Upon further review: Vandy, when egos clash

Yeah, I went back and watched that turkey of a game again.  Just for you, Dawgnation.

• Georgia didn’t defend the run worth a damn in the second half, but that was the best I’ve ever seen a Georgia defense play against the bubble screen.  I guess we know what they worked on during the week leading up to the game.
• If it seemed like Aaron Murray threw the ball a lot, it’s because he did.  I had to check – 38 pass attempts is the most he’s ever thrown in a game, tied with last year’s loss against UCF.
• Anybody wonder how the end of the game would have played out if Rambo had returned his interception an easy ten or fifteen more yards before taking a knee?
• Other teams’ success with junk plays and special teams’ breakdowns has got to stop some time, doesn’t it?
• No offense to the other backs, but everything seems different when Isaiah Crowell is in the game.
• There were plenty of “almost” plays by the defense, led by Kwame Geathers’ near-safety and the flattening of Jordan Rodgers that came a millisecond too late to disrupt a long completion on Vandy’s third-quarter scoring drive (Jordan Love’s terrible technique didn’t help on that play either).
• Jarvis Jones just keeps showing up and kicking ass.  And getting held constantly.
• I’m not sure if I’ve seen any team blitz as constantly against Georgia as Vanderbilt.  The run blitzes were particularly effective, but left them susceptible to cutbacks and counters, which Richard Samuel IV (!) took advantage of.
• Good job by Murray seeing the breakdowns in the secondary on the two TDs to Marlon Brown.  But the pass that really wowed me, a perfectly thrown ball to Tavarres King in the fourth quarter, wound up incomplete because King couldn’t quite get a foot in bounds on the play.
• Monster game from Abry Jones.  I especially liked the pass bat down on the play he dropped into coverage on.
• What has happened to 344-Fullback?
• The receivers stepped it up in the second half, but the deep threat from Malcolm Mitchell was certainly missing.  It’ll be good to get him back for the Cocktail Party.
• I’m not excusing what Geathers did to draw the personal foul penalty, but I can’t say I don’t understand why it happened.  For all intents and purposes, the play was over (Geathers had slowed to a near-walk) when he got blind-sided from behind by Vandy’s center.  It was the kind of cheap shot that gets somebody’s knee hurt.
• Holy cow, is Bob Rathbun a bad play-by-play announcer, or what?  He referred to Samuel in the plural the entire first quarter, called Vanderbilt’s first punter “Richard Dent” (it’s Kent), missed players all night (he had a particularly bad time recognizing where the quarterbacks went in the Wildcat) and in general sounded like someone who showed up 30 minutes before the broadcast started, got handed a roster card and a couple of newspaper articles listing five keys to the game and told to get going.  Pam Ward may suck, but at least she sounds like she makes an effort to prepare.  Rathbun mailed that in worse than Georgia’s defense did in the second half.
• And finally, the real reason I watched again:  Franklin vs. Grantham.  I couldn’t see everything (thanks, Fox!) and I think Grantham could have made his point with a few less f-bombs, but I will say that Franklin is being a wee bit disingenuous when he says he just went looking for Richt to start with.  The whole mess began with Franklin calling out and pointing at Shawn Williams, who had his backed turned and was walking away from the tirade.  Then Franklin saw Grantham and the rest is history.

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UPDATE:  I forgot to mention Ray Drew’s game.  My bad.

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