Observations from the armchair: Georgia-Vanderbilt

Trust me, these are the posts that make it hard to blog about college football.

• If there’s anything that surprised me about what Vanderbilt did or didn’t do, it’s that the Commodores never came after Barber very hard.  Of course, that thought first came to me right before the disastrous last punt attempt, so maybe they had things figured out all along.
• The crappiest thing about losing that game was wasting Shaq Wiggins’ pick-six.
• Speaking of Shaq, the CBS broadcast crew was the worst pairing I’ve had to listen to all season.  Tim Brando is one of those irritating people who’s incredibly full of himself without even a sliver of awareness that his audience fails to share his high opinion of himself.
• Injury problem #1:  Vanderbilt had absolutely no fear of Georgia’s downfield passing game.  None.
• Injury problem #2:  Vanderbilt respected Georgia’s running backs, but respect isn’t the same thing as fear.  Douglas can bust through a line and pick up tough yardage.  Green’s got some quicks and shiftiness.  Gurley possesses both and Marshall has a higher gear than either.
• But the biggest problem on offense right now isn’t injury related.  It’s that neither the offensive coordinator nor the starting quarterback trust the pass blocking.  Combine that with a secondary not overly concerned about getting challenged deep, and Murray saw his window get squeezed tighter and tighter.
• Are we at the point now where Marshall Morgan is the part of special teams we’re most comfortable with?  Boy.
• Swann sure looked a lot more comfortable playing the star position than he did at corner.
• Mauger and Moore weren’t great, but at least they both made contributions, which is a heckuva lot more than we saw out of them against Missouri.
• Defense was better on third-down conversions, but the offense was awful in that regard.
• I still don’t understand why Georgia continues to get so little production out of its tight ends.
• Murray was way too locked in to getting the ball to Conley, given how much attention Vandy’s defense was paying to Conley.
• Again, another week I would have thrown a bunch more screen passes than Bobo called.
• I was amazed at how much the refs were letting Vanderbilt’s players use their hands.  On the play he was tossed, Drew was held, rather blatantly.  And Krause clearly pushed off on his 41-yard reception.  Of course, if they’re not gonna call it, I’d do it, too.
• I’d like to know what Franklin was thinking when he called for a field goal with 20 seconds left in the game.
• And, yeah, the Conley injury on the Hail Mary to end the game was the cherry on top of the sundae.

I think Mark Richt went into this season knowing exactly what he had on offense and defense and knew that it was going to be something of a high wire act to hold things together, particular with that September schedule. September was managed well, but what Richt wasn’t counting on were the rash of injuries (who could?) and the beyond craptastic special teams play.  Yesterday’s game plan still had at its heart a feeling that the offense could more than carry its share of the load and by the time the coaches realized that wasn’t the case, the ball was being snapped over Barber’s head.

At some point, they need to realize which kids can do their jobs, plug them in place and quit farting around with pulling players in and out of roles for no apparent reason.  Assuming Gurley and Bennett are indeed back for the Florida game, things will start looking up as a result of the talent upgrade.  But it’s time to quit assuming there’s enough talent to overcome the mistakes on and off the field.  That’s a lesson that should have been learned as they walked out of Neyland Stadium.  Hopefully it won’t take any more losses for that to sink in.