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How former Georgia football players fared this spring at 5 different SEC schools
System
Posts: 11,137 admin
How former Georgia football players fared this spring at 5 different SEC schools
ATHENS — Former Georgia football players had a notable presence in spring drills after transferring to other programs.
Comments
"Bennett explained he needed to trust the staff and later indicated at the start of spring drills the things from Kirby Smart in “closed door meetings” that he needed to hear to return and be “all-in.” Still haunts me what Kirby told Bennett...must have been good...he is the declared starter already. Let's win it all again then Bennett/UGA.
I love how Mike said Justin Fields is the most talked about transfer, it’s because Mike had a little man crush on Fields and is the only one who writes about him of the many Georgia websites that cover the dawgs! I mean if the other websites combined, Mike triples those stories about fields and the last time they said anything about him is when he was still in college😂😂😂. Go cover the Bears team Mike, they are really bad and will be a writer’s paradise for you, trust me I know, I live in Chicago!
I can’t name a single game we would have won if Jermaine and Justin had stayed with the Dawgs. I doubt seriously we missed a beat with those guys going elsewhere. Good examples of “making mountains out of mole hills” with these guys leaving. Go Dawgs!!!
Not sure I care how well or poorly those guys do.
There are those of us who do. We're sports fans, not simply members of the Kirby Choir. I, for one, appreciate what Mike does, even if some folks want to send every kid who leaves UGA to purgatory.
A couple of thoughts on the FU spring game. The #1 O scored 34 on the #1 D. The #2 O scored 0 on the #2 D. JKimber was playing 2nd team. He played okay against an O that scored 0 for the game. He was the skinniest guy on the field. He still looked 170 lb. I did not see the stat's mentioned. Possibly because I didn't pick up his number right away. The QB transfer from OSU doesn't look like an SEC QB (not yet anyway - not much arm). FU looked like they lacked depth in general. Though they have a few RB's that can play. Josh Braun OG was running 2nd team. BCox still looks like rushing the passer is his whole game. AR15 has a very live arm. Not evident how far he has progressed from the occasional wow highlight season, against mostly overmatched teams, he had a year ago.
Burton is a hard call. He certainly didn't look like Metchie or JWilliams but he had a few catches (and alligator arm'd a couple as well - granted "scrimmage"). He will be good in that O but AL will need more. Expect JGibbs to catch a lot of passes.
Part of my enjoyment of sports is understanding the competition and the dynamics of the individual match ups. Just the old coach in me. So I would be following the UGA transfers even if Griffith wasn't writing about them. And I read up on most of the competitive SEC/National teams. To each his own. More content is better than less content. You can choose what you want to read or not. Granted, Griffith's writing is not always unbiased.
IT's funny, cause a good Pony League player could've QB'd OSU, with all the talent they had...and Fields didn't "lead" anything. They had a number of offensive leaders at the time. All that offensive talent, and Fields still couldn't buy em a Championship. OVER----RATED! Just look at his rookie NFL performance compared to his peers. UGA didn't lose a darned thing when he left, he's the one that lost out. If he had stayed, he might have been NFL ready.
I've said it before...I'll say it again. Sportswriters and fans that never played the game, give QB's far too much credit for a teams success and far too much blame for a team's failure.
Only because it's too labor intensive to actually break down every offensive position, the QB is the shiny object that handles and distributes the football on every play and they just don't know any better. After most of the drafts, I believe that may also describe half of the NFL GM's. LOL
For instance, Mike Griffith's statement, "UGA quarterbacks struggled against the first-team defense last Saturday, and it didn’t matter who was under center". LOL. That's intellectually dishonest. If Beck or BVG had Bennett's STATS, that would not be the narrative...guaranteed.
Bennett had virtually an equal number of possessions against the 1st team defense, as Beck/BVG (collectively) in The G-Day game, yet he managed to throw 35 times and score 3 TDs, while Beck/Bvg only threw the ball 12 times with zero TDs. Why the disparity? Well, because the 1st team defense stopped them. Beck/Vandergriff couldn't sustain a drive with the same offensive players against the same defensive players.
Given the facts and the STATS revered so, by MG, it appears that it DID matter who "was under center". Even if Bennett wasn't allowed to run with the ball or move it outside the pocket as Beck/BVG were. Beck ran a number of bootlegs and waggles while BVG scrambled a few times. Bennett was the only one of the three that was confined to the pocket, which is what Smart and Monkin wanted him to work on, and of course to eliminate risk of injury.
All that being said, the secondary, both the 1st team and some 2nd team DBs, showed a surprising ability to lockdown receivers and demonstrate tight coverage. Bennett had very few uncontested completions.
And let's face it, I don't care if UGA had and lost 5 Secondary Coaches in 5 years...they were only assistant secondary coaches. Smart and now, Muschamp are the real secondary coaches. Those other guys were serving an internship to learn how to coach the secondary, with Smart and Muschamp serving as the instructors. Your welcome. LOL
Well said @UGADad20. You were spot on. I saw most of that UF scrimmage, too, and was shocked at how young their team is. I believe 2/3, or more, of their scholarship players are Freshmen or Sophmore. They're unusually light in the Jr/Sr department.
