Archive for March, 2009

  Doesn’t sound as if anybody is off and running toward nailing down the No. 1 tailback job.

  In fact, the leading rusher in Georgia’s scrimmage Monday wasn’t Caleb King or Carlton Thomas, the two healthy scholarship tailbacks currently competing for Knowshon Moreno’s old job. The leading rusher was walk-on Kalvin Daniels.

   “I thought it was hot and cold, really,” Mark Richt said of the tailback play in the closed-to-the-media scrimmage. “I thought there were a couple of times we should have hit it up in there a little more physically and didn’t see it. Then the same guy the next play might really hit it up in there and break a tackle. I’d say pretty inconsistent overall.”

  Richt on King: “I thought he was hot and cold.”

  On Thomas: “Carlton didn’t get many yards per carry, but so far I think he’s been a little more consistent in his tempo and his willingness to stick it on in there.”

  Several players mentioned that the …

Continue reading No breakaway at tailback yet »

Could Missouri's Mike Anderson be the man the Georgia Bulldogs are after? (AP Photo).

The silence is deafening.

That’s the only way to describe Georgia’s search for a new men’s basketball coach. Suddenly it has all gone quiet. That, as you all surely know, means things are getting done.

The seasons of at least two coaches thought to be at the top of the Bulldogs’ wish list ended over the weekend. That means UGA’s search will likely kick into high gear between now and NCAA Final Four festivities in Detroit this coming weekend. Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel and Missouri’s Mike Anderson saw their teams go down in the Elite Eight round of the NCAA tournament Sunday and Saturday, respectively. That means they are now available for Georgia to approach about its coaching vacancy.

UGA athletics director Damon Evans, who’s usually pretty good about getting back to me, hasn’t returned my messages in three days, four if I don’t hear back from him on Monday. Earlier he told me the Bulldogs …

Continue reading UGA now can talk to Anderson, Capel »

Dominoes were starting to fall in several schools’ searches for a new men’s basketball coach. Now a big blue bowling ball just rolled through and dominoes are being scattered all over the place.

The University of Kentucky was to announce at 4:30 p.m. Friday that it has relieved Billy Gillispie of his coaching duties. So a Division I coaching landscape that included notable vacancies at Georgia, Alabama, Arizona and Virginia, suddenly includes an opening at one of the most prestigious basketball programs in the country.

What does that mean for Georgia, which is seeking a replacement for ousted head coach Dennis Felton? Probably not as much as it does at Alabama. The Crimson Tide just this week was parading VCU coach Anthony Grant around campus in Tuscaloosa, a clear sign that he was their main target. But Grant quite notably did NOT accept their reported offer. That’s more understandable in light of this latest development.

Just the mere speculation that Gillispie could be …

Continue reading A Big Blue domino enters UGA coaching search »

     Athens – Last football season, Georgia ranked 115th out of 119 Division I-A teams in penalties. The Bulldogs were penalized 112 times for 938 yards, 72.15 yards per game.  Atrocious.

    That has not been forgotten in spring practice.

   “Every coach has a systematic way of logging during practice any penalty that happens,”  Mark Richt was saying Thursday.  “And when practice is over, those coaches have some form of discipline – up-downs and that kind of thing.”

    Moreover, Richt said, the emphasis this spring is on curing the cause of excessive penalties.

    “We’re going back to the basics and trying to create habits,” he said.  He thinks a superbly conditioned, fundamentally sound player who gets into proper position on a play is less likely to commit an infraction. “The better we are at fundamentals and the better condition we are in, I think the less chance we’ll have these kind of penalties.”

   Even now, though, Richt …

Continue reading Working on the penalty problem »

  Bryan Evans, shifted to safety after some disappointing results early last season at cornerback, is getting rave reviews in Georgia’s spring practice.

  He’s listed as the No. 1 free safety, and all indications are that he and Reshad Jones are pretty solidly entrenched for now as the starting safeties.

  Mark Richt said Evans’ skill set is a good fit for safety: “He’s always been very strong. He’s fast. He has no problem with contact. And he’s very smart, and safeties, quite frankly, have a bigger responsibility  in the defensive scheme to make adjustments and things like that. And it hasn’t been difficult for him.”

