As motivation goes, you may think Kirby Smart’s doing his best to light a fire under Jacob Eason by posing Jake Fromm as a threat, but that’s got nothing on his latest pitch to the defense.
“The offense is striking a blow. It’s striking a violent blow and knocking people back,” Smart said after Tuesday’s practice, the seventh of the spring. “This game is tough, physical game. And we’re (defensively) not playing tough, physical football right now. Whereas they are (on offense). And I’m kind of like, either they’re hungrier than us, or those guys aren’t responding to how we’re challenging them.”
“Boys, you’re letting Georgia’s offensive line kick your ass” is one cold line. Damn, Kirby, if that doesn’t work, I don’t know what card you’ve got left to play.
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I’m gonna take a big gulp of Kool Aid and believe the OL is better this year.
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I don’t get the preseason disappointment with our OL. The ones who were a problem for the most part are gone. Why is it such a great thing to have starters return when they aren’t good players. I would much rather have new kids, even if young, who are better players.
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Kirby on 680 now talking about how the depth is better, leading to be able to have more physical practices…
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I hope it means Chubb is breaking tackles and running over people.
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yessir
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That would be awesome but I would be more hopeful that he can get positive yardage before being touched.
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the most fascinating thing to me is the psychology of Kirby’s quote where he refers to the defense as “we” and the offense as “they”. To be clear, I do not think it means anything about his abilities as a head coach NOR should folks seize on the quote as some sort of indication that offense is not important.
That said, I wonder what it says about human nature and our desire to identify with sub groups/peers (and please don’t take this in a political direction). Just found it funny/interesting.
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Indeed. That’s a good observation.
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Watched a long video of Hershel’s great runs today..as great as he was, he had some unbelievable holes to run through and the peripheral blocking was just great..even Buck B. was knocking people down.
That bunch of Dawgs were fired up with the knowledge that if they gave HW a glimpse of daylight he would roll. Give NC some holes and he’ll be running for the Heisman.
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The shaming stuff is weird to me. I dont understand how anyone thinks it makes people better.
Consistent and purposeful practice gets people better.
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I employ a lot of 20-23 year olds and I think shaming them makes them quit. But none of my employees signed an NCAA LOI.
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Shaming doesn’t motivate the young folks so much – but peer pressure (similar but not quite the same) works wonders.
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And that’s with Pat Allen and Ben Cleveland in lineup, and they could not get a snap last year.
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If the OL is moving any of our DL folks backward, that is significant progress to me. I have no concerns about our front group on defense, and we pushed virtually no one back last season, in fact, seemed to miss 2 or 3 players completely on every play. While that may be overstating it, that is my general recollection of last season. We had two AA level running backs completely stuffed in key situations in all but 3-4 games.
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Reverse the quote and there’s panic about the offense. If both sides of the ball are fighting to a stalemate, then neither one is “getting it done”. Just a bunch of coach speak. Now, if our #1 D is getting blown back by the #2 O, then there’s a bit of a problem.
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Agreed you never quite know if one side is that good or the other that bad.
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“”It’s striking a violent blow and knocking people back,” Smart said.”
Are we already missing Tracy Rocker?
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Maybe KS has never heard the wisdom of “less said, best said”.
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