Statmeister Brian Fremeau’s advice to Georgia about what needs to be addressed in 2012 will come as a surprise to no one who followed the Dawgs last season:
The focal point for next season has to be about finishing games and drives. On methodical drives of ten or more plays, Georgia scored a pathetic 1.5 points per possession (119th nationally and 2.3 points fewer than the national average). Late drives stalled in the bowl game loss to Michigan State due to conservative play calling and execution breakdowns. [Emphasis added.]
That’s a lot of wasted drives. Some of that’s on Bobo, some on the line play and some is on Blair Walsh.
It’s going to be a real challenge to improve that, given the changeover coming on the offensive line. But there’s little doubt it’s one of the big keys for Georgia this season.
Get The Picture 
At times you can blame any coach, any player, or any call for something that does not work out satisfactorily. Lack of execution, as in not making it on 4th & 1, was my biggest concern. I expect much better results from running essentially the same Offense in 2012.. Time will tell. Go Dawgs.
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I agree. Improve the run game and the short yardage situations will be much easier. Sounds so simple on paper…
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In conference play, Georgia was second, behind Vandy, in 4th down conversions.
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And a lot of it’s on Coach Richt allowing the offense to go ultra conservative after crossing midfield out of his love for field goals and his misplaced confidence in a placekicker who clearly didn’t have it this year.
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Bingo!
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Wait, I was led to believe that all of the stats said Coach Bobo was great (except for the scoreboard).
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I’d like to focus on the last part: execution breakdowns. Execution IN THE AGGREGATE (not indivdual players or plays before someone jumps all over me) is a function of coaching. If our guys are consistently not executing on the field it is the coaching staffs failure to prepare them or the staff recruited the wrong guys. I personally have a hard time believing it’s difficult recruiting talent to Georgia. If our offense sucks this year I hold the offensive coaches (of which Bobo is one) accountable, not just Bobo.
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Yeah, plus it’s really hard to execute well when everyone with half a brain in the stadium knows what’s coming.
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Charlotte, you can do that for every D-1 Offense. Have you just figured it out for one team?
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I blame Bobo’s agent for letting “119th nationally” surface in the middle of contract extension negotiations.
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I fart generally in your direction.
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Mike Bobo is a quarterback coach, and from what I understand a darn good one. But he’s not an offensive coordinator. There are several people needed in an operating room, but only one is holding a scalpel. CMB isn’t prepared to hold the scalpel. Certainly not yet, and perhaps not even in this program.
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This.
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That statement would make sense if Bobo were doing worse than his predecessor (the current head coach).
If Dawg fans want wholesale changes in offensive philosophy, then they want CMR gone.
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Good comment. I believe this is true.
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I blame Bevo.
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a lot of people dont seem to understand this. It’s as if they think, “hey, I know! Our roster is loaded up with players suited to run one kind of offense, a style in which our head coach believes, has experience with, and has had success with. It’s not like he’s some defensive guy who’s just going to say, “Here are the keys, OC. Run whatever you like.” It’s also not like he’s going to just junk our current offense to run the spread, or the A-11, or the wishbone.
I’m sure all the “Fire Bobo” guys would be patient with the growing pains any retooled offensive plan suffered through, though. Sure, we might score less points and win less games, but at least Mike Bobo would be gone.
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Nah. They would say it indicated that it was Richt’s fault all along and growing pains prove it.
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Again time will tell: I will continue to believe the Richt / Bobo connection gives the Dawgs The third best OC in the SEC behind those Offensive Geniuses ; Spurrier & Petrino. I continue to disagree completely with the analsis & comments put out by the Bobo Bashers. They are wrong.
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Yep. They sure are, but that doesn’t phase ’em. First they make the sore, then rub bullshit into it until it festers.
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Except it’s not so much the playbook as the predictable way in which the plays are utilized that’s the problem. Would like to see a bit more surprise and risk taking, you know, the way they run the o when we are behind. Problem is not the tactics, but the strategy of going super conservative if we get even a small lead.
