I know I’m a smart-ass fan blogger. I’ve never coached a football game in my life. So, believe it or not, when it comes to coaching, I try to give the men who do it for a living the benefit of the doubt because they know more than I do. But there are times when all I can do is react with a “damn, just damn” take to something somebody says.
On Monday, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said on his call-in radio show that the I-Formation cannot be the main focus of an offense anymore.
“You have to change it up,” Smart said. “You cannot sit there in the I nowadays – there are just too many teams that attack you. You have to be in 1-back sets, but when you are in that 1-back set, who are the other four guys on the field? Three receivers and one tight end, two receivers and two tight ends? You have to have a lot of packages to mix it up, and you have to find guys who can block and play in space.”
The advent of the dual-threat quarterback has made it more difficult to keep teams out of the endzone.
“Teams are scoring a little more nowadays because they are able to do RPO’s (run-pass option), they are able to throw run-pass options, and they are not doing that out of a traditional I-set with a traditional fullback,” Smart said.
Smart pointed out that teams cannot just line up offensively with a plan of beating the man in front of them, pointing out one SEC program recently tried to keep that approach.
“It would be great if we could just go out there and overpower people,” Smart said. “But I think you are always going to struggle with that, because most defenses in the SEC are a little more stout, a little more physical than the offenses.
Wait, what? You just spent an entire season trying the pound and ground approach, one that your personnel weren’t really suited for, presumably because you wanted to establish a certain identity on offense, only to change course after one year? Man, were I Jacob Eason, I’d sure wonder why the staff put me through what they put me through.
As for that one SEC program,
“I think you see that with LSU. Because LSU used to overpower a lot of teams, but when they play a team comparable to themselves, they struggle to manufacture out of the I.”
As I posted the other day, I’m not certain that’s an accurate portrayal of LSU’s offensive woes last season. The Tigers led the conference in yards per rush (they were even better in conference play), as well as yards per play, which doesn’t indicate much of a struggle to manufacture. Their shortcoming was that they simply didn’t have the ball on offense enough. If you’re going to learn lessons from others, make sure it’s the right lesson you’re learning.
I probably sound more critical here than I mean to be. For one thing, it’s hard to disagree with Smart’s conclusion.
“You have to be good at what you do,” Smart said. “Catering that to who we are is really important. If we are not the same as that team, or we don’t have the same weapons, we all know it boils down to players. We have to find ways to get players the ball. You want to look at teams similar to yourselves. How are they using two backs at the same time, if that is what a team’s got.
“If you are not changing, or you are not looking at things, you are going to get passed by.”
I’ve always believed that the sign of a good offensive coordinator is an approach that you take what a defense gives you until the other guy proves he can stop it. That was definitely not Georgia’s offensive philosophy in 2016. So if this is simply Kirby processing the experience and coming to terms with what didn’t work, that’s grounds for optimism. Hopefully he’s got someone in Chaney who can show an appropriate level of flexibility to allow the offense to succeed.
But if this is more of a flavor of the month reaction to a flaccid offensive season, such that there’s no real direction — establishing identity replaced by throw a bunch of stuff out there and see what sticks — then, yeah, that’s a little concerning to me. What happens if doing things differently doesn’t click relatively soon?
Get The Picture 
How about we give Kirby the benefit of the doubt, at least until three or four games into the season. As the Senator suggested maybe Kirby learned something from last year’s results. After all, he’s a defensive guy and maybe he’s just starting to get a handle on offense. However, if we don’t blame last year on Kirby’s lack of a grasp of offense, who do we blame it on. I’m sure you have an answer.
LikeLike
Okay, I can give Kirby the benefit but I would like to see it game one. Actually, I would like to see the changes planned and in action during practices and scrimmages. I don’t need 4 games to determine if his game plan matches his words of wisdom. His response, following the type of inflexible season we had, appear as though he is regurgitating what he’s been told. I certainly hope he understands this wisdom and will act on it. One of my pet peeves with the last regime, after a loss, was hearing the words…”yeah, we probably should have _________ more. We’ll look at that in next week’s practice”. I’m a fan of preventive action more so than corrective action.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, we did have a two score lead on Tech, at home, in the fourth quarter.
