From Seth’s Mailbag ($$):
But here’s what Smart did not say at either press conference: “Our offensive scheme is great and I’m not changing it.” He did essentially say the play-calling was good against LSU and that execution was the problem, and you know what, he was right. But as has also been noted the execution may have been off because that was one of the rare games this year where Georgia tried to open things up.
Was Georgia’s execution off because of lack of practice, or was there a lack of practice because Georgia couldn’t execute a more open offense?
Get The Picture 
That really is the question. Play calling really did open up later in the season, but execution sucked. Look at the start of the Tech game, three straight passes and a punt. First one should have been a pick six, next two were either a miss or drop.
The really frustrating thing for everyone is that they could execute on occasion, but not consistently. I do think game reps earlier in the season would have been helpful, and not just against cupcakes. We seemed to sit on the lead against better teams. Easy to do with a stout defense, but seemed to hurt the offense later in the season.
I do think Kirby recognizes the problem and is working it. Not sure how creative he’ll get with the effort, though.
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Correct here Russ. The passing game did not develop early because nobody ever believed we would need it as the season progressed. It was the Run the Damn Ball Mentality that ultimately failed and there was little concern about a Plan B.
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Taking away touches from Swift and giving them to Landers and Simmons was the obvious choice.
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you don’t get it D, we just need to “coach up” Landers and Simmons. With proper coaching, these guys would be Megatrons.
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Like Ray Goff did with Herschel! What player development!!
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Landers should never see the field.
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Maybe Landers and Simmons needed to be special teams players?
They started because they blocked better. Not because they were 2 of the best receiving threats on the team.
Is Swift getting 70 carries a game with superior downfield blocking the optimal offense?
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Both are threats, they just don’t know it because the footsteps are too loud.
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it was too late to try an offense to open things up that early in the game.
Coley shoulda/woulda/coulda grounded and pounded eith RBs and gotten Fromm into short throws and some semblance of rhythm then opened up. it was still a game at halftime. the fact that Kirby/ Coley tried to throw down field that early seemed like we were in desperation mode out the gates.
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We’ve been complaining about execution since the second half of the Vandy game. When an offensive unit loaded with 4/5 star talent consistently fails to execute like we did this year, that speaks to coaching. I’ve seen a lot of articles/commenters as of late praise Coley for his improved playcalling in the latter half of the season, but there’s a hell of a lot more to being a good OC/QB coach than calling plays.
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Yep. Saw this coming since that vandy game.
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Another interesting read is about LSU and the changes from last year to this year. https://theathletic.com/1481710/2019/12/23/lsu-football-college-football-playoff-ed-orgeron-peach-bowl/
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Honestly I think once Swift was out (yes, he played, but for all intents and purposes he was “out”), that sealed the deal of the entire psyche of the offense being shot coming into the game. We didn’t know how limited Swift was, but surely the team did, and I think that did a number on them. Once that happens, it doesn’t matter what you run. When one team goes into a game hoping to play well and the other team comes in fully expecting to play well, you get results like we saw in the SECCG. With the personnel losses, hope was about all we had to hang our hat on, and LSU is way to good for that.
All that being said, there were a number of good play calls in the last 4 or 5 games that simply were not executed by the players. I mentioned it at the time but even in Fromm’s “good” game against UF, he left 3 TD’s on the field from missing guys who were open. Yes, one was the one Landers could have laid out for, but it still would have taken a heck of a catch when a better throw would have made it an easy one. And I think it all goes back to the psyche of the offense and Fromm in particular. Swift (and to an extent Cager) was the main constant you could count on. Once those were guys were gone, it simply didn’t matter what offense we tried to run, the damage was done to the O’s belief in itself.
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probably because of being down another receiver and Swift (injured). Ran out of options. Already dreading Sugar Bowl…
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With the injuries, suspensions, and sitting out the Sugar Bowl is likely to be a disaster.
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Yep…don’t know whether that will help or hurt recruiting some of the final targets.
REALLY hate the way the bowls are set up now, the ones that are not in the chase for a MNC, are deemed irrelevant….
But is all about the money….
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It was a horrible offense. He is so full of…..Maybe when the offense depends upon perfect execution in tight spaces and converting so many 3rd downs and running RPO with a QB….that doesn’t run………and not getting guys wide open because the tree routes sucked and tendencies were so predictable and we didn’t throw inside the hashes….can you say endless back shoulder throws which Stingley picked like taking candy from a baby ….this conversation is so old.
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SO….is it Coley’s offense or Kirby’s IYHO, is he giving Coley the autonomy to operate??
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Good question, who really knows?
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It all starts with coaching. The 2019 offense regressed with the 3 year starter at QB taking the biggest step back.
