Is Quayvon Hicks Trippin’?

Last week, somebody asked me what I thought the story might be with Quayvon Hicks, who started out gangbusters last season but saw his playing time diminish as it went on and has now been shifted into a new role at H-back.  My answer was that the coaches appeared to believe that Merritt Hall was the more consistent blocker at fullback.  That may still be the case.  But it may be that something else is in play, too.

Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo said Georgia played in a three-receiver, one-tight-end set more than 70 percent of the time last season. That formation takes the fullback off the field. Bobo would like to move away a little bit from the traditional fullback mold like the Bulldogs have had in the past with Jeremy Thomas, J.T. Wall and Brannan Southerland.

More than 70 percent of the time?  Sounds like Bobo has already moved away a little bit.  And it may be the case that Hicks has a better skill set for what Bobo is moving to than as a more traditional I-formation fullback.

Richt said the 6-foot-2, 265-pound Hicks “did pretty good,” considering he only has 15 practices at the position under his belt.

“It’s definitely not polished there, but he’s proved to be able to put his hand on the ground on the line of scrimmage and pass pro and run block pretty darn good,” Richt said. “Just learning what to do, he did a pretty good job and part of it is what we call the F position is a fullback but it’s also a tight end. The fullback is out and the F is the tight end in a three-receiver set. A lot of times that F will run the same route sometimes from a fullback position, sometimes from a tight end position or a tight end alignment. There’s a little carryover there so that probably helped him some.”

Carryover… like this moment at his old spot (dial the clip up to the 2:09.00 mark):

It’s too early to know how serious this all is, of course.  It may be little more than window dressing to move a player who hasn’t developed the way the coaches needed at a particular position.  But I hope it’s more.  Hicks has too much talent to let it go to waste.

Advertisement

“We’re still looking for our one percent finder’s fee.”

Andy Staples has a useful primer on the history of the conference championship game.  It serves to reinforce my question about why the NCAA has say so over how a conference crowns its football champion.

But more than that, it reinforces my respect for Roy Kramer’s particular genius in seeing what a championship game could do for the SEC.  I can’t say I’m seeing the same vision from his ACC and Big 12 counterparts today as they seek to change the twelve-team, two-division format, but that’s not to say they shouldn’t have the right to screw things up if they so choose.

Jim Delany still has the biggest Johnson.

This financial aggression will not stand, man.  What’s Mike Slive’s next move?

Georgia or South Carolina: Who Wins the SEC East in 2014?

Let me say that I’m not ready to answer that question just yet, but in reading Athlon’s attempt, the thing that jumps out at me is how much more faith people on the outside have that Pruitt is going to improve the defense this season than we seem to.  Why do you think that’s so?

More than the Jimmies and Joes

As a complement to this, here’s a little “one of these is not like the others” theater for you this morning.

Five programs have had 70+ players drafted in the NFL over the last 13 NFL Drafts: LSU, Ohio State, USC, UGA, and Miami.

— SportSourceAnalytics (@SportSourceA) May 16, 2014

Again, the relative lack of results is disappointing, to say the least, but it does at least say that the program under Richt is able to find top talent, bring it in and develop it.  Now they’ve just got to figure out how to coach ’em up enough to make a four-team playoff consistently.