Now here’s an interesting exchange:
“When you watch the film and you see another team played harder than we did, that’s sad, that’s my fault,” Richt said. “We had some games like that in my opinion. I can name one for sure and that’s the bowl game. It was most evident that game, maybe that’s the one in my craw and is the one I’m talking about the most.”
…
“Not on defense,” Grantham said. “It ain’t happened on defense. When you look at the Central Florida game, I thought the guys on defense were busting their tail. Now we didn’t finish the game the way that we wanted to, but to say that those guys outworked us, that ain’t right. That didn’t happen.”
I sure would like to hear Bobo’s reaction to that.
Get The Picture 
Gotta agree with Grantham here. The defense kept us in that game. The offense was just anemic and hard to watch.
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Hmm, sounds like Bobo & co may be on notice.
Would take Gtantham as a HC in a skinny minit.
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i think they’re both right. problem is, richt is probably going to have to live or die with bobo now because i’m not sure he’ll get the chance to bring a new oc on to reboot that side of the ball like he did with grantham. that’s still richt’s fault: he could have gone out and hired an oc proven through past experience and a rigorous job search instead of lazily handing it to one of his staff, the same selection technique that gave us willie. i’m still not sure richt isn’t going to end up paying for these two decisions with his job.
but i hold out some hope that the departure of the toxic searels will spark some ol improvements that will make bobo and the entire o look a hell of a lot better.
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So many variables here, it’s intriguing:
–Was Searels really that toxic? Was he mainly the problem?
–Or was the S & C program? Or that there was not a proper gym to lift in?
–Or was it the toxic players such as the RBs and those defensive players everyone pretty much threw under the bus?
Inquiring minds like mine want to know.
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Forgot the AD variable too.
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THAT is the most important variable, IMHO.
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You know, he has that person on staff now. A guy with long experience as a highly successful OC, coached Heisman winners, won national titles, scored tons of points…
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damn right. i always hear people saying that bobo’s offense is just richt’s offense, but i think there’s more to it than that. bobo has developed a lot of spready elements, most of which are predictable, ill-timed, and poorly blocked.
to gastr1: i’ve heard there’s been a pretty poisonous atmosphere in the program for the last few years. i don’t think that’s anything that isn’t widely known. searels was far from the cause, per se, but the man is. . . . an asshole. and i mean that in the organizational dynamics way expressed by bob sutton in *the no asshole rule*: people who are assholes (as defined by bob sutton), whatever their talents and abilities, invariably cost the organization more than they bring to it. searels, from all i’ve heard, is one of these. i think the ol may surprise us, and i would be feeling very good about it right now if we only had adequate depth.
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In short, Searels was an energy vampire.
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Everyone cheered, EVERYONE, when richt handed off OC duties. Now people want him back behind the playsheet? How selective our memories are.
Those heisman winners and NCs did not happen at UGA.
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skipping right over your assertion that EVERYONE cheered when richt named bobo oc: we now have several years of pretty mixed results to judge bobo as a playcaller. as the saying goes, i change my mind when the facts change. what do you do?
and speaking for myself (and not for EVERYONE), my immediate reaction to richt’s promotion of bobo was “i hope he at least considered some external candidates.”
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EVERYONE can agree I was speaking in hyperbole. Regardless, my point was just that there was widespread dissatisfaction with Richt’s playcalling and people were happy he was giving it up.
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Yep.
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I wondered when someone was going to point that out. As I recall back them it was fashionable to say you cannot win with your head coach also being your OC. Now I see at least one comment on every Bobo must go blog that wants Richt as OC.
Maybe these comments wanting Richt as OC are from young fans who were not alive way back then…..
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We kicked a lot of field goals with Richt as the OC. There was a reason that Billy Bennett set records for the number of field goals made, and it wasn’t necessarily that he was the greatest kicker ever. We had no red zone offense.
Let’s see how smart Bobo becomes when we start holding other teams to less than 30 points per game.
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I’m really not seeing the argument for Richt as OC here. Some of you say you’ve seen the offense regress with Bobo as OC, yet the stats say something completely different. The offense has actually been better with Bobo as OC. The only difference between the two is the defenses they had on the team at the time. Richt had great defenses to make him look good. Bobo has had some good offenses, but no defense to bail him out if we have a bad game offensively. It’s easy to forget bad games offensively if you’re still winning.
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We held Central Florida to 10
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So freeking what? We held central Florida to 10. Out offense scored enough points to beat Arky, Fla and Auburn. If we win some of those games we aren’t playing in a crappy bowl game in Memphis.
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Is there a new scoring system in CFB? The object is to score MORE than your opponent. The Dawgs failed to do that against all 3 teams you mentioned. Maybe you should check the source of your facts.
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So why even have a defense?
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Agree with Grantham here too. If you would have told me going into the UCF game that we give up 10 pts, I’d say it’s a 98% win.
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I think a bunch of players were hungover or still drunk during the bowl game. If it was good enough in 1968, it’s still good enough once in a while. They’re college kids and that game wasn’t exactly the biggest thing out there.
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Offense scored 6 points against UCF.
Looking at the offenses UCF faced:
1-3: UAB/S DAKOTA/S METH all scored 7
4: Buff scored 10 against UCF
5-7: Marshall/Rice/Tulane scored 14
8-9: K St/Memp scored 17
10: NC St scored 28
11: S Miss cored 31
12: Houston scored 33
13: E Caro scored 35
Bobo: scored 6 against UCF. Worse than any team UCF faced
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Correction, Bobo scored 0 points. You realize there are 11 dudes on the field having to perform, correct?
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I’m including the 2 field goals, as the field goal kicker is considered a member of the offense, and the punter, a memeber of the defense. At least Bobo got the offense close enough to kick 2 field goals, I’m giving him credit for that. You are aware Bobo’s the OC, and is responsible for offensive output, correct?
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If we hang 14 on Coastal Carolina, can we let the UCF game go?
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UCF had the #8 defense in the country last year in scoring, BUT, they averaged giving up 17 points, and Bobo only scored 6.
