A few stats for you to chew over this morning as we continue to ponder what the hell is going wrong:
- Georgia is sixth nationally in yards per offensive play.
- Georgia is 92nd in offensive plays run. However, that stat is a little misleading in that 35 of the 36 teams below Georgia in that category have only played five games. (Also, it’s only fair to mention that the Dawgs lost a quarter of play in the ULM game.)
- Georgia is 36th nationally in yards per defensive play.
- Georgia is 86th in defensive plays run.
- Georgia is 126th in third down conversion rate.
- Georgia is 28th in opponent third down conversion rate.
What that paints a picture of is that (1) the offense, despite the changes, the defensive schemes it faces, and the tentative play of Lambert and some of the receivers, is as explosive as ever; (2) the defense, while not spectacular, hasn’t been awful overall – although it’s trending that way of late; and…
(3) the offense’s complete failure on third downs is killing this team.
There’s no other way to look at it. If it were converting more third downs, Georgia would be running more plays, which would generate more points and its defense would be on the field less. That ain’t happening.
May need to spend more than one night on that, Coach.
Get The Picture 
So is it “3rd and Schotty” or 3rd and Lambert”?
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Yes.
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Anyone think it’s ironic it is that our OC’s nickname from day 1 (Schotty) also is an adjective to describe something ‘poor’ or ‘bad’?… maybe that was an omen…
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I believe you mean shoddy.
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I wonder what the average yards to gain on 3rd down might be. Guessing it’s more than five. Maybe I’m just fixated on the times when it seems they run into the line for one or two, then throw incomplete, leaving 3rd and long.
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Lambert has almost been feast or famine. Vs SC only 1 incompletion, vs competent D’s he barely has hit the 50% mark. Given that teams are loading the box and the O-line is not getting good push, we have tried to push for throwing on 1st, which when incomplete and followed by a gain of less then 4 yards keeps us in 3 and 6+ A LOT. Even better were the 4-5 times vs Bama we literally went pass, pass, pass, punt.
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Simple as 1, 2, 3. Against SC all we hit were slants and stops, and maybe the occasional back shoulder or deep out. So what does the next opponent do? Take away the slants and stops. What does Lambert do? Panic. Saban laid out the blueprint on how to stop our offense and until we figure out how to do other things successfully we are going to struggle.
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The whole offense has been that way most of the season, especially outside of Chubb. Sony topped 130 yards vs UT, but had 100 by halftime, with 60+ on one run.
The team’s either breaking off huge runs and the occasional pass, or they’re trapped in run-run-pass-punt 3-and-outs.
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3rd down has generally been horrible on offense, but that’s because we’ve spent a lot of time (other than against USCe) behind the chains. I would like to see the run/pass mix on 1st down in particular. My gut tells me we haven’t been balanced on 1st down.
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What’s funny is our 3rd down conversion rate in that game was just as bad (25%). We just avoided the down almost altogether. Wonder how we can get back to that strategy?
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Until the OBS made the comment in his presser that there was no way we only faced 4 3rd downs, I thought that was offensive efficiency right there. One of those 3rd downs resulted in a successful field goal attempt. One was in garbage time.
What was different? We threw successfully a lot on early downs to get the safeties back. Then we started gashing them with the run.
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I can only go by situational stats, which won’t account for called passes that didn’t result in a throw, but Georgia has run the ball 132 times and thrown it 53 times on first down. The rates are virtually identical to last year so far. In 2014 they ran 21.4 runs on first down a game and threw 10.15 passes. So far it’s 22 runs per game and 9.83 passes. I’d like a break down of the effectiveness of the plays compared to last year though. Georgia’s offense has seemed to be all or nothing in both the running game and passing game, regardless of down.
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BR, thanks for the stats (I’m too lazy to look it up)! Your point about effectiveness is right on. While 3rd down is the money down, 1st down effectiveness is most important for offensive efficiency.
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Okay, digging through the passing numbers some more, the short passing game on 3rd down has been horrendous this year. Last year the passing game was pretty much equally efficient on all downs. This year, 1st down is excellent, 2nd down is a little above average and 3rd down is bad. The only area where they’re about as efficient as last year is 3rd and 10+. The short passing, for whatever reason, is not working on 3rd down.
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How does that compare to say 2012?
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The rates in 2012 were 18.57 first down runs and 12.71 first down passes per game. In 2013 it was 19.46 to 15.77. 2013 is the most balanced they’ve been since 2008, and the 2012 numbers are more the norm prior to the last two years.
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When Richt gave up calling plays, I was all for it. But it seems as if he has been too disconnected or something similar since then. Maybe that move has nothing to do with anything, but we started losing something (attitude?) around that time. All I do know is that we can’t seem to get prepared to beat teams who have what appears to be even close to equal talent most of the time. We need superior talent and experience across the position board, like with out first four games.
Until last Saturday, I never would have thought that I would be typing anything like this….that game changed me.
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What is our 2nd down conversion rate?
3rd down is a lot more manageable if it is 3rd and -3. We have continually been in 3rd and +4.
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The tempo needs to stop. When you just try to run as many plays as possible, the chance of screw up is multiplied. Every play is like a test each player must pass each down. If the coaches are just trying to run as many plays as possible, the urgency to “pass your next test” goes away because the mindset then becomes, “I’ll get em’ next play.” Schotty needs to slow it down, get everyone on the right page and treat each down like it’s the most important one. These 3 and out’s are a killer when you only burn 36 seconds of clock. Am I the only one that sees that?
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Um, Georgia doesn’t do hurry-up.
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That’s right – we don’t huddle but we only go hurry-up when it makes sense to change it up.
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You do realize how the hurry up works right? It is completely based on getting the initial 1st down. If you go 3 and out, it has nothing to do with speed. The last time the hurry-up really killed the O was when Bobo first tried pushing it hard in 2011. After that season he seemed to learn how to mix it well with slow, power running to make a very unique offense that could eat clock or go fast at will. We also had Murray, who as we have mentioned was one hell of a QB.
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I re-watched the game last night and that’s exactly what I saw. The defense over matched their offense but got worn down throughout the game. Same as the Alabama game the 3 and outs are killing this team with fatigue and field position. This team is a good qb away from being very good. Forget being thankful for Aaron Murray. I would kill for Hutson Mason and his 70% of completions. We’ve got to get better at moving the chains.
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CMR the thinking man’s coach.
Coach you half thru the season, and as usual, you start noticing this. Question? Where in hell have you been lately!!!
While at it put some fire in the KO return decisions and your pee wee punter.
Ask your OC why is he splitting out the TEs when your QB could not find them if they dropped back behind the LOS and sent up a red flare.
Here is a clue for you CMR.
Your offense is terrible re sets and formations, know one knows from the coaches to the players what in hell is going on [other than let us run up the middle…Vince loves that play as does every D coach in the SEC], and you can not get your best offensive players on the field.
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On the whole 3rd down conversion rate thing:
Alabama is ranked in the top 5, and they only convert 34%, so that’s not the issue
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It’s defense man.
Even though Alabama’s offense on third down conversions is about as bad as Georgia’s, their defense is better.
The offense is No 3 in the conference yards a pass attempt, No 2 in yards a carry.
UGA Defense is No 10 & No 8 in the conference in same categories (yards per pass/rush attempt).
Alabama defense is No 1 on both categories.
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3rd down is the Michael Bennett/TE down. We seem to be missing both this year – at least in the last 2 games.
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Maybe EVERY NIGHT should be 3d Down Night UNTIL THEY FIX IT.
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