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re: My favorite Georgia football game of all time

Posted on 7/24/23 at 2:28 pm to
Posted by agentoranj1990
Mableton
Member since Oct 2016
916 posts
Posted on 7/24/23 at 2:28 pm to
quote:

Donnan should have never said that he'd waited his whole life to coach that team - but it WAS loaded with talent.

The series that sealed that game was the goal line stand that happened right in front of our seats. Good old fashioned bone jarring football with UT running it right at seymour and stroud.

I was friends with Todd Donnan and went to a presaeson practice at the stadium. Sat next to David Greene's dad. Anyway I remember watching a 'shell' passing period and thinking there must be something wrong with Quincy. He completed just one pass the entire period against the shell defense.


That quote was probably one of the things that led to his ouster and of course the 3 straight losses to Tech. I remember being surprised that Donnan had been let go. He had a similar level of success that Dooley had from 83-88 but I don't think his ceiling was any higher. He of course had a few banters with fans on the call-in show. I'm glad he got things on track after that Ponzi scheme case. I don't know much inside information on that story but he faced some hard prison time.
Posted by WG_Dawg
Hoover
Member since Jun 2004
86585 posts
Posted on 7/24/23 at 2:38 pm to
yeah that "55 years" comment in hindsight was probably not very smart. I remember Nate Hybl went on to have a fine career at OU but he left athens once it was obvious no one was going to unseat quincy.

I wouldn't say that comment contributed to his firing though. As you menitoend the tech games were likely the biggest hurdles that wouldn't be overcome. You simply can't lose 3 in a row to them, period. We routinely got whooped by UF and UT but 1) we'd done that under the previous regime too so it wasn't unique to donnan, and 2) they were whooping up on everyone in those days so it was a bit easier to swallow, I suppose. We also seemed to break even with AU, who was decent during those days but still not the kind of results you'd want. Zooming out and lookin big picture we did regress yearly. After the amazing 10-2 season of '97, we went 9-3 in '98, then 8-4 in '99, and 8-4 again in 2000. If you're regressing yearly, losing 3 in a row to your biggest rival, and not doing so hot against your other rivals either, what's the point of sticking around?

I will say he did greatly incrase our talent. Some of those early Ricth teams that had mega success don't come close to those accomplishments without the talent donnan left behind.

Also, I know donnan was known as an offensive guy so I'd lke to point out that we ran a play in that '99/00 outback bowl against purdue that I'd never seen run before. It was a funky backfield formation and we handed the fball off, almost like an RPO looking play that we gave to the RB. But from there it became an option play, and the RB that just received the handoff ended up pitching back to yet another RB who scored.
This post was edited on 7/25/23 at 8:02 am
Posted by UnderDog68
Thomasville, Ga.
Member since Sep 2017
2543 posts
Posted on 7/25/23 at 4:50 pm to
quote:

That quote was probably one of the things that led to his ouster and of course the 3 straight losses to Tech.


The night of the 3rd loss in a row to GT, I was listening to the old call in show that coaches used to do post game with Munson back in the day.
A particularly irate UGA fan was raising hell with Donnan about losing 3 in a row. Donnan responded by saying something to the effect of:
‘I don’t know what you’re so upset about.’ ‘This game means absolutely nothing in the scheme of things as far as winning the SEC East.’
As soon as he said it, I told my wife he would be fired by Monday morning.
I was wrong about that….he was fired the morning after the game.
This post was edited on 7/25/23 at 4:51 pm
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