Over at CFN, Pete Fiutak goes all in on Georgia in his early top ten for 2017:
7. Georgia
It’s all about the offensive line. There’s no excuse whatsoever for the offense to be so mediocre with Jacob Eason with a year under his belt, and with Nick Chubb and Sony Michel to hand off to. But that line – it returns just two starters, and it has to be a whole lot better. Meanwhile, the defense isn’t going to skip a beat with just about everyone back to what should be a killer. Dawgs, win the East – you’re this year’s Tennessee.
Um, how did “this year’s Tennessee” work out for last year’s Tennessee?
Get The Picture 
Guess we need to start practicing the Hail Mary. Anybody got any red and black bricks?
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Next year we win the Life Championship!
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I will pick a spot for the banner
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Easy, it hangs the hearts and minds of Bulldog nation!!
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From Effie’s?
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Careful. You’re showing your age.
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Yeah, that last clause conveyed his doubt.
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That Tennessee line is savage. That just hurts everyone.
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So, that wasn’t a throwaway line, then?
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Seasoned, SEC ready OL doesn’t just grow on trees. Those three new starters very well might include a true freshman, a JUCO, and an underclassmen who has never started a game.
This OL rebuild is at least a few years in the making due to the terrible shape it was left in previously. Now, if you want to type these same words next year this time, I’m all ears and would have no qualms whatsoever.
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By the way, last year was Butch Jones’ 4th at UT, and he had a roster full of upperclassman starters and a senior QB — not exactly an apples to apples comparison with a 2nd year coach with a sophomore QB, with a starting lineup that will feature a ton of underclassman starters.
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The offense line’s performance in 2016 was not good.
Fans were almost unanimous in their belief that UGA was good enough, with those guys, to have won the SEC East in 2015. Some returning linemen made post season all-American or all conference.
The “terrible shape” to which you refer was not anticipating in 2014 and 2015 that 2016 would bring a new staff with different offensive line philosophy.
I get the reasoning behind the desire to change the offensive identity, I really do, and I know it had to be done at some point. Smart felt like he should change it now, not later. No argument with that.
I do wish to defend the players who were recruited, taught and trained to play a different style than Smart wanted. It isn’t their fault they aren’t 6’6, 350.
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“I do wish to defend the players who were recruited, taught and trained to play a different style than Smart wanted. It isn’t their fault they aren’t 6’6, 350.”
+100
We showed in 2012-2015 that you can run the ball effectively with the smallest line in the SEC. 2016 was a change of scheme and wasn’t suited to the linemen we had.
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Alex Gibbs was pretty damn good at it. Zone blocking, pulling and trapping works good with the right players and system….we had them imo, just the wrong staff to continue with it. You can’t make a player/person something that he is not, play with the cards that you are dealt. “I have the ability to change”….he needs to write that down and read it every day.
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The same players averaged a whopping .4 more yards (5.1 vs 4.7) per carry in 2015 with the previous staff, complete with the offensive minded head coach with 15 years of continuity who recruited them all, than this year’s brand new staff. Tell me again how this year’s staff and scheme was the only problem.
Criticize 2016 coaching staff for piss poor offensive performance, that’s fine. But first concede that the offense wasn’t exactly a juggernaut in 2015 with all the same parts and the coaching that hand picked them and this staff is doing what it takes to make the offense what it wants to be moving forward.
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The 2015 offense suffered due to Grayson Lambert’s impeccable ability to crap his britches in many situations along with Schottenheimer’s schizophrenic coaching that seemed at times multiple, boneheaded, tactical, and drawn up on a napkin.
Schotty may have improved in year 2 as he had a team with more experience in his system. or he might have been fired and we had someone new.
Eason was better than Grayson. All season long, my opinion of the difference between 2015 & 2016 offense was Eason, and that’s about it.
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I think it would have gotten better in the 2nd year, just like with the Atlanta Falcons.
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Maybe it would have…maybe it will…
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Bobo did not have a problem with it….look deeper.
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Yeah, he didn’t have problems with it until he faced a team with a formidable defense, but he had a record breaking offense against those patsies.
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Bobo can’t play offense AND defense….can he?
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What does Bobo’s offense not being very effective against a formidable defense has to do with him not playing defense?
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LOL 😂….What?? – Can you repeat that??
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Ok, Mike Bobo didn’t have a problem with it but last time I checked Mike Bobo is in Ft. Collins. Bobo orchestrated or at least directly influenced UGA’s offense in terms of system and personnel for 14 years so it was designed to what he wanted to do with the players he wanted to do it with, I would sure as hell hope he got results out of it.
Not exactly an apples to apples comparison…look deeper
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Not to mention in the pinnacle of bobo’s run, he had 4 year starter Aaron Murray and 5th year Hutson Mason. Aaron Murrays freshman year was 2010, enough said. And Mason’s one year as started was his 5th year in the system where his physical deficiencies were masked by his mastery of the offense. Can you honestly say without a doubt that 2015 wasn’t destined for a dropoff with Ramsey, Bauta, or Lambert?
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Good job, you made my point for me. Need to “play with the cards that are dealt” to you. No reason to do otherwise, be flexible…Chaney’s stubbornness and ability to not adapt will catch up with him.
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Not sure how I made your point. Mike Bobo got a looooong time to make the offense what he wanted it to be after he inherited it from a guy who wanted the same thing and got results with it. All I’m saying is you should at least give the next guy(s) a little bit to do the same thing before the comparisons start.