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Apparently I am one of few who believes our offensive line might to be a great deal better in 2012. We have enough young, hungry bodies for the heavy competition.
These kids are going to be getting after each others asses all spring, summer, and deep into fall camp. That sounds like a recipe for tough, strong boys with some built up endurance. Throw in a few tailbacks with the same attitude and our running game should take a step in the right direction.
Signed,
Probably too optimistic
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I also feel we will be better at OL this year simply because we just cannot be much worse. I don’t care that two of our starters will be dafted and were highly regarded, OLs perform as a unit; ours never did. We could not open holes orprevent penetration, and we were inconsistent in pass protection despite keeping a TE and running back home on many passing plays. How can you go down from there? Add to it a false start penalty on several opening drives, and other critical times, and I will take whatever we get this fall.
Hate to be negative, but there is no excuse for the OL product we have put on the field the last 6+ years. We need to take a close look at recruitment, conditioning, and a better assignment of blocking resources going forward. The last OL we had that could control the football by clearing a path blocked for Musa. It isn’t just not having a pounding RB, Moreno started most of his runs by getting hit 3 yards deep in the backfield then shaking loose for a 2-3 yard run. For an offense that needs to make play action believable, or buy time for the defense to rest, or run some clock while being conservative we do not seem to have made improving the OL a top priority. It had better become that or we will have have wasted some prime opportunity years. I would like to line up in 3rd and inches just once and feel confident we wouldn’t either get a penalty by the OL before the ball was snapped, or get stood up by all the defensive lines we faced and block the path for a RB to hammer a 1st down out.
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Sadly, Knowshon may have been the worst thing possible for our o-line because it prevented people from getting upset about so many of the problems we had. He made it look easy, so no one (that mattered) really took the time to figure out what was going on.
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If we had had the kind of line we should have, Knowshon would’ve looked even better. We may be remembering his 2007 Heisman season along with a NC.
I think that Richt and Bobo have really let the fans and team down by not making the line a top priority on offense. Grantham recruits the players he wants and needs to make his style of defense work. He does it very well. He did it in 2 years. Why hasn’t Bobo or said “we really need to focus on getting elite OL guys every year.”? After 2006, it should’ve been clear that we had been hurting ourselves badly by not getting elite linemen. Somehow we’ve played 07, 08, 09, 10, and 11 since then without fixing the problem.
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Is that Grantham thing like the second half of the SECCG? Or the second half of the MSU game? Trying to beat other members of the staff over the head with a hyped-up member of the staff is only trying to create dissention among coaches and the team. Get over it!!
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Remember the brief meme during last season about “Georgia has the BIGGEST offensive line in college football OR the NFL!” I cringed when I heard it as I had already seen their horrible play against Boise State and South Carolina. “Vastest Pillow in the entire World of Football” would have been more of an eye-catcher – and accurate too. In terms of making I-line a priority in recruiting, I have no idea why Bobo (and Richt before him) have not done what they have not done. And yes, I’ve seen all the stats of Bob’s achievement – pretty nice in many ways, much like those of our QB. My real gripe over the past couple seasons has been situational, not statistical. From the infamous third and four against Arkansas in 2010 to those first 2 horrible plays in OT against Michigan State – Bobo has given us some real game-changers. As for Murray, a great kid and certainly not without talent but can anyone truthfully state that he carries that intangible spelled C-l-u-t-c-h?
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VdDawg- Perhaps you didn’t see Coach Grantham taking responsibility for letting MSU drive 85 yds down the field to score the winning td. There is enough fault and good play on both sides of the line to absorb all plays as a team. Holding a few plays up for ridicule of coach and player is grossly wrong. Go back and look at the game, including take a good look at the good MSU play that got them that td vs the fith best D in college football. Have some respect for your team and your opponent.
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Mac, there is no proof that Richt sees it that way. He has been stressing the need for more running backs. He must look at the film and see holes that we don’t see, and obviously thinks better backs will get it done.
