RETROBEAST: HINES WARD, #19 WIDE RECEIVER (1994-1997)

The annual meat market that is the NFL Combine gets underway this week and that got me to thinking about everything that is involved with the evaluation process that the players have to go through. National Football League teams want to know about any and everything in a prospective player’s history. Back in 1998, it was discovered that a wide receiver from the University of Georgia did not have an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee due to a bicycle accident in his childhood. This probably (i.e. DEFINITELY) had something to do with his not being drafted until the third round. Turns out, the Pittsburgh Steelers got a steal as this player would go on to be a three time Team MVP, a four time Pro Bowl selection and be named the MVP of Super Bowl XL. As I’m sure you know by now, there is only one former DAWG that we can be talking about…..

RETROBEAST: HINES WARD, #19 WIDE RECEIVER (1994-1997)













Hines Ward came to the University of Georgia after a stellar prep career at Forest Park (GA) High School. Ward earned All-American honors from SuperPrep, Blue Chip Illustrated & USA Today, and added All-State & Super Southern Top 100 honors and was a two-time Clayton County Offensive Player of the Year. Hines rushed for 1,111 yards and 14 touchdowns and completed 122-of-204 passes for 1,575 yards and 14 scores as a quarterback during his senior season...threw for 3,581 yards and 38 scores and rushed for 2,500 yards and 29 touchdowns during his three-year career.

Hines Ward did everything during his time wearing the red and black and he did it well. During his time in Athens Ward not only played wide receiver, but he also lined up at tailback, punt returner, kick returner and even at quarterback. You need to look no further than Hines’ second season in Athens to see his versatility. In 1995, Ward started the first two games at flanker before moving to tailback for the third game, to quarterback for the fourth game, back to tailback for the seventh game, and then returned to quarterback for the final three games. In the 1995 Peach Bowl, Ward completed 31 of 59 passes for 413 yards. Ward set (and still holds) Georgia records for Pass Attempts, Pass Completions, and Passing Yards in a bowl game. Simply put, Ward was just a play-maker at Georgia. Ward totaled 3,870 all-purpose yards, second only to Herschel Walker (5,749) in Bulldogs history.

I have several great memories of Hines playing “between the hedges” from his head-over-heels vault into the end zone in the rain against Texas Tech in 1996 to his bewilderment of the HATED Gators during the DAWGS beat down of Florida in 1997 to the show he put on against the Techies in his final regular season game wearing the red and black.

As a wide receiver for the DAWGS, Ward's 144 career receptions for 1,965 yards placed him second in team history. In 1997, Hines hauled in 55 passes and scored six TDs, getting All-SEC honors in the process and received All-America honors from The Poor Man’s Guide to the NFL Draft. Ward got it done in the classroom too, making the grade as an Academic All-SEC pick in 1996. Ward also garnered honors in 1994 being named to the All-SEC Freshman team by the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

As I mentioned earlier, Ward was taken in the third round of the 1998 NFL Draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Check out this brief rundown of his pro career from STEELERS.COM:

Ward is one of the top receivers in the NFL and is the longest-tenured wide receiver with the same team in the league...is a four-time Pro Bowl selection (2002-05)...is the team’s all-time leader in receptions (800), receiving yards (9,780) and receiving touchdowns (72)...is the only Steeler to have at least 800 career catches and over 9,000 career receiving yards...became the only receiver in Steelers’ history to surpass 1,000 receiving yards for four straight seasons (2001-04)...has team records for receptions in a season (112), which he set in 2002...posted 12 TD receptions in 2003 to tie Louis Lipps (1985) and Buddy Dial’s (1961) team record...drafted by Pittsburgh in the third round (92nd overall) of the 1998 NFL Draft...named Associated Press All-Pro second team in both 2003 and 2004...was named the Steelers’ co-MVP in 2005 (along with Casey Hampton) and 2002 (with Joey Porter), and outright in 2003... earned Super Bowl XL MVP honors after finishing with a game-high 123 receiving yards on five receptions with one touchdown...has led the Steelers in receptions the past 10 years (tied with Troy Edwards in 1999)...has a pass in a team-record 162 games entering the 2009 season...was named to the Steelers’ 75th Season All-Time Team during the 2007 season...named the Steelers’ 2008 Walter Payton Man of the Year...signed a five-year contract in 2001...signed a four-year extension during the 2005 training camp...restructured his contract during the 2009 offseason and signed an extension to keep him with the team through 2013.

