“Arik Gilbert’s arrival in Athens has been the talk of the offseason,” Young wrote. “He brings a unique blend of size and speed for a receiver. His playmaking ability is needed as George Pickens is sidelined. Questions of Gilbert’s off-field dedication may have been answered with his recent honor of Academic Player of the Week. Should all of that be in order, and should Gilbert be in a healthy place personally, he has every opportunity to become a superstar for the Bulldogs.”
“I was confident the Bulldogs were going to set school records this fall for points and yardage per game prior to Gilbert’s arrival,” Rollins wrote. “I’m even more confident now. No matter how they use him, whether primarily on the outside or a little bit of everywhere, he’s going to be a matchup problem. While he—and the remaining receiving group—might not put up eye-popping individual numbers because of the numerous weapons at JT Daniels’ disposal, Gilbert’s presence is a game-changer and gives offensive coordinator Todd Monken even more options for creativity.”
I hope that was as good for you as it was for me.
Get The Picture 
We’ve got a loaded roster, but the moment he walked in the locker room Gilbert became the best player we got.
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Best player??…..hard to say, definitely could be one of the best.
But if you held a gun to my head and demanded an answer, I’d have to go with the big man over on the defensive line (JD). He makes the entire ‘D work.
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I still gotta stick with the Big 0.
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Yeah, can see that argument too. But to me, if we are to have a successful season…….thinks Davis is the one that gives us the best chance (wins).
I guess you could probably argue JT also. It seems that we are stout at most every position. Still questions at LT, but we are loaded with talent.
On paper, this is the most talent I can remember. Just hope we have the attitude/tenacity of the ‘80 team.
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Just wait… You’ll see.
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Going to be interesting to see how he is used……..hopes we split him wide, he could be a potential nightmare for anyone trying to defend him.
Going to be tough to almost impossible to double team him with all the weapons we have. Defenses will have to make some hard decisions.
With the Pickens injury, just happy as a pig in shit/slop to even having this discussion.
It won’t hurt me at all if you’re right…..just win!
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Makes the opposing o coordinator aware, makes the o-line accountable…makes the UGA football “O” line better…but then the front 7 makes the “O” better….
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I don’t even know how you can talk about a “best player” in a team sport like football. Most points scored? That would probably be Podlesny. But Pod never scores a point if others don’t do their jobs before he does his. It is a team sport in ways that few other sports can be. Without question Gilbert is a special talent, but he hasn’t played a down for us yet. I am glad we got him, but he hasn’t done his job yet.
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I’ve often wondered who was the best player on our team from 1980-82.
But I’ve hesitated to even take a stab at it for all the reasons you cite.
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That was a once in a 100 year player..but you knew that.
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I don’t even know how you can talk about a “best player” in a team sport like football.
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Ha. So you’re saying AG=HW? Pass that doobie around, man.
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I’m saying that every team has a best player. Some are just more obvious a choice than others. But someone in any locker room is the best player in that locker room.
IMHO that honor goes to Gilbert for the time being.
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I’ll wait until I see him play before I anoint him the best player on the team.
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“Well, he’s fairly intelligent… Ach! He’s full of shit.”
-George Carlin after reading Derek’s morning shit thrown at the wall to see what will stick.
😉
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Strong take Ranger! I don’t care who it is, we need a couple of difference makers to emerge. I’ll choose another Roquan every time, second best needs to be on the offense though.
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That spot where the Jamie Newsome poster was won’t fill itself…
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Well…. I don’t smoke; but if I did, I would light one up right now…
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… I’m gonna need a minute.
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I can’t feel my legs.
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Must have been REALLY good for you.
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I rewatched the Peach Bowl replay last night on the SEC Network. Our offense was pretty rough must of that game. Bad protection, poor run blocking. I love all the weapons and happy talk but I want to see it before I believe it.
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This is where I am.
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I feel you. Bowl games are such anomalies though. We played an insanely motivated team with a chip on their shoulder, plus our offense and QB were still relatively new. I would feel more pessimistic had we gotten blown out a la Florida.
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For a team that didn’t want to be there playing a very well coached and motivated team, they did ok. Lots of really good teams take an L in that spot.
