Last night as I was walking into Turner Field , I caught a blurb by Coley Harvey regarding a blog post he had just posted. "GT defense cites miscommunication issues Saturday". Naturally I was interested so I clicked.
Here is what I read:
According to players on [the defensive] side of the ball, however, the combination of noise and a lack of attention to detail made on-field communication a major challenge. Even at least one offensive player told The Telegraph he had heard rumblings that plays weren’t being relayed properly.
"There were little miscommunications mostly from the fact that some people were saying they weren’t hearing the calls and some people said they weren’t getting them," linebacker, and primary defensive play-caller Brad Jefferson said. "So they’ve just got to tune in and make the calls and hear the calls...."
Surely you jest you say.
Surely I don't. Four games into the football season, the defense can't figure out how to talk to each other or relay messages. When you can't talk, you don't know what's going on, when you don't know what's going on, you get embarrassed on the field by Kansas and NC State. A combination of noise and lack of attention to detail? There were only 48,000 people in the stadium! What is going to happen when the team walks into Clemson on October 23 and there are 98,000 people yelling at them?!
The 3-4 has proven that it's going to be difficult to implement here on The Flats as we need to re-shuffle our recruiting, that much is known. Talking and communicating on the gridiron is something that is as older than John Heisman. IT is not a new concept. When you have veteran leadership, who has started multiple games over multiple years such as Mario Butler, Brad Jefferson, and even Jerrard Tarrant, still not understanding how to get their units to work together, you have a major problem that goes far deeper than just talking.
Saying you have communication issues is an excuse. Saying Bobby Dodd Stadium was too loud is an excuse. Both are pitiful.
Fix it.
