Interesting take from SECStatCat:
Offensive Executive: Stetson Bennett IV, Georgia
Even though the SEC Championship didn’t go Georgia’s way, the Bulldogs are still the only SEC offense with +50% Success Rate in both facets entering bowl season. That obviously cannot happen without a somewhat consistent passer who can execute the offensive scheme. Stetson Bennett’s performance might have cemented his status as a game manager, but it’s hard to challenge the majority of the results under his watch this fall. Despite finishing 9th in Completion% and 12th in Accuracy%, the former walk-on commands the conference’s best Success Rate (53.7%), Explosive Pass Rate (15.8%), and First Down+TD Rate (43.7%). Talk about making them count. Under Monken’s guidance and a brawny ground game, SB4 used play action on nearly 30% of his attempts and targeted a screen or RPO on another 25%. Behind these guises, he popped. And, Georgia was a sheer bully at times when on schedule. But when the scheme has stuttered and the QB has been asked to shoulder the load, the sprite Bennett keeps on faltering without those props.
The Light Lifter: JT Daniels, Georgia
The former-five star hasn’t played in two months. But when he has seen action this year, he consistently has fancied targeting screens, RPOs, and routes behind the line of scrimmage. JT Daniels attempts of the latter account for an absurd 47% of his completions, 36% of his throws, and 33% of his yards have come on the latter alone. With that, it’s no wonder his average depth of target is the 2nd-lowest in the conference. No doubt not being 100% for stints of this season played a part in this conservative modus operandi. In case you forgot, he led the SEC in Deep Pass Rate and had the top Yards/Attempt amongst the conference returns ahead of this fall. This about-face is an awfully strange occurrence unless something is up. While Daniels has had a few nice downfield completions, he’s the only SECer to have a third of his yards come via RPOs. [Emphasis added.]
Maybe it’s not a matter of Stetson playing the hand Kirby’s dealt him. Maybe it’s Kirby playing the hand his quarterbacks have dealt him.
Get The Picture 
This situation is just so full of intrigue. Good grief.
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I imagine the skewed numbers are because JT was dealing with the injury early in the season, and was in mop-up duty later in the season. But his injury status is a state secret, so I can only guess.
If JT truly is injured all season, we’ve done a lousy job getting Beck ready if case SBIV were to get injured or need to be pulled.
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The mop up duty thing could be a real factor. Seems like it’s more sportsmanlike to throw quick hitters near the LOS than to push the ball downfield.
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That’s a good point.
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Beck could be another Brice Ramsey: rocket arm, throws an INT every time he gets in.
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I look for Beck to be in the transfer portal soon. Just a gut feeling.
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It’s easy to pile up efficiency stats when you don’t throw a lot of attempts. I think that’s the fool’s gold that led some to believe Bennett was better than he really is.
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Bingo. When you throw 19 times a game against the Kenutckys of the world, most off of play action, you’re going to appear to be incredibly efficient.
You know who is actually efficient? The QB who can come close to those numbers while throwing 40 passes a game.
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All this talk of swapping out quarterbacks, has me wondering…what if trading off on an explosive passing attach in favor of an efficient one works so long as your run game is ELITE. Georgia has some really great backs running the football, but there’s no one on the level of a Gurley/Swift/Michel/Chubb. There were five plays I can think of where our offensive line creased Bama’s front seven with a run lane. However, Cook and White were brought down by arm tackles, where an elite back could’ve gashed them for huge gains, if not a TD.
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I agree on the running backs. The current backs are good but, we were spoiled watching backs like Gurley and Chubb break arm tackles and housing it from anywhere on the field. Our current guys seem to lack the vision and explosiveness that former guys had.
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The oldest and truest adage in football is that the game is won in the trenches. If the running game comes around (we do have some excellent running backs) the passing game will too and all will be well.
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Except that is no longer true. The running game no longer opens up the passing game for championship winning teams. The passing game opens up the running game.
You need the beef up front to keep your QB upright so he can sling the ball all over the field, not so you can pound the rock.
