On my way to the earliest start for a college game I’ve ever attended… not made any easier by my juke joint hopping in Clarksdale last night.
Beautiful day in Oxford. Hope the game lives up to the weather.
Consider this the game day comment thread post.
Filed under Georgia Football
“We remember the Sugar Bowl, I think it my junior year of high school, we let Alabama beat us twice,” Brinson said of a team that also lost to the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship game. “We’re not letting Alabama beat us twice. In the Sugar Bowl in 2018, they… thought they should have been in the playoffs and lost to Texas.” -- AB-H, 12/27/23
Get The Picture
Today is the day to make our first step back to SEC relevancy and respectibility. Make it a BIG one Dawgs!
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Does blowing out probably the worst team in the conference mean anything? It’d be nice, but we still won’t know anything until we get through MSU and Tennessee.
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Fair enough.
This would be a good start though.
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Point is we gotta start somewhere.
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We didn’t blowout anyone. We won by 14.
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The game wasn’t that close, but that’s beside the point. The point was that beating Ole Miss 50-0 or 27-13, we won’t know anything until they play someone better.
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Clarksdale!? I hear ya, brother! Some sho-nuff blues goin’ on down there. Pull ’em through! Hope you have a good time and a good rest of the trip. Go DAWGS!
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I haven’t watched College GameDay in a long time, but…
Is Corso drunk or just losing it?
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Not to make excuses for Corso, but he recently had a stroke (a little over 2 years ago) and has had trouble regaining full speech, so he always sounds drunk. I never minded Corso because I just thought he was too goofy to take seriously.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=4213090
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Thanks for the link. His speech was definitely irregular and that explains it.
I don’t mind Corso at all, unlike Holtz, who is obnoxious. Corso doesn’t bring a lot of analysis to the table but he’s just there for the grandpa color.
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I will forego any game Holtz has anything to do with, I don’t give a damn how bad I want to watch it. I cannot stand even the thought of him sucking his dentures and spraying his interlocutors with a fine mist of saliva as he gives his “insight” on football or anything.
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Andre Ware is generally an idiot, but he just called out Bobo. After having our way running the ball, Bobo for some reason decided to go all pass, resulting in the interception off of OC’s hands.
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I don’t really fault Bobo for the receiver letting a ball bounce off his hands. Passing was working too. You could argue why goes from what was working, but to me that wasn’t playcalling.
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I just saw Richard Samuel take a hit and fight for 4-5 extra yards. Be still my trembling heart.
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I thought that too! It was impressive.
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Liked Samuel’s receiving. I hope he does well, he’s a DGD.
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Seems we can do no wrong from the I. Nice to see CMB takes our advice on GTP. 😉
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There’s something appealing about LSU at West Virginia. LSU is going to the only stadium in the country where the crowd could be drunker than Baton Rouge.
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Drunk on cough syrup.
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Where is SwanSong to blame all these dropped passes on Murray?
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Awesome.
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Ole Miss sure is lippy for 0-3.
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We sure are lippy for 0-2/
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Is it just me or did that 3rd and 25 handoff to Crowell seem like it was Bobo’s way of conceding that he just wanted out of that offensive series while simultaneously being able to raise the number of touches for Crowell.
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Totally agree. It was a pitiful call.
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Hindsight is 50/50 guys… Crowell only needed 20 more yards for that 1st down. /sarcasm
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Might as well punt on 3rd down in those situations. So frustrating.
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Yeah let’s try to throw a long pass that can be intercepted or give up a sack trying to protect long enough to throw it. It is 3rd and frickin’ 25. The D was playing great. You don’t do something stupid there and let them gain momentum. Bobo did the right thing there. See if we can bust a run and if not punt and let the D hold them.
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I’m listening at work today, but it sure seems odd that Crowell did not get a touch the last 7-8 minutes of the half (ESPN play-by-play) considering he already has 92 yards.
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^Bobo going back to bad habits…because he can
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Crowell was gimpy. Maybe ribs again.
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He was hurting or gassed.
