What’s with the passing game?

It’s weird to say when you’ve got a quarterback completing over 70% of his passing attempts and who hasn’t thrown an interception yet, but something seems missing from Georgia’s passing offense.

It just feels anemic.  Mason’s average pass attempt yields a paltry 6.7 yards.  That’s considerably down from last season’s 8.9 ypa.  And before you attribute that to Aaron Murray, Mason’s ypa last season was 8.8.  And before you attribute that to the lack of a deep threat in the starting lineup, keep in mind that the bulk of Mason’s 2013 work came long after Mitchell and Scott-Wesley were lost for the season.

So, what’s going on this season?

• Execution.   Bennett drops an easy third down toss on Georgia’s second series, forcing the Dawgs to settle for a field goal.  Mason does a poor job selling play action on the disastrous first-and-goal that resulted in the intentional grounding call.  The offense as a whole has done a poor job selling the screen pass to Gurley.  Now, passes get dropped, so that’s gonna happen.  But it’s worrying that Mason, who came out of a high school passing system very different from what he’s playing in now, isn’t more consistent with the most bread-and-butter play in Georgia’s offensive arsenal.  You’d think a guy with four-plus seasons of coaching from Bobo would have play action down pat.
• Transition from Murray to Mason.  Honestly, I’m not sure why this should be an issue, since Mason took over as the starter last season, but it is.  It’s not the arm strength I’m referring to as much as it is a difference in approach by the two.  Both get their reads in before the snap, but where Murray was the kind of guy who would read through the defense after the snap and throw to second, third or even fourth options, Mason is more direct in his approach.  I have the sense that Mason knows where he wants to go with a throw before the ball is snapped and knows he wants to get the ball out as quickly as he can.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing – so far, he seems far less prone to being sacked than Murray was because of it – but it seems like his receivers sometimes have issues adjusting to the change of pace from last season.  There have been at least a couple of occasions in both games when the receivers have seemed surprised by the timing of the pass.
• Play calling.  Bobo is trying to establish a run-first mentality this season.  Given the depth at tailback, it’s hard to blame him for that.  But the run-pass ratio against Carolina was 38-22; that was in a game where Georgia was in scramble mode for much of the night trying to catch up to a double-digit lead.  Is that leading Mason to press to make the most out of his limited opportunities?  Or is it giving the coaches a mind set where what’s expected out of Mason is game management über alles?
• Health.  Okay, now let’s talk about arm strength.  But I’m not talking about a Murray-Mason comparison here.  I’m talking about a Mason 2013-Mason 2014 one.  Remember, we were told that Mason had worked on his mechanics with Bobo’s dad with an aim at improving his ability to drive through his throws.  If that’s the case, it’s hard to see so far that it’s borne fruit, as he’s still having an issue with some of his throws lacking velocity.  (That cost him at least one completion I can think of last night.) Which makes me wonder – and this is pure, baseless speculation on my part – whether Mason is still suffering from the tired arm issues we heard about in the preseason.

A lot of this seems fixable over time.  But a couple of things, maybe not so much.

Is it just me, or do you guys see it, too?

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UPDATE:  I forgot to mention this.

“We tried to run a little fake-boot,” said Mason, who passed for 191 yards and 2 TDs in his first SEC start. “We felt really good about it. Obviously everyone in the world knew we were probably going to give the ball to Todd. We had two more downs to try to punch it in. But they played it really well. The D-end got in my face and I couldn’t really get it to Quayvon with a wet ball. [Emphasis added.] So I just threw it at his feet. I didn’t think it was intentional grounding because he was right there.”

I’m not sure why Mason’s struggling so much with bad weather, but it’s a repeat of the bowl game performance.  Two out of four games isn’t a small sample size.  It’s a problem.