If you’re of a mood, check out the Kentucky highlights from last night.

Note a few things:

• At least on the scoring plays, it wasn’t poor Rennie Curran’s night, was it?  He got screened by the ref on the first TD, he gets cleared off his feet with a terrific block on the second TD and took a bad angle on the second-and-21 screen pass.
• Yeah, that screen pass.  Count the number of defenders who manage to get themselves out of position on one of the most obvious play calls of the night.
• Could those first four TDs have come any easier?  As far as I can tell, a Georgia defender managed to touch the player who scored a grand total of one time.
• Joe’s last interception made even Bob Davie groan.  Sheesh.

Lord, what an awful, awful game.  While it remains to be seen if last night’s debacle joins the ranks of the epic, career-changing Vanderbilt ‘94 and Georgia Tech ‘00 home games, it can’t be good that this sort of question was on the minds of many before they even turned out the lights at Sanford Stadium.

There were times in the second half when it felt as if we were watching a controlled experiment – you know, what would it be like if you combined the craven mindset Georgia often has when it plays Florida with a lack of focus against a clearly inferior opponent?  Well, four turnovers later, you get a staggering 34-27 loss despite outgaining the other team by a mere 227 yards.

I’m being a little unfair to Kentucky with this.  There’s a clear talent gap between the ‘Cats and the Dawgs – Georgia’s coaches aren’t as good as Kentucky’s at getting their charges prepared to play hard for sixty minutes.

Ah, hell.  I was going to do my usual post game write-up, but then I made the mistake of reading Hale’s blog this morning, where I found this quote from Mark Richt:

Here’s what Richt had to say about the decision to squib kick following Georgia’s lone second-half touchdown: “We actually kicked the ball extremely well last week — high, where we wanted it placed — and we still struggled. So we have a lot of respect for Auburn, but Kentucky’s kick return team is the best in the SEC. They just do a superb job. So we were trying to create a little doubt, trying to get the ball where we could pop it up and maybe get it somewhere around the 30, 35. That’s not anything to brag about, but we feel it’s better than kicking it deep to this guy.”

That, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with the Georgia program today.  Forget about the fact that Kentucky’s return game isn’t the best in the conference (it’s a mediocre seventh).  Why is Georgia timid about anything Kentucky does?

These coaches are so worried about preventing the worst case scenario from happening that it’s affected their ability to get their players to perform up to the level of their talent.  It’s why we saw Kentucky return men catching the ball with no Georgia players within ten or fifteen yards of them.  It’s why Mike Bobo runs the ball on second and ten, over and over again, even in the face of a defense like last night’s that’s committed to stacking the box to stuff the run.  It’s why Martinez plays a soft zone, even if that means leaving the middle of the field open as a standing invitation to a quarterback.

What are they accumulating all this recruiting talent for, if they’re not going to deploy it properly?

a toss sweep to the short side on third down inside the one?

Ealey misplayed the ball because he’s too green to know that’s how Bobo rolls.

It’s not just that they’re so bad. It’s that they’re so bad with Walsh, Butler, Boykin and Miller.

You really have to work at it.

I don’t see how Richt can stand pat after a game like that. But I’m not Mark Richt.

Dear Dawgs:

Please win tonight.  Not because it would be a positive to wind up with a second-place finish in the SEC East, or to build momentum towards next week’s Georgia Tech game or because it’s always nice to send the seniors off with a win in their last game in Sanford Stadium – all those things are true, of course, and would be worth enjoying – but because if you lose, we’re all going to be subjected to more nauseatingly hackish references to Uga VII’s passing as a metaphor for the game, the season and God knows what else than any of us can possibly stand, starting with the two Captain Obviouses in ESPN’s broadcast booth.

If nothing else, the poor dog deserves to go out on a better note than that.  So buckle it up and G.A.T.A.

Sincerely,

Senator Blutarsky

Jerry Hinnen, over at the War Eagle Reader, has, in his Georgia-Auburn recap, a detailed breakdown of Auburn’s longest gain of the game, a 34-yard pass to the tight end.  It’s well done, with pictures and analysis.  In Jerry’s mind, it’s evidence that even if “Malzahn’s offense isn’t as consistent yet as we’d like, there’s not much doubting his ingenuity.” To me, it’s just further evidence that Malzahn let himself get outcoached by Martinez – a pretty rare occurrence this season.

Why do I say that?  Well, look at Jerry’s breakdown:  five paragraphs worth, with accompanying pictures.  There are players doing this, players doing that, Todd is pump faking, Fannin is directing traffic… you get the idea.  It’s a very clever play call.

But if you’re a Georgia fan, it all comes down to two things, both of which Jerry happens to capture in still shots.

First, there’s no pass rush.

Second, it’s a throw to the tight end.  Over the middle.  You can see the coverage in your mind’s eye, can’t you?

Money.

Here’s Jerry’s conclusion from the play:

Malzahn is certainly too clever for his own good sometimes. But he’s also often too clever for his opponent’s good, too, and his shrewdness in establishing tendencies and then playing off of them–swing, swing, LOOK A SWING psych hahahahaha–are a big reason Auburn has gone from 105th in offensive yards-per-play to 21st in the space of a single offseason.

There’s no denying that the Tigers are much improved on the offensive side of the ball this year.  But it’s the first line of that paragraph that described what happened last Saturday night.