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Murray is locking on to WR’s again. Mason time please. Our special teams are not very special.
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I thought they were pretty “special”, unfortunately.
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They just said that Herschel is UGA’s only Heisman winner.
Frank Sinkwich responded, “Hey! What about me???”
Great job, SEC Network. Top not stats there…
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They corrected it now…
Frank says, “It’s about time!”
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Yeah, it’s the SEC Network. You’d think they would know the SEC Heisman winners.
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2 missed FG’s = Bad Loss
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What does 3 equal?
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14-point win.
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I think Walsh has developed the “S” word!
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Imagining David Caradine’s character from Kill Bill (Bill) sitting around a camp fire, playing his flute and concluding a story to Blair.Walsh saying “and then you’ll miss three field goals, and that will be the story of you”
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I prefer the David Caradine from Circle of Iron.
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David Carridine in Kung Fu. Definitely.
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Everyone feeling better about the Dawgs now? Me neither.
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Well…..um….we won, and we identified LOTS of potential for improvement.
So there’s that.
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^this
Somehow this seems like the SCar game all over again. Hopefully they’ll come out swinging next Saturday vs. MSU
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LOTS of potential for improvement is another way of saying we still aren’t a good football team. And we’re not.
The best we can hope for is that we don’t hang ourselves with dumb mistakes and make winning completely impossible.
This team has some wins in it, but I don’t see any reasons to believe we’ll be better than 8-4.
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Jeebus, that should have been 40-0. Mississippi is terrible.
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All their points were via trick plays and/or because of our special teams. Our d did fine. remove the squirrels from Walsh’s head and the score woulda been a lot better. If we need to address issues at kicker and on special teams this was a good game to find out.
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Well. That was like watching an old woman die.
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+1….eh…..thousand
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It went as I thought. I knew the Rebels would play hard at home and Nutt pulled out all the stops. UGA needs to get some people healthy before next week. Special teams need a lot of work. They are suckers for trick plays. Without those plays the Dogs are three and one and this game is a blowout win.
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Much agreed. O and D played well. Special teams were very poor. 3 missed FGs and a punt return against = 15 points that our special teams cost us. Coulda, woulda, shoulda been a 36-7 final. That score would have better reflected our statistical dominance of that game.
PS: Throw in the onside kick (that led to no points) that we all saw coming…except our coaches and players.
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This win does not give me a good feeling.
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Let me help.
34 yards rushing to 207. 8 first downs (to 25). 475 total yards to 183. Do we typically miss more FGs than we make?
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Thank you sir exactly. If Walsh was a fresh I would be tripping, but he is an ALL- AMERICAN senior for a reason. I bet we get him fixed, and I bet we win 1-2 games this year on our game ending field goals.
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Thanks for this. Makes me feel better.
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Just left the grove. My in depth analysis is as follows: Ole Miss sucks. UGA is a good team that makes enough mistakes during a game to only be average. Best part of the day was a bourbon drink at 8am.
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Now you’re just rubbin’ shit in.
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Now was that 8am Eastern or Central? Either way, it’s always nice to have strong drink before lunch!
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I saw a desperate Ole Miss team that scored their only points with razzle dazzle. I saw a Georgia team that moved the ball effectively and became boring in the second half knowing that Ole Miss could not move the ball against our defense. Well done boys!
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1
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Brassell Dazzle
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This team has plenty of talent. What the UGA AD needs to do is just add another coach to the staff to make all tactical decisions during the games (go for it on 4th down or kick, go for 2 point conversion or kick, clock management, etc.), manage the team roster (be in charge of recruiting, decide who to sign, decide which positions need new players, etc.), supervise the coordinators and take overall responsibility for decision making for all aspects of the team…er…Wait.
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Perhaps you missed my post above. 34 yards rushing to 207. 8 first downs (to 25). 475 total yards to 183. Do we typically miss more FGs than we make?
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Not sure your post above really means anything. Did you actually watch the game?
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We won, we dominated in stats, and the outcome of the game was never seriously in question. what more do you people want? A scoreboard with a ton of numbers on it? That’s not our style.