   Also, Evans has been a force as the Georgia defense attempts to regain some swagger lost last fall.

  ”He’s probably got as much spirit out there as anybody,” Richt said. ” He’s enjoying what he’s doing, practicing with high tempo and high energy. I think that’s really a good sign he’s enjoying it and understands it and is doing a nice job with …

Continue reading Bryan Evans up to speed at safety »

   Athens – Truth is, you won’t know who’s starting at tailback for Georgia until August, at the earliest.  But I thought you might like to hear how Mark Richt evaluates two leading candidates at this ridiculously early juncture.

   “I think that they’re both doing a nice job,” Richt said Tuesday evening, referring to Caleb King and Carlton Thomas.  “It’s just hard to sit there [after five spring practices] and start deciding who should be where.

  “I think Carlton has done a very nice job of running the ball. He probably has made more people miss and broken more tackles at this point than Caleb has.

    “But Caleb is doing an outstanding job himself. Caleb has a little bit more experience at pass protecting and things like that.

   “We just need to get both of those guys a lot more reps in pass protection, quite frankly, to be able to start separating them.”

  King, who will be a redshirt sophomore in the fall, and Thomas, the 5-7, …

Continue reading Who’ll win the tailback job? »

   Looking for your football fix?  Georgia hasn’t practiced the past couple of days but will be back at it late this afternoon, the fifth of 15 spring football  practices allowed under NCAA rules.  The Dogs also will practice Thursday and Friday. So we’ll have plenty of football fodder the rest of the week.

    Meanwhile, a few other things:

     — So as of Monday Georgia had not sought permission from Virginia Commonwealth to interview Anthony Grant for the Bulldogs’ basketball coaching vacancy. But you’ll wonder why not after reading this piece by the Washington Post’s Michael Wilbon.

   – Sweet 16 games to watch if you’re tracking coaches thought to be high on Georgia’s wish list: Mike Anderson’s Missouri vs. Memphis at 9:37 p.m. on Thursday. And Jeff Capel’s Oklahoma vs. Syracuse at 7:27 p.m. on Friday.

   — When Georgia plays Georgia Tech in baseball at Tech on Wednesday, the game will match two of the nation’s top three teams, according to this week’s …

Continue reading Notes between football practices . . . »

  A number jumped out at me over the weekend: 4,461.

   That’s how many people were at Foley Field on Saturday to watch Georgia’s baseball team play Mississippi State – the largest crowd in the history of the place.

   David Perno’s Bulldogs obviously have caught on with folks. Saturday’s crowd was sandwiched between two other outstanding turnouts – 3,876 on Friday and 3,689 on Sunday.

   The total attendance for the series was 12,026, a Foley Field record for a three-game series, topping the previous mark of 11,930 for the stirring 2001 NCAA Super Regionals against Florida State. Breaking the record for a March series really says something.

   You know this kind of support is  gratifying to Perno, a native Athenian and Georgia alumnus who  led the Bulldogs to the College World Series in three of his first  seven seasons as head coach and to a national runnerup finish last season. 

   This past weekend’s crowds were rewarded with a three-game …

Continue reading Baseball team a big hit »

It’s only spring practice, I know, but there’s so much going on in Georgia’s football camp that we can’t really fit all the information into our daily football reports, such as the one I wrote Friday. So depending on what you guys think (hint: give me some feedback), I’m going to use the UGA blog as a sort of supplementary space for all things football while we follow spring ball. I’m also going to try to provide daily practice updates when possible.

Friday was somewhat of a rarity in that Georgia coach Mark Richt opened the entire practice to the media. AJC photographer Brant Sanderlin has a nice photo gallery up from the proceedings. Now I didn’t sit out there and watch every minute. But I made sure to watch all of the best part, which is always the 11-on-11 toward the end of practice.

