It’s worth considering that, as we watch the evolution of Georgia’s offense this year, the Dawgs are on their third offensive coordinator and fourth starting quarterback in three seasons. That’s gotta take a toll, especially when preseason practice opportunities were severely reduced.
That being said, it’s hard not be excited to see where things look to be heading now. Brent Rollins suggests that Todd Monken ought to be thinking about borrowing three things out of Alabama’s playbook to get the offense where Kirby Smart wants it to go.
The first is throwing more on early downs.
When you examine overall metrics like run vs. pass distribution and personnel usage over the past three seasons, Georgia’s offenses have not really been that different from Alabama’s, outside of Chaney’s run-heavy offense in 2018. However, when you break it down further, there’s one distinct area where Alabama is different: throwing the ball on early downs (first and second) and getting big plays off it…
Here’s the breakdown of Alabama’s 2020 offense versus the Georgia offenses of the past three seasons on early downs (without end-of-game garbage time included):
2018 Georgia – 42% pass (56th in the Power 5)
2019 Georgia – 42% pass (54th in the Power 5)
2020 Georgia – 45% pass (51st in the Power 5)
2020 Georgia (with Daniels) – 46% pass
2020 Alabama – 51.3% pass (28th in the Power 5)
In addition to throwing consistently more often on early downs, the Tide hit explosive plays in the passing game better than anyone. Alabama was number one in the Power 5 in explosive pass-play percentage on first and second down (23.3 percent). In part because of the fear its passing game creates, it was also 13th in explosive run play percentage.
That last paragraph should resonate, because that’s exactly what’s happened since Daniels took the reins.
For Georgia, the improved quarterback play with Daniels helped the offense be more explosive over the final month of season, as its explosive run (18.6 percent) and pass play percentages (22.4 percent) significantly improved. In fact, the early-down explosive play percentage in essence doubled with Daniels (11.6 percent prior).
Sounds to me like more is in order.
His second suggestion is using play action more and highlights a question I’ve had for a while, namely, why has Georgia relied less upon play action than it used to?
Georgia, on the other hand, despite it’s commitment to the running game, has never been higher than 43rd in the Power 5 in percent play-action over the past three years.
I don’t get that. It seems only natural when you rely strongly on a running game that play action would be a significant part of your arsenal. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Smart’s offenses. Rollins adds that Monken has never been a big caller of play action, so I don’t know that we’re due to see much of a change.
That’s not the case with his third suggestion, use of shifts/motion, though.
Georgia has improved in this category over the past three seasons, up to 13th in the FBS (47.5 percent) this year… Once Daniels took over at quarterback, this became a more prevalent part of Georgia’s offense (62 percent) during the final month…
I’ll be most curious to see where Monken goes with all of this next season.
Get The Picture 
Chasing Bama’s skill level, coaching and performance seems like going for 2nd place…we’ll see. I’d like to hear more about the type of innovations to scheme on both sides of the ball that causes Nicky fits.
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If you look at the two teams that topped 40 on them this year (and maybe throw in LSU from 2019) you get a combo of:
1. Running tempo
2. Mismatch players that shift where they lineup (Florida did a lot of this with Pitts and Toney but LSU was similar)
3 Presnap motions to get the defense to declare coverages or give up where blitzes are coming from
1 + 2 are especially deadly if you have a TE as one of your top players coupled with a pass-catching RB because you can shift form power looks to 5 WR on the same drive and the defense can’t risk substitutions without getting caught with 12 on the field or using a time out.
But #3 is interesting because if Kirby and company study some of the looks Miami (Dolphins) have used this year, they can keep the aggressiveness but dial back the risk by disguising things better pre-snap.
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Looking at the recruiting rankings for WR doesnt paint a better picture for Ga. You need to scroll all the way down to 64th best WR in this class to find a guy with a G next to his name. Ohio St signs 3 of the top 15 WRs. Bama signs 4 of the top 10. Ga Tech had a top 50 WR. UGA not so much.
UGA needs a 1000 yard receiver next season. They need a 3000 yard QB. They need a 1000 yard back. They need a skill player with 20 TDs. These things are no longer nice to haves, they are must haves to win a title.
It’s hard to see a path to the CFP title if our leading receiver has 500 yards and 4 TDs.
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Last cycle we signed 3 top-100 WR recruits (Rosemy, Smith, and Burton), and the cycle before that we signed two 5-star WR (Pickens and Blaylock). The reason we didn’t sign more this year is because that position group is pretty full. I anticipate we’ll get some higher rated pass-catchers next year.
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We clearly had space for 2 WRs in this class, we just didnt get very good ones.
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Since J.T. Daniels’ arrival, Monken’s offense has rapidly evolved. This upcoming January 1 exhibition is a great opportunity to keep tinkering and testing. Thanks to Vandy, we’ve certainly had ample time to build upon everything since Mississippi State. This offense is about to go off.
