I am heading out today for a little vacay time in scenic Monterey, California. I’ll be missing my first home game in a while, but I don’t expect my presence Saturday will be needed in order to pull the Dawgs through.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to watch the game at Laguna Seca, so there’s that. But keep in mind that posting will be irregular for the next few days, given my busy social calendar (hah!) and the time difference on the West Coast.
In other words, while I’m gone, behave, you scamps.
Filed under GTP Stuff
Haterz gonna hate, I know, but, still, stats…
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
So the defense is unhappy about the job they did against the run in the Missouri game. This isn’t exactly happy talk, but it’s still talk until they do something about it.
“I take that very personally and this defense takes that very personally, Patrick said. “That’s something we pride ourselves on, stopping the run in this defense. Stopping the run is the number one priority. Obviously, those guys had more yards than we would like and that’s definitely something we’re going to put an emphasis on.”
There were some issues that were related to fundamentals, no question. But I still think some of what we saw resulted from an emphasis on denying Lock the deep passing game. Patrick also thinks Monty Rice’s absence played a part.
Rice was back at practice this week and Smart noted that he is moving around quite well. The difference between last week and this one week is noticeable. With him out against Mizzou, Patrick said it forced him to play 50 or 60 staps and he can’t really remember the last time that happened.
With him back in the mix, things should get back to business as usual with that core group of inside linebackers.
“That rotation helps,” Patrick said. “It helps a lot and I’m glad he’s back.”
If Patrick felt a little worn down, it’s understandable. Missouri leads the conference in number of offensive plays run and had 85 snaps against Georgia. The good news for Patrick, aside from Rice’s return, is that the Vols are middle of the pack in that regard. UT did run 79 plays against Florida, but much of that was out of desperation as the game went south. In its three other games, Tennessee never exceeded 70 plays.
The Vols don’t throw the ball a lot. In fact, they have fewer passing attempts this season than does Georgia. You would think that would give Smart and Tucker an opportunity to deploy the safeties in run support more than was the case against Missouri. Between that and the return of a regular rotation at inside linebacker, maybe we’ll get a clearer picture of what Georgia’s run defense is capable of on Saturday.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!, Strategery And Mechanics
It’s to be expected with Tennessee coming to town that there’d be a retrospective or two about Jeremy Pruitt’s time in Athens. We get a couple of good examples of that from Seth Emerson ($$) and Marc Weiszer.
I won’t say there are any surprises about the picture that emerges from those two pieces. The kids who played for Pruitt respect him deeply. He’s favorably portrayed as someone who brought the Process to Athens and cleared the path for Kirby Smart to elevate the program.
There’s the baggage, too. Pruitt was a polarizing figure because he lacked the skills or the patience, or maybe both, to deal with the higher-ups in a productive way. This quote from Greg McGarity speaks volumes about that.
Asked about Pruitt, athletic director Greg McGarity said: “I’ll just say what Mark Richt said. Jeremy is at Tennessee now. We’re here at Georgia and we’ll just leave it at that.”
How that mix plays out in Knoxville remains to be seen. One advantage Pruitt has there over Athens is that he’s got an athletic director who’s invested in him. It remains to be seen how far that goes.
So much for being an offensive genius.
65 More yards for Arkansas than for Auburn — 290 to 225 — in their game on Saturday, yet the Tigers still routed the Razorbacks 34-3. Auburn had scoring series of 27, 1, 9 and minus-10 yards.
You gotta love those negative yardage scoring drives. Against the worst team in the SEC, to boot.
Filed under Auburn's Cast of Thousands
The surprise here isn’t which offensive line PFF has at the top of the SEC.
Nah, the surprise is that we’re no longer supposed to be surprised to find Georgia there.
Filed under Georgia Football
I’d like to think there’s a very fine line between a bucket and a trash can, because this has some fantastic potential as a Vol troll.
At the least, I’m sure it’s a five-star bucket.
Get The Picture 