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The game was very much in question until pretty much the very end…
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No, it wasn’t.
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Ah….yes, it was.
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To me, 0 points by the opposing team in the second half says that it wasn’t, so I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
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Pessimism for the sake of pessimism?
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Nope…I’m an optimist! 🙂
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It wasn’t pretty, but if this were 2 teams I cared nothing about, and one team scored the first 2 times they had the ball and after that the other team never had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead, I certainly wouldn’t say the game was “very much in question until pretty much the very end.”
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Every second. Did you? I am tired of the armchair coaches firing off from the comfort of their laptops. We whipped the Rebs. Did you ever think the game was in doubt?
Some plays work, some don’t. This is true for Saban’s teams as well, but I suppose that allowing any offense (or not scoring on every possession) drives the “experts” out there crazy. I, for the record, do not lump the Mayor in that group, as I find his posts to be typically reasonable.
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Thank you. The above was my feeble attempt at humor.
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Yes, any game where the score is 24-13 at the half is very much in doubt. What everyone is pointing out, I think, is that the mistakes we make against Ole Miss, that our talent was able to overcome, are the same mistakes we make against better teams, that our talent cannot overcome. So what we do today in a win is an indication of what we do next week in a loss. Personally, my jaw drops at the number of run plays CMB calls on 3rd and long – seriously?! That’s not a question of opinion, it’s amazingly, statistically stupid. I am annoyed by the fact that we always try a field goal on 4th down deep in our opponents’ territory instead of KTMFD and getting the touchdown we believe is our God-given right as Bulldogs. I am annoyed that B. Smith is still fielding punts, given his inability to make a decision. I do not like seeing our freshman running back, however talented, running his mouth at the opposition. I am never going to be okay with our scoring a single field goal in the second half of a two score game…
I like CMR, and wish him well, but between the game today and talking to a friend who has some pretty close ties to the program, who said it is in serious disrepair, I want more than a fine man as our head ball coach. I want a fine man who will mold fine men, too.
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Wow, you probably should pull for another team. “Statistically stupid” – nice! Given that the Dawgs were winning and a punt against a team that cannot move the ball is a 40+ yard play. How many of those do you get a game?
Clearly, I am ill-informed, as I do not have the “close ties”. But the game I watched was a standard whipping of a bad team by a better team. Did I suggest that we were without flaw? No. But I also did not pretend to know how to run a D1 football program either. I will take a solid win (or 9) like this every time.
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Of course I’m pulling for the Dawgs! And I’m pulling for CMR as well. But tell me that a run play on 3rd and 12 or whatever is statistically “smart”. By your reasoning, we should have punted every down, then…and I’m not talking about punts, I’m talking about kicking field goals. 27-13 is not a whipping where I come from. And I don’t see how putting my comments out there like everybody else is claiming to know how to run a D1 football team…if we can’t say anything about what we’re seeing, why are any of us here?
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That’s curious, because my friend with closer ties to the program than your friend tells me this is a team that is young, thin at key positions because of attrition and injuries, and that will demonstrably improve as the season continues and wounds heal.
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My friend is CMR.
Seriously…youth and injuries two years in a row is not a very good excuse in your tenth year. Listen, I love the guy. I’ve just heard that the team is a little aimless…was sad to hear it. I agree that they will get better this year, I hope they run the rest of the table and CMR picks the reins back up. Maybe he has. I just think we’re making bizarre decisions and still don’t see tons of discipline out there. Vandy has a great team this year, but consider the difference in the scores of their game and our game…
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I’d say injuries are a reasonable excuse. You can’t really coach injuries out of a program and the only option we have to limit damage injuries would cause us is to oversign. Our two starter inside linebackers go down with foot injuries and a true freshman and a walk on step up pretty well imo.
And WHAT? Vanderbilt is a great team now? They’re an interesting team and I’ll root for them because I really like their coach, but there’s nothing about them that I would call great. Great by Vandy standards, sure, great by SEC standards, no way.
