011
12:59 pm
Mark Bradley, You Jeff Schultz, and Chip Towers are only using this to get Hits on your Blog’s, nothing else. How many of you have had a reply from any of these Writers? I’ll tell you ZERO!
Jimmy Crack
October 18th, 2011
12:59 pm
Mark, it is quite obvious that the Vandy coach started the !@#%$, and yes Grantham should have stayed above it all, but this stink is on Franklin. I know you root for the little guys, being a Kentucky grad, but this will all go back to Franklin because he instigated the rhubarb.
H
October 18th, 2011
12:59 pm
Kudos to Coach G for sticking up for his players. Its about time Athens got someone with some fire. Those kids will run through a brick wall for him now that he stuck up for them. I’m all for it. Way to fight for UGA.
GA_DAWG10
October 18th, 2011
12:59 pm
The Vanderbilt coach was in no player’s face. He was pointing at him…Williams was long gone by then. We need to recruit better men, not just football players.
jtdawgfan
October 18th, 2011
12:59 pm
MattMD I ask you the same question…
If that’s YOUR kid I AM chewing out because of something I didn’t like, you’d stand there and let him have it??
That’s parental idiocy. I hope you’d defend your children better than that.
JOD
October 18th, 2011
1:00 pm
Mark – We all know you’re completely biased against Tech, but it would be nice if you would attempt to write anything positive about the team. Yes, they royally stunk this week, but there are redeeming qualities for the team.
CPJ isn’t a saint, but the team can’t seem to execute…don’t blame him for not kissing their boo-boos. You make a 6-1 start sound like a losing season.
1eyedJack
October 18th, 2011
1:00 pm
bitter dawgs fan, our last years second string QB IS still our second string QB.
Whatta
October 18th, 2011
1:00 pm
Black Mountain NC Bulldog
October 18th, 2011
11:56 am
I love Granthams passion! Vandy chopped blocked all night, and they deserved to get an earful.
GATA!!!!!!!!!!& Junk Yard Dawgs are back!!!!!!!!
Do you know what a chop block is. If Vandy had been “chop blocking” it would have been called. Cut blocking is not against the rules.
gdawginkalamazoo
October 18th, 2011
1:00 pm
TomB, I didn’t dispute the 500 yards? 500 yards so what? They got their exercise. I don’t care if you gain 1,000,000 yards, the thing that matters at the end of the game is the scoreboard, no matter what league or level. If you like stats be happy with 500 yards and the loss. The 1 point for the W is the stat you should be focusing on because that’s the one that counts.
1eyedJack
October 18th, 2011
1:01 pm
MEMO to Coach Franklin: Don’t start nuthin’, won’t be nuthin’.
James
October 18th, 2011
1:01 pm
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.”
Projection doesn’t work any better than the denials and excuses. Alabama’s football program represents the University with class and integrity. The problem is in Athens, not Tuscaloosa.
jtdawgfan
October 18th, 2011
1:01 pm
Whatta, get out of here and look elsewhere beacause on TiVo you can actually see the two to three seconds BEFORE CTG got to him Frankin was popinting and yelling at player.
or maybe he was yelling at the police officer instead…
SCJack
October 18th, 2011
1:02 pm
As an old person who has viewed literally thousands of football games over nearly three quarters of a century, I’ve witnessed (in just the past two weeks) a most disturbing phenomenon, HEAD COACHES intentionally forcing a confrontation between their and the opposing team (in this case UGA) for the pseudo purpose of rallying their team but actually for a personal show to hopefully gain player and/or Administrative support for themselves and/or for their (highly paid) jobs. These coaches are Dan Mullen of Mississippi State and (now) James Franklin of Vanderbilt.
Coach Grantham is merely a pawn in their game. His demeanor is well known and as such was used by the Vanderbilt coach to accomplish the purpose stated above (as Franklin, himself, stated on his radio show). Given this scenario, the worst discipline that Coach Grantham should probably receive might be lessons in how to recognize when you are being used as a dunce! If Coach Grantham had initiated the confrontation, I totally agree with you; however, when did we start punishing people for being naïve?
Kyle
October 18th, 2011
1:02 pm
GA Dawg 10…….you are a loser dude…I was AT THE GAME! why dont you lose the DAWG and become a vandy fan moron…….
Gay Dawg
October 18th, 2011
1:02 pm
Richt threw Grantham under the bus!
jtdawgfan
October 18th, 2011
1:02 pm
Terry,
Careful. Post the truth and your posts will start to “disappear” when you submit them…..
Cognitive Dissonance
October 18th, 2011
1:03 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? Huh?
RedandBlackDawg
October 18th, 2011
1:03 pm
GA_DAWG10,
Let me see if I have this right by your thinking. See, while you were going to college when you could, guys my age , were going to war when we of college age. Some of us did get our education at different colleges, due to our continued military career, so future generationss would have an opportunity to go to college. Now, since I am not an alumni and didn’t attend UGA, I can not voice my opinion, am a redneck fan, and don’t have a right to say anything about UGA. Only you elite UGA grads. do?
