I’ll grant you there weren’t a whole lot of statistical categories in which Georgia distinguished itself last season, but here’s one: the Dawgs finished first in the conference in tackles for loss allowed. Before you dismiss that by attributing it to Aaron Murray’s mobility, consider that Georgia finished second in 2009 and in 2008.
So that’s pretty consistent excellence with different quarterbacks. Also, while Moreno made a living out of converting potential three-yard loss runs into positive yardage plays, nobody would confuse his successors with him in that department.
All of which begs the question: how much credit to you give Searels and/or Bobo for that performance? If it’s the former who deserves the kudos, we’ll have to wait and see if the coaching change has much of an impact. If you don’t think either deserves praise, how do explain the high level that’s been maintained for several seasons?
Get The Picture 
It you look at tfl yards, we finished 9th. Which means when we got hit in backfield we did not mitigate in any way. Especially if you look at yards per tfl.
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That tells you that sacks allowed went up, which they did – second in 2008, first in 2009 and seventh in 2010.
Does that mean you want to give McClendon some credit? 😉
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Senator, that is a head-scratcher. For all of the teeth gnashing over the offensive line (I’ve done plenty), that stat would say that we’re much better than average. It just seems like we have a lot of running plays that go for 0-2 yards and pass plays where if a QB had an additional fraction of a sec0nd could have hit big plays. We find ourselves behind the chains a lot against quality opponents and running a screen that gets blown up or Carlton Thomas into the middle of the line on a draw play. A big disappointment since Knowshon has been our inability to develop a strong screen game that could get positive yardage on 2nd or 3rd and medium. Any thoughts on why?
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Although the O line underperformed, they didn’t really get beat big-time very often. We expected the O line to bulldoze the D all over the field, but we mostly got a stalemate at the line of scrimmage. Also our vanilla offense – how many times do we have 3rd and 10, and then throw a pass 6 or 7 yards?!
On the other hand, the requisite play action fake would seem to argue that we hold the ball too long in the backfield. Perhaps our fakes are effective, but once the D catches on they react quickly and we’re stopped for short or no gain.
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This on is pretty simple, Coach Richt is a QB guy and his first priority is the protection of his QB. So you are the O Line coach your going to make sure that if the QB gets killed it will be because a RB failed to pick up the blitz not because your guys whiffed. Our run blocking has been a secondary concern for years. Moreno covered up the weak sauce that was our run blocking. What also helped with the stats was the weak teams we beat and the rushing that we were able to do against them. It is a rare thing in football at any level that an O line can do both run block and pass block really well, it is the coach that chooses the thing he wants the line to do and UGA chooses pass blocking.
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Agreed – Let’s compare w/ offensive snaps per game before we go giving out any plaudits. I’d imagine we were in the bottom of the SEC in that category which means that our TFL/total plays is probably somewhere in the middle at best.
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Sorry – that was supposed to be a response to Minnesota Dawg’s comment below.
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Yeah, I don’t read too much into this one. In particular, it’s not very nuanced–Ranking TFL per game? At least it should take into account how many offensive plays a team actually ran as a baseline to determine its efficiency (or however you’d like to put it). I mean if you run twice as many plays as another team, statistically you’d expect to have two times as many loss plays, right? As I recall, we had a number of games in which we were significantly out-“played” (so to speak).
Perhaps there is something to this stat, but it would take more of a complex breakdown. I do know that the offense could not be consistently make short-yardage running conversions or well-protect the QBwhen needed in important or predictable (given our uninspired playcalling) situations in tight games.
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The number of plays doesn’t change the conclusion.
UGA – 12.92 plays per TFL allowed
Auburn – 12.81
Ark – 12.66
Bama – 12.37
USC – 11.99
Miss St – 11.93
LSU – 11.82
UK – 10.96
UF – 10.91
Miss – 9.18
Vandy – 8.68
UT – 8.44
What does change is looking at TFL yards lost/play. There, UGA led only UT and Vandy with 0.37. USC led the conference at 0.26.
So we didn’t lose on many plays. But, when we lost, we lost big yards.
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To follow up on my last post, we were last in the SEC at yards lost per TFL allowed with 4.79. Vandy was 11th at 4.58. USC was first with 3.14.
Strangely, the other teams didn’t fare that great. Bama, Auburn, Ark, and LSU rank 6-9 respectively by this metric behind USC, Ole Miss, Miss St, UK, and UF.
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Thanks for the info (and doing the math). I guess I am mildly surprised by this, but given your last piece of information, there is a certain “so-what” factor to certain season-long statistics–especially in Georgia’s case for 2010. For the most part, the win-loss record didn’t match up with much of Georgia’s statistical improvement last year. This is why the national media, broadcasters, pundits, couldn’t figure us out and why many of us were left increasingly frustrated as the season wore on.
If I had to give an explanation, I’d simply rely on the adage that “timing is everything.” It’s an empty consolation that your season-long turnover margin was positive, if you gained that margin in blowout wins and lost the turnover battle in close games, fumbling during crucial possessions. Likewise, I’d be willing to take a few more first down TFL, if we could convert a few more third-down (or red zone) opportunities. For most teams, things seem to “even up” over the course of a season, but not for the 2010 Dawgs. I can only hope that our off-season conditioning includes adding some mental toughness (and football intelligence) to their physical workouts.
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Which, again, suggests that sacks were a bigger problem in that area than the running game.
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um, narrow splits + lots of runs between the tackles = little penetration in either direction? our inside running game has amounted to a rugby scrum for a while.
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How do you stop the run? Load up the box. Something must be done to get more hats at the point of attack that have that oval G on them. Another need is a running back with the patience to wait for the hole to open and the burst to get through that hole quickly. I am not talking 40 time here, I am talking about that initial explosion. I am much more intrested in lateral quickness and that burst in a TB than I am top speed. Of course, if said runner has the top end speed to take it all the way that is a blessing. Otherwise, I prefer a dragster to an Indy car at TB.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
The credit belongs to an OL that grew up and gained experience. It wasn’t great but better than recent years. With a Stafford and Moreno behind it, it would have meant a phenomenal offense.
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