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To a mid-major? Hardly. We should have beat them like a gong, like Tebow and the gang did in the Sugar. 5 and 4 stars against 2 and 3 stars. Instead we looked like shit all day and were fortunate to win and not get laughed at by the national media. I am cautiously optimistic about our team this year because frankly our coaching has been trending downward – looking at you Lanning. We couldn’t stop a wheel route last year, yet here we are again, preseason national champs. Everyone had best take a step back until we get past those guys in orange just up the road. Just sayin.
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Like AU and UCF? Like Bama and Utah? Yeah, just like that.
Or Richt in the Liberty Bowl…yeah, it could have been that.
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Boise State over OK.
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In each case you and PTC mentioned, every talking head in sports said “WTF just happened? How does this happen? This should not have happened!”
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If you find truth emanating from the mouths and pens of sports media figures, I’d encourage you to reconsider your position.
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What’s your point?
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If you think we should be playing tight games with the Cincinnati’s of the world then fine. IMO anyone who watches that game and thinks our coaches did a good job or that our team was trending in the right direction at that time are fooling themselves.
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The point is that the peach bowl is probably not a good barometer on 2021. Had we lost to Cincy I’d feel no different about our chances this year. We’re good enough to both play for a natty AND to lose in some meaningless bowl, if that’s our fate.
There isn’t a playoff contender not at risk losing in a crappy bowl to a nobody because its a consolation prize that motivates no one. You have to remember that these are kids. If they don’t want to be there, they won’t play well.
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OK, I will admit that my earlier argument about mid majors not beating power 5’s in bowl games does not hold water. It has happened several times.
I do think that bowl games can be a good barometer of how your coaching staff is doing and what direction the team is going. I don’t buy the “kids are not interested” weak sauce. First, they are not kids, they are grown men. Second, most of our players have NFL aspirations and do not EVER want to put bad play on film. They know better because it can’t be erased. This isn’t Varsity Blues where they go to the strip club the night before. If they look like shit, it is because the coaches didn’t have them ready to play with a good plan in place. Maybe THEY are the ones who were not motivated. I guess my concern is how Cincinnati had a better plan in place than we did because theirs let a significantly less talented team hang around until the end with a superior talented team. I promise you Kirby asked him self the same thing. Color me worried.
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Have you ever met a 19 year old?
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The Sugar Bowl vs Texas had me thinking the coaching might be an issue but the Peach did not. Take away the freak 79 yd td run to start the second half and Cincinnati only scores 14 points in the whole game and has 20 yards rushing for the game. The defense put up that performance without the best linebacker and two best defensive backs and starting safety. Those numbers tell me the defensive coaches scheme and the play on the field was pretty good.
Our offense playing without the two best linemen and a tight end against a defense that had decided to bring the house on every down was going to struggle against anyone under those conditions. We passed for 404 yards so the play calling took advantage of what Cincinnati was doing on defense, that is a sign the offensive coaches were doing a good job.
Cincinnati was also playing out of their minds, leaving it all on the field trying to make a statement. Over the years, we seem to find ourselves in that situation in a lot of games.
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As I recall there were a few shady calls against the Dawgs in the first half also. That was enough to stifle momentum. Seen it before.
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Yeah I quit making any kind of program / next season assumptions based on bowl games a coupule years ago as player opt outs and missing the playoff deflation grew
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^^this^^ Every year for the past 40 years I’ve read about how great Georgia was going to be. I’m ready to see it play out as predicted.
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We weren’t predicted to win the SEC and appear in the playoff in 2017. As a matter of fact, many were already calling Kirby a dunderhead. I think that season is one in the Kirby era the team truly exceeded our high expectations.
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And those expectations were largely because of how much better we thought Eason would be in year 2.
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Pretty much my take on it. We only return two wrs that have any experience to amount to anything at all and nobody is projecting them as All SEC. Gilbert likely isn’t an improvement on Pickens. We’ll be about the same at rb. Maybe we are about the same on ol. The last time I saw him play our qb was still underthrowing wrs. The offense looked bad in the bowl game. This team is at best a poor man’s version of LSU 2019 or bama 2021. I don’t get all the wild expectations.
