Your ‘Cocky game day post

Might as well start with Matt Hinton’s take:

… Georgia’s defense has betrayed no hints of regressing to the mean, and Spencer Rattler is well below the Mendoza line in both pass efficiency and total QBR. The Gamecocks do have an intriguing weapon in WR Antwane Wells Jr., a decorated FCS transfer who had a breakout afternoon at Arkansas with 189 yards and 1 touchdown on 8 catches …

… but assuming Carolina’s defense isn’t about to transform into an elite unit overnight, it’s going to take a lot more than a couple of highlight-reel plays to make a dent.

And Graham has reviewed SC game tape so I don’t have to.

When South Carolina has the ball it all starts and ends with the offensive line. Last year they couldn’t block Georgia, and I don’t think they will have too much success doing so on Saturday either. The Gamecocks best chance is to bomb it down the sideline and let their WR’s hopefully make a big play or two in the even Ringo doesn’t get his head around.

South Carolina won’t be able to run the ball on Georgia with any consistency.

What the Gamecocks will try to do is run screens and underneath crossing routes. UGA struggled with both of those concepts at times against Oregon. In particular the young LB’s looked lost on some of UGA’s zone coverages. They looked much better defending in those schemes against Samford and I think UGA will be assignment sound on Saturday.

In terms of knowing assignments in pass coverage, the defense showed significant improvement in week two.  In terms of generating pressure behind the line of scrimmage, ditto.  That doesn’t bode well for a Gamecock offense that’s really going to struggle to avoid becoming one-dimensional.

I know it’s Columbia and on occasion strange things have happened there.  That being said, the disparity in Georgia’s favor on both lines of scrimmage make it hard to believe (barring a turnoverfest, of course) a repeat is coming today.

I like the Dawgs to cover the spread.  How ’bout you?  Have at it in the comments.

Advertisement

Your non-Dawg game day post

Here’s today’s smorgasbord of games:

Busy day, eh?

• Oklahoma at Nebraska might be a fun watch, at least for a little while, to see how the team responds to Frost’s departure.
• BYU at Oregon.  Are the Ducks making any progress under Lanning after getting undressed in the opener?
• Ole Miss at Georgia Tech.  Heh.
• Penn State at Auburn.  Does Harsin make a statement or do the wheels start coming off the wagon this week?
• Miami at Texas A&M.  Jimbo changed quarterbacks.  Will that be enough to avoid a disastrous second loss?

What do y’all want to see?

A tale of two offensive lines

Yikes, ‘Cocks.

TAMU: The best damn team in the SEC at moving backwards entering Week 3https://t.co/ZenJMljuye pic.twitter.com/tTdgLCgj22

— Clark Brooks (@SEC_StatCat) September 16, 2022

Sweating the small stuff

Totally get this:

#UGA brought their own Air conditioners for the visiting locker room after the last trip to Columbia.

— Rusty Mansell (@Mansell247) September 17, 2022

Shit, that ought to be an evergreen tweet.  In September, it’s always like the surface of the sun in that joint.

Top heavy

Hell, man, this ain’t nothin’ a 12-team CFP can’t fix:

The College Football Playoff race is looking chalky at the top.

So much so that the Allstate Playoff Predictor has never been this confident in Week 3 on the top three teams’ individual chances to land a berth to the playoff.

Never in the model’s five-year history has it had three teams with at least a 70% chance each to reach the playoff ahead of Week 3 the way it currently does with Alabama (84%), Ohio State (80%) and Georgia (70%). And the cumulative 233% chance is also higher than the top three teams at this stage since and including 2018, when the Allstate Playoff Predictor began.

Maybe they should have a 12-team playoff to determine who should be the fourth team in the real playoff.

The further adventures of run the damn ball

Weiszer:

Georgia has run the ball on 57 of 137 offensive plays. That’s just 41.6 percent of the time.

“As an offensive line, we’re always focused running the ball,” McClendon said. “We want to be physical and come off the ball, but in certain situations you have to be ready to pass.”

Georgia ranks 92nd nationally in rushing offense at 129.5 per game but 10th in total offense at 525.0.

According to Kirby, there have been a lot of those situations.

Smart said that anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of plays Georgia ends up passing are run plays.

“And they can be very successful run plays,” he said. “The question is: Are they more successful as a run play or more successful when we decide to throw the ball out of that run play? So the evaluation, for us, is those plays are running plays. And a lot of times, we put them in rushing yardage. Because they’re actually replacing rushing yardage.”

Georgia’s 4.54 yards per carry ranks 61st nationally. That’s down from 5.26 when it was 14th last season.

The linemen quoted in his piece seem to think execution has been lacking, but can (and will) be cleaned up.

The good news is that they’ve got a hoss to build around.

Current #SEC RB leaders in yards per carry (min. 15 carries):

Kendall Milton, #Georgia – 8.1
Quinshon Judkins, #OleMiss – 8.0
Montrell Johnson, #Florida – 7.2
Tank Bigsby, #Auburn – 6.9
Jahmyr Gibbs, #Bama – 6.4
Raheim Sanders, #Arkansas – 6.3

— Brent Rollins (@BrentRollinsPhD) September 16, 2022

Down two

Not the news I wanted to start the day with:

As we first reported on Monday morning, AD Mitchell will not play tomorrow and he is not making the trip to Columbia.

Sources tell @DawgsCentral_ that the timeline for his return to the lineup is 3-5 weeks post-injury

— Graham Coffey (@DawgOutWest) September 16, 2022

With the 85-scholarship limit in college football, along with the limit on the number of players teams can take to away games, it leaves some difficult decisions for coaches in college football to decide who they want to take on the road with them.

Usually, it is players dealing with injuries and walk-ons who have not made the depth chart.

According to sources Friday evening, Georgia’s Arik Gilbert did not make the trip to Columbia, South Carolina, for Saturday’s game against South Carolina.