Groo’s got a great picture of the Kickoff (hell, by the time I’m done, I’ll have capitalized every key moment of the LSU game) that you should look at:
Evidently it’s not enough that Georgia’s kicking off from its 15-yard line to a guy with world-class sprinter’s speed. Fabris’ troops have to make sure he’s got a fighting chance to break the return by starting from 5-7 yards behind the line of scrimmage as Walsh lets fly with the kick.
The wind probably slowed them down, too.
As Rex Robinson said, “…it’s the kick-off coverage that is the adventure.”
That is pitiful.
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I keep trying to forget, to move on, but you keep pulling me back in.
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Not to mention that having only three guys to the right of Walsh is a formation penalty that tacks on an extra 5 yards at the end of everything.
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Yeah. Something else to capitalize, if I feel like it.
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Which SEC officials, in one of the greatest upsets in the history of sports, called correctly.
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At least they’re not offsides! Off course running against the wind prevented that.
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This is because of that goofy ring around the rosey routine they do before the kick.
The coverage team circles behind the kicker and rushes the line as he kicks it … brilliant.
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The one issue. This single stupid insistence that it’s all Blair Walsh’s fault while we spin in circles, fail to get in lanes, commit procedural penalties, and spot the return team a 7 yard head start against defensive ends and quarter backs is making me angry at Mark Richt, not because I feel entitled to UGA football being successful but because I’d be angry at anyone being that stubbornly and defiantly wrong even if they were talking about packing peanuts.
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Ok, I ask this as someone who admittedly has limited knowledge of ST play:
Is this Walsh’s fault? Is it possible he’s not communicating well with his teammates on the timing of his kick? It seems inexcusable that his teammates would be 7 yards behind him when he boots it.
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most likely not, the bunch formation requires each of the 10 coverage guys to run to to their lane before moving downfield, which would explain the 7 yard gap.
walsh also kicked it almost directly down the middle, another basic ST no-no.
that bunch formation has killed us in the past. i seem to recall us doing it every kick-off 3 or 4 years ago, and it being dropped because of poor coverage.
why would we go back to something that doesn’t work against the most dangerous return man in the country??
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I am sinking past Donnan levels of pessimism to Goff levels.
Now, and back then, it’s not a case of lacking athletes comparable to our rivals’, it’s one of lacking their competence.
If you buy Richt’s excuse that our ST woes are an issue of maturity, then what the eff is Prince Miller doing seven yards behind the kickoff while Rennie Curran lines up on the wrong side?
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At this point, I’m not sure that the outcome would have been different without the celebration penalty.
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The penalty led to us kicking from the 15 instead of the 30, which increased the necessity to limit the kick return, which caused Fabris to call the cluster-F he did.
It’s the classic case of a butterfly flapping its wings causing the Dawgs to lose.
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Once again, a mediocre QB is having a career day against our defense. I freakin’ give up.
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