The Georgia-Florida game day experience is just a business trip now.
Can’t help but wonder what Munson’s take would be on it during the broadcast.
Daily Archives: October 23, 2020
Unpredictable You
Did anybody tell you Georgia Tech is like a box of chocolates this season?
Georgia Tech is the runaway most unpredictable team so far.
The Yellow Jackets were blown out 73-7 over the weekend by Clemson. That’s just slightly more than the spread of 26 points. But this team has been completely unpredictable. In fact, it is just one point away from having been three scores outside the Vegas spread in each of its games. Georgia Tech has had one blowout victory against the spread (beating Louisville by 19 as an underdog of 5 points) and two blowout spread losses (UCF and Syracuse). Such is life with a freshman quarterback like Jeff Sims and an inconsistent defense. The only game in which Georgia Tech stayed within two scores of the spread was the opener at Florida State, in which it won by a field goal as a 13-point favorite.
This weekend the Yellow Jackets are field goal underdogs at Boston College. Would it really surprise anyone if that game was won by 20 in either direction? It shouldn’t.
You never know what you’re gonna get.
TFW I’m not seeing what they’re seeing
Gotta admit I’m puzzled by something Rennie Curran told Seth Emerson ($$):
Last year former All-SEC defender Rennie Curran said something that struck me, that as a linebacker he could look at the offense before the play and have a good chance of predicting what was coming. So I went back to Curran this week and asked what he thought of Monken’s offense so far:
“I’m loving it a lot more this year. You can tell that Todd Monken is a chess player and not just a coach. He knows how’s to put players in the position to expose a defense’s weaknesses. It still all comes down to execution and not doing things to shoot ourselves in the foot, but I like where we’re headed.”
But …
“My only fear is that we become too overly complex to the point where we get too far away from the basic things like being able to run the ball effectively.”
Does anybody think the problem with the offense this year is that it’s too complex? Maybe Curran is speaking relative to what Coley ran; I don’t know. The only thing I’ve seen so far that’s more involved than the scheme in 2019 is what Luke is asking the offensive line to do now.
What are y’all seeing in that regard?
Filed under Georgia Football, Strategery And Mechanics
Third down blues
Thought I’d share a Twitter thread I was involved in yesterday…
Here’s the conference breakdown on third down attempts. The Dawgs are averaging 16.5 attempts per game. The league’s two best offenses, Alabama and Florida, are averaging 10.5 and 9.3, respectively.
I told Josh (DawgStats) yesterday my biggest preseason misread so far is underestimating the impact of continuity on SEC offenses this season. Monken has a lot on his plate integrating the personnel and scheme changes and it’s showing, more than I expected.
I bitched about the bye week change, but now I’m crossing my fingers that it’s the best thing that could happen at this point in the season. Hope I’m right.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
And, so, it’s come to this?
A reader actually asks in The Athletic’s Recruiting mailbag ($$) “how much of a leash does Kirby Smart have?”
I wonder if I should grab the fireKirbySmart.com domain name before it’s too late.
Filed under Georgia Football
“Our brand of football”
I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help feeling a certain sense of dread from reading this quote:
“[We need] to play our brand of football and allow and help Stetson [Bennett] with the people around him—that is probably the number one thing,” Smart said on the SEC coaches’ teleconference Wednesday. “We definitely didn’t play our best game, but at the same time we were playing our best opponent. The best level of competition we have gone against was certainly [Alabama]. That is how you get better. You have to go out and compete and play.”
Is Georgia’s brand of football what we saw last season after Fromm was a turnover machine in the South Carolina game? Because Gawd help this team if that’s the case. 2020 will be a pure example of lather, rinse, repeat, and we saw how well that worked out in the last SECCG.
Filed under Georgia Football
The frustration zone
Very good take on Georgia from the eminently sensible (especially for a Gator fan) David Wunderlich:
Stetson Bennett is doing very well considering the circumstances. He’s the former fourth-stringer, running an offense that no one got spring practice on that was designed for not one but two other quarterbacks (Jamie Newman and D’Wan Mathis) with completely different skill sets.
“Considering the circumstances” doesn’t mean “in an absolute sense”. Against Alabama, he looked like a former fourth-stringer running an offense that’s being adjusted on the fly by a new coordinator. His passing success rate for the first half was 30.8%. It finished at 28.6%. To my eye, it didn’t look like he reads the whole field based on some wide open targets apparently didn’t see. He’s not good enough to make UGA a national title contender this year.
The run attack kept the Bulldogs in the game for as long as they were, though it hasn’t been superlative in every contest. Alabama’s linebacker play is shockingly bad by its own standards for the second year going. In Georgia’s 27-6 smothering of Auburn, the Bulldogs’ run game was more than adequate but not outstanding. Tennessee held lead back Zamir White to 2.3 yards per rush on 22 carries, though the other tailbacks had fine games in much more limited duty.
Bennett can still hit those 15-19 yard in routes to tight ends over the middle that Georgia has been picking up first downs with since 2002, and the defense is as good as advertised against everyone but Bama’s NFL receivers. They’re still the frontrunner in the division for a reason, but they’re also in that frustrating zone of being near but not up to Alabama’s quality.
Other than noting that last season was an exception to that “those 15-19 yard in routes to tight ends over the middle that Georgia has been picking up first downs with since 2002” observation, I really can’t find much to argue with there. And you?
Filed under Georgia Football
Get The Picture 