INTENSE DAY: Again, it’s only spring practice, but it didn’t seem like the Bulldogs realized it. They really got after it Friday, especially during the makeshift scrimmage. The defense was …

Continue reading Intensity reigns in Georgia’s spring practices »

UGA fans tailgate during the "World’s Largest Cocktail Party," aka the Georgia-Florida game, in the RV parking lot outside Jacksonville’s Alltel Stadium. (Brant Sanderlin / AJC)

Tradition defines the Georgia-Florida game as technically being played on neutral turf – “neutral” being Jacksonville and Jacksonville being in Florida.

University of Georgia athletics director Damon Evans says there are no discussions about trying to bring the Georgia-Florida football game to the Georgia Dome.

“No, there are no talks going on,” Evans said Friday. “Gary Stokan of the Atlanta Sports Council has expressed interest in and approached us about moving the game to Atlanta. That’s the extent of it. I wouldn’t call it talks.”

“We’re not asking to move half the games or all of the games to Atlanta,” Stokan said. “We respect tradition. We’re just looking for one of the four.”

Georgia’s contract to play Florida in Jacksonville — a location that has long rankled Dogs fans — expires next …

Continue reading Georgia-Florida game moving to Atlanta? World’s Largest Cocktail Party mulls moving up I-75 »

NOTE: PRACTICE UPDATES BELOW IN COMMENTS.

I have been covering Georgia Pro Days off and on since the early 1990s — I remember watching Garrison Hearst and Andre Hastings run the 40 up on the track in 1992 — and I have to say that Thursday’s had to be the biggest “event” of all of them I’ve personally witnessed.

The 2001 Pro Day was well attended, with Marcus Stroud and Richard Seymour and Kendrell Bell and pretty much the whole of that defense getting drafted. There were a bunch in 2002, such as George Foster, Jon Stinchcomb, Boss Bailey and Musa Smith. Then there was 2004 with David Greene, David Pollack, Reggie Brown and Odell Thurman, among others. But in terms of creating buzz and attracting NFL and media attention, 2009 took the cake.

That comes as no surprise as Georgia may have the top players drafted at two positions in quarterback Matthew Stafford and tailback Knowshon Moreno. There were 13 other Bulldogs that worked out for the scouts, too, so they had both a quality …

Continue reading Stafford, Moreno energize UGA’s Pro Day »

Editor’s Note: Chip Towers provided updates throughout UGA’s Pro Day and all of them are listed below. Some of the notables: RB Knowshon Moreno turned in a 4.63 in the 40-yard dash while DB Asher Allen turned in a blazing 4.33. QB Matthew Stafford ended the day with several impressive throws. DB C.J. Byrd, LB Dannell Ellerbe and WR Mohamed Massaqoui helped themselves with fast times in the 40.

Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno will be on the field again for Georgia today. Check that: They’ll be on Georgia’s fields but it will be for themselves.

Representatives of all 32 NFL teams — and in some cases three or four from each team — will be on hand as the Bulldogs’ two offensive stars from this past season, along with 12 other UGA players, show off their wares for NFL scouts.

Georgia coach Mark Richt said it may be the Bulldogs’ biggest Pro Day since he and his staff came to Athens. Strength and conditioning director Dave Van Halanger, who organizes and oversees the event, …

Continue reading Georgia’s Pro Day attracts NFL Who’s Who »

Tony Dungy told a story Wednesday about interviewing for an NFL coaching job some years back and having an owner tell him that he planned to pour millions and millions of dollars into the franchise and needed to know how committed Dungy was to winning.

“I need to know if this job is going to be the most important thing in your life,” Dungy recalled the owner asking him. “I said, ‘No, it won’t be.’ . . . I didn’t get the job, and I was OK with that.’”

Dungy, the recently-retired head coach of the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts and a father of six, shared that anecdote during a joint press conference held Wednesday at Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall with Georgia coach Mark Richt. The occasion was to announce their new partnership in one of Dungy’s longtime passions, the All Pro Dad program.

