No fireworks, just nourishment.
- Chip Towers has a Q&A with a thoughtful Chris Conley that’s worth a read.
- Would the new SEC Network make the conference think about providing more Thursday night product? “It’s certainly something that we would look at…”
- Michigan looks to hoover a few more wallets by introducing dynamic pricing for single game tickets.
- A case is made that yards per point has its problems as a measure of efficiency, but it boasts a stronger correlation with winning percentage than the suggested alternative. Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t that matter more in the end?
- Bruce Feldman lists his national title contenders and finds that, once again, scheduling matters. (“I almost included Georgia in the decent-shot group but feel like the Dawgs have too many key guys to replace on D, especially with such a treacherous first few weeks of the season.”)
- Why do teams give wide receivers those large cushions?
- Georgia Tech Athletic Association finishes the last fiscal year $1.8 million in the hole, losing more than a third of that with trips to the ACCCG and the Sun Bowl. At that rate, they may have to cut promotions back to three tickets, three hot dogs and three Cokes.
Get The Picture 
That’s the best bit of snark I’ve heard in a while…
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That Chris Conley is one smart guy! Proud to hear so many players stayed this summer. Oh, we are going to be sooo g o o d.
Thursday night can be better, but until HS FB season is over, we should leave Friday Night for our recruiters. The season is over by the end of Oct. GT will recover the money. Know too many alumni who will take care of that deficit.
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The funny thing about all the concerns about UGA’s early schedule is that teams OFTEN lose once in the regular season and still make or win the NC game. If we lose to LSU but win the others, or if we lose to Clemson but win the others, we will be in a good position the rest of the year. Even if we lose to SC but win the others, the door will not remotely be closed. These folks think we’ll lose two of those early games? If so, the concern is not the schedule but the quality of the team.
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Amen gast1! The only problem I see as the Senator shares with us is LSU’S Defense. Of course Alabama’s D plays like the pros. Hopefully Todd is running these films over and over again to our defense. We have the ability to be as good as LSU’s D, Alabama….not so much.
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I agree. If you’re going to lose. it’s better to lose early.
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I don’t have a problem with the schedule except that we do not have a tune-up game at the beginning. Going back in time to when UGA regularly played Clemson, that game was usually the 2nd, 3rd or 4th game of the season. It’s awfully tough to get the kinks worked out without the benefit of a tune-up game. After Clemson we immediately get South Carolina. I would have scheduled Clemson later in the season but I’m not the AD.
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Thursday night? Georgia, Just. Say. No.
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+1
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I like # 31: ” we haven’t done shit yet.”
Dynamic pricing: legalized scalping by Universities. It’s not about the money……
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And…Thursday night football is for nerds and pussies
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No, Thursday night football is for Vandy, Kentucky, Auburn and the likes. Don’t need those teams taking up too much time on Gameday unless they are playing the DAWGS.
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I think that’s what he said.
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Ya know I love ya Cojones…..but Honey Bobo is fine. It’s Todd that needs to be on his toes. Ya know what I mean?
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Feldman is right in his analysis, imo. The teams he picked definitely have the best chance of going undefeated this year. Looking at the schedules I think we may have 2 or 3 teams do that. If we beat SC, I think we get to Atlanta, and that is my goal. That would hurt the Tide’s chances as UGA and A&M are the only SEC teams with enough offense to beat them.
I wish we were playing Clemson on thursday night, would love to have the extra two days of rest and prep SC will be getting. Like hating on JUCO recruits, I have never understood the opposition from Dawg fans. As long as it isn’t a home game, who cares? I hope the SEC does add some games to the Thursday mix, I am tired of having them layered on too of one another every Saturday night. Give us some spacing, please.
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That Clemson game would be nice to play on Thursday night. You are right Mac. However, we need the National coverage in the opener. Our DAWGS love that attention and will play accordingly.
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Uh, there is nothing more “national” than Thursday nights. No regional competition, no networks carrying alternative programming, and very few games for CFB fans to switch to. Lot of folks don’t realize how bad the 3:30 time slot is because of local interest game overlap, or CBS affiliates not even broadcasting the game. Saturday nights are good for prime viewing but there are several games on at once. There are usually 3-4 SEC games on after 5 PM on Saturday and at least one more big game not involving the SEC. I am not saying a regular diet of Thursday night games, but it is excellent national exposure, better than just about any outside the SECCG, and a non-contested bowl slot with a major opponent. Many games are “national”, “exclusive” is what you really want. Florida State will have nearly as big an audience, or bigger, on Monday night against Pitt than we will on Saturday night against Clemson.
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I do love they way you go on…. It kinda turns me on. You scoundrel!
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“It’s certainly something that we would look at…”
Strange, I think I recall SEC brass crowing recently about how “we are a Saturday league.” Guess Slive/Womack forgot to first ask the fine folks in Bristol what the SEC’s opinion was.
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That Murray pass out of freaking nowhere to Chris Conley in the 2011 Cocktail Party is still one of my favorite plays of ours as of late.