Carolina’s offense is playing like total garbage and they’re still pounding Vandy. I’d say this is exactly like our game today; the score doesn’t tell the story of the game.
If this is what our fan base is coming to – looking and stretching to find things to complain about that aren’t even reasonable just for the sake of being down – then I don’t even know what to think anymore. No today wasn’t perfect and I could nitpick if I wanted, but I think I’ll just enjoy a victory in which we, for the most part, looked very good.
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Then what does the score of the Vandy-SC game tell us? Transitive properties don’t really amount to much in football.
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Sounds like your close friend is CMR. Maybe even Buck Belue. This team does have talent. What they lack is direction and leadership. Talent beats weak teams more often than not. However, coaching is needed when the talent level is equal. We have seen this team drop 9 of their last 11 games against ranked opponents. At some point you have to accept the fact that our staff is comin up short. Yes, they won today. Great.
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Dear Septic Dawg;
Please let it go, and join the ranks of Gator or Wreck fans.
We’ve heard every negative nugget you can mine.
When UGA wins next week, you will say CMR has lost 9 of 12 games against ranked teams.
The next week: 9 of 13, and on and on.
I have a nice Saturday night, UGA victory buzz. Fuck you for messin’ with it.
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I’m pretty sure they didn’t go for it on 4th an short because they wanted to try to get Walsh right in the head after the misses. As for running on 3rd and long, sometimes it’s the right call. Sometimes I disagree with it. I still don’t have any major complaints with the game today. Ole Miss was obviously never going to score, and the win was comfortable. 41-14 would have been nice, but it wouldn’t have proven anything about this team.
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BC, I am curious about what your friend who is close to the program has to say concerning specifically what is wrong with the program. We on the outside just see results. Someone on the inside could provide intelligence as to cause and effect.
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Only negatives: missing three field goals, giving up 3 sacks to a bad team, following our trend of immediately surrendering a quick td after getting a two td lead, and looking like an old New York Life commercial on defense during the punt return touchdown.
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Guess you enjoyed the part where #25 tries to field the onsides kick rather than going after the ball. Oh and the dropped passes, they were fun. And more penalties for Bean. These types of things have been problems for quite some time now.
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Ummm we won. By two possessions. Am I missing something here??
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Apparently, you are…
Don’t get me wrong, of course I’m glad we won, and I thought there were many bright spots. But to say the “only negatives were…” is foolish. Yes we won by 2 scores… and remember that they had scores called back as well. Ole Miss is not a good team, and will struggle to win a game in the SEC.
The same problems keep bubbling to the surface, and they have been for going on 3 years now. If you can’t see that, then yes, you are missing something bigtime.
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Special teams problems are new, and the most glaring problem of the past two years, a porous defense, seems to have largely been corrected. There are at least signs it’s much better than in recent years. So I do NOT think the “same problems keep bubbling to the surface”.
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Wasn’t ugly.
UGA with over 450 yds with 10 minutes left (Old Miss had about 160 then).
If those passes aren’t dropped, Murray easily has 300 yds, and possibly another td or two.
His only Int bounced off the receiver’s chest.
I wanted to step on their necks, but CMR always seems to get just what he thinks he need in this type of game.
I hope Bobo’s saving lots of passes to Figgins and IC for the State game, ’cause they shore are purty.
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i’d say we would have looked good had it not been for some silly errors but that’s what we’ve been saying since 2008. Stupid mental mistakes is what keeps UGA from taking the next step as a program from crappy to ok.
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not to say we can’t get better but today we looked like the same old same old.
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A few miscellanies:
1. That TD catch by Charles was A.J.-esque. Really great hands there.
2. I need to see the replay again, but I’m still not convinced the ball didn’t hit the ground as TK tried to catch it.
3. Mitchell’s gonna be a good one.
4. You can shank field goals like that in Oxford and still win, but you can’t do that in Starkville, Knoxville, or JAX. Prolly not even in Nashville. Not this team.
