It was college football as usual in my apartment and on my television Saturday afternoon. With the tv screen split between Florida-Georgia and South Florida-UConn, I kicked back, as I always do, and took in the action.
It wasn’t long before I saw something unusual.
Watching “the Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party,” I focused on Tim Tebow, curious as to how his bruised shoulder would affect his game. When he was sacked on the very first play, I knew that it was going to be a tough day for Gator Nation. Then there was the Kestahn Moore fumble.
But the Gators not playing like the Gators wasn’t the unusual thing that I would see. That thing was the whole Georgia sideline running onto the field, walking it out, Supermanin’, and crankin’ dat all in celebration of its team first touchdown.
“That was genius,” I thought. And the 30-yard penalty it cost was a small price to pay for what that little stunt did for the Georgia Bulldogs.
Much has been said about what Mark Richt basically told his players to do after the first touchdown. But I think it was a good call. In big games, a coach must coach his team up. This, a rivalry game against the defending champs, was a big game. Few had picked the Dawgs to win, and they needed to show each other, the Gators and the nation that they were in this game to win this game.
Was it a gamble? You bet, but I can’t blame Richt for trying something different. They’d lost 15 of the last 17 meetings in the series, and this one wasn’t necessarily looking up. Richt’s out there to win ball games; his orchestrated ploy swung the momentum in his team’s favor and won him the ball game. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Richt, though, ought to be happy it wasn’t Stever Spurrier, whose Gamecocks beat Georgia earlier this season, wasn’t on that Florida sideline. WTLX.com reports how Spurrier said he would’ve handled the situation: “If the other team ever does that, get one of your down the line guys that's not going to play to get out there and start wrestling with the guys. Now you've got a fight and they're all out the next week. Georgia would have been in trouble if a fight broke out, deep trouble for the game this week."
All of this may sound tacky to some, but to me it’s, quite simply put, coaching. It’s a way of getting a team’s heads in the game.
Spurrier added, "We've got a lot of guys we can have suspended a game."
With Virginia Tech losing it late in the fourth, Rutgers being blown out at home, Kentucky overlooking Mississippi State and Southern California on the ropes in the Pac-10 a lot of other teams could use some coaching up, too. And, though it was a few days before Halloween, Coach Richt’s trick gave the Georgia Bulldogs a treat.
It wasn’t long before I saw something unusual.
Watching “the Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party,” I focused on Tim Tebow, curious as to how his bruised shoulder would affect his game. When he was sacked on the very first play, I knew that it was going to be a tough day for Gator Nation. Then there was the Kestahn Moore fumble.
But the Gators not playing like the Gators wasn’t the unusual thing that I would see. That thing was the whole Georgia sideline running onto the field, walking it out, Supermanin’, and crankin’ dat all in celebration of its team first touchdown.
“That was genius,” I thought. And the 30-yard penalty it cost was a small price to pay for what that little stunt did for the Georgia Bulldogs.
Much has been said about what Mark Richt basically told his players to do after the first touchdown. But I think it was a good call. In big games, a coach must coach his team up. This, a rivalry game against the defending champs, was a big game. Few had picked the Dawgs to win, and they needed to show each other, the Gators and the nation that they were in this game to win this game.
Was it a gamble? You bet, but I can’t blame Richt for trying something different. They’d lost 15 of the last 17 meetings in the series, and this one wasn’t necessarily looking up. Richt’s out there to win ball games; his orchestrated ploy swung the momentum in his team’s favor and won him the ball game. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Richt, though, ought to be happy it wasn’t Stever Spurrier, whose Gamecocks beat Georgia earlier this season, wasn’t on that Florida sideline. WTLX.com reports how Spurrier said he would’ve handled the situation: “If the other team ever does that, get one of your down the line guys that's not going to play to get out there and start wrestling with the guys. Now you've got a fight and they're all out the next week. Georgia would have been in trouble if a fight broke out, deep trouble for the game this week."
All of this may sound tacky to some, but to me it’s, quite simply put, coaching. It’s a way of getting a team’s heads in the game.
Spurrier added, "We've got a lot of guys we can have suspended a game."
With Virginia Tech losing it late in the fourth, Rutgers being blown out at home, Kentucky overlooking Mississippi State and Southern California on the ropes in the Pac-10 a lot of other teams could use some coaching up, too. And, though it was a few days before Halloween, Coach Richt’s trick gave the Georgia Bulldogs a treat.
—R. Cooper
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