Hines was an outstanding player during his time at UGA and has done nothing but continue to bring honor to himself and the DAWGS since he has left Athens. From Wikipedia.com:


As a figure for social change

Ward's mother, Kim Young-hee is Korean and his father, Hines Ward, Sr., is African-American. In 2006, Ward became the first Korean-American to win the Super Bowl MVP award. This achievement threw him into the media spotlight in South Korea.
From April 3 through May 30, 2006, Ward returned to his birthplace of Seoul for the first time since his parents moved to the United States when he was one year old. Ward used his celebrity status to arrange "hope-sharing" meetings with multiracial Korean children and to encourage social and political reform. At one hope-sharing meeting, he told a group of children, "If the country can accept me for who I am and accept me for being a Korean, I'm pretty sure that this country can change and accept you for who you are." On his final day in Korea, he donated $1 million USD to create the Hines Ward Helping Hands Foundation, which the AP called "a foundation to help mixed-race children like himself in South Korea, where they have suffered discrimination."

Any way you choose to look at it, Hines Ward commands recognition as A DAMN BEAST!!! and a Damn Good Dawg. Glory, Glory.

For your viewing pleasure, I present the following:

“Our heart, that was torn out and bleeding, we picked it up and stuck it back inside!” - Larry Munson

That is absolutely one of my top three Munson radio calls and it just happened to come from the final game of my time at Georgia as an undergrad.


GEORGIA vs. GEORGIA TECH – 1997

HINES OWNING THE JACKETS IN THIS GAME


Just because I don’t think it’s possible to see this video enough, HERE’S THE FULL MEAL DEAL VERSION OF THE GAME


During his time in Pittsburgh, Ward has developed a reputation as a hard-nosed player and a devastating blocker. I consider this yet another reason to be proud of this DAWG. Here is some video proof:

WARD BLASTS KEITH RIVERS


WARD ROCKS ED REED


Glory, Glory.

ME, KIRBY AND THE GATORS

Kirby Smart was a four year letterman for our DAWGS from 1995-1998. I’m pretty sure you already knew that part. What you probably didn’t know is Smart and I shared our time at Georgia until I graduated from Grady in the spring of 1998. Now while I shared an afternoon bus with Mike Bobo three days a week in 1997, I had no such (meaningless) relationship with a young Kirby. Why does any of this matter? Well, 1997 was a nice year for the Georgia football team. It was Jim Donnan’s best Bulldogs team and Kirby was a major contributor to that squad. What’s more, the DAWGS beat Florida and Steve Spurrier that year 37-17 after entering the game as 20 point underdogs. This is relevant because I was at that game, my first Georgia/Florida experience, and it is justifiably my first, greatest first person memory as a DAWGS fan and Kirby played a big role in the win. Therefore, according to my bourbon influenced connectivity chain, Mr. Smart and I are eternally linked.

In 1997 a group of fellow Georgia fans and I headed south to the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party with more tickets to the game than we knew what to do with and no idea what we were in for. We spent the night before the game partying deep into the night and sleeping on the floor at a friend’s house in Valdosta only to wake early on game day feeling bouncy, bright-eyed and bushy tailed as if we knew it was going to be a great day. As soon as we got to Jacksonville and got parked for some alcohol-based tailgating we ran into some good ole boy strangers from south-Georgia and they readily offered up shot after shot of some libation I remember only as Hot Damn. Needless to say, by the time we wobbled our way to the stadium and found our seats, we were well oiled and wide open.