How many times do Georgia fans and Kirby Smart most importantly need to keep seeing other teams win national titles in this way before coming around to this realization?
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I’d say infinity
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At this point, I don’t think there’s any choice but to agree with you.
FML.
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The player that reminded me the most of those elite backs was Bowers when he bulled through all those tacklers on his last TD. Damn, that was a spot of beauty in the middle of a whole bunch of ugly.
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As far as I can remember, that TD by Bowers was the only play where we broke tackles and got yards after catch or contact. All in all, the entire game on both sides was simply lackluster.
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Don’t forget Ladd’s TD. That was a thing of beauty as well.
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I think Hash’s point was about breaking tackles. McConkey did not have to beak any tackles.
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Point ceded.
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ugafidelis, I did forget about Ladd’s TD. My bad. But regardless, most of our receivers were tackled immediately after catching the ball. Heck, SBIV hardly hit any of them in stride, so they didn’t have much of a chance. And Bama’s secondary were with us step for step whereas our secondary decided that our best D was to give their WRs at least 5 yards of space. Pathetic.
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JT has only played in three games this year in which he really would have had the opportunity to go deep if he wanted to/was able. Obviously he was hurt in the Clemson game. He played apparently unfettered against South Carolina, and then for a half against Vandy. So, basically one and a half games and he didn’t even get to play the full game against SC thanks to the Gamecocks not putting up a fight. So, basically one full game. Other than that, JT has only played in mop up duty and we don’t generally run wide open when it’s mop up time. It’s possible that there’s still something wrong with him – we’ll probably only find out with any degree of certainty how the QB decision was made when he declares his intention to stick around next year or transfer.
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Don’t forget he was throwing to mostly freshman at Clemson, and a walk on. All seeing their first meaningful game action.
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Is it possible Kirby has been honest all year regarding the QB’s the best guy at practice plays. Maybe the JT we saw in 2020 is not that guy anymore. JT has openly discussed injuries and mental health struggles. I wish him nothing but future success and happiness along with a National championship ring for this season’s end.
If this is the reason and not the Kirby is too stubborn or stupid theory. The HC has worked hard to protect one of his players at personal cost in the media. If so it could have been easy to pull a Dan Mullen and give the fans the QB they want maybe knowing he would fail on a national stage further hurting his player. I’ll keep saying till proven wrong on this none of us or the national writers are at practice. Only those watching every practice know the truth today. It just seems weird so many fans assume JT is today still the better option. He certainly was way better last year and yet no rumblings coming from players or staff the wrong guy is starting that I’ve seen.
I’ll keep supporting the team whoever plays and always will.
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Then why did JT start at the beginning of the season? The last time we saw him he went 9/10 for 2TDs.
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The last time we saw JT start was when he was healthy. The actual last time we saw Daniels, he went 7 for 12 for 73 yards and a TD against Charleston Southern.
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I must have been asleep by then.
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CB,
I don’t know why I really wish JT was playing.
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Fans are stupid but think they’re smart. Pun intended. I have no trouble believing Kirby has a better grasp of this situation than any of us. I don’t give a shit about Fromm/Fields. Why was Kirby supposed to bench Fromm a year after doing what he did? Dan Mullen should have been an example to everyone when it comes to listening to the fans and giving them what they want regarding the starting quarterback.
I recommend all our resident experts tune into Film Don’t Lie. It’s two Georgia fans breaking down game film, one of whom is a coach. It will show you that you aren’t as clear on what you think you know about a game when you see the action broken down frame by frame. An eye opener for me was the fact that our defensive front got more pressure than I thought. Bryce Young has been prepared very, very well on what to do and he neutralized the pressure we did get. Jordan Davis nearly flattened him on a third and ten but Young handled it superbly instead of panicking. Ditto on a play when Nakobe came an eye lash from taking his head off. He took a half step forward and threw Nakobe off balance just enough that he was a half second late getting to him. Again this was on third down and should have been and nearly was a sack. Something similar happened on a Channing Tindall blitz. Our residents experts know jack shit and watching Film Don’t Lie would be an education for them. I am in no way affiliated with the show. I just hate when people with their head up their ass think they know things they don’t know.
