I get the point that a message needs to be sent there’s a lot of room to improve, but…
Pruitt said he was happy with the effort of his players. But there were still mistakes, and “a lot of them,” according to Pruitt. Some were technical and some were mental. To hear Pruitt tells it, the Bulldogs got lucky on a bunch of plays.
“The tape doesn’t lie. There’s a couple times if you watch tape there’s guys running open, and some of the guys win up front so the quarterback doesn’t get the ball off,” Pruitt said. “There’s times in the back end where somebody guarded their guy really well, we don’t have the right pass rush lanes, and the guy scrambles. So it takes 11 guys doing the right stuff all the time. Our guys understand that.”
… isn’t one of the points of having a fierce pass rush is that it gives help to an inexperienced secondary? Can’t that be counted as a win?
Get The Picture 
Todd Grantham used to tell us he only needed one guy to beat his man for us to win a play.
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Defense in depth Ole Buddy.
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jeremy “Munson” Pruitt
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The day Pruitt is satisfied is the day I no longer want him on the sideline.
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Amen. His not being satisfied is a good thing that’s been tempered through his coaching years. He’s not about to go off on fragile egos in a manner that doesn’t get the best out of his players. It’s the smart play on his part to instill his methods early on even if critics say his methods are harsh. Players know what to expect and not let their egos get bruised such that they begin to resist the lesson. By being your own worst critic, you learn more for yourself and for your people that can be applied to the problem at hand.
Pruitt will be judged by how well his people perform and he is just getting started. I’ve heard more public critical thinking from Friend and Bobo as well than has been the case in the past. I agree with Moe that it is Munsonesque, which is a good thing.
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Evaluating based on performance rather than outcome is a great thing for this team right now.
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+1000.
Evaluating actual performance rather than outcome keeps you from getting sloppy on your technique. Crisp execution of your technique, more often than anything, will maximize your chances of the desired outcome.
Even if you play the technique perfectly, the other guy can make a great play and beat you, but the odds of him executing a great play are greatly in your favor. If some guys are playing sloppy, or lazy, or don’t know what the hell they’re supposed to be doing, well….we’ve kind of seen how well that works the last few years.
I think Pruitt is saying “We want to control the part we can control, and we aren’t going to be satisfied with doing it the wrong way, even if we get away with it.” That’s music to this old Bulldog’s ears.
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Welcome to Process thinking, Senator 😉
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Keep it up Pruitt. Shooting for a B is a sure way to make a C, we’ve been shooting for B’s on defense around here for far too long.
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It’s a win for the team Senator. However, that still means that our DB got beat and needs to review the film. I think that’s the point he’s making. On too many plays, we had at least one guy get beat and that’s enough that a talented QB will take advantage of you.
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I hope the Senator’s stance in this post is a sarcastic one
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Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner.
Some of you just think you know me. 😉
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You should execute one of those John Cena hand waves across your face when you say that. 🙂
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I hope the problem with leaving rush lanes open and having the QB scramble for a first downis being worked on every single day. There were a couple of instances where we made Stoudt look like Connor Shaw. Accept that kind of effort against Nick Marshall and they will be lining up for an extra point. Love the new pressure packages but it does no good if we leave him an escape path to get to positive yardage. Preach on Brother Pruitt.
The pass coverage positions were very good, at least compared to past years. Primary improvement I want to see from the coverage guys is some sort of “clock/signal” to tell them when to look back. We were ahead of where I expected us to be on pass coverage but that is because I have seen UGA defensive backs look like that for decades. These guys are getting into positions that will allow not only PBU’s but frequent INTs, very impressed with that. And the hand stripping techniques were something totally new for UGA defensive backs.
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I don’t know why 2013 has made us forget the DGD’s in our secondary from 2010 – 2012. Pass defense and confusion back there has not been a problem for a decade.
I’m happy CJP is here and CTG is gone, loved the way our guys tackled, showed discipline, stayed intense but focused, etc. And as Ivey has pointed out, it’s our previous guys weren’t terrific backing up the front 7 on run plays, etc. But they did their primary job pretty well most of the last five or so years, perhaps longer, if you look up the stats.
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Sorry – that should read:
our previous guys weren’t terrific backing up the front 7 on run plays, etc.
(and actually I don’t know that they did that bad a job of that, but maybe they could have done some things better. My point is they were pretty good at defending passes, which is their main gig back there).
