I wouldn’t call these stats pretty.
There’s certainly enough talent for that to improve. I hope it’s a sign that all the new faces in the receiving corps and a new offensive coordinator are still feeling their way around and not of something more problematic. Otherwise, that’s an invitation for opposing safeties to get up close and personal.
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UPDATE: A self-correction.
Get The Picture 
They’re not calling defensive pass interference on the fade routes this year.
Need to adjust.
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Some of that is probably the new receivers. Pickens in particular hasn’t really displayed the ability to position himself for the fades they’ve thrown him, which I assume he’ll develop given his size, athleticism and hands. The rest of it is probably a combination of play-calling and Fromm not pulling the trigger (probably with good reason most of the time).
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I think all of it is the new receivers, personally. They just don’t have the experience/route-running skills/etc. to make those plays work. We certainly threw those passes each of the years prior with Fromm.
It is notable that we don’t even try, though, don’t you think? I can barely recall any long pass attempts this year so far.
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The pass on the sideline to Cager and the corner to Robertson both just happened Saturday. It’s not that they never call them. I can’t really see what the routes are on TV, so I don’t know how often people are going deep or not, though.
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Good points.
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Can someone that knows more about football explain why we don’t take more shots down field? I don’t feel like it’s because teams are refusing to get beat deep and conceding the short intermediate stuff, if anything it seems to be the opposite. Explosive plays are on the five factors on offense for a reason, it’s hard to string together 10+ plays every scoring drive.
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And why do we rarely work the middle of the field for intermediate of long plays? We do throw over the middle occasionally to the TE for 10 or less.
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Our offense runs the ball hard and draws teams up into the box. That should bring up this thing called the play action pass where we go deep to a wide open WR. It’s not Chaney and a lack of trust in the QB because Chaney had no problem going deep with a freshman QB on Saturday. It’s not a lack WR talent or speed because we have Robertson, Cagle, Blaylock, and Pickens.
That only leaves three reasons: (1) Kirby (2) Fromm can’t hit a wide open WR or is terrible at play action (3) they’re saving it.
I doubt Fromm can’t make the throw and we’ve been saving it for 3 years. That only leaves Mr Man Ball.
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I understand wanting to go deep a few times a game, but there is little to no reason for us to do it as much as the board thinks we should. If you miss you’re immediately behind the chains and in a somewhat obvious passing down on second down. Yes it’s manball, but at the same time it’s about controlling the down and distance.
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2nd and 1-3 yards is the ideal time to take that kind of shot from play action.I am not going back to look through the stats but I would assume we have taken shots on this type of down and distance.
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Totally agree. I’ll guarantee it has nothing to do with Fromm or his abilities.
He is an elite level quarterback, and can accurately deliver a ball to any target he sets his sights on.
The problem is KS. He handcuffs this team at some point in EVERY game, especially when we have a substantial lead in the second half.
He absolutely refuses to keep his foot on the gas when this team is humming on all cylinders. He has no concept of what it means to step on an opponents neck when they’re down.
Even though I detested Spurrier and Meyer when they were at UF, I still respected them for being willing to go for the jugular whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Kirby better figure out how to adapt before it’s too late and his conservative approach gets our ass handed to us again.
Refusing to go for it on 4th and less than a yard, even when the offense has obviously found its rhythm, drives me nuts.
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Ball security. Combo of Kirbs and Fromm.
Fromm loves the sideline throw.
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He likes the sideline throw because Chaney and Coley apparently both love it. The sideline is the best ally of a defensive back.
Why the hell they don’t call passes to the middle of the field is beyond me.Watch all the great passing teams and they wear out the middle of the field. You hardly ever see Alabama or Texas throw to the sidelines and they are great passing teams.
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Need to throw a few post routes to Robertson and Blaylock, or whoever our fastest receivers are. With all the sideline routes we throw, you’d think a fake to the sideline and then cut to the post would be open multiple times.
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Amen
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Seeing Fromm, Pickens, Blaylock, Cager, and Robertson work has me convinced we “could” be dominating airing it out. And then once those four are dragging DBs downfield go with the TEs underneath and Swift and Cook on the wheel routes. We CAN do this if we WILL do this. Let’s take the next 2 games and commit to this to really give Grantham something to think about.