And I’m told we have better players.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Maybe he’s trying to buy himself another throwaway season.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The two things you have to deal with these days if you want to win championships are:
1) there’s going to be a defense or two on your schedule that you just can’t push around.
2) there’s going to be one or two games where you simply have to outscore the other team.
If your going to have a team that can win vs. Alabama, LSU, Florida and also beat a Clemson or OSU or Oklahoma you’d better be able to:
1) throw haymakers in a phone booth one week
2) win a 47-45 shootout the next
Otherwise, you’ll have trouble getting to and winning a playoff.
You can have a great physical I-formation offense and a great d and go into Jax and win 13-10, but what happens when the other team scores 38 and you’re in a ball control offense? Same problem in reverse when you’re a team that can score but can’t get into the I and salt away a game, like Gus. You have to be capable of doing both.
Last year was frustrating to be sure and it was hard to tell from the game plan vs. Missouri to the ones vs. Vandy and Nicholls what the hell we were trying to be. I think reading through the tea leaves and the recruiting emphasis, that we want to be more physical and more basic in our approach.
I think they want guys on the o-line who that can “plug and play” simply based on their physical dominance rather than smarts or experience. The question is can you whip the guy across from you or not? You add to that the best skilled position guys you can find and get them the damn ball by whatever means necessary.
That allows you to be physical when you need to be and also to spread it out when you need to. It doesn’t allow for a complex pro-style offense though. That’s what I think is really in the past for us. It’s not going to be the Jon Gruden-style, NFL lingo complexity that we once had.
That complexity will be saved for the defense. You will see many more young contributors on offense than on defense while Kirby is here IMHO.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve posted on more than one occasion that Georgia’s offenses late in Bobo’s career were prolific. Aaron Murray led a squad that finished first in the country in yards per play. I don’t know how complex the offense was that he ran, but to pretend that pro-style doesn’t work anymore either ignores recent history or presumes that there’s been a radical change in the college game over the past couple of seasons.
The primary issue with running a successful pro-style attack on the college level is making sure you have better personnel than the other team. Isn’t Smart addressing that with recruiting like a sumbitch?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m not suggesting that it doesn’t work anymore. I would suggest that you may get fewer snaps from a 5-star WR, TB or LT who is going to be there for three seasons if you have to teach him too much before you can throw him out there. I also think it puts you in a position where you play a guy like Greyson Lambert over a Brice Ramsay because of intellect and not athletic ability.
Frankly I think that Bobo was adapting to the new reality (and would have started Ramsay) that I suggested above but without the man blocking/recruiting behemoths approach to the o-line and still trying to be enough NFL-lite to attract NFL QB trainees. Schotty was a step back from the progress Bobo made inasmuch as I think he was a pure NFL offensive guy. (Perhaps the break up of the band and the choice of Schotty reflects a philosophical difference? Who knows? If I’m Richt and I don’t think I can recruit any better than I am, I’d be committed to his approach as well.)
And this is coming from a guy who prefers I formation, pro-style football to spread, which is an abomination nearly as bad as the run and shoot. However, the reality is that it’s hard to teach and hard to execute. So the question becomes is it worth the investment of time and effort when you can dumb things down and be as, if not more, effective?
And, as you point out, if you’re recruiting like mad doesn’t it allow you to be even more simplistic? Afterall this isn’t like the NFL where the rosters are all basically the same. If you recruit top three classes consistently there are only going to be a handful of teams than can hope to play with you at all even when you’re not executing well.
As I think I mentioned more than once since CMR was canned and CKS was hired: if CKS can recruit top three classes consistently we’re all going to be very happy. If we end up recruiting classes ranked around 7th like CMR did, we’ll all be very disappointed. IMHO we’ve committed to a Jimmies and Joes approach to offense.