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Well, I guess we sucked offensively in that game then. Mystery solved.
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To put it mildly, scoring less against UCF than South Dakota? The mystery is not solved, the question is why?
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I thought it was because Bobo sucked as an OC. At least, that seems to be the prevailing opinion here.
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If that’s true, that Bobo is incompetent, the only hope this seaosn is to demote Bobo to QB Coach and for Richt to call plays again.
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I don’t think it’s true. I think that, like any other team’s OC (to whom we pay less attention because it not our team’s OC), Bobo calls some head-scratchers. I think, like any other team’s OC, he occasionally calls a complete turd. I think sometimes the players don’t give their all on every play. I think sometimes shit just happens.
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bwahahahaha
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JDawg, please show your work? What is the probability that a team that averages 30 points a game, with a standard deviation of 13 (these are nice round numbers, close to our actual offensive numbers last year and under Bobo in general), might score 6 or fewer points in any one particular game? If a team with these statistics played, say, 100 games, how many times could they expect, simply due to random distribution/variance, to score 6 points or fewer?
I’ll hang up and listen.
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Xon, are you Texas_Dawg?
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No. No idea who that is. I am a rare bird who actually posts under my real first name (which is a weird name, I grant).
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Grantham’s D was the only one to hold UCF to 10 points all season.
UCF averaged 32 points a game last year.
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It was very evident the next to last play. A hustling offense could’ve gotten two plays off. We only got one, and it didn’t look like they even wanted to line up to do that one.
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Grantham’s guy loafed against Auburn. Pitiful.
49 points, QB was 12/15, 10/14 3rd downs, 28 1st downs, 315 yards rush, 148 yrds pass, Newton had 2 rush td’s, McCalebb had 3 rush td’s, Aub scored 14 points a qrtr in 2-4th quarters.
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Well it seems that Alabama’s D left the field against Auburn too. We sometimes just don’t give the other team credit.
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Alabama, LSU, Clemson, Oregon, Miss St, all held Auburn to less than 30 points. SC held Aub to 35, Kent held them to 37.
7 teams held Auburn to less than the 49 points Grantham’s D coughed up.
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Baylor & Texas Tech noth held Colorado to less points than Grantham’s D gave up. 29 to Colorado? Embarrassing.
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We didn’t perform well in game 5 of our first season in a 3-4 defense without the correct personnel to fit the scheme.
That’s not embarrassing. That’s unsurprising.
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UGA’ defense didn’t perform well in the last 5 games, gave up 31 (Kent), 34 (Fla), 7(Id St), 49(Aub), 34(GT), so that’s not exactly promising, arn’t you supposed to get better as the season progresses?.
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The fact that Auburn scored more points against our defense later in the season than CU did early in the season is not an indictment against our defense as much as it is a recognition that Auburn had a much better offense then CU did.
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The thing is Kentucky, Florida, GT and Auburn all scored 30+ on the defense, in the last 5 games.
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You’re ignoring the quality of the offenses in your analysis. And quality of the offense matters. Auburn had the #7 ranked scoring offense in the country last year. So I don’t look at giving up points to them as an indictment of our defense. Regardless of when we played them.
Believing that the defense should give up fewer points per game as the season progresses, regardless of the opponent we are playing, is just silly.
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Auburn averaged 41, UGA gave up 49.
Florida averaged 30, UGA gave up 34.
Colorado averaged 24, UGA gave up 29.
G Tech averaged 26, UGA gave up 34.
That takes it into account. But I’m sure you’ll come up with some “sampling error” theory.
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Sampling error? What’s that? No, JDawg, the only rational thing is to burn our program to the ground and never play football again. If you can find ANY games in which our O or our D underperformed compared to the average of opponent for that same season, then this is an inextricable mystery of futility and the only answer is that our coaches suck. I mean, that’s totally clear.
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Obviously. If you play GA Southern in week 1 and they score 10 points, then you play Auburn in week 2 and they score 30 points, your defense must have gotten 3x worse in the span of a week. ZOMG!!!
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Florida was held to 6 by Alabama, 7 by Miss St, 14 by SC, 7 by FSU
Grantham gave up 34.
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Our defense wasn’t as good as Bama’s? The hell you say!
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Bobo’s output against SC ( 6 points) and Miss State (12 points) was anemic. Effort wasn’t there, Richt’s right.
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I think there’s a larger point missed in all of the comments about Bobo not being a good OC, or saying Grantham’s D struggled against some teams last year. The problem with Grantham’s comment is the head coach said the team loafed, and Grantham came back and said, “not my defense!” Seems to me that he just (a) called out the offense, and Bobo; and (b) disagreed with the head coach and aired it in public.
Am I the only one who finds that aspect of the story troublesome?
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This is why Saban keeps his assistants from the press. Nonetheless, I like the competitive spirit I hear from Grantham. If his guys bust their rears preparing & executing, but the other half mails it in, he’s not going to let it be said that “the team” was loafing. I’d love to play for a coach like that.
I’m also happy to hear someone at the assistant level get a little fire in him. There’s nothing I’d like more than to see the offense & defense fight to see who could play a better game. If it takes a public calling-out to get the O there, so be it. And if Richt & Bobo feel threatened by such, we’ve got much bigger problems than mixed messages to the media.
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I know I’m answering a long time after this thread already happened, but in case anyone wanders back through here…do we have the actual way the question was put to Grantham? Did someone say “Coach, think your guys loafed at all in the bowl game last year? We’ve heard some who have that percpetion…” Or did someone actually say “Coach, we just talked to Coach Richt and he thinks the team loafed in the bowl game. Do you have any follow-up to that?”
Kinda makes a difference…:-)
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The Marks think that Todd needs to:
a. Get on the bus;
b. Stop being an energy vampire;
c. Learn the chain of command;
d. Take the Richmond Spider head coaching job next year.
