Two weeks into his prolonged search for a new defensive coordinator in December of 2009, Georgia coach Mark Richt flew to Texas to meet Todd Grantham for the first time.
They got together at the home of the then-Dallas Cowboys defensive line coach in the middle of an NFL game week.
“It was more of a get-to-know basis,” Grantham said. “Him feel me out, me feel him out.”
Richt had fired three defensive assistants, including coordinator Willie Martinez, days after a 7-5 regular season that ended against Georgia Tech.
Thus began a 44-day coaching search in which Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart said no thanks and Richt was rebuffed by Virginia Tech’s Bud Foster and LSU’s John Chavis.
Some four weeks after that stealth meeting at Grantham’s home in Colleyville, Texas, Richt hired Grantham, a former defensive coordinator with the Cleveland Browns who was on staff with Nick Saban at Michigan State.
Grantham may not have been Richt’s first choice, but the selection has paid off for Georgia in a big way this season.
“It’s once you get the opportunity and once you get the job, what are you going to do with it?,” Grantham said. “It’s just like a player once he gets the starting role, what’s he going to do with it? For me, it’s just a matter of you’ve got the responsibility, what are you going to do with it?”
What Grantham has done with it is turn around the Bulldogs’ defense and helped get Georgia back to the SEC championship game for the first time since 2005.
“I think we ended up getting the right guy,” Richt said this week.
“He’s done a fantastic job there because they were kind of hurting on defense when he went there,” Saban said. “They’ve really developed into a stellar group.”
Richt said he wanted to see a “championship defense get built.”
The No. 13 Bulldogs clinched the SEC East last week and have their sights on the SEC title Dec. 3, but first comes today’s game against Georgia Tech.
How does this defense stack up to the others under Richt?
The Bulldogs are currently fourth in the nation in total defense (263.5 yards per game), which would match the 2003 Bulldogs under coordinator Brian VanGorder, whose unit also finished fourth.
This could turn out to be the first top-10 scoring defense for the Bulldogs since Georgia ranked fourth, third, ninth and eighth from 2002-2005. Georgia is currently 11th at 17.82 points per game.
The run defense, ranked second nationally at 81.3 yards per game, has allowed the fewest average yards since the 1981 team gave up 72.5 per game.
“Those guys have been playing lights-out,” quarterback Aaron Murray said.
“We just go out and compete and try to be the best that we can be to get people to look at the Georgia defense and say that they’re back, that they are as good as LSU and Alabama,” safety Shawn Williams said.
Grantham brought his 3-4 defensive background with him and scrapped the 4-3.
“When I compare where we were from the very first day I came here from a defensive perspective and how we were playing and what we were doing to now, guys have really bought in, guys have committed themselves,” Grantham said. “The players deserve a ton of credit for believing in us and doing what we asked them to do and then going out and executing.”
Those players include Southern California transfer and Butkus Award finalist Jarvis Jones, second in the nation with 12 1⁄2 sacks and junior college transfer John Jenkins, a space-eater at nose guard that Georgia was missing in the first year in the system.
Grantham moved safety Alec Ogletree, the top recruit in 2010, to linebacker this spring. Safety Baccari Rambo emerged as a ball-hawk with an SEC-leading seven interceptions.
Richt said that players became stronger and faster and coaches put them in the right spot.
“I think the guys have just caught on well, I think they’re believing,” Richt said. “They’re playing really hard, they’re playing fast. They’re making very few mistakes.”
In his two seasons, Grantham’s shown his fire not always in the most flattering ways — flashing a choking gesture before Florida kicker Chas Henry booted the game-winner in overtime last year and getting in a heated post-game confrontation with Vanderbilt coach James Franklin after a close-call Bulldogs’ win in Nashville this year.
“Coach Grantham, man, he’s a firecracker,” Jenkins said. “If you lined up at a brick wall, after he’s done speaking, you’re through the brick wall.”
“He’s not as aggressive off the field, but on the field, he’s going to coach you hard,” said Ogletree, echoing comments made by other players. “He’s just a very intense coach. He loves the game and nobody takes it personally when he gets onto you because he wants you to do the best.”
When Grantham was hired, cornerback Brandon Boykin spoke to his cousin, running back Tashard Choice, who at the time played for the Cowboys.
“He told me how passionate of a coach that he was and he always has his segment right and they play hard,” Boykin said. “I definitely saw that from the get-go. You really want to play for him because he’s so passionate. You really want to give your best. It’s amazing the transition from last year to this year.”
Georgia gave up 31 or more points in five games last year. This year, that’s happened just twice — in the first two games.
“The biggest thing is when you change a system, it takes awhile for the players to get comfortable,” Saban said. “The mental errors and mis-executions are sort of the things that really hurt you. When the players get more comfortable and it becomes sort of a part of them and they understand it, then you have less of that and you start playing better.”
Playing teams a second time around also has helped.
“Todd spent a year in college again,” Richt said. “In college, you defend so many different offenses compared to what you defend in the NFL. In the NFL, everybody’s a lot alike. There’s a few little differences here and there, but they’re a lot more common than not. In college, it’s just vast the different types of offenses you have to defend and gain experience with your players and your system against it.”
Jones said Georgia has recognized opponents’ formation tendencies this year because of Grantham and the defensive staff’s preparations.
“Most of the time, we know what guys are going to do before they do it,” he said.
“There’s a certain way you have to mentally play,” Grantham said. “There’s a certain physicality, a certain mental toughness that you have to have. It doesn’t just happen. It comes through repetition. As I’ve always said, we’re all creatures of habit and we all have habitual traits and the biggest thing is getting guys to buy into the system and do it a certain way, which is with effort, intensity, playing physical, playing hard. Not just for one play, but for the next play and the next play and do it for 60 minutes.”
When he was searching for a coordinator, Richt heard good things about Grantham from Will Muschamp, then-defensive coordinator at Texas and now head coach at Florida. He said he knew that other coaches talked to Grantham in the offseason about blitzing concepts and knew about his relationship with Saban.
“I’ve always thought he’s one of the best coaches I’ve ever had on any staff,” Saban said. “He certainly has a lot of very positive experience in the NFL and some other places. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him.”
Nearing the end of the second season with Grantham as coordinator, it appears Richt’s prayers have been answered.
“How I look at things, I think The Lord has his timing on everything and I was looking for the right man for the job,” Richt said.
“It was really a comfortable and natural fit,” Grantham said. “I’m excited about the future based on the guys we have in our program, the guys we feel like we’re going to get and the guys that we’re even searching for now for down the road.”
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