Georgia's Martinez Fired For Not Being Defensive

by:The Fake Gimel Martinez12/02/09
willie martinez

(No, I don't have a Google Alert for "Martinez".)

When Kentucky football goes 7-5, only the unrealistic fans consider it a massive disappointment. (Seriously, I read a facebook comment where some guy whined about how UK could have been 10-2 if it wasn't for Joker. Seriously!)

But when Georgia football goes 7-5 and ends up getting passed over the Chik-fil-a & Music City bowls, Dawg fans can get rightfully upset. Georgia's defense bore the brunt of the blame, even though the Ginger Ninja Geisha enjoyed spreading the wealth. With the brunt of the blame comes the point of the ax: Georgia fired Defensive Coordinator Willie Martinez and two other defensive coaches.

How bad was Martinez? Let's compare and contract with current UK DC Steve Brown:

uga martinez vs uk brown

(For reference: 2007 Stats, 2008 Stats, 2009 Stats. The 2009 stats do not include bowl games, whereas the other stats do.)

Comparing these two coaches wouldn't be fair without comparing the quality of recruits they've brought in and have used the last 4 years:

uk vs uga recruiting

(Data for above graphic is from rivals.com.)

With this data, we can conclude several things:

* Martinez has really had some hit-or-miss recruiting classes the past several years. Its hard to out-recruit Alabama and Florida, no matter how many Dawg fans there are.

* Given our recruiting rankings, Steve Brown is getting a lot of production from his defense. Finding diamonds in the rough help. But UK could definitely use some high-ranked guys in the next couple of classes.

* Georgia's defense really wasn't that bad. It doesn't help when your offense lost 27 fumbles, driving the whole team to be 2nd to LAST NATIONALLY in turnover margin (-1.42).

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