First of all I have to say I was impressed with the media turnout. It appeared that every Atlanta television station and pretty much every newspaper and dot-com that covers the Bulldogs was …

Continue reading Dungy, Richt join forces for All Pro Dad »

A full day after I had left him my first message, Boyd English, the principal at Emanuel County Institute, finally called me back yesterday. He said he wanted to make a statement about Dexter Moody, the ECI linebacker from whom Georgia rescinded its scholarship offer after Moody got into some recent trouble at the school.

I was hoping Mr. English was going to shed a little light onto this murky situation but he really didn’t. Moody told me he was recently suspended for an argument he had with one of his teachers down there. Mr. English would neither confirm or deny that. “That was Georgia’s decision and I won’t go into that,” he said. The only thing he’d go on the record about was Moody’s character.

“Dexter is like any other 17-year-old student-athlete that has remarkable athleticism,” English told me. “Our job as educators is to prepare Dexter for the future, for life after high school. Dexter’s a great kid and I don’t want things portrayed negatively about one of my …

Continue reading Moody’s recruitment, release a mystery »

So you think just because you’re a Georgia fan you have no interest at all in the NCAA Basketball Tournament? Think again!

The fact is, this tournament has everything to do with the Bulldogs. It’s their stated goal to land an established, experienced coach who has had NCAA tournament success. What better place to find one than in the Big Dance?

There are several coaches scattered throughout the bracket who, whether they realize it or not, are on Georgia’s radar screen for its vacant men’s basketball job. And in a “Bowfinger” kind of way (obscure reference to an obscure Steve Martin movie) they’re being screened for that position. Georgia AD Damon Evans is going to be watching their games with the utmost interest and scrutiny. Same goes for Alabama’s Mal Moore and the ADs at Virginia and Arizona and wherever else there may be or may soon be a head coaching opening.

As for Georgia, there are at least eight opening-round games to which all Bulldogs should pay close attention. If …

Continue reading Bulldogs’ next coach probably ‘Dancing’ »

It's a big spring for Caleb King. (Photo by Jason Getz, AJC)

Ladies and gentlemen, March Madness has officially arrived and that can mean only one thing at Georgia — time for spring football practice!

That’s right. While all those other fools pour over brackets trying to figure out if Sienna has a backcourt that can hang with Ohio State’s, we’ll be finding out where Clint Boling might line up on the O-line, whether Caleb King has, uh, moxie, and if there is a Division I defensive end somewhere in Athens-Clarke County. And some other stuff.

The Bulldogs trot out onto the Woodruff Practice Fields for the first of 15 practices — including the April 11 G-Day Game — on Tuesday afternoon. Fittingly on St. Patrick’s Day, there will be a bunch of players in green jerseys, which also signifies they’re injured.

Actually these players never really stopped practicing. Football is truly year-round these days and, other than spring break and a brief respite after the Capital One Bowl, these …

Continue reading March Madness at UGA means spring football! »

TAMPA — And now the maneuvering begins.

Not on a new basketball coach, mind you. It’ll still be a while before Georgia can get in front of viable candidates for its open position. But you can be sure the Bulldogs’ players are getting busy thinking about their futures. And as uncertainties go, their futures couldn’t be more uncertain.

Georgia is a young team of nine freshmen and sophomores. But that doesn’t mean they will all be back. Some will likely leave on their own. Some might not have the opportunity to stay.

Lost in all the warm-and-fuzzy talk about Georgia’s basketball season coming to a courageous and amicable end here in the SEC Tournament is some rather ugly realities taking place on the bench. Not all of the Bulldogs are happy campers and it goes beyond the fact that the coach that recruited them was fired six weeks ago.

Brett Jensen of TotalUGA.com followed Zac Swansey out to the bus after Thursday’s game where Swansey preceded to rip Georgia and say he was …

Continue reading Future unclear for many Georgia players »

Somebody asked me on the last post what the weather was like down here in Tampa. Gorgeous. OK? I just didn’t want to rub it in. But my day is about to be spent inside at the St. Pete Times Forum.

Georgia (12-19, 3-13 SEC) is scheduled to tip off against Mississippi State (19-12, 9-7) at 3:15 p.m. Kentucky (19-12, 8-8) opens play at 1 p.m. against Ole Miss (16-14, 7-9). Alabama-Vanderbilt and Florida-Arkansas round out the night session.

