Today, in it ain’t rocket science.

Missouri’s head coach explains his defensive strategy to you:

“Credit Georgia,” Odom said. “They made good in-game adjustments and their quarterback played really well and receivers made some catches. But I wanted to try to establish our front seven and sometimes front eight of getting an extra guy in there to take away part of that.”

Guys, this isn’t that hard.  You’ve got a true freshman quarterback — okay, a gifted one — whose grasp of the playbook isn’t all that great yet, due both to time constraints and the limited reps that come from having a quarterback competition in preseason camp.  You’ve got coaches who are realistic enough not to try to overload him with too many pre-snap options.  You’ve got a receiving corps still in the process of sorting itself out.  You’ve got an offensive line that, to put it politely, is struggling.

With all that going on, if you’re on the other side calling the defense, why wouldn’t you stack the box to stop Chubb and Michel, both of whom, by the way, are coming off injuries?  Or to put it in the current political vernacular, what have you got to lose by selling out on defense?

Defenses will back off as soon as Georgia can sell its passing game.  Until then, don’t expect any opposing defensive coordinator to fix what ain’t broke.

27 Comments

Filed under Georgia Football, Strategery And Mechanics

27 responses to “Today, in it ain’t rocket science.

  1. St. Johns Dawg

    I think some others have mentioned that Chaney has somewhat telegraphed play calling through formations in the first 3 games. I’ve seen this, too. It’s made me appreciate the years we ran out of multiple sets, which were effective because we passed out of those sets as well. I think we’ll see more 3 or 4 wide formations to run in the next 2 games as a start.

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  2. Uglydawg

    All so true..but still, HF and Co. have to be having night sweats wondering if this is the game that Eason gets hot hitting the long ones. Their answer to that will be to put pressure on him (which they are good at) and hope he makes mistakes.

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  3. Otto

    Agreed and the OC put the game on the QB’s and in such a way that he still performed. I give credit to Chaney for this. Hopefully this pays off with the QB gaining experience expanding his knowledge of the playbook, as well as the running game benefiting from fewer in the box as the QB proves to be able to make the correct decisions.

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  4. Mayor

    So…is it the premise here that future DCs will all sell out and stack the box? Everybody who did that against the Dawgs lost.

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  5. Biggen

    Something has to break lose this next game for UGA. Either Eason has a huge day or Chubb does. I just don’t see Ole Miss keeping both of them bottled up for 4 quarters. Eason has to have even more confidence going into this game after how well he performed in the 2nd half of last weeks game.

    And for Chubb… He has got to be pissed off. The interview with Seth Emerson says almost as much. He just isn’t in his normal happy mood.

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  6. James Stephenson

    I told my brother, first play we should sell play action hard and go deep. Even if it does not work, it gets into the mind of the D-coordinator.

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  7. 86BONE

    Everyone donning the red bonnet better be pissed off!!

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  8. 69Dawg

    Our WR’s are not going to scare anybody we play. So if I’m a DC sure I’m going to let the freshman beat me if he can. Eason will be harassed more this week than in any time in his life. Here’s hoping he doesn’t get hurt. Offensive line is a hot mess and Ole Piss has got some studs.

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  9. Mdcgtp

    A willingness to throw the ball 55 times will have an impact on how we are defended, but a lot of the stacking the box is due to us being in double tight end power running sets. While we ran a few times out of shotgun spread against Mizzou, we did not do it much. Our primary choice was to we keep going to the slot because IM16 rarely faced more than single coverage and the throws were easy for Eason. We threw to Welch because they did not cover him. Chaney masterfully weaved the Bobo/Richt principle of “take what the defense is giving you” with his own instinct to “keep doing what is working” to perfection.

    I am downright giddy about our offense this week. Perhaps I am the only one who thinks the run blocking will improve, but I do. For all the hype around Kelly and his receivers, if Chubb and Sony have real holes to run through, we become deadly offensively almost instantly. If Eason continues on the logarithmic part of his development curve, his timing with the WRs will be the next big positive. If that happens, our passing game goes from being able to complete pressure packed third down conversions to being a concern for defenses. Lots of “ifs”…to be sure. I have confidence that eventually we are going to be defended as a team built off of balance.

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    • Hogbody Einstein

      ‘Logarithmic part of development curve.’

      Like, wow man! 👍

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      • Macallanlover

        I am digging the positive vibes from him but now my tech radar is on alert. But I would think a checkoff to something else when nine bodies are in the box would be long before advanced math. And they promised Jacob there would be no math.

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  10. I hope the practice rep thing has ceased to be a thing now.

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  11. Dolly Llama

    OT, but if you’re watching the Clemson/GT game, here’s a pretty good video summary:

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