From Wes Rucker’s Georgia preview:
Another major problem for Georgia was red-zone defense. It initially seems odd to mention red-zone defense being a problem when the Dawgs were technically 29th nationally in overall red-zone defense, but that didn’t tell the full story. Georgia, like defense, was awful in preventing touchdowns in the red zone. The Dawgs were 109th nationally in that area, allowing opponents to reach the end zone 67.5 percent of the time they got inside the 20-yard line. That’s a woeful statistic, and it’s hard to compete for SEC and national titles without having a stiffer backbone in those situations…
True ‘dat.
Now that can be tempered a tiny bit by noting that in 2014, Georgia allowed a total of 27 red zone TDs, which was a more modest 55th nationally. That’s actually four fewer than Ohio State’s defense – about which Rucker notes “they didn’t allow nearly as many trips to the red zone”, and which isn’t correct, either – gave up. But Georgia is definitely in the bottom part of the pack in the SEC, and that’s not a good place for a team expecting to travel to Atlanta for starters to be.
Get The Picture 
Given that run defense was the weakness, this isn’t terribly shocking. You have to run the ball to score in the red zone and stone the run to force fgs and/or turnovers. Hopefully, the kid from Albany will take care of some of this.
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Jonathan Taylor being got gone and Mayes being hurt made us below par.
Depth from freshmen will certainly help. Trenton may well be the answer.
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Speaking of Taylor, I heard that the gal who fingered him in Tuscaloosa lied, he was totally innocent, all charges against him have been dropped and now she has had a false-swearing charge brought against her by the Tuscaloosa PD. So, Taylor got the boot from the Bama team without justification and has had his life screwed up.
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Don’t you think he created a chance for something like that to happen with his past behavior?
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Atlanta? oh, right we play Tech there.
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Just further proof of our inability last year to stop the straight ahead power run all year. You can attribute all three losses in 2014 to the same issue as the RZ weakness he is identifying. We did well against teams that ran laterally. Is that Pruitt’s scheme? The smaller bodies up front? Or is it the jimmies and joes? Our success this year will come down to solving this issue because every team we face can see it on film and a few of them can take advantage of it. I think the reason Arky didn’t exploit it was due to us having them down so much in the first half and forcing them to pass more than they wanted. Bigger question mark than the QB issue to me.
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Once again I must be forgetting but didn’t UF turn the corner on us at will last year. Against them up the middle was the least of our problems.
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Yes, they bounced some wide when we got suckered in but they also had success hitting the tackle spot as they blocked down on our ILBs. We never seemed to adjust after shutting them down in the 1st Qtr. They had a lot of success when they were able to use the official to shield them from our DBs when they came up. 🙂 But you are right, it was a different way to attack us successfully than SC and GT did, almost like a slant dive to the outside as I remember. Their offensive line wasn’t that talented so maybe they unable to block us straight on. I remember thinking that we would fix that when we got in at the half but we never got control. Never thought we would lose that game until the fourth quarter was 1/3 gone. I think the FU team was more shocked than we were.
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All four comments are spot on. The fact that cjp is trying to sign five defensive tackles in this class is illustrative as well. Our whack a mole recruiting style of the pre pruitt influence probably has a few more hits. The good news is that we can see the attempt to finally get ahead of the curve.
As others have said… the fact that we will actually have a full boat of 85 will eventually pay off. Next year is our year if the young lineman on both sides of the ball step up. As mentioned… Jonathan Taylor could have really helped this year.
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Mac, I think us being better laterally than up-the-gut had more to do with the talent and health of the players than Pruitt’s scheme. Pruitt and Rocker have SEC experience and you know they have to be educated in the stop-the-run category. Last year I think the struggle was with Mayes’ health issues and Thornton’s talent (and maybe size).
Also, I think we are making too much of all this talk about lighter bodies. I picture them taking a 325lb kid, trimming the baby fat and replacing it with leaner mass to bring him to 310ish.
Anyway that’s my opinion…and you know everyone has one. I agree that this is the bigger question mark for the up-coming season. I’m ready to see the answers to our questions on the field.
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Good point about the health of some key guys last year, and I am in your camp about the smaller bodies. I just pointed to one of the three potential issues: our scheme, the push to get DL guys smaller, faster and athletic, or not having the talent on the field. I am hoping it was a shortage of talent because that is the easier fix. I love everything CJP is doing with the defense but this one area. I think he will have an answer, and we should all hope that is the case.
