Day three of the Georgia bloggers’ roundtable discussion at College Football Zealots brings up the question in the header.
There is less consensus in the answers to this one than there was to either of the first two questions Kevin asked. Given that it’s Pruitt who is no longer the new face in town, I find that a little surprising. (Although I have to admit that Greg Poole’s take on the matter is all in on the defensive coordinator. I’m not quite that calm yet.)
Get The Picture 
I have two concerns.
Can we stop a serious running the football down our throats football team…consistently, in the fourth quarter when the fat lady is clearing her throat?
Can our punting game consistently gain an extra 10-15 yards for the defense to work with. (Punts are defense, ya know?)
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Actually, I have no concerns. I have total faith in Pruitt to fix everything on D. And punts are STs, not D. Don’t hang the punter on Pruitt.
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The run defense would appear to be the area where we could be hurt the worst. The 2014 Florida game is puzzling in several ways. I’ve wondered many times whether the dismal outcome was the result of UF’s game planning and execution, and their subsequent physical domination over the Dogs’ defense, or more UGA’s inexplicable indifference on that day. If it’s the former, then we have some work to do ourselves in scheming and game planning and player packages; but if it’s the latter, that’s a whole ‘nother challenge. And just how we meet that specific challenge is the $64K question. Was last year’s UF game an outlier, given the whole Gurley episode that might have finally sucked the energy out of the team? Or was it that sneaky copperhead who shows up at the wrong time and continues to bite us on the ass. Building a stouter run defense makes perfect sense; building even stouter hearts and minds (and a strong anti-venom) might also help. My sense is that Pruitt is doing just that.
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I agree. Seemed like we couldn’t make in game adjustments vs Florida, but I’ll give Pruitt a pass for last season. Really hope to see a true junkyard Dawg mentality return soon.
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Hard to disagree. Stop the run. That’s the question mark. Do so, and it’s a big year.
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Yep. Run defense is my main concern. With Ledbetter having a good spring, Natrez having a great spring, and Thompson on the way, I feel like things are trending upward but that’s a far cry from fixing what we saw last year. Cannon is spot on about the question. Was it a serious deficiency in being able to stop the run or that old ghost that continues to haunt us of showing up and being thrown around by a team we should handle. I’m going the former. Considering how little FU threw the ball that day, there is no way we shouldn’t have adjusted and shut them down if it was just a question of desire.
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See that my fellow Dawgs are waxing around the same conundrum. We all like the difference that Pruitt made in his first year and it was done without having a full deck on board the D. We still can’t lose sight that his D cost us a couple of games, so we buried our angst and gave Pruitt the benefit of the doubt that he deserved. But hidden amongst these postings is that little sliver of doubt about Pruitt. If this sounds nasty and negative, I really don’t mean for it to be, but Pruitt still has to prove himself mostly because of the “no-change” attitude after halftime in the FU game. Tech got back into the game by running up the middle. Neither game looked on the surface to be a player attitude game, but remarks after the FU game by players give us pause. The pause then went to Pruitt for overall responsibility for how his players perceived the game.
Not talking Pruitt down, but I’m more than anxious to see how the middle of that D line holds up and to see what their play choices and coaching schemes are this season. Will he depend more on the ends to crash through and surround the QB to channel opponents into the run and to take over on downs or will he sit back and defend without being too aggressive in order to overcome what we perceive as a weakness relative to the ability of the rest of the D? All D Coordinators have to gamble. Gambling on D has a good fan-happy result and a result that is unforgivable in many minds. When the opponent’s O-line and backfield has shown they can overpower the middle of our D-line, what will be Pruitt’s reply and scheme this year? Trent will have a lot to do with that scheme and perception of the D-line, of that I’m sure.
I’m waiting to see and these eyes will once again be on the D Coach.
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I remember Kentucky running it up the gut at will. I think they might have beat us if not for the great play of a walk on special teams player and Murray. The improvement in the secondary as cobbled up as it appeared on paper was very impressive. I don’t think we should expect to fix everything at once. Pruitt already proved he can coach. He is getting his players in and coaching them up the rest.
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That was 2 years ago sport. Different coordinator/different schemes
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I remember. My point, admittedly not very well made was that we’ve been soft in the middle for awhile and very vulnerable to 3rd and long. Pruitt has done well managing the previous DC’s secondary. I don’t think it all gets done in his first year but get done it will.
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Biggest concern =CMR + his perpetual fascination of turning DBs into WRs and WRs into DBs….
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Trolll hard, brother!
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Got ya covered!
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see link if there are any questions, specifically 1980* http://www.ncaa.com/history/football/fbs
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Greatest concern? Marijuana.
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Stopping the run and punting the football.
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