Georgia Bulldogs

It looks like the coaching staff is trying every possible arrangement of linemen to handle the loss of Sturdivant. Basically anything goes right now. The really good news is that Cordy Glenn seems to have played (or practiceed rather) his way into the rotation, seeing practice time at OG and OT. At this point, the only certainty is that Kiante Tripp will man one of the OT spots. Beyond that, I don’t think anyone knows. Vance and Boling both saw time at G and T. Josh Davis saw time at OT. Anderson and Strickland both got practice with the 1s at OG. Chris Davis is likely to start at C but got time at G with Ben Jones taking over in the middle. Confused? This would’ve been much simpler if Sturdivant hadn’t gotten hurt. Ideally Glenn can play well enough to be heavily involved in the tackle competition, allowing Vance to still be the swing guy at OG and OT.

Lost in the shuffle from the injury yesterday (at least in terms of this site) was the performance of quite possibly our most important question mark position. Kicker. True freshman Blair Walsh basically walked onto campus as the starter, which would normally worry you in terms of complacency, but apparently the kid’s been working. He nailed all 3 attempts during the scrimmage and during live drills this week connected from 47 then backed up to 52 and hit again. Kid’s got some gumption.

In the wake of the Quintin Banks injury, I was anxious to see which of the true freshmen stepped into the depth void. It appears it’s Bacarri Rambo. He’s one of these high ceiling guys that just needs to learn the system as he’s got all the athleticism and striking ability you want.

Oh, almost forgot, we picked up a commitment from a stud TE yesterday out of Massachusetts. Arthur Fontaine. Big kid, 6-5, 240-ish. RIvals has him as the #4 TE and I think ESPN had him at #8. Solid pull at a need position. You might see him listed as Arthur Lynch-Fontaine or ultimately just Arthur Lynch as he’s in the process of changing his name.

Also, you gotta go to this website to listen to the 911call. Especially around the 2:10 mark. This is audio of the 911 call re: the UF player that fired an AK-47 that Meyer just reinstated (the player, not the gun). edit: I suppose it would help if I actually included the link. Ronnie Wilson on the loose

I sat down last night to write up about the DL and the RBs, cranked up the ol’ laptop and noticed that the message boards were in a complete tizzy. Read for about 5 seconds and my worst fears were confirmed when I read that Trinton Sturdivant was carted off the field. Now it’s been confirmed that he tore 3 ligaments in his knee (ACL, MCL and PCL) and is out for the year. Injury-wise, you could make a case that this was the worst possible injury we could sustain simply because it’s one of the few spots on the team with depth issues. No telling what happens but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tripp slide to LT and see Boling kick out to RT. Look for Vance, Josh Davis and true frosh Cordy Glenn to be the backups. Anyway, I’ll start the position writeups tonight.

Consider me shocked. If nothing else, Richt has always been generally reserved with his comments about the team, especially freshmen….even moreso with hyped freshmen. He seems to take great pains to assure that expectations of the fan base are kept in check. Given the average UGA fan’s propensity to absolutely run with suggestions that a player COULD live up to the considerable hype and downplaying a kid’s abilities is probably the safe play. Well, either Richt’s transformation from staid, reserved ball coack to code-red ordering mastermind is nearing completion or AJ Green really is this good. It could actually be both.

There’s no doubt the kid is talented, everything pointed to that, but I don’t know that we truly understand yet how talented he might be. Put it this way, Richt said he’s special and went so far as to say that he hasn’t signed anyone that at UGA that has what AJ has. Umm…ok. He then proceeded to say that he reminds him a lot of Randy Moss (you may recall that Moss spent part of his early collegiate career at FSU while Richt was on staff there). Keep in mind that this is after 1 week of practice, and Green missed one of those days.

Usually at this point in the season Richt is reminding us that these kids are just freshmen and they’re learning where the dorms and dining halls are, so don’t expect them to start right away….give them time. Apparently this kid might just be good enough to scrap the typical freshman expectation schedule. I was already excited to see Green play, but if he’s good enough to make Richt talk like this, I REALLY can’t wait to see him. If Richt truly thinks he’ll be a viable option in the offense this season I wouldn’t be surprised to see him play a significant role early to get his feet wet before we hit the meat of the schedule. If he’s as good as advertised, he’d step right into the needed role of deep threat compliment to Massaquoi’s steady game. Couple them with our potent ground game and you’ve got a balanced offense that could be really fun to watch…at least for UGA fans.

still figuring this blogging thing out so it’s gonna be pretty scatterbrained until I get settled. ugasports.com has an article on him (Reshad Jones) today. Hard to believe that kid has put on 50 pounds since he arrived on campus. He’s up to 215 now. He’s about ready for a HUGE breakout season. He could easily be our most well rounded safety since Sean Jones, kind of that ideal balance of physicality with coverage skills. Martinez seems to be pretty pleased with his progress, and in the end that’s the most important opinion out there. Really it’s the only one that matters at all. Don’t be surprised to see him on a few All-SEC teams. Jones, not Martinez.

Injuries happen every year and some years are worse than others. We stayed largely injury-free last season and it certainly played out in our stretch run. So far we’re losing roughly a man a day, as Harris and Troupe both went down for several weeks with a broken wrist and hyper-extended elboew respectively and Longo broke his hand in the first 4 days of practice. The WR and DE positions are certainly deep enough to handle this kind of blip but at this pace we’ll seemingly see a significant injury by the end of the week. Ask around the SEC, where two premier players have already been lost for the season in Florida’s 1st team all-SEC TE Cornelius Ingram and Auburn’s top CB Aairon Savage.

Losing Hill and Troupe hurts them more than it does the team right now. The WR position is deep (I can think of about 7 others who’ll contribute…Massaquoi, Goodman, Moore, Wilson, Durham, Green, King, etc.) and can handle the loss of two guys yet to see the field, but in terms of development, those two guys were poised to make big strides in their own games. The loss hurts, but when you go beyond 4 deep at a two spot position, you can absorb a couple of losses.

Longo was a near certainty to redshirt already, so his 6 week setback basically locks him into a redshirt year where he can work on learning the system and getting bigger, stronger, faster, etc.