Tight ends in much less complicated offenses than Malzahn’s have made careers off of Georgia’s pass defense this season.  I’m not sure if Aaron Hernandez had a man within four yards of him after he left the line of scrimmage the entire day in Jacksonville.  Hell, Vandy’s tight ends feasted on Georgia’s D.

So, sure, it was a clever call, in a miss-the-forest-for-the-trees kind of way.  Because it was the only completion to the tight end the entire game. First rule for having a good game plan:  take what the other guy gives you until he stops it.  Malzahn never went there; instead, we got to see Lee Ziemba’s first catch of the year.  That’s how you wind up with an offense that only scored three points after the first two drives.  And how Willie gets credit for the win.

Believe it or not,

With the job listing still fresh on the market, UNLV interim Athletic Director Jerry Koloskie has been inundated with calls and e-mails from those interested in his football coaching vacancy.

While more names will surface later, as several prospective candidates are still in season, a source close to the situation confirmed to The Sun on Thursday that one prominent figure to throw his hat into the ring is Dennis Franchione, who most recently held the post at Texas A&M…

That’s right – Dennis “VIP Connection” Franchione in Las Vegas.  Talk about your match made in heaven.  Can you imagine what the NCAA must think of the possibilities here?

On the other hand, I’ve got to admit Coach Franchione in the land of the sports book rates about an 8.5 on a scale of 10 on the is-it-good-for-the-bloggers meter.

I dunno – sitting in the stands watching Auburn’s epic first two scoring drives last Saturday night, I felt grateful every time Malzahn called a rushing play.  The Tigers were gaining twice as much yardage on average throwing the ball as they were rushing and Chris Todd started out the evening a perfect 9 for 9.

And the final stats bore that out.  Auburn ran the ball 38 times and averaged three yards per carry.  Each of its 28 pass attempts averaged 8.5 yards.  And Todd only missed eight times on the evening.

So when I read what’s coming,

Georgia’s defense is in the middle of a gauntlet to end its regular season that will test what it’s made of. Auburn, Kentucky and Georgia Tech rank 12th, 17th and second nationally in rushing offense…

it’s sort of a mixed bag, to tell you the truth.  These teams are going to do what they do best, but in so doing, it means they’re getting away from the weaker side of the Dawg defense (Georgia is 60th in passing defense nationally and 34th in rushing defense).

Given that UK’s starting a true freshman quarterback who’s averaging 66 yards per game against conference opponents, the Wildcats may not have much choice but to push the running game.  But if you believe Martinez, based on what he was able to do against Auburn, that may be a good thing.

Georgia players have reason to be confident about their run defense after holding Auburn to 115 yards rushing. They did it without having to bring safeties down much in the box for run support.

“We felt good about our front four, and we did some things where we said they’ve just got to control the line of scrimmage,” defensive coordinator Willie Martinez said. “We have a lot of confidence in them, and it allowed us to play more coverage to their play-action.”

One thing’s for sure, Kade Weston is right about his mates when he says, “(i)f you can’t stop the run, you ain’t going to win.” That’s been borne out this season.

Georgia has stopped the run much better in its win than its losses.

The four biggest rushing outputs by opponents this season came in losses: Oklahoma State had 172, LSU 156, Tennessee 162 and Florida 210.

That’s an average of 175 yards compared to 83.3 yards in Georgia’s six wins.

The situational stats don’t show too many flaws overall.  The biggest hole in the run defense appears to occur when the opponent crosses midfield but hasn’t reached the red zone.  Georgia gives up a fair amount of big plays in that area of the field for some reason.

Kentucky is averaging over 200 yards per game rushing.  More impressively, that number isn’t related to whether the ‘Cats are playing in conference or not.  So, while I’ll start by watching Georgia’s turnover margin tomorrow – as always – it looks like the success of UK’s running game may be the next biggest factor to keep an eye on in seeing if the Dawgs can wrap up a second place finish in the SEC East.

Even if the circumstances are somewhat somber, you’ve still gotta eat.

• It never ceases to amaze me how stupid people can be about affairs.  (h/t The Wiz)
• Gregg Doyel is a Florida alum, so I can’t tell if he’s being serious in offering sympathy about Junior’s latest woes in this column.
• Georgia’s 300.
• Jesus, this has the potential to be a PR nightmare for Ole Miss.
• Leave it to Dan Magill to tell us about Georgia’s first game under the lights – against Kentucky, 69 years ago.
• For some reason, somebody thought it was a good idea for the BCS to have a Twitter account.  Dumbass.
• Mike Moore says that one reason Georgia has had more than its share of comeback wins this season is because players like Washaun Ealey are too green to worry about being in a big hole early in a game.
• The Sporting News’ list of the top 25 football broadcasters is definitely a mixed bag.  But at least Bob Davie isn’t on it.
• And check out SI.com’s survey of SEC fans.  They rank Georgia second on the list of biggest conference rivals.  Cool.

That’s Mark Bradley quoting Vince Dooley and it’s as appropriate an epitaph for Uga VII as I can think of.  Maybe he wasn’t as feisty as some of his predecessors, but he still wore the jersey well.

(photo courtesy Brant Sanderlin bsanderlin@ajc.com)

I second Paul’s condolences to the Seiler family.

But I also had to laugh at Orson’s take:

“How we can lose a damn good dawg like this and still have Willie Martinez is…it’s just…it’s just not right.”

Seriously, scan the interwebs and see how many feel a need to say something about his passing.  How many mascots engender that kind of response?

Rest in peace, boy.

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