Chicks dig the long ball, Jake.

One thing I noticed reviewing Fromm’s passing stats from the Rose Bowl is that despite going 20-29 with no interceptions, he wound up posting a passer rating below his season’s average.  The primary reason for that is a low (for him) 7.2 yards per attempt number.  As the three games he had with lower ratings all involved much lower completion percentages than the 69% he hit in the Rose Bowl, all I can conclude was that he really stuck to a short and mid-range passing game.

This CFB Film Room tweet bears that out.

That is an excellent question… although I might expand it to ask whether they’ll trust the offensive line to give him the time to air it out against ‘Bama.

27 Comments

Filed under Georgia Football, Strategery And Mechanics

27 responses to “Chicks dig the long ball, Jake.

  1. David K.

    Would’ve been nice if Nauta had come up with that catch over the middle late in the game.

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    • Russ

      One of Jake’s few bad throws. He missed a couple of those.

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      • Will

        not sure if it was a bad throw or a bad route. Nauta might have been supposed to squat in the gap of the zone, and the throw was behind him because he over ran the route. Just a thought, obviously, I don’t know what the route dictated, but given Fromm’s season, I just am not convinced the dude ever throws a bad ball downfield!

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        • Kdawg

          It looked like after the play that Fromm was talking to him and pointing to the ground. My first thought, like you said, was Nauta was supposed to sit in middle of the zone.

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          • St. Johns Dawg

            You are correct … AND if you watch the TV replay of the game, you see Sony Michel breaking WIDE OPEN on the left that probably would have been a TD. I can’t fault Fromm for looking at Nauta, however, but he made a very quick decision there … Probably because he was confident his receiver would be open.

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        • Russ

          Good point. We (I) always blame the QB, but that assumes the receiver ran the correct route.

          Liked by 1 person

    • TomReagan

      That Nauta incompletion was ripe for an interception. Tipped balls in the middle of the field are a dangerous thing.

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  2. gastr1

    Biggest question to me is if we have a way to get someone open downfield without any real speed burners–but maybe Wims tackles that problem with the deep jump balls we’ve largely used to date.

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    • Hardeman is plenty fast but in a game of this magnitude can he be relied upon to secure the catch? Simmons played some underappreciated ball Monday. Maybe he is the wildcard that the Elephants would never expect to break their hearts.

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  3. Otto

    The 30 yarder down the left was thrown short and the DB was mugging the WR. UGA managed to PI called against Mizzou and ND I believe on this throw.

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  4. AusDawg85

    When you have 70 yards runs from scrimmage, do you really need to throw deep?

    Liked by 1 person

    • Otto

      Agreed and hitting the perimeter keeps the defense from being able to focus on the center of the field.

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    • Cpark58

      This.

      If we had thrown TDs of 75, 50, and 38 yards instead of running it would’ve upped the average but landing body blows on the ground and controlling the clock is much more fun and pays dividends late in the game like throwing it doesn’t.

      Now, landing those body blows against Alabama is a completely different story. Alabama probably isn’t going to sell out to stop the run but rather play straight up and make our O-Line prove they can go toe to toe with their D-Line. Those quick throws to start the game to keep them honest will be harder to come by with bama’s secondary.

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      • Russ

        I loved those runs but they certainly didn’t control the clock. We scored 21 points in less than 1:00 total of possession time. Next time, we need to take a knee at the 1. (I kid, of course.)

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        • Otto

          Agreed and I like the play calling. The OC wasn’t going for it all with a go pattern just as the drive was getting to be sustained. If they get trucked by blockers and the RB so be it. The intention was likely to grind them down on the ground, we just didn’t know they’d be trucked that early.

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    • kfoge

      I agree AusDawg…..also, he is lighting up the mid range passes…..Godwin, Wims with these 10 yard curls, digs or hitches are working…..Also if you watch a lot of Wims routes … he takes off like a Go-route and then breaks it off for the curl or dig. Its working, if Alabama stops it then try something else but for now, “keep chopping wood”

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      • Could you imagine how a stop-n-go with Wims would pan out after greasing Bama awhile with those 8-yd curls that Jake likes to Javon? I am seriously hoping to see that as payback for the PA jiggle that they used over Swann on the last drive in the ’12 SECC.

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    • Tim in Sav

      You gotta hand it to the Senator, he called the long runs BEFORE the game.

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  5. John Denver is full of shit...

    That red dot to the 30yd line was a perfectly thrown back shoulder but well defended.

    I remember cuz it was thrown right where I was sitting…on my couch.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. Squatchdawg

    Lol. “Will they trust him…”

    How lazy. My headline would be “Will Fromm continue to make the high percentage throws to the open receivers” or ” continue to find creative ways to get the ball to the RB’s”

    I think we’re past the whole freshman QB thing by now.

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    • Jeff Sanchez

      Right. Technically he’s three games into his sophomore season

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      • Cojones

        On this track, the projection on his learning curve would put him somewhere between King Kong and Godzilla by midseason 2018. To me, this season puts him realistically into his Junior year on the learning curve and the curious thing is that he doesn’t seem to regress a step on his learning trajectory.

        Fromme is the consummate cfb QB in his Freshman year..

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  7. What’s funny is that for all the angst about not running the ball enough early (or maybe even in general), I think we at least got a nice warm up for the kind of diverse play calls we will probably need against Alabama, even if we could have pounded Oklahoma more in the first half.

    I am more confident offensively now because we beat Oklahoma with an offensive gameplan that we will need against Alabama. Make that banged up linebacking corps account for every conceivable assignment they may have. We have to run them as much as possible before we invite them into the phone booth mid-way through the 3rd quarter.

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  8. Chicks dig the long ball. What a great Braves commercial that was… Maddox and Glavine mocking themselves. I kind of view this question the same way. Can Fromm throw the long ball? Can Maddox and Glavine hit the long ball? Answer is the same. Who cares. Fromm, like these two Hall of Famers,needs to do what he does, which is, get high completion percentage and no interceptions and I will not give a flying F*** if he pulls a Stafford or not. Just win baby.

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  9. JS

    Interesting to see how well he did on the right side of the field. There was a period during the season where he had pretty divergent numbers depending on if he was throwing left or right. Wonder what changed?

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