Defensive pessimism and doom-saying are rampant among the Georgia fan base these days. Chicken Little was dressed in red and black at the start of the week. There was finger-pointing and unedifying carping about assistant coaches, who are always unsung heroes when there is victory and pariahs when a football game is lost.
It is natural; it’s how we humans are built. Asking football fans to become conciliatory and forgiving following defeat would be like asking Donald Trump to tithe. It just isn’t likely to happen!
Do you remember that long-standing truism — they always remember November? Now is the time for patience and regrouping. It is a long way to the playoffs.
How many times have you played golf when things just went great for 12 or so holes, and suddenly, the bogeyman appears and ruins an otherwise perfect day?
Timing can be so crucial, and nobody is the master of timing. In the opinion of many, Fran Tarkenton may be the best quarterback of all time, based on his ability to play the position, considering the records he set with the rules of his day. However, he was 0-3 in Super Bowl competition. Jim Kelley was 0-4. You know that they were good enough to win a ring, but they didn’t. How does Tom Brady win seven rings and Tarkenton none?
How did “wide right” become synonymous with Bobby Bowden’s enduring futility with the Miami Hurricanes? The curse of the bambino? Did that keep the Red Sox from defeating the hated New York Yankees? I spent an afternoon with Ted Williams at his home in Florida a couple of years before he died and asked him about that.
He scoffed and said there was never any conversation about a curse in the late ’40s and ’50s. He said “hogwash” to that notion. “We never talked about any curse,” he said. “We just didn’t play well enough when we needed to.”
Williams believed his body of work defined his career. Was Joe DiMaggio, who won nine World Series rings, a better player than Williams because of a collection of jewelry? Any reasonable analyst would safely suggest that Kirby Smart’s body of work will be trumped by losing close games to Alabama.
He may have done his best coaching job Saturday night in Tuscaloosa. He wouldn’t let his team give up. He would not let them throw in the towel, even when it was 30-7 at the half in favor of Alabama.
To give up on this team now would be foolhardy. The driven Bulldog coach is playing with talent that was brought to Athens based on the immediate past when UGA was a play away from getting into the playoffs, which could have led to a third consecutive national title.
This program has not gone to seed overnight. Smart preaches to his players that “you are a good team, not perfect, and there is work to do. Good things happen when you make them happen.”
There is no magic potion when it comes to coaching. It is still a game of blocking and tackling, and he and his staff will work overtime to ensure that the chapel bell rings more often than not for the remainder of the season.
Smart’s career winning percentage is 85.1, and with three more victories, he will have won a hundred games in his career. Gen. Robert Neyland is the winningest coach in SEC history at 82.9; Bear Bryant’s career winning percentage was 78.0; Nick Saban’s 79.3; John McKay’s (college) 74.9; Bobby Bowden’s 73.4; Steve Spurrier’s 72.0.
In modern times, nobody has been more successful sooner than Kirby Smart. Do you think he has lost his touch overnight? Do you think he doesn’t have the same commitment or pride that he had the day of his hiring back on Dec. 16, 2016?
The view here is that if college football ever gets the external issues ironed out, he likely will set records and reach sensational goals.
Many ticked-off Georgia fans “fixed” another drink Saturday night and slept in Sunday morning, then started castigating the team on the Internet. The Bulldog head coach flew home from Tuscaloosa, slept a couple of hours, and went to work.