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Laughable to claim we’ll be the same on OL and RB. As if we also missed spring practice this year, and the players had no chance to get better over the past 9 months. We may not be 2020 Bama, but let’s not downplay the improvement we’re likely to see either.
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Man, you sure aren’t seeing the same things that most of the guy’s that look at teams for a living are seeing. And I don’t claim to be an expert. But to make a comment like that about a QB that went 4-0, threw for an average of 300 yards and had a 10-2 TD-to-int ratio, without a spring practice or the benefit of practicing all offseason with the first team?…uh…gees man, I don’t think I’d have made that comment.
We are…”at best a poor man’s version of LSU 2019 or bama 2021…” I’ll remind you that NO ONE in the known Universe thought that Joe Burrows would do what he did and he didn’t even look no where NEAR as good as Daniels the year before he won the Heisman and led his team to the NC.
Again, I’m no expert, but THIS is a talented team and looks as good as any we’ve had in a long, loooong time. We have stocked-piled some serious talent and return most of the front seven to a D that ranked at the top of every major statistical category last season.
I like our chances…but that’s just me.
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#metoo
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It’s Burrow. Same with Mullen. No ‘s’ at the end. Drives me nuts.
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I don’t buy “natty or bust.” I don’t even quite buy that we should be looked at in the same tier as Bama/Clemson/Ohio St./OU this year yet. PROBABLY in that tier this year; we looked good the last four games, especially, and the total lack of a QB is what cost us in our losses. But it isn’t like we went out there and lit Cincinnati up like we did Hawaii in 2007. We just won. We return a lot and have lots of great recruits, but zero proven superstars. We have a few who flashed the possibility of it, but we’ve got to have a couple actually emerge if we’re going to get it done this year.
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Cincy would have wiped the field vs Hawaii…
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Yeah I was thinking about the Hawaii game. Cincy was much better imo.
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Damn skippy…GATA you junkyard Dawgs
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I hope it’s not premature prognostication.
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I kept waiting for the line saying “if only he could be coached up by Dan Mullen,” but it never came
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Excuse me for two minutes.
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Wonder if Gilbert coming to Athens had any bearing on Robertson announcing today that he is going to Auburn to play his final season.
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Robertson had been in the Portal for a month, I believe…
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Well, I hate to see him at Auburn. I guess he wanted to stay in the area, but if he wanted to catch passes he should have gone to UNC. Not sure Nix with a new coaching staff is going to do him much good.
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He may be their No. 1 receiver. I think they were really hurting at that spot.
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Yeah. I knew he was in the portal. I could have worded that post better. I meant more or less whether Gilbert coming had any bearing on him entering the portal but I had literally just seen on Twitter that he had announced Auburn.
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“I could have worded that post better.”
I didn’t realize that was the standard around here? 🙂
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I have no real idea of the timing, I just figure the kid looked around the WR room and said…I’m gone.
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Who will have more TD’s…JT throwing or our RB’s combined?
I also wonder how much JT will really spread the ball around. If Arik and one or two other receivers show they can get open and catch anything in the same Zip Code then I think the receiving yards and TDs will be highly concentrated.
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Depends on how our opponents defend, right? And the ongoing trends throughout the season? It was obvious that every opponent post ‘17 sold out on the run, and it worked at the championship level. Not at any level below that.
LSU ‘18 and most of Coley’s time in ‘19 it worked for a while. ‘20 was hard to watch because we couldn’t do anything about it.
Seems to me job #1 for Monken is to surprise with all the toys he has to play with. Add the practice time to refine those options, which we armchair coaches imagine they do?……that didn’t happen last year?
Homer take, the coaches and the players know what’s possible at this point. They also know that it takes preparation which was probably learned in real time last season. That kind of impact tends to saturate a well coached and bought in locker room. Mutual respect for each other and the game, team is only as good as every player wants it to be (if they get to work on it).
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Peach Bowl 2021 vs Cincinnati…
We
Won
The
Fucking
Game
Tangerine Bowl 1974 vs Miami of Ohio…
We
Lost
The
Fucking
Game
Guess how I feel about the Peach Bowl??
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If James Hudson hadn’t gotten his ass thrown out of the game it would have been different. That poor German dude didn’t have a clue.
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