Quite an accomplishment for someone who isn’t a returning starter.
[Insert sarcasm emoji]
Daily Archives: October 5, 2020
The luxury of depth
I am in awe of this attitude.
You’re playing the eighth-ranked team in the country a week after you struggled a little to put away a weaker team and you choose not to play one of your best defenders because you don’t need him? Holy Mother of Crap, that is one monstrously sized own of Auburn.
Filed under Georgia Football
A few bad apples
Starring in today’s episode of “College Kids, What Are You Gonna Do?” is Georgia’s Josh Brooks.
Georgia athletic officials will take steps this week before Saturday’s home game against Tennessee to address too many students gathering closely together after photos from the home opener went viral this weekend from the first game in Sanford Stadium under reduced attendance.
Senior deputy athletic director Josh Brooks said there would be more staffing and better enforcement in the popular lower north 100 sections to remind fans to stay in their seating area and students will be funneled to two other student areas elsewhere in the stadium.
“The biggest takeaway from me is we had 99 percent compliance from all of our fans, it’s just refining that one percent,” Brooks said. “The majority of our students were great. They had great attitudes, they were respectful, they were compliant, but it just takes a few who without having malicious intent just filtered down or get into areas where they’re not supposed to sit, especially when the cameras are down there and they’re trying to get a great camera crowd shot.”
Best of luck to you there, Josh.
Filed under Georgia Football
TFW coachspeak just means more
LOL.
Ain’t that the truth.
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UPDATE:
Filed under Georgia Football, Transfers Are For Coaches.
Today, in didn’t see it coming
This is what a coming out party measures like:
Who’da thunk after the first two games that George Pickens wouldn’t be Georgia’s top receiver, statistically speaking?
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
Observations from the 20, War Eagle! edition
There is nothing that is not glorious about a 27-6 win over a hated rival, especially when it’s ranked in the top ten in the country, so there aren’t many negative impressions from Saturday night to share, but if there’s one takeaway you should have in the aftermath, it’s this: Todd Monken is the real deal.
On that note, on to the bullet points.
- I’ve mentioned it already, but this game was won on the line of scrimmage… er, both lines of scrimmage. And, while it’s not as if Georgia was doing anything new or exotic based on past schemes on the d-line, that definitely wasn’t the case on the offensive line. Matt Luke has his charges moving a lot more than Pittman did. That doesn’t make him a better or worse position coach; what matters is that he was able to get the linemen to execute at a high level all night. But I guarantee you the change in philosophy we saw on display is going to make a lot of defensive coordinators do some scrambling to counter.
- That might have been the best game of Ben Cleveland’s career.
- When you watch Trey Hill block, you realize why the coaches do everything they can to keep him functioning at the center position. He wasn’t perfect on his shotgun snaps, but he was better and there were no disasters.
- My first Monken observation: I can’t remember a single passing play when at least one receiver wasn’t open. If you watched any of the clips I posted back in the winter and spring after his hire, you could tell that one of his strengths was play design and his ability to get open space for his receivers.
- Kearis Jackson had his coming out party and that’s going to make George Pickens’ life easier in the weeks to come. His 17-yard reception on third down to keep the first scoring drive going was the turning point of the game and showed that he’s got excellent chemistry with Bennett.
- Not gonna lie — watching the tight end run the seam route as a legitimate target is sexually arousing.
- That being said, both tight ends turned in monster nights as blockers.
- I think the “Matt Landers has really improved” narrative crashed and burned.
- My second Monken observation: maybe we were too quick to give up on James Cook as an inside runner.
- McIntosh turned in another solid, versatile game. His football IQ is high. My favorite play of his was the catch out of the backfield that victimized Bryant’s hard rush upfield. I bet we’ll see that play a few more times this year.
- How close is Zeus to breaking a big one?
- Best goal line Jumbo Package ever? What made it so great was not just the concept of having Davis and Carter out there, but that they actually blocked their asses off and opened holes for White to run through. I can’t wait to see that against Todd Grantham’s defense.
- Bennett got off to a somewhat rocky start, overthrowing FitzPatrick on the first series for what might have been a touchdown. But that completion to Jackson in the next series completely settled him down. He throws a catchable ball. He showed good situational awareness in the pocket most of the night. Most importantly, he looked ridiculously comfortable running the offense, almost like he was born to run Monken’s scheme. If I have to ding him for a few things, like not being on the same page with his receivers at times and not picking up a couple of blitz situations as quickly as he could have, almost all of it can be chalked up to a quarterback making his first start against a Kevin Steele-coached defense. Bennett is only going to get better.
- If the other team can’t run the ball, then you know the d-line was doing its job. In particular, Davis and Herring kicked some ass.
- Ojulari had a dominant game. Man, did I love the way he blew up Auburn’s last play of the first half!
- Anderson was a dervish, both in a good way and bad. A little more control would have netted him another sack on at least one occasion. Smith had a quiet night, at least for him, better against the run than the pass. And what happened to Johnson, who didn’t play?
- The inside backers played the run well, although they let Nix get free more than I liked. They also allowed Bigsby to get free on a couple of pass receptions.
