It’s thinking like this, that… well, gets you intercepted three times in a half.
“Let it rip, and give a guy a chance to make a play,” Bobo said. “If they make it they make it, if they don’t they don’t, we’ll line up and play the next play.”
Much of the reason for the conservative offense at Vanderbilt was the attrition at receiver. Quarterback Aaron Murray admitted before the game he was still developing a “trust” with the receivers now thrust into the rotation, and the trust still wasn’t there at Vanderbilt.
Of course, the receivers didn’t do a great job of getting open either. Still, Bobo appeared to be putting the onus on Murray, even if it means some gambling.
“We’ve gotta trust our guys running our routes, and we’ve gotta throw the ball with confidence,” Bobo said. “We can’t be afraid to make mistakes. It’s one thing I’ve been preaching the last week-and-a-half. I want us to let it rip. I don’t want to be afraid of making a mistake.”
That’s even against Florida’s talented secondary, which leads the SEC passing yards allowed, third-down defense, pass efficiency defense.
“We’re gonna have to be committed, and make plays. Believe in the plan, and cut it loose,” Bobo said. “And (Florida) is gonna make some (plays). But we can’t get discouraged, we’ve gotta keep playing.”
I’m the first to agree that the playcalling against Vandy was constipated, but there’s such a thing as overcompensating. Then again, this could be Bobo’s way of playing mind games with the Gator defense.
In either event, I sure hope Todd Gurley has a helluva game.
Get The Picture 
“It’s thinking like this, that… well, gets you intercepted three times in a half.”
I literally had the EXACT same thought when I read that quote from Bobo last night. There’s definitely a middle ground between what we saw at Vandy and going all Brett Favre gunslinger.
Though in the end, I can’t think of any time during the Richt regime that I’ve walked away from a game thinking “Wow, that offensive gameplan was way too aggressive”. So probably not too much to worry about.
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What do you do with reserve receivers during practice and bye weeks? Just sit them down on the sidelines and say “Hey guys, watch the starters!”? You’ve had the better part of two weeks now that routes, timing, and evaluation of same should have been taking place…was it? This is where the question on our recruiting comes in…do we not coach them all up to a greater degree or do we ignore them until their time comes around? You’ve got the talent on the sidelines..use it!!…or lose it!
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I’ve seen a lot of comments like this recently. While I haven’t been in the arena, I have to question how well I personally grasp college football. Maybe I’m missing something, but if two weeks were enough time, wouldn’t everybody come out guns ablazing? We spend an entire eight months repping with our best guys, and a little with the second wave to work timing. If it were that easy, wouldn’t we just spend two weeks with the starters and the develop depth? I don’t think it’s thy easy, especially when we go from Mitchell, Conley, JSW, Bennett, and backups like JUCO Rumph to pretty much all walk ons seamlessly. Two weeks is not enough time to just plug and play, especially when you’re going with All Americans and All Comference guys to walk ons and freshmen. If we lost one or even two guys, I see the case being made. But we have been completely devastated. I don’t think there’s a coach in America that could deal with this without problems, including the vaunted Nick Saban. Not to mention take out our best back since Herschel (all due respect to Knowshon and Garrison) as well as our backup who probably starts at most other schools. I just think we’re oversimplifying our injury issues.
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I think it’s the second event. I look for a lot of late hitches to Gurley out of the backfield after the recievers have drawn the dbacks off deep…
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I wonder is Bobo is repeating what Richt told him after he blamed the play calling on not trusting the young players. I can see Richt telling Bobo that he has to call more aggressive plays, and I hope they weren’t telling the 5th year senior QB to ignore what he sees as the play develops and force it in there.
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I didn’t mind the conwervative play calling against Vandy late in the game. The defense was having its best game with what a two touchdown lead and just over 10 min to go. I can understand Bobo’s thinking, run clock, shorten the game, protect the lead and leave with the win. I don’t think anybody could predict the special teams breakdown.
