I forgot to mention it in my Observations post, but this really was the cherry on top of the special teams sundae against Missouri:
The punt coverage team for the Bulldogs has been both embarrassing and at times very painful.
In each of the three games this season, a Bulldog defender has received a 15-yard penalty for illegally hitting the opposing team’s punt return man.
“It’s kind of an outlier,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had three of those in three games.”
No shit, Sherlock.
Hey, how come none of you guys who routinely advised Richt to spike the ball in the 2012 SECCG so he could remind the receivers not to catch any pass which wasn’t delivered into the end zone haven’t given Kirby a helpful suggestion about telling the gunners on his punt coverage team not to… well, you know?
Get The Picture 
Come on, Senator. That wouldn’t fit the narrative of the excellence demanders.
I imagine KS has noticed the special teams issues, and has a plan to fix it. This is a little different than “Special teams are a problem, it’s all you know who’s fault” or “Nick had special teams problems his first year at Bama! It’s a sign we are right on track!” It’s harder driving the bus than it is sitting next to the bus driver for 8 years, no matter how smart you are.
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…and didn’t we ‘pooch’ kick that last kick against Mizzu? Just wondering how the Richt-haters felt about giving Mizzu good enough field position that, that last completed pass could have at put them in field goal position or worse. We had the Gus rabbit foot on that last play.
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With kickers we have, pooch kicking is the best we can do right now.
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That’ was actually what a pooch kick is supposed to look like. The strategy by Richt was fine, the execution terrible. The play is to pooch it up high and force one of their less fast guys to catch it on about the 20. With the height and shorter distance, by the time he catches it the coverage team is withing 5-10 yards and he’s unlikely to get much past the 35. You wouldn’t want to give up that yardage all the time, but in a situation like that, you’re more worried about a TD return.
Against Tech, we kicked a low kick caught at the 26, and he got it out past the 40. It went to the right kid, as it was an up-back, but it was an extremely poor kick. 2-3 yards made all the difference there.
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Exactly right. And in both cases, each coach knew he didn’t have a kicker he could count on to kick it out of the end zone.
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So expecting a championship of some kind this century is “demanding excellence” now? Geez….
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Details.
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“We don’t have any guys who can cover punts. We’ve got to recruit some talent who can cover punts. It’ll take 2-3 years.”
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ha.
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LMFAO! Well played HVL!
I’m still taking a wait and see approach to the new staff, system, etc., but one big area of disappointment in the first three games has been our special teams play. With a dedicated coach and renewed emphasis, I expected better results a lot faster in this area. Setting aside the Kicking personnel issue that Kirby inherited, we’ve still struggled in way too many other facets on special teams thus far.
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And how many championships did the last coach win with “all that talent” CKS supposedly inherited?
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But now UGA has a designated special teams coach. Isnt that supposed to be one of the ingredients to dominance that Richt refused to use?
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3 games……..
It’s amazing how now we we were supposed to be patient with the coach who had been around for 15 years to now expecting our current first time head coach with glaring talent deficiencies to now be the 2nd coming of Vince Lombardi immediately.
SMH
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I think the points some have been made were no so much criticism of Smart as they are comments about know it all internet “excellence demanders” who spouted such stuff as “the problem with special teams is we don’t have a special teams coordinator. If we only had a special teams coordinator, someone such as Shane Beamer, we would never make special teams mistakes again!!!!!”
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Bingo
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Exactly.
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Who the heck ever said that mistakes wouldn’t be made if we had a special teams coach ?
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I know one thing, the punt returner is nervous.
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If I was the punt returner I would be nervous. That is a good way to get KO’ed. At this point it is our SOP. One kick per game we are going to ignore the fair catch and try to knock you out. It is the best hit we have given on punt returns this season. If only all punt returners would just stand still our coverage teams would be awesome.
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Kind-of like a pitcher zinging one at the batter’s head to keep him from digging in…I like it!
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Tossing one at a batter’s head is only honorable if the pitcher knows he’s also coming up to bat…although there is also the possibility the batter will charge the mound and kick his ass.
Those retaliations are not typically available to a punt returner who just got laid out from a cheap shot.
I think it’s bullshit and cowardly. The punt returner has every expectation the other team is going to avoid penalties, play clean, and respect rules put in place to avoid injury. Not only is he defenseless at that moment, his expectation is that he is safe.
That was some Auburn 2013 garbage right there and I was embarrassed.
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Hey now…Auburn in 2013 was despicable for an entire season. Don’t you dare compare 2 poor decisions to that 14 game-long crime against sportsmanship and everything that is good in this world.
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Spoken like a man who didn’t see Auburn play in 2010–the record low in sportsmanship.
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I think I may have mixed up my seasons. Which was the Fairley/Newton year?
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I meant 2010…I didn’t realize that was so long ago. I must be slipping in my old age! That was the year/game that changed my thinking about Auburn. I despise them since that Fairley hit on Murray 10 minutes after he threw the ball.
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Hit the mascot with the next pitch…….
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One of the funniest scenes in Bull Durham …
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I really, really hope this is not part of the plan from the coaches, but three times already and it was never a problem before?
You don’t have to believe in conspiracy theories to wonder if this is a thing.
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I need a little clarity. Did the returner call for a fair catch in the Missou case? I know Choates hit him before the ball got there, but was the arm ever raised?
In the NC game, I’m sure the gunner never saw the early fair catch signal.
In the Nichols game, your guess is as good as mine (or better) as to why the hit occurred.
Each hit was different from the others.
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I agree, but cold cocking a punt returner is a reasonably rare event. When you talk about rare events, three in three games makes a trend.
At the very least, CKS did not make it a point to fix the issue after two games.
If we’d known Mizzou gunners had “missed” two fair catch signals in previous games and then leveled iMac this message board would be howling, and rightly so.
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Chip Towers is on the mutha ….
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Working on opposing teams’ psyche.
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Well my answer to that question is simple, Kirby has a special teams coordinator. Lets suggest that to Beamer, not Kirby.
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I still don’t believe that hit was targeting, by the technical definition. Was it dirty? Yes, against a defenseless guy. But he did not lower the head and hit him in the head area. Looked more like a nice solid shoulder into the chest.
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Agreed. Looked like he led with the shoulder to me too. But you can’t really argue at that point. I really don’t know how the kid got up–it was a different guy that was dizzy afterwards.
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Choates was a kickoff returner last year now he’s 4th string gunner on punt team. He’s eager, what do you expect? It does look like it’s being coached but so do a lot of other screw ups.
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“I don’t know if I’ve ever had three of those in three games.”
All those new assistants and you don’t know?! DETAILS DAMMIT!!!
#coachingishardafterall
P.S. What the heck happened to Dog in FL? He’s long overdue for a report from the Kirby Command Bunker and the Global War on Nick 3 year plan update.
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I don’t about this 3 year plan you speak of, but with the way Kirby is recruiting along the lines of scrimmage, I feel the next 3 years will yield better results than the last 10.
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*know
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I’ve said it before, he’s too busy doing groundwork for the Trump campaign in Florida.
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Mark Richt = “Pastor Pooch Kick”
Kirby Smart = “Dr. Directional Kick”???
If blogs came with DVR, I’d fast-forward to five years from now just to find out.
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