You know that saying that goes something like, "I wouldn't be paranoid if everybody wasn't out to get me?" That's kind of what Georgia's coaching staff is going through right now. And maybe they have reason to be. At least that's what they're thinking by closing practice this week in preparation for Alabama. I think it goes without saying that they're concerned about being spied on by folks aligned with the Tide. Don't take my word for it, check out this story from ESPN.com, although it was fairly obvious that was their concern beforehand. I have a feeling it might come up tomorrow at Richt's news conference.
They believe someone has already spied on them, so they're closing things down this week to try to cut back on that. Hmmm, remind me again. Who did they lose to this season?
Honestly, I don't think this is directed at the four newspaper guys who are there on a daily basis as much as it is at the TV cameras and microphones that can pick up sensitive things they don't want to get out like special teams formations, various techniques and snap counts. Mark Richt has basically said as much in the past. Nothing against the TV folks, he said. They probably don't even notice the tiny details of what they're filming, although a good coach might be able to look at it and see little nuances...I might be wrong there, though. Most of us paper folks have blogs where we post specific things they'd probably prefer people not see, so that could have some influence on this, too. I don't think so, though.
They'll probably try to feed the line of bull that they want the players to have a week of practice without any distraction, but don't believe that noise. The players I talked to after practice about it (Matthew Stafford and Jeff Owens) didn't even know or notice we weren't out there. It's not like there's an enormous throng of media members surrounding the field. There are only a few of us most days.
Truthfully, I'm surprised any college football coach lets any media members watch any part of practices. The vast majority of them are ridiculously hypersensitive as to what gets out there. And I know that that level of hypersensitivity at Georgia has increased because of some of the inside stuff you see popping up in various spots. That would probably make me paranoid too. Loose lips sink ships and all that...
I think if you took an informal poll of the media folks who cover this team, you might be surprised at the level of indifference to this decision. I might be the only one who doesn't like it, in fact, because I felt like it was a bit insulting. It's their prerogative, though. This is a huge game for them and you can definitely tell that by the mood around here this week. I'm pretty frequently the last person to leave Butts-Mehre after writing whatever I'm writing from postpractice that night. When I left at 10 tonight, there were still several second-floor coaches offices with the lights on, which is almost never the case. They know if they lose on Saturday and they fall to 0-2 in the SEC, their season is pretty much shot. At least as far as contending for anything meaningful.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
David,
Please correct me if any part of this is wrong, but I seem to remember before the USC game that you said UGA would for sure try that hide the ball play at some point. I remembered reading that and thinking "he shouldn't be typing that" yet there it was.
I love this blog, and I think it's the best out there, but still, even the smallest amount of info can mean the difference in a close game and maybe CMR doesn't want to chance it.
That being said, keep up the great work but please don't post upcoming plays.
Cheers,
Spence
Even if I wanted to post an upcoming play, I wouldn't know whether something was coming or not based on what we see in practice. The closest thing I've posted, at least that I found, was this before the Oklahoma State game:
"It was completely closed today so they could work on some special teams stuff in private. Which means I'm probably not supposed to tell you about the fake punt they run where Mimbs slips the ball under his jersey and runs backwards with it to confuse the other team...Whoops, I guess that ruined it...Believe me though, it's the dangdest thing I've ever seen."
And you'd have to be retarded to think that was serious.
All SC had to do was remember what we did last year and watch the OSU game to know we would do the same thing. You do not have to spy on us as we are too predictable. We think we have better players and we are going to run our plays no matter how they defense us in stead of looking at the field and taking advantage of what they are allowing us to do. Still we should have won.
Well I must be retarded. I stand corrected.
Keep up the good work David.
Ahh hahaha! nice response David.
Post a Comment