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Thing I like about Monken, you can tell that going into every game, there’s 4 or 5 plays that he knows if he calls them at the right time, he’s gonna collect on them big time. Now, that was undone by poor QB execution for part of the year, but the playcalls were there, and they should have worked.
The difference is the last few years, the mentality seemed to be that if we just run the same plays over and over, eventually a few are gonna hit big. But there wasn’t any specific playcalling FOR big plays, if that makes sense. They just figured if they pounded the D enough, eventually a play that might have only been going for 3 yards will eventually break into a big play. Sometimes that worked, often times it didn’t. I like having playcalls and a playcaller who has specific plays that he KNOWS are gonna hit big, as long as they’re called at the right time.
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Is this misleading? Aren’t they prob #1 in explosive passes on any down?
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I’ve seen enough to believe if Monken’s left alone to run the offense we’ll be fine. If he’s force-fed slamming RBs into a loaded box, then we’ll have problems.
If we’re going to get back to the cfp we need to have one of the more effective passing attacks in the nation. One that is a threat to score on just about any given play. That’s the game the leaders are playing.
Is Manball dead? Unless you’re playing an opponent that has an awful QB, like Kentucky, the answer might be yes.
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If manball is only good for beating teams that we can out-talent anyway, then there’s no reason to run it at all. Just run the offense you need to beat the big boys all the time. That’s what Bama, Clemson, etc. are doing. Kirby’s been weird in that he only wants to run dynamic passing attacks against the big boys and prefers to manball lesser teams. It makes no sense as an offensive strategy and I hope he’s going to abandon it now that we have a good QB.
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Eh, 2017 was all on how dominant our RB room was, and Pittman, and an effective FR QB. It’s a one-off.
I will admit, as good as ‘18 was, it was becoming predictable and I would agree with your assessment.
‘19 was Coley thinking he could do it again, failure.
I don’t think, as the Senator insinuates above, that there is a pattern/trend. Our program under CKS has just had an explosive year two, and then OC’s thinking “hey, let’s do it again”.
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For the archives…Roquan is the MVP for that season, period, sorry I didnt include him.
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You can be the most physical team and still throw. Kirby can have 2 thoughts at the same time! 🙂
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That’s sure what bama looked like the 4th when they were running over uf’s 9 man box saturday.
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Gary pointed out the difference in Bama now vs then late in the game when Bama was backed up deep. In the past, they would have run the ball, but on this one they flooded the field with receivers and passed on first down. Completely different mindset.
I think Kirby is getting there, and wanted to be there this season, but outside events squashed that for this year. I do think next year should be exciting, and it’s also why I think the team will show up to play in the Peach Bowl.
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The Laner gave you a look at where the bammers were going, little nicky didn’t have time his shit but is still going in that direction…feels like ya gotta score 53 to beat them, cause they ain’t afraid to put 52 on ya…
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I’ll go one further — if they had passed on their last series, they don’t have to sweat punting to Toney and giving Trask any time. They should have been trying for another TD, not to run out the clock.
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Lack of play-action is probably a reflection for quick developing plays and post-snap reads. When giving either/or decisions to QBs, it makes sense that you want to have your QBs eyes scanning secondary instead of pretending to hand-off the ball. Especially against NFL and SEC D-Lines.
Lack of play-action is also a reflection of our underutilization of TEs and RBs in the passing game. For the first time in years, we now have a QB who is both able and willing to throw to the middle of the field. That will hopefully result in more plays designed with RBs and TEs as the primary receiver, and that would likely raise the play action % to put LBs in greater conflict.
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Agree. How many times did we see Bobo’s QBs faking handoffs when we were behind late in games with precious seconds ticking off. The fakes were laughably idiotic in those situations.
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The PA thing – its because we just didnt use it. IT was maddening. Richt and Greene taught me all that PA stuff, then it disappeared under Kirby.
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What is crazy to me is how it seems that NFL and college offenses have swapped. What little NFL I’ve watched has reminded me of a Coley offense. Meanwhile, Alabama, Clemson and Georgia are keeping the defense on their toes.
I suspect that some of this is due to cfb having a larger talent gap between the have and the have nots but NFL play calling just seems stuck in the mud, too.
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Had the Falcons game on yesterday as I puttered in and out of the house. That reminded me of why I lost interest in the Falcons. It was like some bad acid flashback that triggered PTSD.
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We’re on our 4th starting QB in the last 1 season, let alone 3…
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We’re basically 2019 Alabama. We lost our best QB (before the season even) and took 2 losses as a result: One to our rival and one to the eventual national champion. QB matters.
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I’m feeling better about our offense going into next season than our defense.
We had the best YPP defensively this year while playing the two top SEC offenses, but it sure feels like we have to get something figured out especially with the attrition at DB…
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