If the most maligned coach on Georgia’s staff is Jim Chaney, offensive line coach Sam Pittman hasn’t been too far behind. Never mind that he’s had personnel issues — maybe some thought that bringing in a guard from Rhode Island to play left tackle is how everyone does it — including green talent and undersized interior anchored by a first-year center who’s a converted defensive lineman, no to mention modifying a blocking scheme from what Georgia ran for many years. We want a dominant o-line and we want it yesterday!
My suggestion to those of you frustrated by the lack of progress shown by Pittman’s charges is that you may want to take a closer look at their work during the Mississippi State game.
Jeffery Simmons came into Saturday night as the reigning SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week in consecutive weeks. He didn’t leave Athens expecting to notch his third such award in a row. Indeed, he departed having been almost a non-factor. I’m going to outsource the deets to Matt Hinton, because he does such a bloody great job laying out the offensive line’s work neutralizing Simmons.
No, the real revelation was Georgia’s offensive line, which not only held up against Mississippi State’s formidable front seven but often imposed its will. It was an especially miserable night for the rising star of MSU’s defensive line, Jeffery Simmons, who barely registered on the stat sheet and was generally neutralized by a steady diet of double teams.
To put it bluntly, on a handful of plays in this game Simmons was physically manhandled in a fashion that was the complete opposite of his star turn against LSU. Keep an eye on Simmons (No. 94) on Georgia’s first carry of the game, a straight-ahead iso run by true freshman D’Andre Swift, which gained 12 yards behind a pancake-worthy combo block by left tackle Isaiah Wynn (77) and left guard Kendall Baker (65):
Up next is a nearly identical play in the second quarter, which saw Simmons getting driven a good seven yards off the ball (and eventually to the ground) by Baker and center Lamont Gaillard (53):
Third quarter now, on another straight-ahead run pitting Simmons against a double team by Baker and Gaillard, with similarly lopsided results as Sony Michel barreled for 8 yards through the hole cleared by the interior line:
That run set up the dagger, a 41-yard touchdown pass on the next play from Jake Fromm to tight end Isaac Nauta that extended UGA’s lead to 28-3; predictably, it came at the expense of an MSU secondary that was fully committed to run support on third-and-1. By that point it had no choice: Georgia’s offensive line had repeatedly asserted itself as the burlier unit in the trenches, and Mississippi State’s d-line — the standout unit in the Bulldogs’ win over LSU — needed all the help on an ostensible run down it could get.
The point here isn’t to single out Simmons, a bona fide 5-star talent who (rough night notwithstanding) remains one of the conference’s most promising young players, or anyone else on the MSU defense; it’s to it’s to highlight the kind of physicality from Georgia that’s been sorely missing against top-shelf SEC defenses for at least the past two years.
The Bulldogs aren’t massive between the tackles (Baker and Gaillard are listed at 287 and 288 pounds, respectively, undersized for modern SEC blockers) but they made a compelling case Saturday that they have the muscle to grind out a steady living on the ground against the rest of the regular-season schedule, at least. If that’s the case, the looming impasse at quarterback may be strictly academic.
Matt’s last point there shouldn’t be understated. If the offensive line is in fact on the road to steadiness, the pressure to find a quarterback to carry the team is lessened significantly. If Georgia can run the ball consistently, given the dominance of the defense and the improved special teams play, all that’s needed at quarterback is a competent game manager who can move the chains without plunging the team into trouble because of poor decision-making. That should sound like a familiar formula to anyone who’s been watching the conference’s dominant program over the last decade.
All of which brings me back to Sam Pittman. In a little over a season’s worth of work, he’s already shown himself to be the best recruiter at that position in years. If what we saw Saturday night wasn’t a mirage, maybe it turns out that the man is all he’s cracked up to be, given time. Or maybe this is just another crazy coincidence:
Does that possibly explain why Bert took Pittman’s departure so hard? His loss is looking like Georgia’s gain.
Get The Picture 
Pittman is certainly doing a good job. The OL play this season is vastly improved and seems to be getting better each game. More importantly the future of the UGA OL looks the best it ever has.
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Pittman is definitely doing a great job. Looking back, given what he had to work with last season, he did a good job last season too. Pittman may be Georgia’s best position coach.
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Oops. Sorry for the double post but both are true.
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Good work, Pilgrim.
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I wish Georgia fans in general demanded half as much from the defense as they historically do our offense. Now our defense has been great this year, absolutely first rate, but there were so many years in there from 2005 on where we were winning or losing games 38-35 and 45-41 and so forth where 19 of the first 20 critical comments you’d read in the Dawgosphere were angry about Bobo’s playcalling when they should have been angry at Martinez or Grantham, or specifically Richt for keeping Martinez for so long. Saturday was great, but our offense has been better most of the years out of the last dozen (the last two years being clear exceptions), than it is this year. The missing ingredient, which have had so far this year, is consistent, great defense. If we had this defense in 2005, 2007, 2008, 2012, maybe 2013 also, we’d have had national championships in at least 2 out of those 5 years, maybe more.
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It’s called Bobo Derangement Syndrome.
Regarding Martinez, my dad said after the WVU Sugar Bowl game that Richt should have fired him right after the game. That game was the canary in the coal mine.