The day he come out and says some thing to the tune of “kids need to see the opportunity for o-lineman at the university of Georgia” is the day I’ll believe he puts priority in this.
By the way the comment about the line in front of Musas was spot on. The best we had under Richt… And mostly Donnans line I think
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’95 Nebraska had to replace all 5 starters from their ’94 OLine, so yeah, improvement is possible with new faces. Though that’s probably the equivalent of cashing in a Powerball jackpot in its likelihood.
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On top of the line play, Georgia didn’t have a grind-it-out kind of running back either.
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Well they did but he was either on the bench (Boo) or playing LB’er.
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If you are referring to Richard Samuel, I really don’t think of him as a grind it out kind of running back In fact, i just don’t think of him as much of a running back at all. He had one or two good drives against Florida last season, for which I will be eternally grateful. On the whole, though, he’s just not good enough to be running the ball for UGA. Too stiff, takes too long to get moving, and goes down too easily for a guy his size from most of what I’ve seen. Don’t get me wrong, his attitude seems to be top shelf, and I wish it could be cloned. He’s a damn good dawg, just not a damn good running back.
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I guess at Georgia the most popular guy on the roster is the third-string running back.
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Good post on the upcoming Diamond Dogs Season http://dawgsandbstreet.blogspot.com/2012/02/georgia-baseball-2012.html
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“Good is the enemy of Great”, I think Mr Blank said that recently. And I think it sums up how I feel about our Offense, Bobo’s good, but not great. I think we could do better with a new OC, but there is risk inherent with that change.
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Ask Michigan how the Rich Rod experiment ended up. Ask Florida how thrilled they were with Charlie Weis last year. Ask Auburn people how fondly they recall the Tony Franklin era down there. Some people seem to think that all CMR has to do is fire Bobo and snap his fingers, and a young Steve Spurrier will magically appear as his OC, and victories and championships will follow as surely as day follows night.
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Oh, Snap!
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Most people who knew anything knew Rich Rod’s offense would take an incredibly long time to get going at Michigan, if ever. And that Weis was going to flop at Florida. And that Tony Franklin was an ok OC who would be micro-managed to death by Coach Tubs.
In contrast… Todd Monken at OSU was predictably successful. So was Dana Holgorsen at WVU. And I wasn’t surprised that Josh Heupel was successful at Oklahoma. And I bet Leach’s offense will succeed at WSU, even if it takes a little while.
There exist offensive coaches who would definitely improve things at UGA. Or… At least there exist coaches who would be as close to a guaranteed success as you can find.
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Name them where we can participate in a debate. Stop the innuendos about working coaches coming to UGA. Hell, you might learn something about our O coach by doing that. We can dwell on those candidates stats and decisions over the last several seasons and see how it all holds up. Enough of this egotistical ” I am a better O coach than an SEC coach with years of experience in the arena” Pome de Rue.
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Flipside: I’m sure many at Okie State thought bringing in some semi-unknown from Houston to coach their offense (which hadn’t been bad, and scored enough on UGA to win) was madness. Then they finished Top 3 in the nation in all major offensive categories.
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actually, that kind of proves the point. It’s frequently a crapshoot as to whether you get better or worse. If you’re bad/mediocre, it’s worth rolling the dice. If you’ve been consistently productive at a pretty high level, like UGA has, it’s worth remembering that you may not get better, and you may well get worse.
as for Adam, I would like to know who all these people who “knew” Rich Rod would take years to succeed at Michigan, or that Charlie Weis would be a flop at Florida, or that Tony Franklin was doomed at AU are.
and I hear anti-Bobo zealots say all the time “There are lots of people WE CAN GET RIGHT NOW who would be better.” Funny, though, they never say who those people are, where we get them from, what track record of success they have, how experienced they are against SEC caliber defenses (you may have heard that the best players and coaches in football can be found in the SEC) or how the players currently on our roster fit in the cant miss new scheme. Amaze me with actual names and we can have a discussion, but “I know lots of guys who are better” isn’t exactly persuasive.
