Now he tells us.

I hope this doesn’t wind up being some sort of epitaph.

Drew Butler on #Boise: "We weren't as prepared as we thought we were." – "After the game the focus went straight to #SouthCarolina." #UGA

— Radi Nabulsi (@RadiNabulsi) September 6, 2011

******************************************************************************

UPDATE:  More obvious observations here.

“We definitely as an offense just need to give them momentum,” quarterback Aaron Murray said. “I think when your offense is doing well, your defense gets to rest. You’re putting points up on the board, your defense feels like it’s working for something. I know in the first quarter they were saving our butts, putting them three-and-out, making them punt every time we punted the ball. It’s just hard as a defense when your offense isn’t doing well. …

“We just needed to get more production to get them more rest, to encourage thme, to give them some motivation to keep chugging along and keep getting some three-and-outs for us.”

Awareness is good.  Doing is better.

Advertisement

Baby, mellow my mind.

Saturday night’s loss left me just blasé enough about college football that Maryland’s new jerseys didn’t bother me.

SEC Power Poll, Week 1

Since most of the conference was force fed a diet of cupcakes, it’s hard to set too much in stone this early.  For example, Georgia was outplayed by Boise State in its loss, but does anyone really think Kentucky looked better in its 11-point win over Western Kentucky?

Certainly not this guy.

1. LSU.  When you’re the SEC team that beats a top-five school, you’re gonna start in the top slot.
2. Alabama.  The most predictable performance of the weekend.
3. Arkansas.  The Hogs efficiently devoured their cupcake.
4. Mississippi State.  Dominating a wretched opponent is what a good SEC team is supposed to do.
5. Florida.  I feel like this is a bit of a reach, but the Gators didn’t show their arse in their opener, unlike the next school.
6. South Carolina.  Spurrier’s games with his quarterbacks pay dividends against East Carolina.  His team had better not turn the ball over four times this week.
7. Auburn.  Pulling out a last-minute home win against a school that hasn’t had a winning season in a couple of decades isn’t a good sign.
8. Tennessee.  A meh win against Montana?  Not exactly a mark of greatness.
9. Georgia.  Outcoached again.  But there’s a chance for redemption this Saturday.
10. Kentucky.  The ugliest SEC win I’ve seen since Auburn’s 3-2 abomination.
11. Vanderbilt.  I wanted to rank the Commodores higher, but 83rd nationally in total offense after playing Elon?  I’m not crazy.
12. Mississippi.  Good looking punting game.  Not much else, though.

And in a shocking development, Connor Shaw will not start for South Carolina this week.

Surprising, I know (at least if you think Spurrier gave Garcia all those extra chances out of the kindness of his heart).  But that’s what happens when all the preseason BS about looking better in scrimmage gives way to the game day reality of a 17-0 deficit against what was one of the worst defenses in D-1 last season, highlighted by Shaw’s less than impressive 3-9, 21-yard showing.

“The offense just responded to Stephen better,” said Ace Sanders, who caught Garcia’s lone touchdown pass.

I guess that’s one less thing for Grantham to have to concern himself with this week.

There were lots of turnovers in the game, but, significantly, none were interceptions thrown by Garcia.

The box score has a couple of things of interest about Carolina’s passing game.  First, and atypical for a Spurrier-coached offense, it was small ball:  only 5.2 yards per pass.  Second, it was very concentrated.  Jeffery and Lattimore caught all but two of the Gamecocks’ passes on the day.

That’s not necessarily a matter for relief for us, at least not if you think back to how effective Boise State’s short passing game was against the Dawg defense.

One change on defense I do expect to see this week for Georgia is the insertion of Bacarri Rambo into the starting lineup, with Sanders Commings moving over to corner.  That lets Georgia go larger in the defensive backfield, which is probably a good thing, given South Carolina’s two big offensive weapons.  It also makes it easier to use Branden Smith on offense.  That worked out pretty well the last time the ‘Cocks came calling.

Hotline talk

I’m sure last night’s Bulldog Hotline was a less than pleasant experience for all concerned and it was hard to expect much noteworthy discussion from it, but a reading of Bernie’s transcript (and kudos to him for taking the trouble) of the call-in show actually revealed some matters of substance were touched on:

• The offensive line had a problem with crowd noise.  On the one hand, you wonder why Boise State didn’t seem to struggle as much with that.  On the other, field position may have had something to do with that.
• Boykin didn’t see any more time on offense after his TD run because of hydration problems.
• Branden Smith didn’t play on offense due to his foot not being completely pain-free.
• None of the receivers are drawing serious attention from the opponent’s defense.

Richt had some criticism about players’ execution, but also expressed some criticism of the offensive gameplan, specifically with regard to Murray being allowed to run the ball and the use of screens to cut down on the effectiveness of the defensive pass rush.  He indicated that both would be more prominent in the gameplanning going forward.  Both are good ideas for development.  We’ll see if they really happen.

Surprise, surprise.

It’s time to begin the segue from Boise State to South Carolina.  The bridge for that is asking what came as a genuine surprise to the coaching staff Saturday night… and how much of that is fixable by next Saturday afternoon.

After watching a replay of the first half again, I think the unexpected boiled down to two things.  First, the staff was convinced that the offensive line would hold up better than it did against a Boise State front that Richt went out of his way to praise in the days leading up to the game.  There really isn’t much other way to explain both the playcalling and the decision to run most plays out of shotgun spread formations.

The second area was strength and conditioning.  Certainly the offensive line didn’t get much push when Georgia chose to run the ball between the tackles, but it’s the fall off on defense that was even more noticeable.  The Dawgs started off quite solidly, swarming to the ball, tackling well and showing decent pass coverage abilities early on.  Even if they weren’t able to sack Kellen Moore, they were able to force an end to some of the first quarter possessions by pressuring him.

That changed dramatically once both offenses went hurry-up, though.  Georgia’s defenders seemed to run out of gas as the second quarter wore on and it continued that way after the half.  (Again, Richt’s tactical decision to receive the opening kick really came back to bite him in the ass here.)

The good news is that there are ways to adjust for those concerns.  I’m not sure why there was a reluctance to play without using multiple tight end sets and without fullbacks for much of the night against BSU, but deploying more of those would be easy ways to shore up the line play and reduce the pressure on the tailbacks to pick up the blitz.  And just as obviously, Georgia can ditch the no-huddle offense and try to eat up more clock as it operates on offense.