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♦ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 2B 2jaSSflj& j/tjr K* JJ Vk *>* ■ **- -"" •" ; JP *•»..*■■ ENI/Gary Harmon /A Coffee runner tries to elude a tag-along Bear, among others, Saturday in McConnell- Talbert Stadium. BEARS From page iB down to Lowndes last Friday and also knocked off the Vikings. But the Bears don’t exactly enter postseason on a great note. With a playoff berth already secured, Houston lost at McConnell-Talbert Stadium on Saturday to Coffee County High 28-21. Newnan has won seven of its last eight games after an 0-2 start. When the two teams open the GHSA tour nament in Coweta County tonight, it will be the first ever meeting between the Bears and the Cougars. But Houston head coach Doug Johnson has seen the Newnan program up close before. He was an assistant for Warner Robins in 1981 when the Demons beat the Cougars in Newnan for the state championship. Newnan also has a win at McConnell-Talbert against Northside in a recent post season match-up. Johnson’s scouting report of the 2006 Cougars sounds a little like Tift County or Colquitt County. It also sounds like he’s talking about the basketball team because this combination of numbers keeps coming up: 6-7. “Coach (Robert) Herring and them have done a good job,” said Johnson. “I think they got beat in the play offs last year by Camden. They’ve had a long histo ry of great teams, of being in the playoffs and playing well. It will be nothing new for them.” Houston County is back in the playoffs after miss ing out by a slim margin in 2005. The Cougars are 7-3, and in those seven wins they aver age 37.7 points on offense. “They are a wide-open offense,” said Johnson. “They have a great quarter back who is about 6-7. He stands in the pocket back in the shotgun. We’ve knocked down a few passes this year, BROWN From page iB “We have a quarterback. He just needs a little season ing,” my buddy replies. From all the pr.eseason hoopla, I was led to believe Stafford was coming to Georgia already spiced up. My point is, folks, don’t tell me how great a player is, no matter what position it is, before he’s ever played a game - not just a spring game - in a Bulldog uni form. Finally, I can sit here and tell all of you I like the way Stafford plays the game. I like the way he takes off with the football. He’s not a speed demon, but he has a big frame and he hustles it down the field. I’ll even make a compari son right now. Since he wears No. 7, I saw some shades of another No. 7 of football lore. John Elway, maybe. Most importantly, in this game, Stafford and the Bulldog offense kept things fairly basic. Maybe that’s the way it’s been done all but this kid - we watched him last Friday - he tends to throw over you. “In their scheme, where he’s almost in the shotgun every play and he drops a couple of steps, it’s hard to get pressure because they do a great job of knowing where their hot route is. Even if you get people to him, he can still throw it over you. “Plus he has some great players with him. He has a great receiver, No. 2, and the running back’s a really good player. The tight end is 6-7. It may be the most athletic football team we’ve played all year. “It’s a little bit differ ent (from Colquitt or Tift) because of (the quarter back). His height gives him such an advantage. He can find receivers. They got him about six yards deep, then he drops two or three more, so as you rush you’re trying to get 10 or 12 yards. He gets hit some, but he usually gets the ball away.” On the defensive side, Newnan does tend to give up some points, a 10-game average of about 20. Johnson said the Cougars have had the misfortune of playing in some situations with heavy rain involved. He said it shouldn’t take away from what he sees on the films as far as athleticism goes. “Two of the losses they had were in pouring down rain,” said Johnson. “They gave up some points because they had turnovers that were pretty close. “Defensively, I would call them sound. They run a 50 with good-looking kids, pret ty big and think. One defen sive end is about 235, the other is about 220, big rangy kids. The two linebackers are about 220 each. The sec ondary does a good job, and I’m sure they see the pass a lot in practice. “The big key for us is we do have to control the foot ball. If we can control it like we did against Colquitt, it will keep that offense from being on the field. And we need to create some turn- season. Maybe you’re hear ing that the Georgia offense has been too predictable. I’ll steal a few lines from a sports movie to answer that. Let Auburn see all our plays beforehand. It doesn’t mat ter what you do, but how you do it. You stand in the batter’s box against Nolan Ryan, or Randy Johnson, or Roger Clemens, you know what’s coming. Sometimes that knowledge doesn’t do you one bit of good. You really have to cred it that win to the Bulldog defense. Again, I don’t think it was any mystery what Auburn had in mind. Tra Battle, Charles Johnson, they all just got in the right place to make