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Better response might be
“Coach Richt is right, our defense loafed against Auburn, Florida, and Colorado. I thought we did a pretty good job against UCF, but I get what the coach is saying, he’s right, we need to clean that up & give a better effort on 3rd & long, rush defense, recovering fumbles, picking more balls, more tackles for loss, more sacks, and better in the red zone, especially against ranked teams–we stunk, and I ain’t happy about it”.
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Don’t know if it’s troublesome – yet, but CTG is definitely sending a message to the head coach about fixing blame where it belongs. The offense has a bad habit of taking whole games off – UCF was a good example, as was the SC game last year.
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The SC game, was AM’s first SEC game and in unfriendly confines against a pretty good Defense when healthy, without our best offensive weapon who was taken away from us late in practice. What the heck did you want, him throwing the ball all over the place giving up 3 ints, but scoring 21 points? Destroying Murray before he even had a chance to get going?
I am beginning to believe people are right about us UGA fans, we do not know football.
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Even without AJ UGA had 9 offensive starters returning. You talk as if every damn player on UGA was a freshman or is f-ing helpless. Oh, and Lattimore was a TRUE freshman, not a redshirt like AM. You didn’t see SC acting like pussies with Lattimore – they ran his a$$ right up the middle. James, believe it or not, I do expect the offense to show up and be ready to play – no lame excuses.
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I did see a true frosh run roughshod over our defense.
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True, we had a lot of experience but the least amount of experience for our QB.
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Yes – that actually does bother me a little bit. Just doesn’t sit well….
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Absolutely! There’s nothing worse than hearing someone talk about how well they did (as opposed to the rest of the TEAM) during a losing effort. And if you look at how we did offensively overall during the season you’ll see we did ok. No argument that Bobo can wet himself in very inopportune times but he did alright over the season. Grantham, IMO, sucked balls and embarrassed the school. I’d be a bit more forgiving if he didn’t come in with such a high salary.
Bottom line to me is it’s piss poor to separate yourself from the team in that manner.
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If Richt had told any prospective DC that he would be expected to take a mediocre defense and show significant improvement in all areas immediately, with no allowances for learning curve or personnel, I doubt many would have taken the job.
That’s why they don’t let fans coach.
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I defer to my salary comment. Regardless of his task at hand he should try playing grown-up a bit more.
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From the link, you can’t really tell what question Grantham is answering. But I’m guessing it was something like, “Some people have suggested that Georgia got outworked in the bowl game last year. What do you think?” In that case, his answer sounds about right to me. He’s not impugning anything Richt said. He probably didn’t even know what Richt had said when he made this statement.
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This.
It’s all about context baby.
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thats why the media is so careful to ask the right questions.
they want to get an answer they can turn into a story. i’d be shocked if grantham knew what coach richt had said and then decided to shift all the blame to the offense. as crazy as he has been here or there, i don’t think he’d do that if he knew that’s how the media may portray it. they probably just asked if his defense was outworked in the bowl game/is that why we lost the bowl game.
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Yep. Kind of like when Richt siad that the pro combbat uniforms were introduced so early to give everyone a chance to get their negative feelings out and get over it. So of course some AJC commenters get up in arms about Richt’s attitude for saying we need to “get over it.” Pretty ridiculous.
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Ah, nicely said, Mr. Siple! I’m sorry i didn’t read down further before making this same comment.
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No.
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Bobo got predictable because the RB’s couldn’t consistently get 4 yards. They could break a few, but runs of 20, 0, -2, and 1 just gets you punts and your QB killed. Not hard to figure out what’s going to happen on third a nine…either a pass or a forehead-smacking draw play. Bobo’s QB’s have put up big numbers even though they were mostly first years…we need a RB coach who can teach some balance and tough running. Maybe some ballet or Karate classes. Otherwise we are just playing TechmoBowl with the RBs going down with the first touch.
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UCF brought 8 in the box and doubled AJ. Should have started hitting the 1-on-1 covered receivers, Tavarres or Durham deep, and hitting Charles instead of forcing into AJ & running against 8 man fronts.
AJ took the day off, didn’t want to get injured and hurt his NFL draft status.
Murray had his worst game of the year, 80 pass effic, 2 int’s, 0 td’s, pretty inaccurate, but give UCF credit, they had a great nationally ranked defense.
Grantham couldn’t force enough turnovers against UCF. Have to help your offense when they’re struggling.
Richt loafed in the UCF game. Deciding to kick a field goal instead of preparing a sure 4th and 1 rehearsed play cost him a game. Shoed a lack of preparation, Richt didn’t have a solid 4th & 1 play ready.
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You seriously think any coach in America has a “sure thing” 4th & 1 play? That’s crazy. See, the thing is, the defense also knows that it’s 4th & 1 and you have to beat them.
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Being afraid to go for it on 4th and 1 in their red zone showed lack of preparation. Showed Richt was LOAFING.
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UCF D was 50% on 4th downs last year, UGA O was 53% on 4th downs, so you should have gone for it. Showed lack of homework. Richt had te numbers.
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You think a 3% difference in success rate is statistically significant? Sounds like you’re the one who needs to do your homework.
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It showed that Richt recognized that his offense wasn’t capable of blowing UCF off the ball. Remember, that call came immediately after UCF stuffed our 3rd and 2 run. You think Richt should have banged his head on that wall one more time for good measure?
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Richt should have prepared a good play, that had worked a high percentage against UCF from opponents in short yardage, or that had worked a high percentage for UGA in short yardage. If you don’t make it, big deal, they have to drive 90 yards. But the odds, were in Richt’s favor, 53% to 50%.
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Again, 53% versus 50% is statistically insignificant. And that’s even if there were a large sample size, which there isn’t. Trying to take 15 attempts (the # of times UGA went for 4th down last year) and trying to deduce some statistical trend from it is crazy.
Again, there is no such thing as a sure thing 4th down play. That’s why somebody invented the punt.
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You don’t think Richt had a play that worked 70-80% in short yardage or one that worked 70-80% against UCF in short yardage? Sure. But Richt was too lazy to do his homework to prep.