Here are your main storylines:

• Kentucky’s situation has gotten real interesting. Let’s just say a loss to Ole Miss today could be disastrous both for the Wildcats’ postseason hopes and for coach Billy Gillispie’s job security. Talk of the Big Blue’s dissatisfaction with Gillispie is rampant down here. Same goes for AD Mitch Barnhart.

• How many SEC teams will get into the NCAA tournament? Regular-season champion LSU (25-6, 13-3) is really the only one assured. Tennessee (19-11, 10-6) and South Carolina (21-8, 10-6), co-East champs, look …

Continue reading Bubble, UK talk highlight SEC tourney »

Good morning. Greetings from Gate T3 at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. I’m on my way to Tampa for the SEC Tournament. I think it’s going to be a good day. Why? Because Willie Nelson is waiting at my gate. Only good things can happen if you’re traveling with the “Redheaded Stranger,” right?

I never can get used to the SEC Tournament being somewhere other than Atlanta. It seems extra strange having to hop a plane to Tampa to go cover it. I don’t really mind them moving it to Nashville or New Orleans occasionally or even to Birmingham. But Tampa seems like a relative foreign outpost for the SEC.

I’m dating myself a little bit here but I was there the last time they played the SEC Tournament in Florida. It was in Orlando and the Gators were horrible that year. Kentucky was banned from playing due to NCAA probation. Georgia was regular-season champion but Ole Miss and Bama ended up playing in the finals.

Needless to say it wasn’t a very well-attended event. In fact, …

Continue reading Tampa an odd venue for SEC tourney »

Georgia baseball coach David Perno.

Say whatever you want about Georgia baseball coach David Perno but one thing I’ve always liked about him is his penchant for telling it like it is. Take this new business about his Bulldogs being ranked No. 1 in the land.

When I asked him about it, Perno didn’t jump into cliché-ridden coachspeak about how “it’s early in the season” and “the only poll the matters is the last one.” He didn’t say, “We don’t look at polls.”

What he did say was: “I completely embrace it. Our players, our program, our former players, we all embrace it. It’s awesome.”

Now I know and you know the Diamond Dogs haven’t exactly been taking on the New York Yankees in pre-conference play. They have feasted on the likes of Youngstown State, Presbyterian, Wofford and Quinnipiac in building a school-record-setting 12-0 ledger. There was the trip to Tucson for three games against a rebuilding Arizona squad so we have to give them credit for that. But the key word therein is …

Continue reading Perno, Dogs embrace No. 1 baseball ranking »

I’m not surprised really about the number and tone of the e-mails I received in response to my story on what coaches Georgia might be targeting for their men’s basketball job.

They essentially ranged from, “what are you, crazy or stupid?,” to, “why in the world would [insert coach's name] want to leave [insert school's name] to come to Georgia?” The sad part, some such messages were even from some Georgia fans. Columnists and “college hoops experts” remain intensely cynical about the Bulldogs’ prospects.

It is just these types of reactions that gets Damon Evans out of bed early in the morning. It makes him mad. It motivates him.

I’ve explained this before but let me run over it again. Evans is a basketball guy. He was MVP of his team his senior year at Gainesville High. He played intramural and pickup ball all the way through college into his current tenure as athletics director. He’s the reason there’s a $30 million practice facility attached to Stegeman Coliseum. Building a …

Continue reading Damon Evans is why Dogs will land top coach »

Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo held a teleconference call with reporters on Thursday. And while the information he shared (more on that later) was interesting and useful, just the fact he was holding a teleconference was the most intriguing thing for me.

Bobo, 34, has kind of quietly become the star coach of head coach Mark Richt’s staff and his rise to his current status therein has been meteoric.

We all took notice when Stacy Searels and Rodney Garner turned down lucrative job offers at other institutions to remain at Georgia. Richt promptly rewarded those coaches’ loyalty with substantial raises for this coming season. Searels got a $54,600 bump and Garner $36,699. Linebackers coach John Jancek, who was recently named co-defensive coordinator after turning down a job at South Florida, will probably receive similar treatment in coming weeks.