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We will just have to disagree on that judgment Cosmic. Even back to Erk UGA has always played soft pass coverage and given up the short throws because of the cushion we gave. I fully understand the risk of playing tight but feel we allowed too many long, time consuming drives over the years waiting on other teams to get a penalty, or drop a pass. Last Saturday was rare because I saw our defender close to the receiver and contesting every throw. That will not only get our offense back on the field earlier, rest our defense, but will result in more INTs which have been few. A fair counter would be: it will cost you some long TDs, and that is true. I like the tradeoff and thought we were in good position to make plays last Saturday, and we still got beat deep less than we had playing passively, from what I saw.
Our position on Saturday more closely resembled the DB techniques and positioning I have seen from LSU and Bama, albeit with less experience and talent at this point. I like the direction we are taking in both pass coverage and sending the dawgs with pressure.
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I’m not really arguing any of this except the first two sentences. One lousy year has people saying our secondary has always sucked, or always been a source of frustration, and it’s simply not true.
Look up the CFB stats for our secondary during the Boykin-Smith-Commings-Rambo-Williams era, I believe you’ll find UGA is generally in the top 20% – 30% nationally in most of the categories that count.
Those guys would have started on almost any SEC team at that time. Four were drafted by the NFL and Smith eventually got a contract, too.
It’s easy to forget after a year like last year, but I loved watching those guys. They played with effort and spark, generally kept their noses clean, and Boykin in particular is way under-rated when we list out our favorite game-changers and DGD’s, imho.
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I’m intrigued by what one of our D players said in the post game about the Dime package CJP runs. He made it sound like magic. The nicest change we had Saturday was that on 3rd and Grantham we won a lot. By the end of the game I was almost relaxed when the D was on the field, that has not happened in a long long time.
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I agree about the 3rd and Grantham. Many times last Saturday we put Clemson in reverse and shut them down. Last year we would put a team in reverse until they (repeatedly) completed 3rd and 17.
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Parsing the words – in an interview – of our calculating DC are we?
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My God, Larry, did you hear that guy there…1-11, my God he’s only a first-year guy.
Somewhere on a heavenly bass lake, Larry smiles, says “well, you know Pruitt is right, and we got Steve Spurrier and all those receivers, all those huge guys our little corners have to cover and South Carolina’s offensive line is huge, just huge…and that Davis, you know he will be ready for Georgia, you just know he will.”
1-0 is just 1-11…really Jeremy, this ain’t the university of free footwear.
1-0 is 1-0 around here, but I get yer point.
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Pruitt Trolls Spurrier, Long Range: Film at 11.
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Gurley > 3&Out > Chubb > 3&Out > Gurley sounds like a winning combination to me.
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Pruitt is a perfectionist. That is exactly what we need at DC.
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Amen, brother!
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In the first half, it did seem our best pass defense was Clemson receivers dropping passes. GATA Jeremy!
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Pruitt is a breath of fresh air. His approach is the right one. He knows it’s a long process (and nothing wrong with that word – Saban doesn’t own it, it’s been used by coaches for decades, and even when it isn’t, most of them are doing it), and its just the beginning.
If this team is going to be good and win anything, we’ll have to get better every week, and continue to get better every week. Along the way, we’ll have to learn how to win as a team (good start to that). That’s what the 2002 team did, and this team is similar because none of our players have won a championship. So it’s a learning process.
This is double-true of the defense, since it’s the first year in a new system. But again, a good start.
The hype is at a new level, and IMO it’s the Playoff that’s driving it. But we should take Pruitt’s words literally, as I’m sure he means them. We could have given up more points. There were a lot of mistakes made in the second half, that we probably can’t get away with in Columbia. And so on.
Whatever happens, I feel certain Pruitt will get everything we’ve got of our players. Will it be enough, are we good enough? IDK. But that’s all we can ask for, and all we can do.
As Bobo pointed out, the offense still has work to do, and we’ve got figure out a way to get the ball downfield. The OL wasn’t near as good as it appeared, needs to improve a lot, etc.. We must continue the good work on ST’s, and we’ve got to handle the hype.
Reality is what we need right now because, in terms of winning, this team is very young. So I’m happy all the coaches are dishing it out, focused on keeping our players grounded. And very happy they are all on the same page. That is really refreshing, and great to see.
~~~
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In my re-watch of the game, there was one particular formation that continued to be problematic for us on D. On several occasions we dropped a rush-end or OLB thereby switching from a 4-2 look to a 3-3 look. When we dropped into this look, our shifting LB (usually Floyd) wasn’t getting as deep or wide in his zone drop as needed. Armchair analysis for sure, but it sure looked like a fundamentals gap to me. #nitpick
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