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Did you not watch Fields destroy Bama and win a National Title?
Hey…. Wait a second…
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JT got weekly calls and voice mails from his mental health “coach” since HS. Can’t recall his name. He died around week 3. Something like that. Apparently he meant a lot to a lot of players and coaches (Smart included). We can guess and speculate till we’re blue in the face and will likely never know WTF is going on. I’m done wallowing. This is the team we have and Smart is a tireless coach with a good staff that cares more and knows more than we’ll really ever come close to. We might lose to UM or we might lose to Bama but I’m not going to concede defeat until we do. Never as bad or good as you think you are. So stop crying. A lot of you need to step back from the FN ledge.
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Possibly.
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Well, I don’t remember any batted passes……
When will CKS let Monken speak? I’m not really interested in anything else anymore.
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End of the year, that’s usually when he lets the assistants speak. Keep in mind, Monken is generally pretty salty, I wouldn’t expect some epiphany or great insight when he does speak.
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The dudes on the radio said the Orange Bowl will have assistants talking.
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“Maybe it’s not a matter of Stetson playing the hand Kirby’s dealt him. Maybe it’s Kirby playing the hand his quarterbacks have dealt him.”
As long as you don’t consider the relatively small sample size we have from JT this season, the injury that he was playing through, and that one of his games was against the best defense Georgia has seen with most of his pass catchers seeing the first significant game action of their collegiate careers. If you take all that and completely ignore the 2020 season. Yeah. I could see how you’d come to that conclusion.
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Maybe, maybe, maybe. Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn’t make that lift in his prime. I wish we actually knew something.
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That’s my point I wish we knew.
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It does seem like to me that we could know. There’s been plenty of games (3 shutouts, plus others that may as well have been in the sense that we never in danger of losing) when Stet got left in way too long, and none of 4 & 5 star material got meaningful snaps. Even when they got snaps they were limited because of the game situation, and rarely, if ever, were playing with ones around them. I’m pretty sure it was JT that threw a TD Brett Seither. Not Fitzpatrick, not Darnell, not Bowers. I wish that Kirby’s plan to ride Stetson all the way had worked, but I really wish he had given himself a plan B along the way.
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It may have all been there in front of us. Stetson was #3 on the depth chart. Daniels went down. #2 Beck was not ready for Prime Time. Now Kirby has to work and develop #3. He wants a winner not a gun-slinger. He plays him deep into blow-outs because he needs the work. Along the way, a coached-up Stetson is better than an injury limited JT. It gets him to 12-0 and through the first half of the SECCG. Kirby then watches his vaunted defense fall to pieces. It’s past halftime…they’re on the field and everybody is screaming on the headsets about the D. Then the offense collapses while the D is still a mess. We enjoy the benefit of sitting in an armchair and saying we’d put the backup in. Kirby was dealing with the gaping hole the Bama iceberg had put in the bow, not who should be conducting the orchestra while the ship was sinking fast.
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FPD,
I think you nailed it. Bennett was #3 coming out of camp that’s a fact going into game one. Unfortunately for everyone Bennett again became the best option. We talked about Bennett being a DGD in the summer assuming his days as a starter would never return.
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I’m fine with that narrative, but keep in mind that Kirby is getting paid $7.1 million a year to win – he’s not in the business of being noble. He’s also the lead cheerleader trying to pry more money outta my wallet. I shall shed no tears for him.
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Nobody knows what is going on with the QB situation. The weird part is that folks think that Kirby wouldn’t play the guy he thinks gives the best team the chance to win. He want to beat Bama more than any of us. He has put in the thousands of hours on the recruting trail and on the field and in staff meetings. The only guys that know what is going on are the guys in the meetings. I dont think it is personal with Kirby. fF he thought JT was physically and mentall ready and the better option than Stetson he would play him.
Maybe Stetson is the only QB we have that is even remotely ready to play in a game like the SEC championship. Give up 550 yards of offense to Alabama and we would need Lamar Jackson on the field for us. We dont have the WRs to get in a score fest with Bama no matter who the QB is.