the right plays. And now Richt can get his head off of some people’s chopping block. He doesn’t want to make any staff changes, which is his pre rogative. It was also his pre rogative to not add any more points late in Saturday’s game, even with the ball so deep in Auburn territory. Quite frankly, I’ve never overs, some interceptions or fumbles or something to get the ball bouncing our way.” The turnover-margin favored Coffee County when the Trojans ended the Houston regular season with the loss in Warner Robins. In particular, Coffee inter cepted a pass late in the third quarter with Houston ahead 21-20. The football was inside the Trojan 10, but the visitors used big plays to get to the other end and score the game-winner. Johnson said Coffee had two weeks to prepare for this contest and used them to implement new never before-seen schemes. What the Bears couldn’t have been prepared for was a big pass ing game from the run-ori ented Trojans, but quarter back Daniel Anderson had three touchdown passes. “They added two new blocking schemes that we feel hurt us,” said Johnson. “If they had only a week, I don’t think they could have gotten that accomplished. They added what we call the backdoor pass out of the veer that they had not thrown all year. “We knew it was going to be a tough ball game no matter what. Coffee is 8-2 now, and in the only two games they lost, turnovers killed them. Going into that game, they had 27 turnovers total, and we only had eight. Then we had one and they had none.” But all 32 teams (one of which is not the defending champions, Lowndes) go back to 0-0 this weekend. Johnson has been telling the Bears the old “anything can happen” story and that this year’s championship will be decided by who gets on that five-game roll. “I don’t think in 5-A right now there is one dominant team,” said Johnson. “Last year, Lowndes, we played them, and I didn’t see any one being able to beat them. This year I don’t think there’s a team that strong ... one that’s way better than everybody else.” seen a quarterback take a knee on fourth down. Richt certainly isn’t one to rub anything in anyone’s face. Maybe he believes there is a point when you have a big enough lead. Me, I would have called for a least a field goal, maybe give Andy Bailey a chance to get his own groove back going. I must stand corrected on a point I made a couple of weeks ago. The NCAA, back in April, ruled that, because of the 12-game schedule, teams with a 6- 6 record would be eligible for bowls. I must have missed that memo, because I thought Georgia’s win against Western Kentucky (I-AA) would not count. A moot point now, because the Bulldogs aren’t going to finish 6-6. Here’s an historical point. 1973. That’s the last season in which Georgia lost to both Vanderbilt and Kentucky. It never happened under Ray Goff. Never happened under Jim Donnan. But in 1973, Georgia beat Auburn and Georgia Tech ... and Tennessee. SPORTS Hendrick ponders another title Special to the Journal Car owner Rick Hendrick is poised to win his fifth NASCAR Nextel Cup Series championship. Jimmie Johnson has a 63-point, lead heading into Sunday’s sea son finale at the Homestead- Miami Speedway and all he needs is to finish 12th or better to clinch the title. Hendrick already has four championships with Jeff Gordon and one with Terry Labonte. He talked recently about what it’s like to be one of the most powerful car owners in NASCAR: Question: What are the challenges of staying on top of the Bport? Hendrick: I think just trying to keep everybody together. When you have success, you’ve got teams that want to gain or grow and you have a lot of people offering your folks opportu nities. You can’t have one crew chief and one car chief. You’ve got a lot of people that are car chiefs that have gone on to be crew chiefs other places and good top mechanics that havf gone on to be car chiefs at other spots. The real critical thing is to keep everybody together. Question: How difficult will it be to deal with the Car of Tomorrow? Hendrick: I think next year is going to be an unbe lievably up and down year. There will be so many vari ables coming in - the Car of Tomorrow, the standard car, new teams, trying to figure out this car, no testing. You have to maintain your fleet, YEAR From page iB heading into the final quarter. Taylor County then held on in the fourth. “I liked the way we moved the ball on offense and got it inside,” Mobley said in regard to how his Demonettes did overall. “We need to work on playing better defense (however). “It was a good opportunity for the girls SENIOR From page iB Hal Baker from Bonaire and David smith of Warner Robins. Those two are paired up and battling in the championship flight. They shot a 70 the first day, two under par. Still that got them only up to 26th - and tied with 10 other golfers. Also, Ron Baggett and Eddie Wiggins of Warner Robins - teamed up togeth er - are also contending in the championship flight. They shot an even 72 the first day and are in a tie for 38th. CLEATS WITH TPIS. AIRSOPT* GUp BECAUSE