Todd Grantham versus Jeremy Pruitt — which Defensive Coordinator would you rather have?

Georgia legend Erk Russell

It’s a good thing I don’t drink coffee.

This morning during breakfast when I read Michael Cunningham’s article in the AJC that was published a couple of weeks ago, suggesting that Todd Grantham has done a better job of coaching defense at Louisville than Jeremy Pruitt has been doing this year at Georgia, I would have spit that coffee all over my keyboard.

Water cleans up much easier. Nor does it hurt very much if you laugh while swallowing and some goes up or down the wrong way.

Was Mr. Cunningham serious? Has he actually watched the two defenses play, or simply looked at the raw statistical analysis? In his defense, Mr. Cunningham normally writes about the Atlanta Hawks and professional basketball. He must have wandered a little bit out of his comfort zone.

That’s the only way I can guess someone might think Todd Grantham could do a better job at Louisville than Jeremy Pruitt has been doing this year at Georgia.

He simply can’t have watched Todd Grantham coach a defense before.

However, I have. In fact, I watched Grantham in action for four mostly painful years,  from 2010 – 2013, every game the Bulldogs played.

And in my personal opinion, Georgia won the freaking lottery when Grantham left and they hired Pruitt to replace him.

AP photo

Now it simply isn’t fair to Grantham to compare him to Jeremy Pruitt, a man who has proven he knows how to coach a national championship caliber defense. Grantham’s work should be measured against Willie Martinez, the guy he replaced.

Grantham was a slight improvement.

But I am sure that I can recognize a well-coached defense when I see one, and I never saw one being coached by Todd Grantham.

Not even once.

During Grantham’s tenure with Georgia, typically Aaron Murray and the offense put up enough points to win in spite of the defense, not with their help.

More often than not under Grantham, our play in the secondary resembled the Three Stooges, instead of a disciplined unit working as a team. I still have nightmares about 4th and 18 at Auburn.

Then after I wake up in a cold sweat and finally go back to sleep, I have more nightmares about the 99-yard bomb Nebraska threw in the bowl game.

In comparison, the vast improvement in Georgia’s defense from week to week with Jeremy Pruitt at the helm has been obvious and remarkable, beginning with the season opener against Clemson.

By the time the second half against the ranked Tigers ended, I could tell that we had seriously upgraded our defensive coordinator.

In the Clemson game, I saw glimpses of brilliant defensive play reminding me of glory days and  legendary Junkyard Dawg defense, coached by Erk Russell.

Now I freely admit that I haven’t watched Louisville play very much this year, simply because I don’t find their games against Wake Forest, Murray State, or the Little Sisters of the Poor very interesting.

At the time Mr. Cunningham wrote his column, Louisville had just defeated Wake without the Demon Deacons scoring an offensive touchdown — with a passing offense ranked #105. Their rushing offense is even worse, ranked #128 averaging only 31 yards a game.

It isn’t difficult to look good against really bad competition. Louisville has only played two difficult games and lost both of them.

In four years of watching Todd Grantham at work, I never saw any effort from his players that reminded me of Erk. His defenses managed three shutouts in four years, all in Sanford stadium.

By  contrast, Pruitt’s defense shut out two opponents in half a season, the most impressive of which being on the road in Columbia last weekend.

The Junkyard Dawgs showed up again last Saturday, proving at ranked Missouri the Clemson game wasn’t a fluke. This time, the effort was sustained for all four quarters.

Missouri would have been in the driver’s seat for the SEC East title, plenty of incentive to win at home. Instead, Georgia’s offense played well enough to win, and the defense absolutely dominated the line of scrimmage and suffocated the Tiger offense from the opening kickoff to the final whistle.

It’s much too early to compare Pruitt to coach Russell at this point of his career — it seems more appropriate to compare him to Brian VanGorder, the best defensive coordinator under Richt,

Until now.

After Pruitt has had the opportunity to recruit a couple of shutdown corners and shore up the secondary, the sky may be the limit.