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Bingo!
My work here is done. 😉
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We have a winner.
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We do know that none of the others have seen much action during the nobodies we played.
So we are in the same situation next year and Kirby gets to hide behind the same answer.
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Kirby Smart has lost control
Fire Kirby Smart.
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I’ve developed a Tourette’s like tic where every time the QB debate pops up, I shout PLAYPEN! and move on to the next post.
On an unrelated note, my coworkers now avoid me..which is nice…
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I’m sure Kirby is playing the QB that HE thinks gives him the best chance to win.
Because Kirby Smart still thinks it’s 2011 and you can win by playing not to lose.
He is wrong, however, and he keeps being proved wrong when he plays the Bamas and LSUs of the world who have the elite offenses and elite QBs.
Kirby Smart just keeps banging his head against that brick wall.
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Ah, but the strawberries. That’s where I had them….
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ISWYDT…
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I guess you think the last two years of otherworldly offenses from LSU and Bama are the only ways to win? Like, ever again? That might just be recency bias instead of a forever thing. I guess we’ll see. It sure didn’t work out for Ohio St this year. If anybody but Bama wins it all, it doesn’t help the theory. Not a world-beater QB left among the rest. We didn’t have a world-beater QB in 2017 (which is much more recent than 2011), and we came within a hair. I tend to think that could happen again and we finish the job. I’m happy at 12-1 and like our chances.
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To win the National Title at Georgia, you are almost always going to have to beat Bama or a team from the West who has beaten Bama.
Kirby Smart is now 0-5 against such teams not named Auburn, and I’m not counting his first loss to LSU.
So tell me, in your infinite wisdom, or what Kirby keeps doing ISN’T insane, isn’t doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time, then what exactly is it?
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But I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt with geometric logic that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist…
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2017 wasn’t that long ago. I get that we lost in the end. But you’re really threading the needle if your claim is Kirby’s philosophy can get us to within 2nd and 26 of a title, but never all the way.
I think Kirby gets it. He’s signing and bringing in 5-star QBs. Unfortunately, sometimes those guys aren’t that good (Eason, Spencer Rattler, DJ at Clemson, etc). Ohio St let Burrow walk. Mullen had Trask on the bench until injury. Nobody is perfect with QB predictions or analysis. I’m giving him benefit of doubt. He doesn’t think JT or Brock are better than Stet right now. It’s unfortunate, but I think he’s aware of the problem and importance of the position.
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It’s not about talent. It’s about philosophy. Some people here in this very posting are talking about how our receivers aren’t any good. Look at all the stars, I’d say! It’s not the athletes we have, it’s Kirby’s offensive philosophy, which is to play not to lose. Which is to throw 20 times a game and run 40 times a game and play defense. At no point in almost six full seasons has Kirby run an offense that approaches what is needed to beat Bama.
We have the athletes to run an offense like Bama has. Like LSU had. Like Tosu has. Kirby chooses not to run that kind of offense, because he is risk-adverse and he refuses to learn the lessons from that 2017 loss where he took his foot off the gas in the fourth quarter and let Bama back in the game. Just like he did the next year. In 2019 and 2020 and last week, there wasn’t a chance to let anyone back because our defense got the doors blown off by great offenses led by great QBs, and our own plodding offense led by our less-talented walk-on QB couldn’t catch-up.
Philosophy, not talent. We have the talent. What we don’t have is the will to deploy them correctly, because that’s not how Kirby wants to play offense at Georgia.
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“This is the captain speaking. Some misguided sailors on this ship still think they can pull a fast one on me. Well they’re very much mistaken. Since you’ve taken this course the innocent will be punished with the guilty. There will be no liberty for any member of this crew for three months. I will not be made a fool of. Do you hear me.”
