Stewart Mandel’s relationship with Georgia? Call it… complicated. In today’s Mailbag ($$), he manages to describe UGA as one of three, maybe four teams with a legitimate chance of winning the national championship this season and goes on in the next breath (“But even I have some slight hesitation jumping fully onboard the UGA bandwagon…”) to concede there’s some validity to the perception that the Dawgs are overrated at number three.
What’s a Montanan to do, I asks ‘ya?
Get The Picture 
I’m afraid to ask who he thinks he would rate at #3 ahead of Georgia.
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Florida?
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Day started out great today until I read a reminder of the Texas game this morning……..178 yards rushing and 355 total yards. Already knew thIS, but was reminded it was Lanning’s debut as a DC.
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Georgia’s run defense was spotty at times last year, and also, bowl games don’t matter.
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If they do not matter….why do they play them??
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Anymore? Money, probably. But in all seriousness, I mean it more as a statement that bowl games aren’t usefully predictive of anything.
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In the grand scheme of things (MNC), they are not relevant. Wish they would just start a playoff system, best 8 or whatever. Everybody else can just sit at home, cause some teams that are playing in these meaningless bowls look like they already have.
But don’t see it anytime soon…all about the money.
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Call me square and old fashioned, but if a city is paying you millions to come play in their stadium, you should hold up your end of the deal and give them what they paid for. (And I know that what the city wants is for the fan bases to show up and rent hotels, use taxis, pay for food and entertainment, etc…and Dawg fans do all of that)
This half-assed effort attitude has been around forever in pro sports where baseball teams bench starters after they’ve clinched a playoff berth..same now with NFL and obviously even colleges. Why not just forfeit the game and not risk any injuries at all? (Because you want the money, that’s why..the money you’re not willing to earn.)
Georgia embarrassed itself in NOLA.
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The cities don’t pay the players jack squat. The NFL and endorsement deals do. So as far as holding up their end of the bargain for whoever’s going to pay them the millions… that’s exactly what the players do.
Like all CFB fans, I wish they didn’t sit out bowl games, but there you go.
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That’s a bit overboard IMHO
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Bowl games do matter…when your team wins/ wins big, the fan isn’t reminded in the off season how bad the team played in the loss…against texas, that game wasn’t as close as the final score
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Thought we were counting on Kirby filling in any gaps at D. He consults with DCs and approves game plans, plus coaching during the games.
That was not the D that we had throughout the season, remember? NFL – bound players not in or into the game, new players holding up positions formerly held by pro players? Attitude? We don’t want to keep confronting something that detracts from a team’s performance for the season. It ain’t in our fan genes.
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Jordan Davis is the key there. His insertion to the starting DL changed our defense.
I’d also argue we missed Roquan severely especially with Rice’ injuries.
If Davis stays healthy, I like the defense; otherwise I will worry about run stopping. As I recall, were wrecked with DL injuries all year, but I can’t remember everyone’s status during the Sugar bowl.
Anyone remember how many health interior DL we had available?
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Giving up 355 total yards to Texas isn’t bad, honestly. And the 178 yards was on a ton of carries. I think Texas was under 3.5 YPC. The defense was shorthanded in a bad way, too. The offense was an embarrassment in that game.
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Concur….offense couldn’t get untracked. Too much slanting and twisting and stunting from the ‘D. No adjustments to it, reminded me of the LSU game.
Hope we’ve worked on that.
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I think it was worked on. Chaney is gone.
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49 carries for that 178 yds, so 3.6 YPC.
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Offense cost us that game, imo. Defense on the field too much, short handed, and we had bad field position. Crummy attitude was the big problem, but defense played closer to their potential than the offense did.
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It was all downhill after the muffed deep snap on that punt.
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Mixed emotions? Hell, Mandel has come a long way since Brand Recognition and the Montana 100 plebiscite. He must have had pangs of remorse the entire time he posted, must less cringing when placing the Dawgs this high.
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Neither of them are impressed with Smart as a coach. Though they seem to discount the recruiting part of it which doesnt make any sense to me.