We cheered and body-surfed and talked trash to every Gator within shouting distance as Bobo threw to Hines and Corey Allen, Robert Edwards ran for touchdown after touchdown and…this is where Kirby comes in…the DAWGS picked three Gator quarterbacks off a total of four times in the game, of which, Kirby had two and should’ve had another. The Georgia defense was great that day coming up with big stop time and again and Mr. Smart played smart and was seemingly always around the action. Kirby would go on to lead the Bulldogs with six interceptions in 1997 and that was while sharing the same field as future NFL Hall-of-Famer Champ Bailey.

This is clearly the memory zenith of football fandom during my college daze and while it may not be the first thing I recall about that day, that game, that glorious victory over the HATED Gators or even that trip, Kirby’s contributions to the win absolutely rank as my favorite memory of the current Alabama defensive coordinator’s time as a DAWG.

That was then. This is now. Who knows? There may be a memory or two that have yet to be crafted by Smart at (for) the University of Georgia, just in a different role. I have no idea, but I will be keeping a keen eye on the goings-on in Athens in the coming days…just in case.

It's Halloween. Trick or Treat, DAWGS?

I am a true Generation-Xer. You know, old enough to know about but not really old enough to remember the time when the DAWGS made the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville their annual feeding bowl and the team from Florida seemed to be little more than so many kibble and bits. As for the number one ranking that Florida currently sports, well I have flashes of scenes from the 1985 matchup where Georgia defeated the No. 1 Gators 24-3, but unfortunately my memories of the 47-7 beat down at the hands of the No. 1 Gators in 1996 are more easily recalled. Thank goodness for November 1, 1997. I was a senior at Georgia and road-tripped to Jacksonville with more tickets than I had people to give them to because seemingly no one expected the DAWGS to put up much of a fight. We all know what happened that year. I remember thinking that despite being a three touchdown underdog to the defending national champions, those Gators could be had. Those Gators were shaky at quarterback with Jesse Palmer and Noah Brindise and that was the key since Steve Spurrier’s offense depends so heavily on the quarterback position. They had stars in Fred Taylor, Jevon Kearse, Mike Peterson and Jacquez Green, but if we could just pressure the QB, slow down the run, establish our running game and not beat ourselves I felt the DAWGS could shock the world. Well, Jim Donnan, Robert Edwards, Mike Bobo, Hines Ward, Champ Bailey, Corey Allen and the rest of the boys let it all hang out that day and danced out of the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party with a 37-17 victory. We danced the night away to “Georgia on my mind” at The Landing and there has never been a sweeter ride home. I remember that glorious trip to Florida as the defining moment of football fanaticism from my college years.

In many ways, this year’s game shares many similarities to that 1997 matchup. The 2009 edition of the Florida Gators are also the defending national champions. The DAWGS are once again nearly a three touchdown underdog and coming off a defeat the previous year that was just one point shy of 40 points. Granted, the 1997 Florida team did already have a loss coming into the game with Georgia, but how much of a stretch is it to say that this year’s Gators might too have a loss if it were not for the horrendous officiating that we have seen in the SEC this season? In reality, none of this means anything. The 1997 matchup has absolutely no bearing on the 2009 game, but I can’t help but feel very much like I felt in 1997. I know Florida is scary deep on defense. I know that Florida leads the league in scoring defense and total defense. I know that Florida leads the league in scoring offense, total offense and has a Heisman Trophy winning, two-time national champion as it’s starting quarterback. Yet, in the month of October, the Gators have looked anything but unbeatable.

So, here are a few sweet treats to enjoy during the scariest week of the year.

