It's going to be a slow morning on the blog. I'm about to head to Macon for the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame's annual Pigskin Preview Day, where Mark Richt and other coaches and players from around the state will be meeting with media.
UGA's player reps will be Kris Durham and Akeem Dent, so if you have any questions for them, let me know.
I'll hopefully have some updates from Macon this afternoon.
In the meantime, two stories came out in the past 24 hours that don't exactly show Georgia's coaches in the best of light:
-- Nash Nance said former Georgia recruit Da'Rick Rogers had "bad dealings" with Georgia's coaches in the days before he committed to Tennessee.
-- Makiri Pugh's position coach says Georgia offered him little support after he decided to transfer, failing to even return calls from schools interested in bringing Pugh in.
Now, neither story comes directly from the source, but does this dose of negative publicity worry you at all? Or is it a whole bunch of nothing?
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
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The Nance comments are a non-story, but the Pugh situation is disappointing. How long does it take for either Martinez or Richt to pick up a phone? I don't care how busy they were, if they were looking for a job or trying to hire a DC, taking care of the athletes should be their #1 priority.
No, I'm not worried about our coaches having "bad dealings" with Rogers just because the Nance kid's father said he did. Also, I'm not too worried about the charges of "unprofessionalism" leveled at our coaches since his own son renigged on his committment to Vandy. Nance & Rogers both broke their word to two separate schools. Why should we be worried about what Nance's dad says about UGA when he had no direct discussions with our coaches where Rogers is concerned? I don't believe the hype either about them being "threatened". Smack talk about us destroying you on the field is not a "threat". If it were, you could lock up half of the NFL. Quit looking for sympathy. The kids lied about their committments to UGA and Vandy, waited until the last minute to announce their changes, and in turn took scholarship opportunities away from other QB and WR prospects. Don't you think that might piss off some people? You made your bed, now lie in it. Look, it's like this. If Rogers didn't want to be here, then I'm glad he went to Tennessee. Being here but not really wanting to be here would have been worse for us than having to see him once a year coming the other way.
WHO decided to transfer? Pugh did. So WHY is it anyone at UGA's worry?
His former position corch needs to grow up more than Pugh it appears...
Nance? He's a poster child for UT's next visit from the NCAA. His mouth would better serve him earning some lunch money.
Hey David, it would be interesting to see what Kris Durham has to say about the Rogers situation. They both played for Calhoun High so maybe he has a little more insight. Although I'm not sure he'd comment about the "back room dealings" that got Nance on the field opposed to the QB who had led them to the state championship game the year before he arrived.
I agree with Riley. The Nance story doesn't bother me. While I understand that these are young kids being recruited, committing to a school for months and months and changing your commit on signing day, doesn't put that person in a strong position to judge others. I wish Rogers well, but he could have handled his side of the committment better as well. As far a Makiri Pugh is concerned, it does seem that UGA could have returned phone calls. If we released him from scholarship, we should follow through and help him go where he needs to go. I'd like to hear Richt's response to the matter.
I think it is much todo about nothing. Let's look at Mark Richt's track record for the past 9 years. What Nance claims don't hold water as far as I'm concerned. Their little ploy to get Nance a scholly didn't work, we decided late we wanted a QB and we liked Mason better. End of story. Get over it. If Me'Rick isn't commenting even after all the trash talk from fans and questioning his integrity then I just don't see it. As far as Pugh is concerned, this could be seen as a little disappointing but hasn't Richt been integrating new coaches/ schemes, SEC meetings, doing camps, Club meetings and recruiting no-stop in the off-season? He gave him an unconditional release to help the kid which you don't see all the time (a la TN 8 hour radius from Knoxville release). I can't imagine this was intentional by any stretch, just a little unfortunate. Plus, Martinez was his position coach who prob could give a rats ass about UGA since being dismissed. Hence him bailing on the kids to coach in the bowl game. Then he has a new team to worry about. Feel sorry for the kid but couldn't Garner have been able to step up for the kid and be able to answer any questions? To quote Saban, this issue is "mouse manure."
I would like to know: To what extent the Dawgs' Combine #'s were embelished! I encourage all to write these down and wait for these players to turn pro and compare. OLB Running a 4.29...give me a break! This guy should be our star RB with that kind of size, power and speed! Let leave the RAH, RAH emotions to the cheerleaders and coaches use facts. I'm dissapointed!
I'd be interested to know how Durham views his role this season, whether he thinks he can be the #2 guy behind AJ. From what I've seen, I think he can be, but I'd like to know if he has confidence in that.
If anything, I think staying quiet was a way to help the kid out; they might have hurt his chances at getting a scholarship elsewhere if they had to give an honest evaluation of the kid.
I really don't understand why fans and bloggers are so rankled by the post-spring combine numbers. In the release, it's clearly stated that there are four coaches timing each sprint, the players get two tries and the BEST of those 8 times is taken. This is pure admission of the imperfect nature of these practices. Don't think for a second that Georgia coaches actually think or want other people to believe that those are all legit times. They aren't "embellished." Every school has the same type of numbers; it's common practice at all SEC schools to time players similarly. At least we don't take the unofficial times and put them on "hall of fame" boards like Florida does. Reporters, bloggers and fans asked for this information and the school gave out what information they have.
On the other hand, it's very nice to see such strong strength numbers.
I would be surprised if Kris Durham knows Nance or Rogers that well. Durham was a SR at Calhoun in 05/06.