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Taking out his first season, here are Smart’s biggest regular games at Georgia:
2017: ND, Aub 2x, OU, Bama
2018: LSU, Bama
UGA is 3-4 in those games, of which two were out and out blowout losses, one was a blowout win, and 4 were tight games.
3-4 against those teams isn’t bad, really. The problem is the manner in which the losses have come: Two choke jobs and two blowouts, and in two of the losses an “out of the box” play call via a special teams fake blew up in his face.
Now, I think using those two calls as evidence Kirby is a bad game coach — particularly the fake punt call against Bama — is lazy, that’s definitely the narrative. Now it’s a question of can Kirby get UGA over the hump and flip the narrative.
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He is getting us to the stage, to me….that is what is most important.
Got to have some luck once you get there, we haven’t…..we are due. As far as some decisions that were made, they stick out more because they happened in key moments.
Just a matter of time imo….
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In the meantime, the tiny number of miscues made by Smart over 3 yrs has become a meme that he can’t coach well, unlike Mullen, who can’t win shit, but has promoted a meme thru sports media that FU’s losses are adverse to the meme that he’s a great coach. Go figure.
Smart’s coaching ability is not up for question, however the media is driving our inability to land a NC for the last two years as a reason to question his coaching ability. Pome de rue! I’m with you guys as to our staying on course with what and who we are right now.
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Why don’t Florida and Kentucky from last year count? Both teams came in with one loss and were essentially playing Georgia for the East in those games.
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If you want to include Florida I think that’s fair. UK was always fool’s gold and UGA blasted them as any top-5 team should have. This is the same UK team that lost to Tennessee handily.
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Florida also lost to Missouri handily the week after playing Georgia. I think both of those games were heavily influenced by deflation from the Georgia loss.
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Good to get to 2 wins off of 1 game, especially with the lizards.
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The hard part with doing these “we lost the big ones” discussions is you’re looking at them after the season to determine if they were big, when the REASON they were big is because we lost. Let’s say we beat LSU last year and lost to Florida or Kentucky…then the LSU game wouldn’t have been one of the 5 you listed and the FL/KY game would’ve been. Hard to argue that LSU was a bigger game than either FL or KY when a loss to either of them would’ve knocked us out of the SEC title game. In my mind FL/KY/AL were our biggest 3 games last year, which puts us at 2-1…and SEC title game/OU/Bama were the 3 biggest in ’17…also 2-1. The losses suck, no doubt, but the two regular season losses over the last 2 years didn’t actually affect us as far as winning the title.
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Well written and excellent point. Florida in particular, our biggest rival on a huge stage where we fought through adversity and won going away. Yet, they still finished 10-3 and destroyed a team that went 8-1 in the Big 10 in a NY6 bowl. I know, they had fortunate turnover luck and may regress this year but that’s a big win on every metric.
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Valid, further was Texas a big game? What was on the line for UGA? Also that is the type of game Bama doesn’t show up for. UGA is taking Bama to a full 60 minutes. Who else does that? Clemson. Random losses to the West can still be the path to titles. Urban was most often beaten by west teams when they were playing for titles, not that I don’t want to beat Auburn.
Under Smart, UGA hasn’t been blow out when a title is really on the line. If you sweep the East and nonConf, you can split the west while controlling your own destiny.
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You have two interesting posts PW. My impression is the defense has done well enough and kept us in all but one of the games you cite. The only game where the offense truly stepped up was against Oky. We had to throw out the playbook just to keep up.
I’m hoping Coley can be a bit more aggressive and keep his foot on the gas – particularly in the 2nd half of big games. Those 2nd half grinding run plays were just bleeding the clock and not resulting in points on the board.
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My concern is Kirby wants the offense a certain way and it won’t matter who is calling the plays. I also don’t know if Fromm is up to the challenge of throwing it 30x a game. Given that plus the depth UGA has at OL and RB, I would expect a heavy dose of running the ball this year. Maybe we do more dump-offs and flare-outs to backs in the flats, but I’m skeptical we’ll see Fromm pushing the ball down the field as much as some of us would like.
