Advantage Kills More Than Fleas

Looks like the Dawgs got their flea and yellow jacket repellant treatment before last Saturday's game. Thank the good Lord for that. Surfing the blogs today, I noticed a large number of Techies faulting Reggie Ball for their loss and lamenting his having started for 4 years.

On the other side, the UGA fans are pouring on the "4 more years" sentiment for 'ol number 1, including a petition to the NCAA (HT Georgia Sports Blog). One post even suggested that the Dawgs were trying to get him transferred to Gainesville for those 4 years. Wish I had thought of that.

But the most interesting part of this debate is that no one seems to want to admit that a hundred other factors also contributed to Tech's loss, including many of the problems the Dawgs have had all year. Techs dropped passes and turnovers were one of the key factors in their loss - sound familiar Dawg fans?. I realize the turnovers were primarily Reggie, but he did'nt just drop the ball with no one around either. The Dawgs defense contributed to those turnovers.

Not only did they create turnovers, but Paul Oliver did an excellent job of covering Calvin Johnson. Richt and company had a good plan, that included trying to keep CJ out of rhythm by bumping him at the line instead of playing 10 yards off. Even so, Oliver never would have successfully covered him if the Defense wasn't able to pressure Ball. But when you pressure Ball, he can run for first downs. Again, the Dawgs had a plan for that.

As much as everyone on both sides wants to give the Dawgs the Advantage when Reggie Ball is playing, you also have to realize that he is a very good athlete. Notice I didn't say excellent, just very good. Many times, it takes the system to make a very good athlete look excellent. A number of Heisman trophy winning quarterbacks come to mind. Charlie Ward, Danny Wuerffel, Eric Crouch, Chris Weinke. They were very good athletes, very good quarterbacks, that looked like excellent quarterbacks under their coach's system. Conversely, a mediocre system can make an excellent player look less than excellent.

Calvin Johnson suffers from being involved in a mediocre system. Reggie Ball is a very good athlete, with poor discipline and a bad attitude, that doesn't have a system to make him look like an excellent quarterback. But he has had CJ to make him look like a very good quarterback. So the bottom line of this nerd equation is that Reggie Ball is a very good athlete, but only a good quarterback without CJ. At a school like Florida, he might have won the Heisman. I can see it 10 years from now, Reggie sitting in a homeless shelter in Midtown, trash talking to his trophy.