Staff turnover could have played a part and Fromm could have had some personal setback but the offense looked like it had an arm tied behind it’s back all season.
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How do you run a balanced Championship Offense with a seriously depleted group of receivers ? Early NFL departures…expected #1 receiver dismissed from team…rash of serious injuries to key receivers…key suspension at precisely the wrong time.
How about giving Fromm and the coaching staff some breathing room ?
Nothing wrong with this team that the 2020 Class won’t solve.
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It helps to have the best OL in college football. Plus a QB that was expected to be a first round pick after the season. And a preseason all-SEC running back.
Yes, the receivers were young. But you don’t bring along young receivers by teaching them to block and then hoping they can run routes and catch when it’s 3rd and 9. And it doesn’t help to call plays limiting routes being run to less than 5 yards downfield.
We can bring in a whole slew of 5 star receivers. But if Kirby simply wants them blocking and then occasionally flaring out into the flats, it won’t help the offensive woes that much.
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LSU was an interesting case study on Kirby’s coaching mentality. He basically abandoned, from the start, the strategies on both sides of the ball that had gotten us to the SEC championship game. Was it a panic move? One could argue both sides, but Air Fromm was never going to be a winning strategy.
One thing I noticed at the game was how few substitutions LSU used. Their offense was set to go with 25 seconds left on the play clock. I thought this was brilliant move to limit our situational substitutions. When we were allowed to make personnel changes, it looked like their calm versus our well organized chaos.
HAPPY HANUKKAH Senator!
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Good points, especially the substitution one. Thought our only chance was running the ball. Especially when we were down as many receivers as we were…..and then the Swift injury lessened that chance. Probably doomed from the start.
After the first play (dropped ball), which probably should have been a TD, I knew it was over. I started on the Johnny Walker Black and killed the pain.
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Read that LSU article I linked to above. The contrast between LSU last year and this year, and the contrast between them and Kirby is amazing.
Or, some would say coaching had zero input and all the returning LSU players just decided to catch the ball this year.
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LSU was an interesting case study on Kirby’s coaching mentality. He basically abandoned, from the start, the strategies on both sides of the ball that had gotten us to the SEC championship game. Was it a panic move? One could argue both sides, but Air Fromm was never going to be a winning strategy.
One thing I noticed at the game was how few substitutions LSU used. Their offense was set to go with 25 seconds left on the play clock. I thought this was brilliant move to limit our situational substitutions. When we were allowed to make personnel changes, it looked like their calm versus our well organized chaos.
HAPPY HANUKKAH Senator!
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I don’t really want to hear anything else about our “young receivers” , when freshmen players are stepping up everywhere.
Ex. Smith for Alabama in the NC game 2 years ago.
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Our young (Pickens, lil Mookie) receivers weren’t the problem. It was our “not talented” (take your pick) receivers.
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How do you explain DRob over the past two seasons, especially given his freshman season?
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we run a bad offense. D-Rob has disappeared in our O b/c of the O.
Landers and Simmons are bad WR’s inside a bad O.
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I agree with this. Simmons has made some catches in the past but seems to have regressed.
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Whether recruiting/spotting talent, player development, or play calling, it all gets back to WRs coach/passing game coordinator, OC, and the HC developing a complete team. Dropped balls, QBs throwing off target/not being on the same page with the WRs was a problem the entire season.
The team looked like a later Les Miles LSU, Good D, Good RBs, with a passing game that couldn’t carry their weight.
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I used the Les Miles comparison several times this season. It’s almost seems to be more arrogance than stubbornness.
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Just because it was there to watch I looked at the first ND game (2017) the Rose Bowl and the NCG against Alabama. To me, the offense in those games looked pretty much like the offense we are currently experiencing with the major exception being better execution then than we have now. The Rose Bowl is a great example: we were down by a lot at the half, partly because windmill arms was unconscious, but also partly because we had several three and outs with some dropped/misthrown passes. What was different in the second half? Not much except we executed better. In fact, we two quick scores that I can recall, one by Nick and one by Sony that were just straight out run plays. Nick’s run was into the line and he just refused to be tackled, and when he got to the secondary they couldn’t catch him.
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I’ve watched 2017 games, and OU in particular, and had the uncomfortable feeling that our blocking was perfect and Sony and Nick made amazing runs on fairly ordinary plays and this success gave KS a false sense of confidence in our moribund offense.
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Yup. We had a once-in-a-generation tandem in Sony and Nick that made up for a lot. Also Cheney is just better than Coley.
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Remind me. Who signed Sony and Chubb? Oh…that shitty HC we fired for a lousy 10 win season.
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We also decided to attack the line of scrimmage and make Douche Bag Frat Boy make quick decisions. When he was watching the rush rather the play downfield, it made it a whole lot easier to defend that offense.
