Yesterday a commenter in the heat of the moment referred to Georgia’s offensive line as “absolute crap”. Bit of an exaggeration, there, in my humble opinion. Which isn’t to say, as I referred to the situation in a prior post, that there isn’t a crap shoot aspect to what Sam Pittman faces going into spring practice.
There is some returning, experienced ability to work with, as you can see from this Dawg Sports post. Some of that’s even of a size that meets with the requirements Smart and Pittman have for offensive linemen. And if you believe that some of last year’s disappointing performance was due to Rob Sale being in over his head – and I do – then it’s not unreasonable to expect to see guys like Greg Pyke rebound under the tutelage of a position coach who knows what he’s doing.
The big problem Smart and Pittman face is all of that talent is best suited for the interior of the o-line. Mars needs women; Georgia needs offensive tackles. As Jake Rowe puts it,
It all boils down to Pittman’s ability to get a couple of tackles ready to play. Asking The Bulldogs front five on offense to be the strength this season might be a little much, but when you look at the experience and potential for veteran leadership on the interior, putting together a good season is a reasonable request.
No denying that’s a big “if” there. But overall, especially when you consider the likely prospect of using Georgia’s impressive depth at tight end to shore up some of the line’s shortcomings, it’s far from absolute crap. At least that’s my story in March, and I’ll stick to it until I see otherwise.
Get The Picture 
The offer to a “non-starred”?…”un-starred”? offensive tackle prospect as a preferred walk on, which can be viewed as a development situation, is very encouraging to me. The current staff is really beating the bushes, not to be confused with beating the Bushes.
Seems to me this is what aggressive recruiting is all about.
FWIW, I don’t see how a team with the rushing yardage Georgia had last year could have a “crap” offensive line…if we had that much yardage with a crap offensive line, an offensive line coach over his head….Good God, the future looks pretty good to me…I will hang up now and sip my morning Kool Aid.
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Lambert was given a lot of time, but he would vapor lock. If our QB and OC will take shots down field, then that opens things up for the OL to run block. Who was worse? Sale or Schottenheimer? I tend to say CBS.
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It is insulting to our guys for anyone to say they are crap. I think they have talent, we just need more OL depth.
I think (or hope) they will surprise a lot with Pittman’s skill at taking a lot of guys with many of them low or no ratings, and making a formidable line out of them.
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Unfortunately it has become fashionable to trash our current players. Sales may have been over his head but I do remember posters being excited by who he was recruiting this time last year. Pittman has lots of experience so I am hopefully can get them and the new recruits ready.
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I stand by my statement, but hope they prove me otherwise. As far as folks offended about the trashing of players, blah, blah, blah, cry me a river. I didn’t name anyone specific.
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Seems like there are posters who need to dawggrade this team and the expectations. To them this is the worst team in the country, everything is trash, there are no good players coming back, and basically we would all be lucky if Smart can somehow get 3 wins out of this burning trash pile of a team.
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Maybe. I would argue that there are some posters who are putting unreasonable expectations on a first year head coach. They expect him to win a conference title straight out of the gate, with traditional conference powers Tennessee and Florida on the rise, while the last guy could not do it over the last three years during which both of those teams were down. I guess it is a matter of perspective.
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Fans of a football team expecting the team to win lots of football games. Those savages.
The expectations arent the issue. I am a fan, I have no input on the team. Every August I go into the season expecting to win every game. The difference is that when my expectations are not met, I readjust, I dont melt down and think that everything is trash. I just keep resetting until I get to the point where I am just looking forward to the parking lot party.
Wash rinse repeat. I have had a lot of great seasons.
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I approve of this crappy outlook, but will be in full Disney mode by August.
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I think the opinion that …’Georgia’s offensive line as “absolute crap”’… is not unexpected. However it is fixable. Unlike the UT line of bullshit about their mustang breeding policy which is “absolute crap”. How many times over the next four years is Butch going to repeat…’people that know us…know we do things the right way..’? BTW, there is only one word in that excuse with more than one syllable. Keepin’ it easy for the mountain folk, Butch? Should we just go ahead and make orange ribbons and bows for our shirts to show support for ‘doing things the right way, but being punished, nonetheless’? Here’s hoping the plaintiff’s build their annex wing inside your sphincter and run the window fans. Sleep well, dickhead….our O line will show up for work.
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Kirby’s a man of few words. He’s sent the message the OL needs to get bigger, stronger, and better. I expect every one of our OL players would say “message received”.
I’m absolutely sure we’re going to see OL improvement in 2016 under Pittman, and our OL recruiting greatly improved in the CKS era.
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Admittedly I am an optimist, but I am going to attribute last year’s OL deficiency to the coaching. How can you take a Greg Pike who steamrolled everyone in his wake the year before and render him second string? Kolton, while a nice guy and DGD for putting up with what he had to over the years, was not a good tackle. Just average. I believe Pittman is going to make this into a good group. The tackles will likely be young, but still see potential to have a serviceable OL that improves as the season goes on and Chubb gets into full swing. Kool aid for everyone!
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In 2015 Georgia was second in yards per carry in the SEC and if my math is right gave up the third fewest sacks per passing attempt (that is were sacked the third least frequently). If the line is crap it’s hard to understand how they accomplished both of those things.
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The inability to get 1 or 2 yards in short yardage situations highlighted for me they were having trouble with getting a consistent push when it mattered.
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Sometimes they just struggled getting a push, period. An FCS team was holding Chubb to like 3 ypc at halftime and called them out on it.
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What about the Center. Who is the Center? To me the strength of an Offense
Is up the middle. The Center, The QB. & the RB. Still we know how
important the LT Is & We need Tackles. But the Center is crucial too.
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The loss of Boss Andrews was the biggest departure on the 2014 team, period. Yeah, that 3-star, private school kid whom everyone thought was a waste of a scholarship.
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It’s the depth that is an issue. You need a couple of top flight tackles about every year. Our starters are ok, and we got great TEs, but depth – that’s what Kirby sees as an issue and I agree. I never understood Richt’s recruiting the best QBs and RBs but not putting O line as a priority. I’ve been begging for OL for about 8 years. Chubb is unstoppable if he gets past the LOS unabated. Those 10 -15 yard runs throwing bodies around could have been 50. I look forward very much to seeing what Pittman does.
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Typical Georgia OL problem….having to play guards at tackle. I hope SOMEONE can make the OL a Bulldawg point of pride because I don’t see things changing much until then. Better QB play will help. Better defense will help. Better ST will help. Imo, none of it will help like a better OL, though.
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