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Not really buying that. I think Kirby knows we need to score more than the other guys to win. Every coach plays offense a little differently up 14 in the 2nd half, including Saban on us this year. They got to 31 and stopped. There are a lot of coaches who only emphasize having a great offense. Mullen, Riley, Leach, Kiffin, Malzahn, Chip Kelly. Hell Mike Gundy before he saw it would only take him so far. I’m yet to see any of those guys holding a trophy. I see nothing distinguishing Kirby’s philosophy from Dabo or Saban.
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“The weird part is that folks think that Kirby wouldn’t play the guy he thinks gives the best team the chance to win.”
I think Kirby wants to win. I know Kirby wants to win. What I am not sure about is whether he knows all that it takes to win. The Alabama situation was foreseeable. It could be prepared for, but I am not confident that it was prepared for; at least, I can’t see it. In law school professors would caution about things that were “traps for the unwary”, but one professor (my favorite, actually) correctly pointed out that anything was a trap for the unwary. If he really wants to win, he needs a Plan B. And maybe a Plan C. And if it comes to it, he needs to willing to pull the trigger. That’s all I am saying.
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You were a Sentell Scholar! We are a proud fraternity.
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👍
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Quick passes to the outside open up the run game. SBIV also tries to hit longer balls and often forces them when the game is tight. I give Smart near 0% chance of beating Bama with SBIV.
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I was willing to chalk up the bumbling management of the QBs to “bad luck” as late as last year’s Newman transfer….but at this point…
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Football isn’t played in a vacuum. There are factors and issues that none of us fans will ever catch a whiff of. That said, there ARE small puffs of smoke coming from B-M on the JT Daniels front. Specifics are impossible to come by and I’m not sure it would be beneficial if they did.
Based on a season’s worth of production and public team dynamics, it’s not apparent to me that Kirby is starting the wrong QB. It’s not the QB many want, but it’s the one we got.
I’m still not convinced that, even if healthy with no issues, that Daniels is out playing Stetson in practice, by the way.
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You really can’t just bench a guy sitting at the top of the charts in passer rating, yards per attempt, stuff like that. Offense is in some ways a victim of its own success on that front. The solution to that problem would be to hit the time machine, go back about six weeks, and re-open the position in actual games until a clear winner emerged.
Stetson’s not good enough to erase team deficits in other areas. Those collections of 5 stars are going to have put him in a position where he can play to this strengths. And hope the collections of 5 stars on the other team don’t force him to lean on his lesser skills.
Hay’s in the barn on this one, I think. 3rd time’s the charm?
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No reasonable person believes Kirby wants to put a lesser QB as his starter. But Kirby’s not telling us what’s up and we should be OK with that. If he’s putting Bennett out there, then I have to assume that’s our best option. At least we’ve already eaten all the rat poison out there.
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Brooks Austin had these numbers (h/t), but since 2017 Georgia has had only 16 games in which the QB has thrown the ball 30+ times. Georgia is 8-8 in those games with 3 of the losses being against Bama and one against LSU where the opponent made Georgia one dimensional and Georgia’s passing attack couldn’t carry the load.
Bama has thrown 30+ times in ten games in 2021 alone and is 9-1 in those games.
Bryce had 44 attempts in the SECCG. Mac Jones threw the ball 45 times in last year’s CFP title game. Joe Burrow threw it 49 times the year before in the title game. Trevor threw it 32 times in 2018 title game in a 30 point blowout that was over in the 4th quarter.
In looking at game logs for some of these prior championship QBs outside of their biggest games, they had multiple games in which they threw 40 or more times even in blowout victories. Contrast with 2021 Georgia that averaged 23 attempts per game. Yes, those victories were lopsided other than Clemson. However, what it highlights is an offensive philosophy from the head coach to throw the ball as little as possible, run the ball, and control the clock when in fact all the evidence points to the need to have a dynamic passing attack that you don’t shut down once you get a two touchdown lead.
Perhaps the problem with Georgia (and Kirby) isn’t that the person under center is incapable (whoever it is). It is the offensive philosophy that no longer works in 2021 and beyond. If your QB is incapable of throwing 30 to 40 times per game efficiently throughout the season, how can you ask him to do so against the stiffest competition? Maybe if the passing attack isn’t dynamic and efficient and used lethally all season (even when hammering, for example, Florida), it won’t matter whether SBIV or JT is the QB in January. It isn’t this team’s M.O. despite all the evidence at this point that this is what is needed to win at the highest level.