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You can bet your last dollar that we will see loads of runs between the tackles this season. Opposing coaches keep up with these stats like the writers do and know where we were weak. Two things we can count on seeing this season are; teams will load the box to stop our run game and force our new qb to throw the ball and offenses will try to use a power running game against our defense.
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JCDAWG83 – this is a new year with new talent along the line and at ILB. I think we will be dramatically better at stuffing the run.
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Hope so, we still aren’t loaded with big bodies the 3-4 needs to tie up offensive linemen and stuff the middle. We’ll see how Pruitt handles it. That’s why he makes the big bucks.
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In order to successfully play D using a 3-4 you have to have a NG that can occupy at least 2 O-linemen. If not, the OGs can get to the ILBs and you bleed yardage 4-5 yards at a time inside all the way down the field.
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Let’s see what year 2 under the Pruitt Regime looks like. If he has the same success as Van Gorder in year 2, then look out, ’cause it may be lights out. If not…well there always next year.
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The problem is we are playing with three olbs. That has to be at the expense of something. That coupled with our two undersized safeties will make the middle vulnerable again.
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Small sample size problem here….there isn’t that much difference between being the 5th best and the 40th best in TD% in the red zone.
But…when you look at the losses last year.
South Carolina scored 3 TDs on its first 3 trips in the red zone…kicked a FG on a technicality (4th and 2 at the 18) to mess up the red zone TD streak…then scored a TD on their only other Red Zone possession in the 3rd. Basically, they were 4 for 4 on scoring TD’s when they had a 1st down inside the 20. The inability to force a FG killed UGA vs Carolina.
However…Florida scored 2 TDs on 3 RZ trips…but one was the gravy score in the 4th Quarter. I’m not sure the Red Zone defense had anything to do with the loss to Florida.
The one that is really intriguing is the GT game…from a statistical basis, the team did pretty well in the Red Zone. actually only allowed scores on 50% of the attempts in Regulation. But when you dig in…blocked FG from the 20…99 yard fumble return by Swann…Fumble by Thomas that was recovered by Herrerra…those are the only stops.
So you really have a few options…you regress to the mean on turnovers and get crushed because that stat carried your terrible RZ defense last year…you solidify your RZ defense and withstand the regression to the mean on turnovers…or you somehow improve the RZ defense and keep the turnovers going which leads to the SECCG.
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I predict that Georgia’s points per game will fall off this year, even at Georgia’s time of possesion per game will increase…dramatically, I hope. With the offensive set up Georgia will have, they will be able to control the game and limit the other team’s number of possessions and rest the defense. Going against the grain of HUNH, Georgia will look more like the SEC of old…and it will work…because CMR knows ball control is the real fix for saving defensive energy. And limiting offensive timeouts with a simple pounding game plan, will allow the defense to use more time-outs when needed. Also, the running game will shorten the game time wise.
The one thing I absolutely KNOW, is that I’m guessing.
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Asking our offense to worry about time of possession or running X number of plays per game makes me crazy. I just want them to focus on efficiency, it’s the only stat the offense needs to worry about imho. The rest takes care of itself.
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I am wondering if we won’t see more 4 man lines against power teams. Thompson is too good to be kept off the field and Ledbetter looked good in the spring. I find a line with Carter at rush end, Mays and Thompson at tackle and Ledbetter at the other end very interesting.
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We have basically had 4 players with hands in the dirt more often under CTG and CJP than a true 3-4. What I see more often with CJP is movement along the line and stunts to confuse the offensive blocking scheme, along with bringing DBs more often. Really like the look, but we did get gouged a few times, and were unable to get the ball back for the last 5 minutes against SC.
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I’m laughing at the keyboard while wondering if we are all going to own our talk if L-M comes in and kicks our ass first game. The naysayers would look like the hyperactive kids taking over the meds cabinet at school, tying up the teacher and principle back-to-back and running circles around them wearing indian bonnets while squirting syringes of sleepy time tea in the air. (Long ago Oliphant cartoon)
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If we lose to L-M, we have major problems we haven’t even thought about.
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But shit does happen sometimes. We lost one year to the Richmond Spiders. This is where coaching becomes psychology…and it’s what’s happened too many times in the past….The last thing you want is your team thinking they’ll win without their best effort…and it happens. It’s the leading cause of major upsets. I still remember SOS saying in the media that DJ Shockly was a Heisman candidate. If CMR has struggled in one area, it’s this. No black-outs, no strutting around, no mouthing, just play your heart out against everyone.
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