Limping along

We all knew the injuries that occurred in last year’s Tennessee game had an immediate impact on the offense.  David Ching argues that the offense is still suffering from them.

Following the Tennessee win, the Bulldogs’ record dating back to the start of the 2011 season was 26-7, and it seemed like they still stood a good chance of claiming their third straight SEC East title. Since that day in Knoxville, the Bulldogs are 6-5 and one could easily argue Mike Bobo’s offense still hasn’t completely recovered.

Entering this week’s rematch with Tennessee, Scott-Wesley still hasn’t appeared in a game yet in 2014, although Richt hinted he might make his debut next week against Vanderbilt. Same with Mitchell, who has missed 14 games since tearing his ACL in the first quarter of the Bulldogs’ 2013 opener against Clemson.

But perhaps the most unfortunate injury from the Tennessee game was the one to Marshall.

Despite that, Georgia finds itself fourth nationally in scoring.  So how much better could things get?

… The Bulldogs still have Gurley, and their coaching staff has had more than enough practice turning lemons into lemonade since their visit to Neyland Stadium a year ago, so they’re hardly the limping club that hit the skids after last season’s overtime victory.

The Bulldogs have still fielded a serviceable — and at times, truly impressive — offense since then, despite all the injury absences. Eventually, Bobo might have all his weapons at his disposal once again. And SEC East defenses should take cover if that happens.

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Take your time, Boom.

‘Cause Jeremy Foley says he intends to review your entire body of work this season in evaluating your job performance.

“You never judge or evaluate a program based on one game or one season,” Foley said. “That’s just not how we do things here. We’re going to evaluate where we’re headed – where the players are, how is recruiting going, what type of staff we have — are we a better (program)? That’s going to be plain for all of us to see, but it’s also going to be played out over the course of 11 games and we’ll see where we are when we get to the end of the season.”

That explains why he fired the Zooker mid-season.

“They live in outside-the-box decision-making that they put a formula and a calculation to.”

Les Miles discussing sabermetrics is every bit the delight you’d expect.

The man is great.  I eagerly await his insight into quantum theory.

Trolling for Updyke

Just jogged around UGA campus here in Athens. The beauty of this campus gets me every time. Incredible place.

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) September 26, 2014

Okay, maybe it’s just a compliment.

“It only takes one guy for a breakdown.”

Jeremy Pruitt sees Tennessee’s offensive line in the same boat as Georgia’s secondary.

The way Bulldogs first-year defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt sees it, his guys are going through the same developmental process as Tennessee’s offensive line.

“They’ve got a lot of new guys up there, and the guys they had were there for a long time,” Pruitt said. “They’ve been productive all year. They’re probably like us a little bit in that when you’ve got five new guys or six or seven counting the tight ends, you might have six out of seven do the right thing on one play, but it only takes one guy for a breakdown.

“I’m sure they’re like anybody else in the country in that they’re trying to sustain over the course of a game.”

Except the Vols may be even greener in spots.

Tennessee coach Butch Jones said this week that there could be many instances in which an entire side of his offense is comprised of true freshmen: right guard Jayshon Robertson, right tackle Coleman Thomas, tight end Ethan Wolf and receiver Josh Malone.

If Jalen Hurd starts, that’s another true freshman running behind them and providing the last line of pass protection for Worley.  But I’m sure they’ll play just as well on the road as South Carolina’s right side did in Columbia.  Because, Georgia pass defense.

A man of few words

This sounds kind of ominous (h/t Bernie).

Georgia's Todd Gurley on whether he'll be fresher this week having played just the first quarter against Troy: "You'll see."

— David Paschall (@DavidSPaschall) September 24, 2014

Is there a bigger difference between this year’s meeting and last year’s than a healthy Gurley?  I guess we’ll see.

There’s offense. And then there’s offense.

Yeah, scoring is up across the board in college football this season.  But even in that context, Arizona State running 105 plays, gaining 626 yards of offense and losing by 35 is insane.

This can’t be bad news for Tennessee.

Tennessee is down two of its top three receivers (in terms of receiving yardage) for Saturday.  Nah, it’s probably no big deal.  Last year showed that key injuries to skill set players have little impact on the game.

Then again, if Georgia does win comfortably, there’s your ready excuse to Dawgrade the result.

Mike Bianchi works it.

Mike Bianchi’s hard on for Urban Meyer is something to marvel.  In his latest column, he manages to take Charlie Strong’s discipline story at Texas and mine it for a dig at Corch:

Much like Muschamp at Florida, Strong has had to come in at Texas and clean up a mess left behind by a former championship coach who left a broken program.

It would be interesting to see where Bianchi might take things writing about a future Florida-Ohio State matchup, but with the way things are looking right now, that’s probably a ways off.

Wild Dawggin’ it.

As I mentioned in my game review, I really liked the version of the Wildcat… er, Wild Dawg, Georgia trotted out against Troy, with Michel taking the direct snap from center and McKenzie running the jet sweep.  And not just from a results on the field standpoint.  I like that it gave Tennessee’s defensive coaches something to ponder.

So, needless to say, I’m down with Richt being coy about the formation’s future.

“Everybody has called it the Wildcat formation for the longest, but ‘Wild Dawg’ is probably not a bad way to go,” said UGA coach Mark Richt when asked about it during his Monday night radio show. “I would think we’ll see a little bit more of that before it’s over. I don’t know how much we’ll do. But (Michel) really has got a good knack for it, and his former high school teammate – Isaiah McKenzie – is a good speed-sweep guy, which is always a part of that Wildcat system.”

Even if Bobo never calls it this Saturday, making the Vols spend preparation time on it is a win of sorts.  Particularly since Tennessee is having to work on something else it’s seen infrequently.

Jancek noted Georgia’s offensive line’s role in a rushing attack that’s averaged 304 yards per game, and facing a power team like the Bulldogs will be an adjustment for the Vols, who see mostly spread looks from their own offense and two of their first three opponents.

“We don’t get to see that a lot even in spring practice,” the coordinator said. “We don’t get to see that a lot in fall camp. It is foreign, and that’s been a challenge for us to try and make sure that we cover all of our bases when it comes to the two-back offenses and the problem they can create with that two-back system.”

Just because you throw eight guys in the box doesn’t mean you’ve automatically shut down the other team’s running game.