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Which one of those QBs (other than Young obviously) isn’t a starter in the NFL?
Another less trick question, in the last seven meetings with Bama, chart their starting QB, leading RB, and leading WR for those respective seasons. Tell me who isn’t an NFL starter.
There’s something in there that consistent. And something that’s oppositely consistent about Georgia.
If your answer includes “they have significantly more explosive skill players than Georgia year after year.”, you’re on the right track.
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The counter would be that the reason that those players are all starters in the NFL is partly because of the tape that they had from college and the offensive system with an explosive passing attack which, coincidentally, has become more the norm in the NFL. Joe Burrow isn’t the first overall pick if he didn’t huck it all over the field to future NFL type of receivers. Mac Jones certainly isn’t a first round pick without the offensive system that Bama employed last year and DeVonta Smith doesn’t win the Heisman without that system (and Jones isn’t also a finalist). Smith had 98 catches in 2020 through the SEC championship game. Georgia’s top pass catcher is Bowers through the SEC championship game with 47. McConkey is second with less than 30. Smith had over 1,500 receiving yards through the SECCG (and 117 receptions and over 1,850 yards in 13 games in 2020). Bowers has less than 800 and McConkey 430 through the SECCG.
Georgia has four and five star receivers and tight ends just like Alabama that have all the same tangible qualities that Bama’s receivers have coming out of high school. Maybe, and I’m just spit balling here, Alabama’s and LSU’s skill position players are winding up as starters in the NFL because of their college careers and showing what they can do in an offensive system that features the passing game rather than complements the ground game.
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I’d argue that Georgia has had one WR in the same category and no QBs in the same category as Alabama’s over the last 5 seasons.
Hardeman maybe starts at Bama because of his skill set. Pickens is a certainty. Outside of that? I just don’t see it.
I’ll agree with your premise that Georgia is built different. Absolutely. But it also has to do with jimmies and joes. Shane Beamer’s post game comments on Georgia’s defense should’ve equally applied to some of our postgame comments on Bama’s receivers.
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But going back to Milton’s last paragraph, if our receivers aren’t keeping up with Bama’s then we’re being played for fools by the folks who bestow recruiting stars. By stars, we’ve recruited the talent. We just either haven’t coached them up, haven’t employed an offensive system that gives them the best chance to succeed, or haven’t had as talented a QB throwing to them.
I know which answer seems most obvious to me.
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“Georgia gets all those big time recruits. I wonder what happens to them after they get there?”
— paraphrasing SOS
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Based on the play calling you’ve seen all season, what do you think this offense looks like with heathy Pickens, Blaylock, Smith, and Daniels from day 1?
Curious, not trying to lead anyone anywhere where.
My thoughts are that Monken (and Kirby) wanted to make deviled eggs but he’s missing paprika, so he made egg salad instead.
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Fair observations, but which game this season did we need/want a game plan that called for 30+ passes? We’ve loved the soul crushing, game killing drives to end games in the 3rd Q…why abandon on those? Why let JT throw at the end vs. Clemson when a pick six or even quick 3 and out might have let them steal the game back? We were tied 17-17 with 2 minutes to go in the half running a mix of plays…after our tying score, was the feeling “we gotta sling it around more, put in JT” on anyone’s mind?
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I think that the point that Brooks was making, with which I can understand and agree with, is that if the overall offensive system doesn’t feature the passing game prominently as a whole philosophy then beating the LSUs, Ohio States, and Alabamas in today’s game is a 50/50 proposition at best. His point about the 30+ passes (outside of the title games) is that those teams threw the ball all around even when they were hammering other teams. Do I think that if Saban had been playing Clemson in 2021 instead of us and could run out the clock on Clemson in a 10-3 ball game by pounding the run? Certainly. Just because teams have a particular philosophy offensively doesn’t mean that they can’t adjust situationally. The problem with Georgia appears to be that the offensive philosophy doesn’t allow Georgia to adjust situationally to throw the ball 30 to 40 times per game when they absolutely have to due to the circumstances.