But lost in all that was the fact that Bobo received a $57,500 raise. Now only defensive coordinator Willie Martinez makes …

Continue reading Georgia’s Bobo a rising star in coaching ranks »

How ’bout them Dogs?!

That’s about all you can say after Georgia’s stunning 90-85 upset of Kentucky on Wednesday night. It was just the fifth win over the Wildcats in 60 games in Lexington. That it came from what had been a two-SEC-win Bulldogs team that has already fired its coach against Kentucky on Senior Night in Rupp Arena made it all the more amazing.

“It was a real team win,” interim coach Pete Herrmann said. “I felt we were aggressive offensively. We wanted to make sure we constantly put pressure on their defense because they are very good in the passing lanes. I told our guys to play with purpose and maintain their poise. It was a great win.”

It definitely was a team deal. Senior Terrance Woodbury led four Georgia players scored in double-figures with 30 points. Freshman Trey Thompkins added 19 points and 11 rebounds for his fourth career double-double, Dustin Ware had 18 points and Corey Butler added 13.

The Georgia victory avenged a 68-45 loss the Wildcats handed …

Continue reading Georgia basketball stunner in Lexington »

Quiet. Quiet! Shhhhhhhh!

Listen closely. Can you hear that? Georgia football coach Mark Richt just made another statement. By now it ought to be coming through loud and clear.

Despite constant and often unbridled criticism of his coaching staff — and his defensive coaches in particular — by some of the more vocal members of the Bulldog Nation, Richt continually answers quietly and subtly through his actions. His message is, “I don’t agree with you.”

Not only has Richt retained all his assistants from the “disastrous” 10-3 season just past — Doc Eason’s move to administration and Bryan McClendon’s promotion was long in the works — he has given all of them raises and several of them promotions. The latest came Tuesday when he made linebackers coach John Jancek co-defensive coordinator. The new title was a reward for Jancek’s decision to forego this week an offer to become South Florida’s defensive coordinator.

This should in no way be viewed as demotion for current defensive …

Continue reading Richt’s actions speak volumes about assistants »

Interesting to find out that Georgia linebackers coach John Jancek apparently turned down the opportunity to become defensive coordinator at South Florida recently. Once again loyalty to Mark Richt seems to have won out over money.

I don’t know what Bulls coach Jim Leavitt offered Jancek as DC but he is currently the second-lowest paid coach on Georgia’s staff ($163,000). Richt gave raises to his other coaches who turned down opportunities to stay with him in Athens (Rodnet Garner, Stacy Searels). It’ll be interesting to see if he does the same for Jancek.

By the way, Jancek has been a D-coordinator most of the 18 years he’s been in college coaching, including his previous stint at Central Michigan.

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE 5:15 p.m.: Jancek was promoted to co-defensive coordinator by Georgia.

A few links:

I shared a conversation I had with former Georgia coach Hugh Durham in this space a month or so ago in which he talked about how he thought the Bulldogs’ basketball job is a …

Continue reading Another assistant chooses loyalty to Richt over $ »

I don’t know how much Donald Trump pays attention to these things but I watched his show, “Celebrity Apprentice 2,” just because Herschel Walker was on it.

Well, at least I watched a good bit of it. The premiere, which was Sunday night, was two hours long and was not what you’d call riveting enough to keep someone’s attention undivided. But I did watch it long enough to figure out that the teams, divided into men vs. women, had to make cupcakes and sell them for charity. And I wasn’t surprised to see Herschel be named “project manager” for his team. This landed him in the boardroom with a couple of major tools, Dennis Rodman and Andrew “Dice” Clay. Not surprisingly, Herschel survived so you can watch him again this week. It comes on again this Sunday night.

It’s odd watching Herschel, a guy who has remained such a mystery to the Bulldog Nation for so many years, throw himself out there for the world to see on reality television. But he comes off fairly well and certainly is …

Continue reading Herschel Walker lends class to ‘Apprentice’ cast »