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If he had a sure-fire play, why didn’t he call it on 3rd down? I assume he knew he wasn’t likely to go for it on 4th.
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Too lazt to put the time in to prepare. Richt didn’t have a play.
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I think you’re too lazy to investigate the differences between real life and Madden. In real life, there is no such thing as a sure fire play. Especially after the defense just stuffed your short yardage play on 3rd down.
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Maybe Uga ate his homework. Give a brother a break.
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Whoops. Russ.
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I don’t know if I’d call that loafing so much as “bitch mentality.”
My biggest fear is that Richt has regressed into Tommy Bowden. I don’t think he has, but the last two years have been pretty hard.
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Next time Richt needs to say “Well, our offense loafed against UCF, SC, MSU, but the defense loafed against Colorado, Florida & Auburn”.
Like to see Grantham try and defend his team’s effort against Colorado, Florida, or Auburn.
Florida?
Grantham can probably blame Murray’s 4 turnovers and the innovative 3 QB surprise attack Meyer unleashed on him.
But how do you give up 29 to Colorado?
Grantham would probably excuse it by talking about Caleb King’s fumble after the D got a late stop.
49 and 5 rushing td’s 100% red zone failure, 80% 3rd down conversion, to Auburn?
I don’t see how Grantham can blame that one on the offense. Would probably say offense didn’t have a single 3rd down conversion in the 2nd half.
UCF loss?
Grantham can porbably blame the offense again for scoring just 6 points, and committing 2 turnovers.
SC?
180+ yards to Lattimore on the same play. Missed 46 tackles. Grantham could point to the red zone fumble. Offense didn’t score much.
Miss St?
Couldn’t get a 4th quarter stop. But offense didn’t score much.
Ark loss?
DB breakdown’s at the end of the game.
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Does Thomas Brown have a new handle?
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ouch
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Pingback: Good Reason for Gagging Coaches « Tide Bits
Bottom line is, scoring against ranked teams. Nothing else matters.
Grantham finished 4th in the SEC in scoring against ranked teams
Bobo finished 8th.
And, it was Grantham’s 1st year.
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I’m pretty sure scoring against unranked teams matters, too.
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UGA’s defense got it’s butt kicked a couple times last year, but I don’t think it was because they were loafing. Tyson was pushed all over the place and it lead to a lot of rushing yards against us. I never thought Tyson was loafing.
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I think the comment made by Coach Richt in the UCF game when asked why he did not go for it on 4th down showed his mind set for that game. The players were screaming to go for it and he replied you had 3 downs to get it. This was the response of a coach that was fed up with his O. Instead of telling them to GATA he basically told them that he had given up on them. That was the end of the game right there for the O. Mark is so even tempered that I think the times he gets really upset he usually does inappropriate things or makes inappropriate comments. He has been that way with the fans too. He was right in what he said but it was the wrong thing to say at that time. We have been training a HC for 10 years now and it seems that every year it’s something new.
The Bobo factor is and always has been that Bobo was anointed OC not hired as OC. If you were Stacy Searles and some snotty faced little OC by marriage tried to tell you how to do your job you would be pissed too. Bobo is a great QB coach and he would be a great OC if he had had some seasoning and less of a strong willed OL coach. Our new OL coach will work much better for Bobo than CSS ever did. I think Bobo knows that his days are numbered if the O goes to sleep again this year. Mark can’t cover for him with the new AD. The AD knows good football and he’s not going to stop until UGA is playing consistently good football.
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We had 15 bowl game practices sessions leading up to the Liberty Bowl. Plus our coach was supposedly on the “hot seat.” So we all expected the team to be motivated and to play hard, and we (at least the offense) got pushed around by a lesser program. I think our problem the past several years has been too much practicing in shorts and and not enough full-contact scrimmaging in-season, We did a lot of these one-hour walk throughs in our bowl prep. I think the coaches worry so much about depth and injuries, that we practice in shorts and limit contact, thus losing our edge (conditioning, hitting, tackling, intensity, fundamentals) but that’s just my opinion.
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Maybe it wasn’t necessarily always the coach, when you have a kid who hasn’t played much football in TWO YEARS running your football team…with a couple of running backs and O-line who exceedingly underacheived. Why don’t we let Murray season a little, and get used to the speed of top 10 defenses. You guys would be the first to throw Peyton Manning under the bus after he threw 28 INT’s his rookie season and the team went 3-13. Maybe, just maybe, teams go through ups and downs. It even happened to the great Urban Meyer. Sometimes fans turn a program into the current Vol-nation train-wreck because of short-sightedness.
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If you can execute, then you can plug players in and depth won’t be an issue. Richt focuses to much on recruiting and gameplanning, and too little on execution of the game plan. If you can execute, you don’t worry about injuries. An OK plan executed well is better than a great plan executed poorly.
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I’m interested to know how Gene Chizik feels about your beliefs. Sure, he’s losing the Heisman & Lombardi winners and he’s the greenest team in the country playing the toughest schedule, but hey, they should just execute, right?
Sometimes, real life is harder than Madden.
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Saban’s D and Petrino’s O is always good, as is Boise and TCU. These guys execute, instead of plan, simplify instead of complicate.
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You think Saban’s defense is simple?
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The thing is, how has Saban SUSTAINED excellence. It’s his ability to execute.
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Well, those #1 recruiting classes don’t hurt either.
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His roster management practices probably give him a little edge as well. Why take the negative press of shoving a kid out the door in favor of an all-world recruit if he can win with 11 random kids on the field?
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Saban has been at his current gig for 5 years; Richt has been around for more than 10. Get back to me when Saban (or whoever else you want to compare to Richt to make your point that everything he does is wrong and lazy) has sustained his success for another 5 years to prove that he is the second coming of Bear Bryant.
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I don’t get this. I mean, I don’t care for Saban or Alabama, but I’m not sure I can deny that he’s a difference maker as a head coach. If I were a betting man (and sometimes I am), I’m pretty sure I’d buy on Saban leading a team that ranked in the top ten in 3-4 years. Especially if he is still at Alabama.