5. Special teams are so schizophrenic. Anyone else notice how good KO coverage has been on the whole this year? But offsetting this are the failure to defend against an onside kick (Ole Miss), KO reverse (Ole Miss), or fake punt (USC) and the failure to execute an onside kick (USC).
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2. the *INT* ball.
6. What was Brandon Smith thinking on that punt that rolled through his legs?
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Was his tip o’ the hat to the pending Red Sox collapse / Bill Buckner memories.
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He was thinking “Holy shit I’m glad that thing didn’t touch me as it rolled through my legs.”
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You’re spot on about the KO coverage. It was stellar today.
Punting was bi-polar. Two returned for TDs, one called back, sandwiched between two of the best kicks of Butler’s career.
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I hope Richt isn’t getting all teary-eyed and loading up the punt coverage team with walk-ons so they’ll get their shot in the arena. I don’t know if he is, but if so, the punt team will always be a crap shoot.
I can’t shake the feeling, after suffering through Ray Goff’s tenure, that this team mirrors the kind of teams Ray coached. There is loads of talent at some positions, almost none at others. I see some of the same underachievement in the coaching staff in position coaching fundamentals, player selection, strategy and overall preparedness. I thought we were past this, but it appears we’re back in the mid-90’s.
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+1. Same here–I’m having a 90’s flashback, too, watching these guys. Same mistakes, same excuses, mostly same results. Same hope every week that we’ll put it altogether. Same disappointment when we don’t. Generally beat lousy teams by winning ugly (and fans saying be happy with a win) and losing in every kind of way, including blowouts and heartbreakers, to decent, good, or excellent teams (and same fans saying that we are “this close”). The lid is firmly on again.
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Yep, exactly the same feeling. Goff could beat the bottom-feeders, but quality wins vs. quality opponents were non-existent. The excuses drove me nuts from both Ray and some of the apologists in the fanbase. I’ve got deja vu.
I fear the story won’t have a happy ending.
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UGA played a better game than we’ve seen in a while against an sec opponent. So I’ll take it and won’t bother with picking over the negatives or positives – and there was plenty of each. Next week will be a tougher test, but I think we have a chance.
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Exactly. Why can’t we all take a moment to savor a victory? Can’t the bitching wait until we lose again?
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UGH we won and people STILL have to complain about something. No it wasn’t perfect but good lord we won. Stop effing complaining about everything. Energy vampires like woah. #disneydawgforlife
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The negativity is god damned annoying.
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They aren’t complaining about EVERYTHING. They are complaining about the same things they’ve been complaining about for 3+ years.
People complain because they also watch teams like Bama, LSU, etc who go out, look 100% prepared, make very few mistakes, and kick the doors off of teams.
We have not done that in quite some time.
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LSU is coming off a season where they eked out wins over bad Ole Miss and Tennessee teams. That they’ve been impressive so far this year doesn’t make them the gold standard of preparation and dominance year-in, year-out.
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They eeked out what now? Wins?
Great example.
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That’s a separate argument. I was replying directly to the notion that LSU is always prepared and kicks the doors off teams. But thanks for not bothering to read.
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I felt like today was a good day. I do feel like we haven’t reached the ceiling of our potential yet, especially on offense, but I really liked the defense. I saw guys in position to make plays, and they did far more than enough to keep us in the game.
Offensively, there’s still some growing pains. Murray perplexes me at times, as do our receivers’ rubber hands, but Crowell is the man and we are going to be a LOT better if he stays healthy.
Special teams needs to get their stuff together though. That was unacceptable from what is supposed to be an obvious plus on our team.
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A resounding meh.
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Really? That strong?
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I bask in the glory of an SEC win!! Some negatives but they can wait until practice next week. Truly think some coach should call Crowell on his jawing with defenders..refs won’t let that go for long. Was shockingly pleased at the offensive line..did you not how they moved out and blocked? And, I do think Murray is a little tenative in throwing the ball away and living to play again. But, I digress…glory, glory to old Georgia! GATA!!
