Georgia’s offensive coordinator has a message for all us Nervous Nellies out there in Dawgnation: relax.
Mike Bobo coaches Georgia’s offense, not the defense. But when a concerned fan asked about the state of the defense, specifically the secondary, Bobo jumped in with a pep talk.
That included something Bobo heard new defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt say: “We’re gonna be a hell of a defense.”
In the past week, Georgia has seen cornerback Shaq Wiggins transfer and Brendan Langley move from cornerback to receiver. That came a couple months after safety Josh Harvey-Clemons was dismissed from the team.
But Bobo, from his vantage point, thinks Pruitt will make do.
“I’m gonna tell you this about Jeremy Pruitt: He’s a great football coach in the fundamentals that are gonna make the difference in making a play and not making a play,” Bobo said, speaking at a UGA Day in Tifton. “Obviously sometimes you see a guy moving to offense, you see a guy transferring, you wonder: What are we gonna do?
“But I heard him talking to a guy the other night: ‘We’re gonna get the five or six that are gonna do it our way, and the way I want it done, and we’re gonna be a hell of a defense. And that came out of his mouth. And I feel confident he’s gonna get it done and get those guys ready to play.”
Sounds good. But… what year was he talking about?
Get The Picture 
If Mike Bobo tells you a rooster can pull a freightrain..don’t ask no questions, just hitch’im up.
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LOL. Haven’t heard that in a while.
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Lol! Good one! I’ll be adding that to my lexicon.
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gone old school…..and if Bobo believes Pruitt on this….it’s like freebasing the Kool Aid to me.
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I agree with the cautious approach about the 2014 defense. I have a lot of trust in Pruitt and the direction he is taking us but the secondary will need a lot of help from the front seven to get us through this season. Fortunately, I think this front seven could be really badass.
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Agree…I’d like to see that front 7 take the pressure off the secondary. While they’re at it, hadn’t seen too many QB’s fear for their lives lately either. I think if CJP can at least improve fundamentals and decrease the confusion, we’ll be in good shape.
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I certainly think we have a good chance to be. Floyd is proven and, with the change, we should see a very different Jenkins, though that depends on his summer.
The weakest spot of the front 7 recently has been the ILB’s. But with Pruitt, I think we’ll be different in terms of the way we play. We won’t be sitting back deep waiting for the play to come to us the whole day. I suspect Pruitt will turn these guys loose, and I don’t think he’ll expect Herrera to sit back there by himself on 3rd & medium passing downs and be responsible for pass coverage of the entire center zone of the field. That sort of foolishness is gone, at least I think and hope.
So many of the problems we had in the middle will be cleared up by better coaching and mixing of personnel. Once these guys get the hang of it, and get comfortable? Yeah, I think they can be “badass”.
~~~
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To your point, I think the ILs will be much better given that what they are being asked to do fits their abilities better.
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Exactly.
~~~
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While technique and fundamentals are what we have talked the most about needing to improve in (well….maybe having a freaking clue at least two nano seconds before the snap) not waiting for the play to come to us is my biggest pet peeve. Especially our DL which were just space holders, and then our ILBs who often made tackles but 4-5 yards downfield. I really want us to attack the opponents’ backfield like our hair is on fire. There is nothing more they can do to protect whatever weaknesses we have in the secondary.
We did OK with sacks at times but rarely had many “all hands on deck” fire drills that force errors and jam up all the lanes. Does that make you susceptible to screens and dump passes over the line? Yes, but I don’t recall us generating many turnovers last season and I would risk something dramatic and still have the play in front of me with a secondary that might tackle better than they defend the pass. I would just as soon go quickly and give up the homerun occasionally in trade for a few TOs and big losses than bleed to death by a long series of cuts (like every 3rd down.)
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I agree.
Further, I have confidence, until proven otherwise, that Pruitt can field a secondary that is good enough to hold their own with the Front 7 turned loose, and maybe even do better than that.
~~~
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If ILB is our weakest link (#1 & #3 in tackles in the SEC) I’d say we have a damn good defense!
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Don’t think they are even close to be the worst, our DBs won that going away. But our ILBs may have been 1 & 3 but it is where they made the tackles that needs improving. How many were behind the LOS? How many sacks? How many runs were stuffed for less that 3 yards. It has been a while since we had a beast in the middle. I understand, they may not have been asked to play that role in our reactive defensive scheme, just hope we are more aggressive going forward.
