A few tidbits for you to digest…
- Georgia is the only SEC school with a representative on the 2013 Academic All-America first team. That representative is Aaron Murray, one of only six Bulldogs to be multi-year selectees.
- Like many of us, Stewart Mandel is disappointed in the Gator Bowl match up. Unlike many of us, one reason he’s disappointed is because he thinks Vanderbilt would have been a better choice.
- Classy move, Duke alumni. Seriously.
- Big Game Bob’s sounding a little testy these days.
- Reality may be sinking in for some denizens of The Hive. Bitter, yet so tasty!
- The Military Bowl wins this year’s Best Gift Trophy: a single-seat “powered home theater recliner” with two USB ports to charge various devices, along with a PlayStation 4.
- Paul Westerdawg looks ahead to next season and gives some reasons for optimism about Georgia football.
Get The Picture 
Re: the Hive thread…
I thought Georgia Tech grads were all our bosses and made way more money than us on a consistent basis? If so, why are they whining about having to pay for a set of relatively inexpensive season tickets? One guy said he didn’t even have the MARTA fare to get down to the Georgia game. In case some of you are unfamiliar, a round-trip on MARTA runs you $3.00 these days.
LikeLike
Why do they bother with season tickets? Game day price is $4 and that gets you a Coke and a hotdog.
LikeLike
Not to be nitpicking, but MARTA is actually $5 round trip, and has been since late 2011.
LikeLike
Your moniker is a description of Tech football, right?
LikeLike
That is so Nit Pickin!
LikeLike
God, Tech fans are such bed wetting crybabies. What amazes me is that the posters there, who by reading the dates must be in their 40s, use terms like “dwags” or “UGAg” as if they were students. What a miserable horde of tools.
LikeLike
+1000, I was thinking the same thing. Alos the lamenting of the students not attending. The new breed of GT students are either at a soccer match or watching cricket on their laptops instead of watching American Football at BDS on Saturdays.
LikeLike
Alos = Also 🙂
LikeLike
Agree completely, so called GT fans thinks it’s funny. You are right, it is just childish.
LikeLike
But what do they think about Vandy in Montana?
Hate to kick someone when they’re down (we’ve all been there before) but the Tech fan talking about how he can’t afford MARTA fare to go to the Tech games flies in the face of their constant boasts about how much they all make.
LikeLike
Most of those Georgia Tech boasts end with the words “some day”.
LikeLike
LOL
LikeLike
Maybe he meant he didn’t have enough liquid assets to BUY MARTA. Because, you know, a lot of his wealth is probably tied up in X Box accessories and games.
LikeLike
Me and Paul are thinking the same thing. I just pulled up the schedule for next year and breaking it down. I think that it sets up pretty nice and also looking at a couple of new road trips. I hear that trip to Kentucky is pretty nice.
LikeLike
Tekis will have more problem going to Athens then next year.
LikeLike
Keeneland. Woodford. What’s not to like???
LikeLike
I agree with Paul, however I think the absence of Murray next year is understated. I know we have Gurley, but its a little too early to say if Mason can put this team on his shoulders and carry us to victory in big game high pressure situations. I have no doubt that we will need to ask that of him once or twice next year.
LikeLike
Yeah, not to knock Hutson, but to expect him to be even 90% of what Murray was just isn’t realistic.
I also disagree with the article about defensive stability considering how 2012 played out for us, and trading LSU for Arkansas isn’t really going to lead to improvement in the W-L department next year because, while Arkansas is an easier opponent, we didn’t lose to LSU this year. I almost chuckled when I read the first bullet point about special teams improvement too.
Really, the only things that point to optimism next year is a healthy Gurley and regression to the mean as far as injuries go. I’m not holding my breath for a big defensive improvement until I actually see it.
LikeLike
80% of what Murray was is still a damned good quarterback.
LikeLike
Agreed, but it was a list of reasons to have optimism about next year. Replacing Murray is not a reason for optimism because no matter what it’s going to be a downgrade at the position for us.
LikeLike
Yup. To lose the best QB we’ve ever had and expect no drop off in production is worrisome. Do we expect improvement in defense, special teams and injury luck to counterbalance that drop off? Seems to be a lot optimism there that I don’t know if I can share just yet. And yes, I’m not holding my breath for the D improvement until I see a complete game against a good opponent from that unit.
