This one’s good, I promise.
Kirby may quibble here and there with what Monken is doing, but I guaran-damn-ty you he’s thrilled by that.
Daily Archives: October 22, 2020
Another less than optimal stat
Hoo, boy, this isn’t what you want to see from the SEC’s fifth-ranked team in offensive points per game.
Special teams and defense are pulling their respective weight. The offense, not so much.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
Some Bennett stats
Yesterday, SEC StatCat unloaded a massive amount of data on Twitter. With regard to Stetson Bennett, the overall impression I gleaned from it is that through four games, with some good and some not so good, he’s essentially an average quarterback, statistically speaking.
Rather than address the larger scale question of how far Georgia can go this season with an average quarterback (I’ll save that debate for another day), I thought I’d look at some particular stats to point out/reinforce some perceptions I have of Bennett’s game so far.
First, the good. Bennett has done some of his best work on third down.
Insert Todd Grantham snark here.
Now, the not so good, starting with something that caught up with Bennett in Tuscaloosa:
That’s with Bennett sitting ninth in the conference in pass attempts per game. I don’t imagine that’s giving his head coach the warm and fuzzies, especially given Monken’s success in freeing up open receivers.
As uncomfortable as that might be for Smart, this is probably worse.
Mechanics? Bad reads? Over-concerned about defensive pressure? Who knows, but that ain’t good at all.
And here’s one puzzler for me:
Monken isn’t adverse to using the screen pass and Georgia’s got a couple of good receiving options out of the backfield, so how do you explain the obvious reluctance to call so few screens?
I should add one non-StatCat stat that popped up on Twitter.
I can’t help but think how opposite Georgia’s passing attack is from the 2019 version. Bennett likes throwing over the middle, takes risks and flourishes against the same coverage Fromm struggled with over the second half last year. Georgia probably won’t see much man coverage from here on out until Bennett proves he can deal better with the zone.
The picture I get here is a quarterback who’s a little too erratic for the offense’s good. I tend to chalk that up to that lack of reps problem from the preseason I’ve mentioned, but I have to admit if Bennett isn’t on the road to recovery after bye week practices, Smart’s got some real soul searching to do about the position. Your thoughts?
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
Er’rybody’s favorite player
The second-string quarterback, that is.
The tea leaf reading going on right now about why nobody’s supplanted Stetson Bennett as the starter is en fuego, to say the least. His old high school coach figures JT Daniels must still be struggling to recover from his injury.
“I’m rooting for them to turn him loose,” Rollinson said. “I’m not sure if JT might be the ticket to promised land for them, but something is holding him back. I know it’s not his work ethic, I know it’s not the mental aspect of the game because there’s not a smarter kid in that facility than JT Daniels when it comes to the understanding football. So, I can only deduct that it’s still physical.”
Meanwhile, Aaron Murray thinks D’wan Mathis should still be in the mix.
Former Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray, now an analyst for CBS, said on Drew Butler’s Punt & Pass Podcast this week he didn’t think the Bulldogs’ coaches stuck with Mathis long enough after he struggled in six possessions against Arkansas. Murray believes Mathis has the most upside of all of Georgia’s quarterbacks.
Kirby Smart pointed out an obvious issue with any of that, at least in the short term.
“The toughest thing is getting enough reps to get guys prepared for a game,” Smart said. “You can’t prepare three or four quarterbacks to play in a game. You just don’t get enough time to do that. We do get a lot of time this week to compete, to have reps.”
The irony there is that’s probably one reason Stetson’s transition into the starting roll hasn’t been as smooth as we’d like. He’s still playing catchup on the reps front.
Filed under Georgia Football
Alex, I’ll take commercials, for $200.
Yeah, that’s a real puzzler, alright.
I’m a little surprised he didn’t try blaming the ‘rona.
Filed under It's Just Bidness, SEC Football
Hooked
You may remember this.
Evidently, Bevo left his mark on more than Uga.
A former Austin American-Statesman photographer has filed a lawsuit against the owners and handlers of Bevo XV for negligence that caused “permanent injury” when the longhorn steer surged from his holding pen at the 2019 Sugar Bowl.
According to a petition filed in Travis Country district court on Friday, Nick Wagner was acting in his role as a Statesman photographer on Jan. 1, 2019. He was taking pictures of Uga X, Georgia’s bulldog mascot, prior to the Texas-Georgia game at the New Orleans Superdome.
Uga’s handlers brought their English bulldog over towards Bevo for a photo op, and the steer pushed forward, forcing onlookers to scramble for safety. The entire sequence was captured by Longhorn Network cameras, and short video clips went viral.
Wagner “was on one knee in front of the portable railing which Bevo was behind,” according to the petition. “Bevo XV rammed his longhorns twice into Plaintiff’s back causing permanent injury to Plaintiff’s neck and back.”
No word yet on whether the dog is being added as third-party defendant on a claim of severe emotional distress.
College men, from LSU
So, after a two-year investigation into numerous violations, LSU is going the self-imposed penalty route, docking itself eight football scholarships over a two-year period and reducing recruiting visits, evaluations and communication, in the hopes that the NCAA won’t do more.
Most are focusing on the incredibly stupid public display after the national championship game by Odell Beckham Jr., who handed out celebration cash to some of the LSU players, but the much bigger problem the school faces is this:
The father of former offensive lineman Vadal Alexander received $180,000 in stolen money from LSU booster John Paul Funes, who admitted in 2019 that he embezzled more than half a million dollars from Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge. The money was payment from 2012 to 2017 for what the NCAA characterized as a “no-show job.”
What is it with fathers of SEC players and $180,000? Is that like an unwritten rule of the official going rate?
But I digress.
That’s some seriously bad shit there. Funes is serving time for his actions and I have a feeling that’s going to play into whatever the NCAA decides. What I can’t figure out is why LSU didn’t go ahead and throw a postseason ban into the pot. If ever there’s a time to serve that, it’s 2020.
Filed under Crime and Punishment, SEC Football, The NCAA
TFW you’re PO’d your QB threw another pick six
Yeah, that’s not a good look, Jeremy.
Filed under Because Nothing Sucks Like A Big Orange
Musical palate cleanser, “these are the horns we wanted” edition
Today’s MPC is a little different — it’s not about a song; it’s about a… well, I guess you’d call him a glorified session musician.
Bobby Keys, as Charlie Watts refers to him, was the greatest rock saxophone player ever. And his career was extraordinary. That’s not an exaggeration, either. Here’s a list of some of the musicians and groups he played with: The Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Delaney & Bonnie, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Warren Zevon, Joe Cocker, Joe Ely, Sheryl Crow, John Lennon, Leon Russell, Plastic Ono Band, Harry Nilsson and Paul McCartney.
Anyway, I mention all of this because last night I watched a documentary about his career, Every Night’s A Saturday Night, that was fabulous.
It’s almost startling to hear how casual he is about his career path. It’s basically a Who’s Who of late sixties rock. And it’s more than a little sad to hear him speak about his drug abuse and what that cost him with the Stones.
It’s on Amazon Prime and it’s well worth your time, especially if, like me, you’re a firm believer that the Mick Taylor-era Rolling Stones were the best rock band evah. Highly recommended.
Filed under Uncategorized
Get The Picture 