l \ V I'M» W REAUS.TIC IQOKIpG. \ r//Vp IPYOU POfpT OUT to PER THAT ‘ JfN IT MAS> TMAT LITTLE ORApGE < ( JACK, I'M <xm BUT PO MORE j T V. AlfeoET* WARS. FOR YOU. J ~\ (\ POp'T WAPT you RUPPIPgA AROUPP WITH SrfOMETMIPG TMAT LOOKS 6W J Play Better Golf with JACK NICKLAUS build a new fleet and merge them in. It’s going to take more manpower at a time when more teams are start ing up. It’s going to put a lot of stress on every body. Then we’ve got a new motor too so we’ve got to deal with that. So we have to run two parallel motor systems and two parallel car systems and integrate it in. It’s going to be a chal lenge for the guys that have been here, but for the new guys it’s really going to be a dogfight. Question: Are you con cerned about the num ber of full-time teams next year and the fact some good teams won’t qualify for races? Hendrick: Yeah. I’m in the automobile business, so I look at the economy as a whole. If one piece of the economy struggles, it’s going to affect every body sooner or later. When you’ve got this many teams trying to show up to race, some good teams aren’t going to make it and some good sponsors could end up leaving the sport. I think next year is going to be the biggest shake out that we’ve seen. I think we’ll see a lot of people that won’t be there in ‘OB that are there in ‘O7 because it’s going to be a very, very competitive deal and it’s going to be a lot of pressure. Question: What do you think of Jimmie Johnson’s approach and attitude toward the Chase this year? Hendrick: I think Jimmie has taken the same approach Hendrick: I think Jimmie has taken the same approach to get some experience before the regular season starts.” Which is slated to be Saturday when they travel and compete in the Griffin Invitational (through Tuesday - with Sunday off). Leading Warner Robins’ effort Tuesday was Kittery Maine, Cherie White - both fresh from fast-pitch - and Liza Gaines. Maine scored 24 points, White 10 and Gaines 8. Warner Robins’ boys did not play. Two-time former champi onship tandem Bill Ploeger of Columbus and Spencer Sappington of Alpharetta are among three teams to fire opening rounds of seven-under 65 for a one stroke lead. William Lepley of Alpharetta and Miles Vickery of Canton and Kingsland-duo Carl Wade and Danny Daniels join Ploeger and Sappington are the others at the top of the leader board. The championship flight will be playing all three rounds at the course at Lakes at Laura S. Walker and the first through (c) 2006 Bill Hinds, Dist by Universal Press Syndicate" ' ?eam r MERE'S-Ap ARTICLE ABOUT A N i LOCKPOWP CAUSfP BY A \ \ BOY S-MOWIPG MIS- GUP I TO MIS. ERIEPP AT IUPCM PERIOP. J I |/~7’"PAPG U! IT'fr POT FAIR ] Jj OpE PERfcOp SPOILS. TME 1 (c) 2000 Bill Hinds. Dist by Universal Press Syndicate HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL that we’ve all taken here. You can’t do anything about this Chase deal. It’s the luck of the draw. You run so good the first race then get wrecked, then you come back and have a cut tire in the last race last year. You win four races in the Chase one year and you don’t win it. I try to tell Jimmie this: You won Daytona, the Indy race, the All Star race. Every guy that would take that in a career and you’ve done it in a year and you led the points. You can’t let this championship thing eat you up. He and Chad (Rnaus, crew chief) last year, we met off-season and spent a lot of time talking about this (being) not life-threatening. We want to be here for 10 years. You guys are young. You’ll be the guys to beat every year, but in order to do that we can’t let the pressure get to you. So we started the year with a dif ferent attitude. Question: How have you managed the. ups and downs in the Chase this year? Hendrick: I’m not mak ing light of the champion ship, but I look at life a lot different now. It’s not life threatening. We do the best we can. You can’t control it. It’s one of those things where you’ve got to have good luck. You do the best you can. Yeah, I’d like to win seven or eight cham pionships, but hopefully we can get that 150th win this week and just make the guys as good as they can be and be competitive. - compiled by Don Coble fourth flights will play at Okefenokee Country Club. The low 48 teams based on combined handicap index comprise the championship Flight. The remainder of the field was determined by lot tery and flighted by team handicap index. Only the competitors in the champi onship flight are eligible for the overall title. Entries were open to male amateur golfers who are at least 55 years old, members of a GSGA member club and residents of Georgia. The maximum handicap differential between part ners was six strokes. www oocomics com e-mail Cleatsmail@aol com J B-rT OfFICER, TMIS. !S>P'T a REAt f 71 GUP. S££, IT MAS. AP ORApGE l H TMIPGY Op TME FROPTj JjZ WE MAZ A Hi J j y op rue Fftogr.J l/yjlff Vi I TMIS. TME j KIP TMIS. MAS. MAPPEPEP TO. \ -4- f | CMECKEP TME IPTERPET ApP-y A i ; \ . ABOUT MIM. I I < ■.rk \ WAS. TAIKIPG V \ ABOUT you. / '' — www oocomics.com e-mail CteatsmailQaol com