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Not to mention the defense did what it needed to do after the breakdown. They got the stop and the game was effectively over. Well, until of course the bogus targeting call.
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The problem was that it wasn’t a true two touchdown lead, it was a 13 point lead. I’d have had less of a problem if two touchdowns would have just tied it. On top of that, The conservative playcalling once it was cut to a 6 and then 3 point lead is what aggravated me moreso than the playcalling with a 13 point lead.
It was amazing how prophetic Richt was going into halftime. He was asked why he went for it on 4th down at the goal line instead of kicking a FG, and I’m paraphrasing a bit but he said something to the effect of “That would have only put us up by 6, and being up by numbers like 6 or 13 just aren’t what you want”. Sure enough, there we were with a 13 point lead, and lost. Didn’t lose by just one extra point, but it really struck a chord with me after the game.
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Just to clarify though, I am NOT a Bobo hater. I think he’s a very good playcaller, and he has shown stead improvement as a playcaller over teh past few years. The playcalling late in the Vandy game was the first time in at least a couple of years that I’ve been left shaking my head. But man, was I ever shaking my head. We are fortunate to have Bobo though.
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The other thing I am sure Bobo was thinking, he put the game in the hands of Murray and the inexperienced Wr’s against Mizzo and we know how that turned out. I am just saying it is so easy to say why this or that when the game is over if UGA wins very few people question the conservative game plan.
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“I don’t think anybody could predict the special teams breakdown.”
Are you serious? We’ve had at least one or more disastrous special teams play in every game that we’ve played. This is one of if not the worst defenses at Georgia (especially the secondary) in the past 35…40…50 years? Don’t think that that a breakdown in the defense or the special teams was too much of a stretch to predict in Nashville.
Not only that, but our play calling became painfully conservative in the middle of the 3rd quarter (way too early). And we remained conservative after momentum had clearly flipped..first, with a 6 point lead (over 10 minutes left), then with a 3 point lead (with over 5 minutes left).
Make no mistake about it, our conservative play calling against a bad Vandy defense (that was selling out on the run on early downs) contributed to the loss in a big way.
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Sounds like Bobo is planning on doing some a that there rock pounding, to me.
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I think some of that has to be attributed to Bobo wanting Murray to feel like he has cover in case things go a little pear-shaped, to feel like he can still keep gunning if good old adversity rears its head.
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3 keys to this game:
– Win the opening toss so we can defer and kick-off
– have defense smack the gators in the mouth on the first series. Let’em know they are going to be in for a long day
– O-line man’s-up and smacks gator D in similar fashion with opening drive featuring a lot of big holes for Mr. Gurley
If we come out, go on O first, and sort of just screw around with a 3 & out, this could not end well for us.
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I do think scoring first will be very important.
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+1.
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Winning is the only thing that is important in this game. Nothing else matters. Who scores first, who wins the toss, who gets penalized the most, who has the most turnovers….blah blah blah…WIN IT DAWGS ..WIN IT ANY WAY YOU CAN….JUST WIN IT DAMMIT!
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Finally, Joy says something I can agree with (Bless her Heart) 🙂
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Joyriding, your detailed statistical analysis has always been your hallmark.
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Bite me Hogbody!
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I know that the first team guys get the reps together and that’s the way it has been and will be but if Aaron would just get the time to actually see his 3rd or 4th read he wouldn’t have to try to thread the needle. At the games when you can see the whole field it becomes evident that he has not gotten to the TE’s and RB’s in his reads. He wants to go to the WR’s early and often. Also why the hell doesn’t Bobo let him roll out, he is deadly on the roll out.
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This is it for the season…beat Florida-check…stay alive for the SEC East-check…climb back in the top 25-check…recruiting-big check…this game is the season…there’s still a lot riding on the game, not only for this year, but going forward…GATA DAWGS…enjoy the game folks…Snake out
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