Macon TD Club: Stinchcomb has interesting week with Auburn-grad wife; on UGA past, Donnan/Loran, Gruden

            Matt Stinchcomb went to Georgia.

            His wife went to Auburn.

            Georgia plays Auburn this week.

            The ammo was there for Stinchcomb during his visit Monday to the Macon Touchdown Club.

            “She’s almost perfect in every way; she did go to Auburn,” the former Georgia offensive line standout said. “By choice. They say, ‘is that like a source of conflict in your household?’

            “I say, ‘No, are you kidding me? That’s a source of comfort. You see, she chose to go to Auburn, which means that marrying me will never be here worst decision.”

            The club remembered longtime member Phillip “P.I.” Ivey, who died over the weekend at his home in Lizella. Ivey was farmer with a thick accent combination of Southern and Cajun that added humor to the odd or slightly off-color jokes he told as head of the picks sheet each week.

            Stinchcomb kept things clean but funny for more than 50 minutes, rarely delving into much serious stuff.

            There were his children.

            “We’ve got two kind, sweet, obedient kids,” he said. “And another kid.”

            Before a recent road trip, Stinchcomb was running around trying to work the dishwasher properly while his wife was at a school function, and struggled.

His two daughters made fun of how incompetent he was it, and were almost taunting him.

            “The 11 year old … has now been poisoned by the 13 year old, and she says, ‘Yeah, where would boys be without girls, Janie?’ “ Stinchcomb said. “And my little 7 year old was sitting over there playing with his Legos, and he said, ‘The Garden of Eden.’”

            Boom.

            Stinchcomb went from football to broadcasting and works for ESPN, which includes assorted duties on the SEC Network. He lives and works full-time in metro Atlanta, so he still is connected to the Georgia program.

            He remembers when life wasn’t as good as it is now in Athens, which has an impact on his speaking engagements.

            “Things were not going exactly the way that they way the are currently going at Georgia now. So we had the opportunity to lose to several teams around the Southeastern Conference.”

            He started at Georgia in 1995, which was the year Florida and Georgia played in Athens and the Gators won 52-17 to begin the end of Ray Goff’s stint as head coach.

            On came Jim Donnan, who was known to be smart and soon enough a little different. Like when the Bulldogs lost to Southern Miss in his first game, and he engaged in his first postgame locker room interview with Loran Smith.

            “Loran has this habit, he’ll just say something and he’ll stop, he’ll never really ask a question,” Stinchcomb said. “Coach Donnan didn’t get the memo.”

            Smith then told Donnan, who had quite a back and forth relationship with the media back then, that Gene Stallings lost his first game as head coach at Alabama to Southern Miss and went on to win a national title.

            “Coach Donnan, he just looks around,” Stinchcomb said, “He goes, ‘Well, way to go, Gene.’ We would just linger to see the fireworks between those two.”

            Stinchcomb said fans often wonder how do players get along in the pros with teammates they were rivals with in college. He was drafted as a left tackle by Oakland a year after the Raiders drafted another left tackle, from Florida.

            Not a problem.

            “It got to the point where he would help me learn how the drills would work,” Stinchcomb said, “and I would help him sound out the words in his playbook.”

            He addressed the annual obsession of college football fans whose teams are – or will be – looking for a head coach with Jon Gruden.

            “Coach Gruden makes … between $5 and 6 million to talk about football,” Stinchcomb said. “You cannot lose a broadcast.”

            Stinchcomb pointed out that Gruden hasn’t been on a college staff since 1991 – long before any current college players were born – and that as an NFL coach, his playbook terminology was a little over the top for even the pros. So while the charismatic Gruden would able to attract great players, Stinchcomb thought the communication gap would be too vast.

            “He’s a great motivator, heck of a coach,” Stinchcomb said. “He will never coach college football.”