How much of a poster boy is Keith Marshall?

Today, the AJ-C asks the musical question, “Will new OC Jim Chaney be more effective than previous UGA staff at utilizing talent?”.  If by “staff” they mean Brian Schottenheimer, well, okay, I suppose.  But if this is intended as a larger scale criticism of Richt’s offense, it’s only fair to point out Georgia’s national ranking in offensive yards per play over the previous seven seasons:

• 2008:  8th
• 2009:  34th
• 2010:  24th
• 2011:  56th
• 2012:  1st
• 2013:  13th
• 2014:  7th

I looked but couldn’t find a year in there when Jim Chaney coached an offense with a better ypp ranking than Bobo.

By the way, last year Georgia was 40th.  Pittsburgh was 56th.  Now it’s fair to note that Georgia had more talent at its disposal, at least until Chubb’s injury, but looking back further, it’s hard to argue Georgia was doing that poor a job with utilization.

This isn’t to say I wish Keith Marshall’s touches hadn’t been significantly higher in 2015.  But it isn’t to say that Chaney’s a slam dunk, either, at least compared to Bobo’s history in Athens.  Particularly if we’re not being overly pessimistic about the talent holes on offense this season.

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Just shut up.

His mind perhaps distracted by the size of Donald Trump’s penis, Marco Rubio goes for broke and elects to disregard the Dawgnation vote in Georgia.

Rubio in hot water: "They keep calling it the SEC primary. There’s some ACC schools in there. This is a Georgia Tech town, right?" #gapol

— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) February 29, 2016

Dude.

Leap Day

Those of you on Twitter who think you’re putting up clever examples of football players leaping, you’re doing it all wrong.  Those aren’t leaps.

These are:

You’re welcome.

“You do whatever you have to do to win the game.”

My personal feeling is that Jason Butt is jumping the gun a bit in suggesting that Georgia’s offer to a dual-threat quarterback in the class of 2018 represents a sea-change in approach to what we’ve been used to offensively around these parts for a while, “Smart told him he’s looking for a quarterback similar to Clemson’s Deshaun Watson” notwithstanding.

For the sake of argument, let’s say he’s right, though.  Again, personally speaking, the sentiment expressed in the header should be Smart’s only mantra as Georgia’s head coach, but let’s be honest here:  programs like Alabama and Georgia use preparing players  for the next level as a major selling point to recruits.  So how does Smart balance use of the spread offense to win against the standard-issue NFL whine these days about college players coming out of spread attacks not being fundamentally prepared for the pros?

Delta is ready when Jim Harbaugh is.

So which Southern idiot suggests a boycott of – or urges SEC schools to re-evaluate their usage of – the Atlanta-based airline first?

Lawyerin’ up.

Not a good look for you, Curt Maggitt.

Must See SEC TV?

I’m just curious when I see quasi-promotional stuff like this – how much time do you spend watching the SEC Network?

We haven’t had a reader poll in a while, so here goes nothing.

 

Not goin’ away any time soon.

The Associated Press is reporting that the Title IX litigation against the University of Tennessee could take two years to play out.

I don’t think it’s possible to schedule enough pressers to counter two years’ worth of negative recruiting, Booch.  Not that you won’t try.

Damn it, Kirby.

It’s February.  You had one job to do:  entertain us.  But, nooooooo.

There will be no war of words between Kirby Smart and Jim Harbaugh.

Smart was asked if he had any kind of reaction to what Harbaugh, Michigan’s head coach, wrote on his personal Twitter account. After Smart stated his concerns for Michigan and other programs holding spring practice in states such as Florida, Harbaugh’s take was that Smart shouldn’t insinuate he’s breaking a rule.

Smart, who was hired by Georgia in December, elected not to take any kind of bait Harbaugh was throwing his way.

“No reaction,” Smart said following an hour-long speech he gave at the Minority Coaches Association of Georgia’s football coaches conference. “To be honest with you, I’m focused on what we can do at the University of Georgia to get better. That’s the most important thing to me, getting better there.”

Correct response?  Sure.  Boring as hell, though.  Doesn’t Kirby want to live in PAWWWLLL’s world, even for a little while?

Bucking the trend

It’s not just that Georgia saw its point production fall so precipitously from 2014 (41.3 ppg, good for 8th nationally) to 2015 (26.3 ppg, 85th nationally).  It’s that it managed to do so during another season of record setting offensive production.

While you were watching (from the stands), sleeping (during another late-night Pac-12 game) or actually crunching the numbers, the most notable college football record of the modern era was set. Again.

The national scoring average increased to a record 29.65 points per team in 2015, according to official numbers compiled by the NCAA for CBS Sports. This is the fifth time since 2000 the scoring record has been set, and it shatters the previous record of 29.5 points set in 2012…

That previous scoring record in 2012 was not only broken but shattered. The three-tenths of a point increase per game is the biggest one-year increase in the record since 2001.

All-time highs were also set in yards per rush (4.51), total offense (411.56 yards), yards per pass (7.30) and yards per play (5.76). Average rushing yards (178.33) were the highest since 1980.

Interestingly, scoring production was down in the SEC, better than three points per game. Then again, Georgia had a lot to do with that, as it finished below the conference average.

There were plenty of reasons for that – Chubb’s injury, spotty quarterback play, poor production on third-down all played a part.  So did Richt’s decision after the Florida game to play extremely conservatively on offense after the Florida debacle, although scoring actually ticked upwards once the Dawgs got past the three toughest defenses they faced last season.

The point here isn’t to reopen old wounds.  It’s that Chaney’s job out of the gate may not be as daunting as it looks, especially if Chubb is able to return at some point this season. To get some idea of how much scoring production fell off last year, 2015 marked the first time since 2006 that Georgia didn’t manage to exceed the national scoring average. (Coincidentally, Mike Bobo wasn’t the offensive coordinator either of those seasons.)

It’s too much of a stretch to think everything that troubled Georgia’s offense last year can be fixed in one fell swoop by a new staff.  But if they can get a handle on just a few of the problems, it’s not unreasonable to expect an offense that once again is on the right side of the national scoring average.