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Matt Hinton’s main point in that SDS article is Saban has built an offense that can win any type of game he finds himself playing. Kirby’s built an offense that can only win one type of game.
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Pretty well sums it up.
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I’m not really adding anything here, just wanted to point out Cade McNamara’s stat line vs tOSU:
19-13 68.4% 159 yrds 8.4 avg 0 TDs 1 INT 128.18 passer rating
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That was just to keep them honest. OSUs run defense was as bad or worse than the gators.
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Kirby wants to beat Bama and win a natty, but he isn’t likely to do that with an average QB and an elite defense. Kirby knows this but he keeps letting himself get stuck in this spot.
He needed to be developing an elite QB for the playoffs all season, but instead he gave a ton of reps to Stetson hoping he would be enough.
If JT is injured then it needed to be Beck, and if Beck stinks it needed to be Vandergriff, but somebody with a high ceiling needed to be playing UAB, USC, Vandy, etc to be ready to play in the postseason.
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Anybody else think that playing two crappy opponents prior to the SECCG didn’t do us any favors? Alabama had an “Oh Shit” moment at Auburn which woke them up while we sleep-walked our last two games. Just a thought…
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Clemson 2018 played nobody down the stretch. They acknowledged later that they assumed they would see Bama in the playoffs and worked some on that specific opponent for over a month.
And maybe doing that gets into a team’s head, I don’t know. But on the surface, looked like a steep advantage for Kirby at the time?
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See the Clemson QB…he was generational.
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He was a true freshman who was starting his 8th game, riding an absurdly talented defense and running game.
Point being: they baited Bama’s QB into two bad picks, one of them a pick 6, by giving him pre-snap looks and then jumping his preferences off those looks. Had answers for everything Bama wanted to do in the red zone. Gave up about 450 yards but only 16 points. And Clemson’s offense knew exactly who it wanted to attack on big downs, put in a lot of formations and motions to isolate them.
Saban’s lost games to QB having insane days, but they were just flat out out-coached that game. And Clemson’s players said they’d been working on Bama well back into the regular season.
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Maybe that is result of playing in a lesser conference like the ACC. It lets you spend time during the season practicing for a playoff game instead of the upcoming game.
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Which is where this conversation started: was the FCS/GT ending to the regular season a good thing (more prep time for Bama) or a bad thing (lost their edge?)
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So Daniels was hurt, and then when he was healthy he was only allowed a few passes in mop-up duty against Mizzou and Charleston Southern where he was likely told to take it easy on them.
Sounds like context, to me.
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I swear if our current QB room full of stars empties out in 4 weeks I’m going to throw a brick through a window.
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Beck is almost assuredly gone. Can’t see him staying the way the season played out.
And I’ll just add this – don’t be surprised if JT transfers at the end of the year.
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In the Clemson game JT looked extremely nervous before the game and played that way. There were open receivers down field yet he chose the shorter safer options. Couple that with interviews where de discusses mental health and I wonder if there is a confidence issue at play. SB3 certainly does not lack there.
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He was hurt before the Clemson game. This has been common knowledge for awhile. It’s why he played poorly.
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The good news is that we get to argue about this shit daily for another 3 weeks. Bluto gonna be paying for that new Bronco from the site’s hits in December alone….;)
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What really sucks (to me) is that this year is really the year to get Bama. Next year that all world, best class ever will start seeing meaningful time across the board for them and Young, who is already pretty dang good, will only get better.
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I would really like to know if there is a difference in Monken’s play selection in his previous coaching stents compared to the current season. It would seem if there is a discernable difference for instance in pass/rush ratio and tendency to throw on first and second downs this year as opposed to previous years that it may suggest he has less freedom and someone else is calling the shots in the name of “balance”. (Of course it could mean something entirely different.) Thoughts?
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