LikeLike
I still think the whole pro/spread argument is partly bunk. Ask the Falcons after Brady attempted 60 passes how no huddle with no real I-formation does at the pro level.
What matters is QB play and blocking.
LikeLike
It’s bunk to you because you think no huddle and/or lots of passing means “spread.” It doesn’t. New England is not running a “spread” offense. There may be the occasional “spread concept” and certainly they spread the field. What Tom Brady is calling in the huddle and at the line are not “spread plays.” Brady is not trying to make his position be defended in the running game AT ALL. A major component of the spread is requiring the defense to defend the qb position and to make a defense pay if they decide not to account for the qb. A defense only accounts for Brady’s arm. His legs are disregarded and New England does not give one damn about that because he’s so good finding the open guy and getting him the ball. Once you figure out what the ACTUAL differences are between the two, the difference will no longer be “partly bunk.”
LikeLike
1) I am reasonably confident he was referring to LSU under Miles over a multi-year horizon.
2)Defense has not particularly good in the SEC west outside of Bama and LSU (with a few good years of late by Ole Miss), and I think Kirby is really referring to LSU-Bama matchups as his reference point.
3)Almost every offensive coach is mixing trying to dictate to the defense with its personnel packages and reacting to how the defense is aligned. Obviously, some pace/space guys try to use those two elements to get defense’s out of position, and the simplicity of the reads and built in options essentially mix those two concepts as part of the design of the offense. In a pro style offense, the ability to change plays is somewhat more limited with a frosh QB and an inconsistent OL.
4)Out of curiosity, what you think UGA’s offensive philosophy was in 2016 and why you are so resolute in your view that the failures were due to scheme and not personnel?
LikeLike
As to your 1) and 2), I have no idea and you’re speculating.
As to 3), perhaps you can explain how Southern Cal came on like gangbusters last season with a freshman quarterback. Not to mention there are plenty of examples of spread attacks that struggled with rookie QBs. Not saying you’re totally wrong here, but a lot of times it comes down to running the kind of offense that best suits your personnel.
Last, with regard to 4), you misunderstand. The failures on offense were due to the scheme not suiting the personnel. Of all the years to take an impose your will on the defense tack, 2016 was particularly ill-suited.
LikeLike
That USC comparison is going to hurt Smart.
LikeLike
No it’s not. USC had the best o-line in the Pac 12 or 14 or whatever. If we’re gonna compare freshman qb’ s with USC, one would have to believe that the o-line has to factor in the equation.
LikeLike
They won the rose bowl with a first year head coach. They also finished #3 in the country.
You can keep caping up for these coaches, but by nearly all objective measures they were all compete and total failures as coaches in 2016. They seem to be great recruiters, but they dont spot you points in games for recruiting rankings.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“They won the rose bowl with a first year head coach. They also finished #3 in the country”
Yes, they did that with a top flight o-line. I imagine Chubb, Sony, and Eason probably had wet dreams about the thought playing behind the line USC had.
LikeLike
Bruh we lost to Vandy and Georgia Tech. The rose bowl was a lot more than decent OL play away from us.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree, the rose bowl or any bowl of that magnitude has been out of our reach for a while now…..bruh
LikeLike
“USC AND UGA BOTH HAD FROSH QB AND NEW COACHES SO ARE OBVIOUSLY COMPLETELY EQUAL OTHERWISE BRUH”
LikeLike
LSU was really the only contender to stick with the pro style. UGA did not have the WRs to get the outside threat needed to move away from ground and pund, and the OL needed the help blocking from a FB. Sadly I doubt Bobo would have been much better given what was on campus.
