The "U" is Child's Play for Chucky Gruden the U needs to Leach of someone else

Recently the University of Miami fired their head coach Randy Shannon. To me, personally, this is preposterous! The guy has graduated players and in his four years at Miami formerly known as "Mafia U" or "Thug U" Shannon had ONE player arrested in 4 years! During the same amount of time the University of Florida has had 40 players arrested! The University of Georgia had 11 arrested since March! The Dolphins had 4 players arrested just last off season! His win-loss record was the reason he was sent packing. Because someone at Miami seems to think that his $1.5 million salary should to equate to ACC titles and BCS National Championships. Now...in relative terms, Urban Meyer makes $4 million, Jimbo Fisher is guaranteed $1.8 million but with incentives could make $2.25 million, and Mark Richt is bringing in $2.8 million. So to put it in perspective, FSU fires a legend and brings in an unproven Fisher and he still makes more than Shannon would have ever seen! You quickly see their arrogance!



This is where we realize that Jon "Chucky" Gruden isn't lying when he says he is NOT interested in this job. Why would an established Super Bowl Champion coach want to take one of the lowest paying jobs in college football? Yes, he lives in Florida. Yes, it's a recruiting hotbed. Yes, Colin Cowherd thinks his energy would fit. But Cowherd also brought up that NFL coaches are work-a-holics and love being in the meat grinder. Well...HELLO....this is Jon Gruden! This guy was notorious for not leaving the Raiders facilities, sleeping there days on end. Heck he lived in his car during the early Green Bay days! If he leaves the booth it's for an NFL job. Plus he has a Super Bowl ring as a coach! Why would he take less than what his Bucs unemployment check is currently paying him? Or less than ESPN is paying him? He wouldn't.



Next in the "U" dream list is Mark Richt, now me being a Georgia guy there is one thing I took to heart when he said it at his first press conference. That was "When my wife and I began this, we wanted to go some where we could raise our kids and be there for a long time, we wanted to go some where for good." No one has talked him out of Athens, and though it's been a rough run over the past two seasons only the moronic are calling for his head. (Though I will say that could change if we don't start beating Florida) Plus why would he take a pay cut to go to a school that made him a back up QB as a player, better yet why would he turn down FSU for Miami? FSU created his career, Miami killed it.

So who should Miami hire? Mike Leach. Plain and simple. This is a guy that lost his job because of alleged wrong doing. A guy that his former school hated because he didn't fit the "Lubbock way" and he wanted more money since his teams got better and better. Now...he's sitting at home and can be gotten on the cheap! Because $1.5 million is better than NO Million! I also think he could get this program on the fast track to winning again. See...Broward and Dade counties are a HOTBED for speed players, and big egos. Just look at what Texas Tech was when Leach was there (A passing offense with Michael Crabtree!). Plus his ego is big enough to walk into Donald Trump's office and ask for an appointment. So then you know "The Donald" LOVES the investment possibilities in Coral Gables. I brought this up on Atlanta's 680 The Fan's Rude Awakening this morning (12.1.10) and I want it on record. Before everyone else hops on board with this idea. Leach will be Miami's next coach.

Until he wants more money.

Herschel Never Played Defense

Recently I had the opportunity (thanks to my friends at Original Retro Brand and my good friend Andy Hyman) to go to the Touchdown Club of Atlanta's weekly luncheon honoring the week's top football players and coaches and the event is concluded with a guest speaker. This week however, the guests were members of the University of Georgia's 1980 National Championship team. Today's blog is a recollection of my experience at this event as well as a compilation of the stories that were told about the great Junkyard Dawg defense. Enjoy!


The smell of great food, and the discussion of how good or bad different teams are is going on, and football is definitely in the air.  But this wasn’t the campus of Georgia, Auburn or Georgia Tech.  It was the Fox Sports Grill at Atlantic Station at the Touchdown Club of Atlanta weekly luncheon.  And on this day Buck Belue reminded us all of something that most Georgia fans and college football fans seem to forget…”Herschel never played defense.” The 1980 National Champions had a RB that rushed for 1,616 yards and 15 touchdowns.  Yes, they also had a pretty good QB in Belue and receivers in Amp Arnold and Lindsay Scott.  But their defense was the anchor to their undefeated season, and eventual title.  The Junkyard Dawgs never gave up more than 21 points in any game and against a high-powered Notre Dame offense in the title game, they gave up just 7 points.  The Junkyard Dawg defense was created, motivated and loved by none other than 3-time National Championship coach Erkskine “Erk” Russell.  According to 1980 Team Captain Frank Ros (pronounced Ross), as the I-Formation was becoming more popular the Split 60 defense was used to stop the Veer and Option, but Russell morphed the defense to move the Sam linebacker (strong side) to a D-tackle, and then would move back out, and the end would shift back in to stop the I-form, Iso, and Dive plays. Thus with the combination of speed, intelligence and motivation, this defense earned their nickname“Junkyard Dawgs”.  Frank Ros, Bob Kelly and Robert Miles all agreed that their defense was centered around Russell.  For instance there is a pretty famous picture of Erk that most college football fans of that era have seen with Erk’s head gushing blood, but this wasn’t from his famous head butts of defensive lineman. You see he created a tradition with his defensive lineman where in pre-game warm ups he played a game called “Bull In The Ring”. For those that don’t know, it’s when one player would stand in the middle of a circle of other players, and they would come from all over to hit the man in the middle, one at a time. Well, Erk would stand in the middle and he would butt his head into his player’s chest.  He had a player that just moved from linebacker to D-line who didn’t know this, and he dropped his head and the screws on the helmet cut Erk’s wrinkled bald cranium.  Frank Ros recalls that before going out on the field that Erk stopped him at the door, swiped his hand across his head, and wiped the blood on Frank’s jersey.  Ros told us “At that point I would have run through the wall for him”.


Russell had an uncanny ability to motivate his players by knowing their personalities and loving his players.  All the players on the panel agreed that Russell’s coaching style was to never criticize the athlete, and instead he would only critique the action.  Never saying “you screwed that up” or negative statements that would potentially put someone down, but instead he loved and respected his players enough to use positive motivations and only talk about the action.  In closing, there are two other notable points that I found worthy of mentioning.  Bob Kelly recalled that when the Dawgs lost homecoming in 1979, Coach Vince Dooley moved curfew up to the moment they returned back to the dorms. Then the next morning (Sunday morning) the trainers woke them up for practice at 7am.  At this point they still had a JV team who was going to play Clemson Sunday afternoon. After practice was over, the JV was put on the bus with a sandwich and sent to the stadium.  After that experience they didn’t want to lose another game so they just went undefeated the next year. They all also agreed that in their era, having a Junior Varsity team and everyone having to play on the Scout teams helped propel them to the Elite.  That and bloody Tuesday’s! As Buck Belue said referring to Bloody Tuesday’s, “When you have that #1 offense going against the #1 defense in practice how could anyone beat us.”


Personally, I had a great time filling in for Andy at the Touchdown club, and I honestly enjoyed hearing about Erk and his Junkyard Dawgs.  As a former high school football coach, it was nice to hear that a coach treated his players the right way, and could still win.  Now days too many coaches think they have to belittle and berate players to get them to perform, and Vince Dooley and Erk Russell remind us of how you can win and treat players as people.  Coaching means you are the teacher, and these legends were the perfect example.  In conclusion, I have to give a shout out to the Georgia High School Lineman of the Week Joe Turner, who was noted for making 11 tackles, and played offensive line in a game in 2009 with a broken wrist!  Now that’s a beast!  Thank you to Andy and Original Retro Brand for the opportunity to write this blog.