That depends upon what your goal for the season is.
As much as the offense sputtered in the second half of 2019, do not forget Georgia didn’t lose a regular season game down the stretch, won the East and also won its bowl game to finish 12-2. All nothing to sneer at.
That being said, it wasn’t built to take on a team with an above-average defense and a prolific offense like LSU, and it showed. Hence, all the talk from Smart and Monken about the need for more explosive plays than Georgia delivered in 2019.
Therein lies the rub. It’s not hard to make an argument that the 2020 defense will surpass the level of last season’s, but will that be enough in and of itself to get past the 800-pound elephant… er, gorilla in the room? For, make no mistake about it, Georgia is going to have to beat Alabama at least once to make the CFP semis. How much scoring will that take?
A reminder about offensive scoring in conference games last year:
Georgia can’t finish middle of the pack in scoring — at half the rate of the conference leaders — again and expect to show better than it did last season. The defense will be great, but not that great.
One can see that as good as our defense was in 2019, the offense dragged us back to pack in total efficiency. Eyeballs and numbers agree on this.. Monken is here to improve on that, and while I doubt he cares about EPA, he will have to create explosive plays to get UGA to the playoff and a Championship.
The good news is that the defense is likely to be so dominant that the offense doesn’t have to be great to attain that goal. It just has to be good enough. Can Monken coax that out of his unit?
Get The Picture 
Natty or death and, when we win it, bitch and moan because it wasn’t real!
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Fuck not real. The last time the Big Ten and Pac-12 won a playoff game was the same year, the FIRST year, in 2014. Since then, they’re 0-9, and some years don’t even make it all. The Pac-12 hasn’t since Washington a few years back.
The only three leagues that matter to the playoff are the leagues playing right now. This title will be legitimate no matter what Andy Staples says about it.
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I hear ya, but I say a 10 game all-SEC schedule, the SEC CG and any playoff will be a harder test than a regular season with the normal cupcakes. I’ll claim it if we manage to win it. Of course, if someone else wins, it’s all made up and flagellant.
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Get back to the performance of 2018 and I’ll be happy. We may not beat Bama with that level of offense, but we’ll thrash everyone else on the schedule.
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The short answer is no. I have not doubt that Todd Monken will be a very good OC in Athens. What I doubt today is the offensive talent. I just do not see championship level talent on the offensive side of the ball in 2020. There are far too many position group with questions. Questions at QB, WR, RB, TE and OL. Other than that we should be fine. We are stilling playing catch-up following the departures on the offense from 2018.
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Have we missed on some recruiting classes that I don’t know about?
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Right…it’s unproven, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t championship-level.
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Agree. Questions at RB, are you kidding me!
What, only 2 5-star recruits and 3 high 4-stars there gives him pause?
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In fairness to skeptic, before the start of last season, how many of us foresaw Georgia’s per game scoring in conference games dropping from 33.8 in 2018 to 23.6 in 2019? It’s not as if they were lacking in elite talent last season, either.
That being said, I don’t think it’ll take 2018 scoring levels to get UGA in the playoffs. (Not that I wouldn’t take that!)
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This is where bad scheme can really screw with good personnel.
Nothing about Coley’s play designs and scheme were good. The WRs who all ended up in the same place when terminating their routes, the pathological ignoring of half the field (the middle of the field) in passing plays, the running up the middle into 8 and 9-man boxes over and over again just because.
The Jimmies and Joes were there. The X’s and O’s were not. It shines a new light on the issues Miami truly had during his time as OC.
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BS. I saw just as many awful throws, dropped balls and bad decision making as I did bad play calls.
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Not enough to make up the difference. There’s going to be those things in every season, in every game. There were some issues with timing on routes, but knowing the kind of talent we had, knowing that in 2017 and 2018 Jake Fromm was one of the best deep ball throwers in CFB, then what’s the difference in 2019? How were the practices different? How was the coaching different. We could literally see his mechanics break down over the course of the year. His footwork was garbage. That is on coaching.
And scheme-wise? Coley put thoroughbred horses into a phone booth. We had supreme athletes playing only outside the numbers, not being schemed open in space over the middle. South Carolina was the first team to really catch on to this, which is why they had their safeties shading the sideline and ignoring the middle of the field, leading to those INTs. They jumped the out routes we ran far too much. We had backs who could catch, but not being matched against slower LBs over the middle. We have a QB who wasn’t allowed to throw over the middle, with route trees that 70% of the time terminated outside the numbers. With route trees that were variations on stop routes.
That was our offense last year. It was garbage. THAT is what was b.s.
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No way did I expect that type of drop off…I still say Fromm wasn’t 100%…
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Bad scheme sinks good players. It happens all the time at every level of football. Look at the Falcons the last few years since Shanahan left.
