Marcus Lattimore’s day, if you’re a Dawg fan, that is. At least according to this breakdown from South Carolina beat writer Travis Haney:
… I went through every one of Marcus Lattimore’s 38 touches (37 carries, one reception) in the Georgia win and checked for broken/missed tackles and how many yards the freshman from Byrnes had after first contact.
The final tally: 38 touches, 198 total yards. 29 broken tackles. 127 yards after first contact.
That includes Lattimore’s one catch, a 16-yard reception. He broke one tackle and gained an additional 6 yards on that play.
On his 37 runs, Lattimore broke 28 tackles and gained 121 yards after first contact.
In addition, Lattimore had eight plays of 10 or more yards, including an afternoon long of 24 yards (on the final field goal drive). Lattimore had 12 first-down runs. TWELVE. He added a 13th first down on that catch. (South Carolina had 23 first downs.)
Four of Lattimore’s 12 first down came on third down. (South Carolina converted nine third downs.)
Look at the first and final drives, in particular. He broke 11 tackles on the first drive, gaining 50 yards. Lattimore broke 13 tackles on the final drive, gaining 56 yards…
Reasonable minds may differ on what constitutes a broken tackle, of course (Haney claims he measured things on the conservative side), but that’s still a pretty clear picture of what didn’t go right on Saturday.
Get The Picture 
thank God coach butts wasn’t around to see that pathetic display
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I just finished watching a replay of the game, mostly in slow motion. The reason why the ‘Cocks were successful rushing is that in the 3-4 the Nose Guard has to occupy 2 O-linemen in order to free up the LBs. If the guards get to the LBs the D is toast. That’s exactly what happened. They were able to stalemate the NG with just the center freeing up the guards to block the inside LBs. A few times SC double-teamed the NG and he got knocked away like tissue paper and the LBs were left to try to tackle the back from the side as he was running by, a daunting task with a back as strong as Lattimore. The D adjusted and actually played well in the second half though, until they just wore out near the end. I am still optimistic about the D. But we have to find a NG who will force the O-line to assign 2 players to block him. If not, everyone we play will do what we saw this past Saturday.
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Thank Dawg that our safeties could stop him or he goes for home runs instead of a long of 24. He came clean through the whole front 7 and was full speed into our DB’s. You guys must have all been Dlineman. The DB’s are like BB’s bouncing off of a battle ship. They had to clean up the front 7’s mess and by and large did a good job.
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Imagine if we employed a coach to ADJUST to the other teams offense. They could maybe plan ahead and be ready. Can CSS and CMB PLEASE gtf out now ? CTG couldn’t have stopped sc with 20 players on the field.
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“ADJUST to the other teams offense?” Did we watch the same game? Last I counted, Georgia only gave up a FG in the second half after giving up 14 in the first half. That’s a pretty good indicator of successful adjustment to me. Sorry, but when you only give up 17 and still lose, I have a hard time blaming the defense too much for it. Even while getting absolutely manhandled by Lattimore, a competent offense wins this game for Georgia.
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Your analysis couldn’t be further from the truth. Grantham’s scheme had guys plugging the holes the entire game. Look at the stats again:
38 touches
29 broken tackles
127 yards out of 198 after initial contact
You can argue all you want as to whether the guys should have been able to make the tackle, but guys were there to make the play and one way or another were unable to do it.
Schematically, Georgia is sound. If Lattimore broke off huge runs before he was touched, then there would be a problem schematically. As it is, he made the first guy miss, and was able to accumulate a lot of yards after contact. Grantham would have stopped SCe with 1 player that could secure a tackle. You think Rennie would have missed that many tackles?
I think it may take a while for the team to get rid of the Willies.
As far as the out-of-left field hatred for Stacy Searles… how quickly people forget how dominant the running game was at the end of last year. You think the early season struggles might have anything to do with 3/5 of the starters basically missing fall practice? Give them some time get on the same page and get back up to speed. The pass protection has been near flawless, but don’t let reality get in the way of a good, irrational rant.
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That analysis seems consistent with what these eyes saw on Saturday, which by the way I wanted to gauge out by halftime. The yards after contact was the most disturbing and painful aspect of the entire affair. It felt like a 90s flashback of UGA vs. FLA w/ Errict Rhett, regardless of the down and distance, you knew Rhett was going to get fed the ball, gain the necessary 4, 7, 12, yards needed to move the sticks and there was nothing GA was going to do to stop it.
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I’m still scratching my head as to whether Lattimore is “the real deal” or our D fundamentals are really that bad. I’m guessing it’s both. At least the D adjusted with schemes in the 2nd half…so CTG appears to be able to do more with the talent on hand than our prior regime. And late in the game when they needed to get a 3 & out and let the offense go win, the D came through…only to watch us go “missed bomb, dive play, draw and out”.
If we score 28+ on Arky, then I’ll start feeling a little better about our relative progress. Of course, our D should again show it can hold an opponent to under 20 and I think they can/will.
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How many points did SC score in the second half? Nice work, Coach Grantham.
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+1.
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+1
Lattimore was held in check in the 2nd half until their last drive. The defense had been on the field for about 1 1/2 hours at that point.
I’m interested to see just how much we “open up” the offense this week.