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Will is saying that Richt’s first 5 years were pretty rosy as well. It’s really the last three years that have tarnished Richt’s reputation.
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Or Petrino’s offense?
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Boise has been in top 12 scoring last 4 years in a row. They just plug people in, focus on executing better, do it with more 3 star recruits than 5 stars.
Texas Tech was in top 12 in off scoring 2006-2010 until Off Coor and head coach left.
Oregon’s been in the top 12 in off scoring since 2007.
It can be done.
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BSU is also playing in the WAC, against 1 & 2 star recruits. Jimmys and Joes matter just as much as Xs and Os.
I’m not saying that good coaches aren’t out there or don’t matter. But, saying that Bobo doesn’t have the track record of Leach isn’t really an indictment of Bobo. College football isn’t a video game where every kickoff return goes for a touchdown and the good teams win 200-0.
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So, you like Bobo averaging 15 points a game against ranked teams. Fine. I don’t. Bobo’s has gotten SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE every seaosn in scoring output against ranked teams (@7 points a game per year, 2008, 2009 & 2010). If you’re ok with average, and miedicority, fine. But there are schools who are consistently in top 12 for offensive scoring, and teams like OK St arn’t far behind. It can be done, if you have quality staff and are willing to spend the money to get them.
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You mean our scoring potential went down after Stafford and Moreno left? Must be coaching. Or is it execution?
As for teams that score loads of points year after year, are any of them in the SEC? Or are you seriously expecting UGA, who plays an SEC schedule against SEC defenses, to match BSU’s output playing in the WAC?
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Florida top 10 in scoring 2008, 2009, 2010. Top 20 in 2006.
Ark has been in top 20 for offensive scoring 2009 & 2010.
Alabama top 25 off scoring 2009 & 2010.
Auburn top 20 offensive scoring n 2009 & 2010.
It can be done with the right offensive coach.
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Mike Leach would be successful on offense anywhere.
When he and Hal Mumme were at Kentucky, their offense did quite well in the SEC.
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Top 20/25 in scoring offense is in the same tier as top 30 (which is where Georgia has generally been the last four years). Florida’s 21st ranking in 2006 came from scoring a whopping 29.7 points per game. In other words, fewer points that Georgia’s 30th-ranked offenses consistently score. (2006 was a weird year. Scoring was down everywhere because of the stupid one-year clock rules.)
SEC teams do not finish in the top 10 nationally in scoring offense, except when they have an “elitist-of-elites” offense. I.e., Florida with Baby Rhino (07-09) and Auburn with the Falling Tree (2010). It doesn’t normally happen that way, and it’s a coincidence that it happened with two players coming along so close together like that.
Check out some of the football outsider stats, though, for a better picture of offensive performance. Bill C’s S&P+ ranking actually measures how successful an offense is play-by-play (during non-garbage time only). Georgia ranked 5th in S&P+ in 2008, for instance. The S&P+ is adjusted for strength of schedule, although I suspect not very well (it can’t really be done very well, so no disrespect to Bill C). Still, because it is adjusted in some way to take the quality of the defenses you are playing into account, top SEC offenses will tend to get their credit nationally on that metric. But they still won’t score as many points as the top offenses in other conferences do.
Good defense resists good offense more than good offense overcomes good defense. So when you play in a conference where both sides of the ball are excellent, defense will win out as far as scoring is concerned, over the long-haul.
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Bobo went in scoring against ranked teams in SEC from #2 in 07, to #3 in 08, to #5 in 09, to #8 in 10. The direction and negative consistency points to system issues.
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Xon-You may have lost your point by placing it in the final paragraph. To allow some of these negabees to pick and chose their take on info you use to build your case is to allow their good second eye to go blind to your logic.
The greater the strength of the opponent , the greater the assurance of scoring less points. The trolls don’t want to get that and somehow a bunch have been attracted to this blog. When you prove them wrong, the non-acceptors come back with a vengeance and one is then able to discern the concerned Dawg fan (who doesn’t return with a vengeance because you have placated his worries) from the negabees trolling from another school.
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It’s one thing for Murray to be able to read a defense in the film room, yet go out and throw 3 interceptions against Florida, or 2 against UCF? Execution.
It’s one thing to practice stiff arms drills with your RB’s for ball protection, yet they go out and fumble over and over. Execution.
Somehow, what Bobo wants to get done, isn’t being done.
Same for Grantham getitng burned on 3rd and long or wheel routes. Execution.
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that accounts for 5 of his 8 interceptions… he had 8 games out of 13 with no picks. how can you complain about murray’s execution? why did he have rough games? bad oline play and the fact that he was a freshman.
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and the fact that he’s human. Amen, Adam. As a fanbase, we’re taking crazy pills again, or at least a few highly motivated commenters are….
Jumping on his two sub-par games and claiming that it’s some kind of systemic problem is completely insane. It’s not even a debatable point. You are crazy to think that way, or else you don’t really think that way and you’re just very, very bored.
I don’t care if it’s cheesy, I think all us fans need to “get on the bus”, too! It’s time to suit up and play, and quit bitching about all the crap you think is wrong that ain’t gonna get fixed right this second even if you’re right. The current general has chosen a battleplan. We will support that battleplan. If we lose with that plan, then decisions can be made at that point. Until then, get on the damn bus!
How ’bout a blog where we put up “pics” of the energy vampires out in our fanbase and commentariat?
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Xon, your meanderings are freaking boring…dude
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Wow, now we’re really making progress! You have a valuable things to give to the world. Share!
/gives gold star
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Bobo’s is a great QB Coach, his QB’s usually rank well against ranked teams (Stafford/Cox). Murray was a redshirt freshman, so Murray did average in SEC statistically against ranked teams in his 1st year: 7th in TD’s, 5th Int’s, 7th accuracy, 6th pass effic, 4th in yards. Bobo usually has a QB in the top 3, so Bobo’s very good with QB’s in 2007-2009 against ranked teams.
