Georgia Bulldogs: RB Coach Bryan McClendon Gets A Hefty Raise

Photo Credit: David Manning

Chalk this one up to the 'he's one helluva recruiter' explanation because, otherwise, I'm scratching my head at how running backs coach, Bryan McClendon managed to get a raise which more than doubles what he made in 2010 ($90,000 to 200,000). Tony Ball, Georgia's wide receivers coach, will also see his paycheck get a bump from $165,000+ to $200,000.

But, back to McClendon.

The raise, according to Chip Towers, was McGarity's way of being proactive in keeping the football staff intact. Both Ball and McClendon were apparently pursued by other schools this past season and opted to stay at Georgia. As a result, they were given "competitive counter offers" that allowed them to stay at Georgia and not disrupt the continuity of the coaching staff.

While I can certainly get on board with maintaining continuity, particularly in a year already marked with a ton of questions about Mark Richt's future at Georgia, McClendon's pay raise seems too generous given what he's done as a coach.

That said, it's easy to see that McClendon's value as a recruiter has given him more rope than he might normally have had. Mark Richt said as much himself when he was forced to defend McClendon's sub-par performance at recent speaking engagement.

Said Richt of McClendon's worth, "...Bryan McClendon is a hell of a coach, he’s a hell of a recruiter. And I’m glad we got Bryan McClendon."

Last season, McClendon was key in the recruitment of Isaiah Crowell, Zach DeBell, Quintavious Harrow, and Nick Marshall—all of whom are expected to be impact players at Georgia in the near future and a good recruiter is something that most any head coach will covet.

Bobo has a similar talent and has elicited as much loyalty from Richt as both McClendon and Garner.  By way of mention, however, all three men have had their fair share of criticism from both pundits and fans, about their ability as coaches—none of them appear to be in danger of losing their jobs anytime soon.

I suppose you can't blame Richt for wanting some of the best recruiters in the nation peppering his staff but, at some point, you would hope their coaching talents would be every bit as worthy of the praise.

McClendon is still young, only 27 years old, so he's still growing into his role as running backs coach (much like Bobo), but he is clearly a star on the rise, particularly as a recruiter, and if he's able to bring it all together this season, then Georgia will have made one very good deal.

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Georgia Bulldogs: The First Step Towards Change Comes With Recognition of Mistakes

While Mark Richt is not totally responsible for everything that has gone wrong with Georgia football over the last three years, he is accountable for the overall lack of progress the program has experienced during that time.

On the record, my opinion of Mark Richt is that he's a great football coach who has hit a rough patch. However, off the record, I am an admitted apologist of him and his decisions regarding Georgia football. I want to see him succeed and I want to see those who would otherwise torch him be forced to reconsider their stance.

That said, imagine the glee and disappointment felt upon learning that he took his foot off the gas the last two years—played with his cards a little too close to the vest.

An article, published by The Orlando Sentinel on Christmas day let us take a  small peek inside the mind of the much-maligned Georgia football coach, and exposed a flaw that many of the most skeptical fans of the program have suspected for quite some time now—coach Richt had lost his fire.

When asked about the issues the team has encountered over the last few years—particularly in the area of conditioning and overall preparedness—Richt had the following to say,

"I started the season in camp probably not doing enough live scrimmaging and tackling to the ground... Ever since I've been coaching, that's all I've been around. But we've had a couple of years in a row. We had one season, we started the season we had 32 guys injured before the year even got started. And so I'm like, `Alright, this year, I'm going to do what some other teams do. … We were still going to scrimmage, you know have three big scrimmages, but we were going to try to go full speed but not go to the ground or not block below the waist to try to beat everybody to the gate."

While it's understandable that coach Richt would want to be cautious, it would seem that he would have looked elsewhere for answers—why fix what was not broken? The systematic pull-back of intensity was bound to affect the overall attitude of the players and the coaches at some point.

Did he not think his approach would become a factor at some point?

Furthermore, the holes in the S&C program might have been a lot easier to see if the team were approaching scrimmages and practice sessions with more intensity. Perhaps canceling 'two-a-days' and heading to the pool hurt more than some cared to admit—including myself.

Either way, his honesty should be considered as a positive step towards the type of change you want to see at Georgia because it's clear that coach Richt is on the same page as many of his harshest critics—including himself—and hopefully that translates into quick production by the players as spring approaches.

We'll just have to wait and see. What say you?

Georgia Bulldogs Football: Has Mark Richt Stopped Expecting "Perfection" from His Team—Self?

