Nothing too deep from what I garnered watching the replay. Here are three quick shots:
- Murray’s interception looked even worse on TV than it did live. That’s the kind of throw you make when you’re convinced you’ll be back visiting the opponent’s end zone pretty soon.
- Swann needs to learn that the most important thing you do returning punts (after you field them) is to go north-south.
- One positive to take from an offensive line having a shaky day is that it’s a helluva lot easier to sell the screen pass.
Get The Picture 
i watched the replay and got nervous at the number of times our corners didn’t have help deep. hope we avoid that against lsu
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Yup – OL and safety. That simple.
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All I have to say is ….I am frightened by LSU. If we had to go there, we would not have a prayer.
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I couldn’t agree more. LSU is a different team at home. We should have the advantage of the home crowd. We have to stop their power run game as that is the key to the game. Zach will beat us after they run it down our throats. Stop that run and then and then get after Zach. He’s not going to run it on us; so go after him. Murray and the offense need balance and no TO’s. I still think we win a hard fought game and move to 3-1.
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I agree with you about Swann; I kept hollering at the TV “run dammit, quit juking and just run!!”
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But at least he made the right play in catching the ball. Several times the first two games he let the ball bounce and roll inside the ten; that’s why we had field position inside the Clemson five on one possession. A second time vs. CU he let it bounce on the 15 and it took a sideways bounce, so no more field position was lost—by that time Richt had enough and replaced him with McGowan the rest of that game. Seems to me he made that mistake at least once against SC, too.
So I was impressed by Swann’s improved judgement in when to catch, if nothing else. That’s an important part of the punt return. You can’t let it bounce between the 10 and 20.
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What happened to the punt return as a weapon? Damien Gary…Mike Henderson…Thomas Flowers…We don’t win 2 games in Knoxville without Gary (2001) and Flowers (2005?). I just miss having that weapon and I’m not sure if our philosophy changed or if teams have gotten better at making a punt into turnovers.
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I agree. Come after the punter and have a weapon that scares the heck out of the other team. If you have a weapon back there, they will try to kick away from him and that could induce them into a bad kick. Without a weapon, they just kick away.
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I don’t know about philosophy, but the first rule always has to be protect the football, with the second rule being make the right judgement catching/not catching/returning vis-a-vis field position. Whatever the issue is, Swann has the tools to be a return threat, but he has to nail down the first two rules before he can do that.
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Murray can’t be faulted too much for the rare mistake..but it was a mistake and was a factor in the game being too close for too long. But AM is the kind of QB that learns from his errors.
I don’t envy LSU or Georgia’s defensive cooridinators trying to prepare for this game..
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In the stadium, first thought on one’s INT was that it was terry-bull, but after they showed the replay on the big screen, it looks like my boyfriend Quayvon was partly to blame. You can see AM wave or point in 48’s general direction before throwing. Quayvon didn’t slide as I think Aaron had planned. Still a dumb throw with the # of green jerseys in the area.
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Funny about Swann…the 128’s were saying he looked like he was auditioning to be on Dancing with the Stars
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Swann is the most frustrating player on the team for me. He’s clearly an extremely talented athlete but I feel like I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop; unsportsmanlike flag, overplaying a ball, not securing the ball, etc.
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Has anyone entertained the thought that sometimes Aaron’s vision is obstructed by taller linemen as he is ready to heave the ball? My thoughts are that he has great confidence as to where he is placing the ball and trusts his judgement even though his vision is obscured when he turns the ball lose. Concerning those plays, he doesn’t see the minutia directional movement of the receiving players at the moment he throws and that movement expands before the ball gets there. While it would still appear to be forcing the ball (and he does) those passes click more times than they fall in the wrong hands. I would compare the bad results to a golfer unable to stop in midswing when something distracts to the side.
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He’s sixth in the country with a 72% completion rate.
I’ll take my chances with him.
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I think his stature in the pocket clearly affected that crucial INT to the Clemmins DL after UGa flopped on the muffed punt. There are 3 OL engaged and he tries to toss it over ’em to the crossing Rome. Never even had a clue that the DL fell back.
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Think that’s more because they ran play action out of the I and he had his back to the defense when the DL dropped. Venables’ best call of the night.
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+1 That was just a well timed defensive call by Clemson. Not much Murray could do there in my opinion.
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Right before the INT, my friend turned to me and said “what if we run the SC play action play here?”
That’s exactly what we ran too, and Lynch was WIDE open in the corner of the end zone again. Yet AM forced it into coverage on the complete opposite side of the field, never even checking Lynch at all. The play was run into our endzone, which was particularly infuriating seeing it develop & AM not
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Sometimes the rain or sun gets in your eyes. You just cannot see your field. Bagger Vance
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Maybe he didn’t feel the rotation of the earth.
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Well, it is like the tides there’s biological clocks going off all over the place.
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