Home / Hotline Reports / Bulldog Hotline - Sept. 26, 1999... In Memoriam
Bulldog Hotline - Sept. 26, 1999... In Memoriam
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Munson reminded us all that penalties, mistakes and question marks don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. (Just in case everyone hasn’t already been jerked back to reality by the sudden, tragic death of Coach Watson Saturday night.)JD and Watson had spent a lot of time together, all the way back to working together under Bill Dooley at UNC, and Watson will be missed personally, as well as professionally.
He had wondered whether to even have the show…figured he owed it to any fans who may still have questions about yesterday’s game, even though everyone in Athens is really hurting tonight. The coaches and players appreciate the calls and e-mails which came in today.
Just because we lost the entire starting DL from last year, we have high expectations and haven’t lived up to those yet.
We should just be grateful we won, despite all the mistakes and penalties. Breaks are part of the game, good or bad. We’ve got to understand that we have to keep putting the hammer down when we get ahead. Film was not analyzed as much today as usual because of the circumstances.
We generally show film of an opponent’s best plays to help the team understand what an opponent can do well. We had penalties which negated three third down stops and were not trying to over- or under-inflate the other team in preparation.
Everything starts with proper discipline, regardless of what we are doing. JD thinks we took a step backwards as a team yesterday. Donnan thought the effort was there yesterday, but not the concentration. We can keep instructing players, but they have to do it at some point. He compared it to being a parent and making sure a child understands what needs to be done (such as not leaving a bicycle behind a car).
JD is confident we can be ready for the LSU game, mentally and physically. Our younger players will learn to understand how to operate and react under pressure. They will be put under pressure in practice to help them understand. We should have worked the team harder the week of the UCF game, and not worried so much about keeping everyone healthy. (We had hard practices during the open week.)
We have a basic game plan each week which is drawn from. LSU has lots of athletes, but has had problems in pass coverage and pass protection. The game plan is in place by Monday so it can be worked on during the week.
Coach Adkins has worked some on OL under Donnan, assisting Scelfo, then Watson, and will now take over more OL duties. Mike Bobo (now a Grad. Assistant) will get more involved with the TEs (Adkins’ position) to help fill the breach.
One caller reminded everyone that we’ve already dealt with one reality check this year - the injury to DeJuan Green late in the Utah State game.
Labrone Mitchell has had a tough fall - first an injured ankle vs. Utah State, then the flu during the open week. He worked some on Thursday at backup QB, but we never had backup snaps yesterday.
Kilgo has lost his redshirt unless he gets injured; once a player plays, he cannot be redshirted unless getting a medical redshirt if injured early in a season. JD rattled off a number of names of players who are presently being held out, though no final redshirting decisions are made until later in the season.
Looks like many top teams are struggling, except Florida, and many folks had written them off before the season started. Tennessee only scored one offensive TD against Memphis, that with a minute to go. UGA is not the only team which has struggled in the early season.
We tried to mix defenses and coverages against UCF, since Penn is a good rhythm passer (and got into rhythm in the second half). We knocked him down a number of times, but he kept coming on. We substituted on defense more than usual yesterday, since UCF ran 96 plays. Mallard had a big sack late in the game and the coaches try to get him into situations where he is most effective. Charles Grant worked exclusively during the open week and UCF game at RB due to injuries. He will work more at defense, since he knows enough about the offense for the situations he’ll be used in. We had planned to use Grant more at RB vs. UCF, but only ran 62 plays.
Do the coaches have a harder time getting the team ready with no-name OOC games? JD says the schedule had nothing to do with yesterday’s performance. Again, don’t expect the present scheduling parameters (6 home games) to change.
One caller noticed that QC is often tipping off who he will look for first - patting them on the helmet as we break the huddle. JD says most routes are reads, not predetermined, and he will tell QC to be careful so opponents get any ideas.
We had several problems with kickoffs, including two players in the same lane, and not kicking the ball to where the coverage was being set up. This will get close scrutiny in practice this week.
OL lost some cohesion when Stinchcomb went out. K. Williams had not played, and Foster helped out as well.
We moved the ball well early with a balanced play mix, but penalties threw us out of rhythm. We just need to get more consistent on offense.
We’ve played several CBs - Harris has been beaten a few times, but also made some plays. CBs will get beat some when they’re out on an island.
Memorial service for Coach Watson - 2:00 Tuesday at Prince Ave. Baptist Church. He will be buried Thursday in Mississippi.
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IMHO, the show did seem rather eerie tonight. JD seemed to be into it less than usual - very understandable, but at least most callers were respectful of what was really important. We really have to admire his sense of duty; I don’t think too many people would have been upset if the show had been cancelled under these sad circumstances.
Jim
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