I just don’t like Bobo as OC. Bobo’s offenses get significantly worse (-7 per game per year) in scoring against ranked teams. That’s not good.
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So, you’ve actually read my refutation of this “ranked teams” argument and you’re still sticking by the argument? Do you have a substantive response, or you’re just going to repeat it over and over?
Urban Meyer’s offense the last three years vs. ranked opponents: 35.8, 25.7, 12.6
Clearly, Urban Meyer would have deserved to be fired if he hadn’t quit on his own…
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You’re using player execution as an indictment against coaches. As Inigo Montoya would say, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
If you think the coaches have trained our running backs to fumble at inopportune times, you’re wrong.
If you think our coaches haven’t worked on the wheel route, you’re wrong.
I guess you could use coaching as a catch-all complaint for everything that goes wrong at a football game, but that’s not a legitimate analysis. Did it rain during the game? Execution. Was there a long line at The Grill after the game? Execution. See what I mean?
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When Bobo claims Murray KNOWS WHAT TO DO, yet on the field, Murray’s throwing multiple interceptions against Florida, Murray did not execute what Murray knew in that game. Same for fumbles, wheel route, or 3rd & long. One thing to KNOW, another thing to execute. Richt’s teams just don’t focus on execution, that’s why things don’t translate from the video room or practices to actual games.
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We’ve already established that Murray’s last interception against UF was a result of a missed block and an incorrect route. Murray can’t block the defenders, run the routes, and throw the ball can he?
As for knowing versus executing, I think it’s pretty obvious which one falls more heavily on the coaches. All the coaches can do is tell the kids what to do and try to help them do it in practice. I’ve never seen Richt with a helmet on fumbling balls on the field.
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So does anyone on our team do anything right? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure you’ve spent the better part of the day pointing out every shitty aspect of our offense and defense.
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I think Grantham’s an excellent coach. Had an excellent 1st year, finished 4th in def scoring in SEC against ranked teams. Didn’t have a true NT & Houston was really the only playmaker on the entire front 7. I think the defense with Lakatos, Olividatti, and Garner is very well managed with proven staff at every position.
Special teams are amazing.
Bobo, and offense, not even average. 15 pts per game against ranked teams, 8th in SEC, with SUCH talent, is just SOOOOO bad. Being thin OLine, RB, Fullback, in experience or scholarship players, is SUCH bad foresight. And I don’t see the scoring against ranked teams getting better under Bobo, ever, it’s gone down from 35 a game, to 28 to 21 to 15 over last few years. Bobo’s scoring has gotten MUCH worse (a touchdown per game) against ranked teams, every year. Talent is there everywhere. UCF was a picture of the 2011 season, Defense and special teams will be strong, offense will continue to struggle under Mike Bobo’s leadership.
2011 Predictions (10 being best score):
Special Teams: 10
Defense: 8
Offense: 4
But, LSU won 11 games with QB play worse than Murray’s last year. So you can win without a strong passing game. All other aspects have to overcompensate.
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Ay ay ay, the “ranked teams” mantra. Clearly a motivated minority that fulfills Churchill’s definition of a fanatic (someone who can’t change his mind, and WON’T change the subject).
JDawg, real clear now, into the microphone. Other than last year, when we ranked 8th in conference against ranked teams, how have Bobo’s offenses ranked in the SEC against ranked teams? Don’t just quote raw points totals, tell me the ranking please.
Hint: we’ve had this conversation before, or perhaps I had it with your doppleganger. I really don’t want to keep getting tangled up in a tar baby, but one more time….
Year SEC Rk Sc O SEC RK SC O vs. Ranked
2007 5th (32.6) 2nd (35.5)
2008 3rd (31.5) 3rd (26.5)
2009 7th (28.9) 5th (20.0)
2010 4th (32.1) 8th (15.8)
Interesting, no? So, from 07-09 we ranked even better when we played ranked teams than we did in our all our games combined. But you tell us the sky is falling because our points against ranked teams fell from “36 to 27 to 20”. Well, no. Most other conference teams point totals had obviously fallen off as well, since we continued to rank highly in the ranked opponent category (i.e., we ranked equal to or even higher than our overall offensive ranking for that year). Compared to the rest of our conference, obviously our points against ranked teams didn’t fall as badly as theirs did, because after everyone’s numbers had taken their hits from playing harder ranked competition, we ended up ranked more highly.
2007 is crazy, as we actually scored more points against ranked teams than we did against unranked teams. This is because of how we “caught fire” in the last half of that campaign, obviously. Early we struggled against mediocre opponents, then the light bulb went on and we dominated better opponents in the second half of the year. But that’s super-crazy-weird, clearly.
Last year, we were 4th in overall scoring offense, but fell all the way to 8th against ranked teams. That’s bad, and we all know why it happened more or less. No big mystery, and again I’ve gone around on this with you or your doppleganger before already.
There are always reasonable things you can say in response to all this, but the way you cling to the “ranked opponents” split stat is not one of them. Except for last year, we’re actually solid on that one, relative to our overall offensive ranking in any given year.
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Your replies are inching toward classic, Xon…I rest comfy knowing that we shall be treated to many more in the coming weeks…please don’t stop taking that certainty pill!
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Yes, clearly I write like someone who thinks he’s certain of everything…
/Insert your joke about how you don’t read what I write b/c I write too much, arp arp arp?
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Insomnia, holla! Might as well edify the body of believers while I’m up anyway, right? Senator, I’m taking a calculated risk that enough people will find this useful to forgive me for its’ length. But if you hate me now, I sorry.
I’ve done some more digging on the relationship between overall scoring offense and scoring offense against ranked opponents. I offer this simply because I found it interesting. Some of it certainly speaks to my point in this argument, which I’ll be sure to rub in manfully when appropriate.