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I don’t expect Coley to return UGA to the days of Stafford or Zeier but I do think the offense will go more pass friendly. Smart does want the offense Bama had early in Saban’s tenure. Grind it out, hard running, passing to keep it balanced, and eat up clock with 5+min drives which keeps defenses fresh.
I believe he blames Kiffin’s boom or bust offense for putting them in a shoot out with Clemson which tired the D and put it in a scenario of whoever had the ball last had good chances of winning. It isn’t just time of possession but the length of time per possession. If the offense has the ball 5 minutes, the D gets their breath back and the coaches can go over adjustments.
If Kiffin calls this driver rather than a TD in ~2minutes they win:
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If I’m Coley I’d be asking Kirby ‘do you want to grind clock in the 2nd half of big games OR do you want to win?’ If opposing defenses are setting up to stuff our running game, we need to adjust and pass more. I’m confident Fromm can throw the ball all day and hardly break a sweat.
We can pummel most teams into the dust. But if we’re gonna win championships, we’re up against teams with talent and depth. We need to score points. Running headlong into the likes of Da’Ron Payne isn’t working.
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Agreed, and I believe if Smart can make his feelings clear on the WLOCP to the fans, he can make this clear with Coley. I am confident in Fromm as well. The Bama games have games of halves, one team dominates the 1st half the other adjusts and dominates the other. Smart needs to adjust.
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Agree on your first point. As far as Fromm being up for the challenge of throwing it 30 plus a game….I see no reason why he would not be. See Oklahoma and the last two Bama games. I believe he threw around 30 those game. Still looked effective to me.
It would just be rare that he does it, due to the philosophy that Kirby has…..almost a duplication of Bama.
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Agreed but I would Clarify a duplication of preKiffin Bama.
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I count any UF & AU game as big myself..
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I don’t see a “blowout” in any of those seven. The AU game in JH was a solid beating, but doesn’t fit my definition of a blowout. The LSU game was up in the air by any definition with 9 minutes to go. I think Smart/Chaney blew the 2nd half against Bama in MB stadium (and they had some “obstacles” to overcome). I think the SECCG loss was more on Walker’s injury in the 4th than Smart blowing it. Our performance in those big games was pretty danged good as a whole. I agree with the comment that you have to count the Kentucky game as a big game. It was for the SEC east, on the road, involved two Top 10 teams, and was probably the biggest game in their history. May be hard to say with Kentucky involved but you can’t pick and choose….it fits the definition..
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I consider Florida, auburn and Tennessee big games every year. Any sec game should really be included. Ranked games would be a different classification but even then should include Kentucky and Carolina etc.
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Run defense depended on Jordan Davis, which is why despite depth I am more concerned with DL than WRs. Until proven otherwise the DL is the unit that is likely holding UGA back.
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The DL if healthy should be at least middle of the SEC. If they can just fight the OL and keep them off the Edge guys the defense can be really exciting. Notre Dame will be a tough test but hopefully, the team can get through that game and grow. That the biggest games happen after Notre Dame makes me feel really good about the young guys coming together.
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Agreed, I think UGA runs the table with Auburn and A&M being the closest games with DL production possibly being the make or break. If UGA splits them it is another clash in Atlanta with Bama.
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Worst is not knowing how Mizzou will play with Bryant. They have a good O-line and they can put in more faking plays with a QB who can run as well. Iffyness for the caution game.
By the time we play them, we should have a handle on their type of play to defend, but you can rest assured that the 12th man can make a diff with a good game plan.
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Some truth which combined with being the week after WLOCP is a prime trap game. I just believe Mizzou might be closer than it should be but the D will get enough stops and the 1st string offense might have to play the entire game. The good news is the final 5 games play similar spread RPOs.
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We think alike on this matter. It will not be a shoo-in.
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Agreed not a shoo-in but a game they may have us nervous until about middle of the 4th. I’d likely take the under in the Fabris pool.
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Until UGA wins a championship there will always be some trepidation. They have screwed the pooch too many times. I will believe it when I see.
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The Dawgs aren’t over rated. Georgia probably has the best personnel in the nation. But Georgia hasn’t won the really big game—the one for all the marbles—yet. Until that happens Mandel and everybody else has every right to be skeptical.
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