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Yeah, those numbers are really deceiving, Olddawg.
~~~
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Not sold on Jenkins. I hear him making a lot of excuses and not backing up much of the hype. He looked horrible on film last year.
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With you 100% on that. I’m not sold on Jenkins, either. He did look bad most of the time last year. He’s supposedly turned a new leaf, but we’ll see.
This is a big summer for him and for his football future. But we won’t know if he’s really made the change until we see him play. The first two games should be sufficient enough.
We caught a few glimpses of what he can be his freshman year. Now he’s a junior and behind the eight-ball. It won’t be easy making up for last year.
~~~
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I should clarify. I don’t mean that Jenkins has to make anything up to us, or even his coaches/teammates.
It’s just that it’s very difficult now, if it’s even possible, to be the player he should have been starting his junior year. Football careers are short, and a year lost while you’re playing is so tough to make up for.
~~~
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I want to enjoy a great season with a lot of w’s next year, but honestly, it was so friggin’ hopeless and embarrassing with CTG at times the last few years that a little hustle and grit and preparedness is gonna go long way with me.
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Shit you not I was just searching for an “I want to believe” photo myself. Bravo.
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Please let it be true.
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“Five or six guys.” That’s ten to twelve ACLs to remember in your prayer groups this Sunday.
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This made me chuckle then shudder. Well done sir.
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Usually one has to visit different kinds of websites to get that kind of reaction from the internet. Another item for the prayer groups …
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And five or six clean drug tests
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A College Coach telling feel good stories at a meeting of supporters…who would have guessed..this never goes on.
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Makes the summer more fun, though.
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Imagine if he’d have pulled a Bielema. Ouch!
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“if he’d have pulled a Bielema. Ouch!”
I’m imagining either Lexicon-worthy or sponge-worthy?
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I pulled a Bielema once. It lasted 5 years and I was left weak and anemic.
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You must be using the wrong technique. The key difference appears to be the hand sign position used at the start of the maneuver as shown in the instructional photo below. If you examine the photos of Jen you will note that she is neither weak nor anemic and she hopes her condition lasts a lot longer than five years
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Bet she’ll look hot wearing a hog-hat and crying “SOOIE!”.
That’s just wrong.
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Ug, she’d look cute wearing nothing…er…wait…..(Did I say that exactly right?)
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Does Rocker have any eligibility left?
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None for women driving while Japanese
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Well played, sir.
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…?
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“They turn from the wrong lane. They go 20 miles per hour. It makes me want — Look! Look at this idiot! I guarantee you she’s a Japanese woman.” A beige Toyota is jerking from lane to lane. The woman at the wheel is white. “How bad are Asian women at driving?”
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/cover/news/1999/12/22/rocker/
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You meant Tracey; DiF was talking about John.
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Are you sure?
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Like a good Head-Coach-in-Waiting, Bobo cheers for all of the team.
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This. I so hope this is the case. I was worried when all the Kirby Smart hire/HCIW talk was swirling. Promise that to anyone else and Bobo splits–its not like he’d have trouble finding a new gig–probably as HC. I hope Bobo stays until he retires…at 90.
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If the defense under Pruitt reaches the same level or even 80% of the offense under Bobo we will all be happy.
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It sounds like we are getting back to a slobber-knocking defense!
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As much as I think the UGA D will be much improved this year over last year, that isn’t what is worrying me. It the Offensive Line. UGA needs good run blocking. It seems that is the area that is lacking year after year after year…
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Well I wrote “Run blocking” but what I meant was great offensive line play in general. We need are due to have an awesome O line one of these years, right??
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I’m reading 2015 is a banner year on Georgia for OL. Yet it doesn’t look like we get any of the Top 5, maybe more than that.
I just don’t get it.
~~~
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Bobo has done pretty well with a fairly mediocre offensive line the whole time he has been OC. Not saying I don’t want to see better OL recruiting and play, just that I don’t see it completely hamstringing our offense.
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If Pruitt is Marcellus Wallace in this example, then who is our Zed? That’s what I want to know because I’m skipping that game at least until Bruce Willis gets his samurai sword.
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