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Yup
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Right, you are correct also about the WVU game, and there was also the Auburn game that year a couple of games before, when Auburn converted that 4th and 10 in the final minutes with a play that went all the way down to the goal line, Willie got pants’d in that game. Something sadly, we would have to see happen with increasing regularity until Richt finally got rid of him. That was Richt’s downfall, he let that guy burn up all the good will he accumulated early on and then when he did start having some problems that perhaps would have been hard to avoid, he had no good will left.
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That”s not exactly true. Look in the lexicon under “Third and Grantham” or my personal favorite: “Directional Kicking”.
I am not a Bobo fan, but most of us here had no problem calling out the other side of the ball.
I think this is may be the first complete team I’ve ever seen
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You should have been a Bobo fan since he built the best scoring machine in the SEC. Some of you go back too far to the “pulling my hair out” statements of some on here concerning Bobo and his signal calling, but seem to ignore what he built in two seasons after taking the handoff from Richt.
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Let me check…… nope. Still not a fan. He had some high scoring offenses, to be sure, and brought a lot of talent to the team. Part of it was play calling but if some of those had worked (and they certainly could have) he’s a hero for it. My biggest beef with CMB was having stud QB’s for 3-4 years, then having a career backup season followed by a true freshman season. He and CMR could never seem to get it all together. I should clarify my earlier statement : I think this may be the most complete Georgia team I’ve ever seen.
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I was sitting in a CLE typing on my phone and laughing my ass off the day the good Senator and a few others of us nominated or came up with most of the terms in the Lexicon. This blog has had one of the better commentariat’s in the Dawgosphere for years but trust me we had our share of nonsensical Bobo bashing back then, even if Dawg Sports and the AJC of course had more. My larger point is that I think Georgia fans, as a group seem to have a much shorter fuse for offensive deficiency than defensive deficiency. Hell, they don’t really even know what offense is at LSU, they seem to have a decent QB about 3 or 4 years in between each Halley’s Comet visit, whereas Georgia fans see it as a God given right.
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I found the blog and it’s stellar commentariat by accident around 2010, and have been hooked ever since. ” A demon that gnaws at John Fabris’s soul.” That’s fucking perfect.
I’ve done my share of Bobo-bashing, and for sure some of it was undeserved because I know so little about football how the hell can I tell whose fault it is. I love the bandwagons here, some of these guys have killer wits and some of the others who take things too seriously pay for it.
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+1.
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I’ve never had a problem with Pittman. You knew he had personnel issues to deal with. The problem I had with the offensive staff last year was the insistence from the top down to get a square peg in a round hole.
No doubt he’s doing the best job on the offensive staff through the first 4 games.
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I’ll play devil’s advocate. Why didn’t Pitman use Wynn at OT last year? Would’ve saved himself a lot of grief. Last time I looked the despised Catalina was employed in the nfl. This year’s starters, Baker and Kindley, were both on the team last year. So it’s Pittman’s use of the resources (players) he’s had that seems to defy rhyme or reason.
I won’t quibble about Pittman’s coaching ability, although so far he’s had far fewer good games than atrocious ones. It’s the personnel management that is questionable. How many wins has that cost Kirby so far?
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Excellent point about Wynn. Thanks, WCD
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To me, we should now be able to put last year’s issues behind us. CKS was a new head coach with a new way of doing just about everything. Clearly, Bear Bryant wouldn’t have won the SEC in CKS’s position last year. Teaching, talent evaluation, building for this year was priority one, and he certainly passed these goals down to his excellent assistant coaches, like Pittman. CKS is now 12-5 at UGA, with the most well-coached and fundamentally sound team I have seen in a while, and our O line, IMO, looks better than any since 2002. If you don’t like Pittman and the product you see on the field, or you still want to second guess our coaching staff, then more power to you. I think they are working their butts off, and it shows.
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^^^This^^^
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Well said. Onward and upward.
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I’m with you, except I think you’re overrating our O-line this year, who still struggled in our first two games. Hell they were getting pushed around against Stamford. Our O-line in 2014 with Andrews was averaging us 40 points + a game.
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I’m more optimistic than I was last year, but I think looking at the most recent 4 data points with heavier weighting to satisfy what you want to believe is just as folly as assuming the 13 data points from last year are 100% indicative of future performance. Get to the end of this season with another 13 data points (hopefully more) and we’ll see if you can say last year was just an aberration (i.e. 1st time HC gonna 1st time HC).
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“If you don’t like Pittman and the product you see on the field, or you still want to second guess our coaching staff, then more power to you.”
Ignorance is bliss, I suppose. Before anointing Pittman as the second coming, I believe it’s prudent to ask why his performance last year was so poor. Some of his moves, like playing Wynn at G and Catalina at OT, are questionable at best and boneheaded at worst. Despite the high opinions of Pittman by some folks, his 2016 performance and bio shows a guy who’s been with mediocre teams.
I want the Dawgs to win every game. When they don’t win, particularly against lesser opponents, it’s appropriate to do an assessment to understand why. I like Kirby’s attention to detail. I have little doubt he put some of the assistants on notice that they’d better find a way to improve or they’d be gone p.d.q. Based upon 2016, Pittman had no where to go but up.
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Awesome, love an OL with a mean streak (Kindley, not so kind). Also noticed that Fromm went with what looked like his 3rd receiver…all within 3 seconds (1st clip).
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Only someone who is adamantly against Pittman would refuse to acknowledge the improvement. Andrew Thomas has been the least talked about starter on the team. Think about that…
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Andrew Thomas –> future 1st round draft choice if he stays healthy
The kid can play, and when he really learns the system, the sky is the limit.
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