SEC: "The video does not support the call"

SEC Supervisor of Officials Rogers Redding (Georgia Tech class of '65) told the Athens Banner Herald that the video doesn't support the excessive celebration call.  Redding told Tony Barnhart that the ref feels bad about it.

Well...that makes it ok.  Wait. No it doesn't.

PWD

AJ Green "Celebration" another camera angle

Unbelievable. Uploaded by DrewinSC. I'm more sick about the play after watching this than I was before. What a screw job.

PWD

There's nothing special about our kick coverage

David Hale has an article about the inconsistency in the kicking game at Georgia on Macon.com. It's a good read, but the better read is his breakdown of disastrous kickoff coverage incidents since 2008 that have taken the momentum away from UGA and given it back to the opposition.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. It's simple physical science and rudimentary math. Slow doesn't catch fast.

If you have the fastest player in college football returning the kicks, you aren't going to have a reasonable opportunity to chase him down and tackle him using walk-ons, 280 lb defensive ends, back-up fullbacks and back-up quarterbacks. That issue is complicated when they approach the ball carrier tentatively and don't maintain their lanes.

We have a roster full of players like Richard Samuel who were born to cover kicks. The kid was a dominating linebacker in high school who runs fast and has no problem running into people. Why he's not on every coverage unit, I'll never know. There are an abundance of tight ends, linebackers, safeties and wide receivers on this team.

Jon Fabris is a whale of a very good* defensive ends coach, but his unshakable approach to personnel utilization on kickoff coverage and his entire approach to the subject doesn't work. It just doesn't, and it has never worked. It's not the kicker either.

The celebration penalty changed the game. But our inability to cover the final kick lost it for us. Think back to Baton Rouge in 2003. Everyone remembers Billy Bennett missing three field goals as a major reason we lost. Most folks remember our WRs inability to catch that day and our daycare aged offensive line being manhandled by the veteran LSU defensive line. But most folks forget that it was the kickoff following the 93 yard TD run by Tyson Browning that was returned to near midfield that set up the final Tiger miracle score.

How many more games will our kickoff coverage hurt us before we try something truly different? It's maddening.

See Also:
-- Upon further review - Blutarsky

PWD



*I over reached with the initial adjective. I do believe that he's done a very good job with what he's had HEALTHY to work with over the past 9 years. The DEs have arguably been our most consistent group during that period. Last year, he had next to nothing to work with that was healthy. He had one starting DE that was 2 biscuits shy of 300 lbs and a redshirt freshman as his only healthy guys.

Excessive Celebration - Brando's Rant

Move to the 4:45 second mark to hear Tim Brando discuss the call at the end of the LSU game (ht - Catfish and Cornbread). If you can't access YouTube via work, here's a transcription of the conversation that Steve Patterson of UGASports.com put together.

“The rule absolutely has to be abolished. Not changed. Just get rid of it...

...There are more of these called in the Southeastern Conference than any other league in America, and I am going to tell you because it is up to the discretion and judgment of the official that I think now that the politics of the community...of the area are going to be called into question. You don’t want this to happen, because if we take this conversation where we could, it is not going to bode well for the Southeastern Conference.

So first and foremost in the off season they've got to abolish it.

“Rogers Redding, who is in charge of the SEC officials, had better tell his officials 'you had better cease and desist on calling them so quickly.”

“They don't want us to go more in-depth on why the SEC is throwing more. I am telling you, it is a conversation, I don’t want to have it, my friend Spencer does not want to have it, and I am telling you, watch out, because people are going to take a closer look at this and it is not going to bode well for the league.”

What Brando appears to be talking about there is the issue of race. Tim Tebow has never been flagged by an SEC official for celebration; yet, Tebow dances around like an idiot after every two yard run both drawing attention to himself and pandering to the crowd. When LSU scored their first touchdown their offensive linemen were gesturing to the UGA student section and acting wildly on the field celebrating their TD without flag.

Am I saying the issue really is race? I believe that Caucasian players rarely get flagged in the SEC no matter how excited they get. I've never seen it. Have you? So is Brando right? Or is it simply a situation where UGA is still being punished for the 2007 Celebration in Jacksonville? Either way, I don't care. Enough is enough.

Living Under an Oppressive Regime
I'm generally not a conspiracy theorist. But Georgia does live under an oppressive officiating regime. The current SEC Supervisor of Officials is Rogers Redding (Georgia Tech class of 1965). The prior Supervisor of Officials was Bobby Gaston (Georgia Tech class of 1948). The Chief of Officials for Saturday's game vs. LSU was Marc Curles (Georgia Tech graduate). (Ht - HacksawDawg). And for good measure, the play by play man was Al Ford who wrongly announced that Jasper fumbled.

Let me just ask you this....would Kentucky ever allow the head of SEC basketball officials to be from Louisville? Obviously not. Yet, we've had a Tech man running the show for the SEC since 1988. 21 years is enough. Is there not a competent official from Iowa, Texas or hell...American Samoa.

PWD


(BTW -- It is outrageously inappropriate to email Curles at his place of business about his performance as a ref. If you have an issue with the officiating, you should contact Mike Slive via letter or email.)

Kickoff Time Set for UGA at Tennessee

Kickoff is at 12:21 pm on SEC Network. That's Peachtree TV in Atlanta. Here's the list of games per SECSports.com.

GAME	NETWORK	TIME
Vanderbilt at Army	CBS College Sports	12 p.m. ET
Auburn at Arkansas	ESPN	12 p.m. ET
Georgia at Tennessee	SEC Network	12:21 p.m. ET
Houston at Mississippi St.	ESPNU	12:30 p.m. ET
Kentucky at South Carolina	FS South	12:30 p.m. ET
Alabama at Ole Miss	CBS	3:30 p.m. ET
Florida at LSU	CBS	8 p.m. ET

See Also:
-- Tickets: Georgia at Tennessee

PWD

Pulpwood on Bayou Bengals

Pulpwood's latest. As usual, the language is NSFW.

Is LSU ideally suited for this UGA team?

Richt's teams generally perform their best when they are out of the spotlight or dismissed as incapable of greatness. However, give them accolades and throw roses at their feet and the wheels can fall off.

Sure, UGA is favored on Saturday, but LSU is still the #4 team in the nation. And the general feeling is that Georgia is completely off the national radar. That's a good thing for the Dawgs. They need to get pissed off. They need to feel disrespected. They need to get mean.

If UGA stops turning the ball over, it could start mauling opponents offensively. On the flip side of that equation, if LSU's Charles Scott gets going and the anemic LSU rushing attack gets rolling, they could justify their lofty ranking.

NOLA.com put up a story last night about the offensive problems of the Tigers. It's a good read. Here's the stats from NCAA.com to consider:

LSU's Offense:

Category	National Rank	Actual	Conf Rank
Rushing Offense	74	130.25	10
Passing Offense	90	179.75	7
Total Offense	105	310.00	12

UGA's Defense:

Category	National Rank	Actual	Conf Rank
Rushing Defense	42	112.75	6
Total Defense	67	355.75	11
Scoring Defense	95	29.75	11
Pass Defense	90	243.00	11

You know those games where someone says "it's strength on strength." This ain't that. This is weakness on weakness.

PWD