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And worse, in addition to being on the field 30+ minutes in hotter-than-Hades Columbia, we apparently weren’t getting any snaps for Geathers or Anderson at DT.
No wonder the middle was exposed.
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Indeed.
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Anybody heard why Carlton Thomas only got one series?
Blocking?
Just wondered.
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The better question (IMO) is why Carlton Thomas got the one series that he got?
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Oh….so sorry.
Guess my lack of arena time is showing.
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Not sure about your time spent in the “arena”, but I have seen C. Thomas there. From what I have seen out of him in the “arena”, there was not much going on that led me to believe that he is the solution to the problems encountered on Saturday. He has been underwhelming whenever he has been in a game or in G-day. Whatever the case, unless he, or someone else for that matter, can make some magic happen on the OL I don’t think we are going to see much out of any of the RBs anytime soon.
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I think Thomas has some talent, but definitely not up to Ealey and King. If Dawgs utilized him as if he were Demps or Rainey, instead of Musa, they’d get some decent production from him. They did the same thing with Tyson Browning – brought in a fast pipsqueek and expected him to block and run through tacklers. What do you expect from the same minds that RS Knowshon?
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You’re right. The running game was awesome. No need to try and mix things up and actually score a touchown or three.
Keep diving off the high dive Richt – UGA doesn’t need the extra practice time.
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I’m not defending any noodle-armed linebackers, but watching my Jackets play the swiss cheez D against Kansas(!?!) makes me wonder about transitioning to the 3-4. Maybe it, uh, takes a little while? So there’s hope we’ll both get better?
(/takes another drink)
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Just us. I hope y’all are mired in mediocrity until the rapture comes.
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1
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Lattimore reminded me of Carnell Williams’ freshmen game against us in 2001. CW carried for 35+ times for 180+ yards if my boozy memory serves me correct.
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The Cadillac topped 40 carries against us on that horrible day. (Bad memories, I was in the end zone for the time expiring rush attempt…)
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I guess I was sitting right beside you then! I was also in the student section right in front of the action when the game ended! Bad day……
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I just looked it up. Carnell carried FORTY ONE TIMES for 179 yards….and yes…he was a Freshmen. YIKES.
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Not worse than I thought. I think these stats prove that it wasn’t coaching that let us down it was execution. We had the players in the right position (without loading the box) and they just whiffed.
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Fire Grantham or should I say Granma!
He stinks!
He came with a game plan to harass Garcia, what an idiot!
What’s he afraid of…Garcia throwing for 300 yards!?!
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Do you have an answer to my critique of your original analysis, or do you readily admit that your sole purpose on this blog is just to sling monkey feces in every direction hoping something sticks?
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I was mocking “WOW SC – Really?” with my ridiculous post.
I wish there was a “sarcastic” setting for these things.
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Ah. I notice the difference in punctuation now. Nevermind. I knew he wouldn’t actually respond anyway.
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Reporter- “How are you going to stop the long ball?” Bobby Bowden- “I am going to play my safeties deeper.” Does that give any of you ideas for improving UGA’s running game? I think Murray has to go deep early and often next week to stretch Arky’s somewhat shaky defense. As for the UGA defense, you didn’t expect Grantham and company to excise Willie and company overnight, did you?
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Well I am not giving Lattimore a spur on his headgear yet. I’d give his O line coach a couple. The guy can flat out coach a line. When I saw him on the side line I hit the SC site for their staff. Yep same guy at App State.
But one thing Lattimore can do…he can hit the motor mouth…somewhere that will cost him this season.
But on SC’s 1st TD 25 did not lock up either, head down and bounced off. Football tackling is a little like most things in sports. Muscle memory. If that is how you have tackled for a few seasons, it will be hard to break. And I think we have seen those habits on display. But there are methods to stop it. Let’s see if it trends down. But down hill runners have an advantage once they get up speed with strength, and Lattimore had first step speed.
I’m excited to see how our LBs play against the Hogs QB. Against the 3-3-5 they went under the coverage on quick hits. And Mallett has a laser release. UA has a good O line…in fact they have a starter from Bainbridge GA.
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Let’s not be too pessimistic after one game with Grantham and this new scheme.
Van Gorder’s had a mediocre start in his first year in 2001. The Defense had quite a few rough patches. Travis Stephens rushed for 176 against us in the hob nail boot game, including 138 in the first half. I’m not even that memorable screen pass Stephens scored on that set up the famous Verron Haynes ending catch.
Vandy threw for 377 yards the following week in 2001. Kentucky scored 29 on us. Arkansas State had more than 330 yards in the opener in 2001. We gave up a bunch of yards and points the first 8 games that year.
It wasn’t until the Auburn game in 2001 that the team really made strides, and prior to that game, I bet there were a bunch of detractors about that no-name hire.
And keep in mind, the 2000 defense under Donnan wasn’t too bad – giving up 16.5 points per game. Van Gorder inherited a much better defense statistically than Grantham and had Van Gorder had some good players on that 2001 Defense –Witherspoon, Boss Bailey, and Thomas Davis to name a few.
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Davis didn’t play until 2002 and was used sparingly that season.
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I was not a fan of the hire but I had suffered thru 20 long years of mediocre Dawg teams without a SEC title. When CMR won one I became a CMR supporter for life.I actually look forward to getting a new HC so I join everyone else in dissing the coaches, & I will.
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