Georgia Bulldogs: Hangover And QB Questions Not Most Important
By W. M. Lawson
The University of Georgia Bulldogs football team enters the 2018 season with incredibly high expectations and a few lingering questions. There is one question that is getting overlooked.
With SEC Media Days winding down, most coaches and player representatives from each team have gone through the media car wash. Redundant questions and provocative statements from scribes and mic jockeys looking to make a name permeate the CFB Hall of Fame. The Georgia Bulldogs contingent was no different, answering many of the same questions over and over again. Just not the right questions.
It’s no joke or surprise that the Georgia football team goes into Fall practice with a load of expectation and hype. Coming off of a Conference championship, a Rose Bowl win, an overtime loss in the National Championship, and the Number 1 recruiting class for 2018 will do that.
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Out of 85 scholarship players, the Georgia Bulldog football team roster features 18 former 5-star HS football players. Only one of those 5-star players is rising Senior. Fans are stoked.
That roster is where most of the early pre-season questions have been directed. Specifically, the two 5-star Quarterbacks, and how they will manage playing time for those dudes, and the turnover from 5 former players who were drafted to play in the NFL. How do you replace that leadership and experience?
While those questions certainly bear repeating and rumination, until the answers are provided on the field, there is another question that might cause more disruption or friction for continued success at UGA: What about coaching changes?
Very quietly, Georgia moved some coaches around and hired new ones this off-season. These were significant changes.
Offensive Coordinator, Jim Chaney, was moved from QBs Coach to TE Coach, and is now Co-OC. James Coley was moved from WRs Coach to QBs Coach, and is now the Co-Offensive Coordinator. Cortez Hankton, most recently from Vanderbilt, is now the WRs Coach. That’s a lot of change, and on one side of the ball.
Kevin Sherrer, now the DC at Tennessee, was replaced by Dan Lanning at Outside LBs Coach. That is an important position for UGA, not just in terms of scheme, but also because they lost all four starting Linebackers from 2017.
If things were to go south this year, or if Georgia doesn’t meet early expectations, these changes could flesh out as disruptions, rather than enhancements. A stutter rather than an eloquent tinker.
That isn’t to say that it will happen. All of those dudes have coached these positions for a lengthy period of their respective careers, and have been successful doing so.
The point here is that, while folks are, understandably, talking about the highly rated Quarterbacks and the loss of big-time quality players from last year, the most significant changes from last year, actually are from the coaching side of things.
Next: Georgia Bulldogs: Summer Recruiting Insanity In Full Force
This Georgia Bulldogs football team should be very, very good in 2018. Maybe even championship good again. If so, it won’t just be players who are filling new roles and leading in a new way. Half of the coaching staff will be doing so, as well.