Photo via Brant Sanderlin / bsanderlin@ajc.com
Beautiful weather, beautiful dog, beautiful game. No, it doesn’t mean that every problem’s been solved, or that Georgia can go ahead and book rooms in Atlanta in December, but all you pessimists who believe in keeping it real, remind us what you were saying about the Tennessee and Vanderbilt games after the loss in Boulder. Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Anyway, on to what I saw yesterday.
- Man, between the dropped passes, the timeouts and the officials studying their navels, that was one long first quarter. The energy kind of suffered too, until Ealey’s long run. After that, things took off.
- Mike Bobo looks a lot smarter with a good offensive line.
- Mockery aside, he called a solid game. He continues to mix up the play calls and formations on first down and it paid off handsomely yesterday.
- A.J.’s touchdown reception was just sick. I know that’s how Vandy’s safety felt as he watched Green blow by.
- Drew Butler is back.
- The day Alec Ogletree gets comfortable in pass coverage, he becomes the starter. I won’t be a bit surprised if that day comes before the end of the season.
- Ditto for Kwame Geathers. He was drawing double teams yesterday, much to the pleasure of Georgia’s linebackers.
- Speaking of which, another good day out of that bunch. Dent, Dowtin and Robinson are weekly reminders of what an upgrade Belin’s been from Jancek.
- Aaron Murray just gets buttah and buttah. And smarter, too: that play on Georgia’s last scoring drive in the first half when he threw the ball away rather than force something had to bring a smile to Mark Richt’s face. It was anti-Coxian.
- If Blair Walsh had to miss a field goal, that was the perfect time.
- Loved the way Carlton Thomas just hunkered down behind Ben Jones on Thomas’ first touchdown run.
- Jones and his mates on the line had quite the day. The amount of time Murray had to throw on some of those long crossing patterns bordered on the ridiculous.
- Justin Houston looks totally comfortable at outside linebacker. Aside from his usual dominance as a pass rusher, he was under control defending the option.
- I’m going to go out on a limb and say that wasn’t one of the SEC’s premier officiating crews we were blessed with yesterday.
- Grantham is starting to have some fun with timed blitzes.
- Brandon Boykin looked a little frustrated with the blocking on kickoff returns.
- Kris Durham had such a good day, especially early on, that you almost didn’t notice that A.J. didn’t have a catch until midway through the second quarter.
- Ealey ran smart and he ran hard all game. That with good line play will usually get you a 100-yard day.
- I still hate the wheel route.
Get The Picture 
i’ve been thrilled with our receiver’s hands. not perfect, but tav king and durham (and that green guy) have been pulling the ball down. and our o-line looked like they were actually having fun.
ahem. the unranked florida mullets. there aint no freud like schadenfreud, i always say. good thing chris rainey was back.
it appears to me that andre ware and jessie palmer must be sharing hair stylists. ware was almost palmerian in his use of the adjective “football” during the tv broadcast. there should really be a palmer prize for most annoying announcer. watched part of the furman game – a friend’s son plays there – and sam wyche did not use the word football. once.
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Well, that was awesome. Enjoyed the display and hope that the Dawgs can keep this up the rest of the season.
How the SEC refs are allowed to continue sucking at their jobs is beyond my comprehension.
Hard to figure out how the SEC East got this bad.
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Agree on all points Senator. And the premier SEC officiating crew was definitely in Auburn yesterday. Penn Wagers and his posse are the best in the league at screwing up a game.
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wow. that was something to behold. royally screwed
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It’s not just that SEC refs suck, but their sucking is all one sided. Blown call on the fumble return, costing us a TD. Blown call on AJ’s end-zone catch, costing us a TD. Ridiculous non-call on a helmet-to-helmet hit on Murray. I don’t care that it didn’t hurt us yesterday, it’s still bullshit.
And the mere presence of Penn Wagers makes me hurl expletives at my TV. I hope he gets attacked by a mountain lion.
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I have to say that I agree with you on the helmet to helmet. The reviews I saw on the A.J catch were not enough to overturn and the “fumble” was not a fumble. Unfortunately he was down! All that being said, at least we are not Ark- they got screwed!
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yeah, it’s a shame that one of the premier leagues in all of sports can’t see fit to professionalize its officiating operations. make them professionals, make them accountable for their performance–it’s the only way.
i think a bunker mentality has taken hold in b’ham: practically every week sec teams are sending in video evidence of the officials’ incompetence, but the office appears to be digging in instead of admitting there’s a problem and dealing with it.
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Mountain lions are entirely too humane in their killing for the likes of Wagers.
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I personally prefer the “burying him up to his neck next to an anthill and pouring molasses on his head” method popularized by the Apache.
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Mason Johnson never had control of the ball and it was not a fumble.
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And just imagine if we had Branden Smith back. Here’s to hoping we can see him on the field again in some capacity. Concussion symptoms can be career ending
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Just want to give some love to Carlton Thomas, too. He looked great yesterday. I was down on him (and Bobo’s use of him) in the losses, but he showed some nice flashes with good blocking up front.
Like the other commenters, I’d just like to stay away from any SEC crew.
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Yeah, I too loved seeing him make a number of really good runs. Both of his touchdowns were great: hunkering down and following Jones in (did you see how fired up Jones was?? loved it!) and then on the second it was like he flew into the endzone. Great stuff!
