How offensive will Georgia’s offense be?

If it’s reasonable to expect Georgia’s defense to improve over last year’s results, based on the reasons elaborated here yesterday, what should we have grounds to expect from the offense?

It’s great that with Chubb and Michel back, the Dawgs are loaded at running back.  The tight end position looks set.  Eason’s got a year of the SEC wars under his belt.  Jim Chaney’s had a year to feel his way around what he’s got and what Smart wants.  There’s a noticeable infusion of new talent on the offensive line.

But it’s worth remembering how far offensive production has fallen in just two seasons.

But as a unit, the entire offense will seek added production after a couple of down years. From 2010-14, when Mike Bobo was Georgia’s offensive coordinator, the Bulldogs averaged no less than 32 points per game in a season. In 2014, Bobo’s offense averaged 41.3 points and 257.9 rushing yards per game, which helped him land the Colorado State head coaching job.

In 2016, Georgia averaged 24.5 points and 191.2 yards per game.

Remarkably, Georgia didn’t manage to achieve its 2014 scoring average in a single game last year.  To expect a return to 2014 levels of offensive production, then, even with the areas of optimism detailed above, is an unrealistic stretch.  Consider this, though:  if the Dawgs had scored one more touchdown per game in 2016, they would have finished with a regular season record of 10-2.  31.5 points per game isn’t exactly a monster number, either.  It would have been fifth best in the conference and 48th nationally.

If it’s likely the defense will improve, you’d have to think the team would be looking at a very productive season with an offensive scoring average of 31.5 points.  Thinking is one thing, though.  Attaining is a whole different matter.

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The Boom rule

Gus Malzahn isn’t merely concerned about the SEC calling unsportsmanlike conduct penalties against coaches this season.  He’s extremely concerned.

And why not, based on this Steve Shaw quote?

“Somebody said to me recently, ‘You take a lot more off a coach than you ever would with a player,’ and that’s very true,” Shaw said. “The head coaches, they are the face of our game. They are iconic in our game but some of the things we would have flagged a player immediately for weren’t being called for a coach.”

Treating coaches’ bad behavior no differently than players’?  That’s borderline sacrilegious.

And this quote from Malzahn is rich:

“If it’s a 15-yard penalty, I’m going to need somebody to get my attention. You’ve got some coaches that go on the field and throw a fit and all that and I think the officials just had to do something to get control of that. That wasn’t me.”

Nah.  It was your defensive coordinator.

ESPN, where it just means less

College football’s new math:

For at least a couple weeks, one of the elements being displayed there is a countdown of the number of days until the kickoff of the college football campaign.

“Season starts in 37 days” it proclaimed Tuesday. On Wednesday it was down to 36.

Uh, no. The season begins 29 days from then, with eight games on Aug. 26 — a Saturday. Three of them (Portland State-Brigham Young, Chattanooga-Jacksonville State and Stanford-Rice) even are to be shown on ESPN! There’s another game that Sunday, Richmond-Sam Houston State, which ESPNU televises.

The date the ticker is referring to is the following Thursday, which is NOT the start to the season but instead the kickoff to the first “full weekend” of games, making it a prime target for hype — which you can expect to see plenty of as that date draws closer. ESPN and its leading affiliated outlets, including ABC, have 19 games scheduled over an elongated four-day weekend. That schedule is highlighted by the Florida State-Alabama game that Saturday night on ABC (KDNL, Channel 30 locally). There also are in excess of a dozen more games that will stream exclusively on ESPN3, plus seven on it’s ACC Network .

We asked an ESPN spokesman for an explanation, which is:

“We consider August 26 to be Week 0 of the college football season because, for the vast majority of fans, the season begins in earnest on August 31 with a full slate of games among Top 25 teams and other major schools.”

Arrogant schmucks.

College football, partners don’t let partners downgrade the product.

Mike Leach doesn’t recruit like other coaches.

At least not when it comes to recruiting tight ends.

“Tight ends are a blast if you have them,” Leach said. “If you have a true tight end — and I mean a true tight end — then life is good. God didn’t make very many true tight ends. Just go to the mall and the big long-armed guys you see at the mall — you’ll see a couple, but most of them can’t run fast and those that can probably can’t catch. So there’s not very many of them.”

You know, that’s gotta suck.  You make time go to the mall, fight the traffic, hunt for a parking spot, bop into Macy’s and — boom! — they’re all out of tight ends.

That’s why so many coaches do their recruiting on Amazon these days.  You can find anything on the Internet.