LikeLike
I think Paul has been reading my posts of yesterday. 🙂
LikeLike
Hard to hide talent. 😉
LikeLike
Or dumbassery. 🙂
LikeLike
As many folks will remember, the late Lewis Grizzard once said he didn’t just want to see Tech lose, he wanted to see them so humiliated they would consider giving up the game. They may be getting close.
LikeLike
Seems this year really stung them…pun so intended…
LikeLike
The 2014 game could be dedicated to Lewis as the tipping game for Tech to give it up. We could have a lot of fun with that.
LikeLike
What’s with the sign….End of Earth 2 miles….Athens 4 miles. How stupid is that?
LikeLike
Geography is something else they don’t learn at Tech.
LikeLike
Yes, among other things….Engineers are so anal. It is difficult for them to be witty and interesting. Poor dull folks!
LikeLike
Some are witty and interesting
http://xkcd.com/670/
LikeLike
“Despite having drawn the loathing of humans, yellow jackets are in fact important predators of pest insects.” (wiki amirite)
Don’t know how it is 6 miles inside the Perimeter but down here, all you have to do is step on a nest once to learn that the Featured Creatures are the pests
http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/urban/occas/hornet_yellowjacket.htm
LikeLike
Dude….you are the Wikipedia of GTP.!
LikeLike
I knew making stuff up would not pay off some day
LikeLike
I guess 100 people in Montana recognize Vanderbilt – Mandel’s a fool.
Reading the Hive in December is an absolute treat. Their attacks on “The Hill” and the UGA name calling are priceless.
LikeLike
Bama was already mad enough. Oklahoma is gonna get seal clubbed.
LikeLike
Bama’s gonna lay half a hundred plus on ’em. Big Game Bob needs to STFU for the good of his team.
LikeLike
May not be inspired. Hell they lost to Utah one year, same year that left tackle didnt give a damn and sign with an agent to be ineligible prior to the bowl.
LikeLike
Is it me, or have I not seen our Nerd troll since half-time of our game?
LikeLike
He’s a Techmite. When things get bad they disappear into the woodwork.
LikeLike
Vandy finished behind Georgia in the standings, and in their hilariously ref-assisted victory over Georgia at home, the stadium was about 70% Georgia fans. That’s why the ‘Dores didn’t get Jacksonville, you hacks.
LikeLike
Not only that, Vandy’s other 7 wins came over teams with an aggregate record of 18 wins and 66 losses. No other wins over a team with a winning record while we were beating the likes of LSU and South Carolina.
LikeLike
“The Military Bowl wins this year’s Best Gift Trophy: a single-seat “powered home theater recliner” with two USB ports to charge various devices, along with a PlayStation 4.”
Will there be incoming?
“The system mistook it for a drone and blew the kid’s new Playstation 4 into small pieces.”
http://www.rockcitytimes.com/walmart-install-mini-surface-air-missiles-store-roofs-shoot-amazon-drones/
LikeLike
Paul, I love ya, too early for kool-aid. Strictly liquor at this stage.
LikeLike
True. Statements like “We need the kicking game to return to its normal level of mediocrity” could earn him a job at Butts-Mehre.
LikeLike
Kool-Aid mixed with vodka is actually pretty good. 🙂
LikeLike
The Hive folks sound a lot like us. Is The Hill like Adams and the BOR?
LikeLike
“I’ve been saying all fall, hang on everybody, chill out, it’s going to work out,” BCS executive director Bill Hancock said on Sunday night.
Samuel L. Jackson couldn’t have said it better…
LikeLike
Samuel Jackson does Bagman Bill Hancock’s can’t you hear me knocking monologue
http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/samuel_l_jackson_does_a_dramatic_ibreaking_badi_monologue_for_alzheimers_charity.html
LikeLike
That is absolutely my favorite part…..The Bonnie Situation. “How much …a little or a lot?”
LikeLike
Me too… “You’re the mother f’r that should be back here on brain detail”
LikeLike
“I’m a race car in the red!”
LikeLike
I’m all optimistic as Paul West., Mason may throw intermittent interception and get sacked but I think he can lead his team to the winning way unless BOBO slows down his tempo. The GT and Kentucky games sort of shown some of it.
LikeLike
Just playing devil’s advocate here, but Kentucky and GT boast the 61st and 87th passing defense in the country, respectively. They also rank 74th and 84th in the country in opposing QB rating, respectively, so I wouldn’t draw too many conclusions.
LikeLike
Westerdawg missed the obvious: As UGA heals, so goes FU. Both of these teams will be powerful with their full complement playing the game in 2014. SEC Days will recognize that and have them playing for the East.