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Other vague cliches that could apply: “Be careful what you wish for.” “The grass is always greener on the other side.” “One in the hand is worth two in the bush.” “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” I’m not sure how that last one applies.
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“Never start a land war in Asia”
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“Sometimes you eat the barr, and sometimes the barr eats you!”
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Sometimes you are the windshield and sometimes you are the bug…
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Listen, you folks that want Bobo fired seem to think that our offense would somehow be different. You’re nuts! Coach Richt is going to run this same offense he has been running since he got here. Our problem this year was the lack of a running game and/because we had an offensive line that was nothing more than hard hearted guards. I, for one, feel the next year is going to be special; young men who could have gone to the show preferred to stay on the bus. I think they are going to have real leadership and come together as a team. But the Senator had a posting up earlier that compared the Bobo and Richt offenses, and Bobo won out. I don’t think blaming Bobo will solve anything as one poster above pointed out, if you don’t want Bobo, you don’t want Richt.
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Therein lies the rub that chafed me all season, but doesn’t get much mention.
The 2011 offense was NOT the classic I-formation that Richt has always favored (sprint-draw notwithstanding). UGA ran an inordinate number of plays from the shotgun. The tail was moved up into an H-back position with no fullback to lead. The O-line was substandard, sure, but the TB had little room/time to find the lane, being only three yards from the LOS.
This particularly handicapped Samuel, as he is fast but by no means quick.
The outlier game was against FU, when Bobo/CMR broke out the deep-set I, which resulted in Samuel’s best game (running start into the line), nice runs from IC, and a UGA win.
I hope the implications of possibly having three bony-fied TB’s is not lost on the coaches’ decisions regarding formations in 2012.
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The fact that any BOBO topic can gather this much comments indicates real dissatisfaction on his abilities and the lack of balls of both BOBO and CMR.
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Unless you are on the other side of that insane argument. The few posting on here don’t constitute the many you imply. Those statements you make have to be the weakest statements I’ve read on here for some time.
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So we have the equivalent of the “bend but don’t break defense”, except we have the “control the ball but don’t score offense”. I’ve often thought that our biggest problem on O was that we don’t understand that SCORING IS THE PRIME OBJECTIVE, not number of plays we can get off, not the formation, not ball control, not running the clock, not even execution, etc., etc., etc. We run plays for the sake of running plays, not with the objective of scoring as often as is possible – that is our fatal mistake, and the true indictment of our offensive approach.
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Twinkie.
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Having Stacy Searles leave UGA for Texas was a coupe for Bobo. I believe Bobo knew Searles was an idiot and didn’t want to cause problems because he saw how the Richt vs VanGorder vs Gardner deal worked out for VanGorder. I remember the last several years before last season we would hear about how the positions on the offensive line had not beeen determined. It sounded like no one knew what the hell was going on. Again Bobo is responsible but he saw what happened to VanGorder. Then this past summer under Will Friend you heard rumblings of Searles’ coaching technique, ala lean forward and try to hit someone because KM would make any would be tackler miss. What we witnessed was a resurgence of teaching technique and pulling guards and tackles. When Highschool coaches see that Friend is a good coach they will help recruiting the OL.
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O-line has to be the most complicated part of the football team, especially in this conference. Watching SEC defenses blow up other team’s offensive fronts in bowl games always makes me feel better.
I don’t think scoring will be an issue next season. The offense will have a consistency that only depth/experience can provide, and that allows offensive identity, which becomes confidence, which becomes execution…. Offense felt to me like it was learning on the fly this year, with the usual unexpected surprises, both good and bad.
This team could be scary-good next season. It’s got the tangibles to dominate every game on the schedule. I don’t mean blow people out – I mean be in control of every game.
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I blame Richt for all of that. Its his O strategy, and always has been. If he wanted a more aggressive O, we would have one.
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