Today, in run the damned ball, Bobo

Auburn OC Mike Bobo on the "downhill" running game: "It's a physical attitude. It's not just the running back. It's the offensive line, the tight ends and the wide receivers… You have to be able to run the ball to win championships, especially late in ball games."

— Justin Ferguson (@JFergusonAU) August 9, 2021

You mean, like first and goal on the opponent’s four-yard line, with less than six minutes to go in the game and Todd Gurley in the backfield?

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Anonymous is back.

Athlon still misses Tommy Tuberville’s back stabbing, but there are a few decent quotes from coaches regarding SEC programs this season.  A sample:

Florida 

“Defensively they seemed to be all over the place.”

“Believe it or not, they weren’t as exotic on third down as they have been in previous seasons. My guess is that the personnel couldn’t handle it all. It was surprising, they would struggle against lesser teams and then go out and play world-beater.”

“It’s no secret in the industry that Dan is hard to work for and [Todd] Grantham is stubborn, so watching that relationship maintain sure has been weird.”

Tennessee

“They never became what they said they were going to be. [Jeremy] Pruitt fell into that same trap as so many other [Nick] Saban assistants where he tried to be Nick and not himself. He’s not Nick. You got the feeling he didn’t know how to let go from being a coordinator.”

“Offensively, they were a Jim Chaney offense. Pull film from any of his team, the stuff was the same. Defensively they tried to do way too much. Culturally they lost the kids, we heard that from transfers and gossip but it’s also on the tape. They didn’t want to play, they didn’t want to work for each other.”

Auburn

“So far we hear that it is a total culture change. He’s (new head coach Bryan Harsin) a grinder. Detail-oriented, first-year stuff where he thinks everything should change. Wants to kill off any of that image that Gus’ [Malzahn] teams had and make it about running the ball and blue-collar and all that. But does he have a clue about recruiting? That’s the single biggest question right now in the league.”

“They’re going to try and put a physical culture in. One-on-ones, WRs against DBs in practice. Get mean, that kind of stuff. This was an outside zone run team that’s gonna throw everything into the inside run game. Harsin sold them on being a blue-collar team, being Pat Dye.”

LSU

“This team is hard to understand from the outside.”

“The quote from Ed [Orgeron] about not interviewing his coordinators before he hired them, man you could really tell that’s the truth if you look at last season.”

Most of that runs from the obvious to the obviously amusing, but the Auburn observations intrigue me.  Harsin wants to play manball in a league where the best teams have abandoned that approach on offense?  Bold strategy, Cotton.

“Georgia is the inspiration for the underachiever tiers.”

Mickey is addicted to narratives ($$).

How does a program with Georgia’s natural advantages go four decades without winning it all?

There are certain programs in college football that just can’t seem to break through, at least not recently, despite some inherent traits (location, history, resources) that set them up for success. These are the teams that constantly prompt questions like, “Why can’t they win their league?” or “What happened to them?”

Not every underachiever should be expected to win a national title, or even to contend regularly for league titles or major bowl games. But there are groups of teams that should be achieving more than they are.

He’s got tiers!  Cleverly, he labels the top one — a tier of one, by the way — “The Dawghouse”.  Hahahahaha!  Get it?

This is even funnier:  “Other than Georgia, teams that have made the College Football Playoff do not appear.”  It’s like the bad Mrs. Lincoln joke.

Who needs Florida message boards ritualizing the “1980!” chant when you’ve got ESPN?

Playing the strength of schedule card

I see where the “ACC sux, so Clemson can’t really be that good” narrative has emerged again in the comments.  To those of you who swear by that, have you looked at Georgia’s schedule this season.  No, I mean, really looked?  Bill Connelly has.

2021 Projections

Projected SP+ rank: Sixth

Average projected wins: 9.8 (6.6 in the SEC)

• Likely wins: Charleston Southern (99.9% win probability), at Vanderbilt (98%), South Carolina (97%), UAB (94%), Missouri (90%), Kentucky (90%), Arkansas (85%), at Tennessee (82%), at Georgia Tech (81%), at Auburn (67%)
• Relative toss-ups: vs. Florida (57%), vs. Clemson (40%)
• Likely losses: None

Of the six projected top-50 teams on the Dawgs’ schedule, only one comes to Athens. That’s an issue, but they’ll likely be favored in every non-Clemson game all the same.

Georgia plays Georgia Tech in Atlanta, a place where the Dawgs haven’t lost in two decades.  Georgia Tech is Georgia’s fourth most difficult 2021 opponent, according to Connelly.  Six — count ’em, six — SEC teams are judged weaker than are the Jackets.  (Hell, two SEC teams are judged weaker than UAB!)

Clemson is an experienced, successful opponent.  Dabo and his staff are what Florida fans try to convince themselves Dan Mullen is, elite at identifying and developing talent.  Their starting quarterback got thrown into the fire last season as a true freshman and started two games, one of which was on the road against the number four team in the country.  His stats:  59-85, 781 yards, 4 TDs, 0 INTs.  Clemson averaged 37 points in those two starts.

In other words, they’re going to be a tough out for Georgia in the opener.  If you want to argue that the worth of a team should be measured by its strength of schedule, be my guest.  Just don’t be offended when that same line of thought gets thrown UGA’s way at season’s end when the discussion turns to which teams should be considered the best in the country.

“The Georgia offense this year… what do you think it’s gonna be?”

Dial this clip up to the 23:30 mark and give a listen.

Honestly, we’ve already discussed a lot of what he has to say there.  That being said, Pate seems genuinely convinced that Kirby’s found Jesus on the “revolutionizing offense” front and is prepared to give Monken free rein.

You buying that?

“We should wreck shop.”

You don’t see headers like this every day.

Give Ekeler credit for upping UT’s catch phrase quotient.  That certainly kicks Booch’s trash can in the arse.