Jordan, Jordan, Jordan…
That mulligan sure came in handy, didn’t it?
Daily Archives: January 8, 2022
TFW you don’t take the game as seriously as the fans do
Filed under Georgia Football, The Body Is A Temple
Still playing the fake juice card, I see.
Jeez, Will. It’s not like Vegas is making it personal.
Yeah, disrespect. That’s Alabama’s problem, alright.
Filed under Alabama, Blowing Smoke
The game plan, she is simple.
It really isn’t rocket science.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!, Strategery And Mechanics
Leadership, respect and a great man in Joel Eaves
It still amazes me what a void there was at the top of the athletic department when Smart was hired. They literally had no clue how to build a football program that could compete at the highest level consistently, despite all the resources at their disposal.
Former Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity, who hired Smart, said his initial conversations with his new coach weren’t as much about what the Bulldogs needed to do to catch Alabama as what they needed to do to consistently win at the highest level.
“You found out really quickly that he wasn’t doing things for the sake of doing it because someone else has this or someone else has that,” McGarity said. “He wasn’t like, ‘They’ve got X-amount of people at Alabama, so I need X-amount of people at Georgia.’ It was a great learning experience for our administration to understand and then develop trust. He does what he says he’s going to do.
“They’re not just crazy ideas, they’re ideas that are well thought out and when you see it in place, it makes sense. Kirby was very articulate and very intentional. But it was never because someone else had this. It was always, ‘We need this for this reason,’ or ‘This is why I need these people for this reason.’ He had a plan, he executed the plan and so far it’s playing out.”
Shortly after Shane Beamer was hired to join Smart’s staff at Georgia in 2016, he noticed something familiar about the way his new boss was structuring his program.
“We literally implemented everything Alabama did, from the weekly schedule with the coaches to the practice schedule to the weight room program to whatever,” said Beamer, now South Carolina’s head coach. “It was identical. He didn’t have to say, ‘This is what Alabama did.’ You knew it. A lot of stuff we used even had the Alabama logo on it and was copy and pasted with the Georgia logo on it.”
Kirby didn’t do that out of some slavish devotion for all things Nick Saban. As Beamer went on to say,
“Give Kirby credit because as he got more and more comfortable, if there was a better way of doing things he would always listen,” Beamer said. “That was six years ago, and I’m sure now there are things they are doing that are better than Alabama. There were things that we did in Year 2 that were different from Alabama. Alabama came up in the sense that they were the SEC champions, they were the team that was at the top in recruiting year in and year out, so that was who you were chasing.”
He did it because nobody in Butts-Mehre had done the work to build a foundation for the football program. Kirby may have his shortcomings, but there’s no question Georgia football is in a much better place now than he found it.
Filed under Georgia Football
“They’re due for the football gods to maybe smile on them this time…”
Jeez, when you’ve found Steve Spurrier…
“I believe Georgia is going to do something different with their defense. After they played the first time, they’re going to say, ‘We can’t sit in these zones, and we’ve got to get pressure on the quarterback somehow,’” said Spurrier, who coached in same-season rematch games five times as the coach at Florida or South Carolina, winning the second installment twice.
While coaches can make adjustments ahead of rematches, like Spurrier did with his swap to the shotgun, he said winning a sequel isn’t about rewriting strategy.
So, what type of team has the advantage in a rematch?
“The best team,” Spurrier said with a chuckle. “The best team has the advantage.”
I dunno. Feels like a set up to me.
Filed under Georgia Football, The Evil Genius
Guarding the slot
Last night, Graham put up a good post on the key matchups to watch Monday night, with supporting stats. I’m probably getting close to continuing to smack the deceased equine about it, but his first one is my biggest concern.
Alabama’s WR’s vs UGA’s Slot DB/Star Position – The good news for Georgia? There’s no John Metchie in this matchup. Metchie turned in 6 receptions for 97 yards and a TD in just under a half of play before tearing his ACL in the first game between these two teams. While we hate to see any player get injured, there’s no doubt that not having him on the field changes the calculus in this game quite a bit. Jameson Williams will still be on the field, and with 7 catches for 186 yards and 2 TD’s he too toasted Georgia in the first game.
However dealing with one elite WR is a whole lot easier than trying to guard two. In game one Georgia actually held up pretty well on the boundaries.
Kelee Ringo: 6 TGT/2 REC, 63 YDS, 1 TD, 5 YAC
Derion Kendrick: 5 TGT/3 REC, 27 YDS, 9 YAC
If you told Georgia they were going to go into a game against Alabama and their boundary corners would only give up one big play and 5 receptions they would take it every single time. The problem in matchup one came when UGA had to guard the middle of the field. William Poole III got his first career start in the SEC Championship, and Alabama hunted him all day.
Poole: 11 TGT’s/9 REC’s, 164 YDS, 2 TD’s, 111 YAC allowed
Yikes, that’s abusive.
Graham thinks they’ll be using Brini and Smith some at the Star to reduce the risk and maybe he’s right, but the whispering I’ve heard this past week is that the coaches are still all in on Poole (the same whispers say he’s looked much better in practice, for what that’s worth). There aren’t any perfect options. Brini has had issues with speed in the open field, although I thing he’s terrific in short field/red zone situations. If you play Smith at the Star, that means you’ve got Jackson at safety, and he also isn’t built to handle the speed of ‘Bama’s wideouts.
In any event, if, like me, you believe Georgia isn’t built to win shootouts, your first concern shouldn’t be Stetson Bennett, but the leaky sieve in the defensive secondary. Let’s hope Smart and Lanning have figured out a way to patch it up.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!, Strategery And Mechanics
Today’s stat of the day
It’s not just Georgia, peeps.
Mash that gas pedal, Kirbs.
Filed under Stats Geek!
Get The Picture 