From Seth Emerson today ($$):
“I don’t know that the adage defense wins championships stands as much as it used to,” Smart said. “When you saw scores from the ’60s and the ’70s and the ’80s and you saw scores of games, it was indicative of defense, compared to now. Now, it’s like I got to play pretty good defense and I got to score a lot of points.” [Emphasis added.]
Doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.
Get The Picture 
Hard to find any champions who don’t play defense and run the ball well. The scores may have inched up as offensives have spread out, but the essential truth that football is a los game remains.
Some pretty simple mediocre offenses have won championships. The other way around? Not so much.
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Key word is “have.” You just can’t settle for mediocre offense in this day and age. You have to score points to win titles.
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Really? You can’t win by posting “0”? Who knew?
Hell I thought we were talking about what was MOST important and MOST correlated with championships.
You can say that all of football history is now irrelevant based on a sample size of not a damned thing but the teams that have won championships have ran the ball and played defense better than most.
Ppg on offense is far less correlative to titles than ppg allowed and rushing offense.
Now proceed to tell me about the 2023 season when it all changes.
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2010 Auburn and 2014 Ohio State were pretty mediocre on defense, but won national titles. Meanwhile only Bama (in 2015 and 2009) won a national title with a scoring offense outside the top 20 (and both those were still top 30). Looking at the last 10 years, a top 5 offense can offset a top 30 defense better than vice versa, and the best teams strive for both.
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Stats ain’t gonna play this game. It will be won “in the trenches”, the dawgs are stronger on both sides of the ball.
I like the Dawgs in this one.
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What you failed to mention: both those teams had top 10 rushing offenses.
Rushing offense will offset weaknesses on defense since it deprives the other team of opportunities to run plays against it.
If they had relied on passing to get their stats!, they wouldn’t have been in the final game to begin with.
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Both fueled by Heisman winning RBs and necessitated to a degree by real limitations at QB. McElroy played injured most of the season and Coker was just limited. Pocket panicky.
2017 Georgia shut down Alabama’s ground and pound. Bama had to go with a completely different offense in the second half to win it. And shut down Georgia’s run game, which they did.
No one argues that running the ball doesn’t work. It may well beat LSU Saturday.
But this offense this year underperformed, and part of that was strategic mistakes.
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I think the main culprit has been poor play.
Offense was fine with cager and not without.
You can say that coley is smart when cager is healthy and dumb when he’s out but that’s just sorta stupid, ain’t it?
Our real problem: one cager.
That’s on the receivers that can’t replicate cager and/or the qb who can’t deliver the ball to them.
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Which all goes back to coaching. We have gotten next to nothing from a group of 4 & 5 Star receivers. I don’t by the youth factor as other teams have excelled at the WR position with young guys.
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Alabama
second half comeback in ‘17 had true freshmen at QB, RB, and all 3 WR spots.
This offense has talent for days, even at WR. Poor play is not a personnel issue at this point.
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Absolutely. the more things change…the more they remain the same.
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Auburn ‘10 defense was muy mediocre. Not to argue, but they were average at best, statistically.
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Auburn had Cam Newton who to me was the greatest college player in the last twenty years. He was unstoppable to point of being absurd.
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Dude. It was play calling. Just ask around here. Play calling is everything!
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I mean, I think Justin Fields is Exhibit A in the “call the right plays for a top player” — he was OK in mop-up duty, but a Heisman contender in year 1 under Day.
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Play calling that took advantage of his tremendous skills – once again COACHING
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Agree about Newton. The point was made that defense wins championships. Auburn won with an unstoppable offense and an average defense.
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Good for Kirby. Admitting it is the first step. Now he can start treatment…
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Physician, heal thy self.
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Kirby likes to score points; we know it because we’ve seen it in the past. It just seems like this year is one of those times that it hasn’t worked out that way. I hope we see something later that makes it apparent that he wants it to happen.
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Clearly Kirby could score 100 a game but doesn’t want to. Ask a commenter around here. They’ll tell you.
We aren’t scoring due to preference. That’s what the geniuses around here say. Whose to argue?
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We aren’t scoring because our play makers aren’t (for the most part) making plays. With the talent on offense it can only be coaching.
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I’d say look at the offensive changes from 2016-2017. That first season was rough, and many of us worried that Kirby had the same platonic football ideals as Big Dumb Will Muschamp Football. One offseason later, we had a more open offense (even with a true freshman QB) and a coach talking about moving on from the fullback. Now where this offseason differs is I think at least one coach on the offense goes (if not Coley, than Hartley and or Hankton, and we see something similar to the LSU situation where a new passing game coordinator joins the staff.)
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Well those are very encouraging words from Kirby. Hopefully it indicates that he is willing to adapt to the times.
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We scored 35+ a game in 2017 and 37+ a game in 2018. I imagine Kirby would be happy to be scoring at that clip. 2 games in bad weather and a bunch of games against damn good defenses will trend that down.
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Bobo Dancer, Your Life is Calling
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Well played LOL
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Offense wins games, defense wins championships. Can’t forget the first part and they’re both still true today.
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We lost all of our top receivers…we have suffered key injuries to our remaining receivers all season long. If this picture was less adverse…our passing game would have been “significantly” stronger…opponents would not have been able to load the box…our running game would have been more effective.
It all traces back to loss the of assets in our receiver group…not coaching…not play calling. Holloman and a healthy Cager would have made a monster difference.
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The quickness of LSU’s passing game is what worries me. It’s hard to get pressure on someone that thinks and acts that fast. We will have to have tight coverage on receivers coming off the line. But it’s a heck of a lot better to face that with this great defense than with, say…Alabama’s defense. This game will feature a great passer and a good running game against a great defense….and a fairly good SEC defense (LSU’s) against a mysterious and injury hampered fairly good SEC offense. Of the four units (UGA’s O and D..LSU’s O and D)…Georgia’s offense has the greatest potential to out perform it’s status quo and rise to a new level.
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Offense wins Games. Defense wins Championships…
But these Championships ARE games…
So……
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By all accounts according to Coach Erk, if they don’t score we won’t lose. Now you can take all them stats and sit on em.
9-7, 7-6………
I don’ give a tiger’s ass I’ll take A ONE POINT WIN
Hunker Down One More Time !
I didn’t mean to beg but I had TO !
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