This post may seem odd given the fact that the Georgia Bulldogs are coming off a 55-7 drubbing of the Idaho State Bengals. After all, a win is a win, Georgia did what they were expected to do by pounding an inferior opponent.

However, before we go talking about what Georgia has to do to beat Auburn, something that many fans (on both sides) don't feel the Bulldogs are capable of doing this weekend, we should answer the simple question of whether or not coach Richt has stopped expecting perfection from his players?

There was a time when anything less was unacceptable to him.

As a young man of 40 years, coming from an environment (Florida State) where winning meant everything, coach Richt didn't like to settle for average seasons. He wanted national championships, division titles, and Top 25 finishes—every year.

That's what he preached and that's what he felt his team could do if they executed perfectly each and every week.

Are those standards still present now?

Let's take a little walk down memory lane, shall we? The time and place, July 2001, Birmingham, AL—SEC Media Days. Coach Richt was in his first season as the Georgia Bulldogs head coach and he chose Curt McGill, Georgia's starting center, as one of the team's representatives.

McGill, green to the nuances of handling such a large media contingency, was open and honest about the differences between his former coach, Jim Donnan, and the new guy—Mark Richt.

The most interesting parts reveal some startling similarities between the Jim Donnan of 2000 and the
perception some now hold of Mark Richt:

"In the past, you'd get to know how a coach was going to be and how far you had to go for him,'' McGill said... I felt guys rested on their laurels a little bit thinking, 'I played a lot last year, I won't have to push myself hard because I'll be guaranteed a spot next year.' With new coaches, that all changed."

He said Richt expects more out of his players than Donnan ever did.

Hmm...where have we seen that sense of entitlement before? It's definitely reared it's ugly head several times in the last few years (refusal to sit Bryan Evans, redshirting Knowshon Moreno, keeping Aaron Murray on the bench in light of Joe Cox's struggles, etc.).

At some point, coach Richt seemed more intent on giving the veterans their time to shine—regardless to better alternatives—rather than rolling the dice on the guy who was performing at a higher level.

Another interesting tidbit from the interview was in regards to how important it was that the team be accountable on every play. Coach Richt expected "perfection" and he required hard work and concentration from every man on the football field:

The example McGill used was running "perfect plays" that they must now run every day in practice.
   "We do them over and do them over until we get them right, which is a big key,'' McGill said. "I felt like last year if something went wrong our concentration would slip and the other team would take advantage of it. These new coaches saw that on film and are drilling that in our heads."
   McGill said the attitude has changed from being self-centered to a team concept. He said he saw it take place with the off-season mat drills, which he called "the toughest thing I've ever done in my life.
   "If one person messes up, the whole group goes back, and then you kind of get on each other,'' McGill said. "You say, 'You can't slack off or we're going to do it again.' I guess that carries over to the game [emphasis added]. If they get a penalty or mess up a play, that hurts everybody. That's the whole idea."

Imagine that, a team where accountability and responsibility are part of the team mentality.

Has Mark Richt's philosophy changed or has everyone else in the SEC gotten that much better?

Perhaps it's both and the effect of that transition is a team that struggles to make it to bowl contention and a coach whom some feel has lost his winning touch over the last three-years.

Either way, at present, this is still a team that is searching for answers about who they are and who they can be.

Their next chance to show the world what they are made of comes this Saturday against the Auburn Tigers. And, despite what many believe, they have the talent, the coaching, and the ability to win this game—they just need a little more perfection.

Vince Dooley on the Georgia Bulldogs' 1980 Championship Team: "Herschel Was That Missing Piece" (VIDEO)

Former Georgia Bulldogs football coach, Vince Dooley, took a moment to sit down for an interview with the University of Georgia's student newspaper, the Red and Black, just prior to the start of Georgia's 2010 football season. In this taped interview, Dooley discusses not only the 1980 National Championship won by his team, but also what he feels is the future of the football program at Georgia.

The interview is in two parts: (h/t to wrbrown4):



Part 2...Vince Dooley on why Georgia hasn't won a national championship since 1980:

I Am Extremely Tired of Tony Dungy and His Judgmental Ways

The first thing I want to say is this: this article has not been written to speak of all the good qualities of Tony Dungy. You can find a million other articles, books, interviews, and journalists in the world of sports and entertainment who will do that for you ten times over—go read them today.

That said, if you choose to read any further after the statement above, you do so at your own risk because you probably won't like what I have to say about Dungy in the next few paragraphs—understood?