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Hell, he has the chance whether I like it or not..I am not employing him. I hope he proves me wrong, but there ain’t much in his background that makes me optimistic.
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We all know what NATS and GaSo’thern do without huge linemen.
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Amen
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Good thing it really only need to be SEC East Ready, eh?
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At what point do you stop anticipating failure/hedging bets at the expense of the last coaches OL? If we’re singing these tunes 2 years or 5 years from now, this will have been the biggest failure of an experiment UGA has seen.
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Eh I’ll put Ray Goff in the running for biggest failure ever. I don’t believe Kirby will be given seven years to of throw away seasons.
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Why shouldn’t he, the last coach threw away the last 10 years.
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You are so blinded by your strong bias that you cannot let it go. You won, stop hammering everyone and helping to divide the fan base. Such division weakened us before, no need to hurt us again. Stop whining and support the new guy, others are. Following someone who had taken us to the higher level is not easy, and no, there is no free pass.
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You could random order generate that list of teams and publish it every off season for the rest of time and probably not be that off.
Think about the expectations if they crush this recruiting class. All the boilerplate articles that we get every year are going to have us in the top list. Bud’s bluechip article. Steele’s articles about returning starts or schedule strength. Composite team rankings. 2nd year bump. You are going to have to beat around for a stat that doesnt favor the dawgs heading into the season.
Saban hasnt won a national title without Smart. (I dont even know if this is true but why not just say it. )
If anyone was looking for some low expectations for cover, I dont think that this off season will provide it.
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Depends on if Smart was on his LSU staff in 03.
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Did Fiutak speak with the resident Georgia football experts, Jeff Dantzler and Kevin Butler, before writing his article? Otherwise, he would have known this team will be lucky to beat Samford.
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Are Dantzler and Butler selling those “UGA National Champs 2018” tee shirts with the “2018” crossed out and “2019” written in yet?
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I think I heard Dantzler is pushing for 2020 just to win the East.
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You guys take the talking heads way too seriously.
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These self-appointed expert talking heads deserve every bit of snark thrown their way.
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I am not sure they care…pretty easy to not listen.
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Expecting 10 wins before 2023 is unrealistic. Because, you know, offensive line and stuff.
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Well played
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Expecting a championship from the previous regime sometime in our lifetime was unrealistic . Because you know , it took coach so and so 70 years before they won their first championship.
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Except the part where the previous administration won 2 championships in my lifetime, this is completely true.
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“I don’t even know if this is true but why not just say it.”
You are getting the hang of this Internet thing!
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7? Really? That “if the O-line improves” clause isn’t small potatoes. That’s an absolutely huge question mark. There’s no way you can say with confidence that Georgia will be top 10 pre-season when we have such a huge question mark across the O-line.
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That’s right!
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The O-line returns just two starters…
Shouldn’t that be an asset? Especially when you consider the O Line recruits we’re getting?
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That’s what I was thinking. It seems like it could be one of those addition by subtraction type of deals.
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This makes no sense. Evenif you returned all 5, you are free to bench them all. Not returning starters is always bad, in every case, unless you have a coach so dumb that he needs bad players forcibly taken away from him or he’ll throw them out there.
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Except that benching seasoned players on the o-line, a unit that is notorious for being a tight nit group and is known for vocal leadership, can do wonders for your team chemistry.
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It means we’re the favorites..I’ll take it. Kirby is on this thing.
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So we are going to move from 65th to 7th? Or 10th? Dang, seems a wee bit optimistic. I get winning the East, it will be hard to not get that done if we stay healthy, but UGA will not be one of the best 10 teams in America with Chaney in his current role.
And this continual OL crap, it was more the usage of the personnel than the Jimmys and Joes. We haven’t great at OL for a long, long time. But we could be better next year with some growth and better tackles.
Certainly good enough to win the East, and beat ND. Question is will we be able to compete in Atlanta with the West winner by December? Maybe, a long shot, but we have a lot of talent, experience, and depth coming back. Going to a fun spring, and summer, just hope it is a lot more fun in the Fall.
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Now I know how Fredo felt in The Godfather Part Two when he got the kiss of death from Michael.
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The Tennessee of last year. I’m afraid that is exactly who we’ll be.
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Nah – they beat Florida.
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Daaaaaammmmmmmn.
That one hurts a bit. Funny, though.
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Remember when “anti-throwaway narrative” used to be called “happy talk?” Thanks, Dantzler.
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I saw teams using freshman offensive lineman all year. It’s not impossible we have even done it in the past. If the ranking services are any thing but pure crap some of these guys can play. Any coach that approaches a season as a “throw away” season should be fired.
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I think Clemson’s right tackle in the big game was a freshman. I only know this because he missed a block that resulted in a sack. Still, he helped them to a national title.
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When you call Georgia last year’s Tennessee,
Hoss
You’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me.
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In our bad years I don’t want to be Tennessee. UGA wins the East, but we ain’t 7th in the country. Old Pete should look at the other teams’ schedules before picking that Top 10. UGA and USC don’t bang heads with the others but 1 plays four opening week, and 2 plays 3 the second week, Then you still have FSU and Clemson meeting, and Bama playing LSU. Those teams at the top may be the best, but they will not likely end up there.
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