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Unproven means exactly that…not championship level as of today. Is it possible for this group to develop and compete for a title when it really counts in 2021? Most certainly. Will this group be serviceable in the scrimmage year that is 2020? That remains to be seen, but I have my doubts. We watched in horror, or disgust, as our WR’s and QB failed develop a rhythm in 2019 due to a lack of talent and skill at both spots, and I expect to see more of the same this year. We are far too young at the WR spot and nobody knows what we will get from our QB’s this season. We quickly dismiss, or conveniently forget, the value of returning production and experience at the WR position. The cherry on top is that we are counting on a RB that has not one, but two, blown knees. If Zamir White manages to play in all 10 regular season games it will be nothing short of a miracle. I fully expect Kenny McIntosh to surpass White on the depth chart by week 4.
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I think your wrong on the McIntosh over White argument,i have no facts to back it up other than some of the practice reports floating around out there. I expect White to have a very good year if Monken can unload the box on first and second down.
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You might be correct. I just struggle to see a kid who has two surgically repaired knees carrying the load in a season comprised of only SEC defenses.
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It’s about Monken taking what’s there and not forcing the issue. Or, even if there are more men in the box, making sure there’s a blocker for everyone to put a hat on a hat in the parlance. Too often in 2019, and even in 2018, we ran into the teeth of defenses without numbers.
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I agree with this. I do question what was going in in 2019 with our offense given that we were told time and time again that our QB was brightest QB ever, and capable of lining the offense up in the right play. I saw an awful lot of awful plays in 2019.
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A lot of people think audibles in real football work like audibles in Madden, where you can have multiple pass or run plays out of the formation you’re in, but it’s rarely the case. Perhaps when certain plays were called, the only audible out of those plays were another run, or simply to move the called run to the other side of center, say, if the call was a run between center and left guard. Maybe the play call didn’t come with the ability to audible at all. We don’t know how much room they gave him to make run-pass audibles to get out of a bad run. After all, that was just one part of his pre snap responsibilities.
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“We watched in horror, or disgust, as our WR’s and QB failed develop a rhythm in 2019 due to a lack of talent and skill at both spots”.
^^^^THIS!!…was the biggest issue last season. You make some good points, but I am not a “half empty glass” type of person, a “skeptic”, if you will…. : > ).
A lot can happen during the offseason, never expected ’14 to happen on offense, we broke all kinds of records.
Losing Newman may not be as big a loss as some expect. There was a reason that he wasn’t named a starter ….and there was a reason he didn’t stick around imo.
I guess we will see, but I do wish him luck.
BTW, nice posts….somebody needs to keep some of us grounded on here.
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Our offense was so bad last year it’s almost impossible for it not to improve.
I think Daniels has the arm to go down field and open up the running game, and once that happens … Katy bar the door. Plus Monken is a proven OC, so he knows how to set us up for success.
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Red zone offense…FG’s are who they are, if UGA was kicking half of those 19 FG’s in the red zone, play calling may have been an issue…understanding the difficulty level rises inside the 10 yard line, but then again, should the OC not have that play call/creativity/mind set to create the match up/mismatch needed to register 6 points on the score board, be it pass/run or statue of liberty play to get there, confidence may be lacking, knowing you have to beat the man opposite you and the opposition dc is guessing what the offense is gonna do in that situation, battle won….
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Pardon me Eeyoring, but every time I hear it nearly assumed that our defense will be great, I think about Joe Torre in Spring 1983: “I’m not worried about our hitting”.
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I’ll push back a little on the theory that having the nation’s best defense can only get you so far. Our defense was incredible no doubt, but it excelled at keeping everything in front of it, not giving up big plays, and forcing punts. A dominant defense that also wreaks havoc by getting sacks, forcing fumbles and interceptions absolutely can be enough to win championships. If you have a Von Miller type that’s unblockable, even with an offense like ours from last year would’ve been enough to win it all. Hopefully Azeez, Nolan Smith, Jermaine Johnson, Anderson, etc can step into that roll and be consistent disrupter up front.
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Too assume a significant increase In offense is hopeful at best, delusional at worst.
If you are off the mindset that we will definitively right the ship after losing a top NFL running bank, 2 first round tackles, another top linemen to the NFL and a capable lineman to transfer, a quarterback regarded around this blog after one of the greatest in team history, a top receiving target to graduation, a promising young multi-talent receiver to injury and the heir apparent QB transfer to quitting…..you really are all-in on “it was the plays only”.
For this reason I think the defensive play calling must be designed to create more turnovers, scores and short fields. I know nobody wants Grantham, but it needs to be ears pinned back rushing the quarterback and ball-hawking in the secondary.
Field position battles aren’t gonna cut it against top-tier competition. If we are gonna go down, let’s go down swinging with our best unit.
Oh yeah, I forgot Rodrigo.
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Just so I’m clear, are you saying the offense is going to regress from last season? What are you predicting as the 2020 ppg number?
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Not really.
I just think it’s wishful thinking to project a significant increase in output.
The loss of personnel aside, other things will play into the equation as well. Conventional wisdom allows that the lack of preseason prep will work in favor of defenses across the board in CFB.
An all SEC schedule with no true cupcakes will likely work against the development of depth on the offense. Again, common to all teams.