Has anyone considered that our two losses to Aub in the last 6 years have been to teams playing for the NC? Problem is that they won’t be one-and-done as in the past.
LikeLike
Auburn is going to give us fits for as long as Malzahn is there.
LikeLike
Well at least until he can find another QB that was kicked out of a rival school. Marshall won’t be there forever.
LikeLike
True, but Nick Marshall isn’t *that* special of a talent. He’s nowhere near what Cam Newton was and their still putting up points like crazy. I’d guesstimate that the southeast produces at LEAST 2-3 kids a year with Marshall’s athletic ability, minimum. Malzahn only needs to land of those kids every few years to run his system and put up big points.
Plus, I expect their defense to improve moving forward with Ellis Johnson as DC.
LikeLike
Marshall’s backup is a true freshman and very talented. He’s a much better passer than Marshall.
LikeLike
But, not many of those kids run a 4.3. Marshall can fly. He’s an NFL talent at corner, but he probably won’t sniff the NFL now. So, if I’m a 6’1″ DB with NFL talent, do I want to forego millions to play QB for 4 more years.
Money talks, and though Auburn pays their players, not as much as the NFL does :). If you don’t fear the threat of a 70 yard QB TD run, it’s amazing how quickly those holes close up for the RB (think John Brantley in Urbs’ offense). 5 years ago conventional wisdom was that GT would be able to find kids across the southeast that wanted to play QB in that system. Turns out, those kids want to make a career out of football, and that ain’t the path. They’ve gotten progressively worse since Nesbitt graduated at that position. The reason Auburn’s WRs are so open is the same reason Tebow thew so many bombs to guys running free: the safeties bit on the run fakes and the LBs were scared to death of him ripping off a 15 yard run.
I am a jimmies and joes guy. I believe in coaching, but the players make the system work. Think about our play action game in vs. Mizzou and Vandy. It was almost non existent. The LBs weren’t scared of Green and Douglas. When Gurley got back, we had guys running free because faking it to him matters. That is essentially it. Chris Todd is a much better passer than Nick Marshall, but that offense was pedestrian with him at QB because there was no play action from the QB, which that offense desperately needs.
I think Malzhan’s a fine coach. He’s done amazing things there. But, their defense is always going to be awful because they don’t practice against conventional offenses and won’t have a competent passer to run the scout squad, meaning people like Hutson Mason will look like an All-pro compared to what they practice against. And, over the long haul he has to recruit kids to play QB in a system that won’t get them to the NFL. Cam was a stud. How many Cam Newton’s are out there?
I appreciate the college game and it’s nuances like these offenses, but if they were long term options, then NFL teams would run them. They get paid to win games and that’s it. They don’t run them because they can be stopped. Somebody, somehwere, will figure it out.
LikeLike
Just because they don’t have a competent passer this year doesn’t mean they won’t in future years. Malzahn only needs a QB who is a *threat* to take off, and it doesn’t take 4.3 speed to create that threat. Whatever the next QB lacks in in running ability can easily be made up for with passing (and it shouldn’t be too hard to improve upon Marshall’s passing), and the offense will still work.
Just like a good running game can open up the passing lanes, a good passing game can open up the running lanes too. I just find it a bit odd that Malzahn’s offense takes him to 2 national championship games in four years and yet people think he isn’t capable of recruiting the players he needs or adapting to what he has.
LikeLike
Except that he was the OC in 2009 and 2011 when they were average as grits. It’s so easy to say that they’ll just keep plugging away because they went to 2 national championships. Meyer won 2 while Tebow was in school to, but the year before Tebow got there (2005) and the year after he left (2010), their offense was putrid. Turns out it was Tebow that made that offense click.
Can Malzahn find the next Nick Marshall? Maybe. But think about it this way. We recruited him as a DB. How many DBs do we have with his size and athleticism? Zero. We’ve got guys as fast, but they’re smaller. The guys that are as big as Marshall aren’t as quick. He’s a very gifted player. I remember playing them in 2011 and thinking how gimmick-y it looked with out Cam. All of a sudden, those speed sweeps to McCaleb just weren’t open.
And yes, Mayer, it’s the wing-T in the hurry up shotgun. People will figure it out.
LikeLike
2009 isn’t really an indication as he didn’t even have time to recruit his types of players. In 2011, after they lost an excruciating amount of players, they finished 8th in the conference in scoring offense (vs. conference opponents which included the two national championship game participants from the West). Yes, they were average, but still serviceable. Then they plug in a player like Marshall and BOOM. They’re back at it.