When it comes to Saint Timothy, for all of his achievements that do garner respect, I still say he is not all he’s cracked up to be. Regardless of what others my want you to think, Tebow is not a skilled passer and does not handle pressure well. As for his brute strength, Saint Timothy running in short yardage is like Shaquille O’Neal dunking…I’m not impressed. Blessed with his size and strength, he should be able to do that. With that said, Tebow’s short yardage run can be taken away if you attack it as we have seen again and again from Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi State in recent games. Tebow is just like any other big back in that he must be stopped before he gets started. When you know Saint Timothy will be carrying the ball, you have to attack. Playing the Gators dive play well will go a long way in helping you to figure out when number 15 will be toting the rock.


Given where we are in the season, it is clear that everything the DAWGS do offensively begins with AJ Green, Lethal Weapon 8. AJ > anything Florida has on either side of the ball, Saint Timothy included. Opponent’s defensive game plans begin and end with what to do with Green, so distribution is the key for the DAWGS to keep that Gators defense off balance. How Florida chooses to play AJ…lock up in man…play zone…play a deep zone…will be something that Georgia offense will have to adjust to and the other receivers will need to have a good day, especially the tight ends.

In the kicking game, I have to give the edge to Georgia. The DAWGS key contributors, Blair Walsh, Drew Butler, Brandon Boykin (with occasional appearances by Prince Miller and Branden Smith) are valuable keys to winning the battle of hidden yardage in this game. Florida has the edge off the tee ranking 2nd in kickoff returns and kickoff coverage, but the kickoff return specialists Boykin (27.3 ypr) and Brandon James (27.5 ypr) are essentially a wash. Georgia has the edge in the punting game ranking 4th in punt return and leading the conference in punting with a 44.1 net/punt average. A key blocked kick would be HUGE in this game.

Now to put some real meat on this Dawg’s bone. In my opinion, here’s the real deal on this game. Florida leads the league in every key offensive statistical category except passing offense where the Gators rank 7th. Why then, when you watch them play, it doesn’t look that way? Two reasons: 1) Tebow leads the team in rushing. When your quarterback, particularly this quarterback, is your primary ball carrier the final numbers can sneak up on you. 2) Aaron Hernandez, the Florida tight end, is the team’s most consistent threat in the passing game. Riley Cooper (WR) is nice, but nothing special. Hernandez and Cooper have caught 60 of Tebow’s 84 completions and the other two starting WRs have a combined 14 catches. No other Gators wide receiver scares opponents because Florida has not established a consistent threat in the vertical passing game. This assertion is supported by the fact that that both Arkansas and Mississippi State played a lot of man-to-man coverage against Florida. “Hernandez and Hooks” seems to be the philosophy of this Gators team right now which allows opponents to squat on routes without the threat of being beaten deep, and this forces Tebow to hold the ball and that has led to sacks and bad decisions. Sounds like a winning strategy to me. With that said, it must also be said that the DAWGS could be vulnerable when our linebackers match up in pass coverage with Florida’s speedy running backs.

When it comes to coaching, that has to be the wildcard for Georgia right now. I say that because of the fantastic timing of the bye week. The team has had a chance to rest up, heal and prepare. The opportunity is there for a big statement to be made by Georgia. We will know soon enough.

Am I the only one? It just feels like Florida is ready to crack after a few close calls? They have dealt with the pressure of being touted as the greatest team ever assembled with the greatest player ever to strap on a helmet running the show. Everyone in the national media thought the season was a mere formality that would inevitably lead to Pasadena and a national championship. Could it finally be getting to them? Everyone tries to deny it, but it is simply impossible and pretty soon the players begin to expect certain performances and outcomes for themselves. Winning simply is not good enough. Urban Meyer can deny it all he wants, but these pressures are inherent to these situations and they are unavoidable. Sometimes teams manage to overcome these thoughts with great individual player performances or defining team moments, but more often than not all that pressure leads to cracks and eventually forces bursts. If things line up and the DAWGS put a whole game together, throw in a little Florida stress and this could be the Halloween that Georgia treats the DAWG Nation and hands out nothing but tricks to the Gators.