Richardson played okay, but, it's kind of tough to evaluate any of the QB's, 'cause I don't know how good the defense really was. I know from what the announcers and Spurrier were saying, and the roster, that they are young and inexperienced. I have no idea what Dan Mullin was planning to put on the field this year, but, suffice it to say, 'that's probably why he's gone'. LOL. I don't think the East is in any danger from FLA this year.
I agree with what you said about there being no such thing as too much information. I'm paraphrasing, but, I got the point. And, as far as I'm concerned, MG can keep on keepin on. I think he's a very good writer that I don't always agree with. But, that's what makes it interesting. He casts pearls out, and we either put em in our pocket or throw em back at him. It's an offseason sport and it's fun. LOL
BTW, if you don't mind my asking, where did you coach? Was it in Ga?
DeppDogg Posts: 291 ✭✭✭✭ Senior
April 23
There are those of us who do. We're sports fans, not simply members of the Kirby Choir. I, for one, appreciate what Mike does, even if some folks want to send every kid who leaves UGA to purgatory.
Hmmm. Kirby's great, but mostly, I'm a Dawg fan, since 1972.
Also, "purgatory"? Wha...? I wrote that I wasn't sure I cared how well or poorly they did, not that I wanted them to fail.
There are plenty of places to go for stuff on other teams.
I noticed there are no quotes from Kirby in this article.
Can you imagine him being asked his thoughts on how these transfers did at other spring practices? LOL
Wait...didn't a few of those guys leave BEFORE this past season?
Regarding the transfers as a whole, once that Wanderlust gets in your blood, it's a hard to get out. Just look back at the behavioral history (not just in football) of most of these guys and you'll definitely see a pattern.
As for the transfers and their success, I suppose it's just a need for content during a relatively dry cycle.
@My_Dawg_Ryan
Fields is the most talked about transfer because he played in a national title game and was a first-round NFL Draft pick.
Fields was a talent, but I understood why Jake Fromm held the job, and I watched as Justin tried to learn a Pro-Style System as a true freshman .
Here's more insight that came out later, as to why Justin Fields felt pressure to start:
Way to get it goin', Mike. LOL
Justin Fields? Okay, let's examine that just a minute. Smart kept Fromm...and should have. Fields transferred to a loaded OSU team...and should not have. At least not if he planned on a long successful NFL career. If he was just looking for a quick payday in the Draft...then see ya, well, he succeeded. LOL
I didn't think it was possible, but, Fields' NFL debut was worse than Trevor Lawrence's. Lawrence was abysmal and Fields was worse than that. I chalked Lawrence's failures up to former OSU HC, Urban Meyers.
Fields would have benefited emensely with a couple more years at UGA to learn the Pro-style offense. Look what Fromm did in the NFL with ⅔ the talent. In his first year, Fields threw more INTs (10) than TDs (7). Let me repeat that...7 TDs to 10 INTs. He DID run for 2, though. LOL
Fields' success at OSU was a product of the talent around him and his ability to adlib when plays broke down. Alabama's #1 receiver (William) last year, was sitting on the bench at OSU, for God's sake. That should tell you something about the offensive talent level at OSU.
He IS talented, but, the NFL requires more than talent. He should've stayed at UGA and learned to operate in a pro-style system. I don't think he will last long enough, physically, to succeed in the NFL. IMO
If Young had gone to any school outside the SEC, his fate would be the same. Young's success last year, as a Freshman, was directly proportional to the success of Metchie and Williams. He won't have those targets this year. Burton is no Williams, but, he might be as good as Metchie. The jury's still out on that one. Bottom line is, BAMA doesn't have the tools for Young to succeed next year and I think Saban knows it. He's desperate to put an offensive line together that will be able to protect Young next year, because Young is going to need more time in the pocket to find receivers. They don't have the talent at WR that they've enjoyed for most of the last decade.
The point is, Young will be much more prepared to compete in the NFL than Fields was, because he did what it took to learn the system and compete for the job. Had Fields done that at UGA, he would have been prepared for the opportunities he was given and made the most of them. Who knows, he might have won the starting job in 2019 or 2020 and gone to the NFL prepared for success.
Shame...what could've been...for Fields and for UGA.
Mike,
I always like that quote, “fans are always asking what would have happened if Fields had stayed in Athens”. As I mentioned in earlier comments…..exactly what games would we have definitely won (that we lost) during those years if Fields was behind center? Certainly not our last visit to Tuscaloosa where our Bennet led team lost 41-24. Just a few weeks later the more talented Ohio State team lost to that exact same Bama team 52-24, but Justin was lucky and got to play on a neutral field. Bottom line is we likely would not have won even one more game if Fields had stayed in Athens. Time to let it go.