Going back to the 07 season, we have 48 SEC offenses. For each offense, we calculate the difference in their overall scoring average and their scoring average against ranked opponents. So, for instance, in the case of 2008 Alabama:
AvgPtsvsRkd – AvgPtsAllGms = RkdDiff
25.5ppg – 30.1ppg = -4.6 ppg
So, in 2008 Alabama scored 4.6 fewer points when they played a ranked opponent than they averaged against all their opponents put together. In all of their games on the season, they averaged 30.1 points per game. But when they played a ranked opponent, they averaged 25.5 points, for a RkdDiff score of -4.6.
For all 48 SEC offenses over the last 4 seasons, the average RkdDiff score is -7.24. So 08 Alabama was a bit better than average in that their scoring against ranked opponents did not fall off quite as badly as 7.24 points.
The standard deviation is 4.946, which means that the great bulk of teams (to be exact, 35, or 73%) end up somewhere in the range of -2.3 to -12.2. In other words, the vast majority of these 48 SEC offenses since 2007 scored anywhere from 2.3 to 12.2 points below their overall scoring average when they played a ranked opponent.
7 teams did worse than -12.2 when they played ranked opponents, and 6 teams did better than -2.3.
For the record, Georgia had two scores that were just a little above and a little below the average, one really horrible score, and one amazingly good score. So, on average, Georgia has done pretty much what everyone else has done, though they have a wide range of variability between their really good year and their really bad year. To nobody’s surprise, their horrible year was last year (2010), when they scored -16.3. Overall, we scored 32.1ppg (4th in SEC), but against ranked opponents we scored only 15.8ppg (8th in SEC). Why did this happen? It seems pretty clear that it’s mostly a matter of timing. We played most of our hardest opponents when we were at our weakest, which last season corresponds to the early part of the season when our best playmaker was suspended and our young QB was inexperienced.
(Of course, we also played a bad offensive game later on in the bowl game, but that one game (and a bowl game no less) wasn’t against a ranked team. Which is sad, but doesn’t explain Georgia’s low -16.3 number. Georgia’s early season struggles when they played Arkansas, South Carolina, and Miss State does explain it.)
Just how bad was that -16.3? Why, it was the 4th worst score of the 48, thank you for asking! The three that were even worse? 07 Arkansas (-18.0), 09 Arkansas (-17.5), and……2010 Florida (-17.2). That’s right, Florida was even worse than us last year in this category. They started off with a worse scoring offense than us to begin with, averaging 29.8 ppg (8th in the SEC), and then against ranked opponents they plummeted further all the way down to 12.6 ppg (11th in SEC).
In fact, I guess we all know why Urban Meyer really quit. He must have been on the verge of being fired and they let him save face and resign instead! I mean, the numbers don’t lie, right folks? (JDawg?) In the last three seasons, here’s how Meyer’s offenses regressed against ranked opponents: 35.8, 25.7, 12.6. Folks, this is *all* that matters, and Meyer fell 10 and then 13 points per game against ranked opponents in consecutive years! Bobo is a genius compared to this sad trend that developed in Gainesville….or else there is something horribly screwy about using the numbers to draw this kind of conclusion about an OC’s efficacy.
Of course, the reality is that Florida just had one really bad year last year, but the two years before that were both solid (to say the least). Their 35.8 ppg against ranked teams was 1st in the SEC in 2008, and though they dropped off by 10 ppg in 09 they still ranked 3rd.
But, hmmm, by this measure Georgia is in pretty much the same boat. Georgia had one terrible year last year (the -16.3 monstrosity in which the Dawgs scored only 15.8 ppg against ranked opponents, 8th in the SEC). In the three years before that, though, they had two great years in 07 and 08 (ranked 2nd and 3rd in the SEC against ranked opponents, respectively), and in 09 they took a step back on offense overall (7th in the SEC in all-games scoring) but remained in the top half of the conference against ranked opponents (5th). So, clearly, this argument that Bobo sucks because 35 – 26 – 20 – 15 is…not a very good argument.
Certainly, that 15.8ppg against ranked opponents last year really sucked. Yup. But that’s not how Georgia usually does its bidness. 2009 was a so-so offensive year, and every sane person expected that going in to the Joe Cox experiment in the first place. But that 20.0 ppg number against ranked opponents still put us 5th in the SEC, which is not too shabby given that we really only had the 7th best scoring offense in the SEC overall.
And then we had 2007 and 2008. We “dropped off” in 2008, except no we didn’t, not really. Our RnkDiff was better than average in 2008, only dropping 5.2ppg from our overall average when we played ranked opponents. (The average score is -7.2, remember, so our -5.2 in 2008 was better than average.) This allowed us to maintain the same overall offensive ranking and ranking vs. ranked opponents in the SEC (3rd overall at 31.5ppg, 3rd against ranked opponents at 26.3ppg).
But “we dropped over a TD against ranked opponents from 07 to 08! We got worse!!” Right? Not really. The only regressing we did was a regression to the mean, because here’s the thing. Georgia’s 2007 RnkDiff score was, like, I don’t know, the best score EVAH! The 2007 UGA offense is BY FAR the best RnkDiff of the 48 SEC offenses of the last four years. Stafford, Moreno, Sean Bailey, Massaquoi, and company didn’t just do better than only scoring 2.3 ppg fewer against ranked opponents; they actually *didn’t score fewer points at all.* We scored 2.9 points *MORE* when we played a ranked opponent.
What we did in 07 was even more unbelievably good than our suckitude against ranked teams last year was unbelievably bad. The good times in 07 were much better than the bad times in 2010 (relative to this one pretty silly stat, I mean. Let’s keep our eye on the ball here, Bobo haterz.)
So much better, in fact, that 2008 was a great year as far as scoring offense against ranked opponents goes and yet it LOOKS like a significant decline simply because it didn’t match up to 2007’s standards. But 2007 isn’t a standard, it defies all standards. We have standards so that when things like 2007 happen we’ll recognize them for the pure awesome that they are.