Here we go....

Everyone loves to praise Tony Dungy for his great work in life as a man, a coach, and a mentor for the misguided athletes who make millions playing in the pro ranks—Michael Vick is his best known cause.

A cause, might I add, that has seemingly given him more grief than gratitude as Vick continues to take missteps and make Dungy look like an ill-advised yoda for ever having stuck up for him.

Yet, I digress...

Dungy is such a major good guy in the world of sports that fans, newscasters, players, and public figures dare you to say anything bad about him—on-air or in print. He's untouchable. That's why he can do something as asinine as chastise a grown a$$ man for using some terse language with his grown a$$ players.

Rex Ryan, the current head coach of the New York Jets, was featured on the HBO Original Series, "Hard Knocks". He dropped the F-bomb, on this CABLE station might I point out, no fewer than ten times. Dungy's response to Ryan's choice of chatter was to call him out for his bad language and suggest that the NFL Commissioner get involved (by suggesting that Goodell have a talk with Ryan about using said language)...for real?!?

Dungy said:

"I would not. I personally don't want my players to be around that. I don't want to be around that," Dungy said. "It's hard for me to be around that, and if I were in charge, no, I wouldn't hire someone like that....Now, I've been around 'F' bombs, so it's not like it's new. But I just don't think that has to be part of your every minute, everyday vocabulary to get your point across."

Good for you, Tony. You are a clean-living man who didn't use bad language to coach your players when you had the good fortune of doing so—yay, for Tony!

Newsflash...Rex Ryan isn't you. He does/did use that language and his methods are clearly different than yours. Does that make him less of a coach than you? Less of a person? Less of a man?...Not in my opinion, but obviously you think enough of yourself to feel that your way is the best way where coaching is concerned.

Please, get a grip.

Rex Ryan is probably more the rule than the exception—where head coaches and their use of foul language is concerned—and while I can understand the value of espousing an opinion on the way a man chooses to get his point across to his players, I cannot get behind a guy who is, essentially, trying to throw that man under the bus for doing so. 

Rex Ryan hasn't committed any crimes or hurt anybody by coaching in this manner and, obviously, he's getting the results he wants to see from being so brash. Respect the process, even if you don't relate to the method. Show a little humility, Tony...you of all people should know how to do that.

End rant. 

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Urban Meyer Looks To Curb The ebay Trolls—Good Luck

Urban Meyer decided to lay the smack down on those who might be seeking to get rich off the current popularity of his Florida Gators football team.

The prickly coach recently announced that practices would be closed to the fans this summer so that his players could concentrate on football and not have to deal with the pesky autograph hounds who intend to sell their wares on ebay.

Said Urban, "...you walk across and people just maul you and bother you and Internet people grabbing helmets, 'Sign this,' and we don't have security saying, 'Get the heck out of here.' You'll see a lot more 'get the heck out of here' from now on and let the kids go practice and concentrate on football." (ESPN, 8/8/2010).

"Internet people"?...that's a lovely choice of words, Urban—is that like some weird cult or something? It sure sounds scary...should we all be on the lookout for this treacherous group of people or what? Just want to know if I should hide the kids.

Anyway, I guess he's grown a little tired of all the extra attention that comes from putting his players on display. A curious thought when you consider he pimped the heck out of his last star player (ahem, Tim Tebow, cough, cough—promise speech) and his own little Brett Favre moment when he both retired and unretired within a span of 48-hours.

He turned that unnecessary spectacle into one heckuva recruiting haul for 2010.

In all seriousness, though, I can understand Urban's problem with the "Internet people" who are looking to make a quick buck off a hot signature but, the player doesn't have to sign the item—does he? I mean, surely the Gators can afford to hire some security to keep the blood hounds at bay, right?... Just a question.

Urban isn't breaking the mold by closing practices. Many coaches decide to shut out the media and the casual viewer and no one makes a big fuss about it, so, why did he have to come out and make a big spectacle of himself by throwing all those adjectives around?

It sounds to me like he just bought another ticket to drama-ville by calling out the ebay trolls and "Internet people". Good luck keeping them at bay now, Urban, you just made the value of those autographs go up by making them so much harder to get—tsk...tsk...tsk.

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Bryce Brown...The Very Definition of Unclassy

Bryce Brown just joined the ranks of his former coach and, coincidentally, the man who lured him to Knoxville in the first place, Lane Kiffin, by exiting the Tennessee football program via text message.

