2006 D vs. 2014 D

[Wrecking Ball]

Watching some old clips of the 2006 team, I have noticed that the D looked a LOT bigger and faster. Have we been unable to get as many of those athletes due to increased recruiting efforts by other teams like South Carolina and even Vanderbilt?

 

[thwgjacket]

Watching some old clips of the 2006 team, I have noticed that the D looked a LOT bigger and faster. Have we been unable to get as many of those athletes due to increased recruiting efforts by other teams like South Carolina and even Vanderbilt?

The announcer made a comment about us being small on D. He then noted that the Seattle Seahawk's were the smallest D in the NFL last year and it seemed to work for them.

 

[Gojackets55]

Watching some old clips of the 2006 team, I have noticed that the D looked a LOT bigger and faster. Have we been unable to get as many of those athletes due to increased recruiting efforts by other teams like South Carolina and even Vanderbilt?

Look how big UGA is on D hell even Miamis D is big. I'd love if we could just one time land a prospect like Chad Thomas the dude just looks like he belongs in the NFL as a freshman

 

[Wrecking Ball]

Yes, I heard the announcer make that comment. While I thought it was polite, anyone who confuses our D with the Seahawks is having a very good time on some choice chemicals. Looking at 2006 film, in the UGA game, our DBs were huge. Our LBs were huge. And our line was solid. Now, most of those players were unheralded 2 stars or three stars; what's the difference? Weight training?

 

[Wrecking Ball]

Look how big UGA is on D hell even Miamis D is big. I'd love if we could just one time land a prospect like Chad Thomas the dude just looks like he belongs in the NFL as a freshman

We did have those once upon a time, we just found them or developed them. Nealy is a beast, but our DBs are smaller than they used to be.

 

[sidewalkGTfan]

Graduation and Attrition...When you look at who we lost off of last year's defense, either by graduation or attrition, it's mind blowing to me we've held together as well as we have.

 

[Fatmike91]

2006 was an exceptionally talented football team, for Tech (or ANY program):

Demaryius Thomas AND Calvin Johnson on offense.

Vance Walker - Joe Anaoi - Michael Johnson - Darryl Richard

Philip Wheeler - KaMichael Hall - Gary Guyton

Do we really expect that as typical?

/

 

[Wrecking Ball]

2003-2006 was stacked like that. No, I don't think that's typical, but I would like to know why we can't find the same types of players like we seemed to for about a half decade there.

 

[vamosjackets]

I think we were pretty big under Groh too. We had some years there with Tenuta where we would've been classified as undersized also.

 

[Minawreck]

I think the game has brought a little more speed on offense, so your DB's have to be a little bit quicker than they were.

I think advances in sports/nutrition allow people to have more lean muscle and better body fat percentages to give the impression of being small, but still justas strong.

There's some potential that the perceived size difference is from HDTV versus standard def.

I also think that with all the recruiting sites, and camps, the good big players rarely go unnoticed to the point where the factories are able to take a much better pool of recruits than they could before, thus making it harder for schools like ours to get those diamond in the rough types.

 

[Techster]

Take it FWIW, but I posted this in another thread and it's pretty relevant to the OP:

http://coachingsearch.247sports.com...ekend-review-10-most-glaring-aspects-31771904

The No. 1 most surprising thing to me this season is Georgia Tech’s 5-0 record: Give Paul Johnson credit. You have to. He clearly deserves it. By defeating Miami (FL) 28-17 on Saturday night, Georgia Tech is 5-0 and 2-0 in the ACC with wins over VA Tech and the Hurricanes. When I watched Georgia Tech practice in the spring, I thought it may have been the smallest FBS Power-5 that I’ve ever seen. Well, Paul Johnson likely doesn’t care because he knows what he’s doing. Did you know the Seattle Seahawks are the smallest team in the NFL, according to CBS announcer Phil Simms? In the win over Miami, the Yellow Jackets possessed the ball for forty-minutes and did not have a turnover. Ted Roof’s defense tallied two takeaways and limited Miami to 1 of 5 third-down conversions. Over the last three quarters, Roof’s defense limited Miami to just 3 points. I am amazed by the job Paul Johnson is doing thus far in 2014. I mean, truly amazed.

Back in the day, the great defenses under Jimmy Johnson at Miami gave up size for speed and athleticism. In today's game, defenders are just freaks. You've got 6'5 260 lbs DEs that run a 4.5-4.7 forty, and LBs that run just as fast as WRs. 6'+ DBs are now a premium because they have to defend 6'3+ WRs.

The physical mold of football players in the modern game has definitely changed.