Meyer didn’t look very good after Tebow left because his replacement, Cam Newton, got kicked out of school. Meyer’s offense is looking pretty good again with Braxton Miller this year.
Besides, you could say the same thing about any offense being dependent on jimmies and joes. How’d our offense look with/without Gurley again? What are the odds we find another running back like him when he leaves after next season? What about LSU and Jeremy Hill? He’s a rare back. What about SC and Lattimore?
Time will tell, but again, I think Malzahn is capable of recruiting talented players and adapting his offense around their strengths a lot more than you and others are giving him credit for. Plus, Marshall is gonna be back next year.
LikeLike
And how exactly did our offense do in 2010 when we didn’t have AJ Green and Ealey and King were our tailbacks? Does that mean our offense is gimmicky?
LikeLike
Well, we certainly weren’t as explosive. And that’s kind of my point. it’s about the players, and the players fit the system pretty good.
However, I will say this, there is a coaching element in the pro-style scheme that is fundamentally different. Like CPJ, system coaches can tend to fall in love with the system. There’s a different mindset from player development vs. ‘just run my plays’ and they’ll work.
Like I said, Malzahn’s greatest test will be in recruiting. In 5 years, Nick Marshall might have a MNC ring. He’s already gotten himself an SEC title ring. But, in 5 years, will he think that he made a good decision, because every SEC team would have taken him as a corner, too. And he’d be playing on Sundays collecting a check. So, will he be able to recruit kids that are THAT athletically gifted? Time will tell. An average athlete that throws better will get you Florida’s offense under Brantley.
When Bobo had an average QB (Cox), we still put up a lot of points and numbers because the coaching is different. I’d choose pro-style, but there are more than one way to skin a cat. Nothing wrong with what they do, but can they succeed for a long time with that system. I’m unimpressed with 2 years of work with 2 extremely gifted athletes at QB. He did do some good things with Chris Todd, but they lost a bunch of games, too.
Aaron Murray chose UGA over Florida because he wanted to make it to the NFL. He saw the light at the end of the Tebow tunnel. Heck, maybe we should just do what they do? I’m glad we don’t.
LikeLike
Just because Nick Marshall won’t play on Sundays doesn’t mean other QBs that follow him in Malzahn’s system won’t. That’s a big assumption you’re making and it’s one I wholeheartedly disagree with. Marshall won’t make it as a QB because he doesn’t have a good arm, and he has another year under Malzahn to work on it. If the guy that follows him has a *decent* set of wheels and a good arm he can make the offense work and play on Sundays. There’s plenty of dual threat QBs in the NFL and they all would have excelled (or did excel) in Malzahn’s offense, and they all could have used Malzahn’s offense as a stepping stool to their career.
LikeLike
Re: Stopping Auburn’s offense. “Somebody, somewhere, will figure it out.” Dude, it’s the Wing-T. Find a 75 year old former HS coach to explain to Grantham how to stop it. It’s really not that tough. What Auburn does is run it at “go-fast” speed, which is a new wrinkle. But that’s all. The rest is straight Wing-T. Read the Wing-T book by that guy who coached Delaware to all those D-IAA championships. That’s what he ran. There were years that Delaware’s opponents stopped it cold and Delaware had an off-season. There clearly is a Jimmies and Joes element.
LikeLike
Not trying to be rude as I honestly have nowhere near the football knowledge to argue X’s and O’s, but if it really were *that* simple don’t you think someone besides LSU would have figured them out this year? Or 2010?
I have this gut feeling that Malzahn is a much better playcaller than he’s getting credit for. You don’t just rack up points on so many legit defensive coordinators without the ability to adapt your offense to whatever the defense is doing. Had he done this in the ACC I would feel a lot better, but he didn’t.
LikeLike
Underestimate Gus at your own risk. He made a functional SEC quarterback out of Chris Todd, something that to me borders on the miraculous. He will adapt his offense to his personnel. And he doesn’t have Chizik interfering with things anymore.
LikeLike
Now you get it.
LikeLike
We are going to give Malzahn fits as long as he is there and don’t think we will gift wrap anymore TD’s for him.
just sayin’
LikeLike
We can only hope
LikeLike
Florida’s players don’t look like they’re buying into the program right now, though. And their offense is wretched even with healthy players.
LikeLike
Well they can only go up from where they are now. Considering we only beat them by 3, that’s enough reason to worry.