- Speaking of best games ever, that was Tyson Campbell’s masterpiece. He battled Seth Williams all night and pretty much won. That pass breakup, in particular, was textbook. He looks like the guy I was hoping for when he signed.
- I am somewhat curious about why Daniel played more than Stokes did.
- It was unfortunate that LeCounte got the boot for targeting, but I thought Smith did okay filling in.
- Louis Cine is rapidly improving. He’s got big shoes to fill, but it looks like he’s up to the job, and he’s clearly faster than Reed was.
- Congrats on your first interception, Mark Webb! Webb also forced a fumble.
- Special teams were good, but not as good as they were against Arkansas. Camarda’s first punt, a 63-yarder, went in the end zone, but he did put his other one inside the 20. Podlesny made all his extra points, but missed a 43-yard field goal attempt. They did get another good kickoff return out of McIntosh. Both coverage units were outstanding.
- Lanning had his defense locked and loaded, preparation-wise. I never sensed that Auburn threw anything at him he wasn’t ready for — and that’s with a change at offensive coordinator.
- In case you can’t tell, I’m thrilled with the job Monken did Saturday night. Sure, the offense is a work in progress, but this team put up almost more than 200 yards over the yardage the 2019 team did against the Tigers in only Monken’s second week of work. But forget the numbers for a second. I had the sense the entire night that it was Monken dictating the flow of the game, forcing Steele and the defense to react. It was apparent on a number of plays that Auburn’s defense was confused by Georgia’s sets. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Georgia offense do that.
- Despite all the chatter last week about the slow start at Arkansas and the quarterback situation, Smart had his team ready to play, and play they did. The best part is that they still have plenty of room to improve. I expect they will.
I know it’s tempting to cry, “rat poison!” after a game like that, with an improving Tennessee team coming to town, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all for the offense to feel better about itself, considering the recent track record. When you’ve got a quarterback and a coordinator you have confidence in, that can go a long way. Add to that how physical this team looked all night and we might be on the verge of seeing the triumph of Manball 2.0.
Filed under Georgia Football
Execution
Kendall Milton’s received more than a few “looks like Nick Chubb” social media comments for this run, but what should really excite you is the blocking. Take a look:
Condon seals the end and takes his man down, Shaffer pulls and smokes a couple of defenders in the process and Washington throws the block that springs Milton. All in all, it’s just brutal, physical domination. Maybe that Matt Luke fella can coach a little, after all.
Filed under Georgia Football
Don’t stop believin’, Urnge edition.
Damn, let UT beat up on some weak competition and suddenly the sky’s the limit.
It’s beginning to look as if the Big Orange just might have the best team in the SEC East, if not the whole Southeastern Conference…
Nor does the rest of the division look overwhelming. Even lordly Alabama has made enough errors on both sides of the ball to provide a vaguely reasonable hope for its opponents.
And within the East Division only, Florida’s defense looks less than terrifying. Georgia’s offense was downright awful for much of its opening win at Arkansas.
Throw in a little Jeremy Pruitt channeling his inner-Booch (“We’ve got a bunch of guys who are winners.”) and you can go ahead and pencil the Vols into the CFP semis now. What a time to be alive!
This week, in net yards per play
I tracked the net yards per play for every team in the SEC last week and I think I’ll keep that up for the season, as I find it to be a useful indicator, although we’re still working with a small sample size after the second week.
Here is the conference order, by net yards per play, with the offensive ypp and defensive ypp, respectively, in parenthesis. (Stats via cfbstats.com.)
- Alabama: 2.64 (7.79; 5.15)
- Florida: 1.95 (7.80; 5.85)
- Mississippi State: 1.75 (6.45; 4.70)
- Georgia: 1.30 (5.12; 3.82)
- Tennessee: 0.55 (5.87; 5.32)
- Kentucky: -0.11 (6.20; 6.31)
- LSU: -0.21 (6.03; 6.24)
- TAMU: -0.22 (6.23; 6.55)
- Arkansas: -0.35 (4.20; 4.55)
- Ole Miss: -0.72 (7.39; 8.11)
- Missouri: -0.96 (4.93; 5.89)
- Auburn: -0.97 (4.50; 5.47)
- South Carolina: -1.78 (4.51; 6.29)
- Vanderbilt: -3.16 (3.86; 7.02)
If the order seems a little different from your expectations, filter it through turnover margin.
- +3: LSU, Tennessee
- +2: Alabama, Auburn, Georgia
- +1: Arkansas, Ole Miss
- 0: Vanderbilt
- -1: Florida, South Carolina
- -2: Missouri, TAMU
- -4: Kentucky, Mississippi State
And a few random observations:
- Only five teams on the plus side seems to be an early indication the SEC is a top-heavy league.
- Turnover margin completely explains Kentucky’s season so far. And why MSU is 1-1.
- Tennessee has played nos. 11 and 13 on the net ypp list, is +3 in turnover margin… and has a net ypp that’s less than half of Georgia’s.
- Auburn’s a mess, despite a +2 in turnover margin.
Filed under SEC Football, Stats Geek!
A lowdown, dirty shame
This sounds bad.
Auburn’s offense — the more things change, the more things stay the same against Georgia.
Filed under Auburn's Cast of Thousands, Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
Get The Picture 
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