LikeLike
Wrong, Otto. You don’t have shit for reasoning to doubt Bobo couldn’t have done better. He already had.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Re: 1…ask yourself this…is it more logical to believe Kirby was referring to a single year or a decade? By that logic, during the 2014 offseason did you believe that Miles’ philosophy was a passing first offense because Mettenberger and 2 NFL WRs had been the focal point of the offense in 2013?
2)we don’t have to speculate, we know that very few SEC west teams outside outside of LSU and Bama have fielded elite defenses over the past 5+ years. In 2016, they included 3 atrocious defenses that gave up 6+ ypp.
http://www.cfbstats.com/2016/leader/911/team/defense/split01/category10/sort02.html
3)Darnold was a redshirt frosh, which is a big difference from a true frosh.
4)Out of curiosity, is your belief that our offensive philosophy was that “we tried to impose our will on people” based upon the fact that we ran the ball more than the average team OR because Kirby stated that being more physical is going to be one of the foundations of our program OR both?
More broadly, can you define what “impose your will on people means?” is there a certain percentage of plays that are run with man-to-man blocking schemes as opposed to zone blocking?
Nonetheless, there is ample evidence to refute the claim that our philosophy was to impose our will and not alter it. We threw the ball a TON against Mizzou and Florida because we had no success running. We ran a ton against South Carolina because it was windy, Eason was terrible, and we could run the ball. The following week we threw the ball 40 times against Vandy because we had little success running the ball.
The argument you are essentially making is that coaches are charged with winning the best way they know how, and thus, they should adapt to their personnel each season. Further, given the fact that the personnel that Chaney and Kirby inherited was not “suited” to their preferred philosophy, they should have adapted it to what they can do. Implicit in that belief is that there was something else we could do consistently well. Even prior to Chubb’s injury in 2015, we had not displayed any consistency on offense (save one magical game against USC’s awful defense). We can discuss Bobo’s coaching in 2014 if you want, but I don’t really think it is a relevant data point for 2016. The only similarities between Eason and Mason are the last 4 letters of their last name….otherwise, I don’t think one could think up two “pro style” QBs with more opposite skills sets.
Are you suggesting that because our linemen struggled with man blocking that we they were good at zone blocking? OR Is your point that Chaney and Kirby should have just put Eason in the shotgun and thrown the ball 50 times a game? In addition to probably not working in 2016, it would have hindered his development long term.
FWIW, if you re-watch our games, it becomes obvious that the problem we had was an interior who could not drive block and a OTs who were terrible in pass protection, which was all exacerbated by an inaccurate QB (on both “easy” and “hard” throws). I am not sure what schemes on offense work under those constraints.
LikeLike
you know what works. coaching. coaching a guy up. getting him better. At some point these coaches have to make the players better. They didnt do that last year. Let’s hope they do it this year.
LikeLike
Spot on and we veer around that opinion so often that we are cheering incompetence forward.
LikeLike
How does one measure “coaching a guy up”? Over what time period is that comparison made? is it game-to-game or season-to-season? Can every player be “coached up” to an All-SEC caliber level?
There were numerous positive developments amid our inconsistency in 2016 that reflect positively on the coaching staff. For example, in an offense devoid of OL consistency, they figured out ways to get Mckenzie the ball in key situations and he was responsible for a enormous percentage of our “key” plays on offense. Yet the most common reference to IM is the end of the Vandy game. He was almost 50% of our receiving TDs. Compare that to Bama and Clemson’s leaders. Was IM16 coached up enough for you?
No one is cheering “incompetence” but I am amazed at those who are absolutely convinced that our coaching staff “failed” because of our record in 2016 and that those losses somehow presage a coaching staff that can not achieve all our collective goals. As Kirby said after the Tech game, the game was a microcosm of the season. some good, some bad, but absolutely NOT what we are striving to build.
Again, is the point of your post that Kirby “has to generate better results” or that can’t coach? If it’s the former, my suggestion is that you allow him time to do so. If its the latter, my suggestion for you is to save yourself the frustration, check out mentally, and take up another hobby until we fire him and hire a new coach.