People like you make me wonder why in the heck I made the military a career sometimes, considering the freedom people like you enjoy, because of the sacrifices others made.
I would say, I and others like me have more of a right than you do.
GO DAWGS and GATA
P..S. Don’t you wish you had the pwer to ban me, since I am not a UGA Grad?
Gundog
October 18th, 2011
1:04 pm
I believe Coach Grantham is the best thing that has happened to the Bulldogs. I like Coach Richt but I believe the players have taken on his personallty. Georgia needs to get the killer instinct and put teams away. I am sick of watching them play not to lose instead of playing to win. I am not convinced that Bobo is what Georgia needs as an O C. With the players Georgia has they should be putting up 30 points a game. Just my take.
Whatta
October 18th, 2011
1:04 pm
jtdawgfan,
I saw him pointing at a player that was 6-8 feet away from him. I don’t believe that 8′ away is in your face.
Gay Dawg
October 18th, 2011
1:04 pm
Richt showed no spine….this team needs to reorg next year!
He Hate Gator
October 18th, 2011
1:04 pm
Good comments SCJack….totally agree..
Pencil necked geek
October 18th, 2011
1:04 pm
I was wondering if I’m the only person that watches the big baby whine and scream each weekend on the sidelines. If the SEC wants to do anything, maybe they should put a muzzle on WIll Muschamp; His antics are becoming legendary, but there is no discussion here abut that. The next thing you know, he will be wanting to fight the opposing coach at midfield like Danny Ford did in the past. Lighten up everyone, We want to suspend a coach for the biggest game of the year for UGA, come on Bradly, maybe they should do it for the Kentucky game.
Terry
October 18th, 2011
1:04 pm
gdawginkalamazoo, I’m with you on that, at the end of the year, it’s all about the Win’s.
1eyedJack
October 18th, 2011
1:05 pm
MEMO to Coach Richt: Don’t throw your team or coaches under the bus. And quit apologizing when you don’t have all the facts. It makes you look like Obuma. Grantham may be the only thing between you coaching at Georgia next year versus coaching at a directional school.
Ron
October 18th, 2011
1:06 pm
You’re right…coach richt and mcgarity threw Grantham under the bus……if he were smart, he would leave…..unbeleiveable that CMR would not stand up for his coach…this idiot and sorry piece of sewage that calls himself the vandy coach started the whole thing…I am disgusted with Mcgarity and CMR……fans like GA Dawg 10 are in the same class as the vandy coach…..LOSERS
Oledawg
October 18th, 2011
1:07 pm
I for one am glad that we have someone with fire on our sideline. I think MR is great but I also like Grantham’s fire and passion for the team and and the game. Go Grantham!!!
LHarding Dawg
October 18th, 2011
1:07 pm
SCJack – You missed the worst coach, Trooper Taylor of Auburn. High fiving after late hits, dressed like a thug, and waving his stupid towel.
Pencil necked geek
October 18th, 2011
1:08 pm
Hey Whatta, go back and watch the video again
Brandon Spikes
October 18th, 2011
1:08 pm
Next thing you know Grantham will gouge Muschamps eyes out in Jackdonville.
Kiss The Ring
October 18th, 2011
1:08 pm
Trooper Taylor is high fiving after a late hit? Wow…thats news to me.
1eyedJack
October 18th, 2011
1:08 pm
MEMO to Coach Richt: Turning the other cheek does not work and never worked, especially on the gridiron. Grow a pair!
Golly Gee
October 18th, 2011
1:09 pm
Thanks Coach Bradley. We know you speak from game experience.
Pencil necked geek
October 18th, 2011
1:10 pm
As far as CPJ, Bradley why don’t you buy him a bra at the big woman store!
TomB
October 18th, 2011
1:10 pm
gdawginkalamazoo, did I mention that Tech was playing with their second string QB when their high school offense ran for 500 yards against your great SEC defense.At UGA, and this was a Tech team that only won 6 games. I’m trying to make a point here that you obviously keep missing. The SEC is not as great as you idiots make it out to be.Would I rather win? Sure, but when I see the stats, it looks like Tech is playing any other ACC team, not some mighty SEC defense. Get it? Imagine for one second, if Tech or Vanderbilt recruited UGA caliber players.
Roll Tide!
October 18th, 2011
1:10 pm
Typical no class Georgia behavior. This is why the good HS kids go to Bama, Coach Saban would never put up with this kind of behavior. Get your act together Dawgs.
Whatta
October 18th, 2011
1:11 pm
Pencil necked geek,
I did watch it again. He was pointing at #36 who is 8′ away. The player closest to him, #48, looks around at #36 not directly at the Vandy coach.