Brown, who abruptly departed the Vols football program in late March, was given quite a bit of leeway by new coach Derek Dooley. No pressure was applied to Brown as the Vols awaited his decision to either finish out his career at Tennessee or transfer out. However, the longer the decision took to be made, the more apparent it became that Brown would not be returning—by the end of spring, it was clear both Dooley and the team had moved on. 

In hindsight, though, Dooley may have been better served to approach Brown and alert him that he needed to make a choice sooner rather than later. The reason for doing so would have been simple, to take pressure off both the team and himself in answering the question of whether Brown was going to remain or not.

Why continue to allow that kind of a distraction? Especially since it was clear that Dooley knew Brown's fate long before the end of spring practice. I mean, most of the fans and players had moved on from this soap opera, but the waiting was the kicker—Brown continued to drag out his request for a release, why?

In the end, not only did Brown not show up to meet with Dooley about his situation but he decided the best way to say goodbye was through a text message.

Unbelievable.

It always seems like poor form to talk negatively about a 19-year old kid who, presumably, still has a lot of growing up to do, but come on—seriously?!? A text message? Considering the amount of respect that Brown was given by Dooley, I would think he would have thought to at least give him as much respect in return. The fact that he didn't says a lot about him as a player and a man—right now.

According to at least one report, his parents weren't too happy about his decision to exit the program in this manner either—his father was vocal in stating that he didn't feel it was the manly thing to do. Well, I can definitely agree with daddy Brown on that one, but, at the same time, look at the example Brown toiled under during his first season in Knoxville.

Former Vols coach, Lane Kiffin, scurried out of town, under the cover of night, on short notice, with no explanation other than he was taking his "dream job". After which, he tried to pilfer what was left of the Vol's 2010 recruiting class and then proceeded to make statements to the effect that he never promised Tennessee a rose garden.

I guess Bryce picked up on the wrong man's cues for how to do things the right way.

Vanderbilt Coach Bobby Johnson Often Saw More Tragedy Than Triumph

The Vanderbilt Commodores just saw their SEC Media Day profile get a little more interesting as head coach, Bobby Johnson, has reportedly offered his resignation to the university.

A press conference has been scheduled for 2 pm (EST) today.

The exact reason for his departure is not yet known, but several media outlets are reporting that his health may have been a major factor in the decision.

His replacement has not been named, but VandyMania.com lists veteran assistants, Robbie Caldwell, Jimmy Kiser, and Ted Cain as possible candidates for the job.

In eight seasons as the Commodores head coach, Johnson compiled a 29-66 record. An unimpressive total to be sure, but considering Vandy's history as an SEC whipping post, Johnson was very well-respected for fielding competitive teams.

During his tenure, he led Vanderbilt to several signature wins over SEC East opponents, including big road wins over Georgia (06'), Tennessee (05'), and South Carolina (07'). He also celebrated the teams' first bowl win in over 50 years—a 16-14 victory over Boston College in the 2008 Music City Bowl.

Johnson first flirted with leaving Vanderbilt in 2007. 

He was a part of the coaching search to replace the fired Ted Roof at Duke. He eventually withdrew his name from consideration and decided to remain with the Commodores.

Vanderbilt was not expected to be nearly as competitive in 2010 as in recent years. The loss of one of his top assistants, Warren Belin to the Georgia Bulldogs coaching staff as well as the tragic death of his top tailback recruit—Rajaan Bennett—cast a pall over the program.

Bennett's loss was especially painful given the fact that it wasn't the first time coach Johnson lost a promising player to a heinous crime.

In 2002, top defensive prospect Marcus Dixon was charged with rape and imprisoned—he never played a down for Vandy.

In December 2004, star tailback, Kwane Doster was murdered in his hometown of Tampa, FL while away for winter break.

In both instances, these were players that Johnson hoped would be able to sustain the momentum of his program. Instead, they became setbacks to success and affected the trajectory of Johnson's goals as a coach.

By the time Rajaan Bennett lost his life to murder, Johnson seemed like a defeated shell of a man. He appeared to question his overall purpose to the university in light of such a tragic loss (see video):



As much as he tried, Johnson couldn't seem to escape the obstacles that each tragedy seemed to bring and it was tough to watch him try to make the best of the bad situations.

Perhaps he finally just burned out—it would be understandable.

In the end, though, the fact is Vanderbilt just lost their head coach—two months before the start of the season. Tragedy or no tragedy, the Commodores have been left empty-handed. So, the real question for the 85+ men that coach Johnson just left behind is, what now?