Tomorrow’s the eighth practice of spring. Marc Weiszer gives us eight takeaways from what’s gone on. Most are unsurprising. But maybe I wasn’t expecting the defense to be quite so dominating against the run as it’s been so far.
According the statistics provided by Richt, there 98 rushing yards on 33 carries in the scrimmage. That’s 2.97 yards per carry. It was more of the same in Thursday’s practice that was entirely open to the media. When Todd Gurley isn’t carrying the ball, no surprise there’s an obvious drop-off.
“He busted a couple on screens, but on the run we were stopping him,” Green said of the scrimmage.
Defensive linemen James DeLoach, Ray Drew, Mike Thornton and John Atkins were credited with five tackles for loss in the scrimmage.
“Chris Mayes had a heck of a day,” Drew said. “The entire segment had a pretty good day.”
Green basically said the same thing.“It’s way harder to run on them,” he said.
Much of that no doubt should be chalked up to an offensive line that’s still sorting itself out. But you figure early on there should be a fair amount of sloppiness on both sides of the ball, and even more so this spring with a new staff figuring out how to deploy personnel. That there hasn’t been much evidence of that makes you wonder if there really is something to all the happy talk about the defensive line.
All of which probably explains Marc’s next observation.
4. Gurley is getting more work than expected.
Well, good.
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Havent we always been told that defense gets it earlier than offense in the spring?
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Yeah, but the defense has all new coaches. The OL that is struggling is Theus (Junior), Beard (Senior)/DeBell (Junior), Andrews (Senior), Kublanow (Sophomore)/Pyke (RS Sophomore), and Houston (Senior). They’re also rotating in Dantlzer (another senior) but he’s out with a concussion right now.
That’s not an experienced group. And they’re being dominated by guys doing new stuff.
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“Not an inexperienced group” it should say.
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Who knows, it’s hard to analyze many things in the Spring without being able to watch practice. A few more conclusions this year here and there, however, because of a new defense and all-new coaches.
I suspect it’s some of both.
~~~
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Well if someone isn’t getting mad, then we’re not changing things fast enough.
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We took a supremely talented defensive line and gave them a truly great position coach. I’ve been preaching for a long time that a good position coach can make all the difference. Wilson had an instant impact and Rocker is even better.
Now, I’m glad Friend helped us get Pruitt, but I think Will may be our worst coach now. Maybe he just needs more time to improve the talent on the OL and get ’em coached up, but I’m concerned.
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Will Friend will never improve unless he gets Pruitt to recruit for him. A private school OL will never be successful in the SEC.
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That’s why I’m hoping Wynn and Sim are signs of a change in our OL recruiting. We’d better get Chuma too.
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Well one thing is certain if Mark will just let the ones go against the ones all spring and fall we will at least know what’s going to happen come kick off. We don’t know how good the team is because the ones go against the twos making everybody on the first string overconfident. They won’t be playing Clemson’s second string.
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We’ve been going 1 v 1 quite a lot this spring. Including the scrimmage.
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Hubba Hubba
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I’ll find the room, Mr. Gladstone.
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