Bammers gonna Bammer.
Daily Archives: April 9, 2017
Eason and “the other guy”
If I didn’t know any better, somebody sounds a trifle optimistic about the progress of his star sophomore quarterback.
Kirby Smart continued to offer praise for the Georgia offense as a whole and for quarterback Jacob Eason and tailback Brian Herrien in particular as the Bulldogs conducted their first controlled scrimmage of the spring on Saturday at Sanford Stadium.
“He’s come a long way,” Smart said of Eason in a post-scrimmage briefing back at the Butts-Mehre football complex. “He’s more confident in the pocket, he’s more confident in protections, his decision-making is better, and his accuracy has been better.”
Just as quickly as he said that, Smart quickly added a qualifier that should keep him from getting overconfident.
“But he’s getting challenged because the other guy did well, too,” Smart said, referring to true freshman backup Jake Fromm.
Whatever blows your skirt up, Kirby. I don’t care about the whys, just the results. And those sound promising.
But the talk of the day was the progress of Eason, even though Smart remains reserved in his praise.
“Jacob is in a better spot right now than he was this time last year,” the second-year head coach said of the second-year starter. “… Most of the guys out there now with the exception of J.J. Holloman he has worked with before. I don’t know if it’s the factor of working with him or just working period.”
Eason’s overall mastery of offensive operation is the area most improved, Smart said.
“He is much more experienced, so when the call comes in he’s knows he’s looking for this, this and this. Where it used to be, ‘what’s this call and what do I do?’” Smart said. “So he’s come a long way.”
I know it’s early. But I also know Smart is usually tightfisted with praise, especially early on. So let’s hope this means something.
Filed under Georgia Football
Christmas comes early for Kirby.
How nice is it when you sign a transfer because you hope it helps in the recruiting of his five-star relative and it turns out the transfer has promise as a real contributor?
Comments Off on Christmas comes early for Kirby.
Filed under Georgia Football
The hardest thing about spring scrimmage
It’s the glass half-empty/half-full syndrome, of course. Is the offense having its way because it’s improved, or is it because the defense isn’t getting the job done?
You can guess what’s in Kirby Smart’s glass.
The play of the Bulldogs’ experienced defense continues to leave a lot to be desired.
“We didn’t tackle well as a defense,” Smart said. “Does that mean we’ve got really good skill guys and they’re hard to tackle? Probably something to do with it, but we’ve got to improve our tackling.”
Particularly stopping the offense from getting yards after tackle.
Smart said the team was missing “knock-back tackles, what I call when you hit a guy and you splatter him and you knock him back where he doesn’t get yards after contact.”
You can probably guess why, too.
As for the rest of the defense, Smart said: “I expect the tackling to improve greatly by the next scrimmage.”
I think I know what’s on the menu for this week’s practices.
That being said, Smart did offer a few specific shortcomings on that side of the ball.
Smart mentioned that the effort appears to be there but that, for whatever reason, there have been some lapses that need to be corrected.
On one instance, Smart mentioned that a defender got caught looking into the backfield and leaving a fullback wide open in the flat. On another, a defender didn’t play his assignment correctly and allowed an offensive lineman to win the leverage battle and spring a running back for a touchdown.
“Those are things that disturb me defensively,” Smart said. “It’s either you’re asleep at the wheel, you’re comfortable, you’re not hungry – there’s something there. We’ve got to figure out what that is. We’ve got to help them. We’ve got to challenge them and give them an opportunity to get better. You take Trenton and Roquan out, and they are too really good players, right? Still, we got a lot of guys who have played a lot of snaps and that’s the disappointing thing.”
Keep in mind, that’s over the course of approximately 130 plays run on the day, so it’s hard to say if Smart’s disturbed over something prevalent, or it’s just that he’s a perfectionist. Either way, it’s reasonable to expect they’ll keep on pushing. It’ll be interesting to see how much of this shows on G-Day.
Filed under Georgia Football
Get The Picture 