LikeLike
Meh. I didnt see a lot of improvement last season.
They were objectively worse at the end of the season than they were at the start of the season.
That’s coaching. I look at the tech game and I have to imagine that if Smart and Johnson switched sides 15mins before kickoff, CPJ would lay a biblical ass whooping on smart 10 times out of 10.
And coaching up players is only half of it. The game management from our coaches last season was terrible. So many wasted time outs, wasted drives at the end of a quarter, wasted drives period. lose 2 yards and first and second down and then chunk it deep on 3rd.
So many problems that didnt start with the players…it started with inept coaches that are clearly more comfortable asking for another slice of mama’s home cooking than they are wearing a headset on saturday.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It ain’t the losses, per se. It’s the way those losses occurred with teams inferior in player strength to our players. I never saw “attitude” from the players because they were trying each game. Nope, it’s what coaching failed to get when game plans were supposedly structured to our players’ strengths.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fair point about Darnold.
I’m still not getting your LSU argument, but let me just respond with a couple of data points:
LSU’s conference rank over the past four seasons in yards per play: 1,3,9 and 3.
LSU’s conference rank over the past four seasons in plays run: 14,12,10 and 9.
Again, that doesn’t indicate a “struggle to manufacture” to me. YMMV, of course.
As far as Smart’s preferred offensive philosophy for last season goes, I’m as guilty of speculating as you, but in his own words, he seems to indicate his first choice:
BTW, I assume you disagree with his observation about SEC defenses.
LikeLike
He needed to adapt to the players he had last year, not the other way around….but that ship has sailed. Now he has recruited the players that he wanted and he wants to change his offensive “identity” again (guessing)?? The “RPO’s” has been around since the 70’s, probably longer….nothing new to football. He seems to be a helluva recruiter, but that will catch up to you at some point if you do not win. Some are leaders and some are not, it is innate…natural. I just do not think he is one…and I really hope that I am wrong. Sometimes, the “apple does not fall far from the tree”:
http://ghsfha.com/coaches.php?gName=Smart, Sonny
LikeLike
“they struggle to manufacture out of the I.”
Doesn’t everyone
“Even from the hall, the overpowering stench told me the dingy caramel glow in his office would be from a ten-thousand-cigarette layer of nicotine baked on a naked bulb hanging from a frayed wire in the center of a likely cracked and water-stained ceiling, but I was broke, he was cheap, and I had to find her.”
William “Barry” Brockett, Tallahassee, Florida
The 2016 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Winner
LikeLike
I wonder if our analyst are doing a poor job of informing coach, or if coach is even reading the reports. He doesnt have a good feel for what LSU is doing but is more than happy to talk about it.
LikeLike
No matter what offense you run a coach must trust the players and Kirby did not trust the players last year, especially Eason. Watching the bowl game he didn’t trust the defensive guys either.
LikeLike
This argument is ridiculous. You can win with ANY offensive system. System is important but not critical. What IS critical is execution. Bama has won several titles with pound it pro-style football. And in 2012 we almost beat them with it if we had any semblance of defensive depth. Its about players and execution, plain and simple. Clemson beat Bama last year because they threw the hell out of the ball and had a bad ass in Mike Williams and Deshaun Watson is elite. They didn’t run the same offense as Cam Newton or Cardale Jones, Jameis Winston or Marcus Mariota or even Stanford or USC. LSU doesn’t win anymore because they haven’t recruited an elite QB and their coaching staff was suspect. You can’t win in a pro style offense WITHOUT a pro style QB. That’s it. Recruit elite talent, run multiple looks of spread, pro style and everything in between, have a very good OL, put big fast receivers on the outside who can make big plays one on one and a few elite RBs, have a stingy defense and pay attention to special teams. Its that simple, this spread vs pro style argument is a joke. Chaney’s fault wasn’t the offensive style, it was having no players to execute it, a horrible OL, WRs who couldn’t block downfield and poor playcalling and execution. Get me better players, call the right plays on down and distance and execute.