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I hate to say this, but I really do think that low percentage football = not to be used unless we need it to win a playoff game. The three biggest games of Kirby’s career with us, OU, AL twice, resulted in big production with all the stops pulled out. Produced one shootout and two big leads that cam about relatively easy. The defense and the refs being overwhelmed cost us the last two. The last one can be a team loss, I do recognize that with the O struggle.
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I think Notre Dame recognized this tendency and did a good job of bringing up their safeties for run support. Manball (and the crowd) eventually wore them down.
I don’t Kirby changing his basic philosophy when we out talent and have more depth than most of our opponents.
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“You never go broke taking a profit.” – Jake Fromm
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I’ll admit that I’ve failed to see a certain beautiful method to the offensive scheme. Georgia can do just about anything on offense very well. Certainly the running game is potent…Stuff the box and Fromm will pick you apart with the time the O line gives him. The deep stuff? It’s not as sure of a thing as the short stuff and the run, but it’s there and opponents have to respect it because they know Georgia has some great receivers. (without that offensive PI call, the rout of Tenn was on much earlier). It’s really a DC’s nightmare. No matter what you do, JF and the offense will find a way to defeat it. This leads to long, time consuming drives that wear down a D or quick works of art like the end of half touchdown drive Jake orchestrated against Tennessee. It’s not explosive but it’s demoralizing to a defense and opposing offenses that are standing on the sideline. They keep waiting on the deep ball to either end the time consumption or put the Dawgs in a hole down-wise. But it doesn’t come..instead they watch Georgia’s backs and Fromm chip, chip, chip away with great efficiency.
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I feel like the 59 second drive before the halftime more than adequately demonstrated what our offense is capable of. Like someone pointed out here the other day, when pushed against by Oklahoma, we showed that this brand of football can be used with tempo and more passing to score at will.
Perhaps the Hurts situation at Oklahoma compared to how he was used at Alabama is somewhat what we are seeing with manball. For some reason, Saban opened things up for Tua, maybe because he was comfortable with the amount of defensive depth in Tua’s first year as a starter or something, but for some reason the style changed. I wonder why Kirby’s hasn’t…or is the change in Alabama philosophy a reaction to how close Georgia has played them in the past two years?
Bottom line, in the past two years, what Kirby does in philosophy has gotten him within a sniff of the national championship, so why would he change now? He’s still landing elite recruits on both sides of the ball, so narratives about losing recruits like Haselwood is losing some ground given the pick ups with Blaylock and Pickens.
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This, imo, is the Kirby constrictor (as in the snake: BOA) in action. He wants to impose his will (except when 4th and inches) to wear the other team down… now this game plan lacks originality, but the way the SECE is… it is working.
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I think this is the result of Coley’s play-calling. I believe he was quoted before as saying that “players, not plays” was their off-season mantra. So maybe it’s just part of his philosophy to get the ball to the players and let them pick up YAC. Which probably works pretty well until you’re up against a team that can shed blocks and tackle well. We saw that some in the Notre Dame game. Their players were in position and didn’t miss many tackles. I don’t think they’re the only team that’s going to be able to do that to us, so I hope we have an answer for it.
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Good thing we beat ND then.
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Good point. So I guess we do have some kind of answer for it. Or we just waited until they were gassed and weren’t tackling as well. Hopefully that’s not our only answer.
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Here’s a wild theory…DC’s don’t want us to get the deep ball, so they play their db’s deep when stacking the box and thus leave the shorter stuff open which Jake reads and takes.
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Fromm’s numbers don’t support this..
Otherwise he would be getting 10 yards plus in the air.. and he isn’t.
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My bullet points:
We will never throw the ball to the tight ends more. We will always say we’re going to throw the ball to the tight ends more.
Georgia has been vulnerable to the wheel route since, well, as long as I can remember. Multiple head coaches and beaucoup defensive coordinators and the results are always the same. If I were playing Georgia, I’d throw it constantly.
The lollygagging around will absolutely cost us a game at some point if we don’t stop it. We need to get into a groove now.
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When did Tennessee hit wheel route? For that matter, who was lollygagging? Misplaying something is not the same thing as not playing hard.
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