On you die-hard JG haters, go back and look at my posts during the preseason or look at the coaches interviews or look at JG’s interviews. The staff was trying to empower JG. They were taking the “kid gloves off”. I think that was a work in progress. He was given a lot of latitude with the offense, probably more than he could handle. As far as I can tell the coaches never lost confidence in him and Pruitt has been incessant in saying JG is going to win a lot of ball games for us this year.
I think the difference probably in the last few weeks is Chaney has stepped up to help JG out a lot more. For the staff there was never any question about his talent and ability. I think the question was always about how do you get that out of him on the field, on game day. By all reports he’s been amazing in practice but struggled early in the year translating that to his Saturday performances. Not a single person on the staff has ever questioned JG’s work ethic; on the contrary, he has often been praised in that department.
I think JG may have started the year a bit cocky. It was a hard and painful lesson to learn, the difference between confidence and cockiness. Embedded in confidence is a requisite portion of humility; there is an absence of humility in cockiness. Confidence won’t fail on you but with cockiness oftentimes you’ll fall flat on your face. I think we’re beginning to see some growing confidence and maturity in JG and he has a long ways to go BUT I’d venture it will likely be a setback to the program if we started over now with someone else.
Since the horrid season of 2017 and all the utter failure of that season our guys have been adrift in mediocrity. A lot of fans have developed BVS and so when the game is winding down and everything is on the line many just default to the here we go again syndrome. For me that mostly ended on the last drive of the Kentucky game where we were trying to run out the clock. JG ran the ball on what looked to be a design run and he got the needed first down to keep the clock running, AND he stayed inbounds. That one play, especially staying inbounds, broken hand and all, was a team play and JG made it. Again, last night, on the last drive, we got the first downs when we had to have them.
I’ve said a number of times before that I saw JG as a quarterback trying to play football not as a football player trying to play quarterback. JJ is a football player. Bituli is a football player. Trey Smith is a football player. I’ve always thought the problem with JG was he didn’t know how to win ball games, especially close ball games. Quarterbacks can’t win football games; it takes football players. It looks to me like JG is learning how to be a football player, and that, imo, is a credit to himself, to the team, to our staff, and to our development program. jmo.