Devastated

I've been reading a lot about Georgia's football program this week. Many in the media are asking the question of when did the program go south and what started it. There were several good answers. For the most part they hold true. The loss of Van Gorder as Defensive Coordinator, Richt turned play calling over to Bobo, loss of physical players at the line of scrimmage, etc.

I want to lay out one thing that I see wrong and I'll describe it with an example.

Saturday evening right before Murray fumbled to give up a SC defensive touchdown the camera panned the Georgia sideline after SC had just scored on offense to take the LEAD. Our offense was about to take the field again and the camera settled on our O-line. They were on the sideline smiling and hamming it up a bit. Suddenly Richt appears and looks them each in the eye and says "DO YOUR JOB". Each of them nodded in confirmation as they cleared their faces of smiles and smirks. As they took the field I felt good because I saw Richt doing some direct and intentional coaching. He called his guys out directly. On the first play from scrimmage on that drive, two defensive linemen broke through our defenses seemingly untouched. Crowell was left alone to protect his quarterback and slowed down one of the two. SC's Clowney however was free to have Murray for dinner and he did. Murray didn't handle the situation well. He didn't protect the ball at all and we gave SC another Touchdown. There is a lot wrong with that scenario. The biggest problem to me is that we have players that don't mind losing.

I didn't have the size to play ball at this level. But I did have the privilege of playing for one of this states winning-est programs. Winning meant something to us. Strangely enough, losing meant more. We didn't know how to cope with losing. We won 95% of the time so when we did lose we didn't take it well, coaches or players. I can tell you this: if the other team had just scored on us I'd like to have seen someone on our sideline smiling so I could clean their clock. I would have laid them out on our own sideline and not a darn soul would have said a thing to me about it. ESPECIALLY if we just lost the lead when that team scored. Losing was absolutely devastating. It is NOT OK to lose. It is NOT OK to enjoy yourself in losing. A winning team should be unified in the agony of defeat. I'm not even a player on this Georgia team and it takes me days before I can even talk about it. I think a lot of this Georgia team is OK with losing.

When I see the players post on twitter the next day it is evident to me that some are devastated and some are not phased by a loss. Not surprisingly it seems to be the new guys that are used to winning that are the most devastated. So I would ask coach Richt why aren't we devastated? I don't want to hear that you're working really hard to get better. I think we are already good enough. The gut wrenching agony of defeat should fuel determination to prevent that pain from returning EVER! I think we lack the heart, the desire, and the determination to do what it takes to win. We lack the will to "not lose". Ben Jones sir, you're the big nasty on our offensive line. Why were Dallas and others grinning on the sideline after the opponents score. What could possibly make a Georgia player smile after that. Why are your team mates talking about nonsense and foolery on twitter? Why isn't our team devastated. As a friend of mine put it so well Sunday afternoon, "Why is this team so content with snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?"

Understand that I bleed red and black. I was born that way and will die that way but I call it like I see it. Unlike the image above I don't want to get used to it. I don't want our players getting used to it. I want us to be devastated by it and use that as  our fuel not to get better, but to BE better. That is all we need!

I am devastated. Are you?