LikeLike
Bama has moved away from the pro style offense, and high schools have moved away as well which means few elite QBs regularly do a 3 stop drop.
LikeLike
Doesn’t matter, they won WITH IT. And they moved away from it and lost. And I didn’t say use it exclusively but this BS about you have to run the spread to win national championships, is false. Every national championship team is running different versions of multiple offenses. If you want to run exclusively shotgun that’s fine. If you don’t want to run out of the I because high school QBs can’t runa 3 or 5 step, fine. But that is not the issue. The issue is talent and execution.
LikeLike
They did but they are not finding the talent to run it now, and back to back National Title games against the same team decided by a combined single score is quite the downfall moving to the spread.
LikeLike
They had the talent but had a freshmen QB and Scarbrough got hurt. And they faced a team with a historically great QB and a WR that made a few plays to win.
LikeLike
So with a Fr QB and Scarbrough injured the inferior spread nearly won a national title?
LikeLike
Yep…. and with a pro-style pound it offense it won 2 titles back to back and 3 others. And a defense full of NFL players. LOL. My point exactly….its not the system its the players and execution.
LikeLike
Bama was not getting the players to keep up that level of play and who has recruited at a higher level. Saban doesn’t move to follow a trend. The pro style barely pulled out the win the prior year with the established system which players had time in. A true Fr taking the game to the very end in a new system against basically the same team was an accomplishment.
Further Saban is doing what Patterson did at TCU. Saban defenses were having problems defending dual threat QBs so he moved in that direction allowing his defense to face the threat in practice.
LikeLike
Ok, we can just disagree. Barely pulled out the win? That is your measure of success or lack of? It had won the national title! And two others back to back in 2011-2012. How many titles has Patterson won? Saban defenses were having problems defending GREAT QBs in a collegiate system designed to have offenses score a ton of points. Its about # of plays not the exact style. I never said Saban didn’t adjust, but they don’t run the spread exclusively, he ha dthe best defense he’s ever had and didn’t win. Ohio State won the national title because of Elliot not because Cardale was a dual threat. How about Jameis Winston, or AJ McCarron. Cam was a freak, don’t count on having him or Deshaun every year. Bama gives up yardage same as everyone else against good teams because those teams have very good players, not just because of an exclusive system. A&M scored a bunch against them for several years because of Johnny, same with Aub and Cam they didn’t score quite as much in the following years did they, same system, but not the same QBs. Look at Urbans offenses at UF. It wasn’t the same with Tebow and Harvin as it was without Harvin. I will stand by my original point, get me great players and I can win with any system or combination therof.
LikeLike
I am saying Bama while still elite, was declining and Bama made a move to get back out in front which resulted in very little drop off. A national title game decided by 1 score in what would be a more of a rebuilding year for majority of the programs out there is amazing and against a more experienced team.
Bama didn’t even have the hiccup of a reloading team. The D looked like it might have been the best Saban has had yet, which I don’t believe is unrelated to the offenses they faced in and out of practice. The season is likely a preview of returning to the dominance of pro style teams you pointed to. Yes you can win with any system with great coaches and great players. Bama isn’t out to win, Saban wants a return to the dominance of ’09-’12 and he seems to believe the pro style will not do it.
TCU is not Bama but what they have done with their resources is very impressive.
LikeLike
Y’all do know that 2015 Bama didn’t exactly line up under center or in the I much even without Hurts, right? They had 100 snaps in that Ole Miss loss I think.
LikeLike
If you think you can win championships with the run and shoot, well your just wrong.
If you had the right QB you might could show up in Tuscaloosa or Baton Rouge and make some noise in year one with the triple option and then the players dry up and your roster can no longer win at a high level.
System is very important to success at any level of football and it has to be predicated on:
who can I recruit?
who do I have to beat?
how can I maximize my talent and counter the other guys?