I’m just saying signs point against a significant output statically speaking.
I’ve been wrong before, many times. But I’ve been right too. I’m hoping for the former, but preparing for the latter.
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All of that is without even saying ‘Rona.
It is almost certain to have a personnel impact at some point.
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Yeah, but you can say that about every team in the league. I would argue that ‘Bama and UGA are better built to weather that than any other program in the SEC.
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Okay, so what constitutes “significant” in your eyes?
Is it too much to expect, say, a five point increase in scoring this season? That strikes me as modest and doable. Not sure it’s enough to overcome ‘Bama in game three, though.
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I think 28 a game is a fair target.
Of course, how that disperse could be an issue.
If that’s 40 against Arkansas and Vandy, that is 17 against some better opponents.
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I was thinking more like a better second half than first half as Monken and his offense figure things out.
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So many typos….
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You delivered the gist of it just fine, and good points. For concerns, we don’t need to look much further than a totally unproven QB. There is no telling what could unfold from that position.
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Sunshine is far from unproven.
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We have top tier 4 and 5 star talent taking over for the departed. Almost all of those guys have considerable game experience (if Daniels wins the QB job) and the line proved themselves against Baylor. The one that I will give you and does worry me is replacing Hot Rod. That guy was money in the bank. Unlike other positions, this is a total unknown other than practice.
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I remain of the opinion it can’t be worse than 2019. It is statistically improbably it’s worse simply because Monken has a history of running great offenses while Coley never did. We were sold a bill of goods on Coley with multiple media accounts that it was the players, not the play caller, in Miami that was the problem. Monken has proven his offensive genius can work with any level of talent and make the whole better than the parts.
If we want this offense to be part of a National Title-winning team, then the play caller, Monken, needs to be a better play caller than Chaney for sure. That 2017 offense, as manballish as it was, was good enough to win it all, but Chaney turtled the offense in the fourth quarter against Bama because he was scared to play to win. Jed Blazevich said as much in Seth Emerson’s new book. He said Chaney was a fantastic game planner during the week, but a terrible play caller in games especially when Plan A needed to be thrown out the window and you needed a Plan B on the fly.
So, that remains the issue. Is Monken good enough, like Lane Kiffin or Brian Dabol was at Bama or like Clemon’s OC’s have been, to not only make the whole better than the parts, but to keep his foot on the gas with what works and always playing to win, and also to be able to come up with a Plan B on the fly when Plan A isn’t working.
If he can do all that, we can win a national title. If he can’t, well, I guess we get used to making twinning the East and making trips to NY6 bowls the next couple of years.
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FOOT ON THE GAS! Music to my ears. I think we are all ready for the mindset of playing to win (and crush the other team) rather than playing not to loose.
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As much as I really like Blake Anderson the coach at Arkansas State, at the end of the first half, he allowed his DC to play not to lose, rushing three and playing prevent, and it allowed Memphis to move down the field, using up the entire clock, and scoring just before the half, making a close game into an unwinnable situation.
When you play not to lose, you’re never playing to win.
I hate coaches who are scared to play to win.
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I tend to agree with Skeptic Dawg. Our talent on offense is unproven. Bama has an elite RB, elite receivers, an experienced QB who looked really good at the end of last year, and a normal cast of bulldozers on the O-line. I know our defense will be good, but damn.
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The talent on offense is there. It’s just not very confident or experienced, and it’s working on a new identity.
I think the points are going to be there early, in spades, for recruiting reasons against the opening slate. I think it could be enough against Alabama Round 1 if the defense or special teams can manufacture some points as well. The Florida game is likely to be its coming out party, though, and then I think the offense could be in a great place by Bama Round 2.
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This is well-reasoned. The Bama game will be tough, and I kinda always figured it for a loss anyway. Kirby’s defense IS literally enough to beat Florida, so if the offense is beginning to round into shape by November 7th, then all the better. The rematch with Bama in Atlanta was always going to be where it all came down to regardless.
It just pisses me off we’re likely going to have to beat those fuckers in a third game if we want to win it all. Here’s hoping Auburn or TAMU does the unexpected this year and sends Bama to Atlanta with one loss this season to make the SEC Championship a Playoff Win or Go Home!
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Competent management of indisputably very good talent would suffice. Just making solid use of the talent on hand would be big. If we somehow play a little above it, great. Just don’t squander what we’ve got. That’s what last year felt like.
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Watching last year’s offense was one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered in sports.
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Bingo.
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A friend has been living in the dorm out by the Ramsey Center. She felt like things were going pretty well the first week and n w she moved back home because it’s so widespread. YMMV
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2019, your offense! Woof!
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I’m tired of second place.
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First or last. Second place is the first loser!
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Thx, Ricky Bobby…. 🙂
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always love it when the Senator posts my BI stuff You guys are smarter than your average Twitterer…. I’m just a Dawg fan that like numbers, and thanks to the to GTP- my hobby for the last year has been more fun than I ever imagined. Go Dawgs.. FTMF
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Yes… yes… FTMF!!!
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