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Chris Conley is a great representative for the DAWGS both on field and off.
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+1.
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it is easy to dismiss Conley’s comments as a bit of of Dawgporn. Further, this continues the streak of not a single college program in america ever not working harder than the prior year’s summer. So I get the caution which which these remarks are taken. That said, as the two of you point out…condider the source. Conley is as credible a guy as we have in our program. He works hard. He is a team first guy. His performance is remarkably consistent. He has done so with good but not out of wordly talent. Not that anyone is, but I think that is HUGE mistake to dismiss these remarks. In fact, I am a bit surprised that folks are not jumping on them because in concert with Bobo, Friend, and Aaron’s comments, they fit a pattern. Our offense is striving for MORE. They are not resting on their laurels. They don’t view last year’s success as the “ultimate goal”. In fact, it appear the OPPOSITE has occured. They tasted a bit of success and have enough confidence to know that they are capable of great things, but they are striving for more.
One can never know for certain how these things will turn out, but color my glasses a bit more red and black from his remarks. I think he understands what needs to be done. So do our I think our OL and OL coach as do Aaron and Bobo get it. Finally, I think our RBs are just so damn good that our offense because they keep our offense “ahead of the chains” which gives Aaron and Bobo flexibility to take chances downfield, but they are also capable of delivering long runs if they get any kind of blocking.
If it was some walkon freshman or some guy who had perpetually underachieved spouting this stuff, I think it could be dismissed. Its came from perhaps one of the 5 most credible guys on our team in my book….
others “credible sources” in case you are wondering
Aaron
Burnette
Garrison Smith
Marshall
Mitchell
Andrews
Marlo
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I don’t disagree, it does seem like the offense, including Bobo, is aware how significant it is for them to play to their full potenital in 2013. I trust them about how hard they are working, I still think it is extremely rare to see improvement over what they delivered in 2012. Look at how many huge plays that group made, the number of long, long runs, and timely completions when needed. UGA led the nation in yards per play, playing an SEC schedule no less; almost impossible to do considering the high flying offenses in conferences that don’t put a premium on defense.
When I stated before that my prediction was the defense would exceed expectations and the offense would fall short of what fans expect, it wasn’t a lack of effort that concerned me with the O, just that it may be unrealistic to see them doing better. This group has excellent leadership with Murray, and a mature group of players under him, whatever we see will be the result of their best efforts. The RBs and receivers have all been unselfish in their approach from what I have seen, refreshing these days.
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Statistically, I think your point is a valid one. Our offense set a high bar. at 7.1 ypp, there is not a lot of “up” from there and there is quite a bit of down relative to average. In fact, there have not been many instances of SEC teams above 7 and Auburn was the high 7.37 with Cam. Certainly, there were a LOT of big plays that come to mind like Marshall’s long runs against Vandy and UT, Conley’s catch and run against Nebraska, Murray to King against Ole Miss before the half, virtually any offensive play against Tech or Auburn, and almost any pass to our TEs who seemed to be treated as invisible by defenses. So yes, there were a LOT of big plays that lead to those results, but we also had two games where our offense MASSIVELY under performed its average in UF and USC. While both team’s defenses explain a bit of it, our performance against Bama was a better proxy for our offense against an elite defense (as all parts of our offense seemed function in line albeit against a higher quality opponent). Logic suggest you are correct. that said, its hard to argue that our offense was fluky. I don’t get a sense that we benefitted from a lot of “luck” in guys making crazy leaping catches or defenders falling down in pursuit of Gurley and Marshall. Futher, the pass protection should be materially better with Gurley and marshall as sophmores, and theus got flagged for things that experience will cure. Oh and we basically completely turned over our WR core within the season, as Brown and Bennett were replaced by Mitchell and Conley with King being the constant. Heck, King was the only one of our top 4 WRs who played in the bowl game and we threw for 400+ yards.
We missed 6 FGs and 4 extra points, which is another 22 potential points. Our punts and kick returns were not at all a benefit to us either, which are arguably contributors to offensive performance.
Bottom line – it is always hard to outperform high expectations, but I would not be shocked if we did just that. this is an experienced and talented bunch.
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Yall sure are taking your time in coming to the obvious conclusion: Bobo has built us a great O Machine. He just replaces and puts in new gears. This Offense is all about Bobo, his coaches and then the players who make the machine hum.
Yall will come around to seeing that eventually.
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As a slight quibble Aaron is not a credible source. Namely because he’s a leader, a team player, and most importantly because he talks to the media all the time. That means he’s smart enough not to air dirty laundry publicly, for obvious reasons. You will never hear Murray call it a teammate publicly.
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Can’t knock anyone for thinking the lack of returning studs on D mixed with a brutal schedule will trip up Georgia, but saying Texas A&M is on the level with Bama is odd. That defense is trash.
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Great to hear. Can’t wait for 2013 to get started, though schedule and all.
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Looks like Conley has refined his pre season happy talk and even taken it to the next level. Lets hope hope it is more than just this!
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