It is pretty well documented that both Nance and Rogers were in the program at the Darlington school until the last two years. They moved to Calhoun after Rogers was asked to leave Darlington and Nance lost the starting QB competition to a freshman.
#1- please stop talking about the combine numbers. The idea that the numbers released by UGA are different than the numbers athletes put up at the NFL combine is nothing new. The NFL combine 40 yard dash is a controlled environment on field turf with only 2 shots to get it right. The idea that there is 'one' time from the combine is just false. Each run an athlete makes gets timed by probably 60 to 100 people at the least. I would bet that produces a pretty wide range of times which if they were released, would probably make all of us scratch our heads on how fast/slow etc. all the players are. Heck, most players run better three weeks later at their pro days...and we don't get our panties in a wad over that. Timing a 40 yard dash isn't an inexact science. (How many of those scouts do you think erase their own times and replace it with the 'official' time released by the NFL after it is announced? Here's a hint...Zero. They write down both on their reports, compare it to the next times, and so on.) It is also an inexact gauge of game speed...how many times do you see a WR line up in a sprinter's start position?...anyone with a lick of common sense will look at the times released by UGA and say, "that's interesting. It looks like we have some guys that were timed fast. I hope that translates to the field." Instead, most of you are getting a hard on about what an estimated 4.29 must mean compared to an estimated 4.35..just stop. Two things we can be sure about...1) the guys that clocked those times are fast...the coaches might be a bit trigger happy, but I would assume they aren't giving them more than .1-.15 on the time. 2)The other numbers, which aren't based upon subjective clock punching, are good.
#2- Nash and Rogers can eat a bowl. What would you expect them to say? They are Vols now. They have no reason whatsoever to say anything positive about UGA and thousands of reasons to say negative things.
#3-The statements of the Indenpendence HS coach is plain hearsay. "He said that some of the other Division I schools that he contacted called Georgia and never got a call back," Kranish said." So what we are getting is not that Colorado, etc. never said the coaches didn't contact them back, but that Makari told the coach that the schools told him UGA coaches didn't call him back. I wish Makari the best in Colorado. But I'm just not sure that this isn't a kid with his feelings hurt more than some 'issue' with the UGA coaches.
Good grief -- hearsay? The rules of evidence don't apply to newspapers, and whether or not it's admissible in court, it's bad PR for the school at a school that has sent a lot of guys to UGA. That's inexcusable, and I would expect CMR to hold someone in admin accountable because it gives opposition recruiters more info to use against us (and they will).
Hold some one accountable? Who says this stuff is even true?
I find it interesting that these journalists keep quoting former coaches of players rather than the players themselves.
At any rate, I don't think this concerns Georgia at all (either case, really). These are petulant claims from secondary sources and as we've seen in the past, Mark Richt and company own up when they make mistakes; they have "no comment" this time around.
Regarding Pugh, Richt may simply be doing as his mother taught him - "If you don't have something nice to say about somebody, don't say anything at all." As for Rogers, Richt and staff may have drawn the line and decided that they were not going to treat Rogers any different than their other recruits, that is, better than the other recruits. Hence, to Rogers, UGA was "MEAN", but in actuality, they were only being fair. There are always two sides to a story.
First off, the Nance thing bothers me-- for what they're saying. Particularly the last line in the story: "I'm glad we picked the right school." Excuse me? 'We'?!? It really makes it seem to me that the rumors of 'a package deal', and that Nance is riding Roger's coat-tails to a big-name school have validity. The "he had a lot of bad dealings with Georgia coaches" comment by the father sounds like a dad trying to make excuses for his son (and rather ineptly at that, I might add).
I mean, really? Are you serious? Richt has been through 9 full recruiting periods and this is the first or maybe the second time (I suppose if you count pulling that scholly offer from the QB who waited too long to accept it last year) that we've heard that they mistreated a recruit? And it happened to be a five-star recruit? You know, the kind coaches understand have to be treated well?
I think Occam's Razor applies here, folks. Mark my words: the Nance/Rogers at UT thing is not going to end well. I've been around long enough and seen enough to know that human nature will out, and even if it doesn't make the papers, I doubt Nance will be able to take watching his best bud playing on Saturdays while he rides the pine as a 3rd or 4th string QB. I just wish they would they would have the class to shut up about the situation and let it die, rather than try to make excuses to justify their actions.
As to Pugh, well, I think that it is probably more a misunderstanding than anything. It doesn't make good business sense that nobody would return other schools' calls, since the shoe could very easily be on the other foot someday. I'm guessing there was a miscommunication somewhere, probably due to the fact that Coach Martinez isn't on the staff anymore, or perhaps it just didn't happen on the timetable that Pugh wanted. (He went to Colorado just last week and committed to them on Sunday, so he kinda seems like the impatient/compulsive type.)
To me, the fact that Richt graciously granted him an unconditional release when he would've been well within his rights to bar the kid from playing for anyone who appears on the UGA schedule for the next for years, and/or for anyone in the SEC says much more to me that the minor detail about whether or not calls were returned on a timely basis, or at all.
So no, I guess I'm not so much worried about the negative publicity as I am disappointed in what people feel they can say these days.
Who wrote this muck Scott Templeton?
Richt looks out for players who show respect for him and the program. Remember Jabar Chaney - he took care of him!
I think Scott Tenorman wrote it...
The only reason Nance got to play at Calhoun was because his Daddy put in new turf in the stadium.
Go tigers!
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