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CMR did run out there and get in Crowells ear after he was mouthing off at some Ole Miss defenders.
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Obviously not the total thumping I was hoping to see out there but it seems to me that one of the big reasons why the Dawgs were ineffective in the second half is because they were tired. Georgia used 51 players against Ole Miss. In addition to the 22 starters there were 29 other players who saw some action, most of them special teamers. The starting OL went the distance. Crowell got 30 carries. The defense has allowed exactly one TD in eight quarters, despite all the injuries.
Walsh missing three FGs is even more mind-boggling than the ridiculous scoring giveaways that led to South Carolina’s win a couple of weeks ago. But it seems like a 33-7 score would have been a more accurate reflection of how the game went.
Now the Dawgs get to come home and face a team that got taken into OT by…Louisiana Tech?
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And if we win next week people will complain that it was only against a 2-3(after we beat them) Miss State team that almost lost to LA Tech.
Was today a great game for the team, no, but it did have more good things than bad.
Good – 17-0 start.
Rushing offense (4.9ypc if you take away Murray’s rushing numbers.
TE’s involved again 8 catches 2td’s.
defense allowed 1 TD.
4 sacks
2 interceptions.
188 yards allowed.
close to 500 yards of offense.
Crowell despite getting tired getting 30 carries.
Bad –
dropped passes (one led to the int)
punt return for TD
settling for 5 fg attempts
missing 3 fg attempts
3 sacks allowed
Best – SEC Road victory and so far as I have heard no new injuries.
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Great summary.
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The true winners today were the male students of Ole Miss. JESUS. The Grove was a talent show. Unreal.
They put our tailgate culture to shame. Adams should take note.
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Mike Adams grinned a little when he read this.
Two thumbs up to the grove. Wow.
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A win is a win: especially in-conference. But this win was a little less satisfying than hoped. Given the state of Ole Miss’s program and hopes for UGA’s, the score was disappointing. I hoped for something like 40-7 (which we more or less would have achieved with the made FGs – how, again, did that happen?)
While Georgia clearly dominated the stat sheet, it feels like nothing has really changed. Someone wrote “meh” and I think that feels right. We got sacks, but they weren’t… well, it took 2 or 3 guys to get the QB down. We moved the ball, but we didn’t finish drives. Crowell looked good in the first half, but was clearly gassed in the 4th quarter. It’s these type of things that dampen the spirit even after a win.
Maybe I’m more jaded than I think? In ’07, we needed a FG to win in Nashville but that win set us on a roll through the rest of the year. Stranger stuff has happened.
Carolina was pedestrian, but I got the sense that Spurrier sandbagged by chunking it around instead of just doing what he ought to (you know, leaning on that RB). It’s like he can’t help himself. Still, tougher tests await them and it isn’t hard to see 2 losses or more down the line for SC.
Same is true for Georgia. It’s difficult to see UGA winning in Jax at the moment. Next week and Knoxville look like serious challenges for this team. Say what we want, but Mullen’s team is competitive and knocked the rust off from two tough losses against LaTech; our history in Knoxville speaks for itself. At this point, I don’t care how we get to 4-2 if we get there.
One enduring positive from watching the game on TV: UGA will never need to make another gameday advertisement again.
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We are average at best, still underperforming or in other words, not playing to our potential, and still completely irrelevant on the national scene.
Georgia football is better than this.
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Would Georgia be relevant on the national scene if the score had reflected the dominance of the performance? Otherwise, you’re still complaining about the opening two games, which is fine if you want to do that. Makes for a depressing experience as a fan though.
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I’m as underwhelmed by the score as anyone; but I was impressed by our defense yesterday. Holding any SEC team to under 200 yards of total offense is pretty good, particularly when a good chunk of that came on a trick play. I know Ole Miss’s offense is terrible, but two starting linebackers are out with injuries, so I think it’s a wash.
I honestly think Richt kept trotting Walsh out there on 4th and short was to get the kid back on track. He knew the defense was playing well, and needs his kicker to regain his confidence. Not saying I agree with it, but it’s defensible.
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