You find the right fit and you can win big. Football is riddled with the corpses of guys who thought that they could win anywhere with their system. Just a few examples:
Steve Spurrier at Washington. The fun-n-gun was a great college-level approach to football. There are fewer personnel mismatches to be found in the NFL.
Terry Bowden at Auburn. He tried to recruit against Spurrier and his father for athletes to run his offense rather than recruiting like Pat Dye did. He lost too many recruiting battles and it all went to shit for him.
Jerry Glanville at Houston and Atlanta: the run and shoot was fine to get from 3-13 to .500, but you can’t win games in January with that bullshit.
The idea that Bill Walsh could win with his system at Colquitt County High is as laughable as suggesting that Rush Propst could take his to New England.
LikeLike
Propst wouldn’t be allowed to head but players and would likely get fined for other dirty moves.
LikeLike
+1
LikeLike
Execution. Nailed it!
LikeLike
If execution is THE thing then why not just run three plays but because there are so few you run them really, really well?
If execution is THE thing why not just get really, really good at throwing and catching 50 yard passes?
Limiting the analysis to “execution” is a gross oversimplification. Of course you have to execute your offense, but choosing what that offense will be is far more important.
LikeLike
“Recruit elite talent, run multiple looks of spread, pro style and everything in between, have a very good OL, put big fast receivers on the outside who can make big plays one on one and a few elite RBs, have a stingy defense and pay attention to special teams. Its that simple..”
That’s it, huh? Wonder why nobody thought of that.
LikeLike
Uh Kirby your inexperience is showing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Senator, I agree with you. Not sure that Kirby Is On Target.
2 TEs & run the damn ball & also use the play action pass.
That would work for me.
LikeLike
We saw the baby steps in the bowl game – the steps that let Eason move from the pack and throw, while running, to the guy working his way open downfield. I certainly got the idea that they were demonstrating that they can put more mustard into the offense with that one simple maneuver. Let’s see what direction they are building in the Spring Game.
God help us if the QBRs are too low.:)
LikeLike
Maybe a play action pass on first down every once in a while?
LikeLike
Ha! Yes!
LikeLike
The idea that these coaches can’t figure out the same simplistic answers we have from the year they have had in experimen….uh…. experiencing what doesn’t even work against teams representing 5k-student schools playing big ole UGA, gives me pause as to what we traded for whom. I continue to be puzzled by those losses we had last year; each different with differing teams, each played with enough good players to do much better than we eventually experienced last year, leads me to believe that our great hires don’t collectively know what the fuck they are doing.
Can anyone name a coach who produced (coached) a better lot of players at their UGA-responsibility positions last year than the players were the year before? Rule out the obvious like Trent and consider whether the position players improved across the board. Did you think they should have improved at certain positions that were underused (TEs) throughout the season? Is the word “throwaway” being used in the place of rampant incompetence where it concerns our individually talented players ? I’m beginning to think darkly of our immediate future for the first time ever.
Crap, that means I have to start baking cookies next month that can last for 12 weekends, beginning in the Fall.
LikeLike
We haven’t won squat in over a decade and you’re ready to say this staff is a failure after their first year. Can we at least let them play a game first in year two before rendering them as failures.
LikeLike
?
LikeLike
Try answering the question I posed at the beginning of the penultimate para.
LikeLike
He’s learning. His mentor reached the same conclusion after the 2013 season.
Hopefully, Kirby has sought out some clock management expertise as well.
Strong recruiting can only only cover up some coaching deficiencies.
LikeLike
why are we paying him to learn?
LikeLike
Because we can pay him an entry-level salary and free up more annual cash for the ushlay undfay.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, but you do have at least long winded commenter who damn sure thinks he could Coach…
LikeLike
IMO, failure to “establish an offensive identity” is one of the most over-used, over-emphasized euphemisms of college football. Frankly, who cares if you have an “identity” or not…the important question is whether or not what you are doing to move the ball AND score points is effective. How many fans get excited by a 3rd and 7 run up the gut, against 9 in box, down by a couple scores, in the 4th quarter, because the play is consistent with their team’s “offensive identity”?
