Loran - Smith

Loran

As we look forward to the Super Bowl, Georgia has extended its existing record of having a former player to play in the NFL’s championship game.

The Philadelphia Eagles will come into the Super Bowl with seven for Bulldogs on their roster: Nolan Smith, Jordan Davis, Kelee Ringo, Jalen Carter, Lewis Cine, Marcus Rosemy- Jacksaint, and Nakobe Dean (injured).

There are also two Dawgs with the Kansas City Chiefs: Malik Herring and Mecole Hardman.

This will be the 24th consecutive year that a former UGA letterman has played in the Super Bowl. Georgia is the only school with this impressive streak.

Georgia’s connection with the Super Bowl dates to the second playing of the championship in 1968 when the Oakland Raiders lost to the Green Bay Packers 33-14 at the old Orange Bowl in Miami.

The Raiders were coached by John Rauch, who enjoyed a sensational career as a quarterback in the late fifties for Wallace Butts. I once had a conversation with Bill Walsh after he retired from coaching the San Francisco 49ers about Rauch. “The genesis of the West Coast offense had its beginnings,” he said, “with John Rauch and the Raiders.” One could easily conclude that it actually began on the practice field at Georgia where Rauch learned his basic offensive football from coach Wallace Butts. Rauch played quarterback for the Bulldogs for four years, starting every game plus four bowl games.

(That record was tied by another Georgia quarterback—David Greene who quarterbacked the Dawgs in 2001-2004. There have been many players to start every game of their four-year careers, but Rauch and Greene also started four consecutive bowl games.)

When the Raiders met the Packers in that 1968 game, the team had only three coaches. Rauch was the head coach, John Madden was the line coach and Walsh was the backfield coach.

Today in the NFL, there seems to be three coaches for every position on the team.

When we were promoting Rauch for membership in the College Football Hall of Fame, I also had a conversation with Madden who was very complimentary of Rauch, saying that Rauch was one of the few people he knew who could actually coach every position on the team.

Three former Bulldogs were named Most Valuable Player in a Super Bowl game: Jake Scott, Miami Dolphins, Terrell Owens, Denver continued from page

Broncos and Hines Ward, Pittsburgh Steelers.

There are many who wore the Red & Black who also wear Super Bowl rings, and then there are those who made it to the big dance and came away without winning a championship.

In Super Bowl history, there have been a lot of outstanding players who did not win a ring such as Jim Kelly who led the Buffalo Bills to four consecutive Super Bowls but lost each game. Fran Tarkenton, former Georgia quarterback was 0-3 in Super Bowls with the Minnesota Vikings which brings up interesting flashbacks.

Sonny Jurgenson of the Washington Redskins made it to the Super Bowl but was on crutches when his team played in the Super Bowl in 1972, losing to the Miami Dolphins 14-7. He has never resorted to complaining, saying, “I had a good long run and had a lot of fun and good success. I did my best.”

It bothered Tarkenton, initially, taking him a long time to get over his not winning a Super Bowl ring. “I hated it for my teammates,” he has maintained. “You have to have a lot of luck to win a championship.”

For years, I would see Jurgensen at a Redskins’ game in December and on other trips to Washington and at the Masters in April. When I told him Tarkenton had frustrations with his Super Bowl record, he asked, “Why?”

Then he said, “He had a tremendous career and a lot of success. Losing that one game does not define his career. It is not always the quarterback’s fault when a team loses the Super Bowl. What about his teammates who dropped passes, the linemen who missed blocks, the defensive backs who missed critical tackles?”

Ted Williams never won a World Series and in a long conversation one spring a couple of years before he died, he said that he felt that his body of work defined his career.

As he gets longer in the tooth, that is the position that Tarkenton takes with his Super Bowl legacy. He is beginning to agree with Sonny Jurgensen.

It is interesting that there is great head shaking assessment with some sports anomalies. How does Orville Moody win a U. S. Open and Sam Snead not?