Phil Steele gives the pundits something else to ignore, returning starters:
SEC
Arkansas Georgia Mississippi St South Carolina Auburn Florida Kentucky Tennessee LSU Mississippi Vanderbilt Alabama Arkansas received good news when QB Ryan Mallett decided to come back for another year. Mallett threw for 3624 yds (56%) and a 30-7 ratio in ’09 and hopes to lead the Razorbacks to an even better season in 2010. TE DJ Williams (411 yds, 12.8) also passed up the NFL as the Razorbacks have 18 returning starters.
This will be a critical year for Georgia HC Richt who welcomes back 18 starters from last year’s team that won 8 games the fewest since ’01 Richt’s 1st yr.
Alabama returns just 10 starters from last year’s national championship team. However, 8 are back on offense including Heisman winner Mark Ingram, QB McElroy and WR Jones. HC Saban loses 9 starters on D but that side of the ball is his specialty.
One thing Steele doesn’t mention there is that the two SEC teams returning the most starters on offense also tied for first in scoring in conference games.
Get The Picture 
Sure would be nice if the one new starter on offense this coming season wasn’t the QB.
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#11 can’t be anything but an improvement at QB.
Jest sayin’….
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Ryan Mallet’s TD/INT ratio is surprisingly good. His arm was an unguided missle late in big games. I wonder where 56% completions ranks him in the big names from last year?
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Check out the breakdown in Mallett’s stats in conference vs. non-conference games.
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Much lower completion % in conference, but still solid TD:INT and yards/attempt. And that in his first year as an SEC starter.
The dude’s a good QB. He did beat Staffy once and almost a second time (31-28 loss, fwiw) after all. We would have gotten a big break from his going pro early.
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Based on this level of negativity from the pundits we will probably win the conference next year.
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Too bad we did not use last year’s busted season to get a QB ready for 2010.
Our offense is going to be a Ferrarri driven by a kid with a learner’s license.
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Too bad the qb who would have likely gotten those snaps hurt himself halfway through the season. Who knows if Murray would have gotten snaps if his progress hadn’t gotten interrupted, but it’s more than possible that the lost reps meant he wasn’t ready.
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Murray was plenty ready by the time Cox was soiling himself in the UK game. Do you honestly believe any other QB on the planet could have been worse in that game?
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Yeah, Richt should have burned his redshirt for the last 2 1/2 games. That would have made a lot of sense.
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Yes, it would have.
Now, we will get to watch him make freshman mistakes all year, in a season when the East is wide open and we have 10 returning starters, instead of burning the redshirt and letting him learn under fire in a lost season.
It would have made a helluva lot of sense.
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I could see pulling his redshirt 4 or 5 games into the season. But if you think he would have gotten out all of his “freshman mistakes” in the last 3 games of the year you are nuts.
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Redshirts are useless anyway.Let’s say whoever starts at qb comes out a star the next two years and then opts for the NFL(sound familiar?i.e.Knowshon).Pull Knowshon’s redshirt and imagine what we might have seen had he been given three years.
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Qbs that leave early are few and far between. Murray’s not likely tall enough to ever be a top ten pick. Mett came in raw by all accounts.
Staff was an exception.
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What if they don’t opt for the NFL? For every Knowshon (comparing the situation, not the player), there are two Colt McCoys and Sam Bradfords and Matt Leinharts and David Greenes… you get the point.
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Don’t be ridiculous. When Murray takes his first snap this season, it will be after he’s gotten TWO spring practices and one full season as a backup with meaningful work with the 1st team offense in practice. He’ll be the most prepared red-shirt frosh you could ask for.
Furthermore, he’ll have a veteran O-line, probably the best receiving corps in the SEC, and a good RB tandem. He’s in a PERFECT situation. So what if he makes a few mistakes? He’s got more than enough talent around him to cover up his flaws. And if we learned anything from Tim Tebow, it’s that talent around you covers up a LOT of flaws.
I don’t see why you would want to throw away what could be 4 great years from Murray as a starter, just so we might have won 9 games instead of 8 last year.
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I don’t care how many games we won last year.
The point is that playing him last year may have meant the difference in winning 13 games instead of 11 in 2010.
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Todd, you seem to be the only one who doesn’t realize you were completely owned by these replies. Why be prematurely negative? If Murray is the starter, he will have a cast strong enough to give him a chance to succeed. Plenty of time to be gloomy if we don’t go 14-0. There will be lots of UGA fans coming out of the woodwork to be Monday Morning QBs and tell CMR has dumb he is.
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Or it may have made a difference between us winning 13 games instead of 11 in 2013…
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And that is why Todd has Richt on the hot seat in 2010. 😉
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Because by all accounts, he is a lost cause and all hope for next year is doomed. Woe be us. We are screwed. The sky is falling!!!!
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Bama seemed to do OK with a first year starter at QB this past season.
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PS is usually pretty darned good at assessing the SEC, but so many games are determined by injuries and their timing. Impossible to project much this far in advance, particularly with new coaches at key levels. I feel pretty comfortable with our offensive potential for 2010, less so with the defense. Schedule looks softer so we should definitely contend for the East with a good chance to succeed, subject to the injury situation of course.
Two points from above: 1)the injury to AM prevented using him early enough last season to make sense and, 2)Mallet is an outstanding thrower when not pressured, thus the disparity in his performance against UGA and Bama. That may seem simplistic about Mallet and true for most QBs, but I think the difference is RM makes NFL quality throws when he has time. He not only hit everyone in stride when open against UGA, he hit them perfectly the few times we had decent coverage. We really need to find a way to get in his face this season in Athens, or our young secondary will get lit up again. Probably the most crucial home game for the Dawgs this season to me, one that could derail our hopes for Atlanta if we lose.
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+1. Very cogent analysis.
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We need to focus on developing receivers this season. AJ will be in the NFL in 2011. At times he appeared to be the only competent receiver on the team last year.
The secondary will mature into greatness if coached properly. Boykin and Smith are two of the most physically gifted corners I have seen at UGA. How good they become depends on coaching.
I truly hope that the new D coordinatiors 3-4 scheme will keep the opponents offense confused. So many games last year (SC, ARK, TENN) the teams knew where the holes in our D would be and just exploited them over and over. And I mean, struggling QBs were picking us apart. Much needed coaching change on defense. I expect great improvement on that side and the ball and the promise of a consistent running game this year holds great promise for this season.
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I guess we’ll see how correctly everybody was on the next big thing in Kirby Smart next year. Either that, or we’ll see how good of a puppet he is.
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Those stats also show why the coaching staff on one side of the ball was nearly gutted. We tied for first in scoring in SEC games, and GAVE UP the most points in SEC games. (Note where the closest ‘challenger’ for that dubious honor finished.)
Jim
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So I was surprised to see UGa with a “2” under the ST heading since I’d been thinking Walsh and Butler were both seniors. I looked it up and it turns out that not only were they not seniors, they were f***king _sophomores_. Dammit to f**k.
This comment brought to you by an Auburn fan who isn’t particularly excited about Georgia having the two best specialists in the country for two more years.
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As excited as we are about Walsh’s and Butler’s return, we’re even more excited about what lies ahead for the punt coverage and kickoff coverage teams in the wake of Fabris’ departure.
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Do we know who is going to coach special teams yet? I wish CMR would do it himself like Beamer and Meyer. That way it would get done right for sure.
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