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That’s what I saw. We spied on him in the first half and he ate us up. We attacked him in the second half and he couldn’t handle it (31 points vs 10 points, 7 in regulation).
I do agree the offense has been similar and relies on execution, but I think that’s the problem. When I see the quantum changes made by Fields just by transferring, and by an LSU offense that was basically the same as ours last year, I see coaching/scheme as a major reason for that. And scheme doesn’t have to mean throwing it 50 times a game. But it does mean throwing when not expected, and having plays designed to make it easier for the players to get open. Otherwise, we’re just “out talenting” the other team, which works for about 9-10 games a year, but not so much against the teams we need to beat to win it all.
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If there is any doubt whether it’s coaching or talent, check out Justin Fields’ stats. If you take our players and put them in an offense with competent coaching, they will excel.
Unless Kirby hires someone competent to run the O, and let’s him run it without too much interference, we’re just nibbling at the edges.
Coley was a good assistant as WR coach, and great recruiter. Adding Luke was a good move. Other than those two, I’m not sure we have anyone who belongs on a cfb offensive staff.
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Dell McGee? He’s been a damn good running backs coach. He’s likely the reason Chubb and Michel decided to return and the RB recruiting train has continued to roll.
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You’re right. Forgot about McGee.
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Coley is an example of being promoted beyond your level of competence aka the Peter Principle. Coley is a great recruiter and good receivers coach. Making him OC is akin to making Willie Martinez DC.
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Coley was QB coach last year.
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I believe that one of the slowest offenses in college football, killed a perfectly good quarterback. Getting your quarterback “into rhythm” is Coaching 101. Not to do so in each and every game, is coaching malpractice. Who has not noticed that “up-tempo Fromm” is no different than “old Fromm” (2017, 2018) When they went up-tempo, receivers got open, play calling was not an issue and Fromm would start getting hot. That’s when the fire alarm would go off in Kirby’s head and slow-ball would return. I hope they don’t neuter Beck in the same way.
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Yeah for all of the talk about Fromm being the “field general” or the “guy that gets us into the right plays and reads coverages” going up-tempo actually allows us to trust him in that. So when we never go up-tempo I feel like we waste Fromm’s biggest asset – his brain.
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Smart is happy with his offensive staff and puts the blame on execution. Which player(s) on offense struggled with execution? I’d start with the guy who couldn’t complete half his passes in the last few games.
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I don’t want to blame the players. I really don’t. But the receivers can’t get open and when they do can’t catch it. That was the problem in a nutshell. Maybe that’s really a coaching problem because it affected almost all of them. I don’t know. Kicking the best receiver off the team for something that happened a year before with no arrest, charge or prosecution sure didn’t help.
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I feel as though a lot of this is on Landers.
He didn’t make the most of his 15 targets. The guy wouldn’t even lay out for poorly thrown balls.
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Play calling, execution, and play design/scheme, are not the same things, often mixed up. Even when the play calling is ok, overall design isnt good.
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Said it before KS is a very arrogant HC.
Fortunately he did not have to fire Pittman or Chaney. They left on their own.
One remains an OC for the balance of his coaching career, and he is long in the tooth. The became a HC. Lots of other coaches out there but the Hawgs settled on him. Remember he said he learned to recruit on steriods [hand of the king, figure of speech] from KS. But where does his first recruit class ranks.
Frankly, I’m glad they are gone.
Now if Coley would do the same along with a few others on the side of the ball.
Why should they go. Because they are part of an offense that collapses in big game. Do you really believe any player of offense progressed from the beginning of the season til the end.
I’d rather sit thru English 101 again and watch KS’ offense. In fact I barely watched 5 minutes of the Tech game and til half of the LSU game.
Who in hell can watch incompetence.
Who praises Coley and Company? If they do, they do not understand why this team looked so bad on offense. Execution? What is coaching for. Had spring, pre fall, and 11 games prior to the last two.
Find a young aggressive OC that can run the spread. Tired of the out of touch, out of date, manball, I formation crap the that the old dogs want to keep playing. Suprise those folks don’t come to the games in a horse drawn buggy.
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If you haven’t seen “The Bowden Dynasty” on ESPN, you should watch it. Bobby (and CMR) talk about developing an offense around the strengths of Charlie Ward after watching him struggle his first season in their standard FSU offense. Once they did this, FSU (and Ward) took off. We should have done this with Jake. He KILLS in up-tempo. The proof is there for anyone willing to look.
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Kirby replaces assistants almost like Richt. The first guy in I will hire. He should have interviewed a litany of coaches for all those positions, instead he took the easy way out. You should interview other people just to find out if maybe you are missing something. I will never forget Richt implying they didn’t visit other teams during the spring simply because they didn’t need to.
I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.
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