So what’s actually important? Adaptability. The ability to adapt your offensive scheme and play calling according to (1) your personnel, (2) the defensive personnel and scheme, and (3) the game situation. In the most favorable light, this is what the previous staff referred to as “balance” (although they didn’t always practice what they preached). With respect to adaptability, I think the Georgia offensive staff failed in 2016.
In the end, the only identity I ultimately care about establishing for the Georgia football program is that of “winners”. If we can establish THAT identity, I really don’t care how we successfully accomplish it through our offensive approach.
LikeLike
You what identity I like? Beating tech at home. Beating Vandy on homecoming. Taking care of d2 schools. You know…acting like Georgia.
LikeLike
I think there is too much effort to put teams into a perfectly square box with sharply drawn lines defining the offensive scheme. It is the very rare exception that runs an exclusive Pro-style offense, I formation or not. Bobo ran a hybrid offense that featured multiple variation of the pro-style, combined with elements of the spread and hurry up. And we ran those variations successfully against large, stout defenses (LSU/Bama) and smaller, quick defenses (Clemson/Vandy). It was about “hit ’em where they ain’t”, and being unpredictable. Yes, we executed well, but we played better chess than our opponents on most every occasion in those last years. The last coach that ran a pure I formation, pro style at UGA was Vince. That pretty much worked the three years Herschel was available, but consistently scored even below the 60s and 70s offensive production levels other teams were putting up. No one wants to see that again, although the last two seasons seem like a bad deja vu experience….without the combo of good STs and solid defense.
I think the concern KS should have is that in 2016 the offensive staff didn’t have a Plan B, or ever show the ability to make the defense guess. Bama, USC, ohio, State Penn, and even Stanford showed much more versatility than UGA ever considered. And they are the other leaders in Pro Style recruiting. I know everyone wants to give UGA a pass because of the OL and the freshman QB but that offensive staff had over 8 full months to analyze what they had to work with and scheme around. They saw them in many practices and scrimmages; they should have adapted. And they certainly have plenty of game film and time to come up with something different for 2017.
I realize KS has a defensive background and has to work hard to get a grasp on the nuances of offensive football, but he is The Man now, and didn’t he have to do that exact analysis as a DC to be successful? As good as Bama’s defense has been, they still have to prepare for a plethora of offensive variations. So what was the hardest to defend and when was it used? What wrinkles worked when thrown into the mix of an opponent’s offensive scheme that gave his defense false signals? Of course, we cannot be just an I-formation, power run team, but I hope there is more insight at this point than that blinding glimpse of the obvious.
I hope the most recent offensive analyst added to the staff has free access to Kirby and can speak freely about what he gleans from film of last year’s miserable performance. If KS isn’t getting some out of the box, un-Cheney like thinking to consider color me very concerned because we showed little progress from Game 1 to the end of the season, and looked good against UNC, TN, and the 2nd half of the bowl game. That’s it, although we all kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and the new plan/adjustment to be revealed (I don’t count SC where we ran at will and had nada for passing diversification, but that was different.) We just cannot afford to get 3 games into 2017 and realize we are simply going to rinse, lather, and repeat. If there isn’t some raucous conversations going on in the offensive meetings by this point,
LikeLike
it wont take 3 games, it will take 3 quarters. App St. We will know exactly what we have before the end of that game.
LikeLike
It doesn’t matter if we are up 45-0 to App in the 3rd quarter. You will find something to point out and bitch about.
LikeLike
Boy I sure would like the opportunity.
LikeLike
all I can figure is that Zeus told Kirby he wasn’t coming.
LikeLike
If anyone thought LSU “struggled” during the Les Miles years, just wait until Ed O leads them onto the field
LikeLike