LikeLike
I know that this is going to come as a shock to you, but I believe that when we (and many other SEC teams) play Auburn next year the games will be completely different. They are running a variation of the triple option but instead of lining up in the Nerdbone they run it out of the shotgun and have a quick screen as one of the options. Given a year to study the film I believe that the good defensive coordinators will have an answer, much like the second go around for Tech everyone figured them out. Gary Danielson said during our game that even though we didn’t have a great defense we would give Auburn problems because we had athletes on defense that were fast and could get to the ball quickly. Missouri couldn’t match up with Auburn athlete to athlete and it showed. I think FSU beats Auburn because they can fly to the ball and will force Marshall to throw to beat them and I don’t believe he can do it.
LikeLike
“Given a year to study the film I believe that the good defensive coordinators will have an answer”
Do you consider Grantham in this category? Just curious… And we had nearly a full season of tape on them this year. How’d that work out? How much studying do we have to do when Malzahn himself says they run the same 3 plays 80% of the time?
“much like the second go around for Tech everyone figured them out”
By figured them out do you mean gave up 34 points? Go ahead, “but youth!!!” Auburn’s players were just as inexperienced in Malzahn’s offense this year as we were in Grantham’s D, how’d that work out again? Oh yeah, 38 before the tipped pass. We have much better athletes than Tech which should have negated some of the inexperience too, but it didn’t.
Just change your name to Disney RocketDawg.
LikeLike
Excellent analysis, RD.
LikeLike
One player. Had Alec Ogletree played for us this year, that Auburn game is completely different. They will be the hunted. And now, on the recruiting trail, every team that plays Auburn every year will ask themselves, “Can this cat help us beat Auburn?” Fast, athletic linebackers and physical corners that can really tackle. That will be what folks are looking for.
Then, somebody will start pounding away at teams because the LBs are undersized and running play-action to guys running free because the corners can cover. And the transition will happen again. It’s a cycle When you’re the hunted, everyone recruits to stop you. There is no such thing as an unstoppable scheme. Ask Stanford what they think of Oregon’s unstoppable scheme.
LikeLike
Global War on Bob –
“I’ve got more important things to do than sit around and read what Bob Stoops has to say about anything.”
“What comments?”
Coming soon to a Dome near strip clubs:
“Bob Slayer”
☻__
/▌ /▌
/\ /\ ☻
LikeLike
When talking about good football teams that we beat ,don’t forget we beat the nerds 8/4 of the mighty ACC
LikeLike
Wish I could be as optimistic as Westerdawg. The Grinch dropped by and gave me a dose realism: No doubt there’s a few juniors who could play in the nfl. I always expect someone to leave early – too much talent on this team to believe otherwise. While I doubt anybody would be stupid enough to hire CTG away, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if another school or nfl hires away one or more of our ‘good’ assistant coaches: CMB, Ball, McClendon. Then there’s marshall & mett: QB’s on top 16 teams – One would think we had the death penalty when you consider our attrition rate.
Sorry PWD, we’re gonna have the same coaches – at least the mediocre ones, the same players – except for truly talented one’s who go nfl early, and pretty much the same results. Now back to our Christmas music.
LikeLike
Didn’t mean to infer we won’t have talented players. We always have talented players!
LikeLike
This. I really hope we double Bobo’s salary in the offseason and if not, I hope a rival does and then he beats the brakes off of us every year while we fall into the abyss. We deserve it with our boneheaded decision-making. Maybe then will someone at Butts-Mehre FINALLY realize that underpaying good coaches and overpaying bad ones is retarded and that complacency leads to disaster.
Then I hope Bobo comes back as head coach and takes us to the promised land! Unfortunately, it’s probably just going to be another 9-3 season while we sit back and talk about what could’ve been, and then reminisce on the 2012 SECCG and how we were “almost there” while ignoring the fact taht A) we weren’t, and B) we were only in the game because of the absurdly lucky blocked field goal returned for a TD (which for some reason is all skill while Auburn’s similar play is all luck).
LikeLike
HEY!! 9-3 is good!!
LikeLike
Reading more and more of your reasoning comments on here, BD165. Where have you been while we had the Richt/Bobo/Grantham dustups? Didn’t like TG’s getting a raise while MR and MB were left twisting in the wind. That shabby treatment by Greg embarrassed this and a few other alums.I don’t place any blame on TG, only Greg and Tommy for trying to embarrass Richt.
Good dialectic comments. Yea Dawg Fans!
LikeLike
The bitter, salty, tasty tears of the Jackets….
Yum, yum, yum!
LikeLike