Shawn Williams goes on the offensive

The biggest mystery in Athens is no longer why the students and residents could let an institution like Steverino's die off? The biggest mystery now is what the f--- has happened to our defense?

This is the group that stood side by side and to a man, decided to come back and play together rather than test the NFL draft waters early. They essentially locked arms and said that they had unfinished business. At the time it was considered Richt's greatest 2012 recruiting haul, even though it was weeks before Signing Day.

But now...wtf? Even as recently as the end of September we were thinking this group had their best days in front of them. Coming off a dominating effort against Vanderbilt in which they drubbed the Commodores relentlessly and held them to under three yards a carry, we knew we would finally get all of our starters back against Tennessee and this defense would truly begin to dominate.

Ever since then they've played like jell-o. Don't get me wrong, this Georgia defense wasn't a world beater in September and the level of competition last month was clearly sub par. But we showed an eagerness for collisions and a need for grass stains in the very least. Now we're soft and mushy and seem uninterested in causing any harm at all to the opposing jerseys.

Did the suspensions somehow cause a rift in the defense, or the locker room as a whole? Along those lines, looking back with the power of hindsight, perhaps the starting job shouldn't have just been handed back to those guys. Give it some time to work the "rust" out and avoid "communication" issues. And if guys are just going through the motions to protect their draft status, shouldn't the coaches have recognized this by now? Put someone else in and at least get them some experience "next man up" style. 

And if you don't agree with my words, read Shawn Williams' truth bombs. He has plenty more where this comes from:

"We've gotta stop playing soft. We're playing too soft defensively," Williams said. "That goes for D-line, linebackers, corners, safeties. I don't know, we're not playing with the same attitude we played with last year. I don't know what it is."

Those were the first words out of Williams mouth when he met with the media after Monday's practice. The often outspoken Damascus native said he wanted to speak up.

"It gets frustrating, because I'm sitting here and I'm giving all I got, and I feel like I've got some guys that's not. I feel like that I've got some guys that's in a whole different place," he said. 

Along last week's topic of "fear", perhaps employ Erk's old "The Dangers of Doing Drugs" stunt of throwing rattlesnakes into a room. The message: if you lollygag your way around out there you'll lose your position on the depth chart. 

Simple.