Here, see for ourselves! Only 6 SEC offenses in the last 4 years turned out a RnkDiff score that was better than a -2.3. These are they:
07 UGA 2.9
08 Miss 0.6
07 AL -0.1
07 KY -0.7
07 Miss -1.5
09 MissSt -1.6
These are the six SEC offenses in the last four years that had a ranked opponent performance compared to their average scoring offense that was at least one standard deviation better than the mean (better than -2.3). But that’s not all. 2 of these offenses somehow managed to *not even have a drop-off at all* when they played ranked opponents. 08 Ole Miss and 07 UGA both somehow scored MORE points against their ranked opponents than they were used to averaging against all opponents combined. Ole Miss pulled off a 0.6 gain…..and then UGA did 2.3 BETTER than that! UGA’s 2.9 (we averaged 32.6ppg in 2007, but against ranked opponents we averaged 35.5ppg) is more than two full standard deviations better than the mean.
As far as comparing scoring against ranked opponents to overall scoring averages is concerned, the 2007 Georgia Bulldogs were a 1-in-a-hundred team. 2008 couldn’t help but seem like a drop-off after that. But there is nothing shabby about scoring 26.3ppg against ranked opponents. It was good for 3rd in the SEC in 2008, and it would have ranked 2nd in 2009.
The main problem is that people are getting caught up in the absolute numbers of points (i.e., “we fell from 35 to 28 to 20 to 15!”), without understanding how it’s all relative to other teams in the conference, that EVERYONE scores significantly fewer points when they play against ranked teams (well, not 2007 Georgia, but almost everyone), and that our first number in that list is so astronomically GOOD (relative to our scoring offense that year) that we had nowhere to go but down.
Given that 2010’s 15.8ppg was an anamoly (and it was), 35 to 28 to 20 in the three years before that is just a normal progression and doesn’t mean anything dark and ominous at all. We scored 35 against ranked opponents in 2007 b/c we were off-the-charts the second half of the season, when we played almost all of our ranked opponents (its the happy-mirror image of 2010!). A “normal” ranked-opponent number for our offense in 2007 would have been expected to be around a 30 or so, so we over-performed the expectation by about 6 points. Dropping from there to a 28 in 2008 is a perfectly acceptable undulation, both numbers fully consistent with a great SEC offense. In 2009 we didn’t have a great SEC offense, but just an average one (thus the 20ppg against ranked opponents). I think we already knew that.
So, to recap. There might be good arguments against Mike Bobo’s performance as Georgia’s OC, but this “performance against ranked opponents” argument cannot possibly be one of them. Even if we accepted the critics’ premise that this is some all-important way of measuring his performance, he’s actually done quite well by this very measure they are suggesting. In 2007, 2008, Georgia’s offense put up good numbers there. In 2009, a mediocre offense placed 2 ranks higher when we look only at the ranked opponents. So if he’s performing even better amongst his SEC peers when we play ranked teams than he does in all games put together, then how on earth can his performance against ranked opponents be the problem? The critics will have to find something else.
I will happily go on record, though, that if we pull off another 15ppg average this year, that will be a very bad thing. But that almost certainly won’t happen.
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Against ranked teams on offense:
Ark went 13 pts a game in 08, to 18 in 09, to 32 in 10
Aub went from 9 in 08, to 26 in 09, to 35 in 10
Tenn went from 10 in 08, to 13 in 09, to15 in 10
SC went from 13 in 08, to 17 in 09, to 23 in 10
4 teams that got better every year.
Which SEC OC besides Bobo averages around a -7 drop in offensive scoring a game per season against ranked teams, 3 years in a row in 2008, 2009, 2010?
Name ALL THE SEC OC’s you can find that match Mike Bobo’s 3 year trend or worse of offensive scoring against ranked teams 2008-2010 in the SEC. take your time.
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Urban Meyer had a worse trend 08-10, as I explained above but which you of course are not going to read, because why read a refutation of your one and only point that you are determined to ride like a pony at the county fair?
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Yes thanks Xon. Love your posts.
Again, my point is much simpler… these trend numbers are ridiculous.
College Football teams don’t trend. They have up and down years. Mostly b/c of players, injuries, going to NFL, coaches leaving.
Murray was in his first year and had a few bad games. To be expected. If you didn’t expect it, you are an idiot. He actually performed better than most could have hoped. Same with Grantham and the D (but were hoping for better).
I’ve made this point before, even Peyton Manning had a bad first year w/ the Colts. Patience people. Let the team mature. Even if, (Just IF) you dont think they will pull it out this year…Just imagine Murray next year w/ Crowell, Mitchell, J.J., Rome, etc. Its coming together. Don’t be so shortsighted and derail the whole thing with anger.
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Brad, I agree with you that these trend numbers, especially on something so small as “games vs. ranked opponents”, are more meaningless than anything. I tried that line of argument a few days ago on here, but people just keep hopping up and down on the same button no matter what. So this time I figured I’d show that, even if we took this stat super-seriously, Bobo’s numbers happen to be fine anyway. Not that that will change anyone’s mind, either. Hopefully some people on the fence will start to see that this argument doesn’t work, though.
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Is it too soon to execute a get on the bus video?
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“It ain’t happened on defense”
No, they’re not mocking us for that beauty of a statement. I believe it done did happen quite a bit during the season.
BTW, that sounds like a polarizing statement to me regardless of how the media may have spun this story.
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Xon- Thanks for the good and clear work. If you had posted this earlier this year, you would have blown about 40-50 blogging subjects out of the water. We were looking for statistical anwers earlier using return team stats and you-name-the-position-and-I”ll-give-you-the-wrong-stats stats. Std. dev. is understood by those who have been barely introduced to Statistics, but regression to the mean and later more sophisticated applications that you could use would be lost on bloggers worse than your clear and concise post was lost on JDawg. Either I’m stupid and saw clearly in your blog the answer to his question posted after your blog or he didn’t bother to read or understand. He proved that he is just a goof trying to find fault with no serious intent to engage in a learning conversation.
Your blog was only long because you insisted on explaining your rationale and statistics to the uninitiate. It was needed. You proved by posting on this subject that you don’t have a boring bone in your body.
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You’re too kind, cojones. Thank you!
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