So much for Tim Tebow, class act.
It’s not that they aren’t showing up, genius. It’s that they’ve got better things to do on a hot day than stay to watch the entirety of a second half of a game when the cupcake has already been seal-clubbed to death.
If we’re talking need here, maybe ‘Bama needs to schedule a better opponent.
Filed under Alabama, Tim Tebow: Rock Star
This is probably not the kind of momentum you want to be riding if you’re Vandy getting ready to face Georgia.
One of the tougher games for me to pick in this week’s Fabris Pool is Auburn-Miss. State. In a way, it’s a little surprising, because my hesitation stems from how poorly both offenses have played, MSU since it got into conference play and Auburn for much of the season.
Now that I’ve seen them play, the Bulldogs’ problem is obvious: Fitzgerald hasn’t progressed as a passer, so making them one-dimensional pretty much shuts them down.
Auburn’s struggles on offense are more widespread, as Bill Connelly explains.
Auburn’s rebuilt line has not gained traction, and the Tigers’ running back corps, rebuilt around junior Kam Martin and a couple of freshmen (Boobie Whitlow and Shaun Shivers), hasn’t taken full advantage of chances it has had. On top of all this, Stidham is holding onto the ball too long in the face of a happy pass rush.
How bad is it for AU? Freshman kicker Anders Carlson has already been asked to attempt six field goals of 50 yards or longer. He’s made one.
That isn’t… um… good.
It’s not like I’m expecting a rerun of the 3-2 debacle from a decade ago Bill references, but I do think, barring a turnover run, points are going to be hard to come by.
Filed under SEC Football
As someone whose memory is still scarred by the breakdowns that routinely marked the last defenses of Martinez and Grantham, I have to pinch myself more than once as I read this:
In terms of tackling, Georgia is also the best in the business thus far. Through five games, the Bulldogs have only missed 23 total tackles and only miss a tackle on 7% of opportunities, tied for the best in FBS. For comparison purposes, the average FBS team has missed 41 tackles through five weeks and misses them at a rate of 15.5% of opportunities. Our top-graded cornerback, Deandre Baker (90.4), has yet to miss a tackle and only allowed 14 yards after the catch on 12 receptions.[Emphasis added.]
It’s not just the defense that’s excelling in fundamentals. Here’s the rest of what Pro Football Focus has to say about Georgia:
While No. 2 in our overall rankings, the Bulldogs are blocking and tackling better than anyone in college football up to this point. Even with an injury to initial starting RG Ben Cleveland (83.0), the Bulldogs are getting above-average to elite play across all five offensive line positions (lowest-graded starter at 74.5 grade). The group is led by left tackle Andrew Thomas, who has only given up four total QB pressures and has the highest overall (92.9) and run-block grade (92.0) among all FBS offensive lineman with at least 150 snaps. As a group, the Bulldogs’ offensive line is 25th in pass-blocking efficiency (PBE), only giving up 17 total QB pressures (three sacks).
It’s the running game, though, where they are at their best. After finishing fourth in team run-block grade in 2017, Georgia has elevated that even more this season. Bulldog running backs have gotten slightly over half (50.2 percent) of their yards before contact. It’s not just the offensive line or tight ends helping in the running game either, as four of their five top receivers from a snap count perspective have a run-block grade of at least 71.3, led by Tyler Simmons 83.3 run-block grade.
Elite blocking and tackling? That’s like Dawg porn for Kirby Smart.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
It’s a tool that looks at who is currently on each roster in college football, accounting for graduations, dismissals, early NFL departures and other attrition as well as incoming transfers and gives us a real time picture of a roster’s talent level based on each player’s ranking as a high school prospect.
A roster management ranking, in other words.
As you can imagine, Georgia shows out pretty well.
Georgia sits at No. 3 and has more five-stars on its current roster than any program, including Alabama and Ohio State. It’s a roster that already had strong a strong foundation in place when Kirby Smart took over and subsequently added the No. 6, No. 3 and No. 1 classes in the country respectively. It’s why when you look around the college football landscape, Georgia is one of the few teams that looks equipped to take on Alabama from a talent perspective.
Note that Georgia has the number seven, twelve and fourteen teams on that list coming up in the next few weeks. (Note also that the Dawgs have already dispatched numbers fifteen and twenty-one.)
On a non-Dawg related note, how does Clay Helton still have a head coaching job? Jeez, what a sad waste of talent.
Filed under Georgia Football
If you think Georgia might have a hard time finding motivation to play Vanderbilt with a huge trip to Baton Rouge on the horizon, think again. The embarrassing loss in that 2016 game stuck harder in the players’ craws than it did ours. Just ask Elijah Holyfield.
“I think it sticks with people who were here a lot, because that game was one of the games that really, really cut us deep.”
Hey, whatever works.
Filed under Georgia Football
It’s an interesting mix of the great and slightly disappointing.
Jake is freaking killing it in the intermediate (10-19 yards) passing game. I’ve said it before, but there is no one in college football who can throw that sideline pass better than Fromm does. His short passing game is pretty ridiculous, too.
The other nice thing this shows is that his throwing has become more balanced. Compare the above with this chart from last November.
He’s much harder to defend because those directional splits have disappeared.
Also note that he’s thrown the ball behind the line of scrimmage at a much greater rate than he did in 2017 and it’s been very productive.
What’s disappointing, though, as the second chart indicates, is that his downfield game (20+ yards) has regressed: the completion rate is about 15 percentage points lower and his TD/INT ratio is much worse. No doubt some of that is on his receiving help, but still. Some of that may explain why Georgia is going deep at a somewhat lesser rate than it did in 2017.
Overall, though, those charts paint a pretty good picture of a quarterback who is steadily improving from what was an impressive freshman season.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
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