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I agree! Seeing the fire that Jones has for the game is inspiring, besides the fact that he stops ANYTHING that comes near him in their tracks. Love the chop blocks too (if that is what you call. it :-))
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Have to give props to Carlton Thomas. That was the first time he’s looked like an SEC back. Good for him. Still think our talent at that position could use an upgrade… but Bobo’s continuing discovery of other formations in the playbook can help maximize their (and the line’s) abilities.
Bobo’s playcalling is what it is. He looks smarter at home, against bad defenses, with the best receiver in the country at his disposal. He insists on wasting a red-zone down every game playing “me too” with the stupid Wild Dawg formation (what, is he setting up Idaho State for Ealey throw out of that?) Give him credit for taking advantage of serviceable pass blocking (and a getting-better-every-week Murray) to call more downfield patterns and not just dink and dunk on the sidelines. The play action call near the half on third and goal was classic Bobo… which 4.0 GPA Vandy linebacker did he think he was gonna fool with *that*?
Tavarres King quietly had a great day. A few of his catch-and-runs were borderline AJ-smooth.
Murray’s best play was the red-zone throw out of bounds, when the play wasn’t there… which came after he started to scramble. That bodes very, very well.
Still some pretty spotty safety play in coverage… that’s just the book on us until further notice.
Agree Houston looked good against the option… trouble was, no one had the pitch on several of those plays. Kentucky (with Cobb) and Auburn are unlikely to miss that on film. Even Addazio may see it.
Akeem Dent is a grown man, and is assuring himself of being a very wealthy one by this time next year.
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amen on dent.
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I hate to be a killjoy, but I just find it hard to believe Murray can continue to get the shit knocked out of him four or five times a game and continue to be productive.
He seems to be a very fast learner, hope he learns to duck, slide and sit down.
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Props to Carlton Thomas who looked better yesterday. Bobo finally figured out that a speedy scat back should be running sweeps and not between the tackles.
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three cheers for the librul media! Uga story on front page of NYT sports section…
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The Dawgs: Unofficial champions of Tennessee. What a great day yesterday was! Glad to see Uga VIII begin his era with a huge win. And Russ capping his career with the utter humiliation of the Vawls last week. Senator has hit all the highlights so I’ll just say that 3-4 (2-3) has never felt so good! lol
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Chamber of Commerce weather for two games in a row. I am telling you, day games are the way to go.
Yes, it was Vandy, but a shut out is a shut out, so I’ll give a shout out to the D a CTG.
Really, really liked watching Carlton’s first TD following Big Ben, but I was wanting Ben to run a little quicker; it looked like Carlton was going to get pulled down from behind before he crossed for a second there.
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It was a good win, but lots to correct. Cordy and Trinton whiffed on some key blocks. Teams with real speed are going to kill this d in the flats. For some reason there is a huge gap on the flats on pass plays and neither the lb’s or safeties look interested in covering it up. Rainey, Demps, Anthony Allen and McCaleb are going to be real trouble out there. So are the guys from UK.
Better, but not Winston Wolf standards.
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I think Ben was a little surprised by him being back there. Thomas was up against him for sure.
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Ben was probably running as fast as his 300lb mass could go. It was good to see him out there at the third level. Would that UGA’s other linemen would show some of that desire. Good game over all and I will save my nit-picking for later. It is easy to get caught up in analyzing everything and not enjoy the game. I am not a coach or a sportswriter so I can relax and enjoy football.
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Finally….somebody asks the right question or questions and gets the answer in this case Seth Emerson:
“I found it interesting that Mike Bobo said after the game that he thought the run blocking was good all along, it just didn’t show until Saturday. He may have been just being nice, or saying the tailbacks weren’t hitting the holes. Either way, the results for once were what people expected before the season.”
Uh huh.
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If only the Dawgs had beaten arky, scu or msu, we’d be in the hunt for the sec east crown. Dawgs have to find a way of getting back to winning tough games.
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The only other note of interest is that our season (or what’s left of it) flashed before our eyes with the hit to Murray. Kid’s gotta learn to slide. That’s a kill shot every time if he doesn’t.
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“but all you pessimists who believe in keeping it real”
——————-
You know we are still 3-4, 2-3 sec, and don’t control our own destiny, right?
Its a little early to be bashing the pessimists.
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I thought I made that pretty clear in the first part of that sentence… you know, the part you conveniently omitted. 😉
Seriously, my point isn’t that it’s time to start icing the champagne, it’s that the pessimists have moved the goal posts. They’ve gone from saying things like “there’s only one sure win on the schedule” and “Tennessee will beat Georgia because they play hard” to “the last two wins are meaningless because UT and Vandy are the worst teams in the conference”. To me, that sounds suspiciously like admitting the Dawgs are improving, but what do I know? I’m just a basher at heart.
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Get over yourself man. You can’t possibly tell me that after the Colorado game you felt the Dawgs were going to put together 2 straight weeks of solid games. If you do you’re lying.
Also, being crazy irrational when you’re team is down is the same type of passion that now allows people to believe in this dream scenario of winning the East.
It’s called being a passionate fan. It’s what it’s all about. Please don’t start going all Colin Cowherd on us now.
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