Observations from the 35, War Eagle edition

I’m never going to grouse about pounding the crap out of Auburn — and make no mistake about it, a 32-point win qualifies as such — but I ain’t gonna lie either.  It was a weird day.  How else to describe 42 points, 500 yards of offense… and five punts?

It’s games like this that make me appreciate Smart’s approach to managing this team.  It’s young and feeling its way around.  It’s also crazy talented.  So, while he could raise the temperature in the locker room with a rant or two, he’s getting a far better response by being patient and giving the team space to find itself.  And that’s exactly what it did with a vengeance in the second half.  After the Bennett fumble, it finished with five touchdowns in six possessions before running out the clock.

You can be frustrated with the inconsistencies, especially on offense, but you can also be excited by the prospects of this team getting its shit together.  It would also be nice to get a few injured players back by the Cocktail Party.  And on that note, on to the bullet points.

• The story of the game was Georgia dominating both lines of scrimmage.  You don’t rush for close to 300 yards without the o-line mauling some folks.  And, while Auburn’s offensive line was a hot mess, the Tigers’ defensive line wasn’t bad; they just got ground down as the game went on.  Gap scheme, zone scheme, it didn’t really matter.  The line went out there and did some work.  It was especially fun to watch them repeatedly push the back a few extra yards at the end of plays.  They didn’t allow much penetration behind the line of scrimmage.  Bennett had plenty of time to throw on most of his attempts.  All in all, it was their best game of the season.
• Needless to say, the backs took full advantage of the o-line’s showing.  I feel bad for Kendall Milton, who truly is snake bit and now runs the risk of being Wally Pipp’d by Edwards and Robinson, both of whom showed out.  McIntosh wasn’t bad, but still looks to be hampered by his injury.  (I’m not the coaches, but this would seem to be a good opportunity to hold him out against Vanderbilt and give him two weeks to rest up for Florida.)
• It wasn’t a big day for the wideouts from a receiving standpoint, though they had a fine day blocking (with one glaring exception by Rosemy-Jacksaint, who whiffed on a block that would have sprung McIntosh for a good gain on a swing pass).  Some of that was on them, but Bennett seemed to favor certain targets over others, no matter the coverage.  The biggest mystery to me at this point is why Blaylock isn’t getting more targets.  He’s the best route runner of the group and has great hands.
• The tight ends did their thing — not just Bowers and Washington, but also Delp.  And that was with Auburn’s defense clearly making an effort to take Bowers out of the receiving game.  Bowers only had a couple of catches, but he was a demon in the blocking game.
• Stetson had a tough first half.  Auburn, like Kent State and Missouri, came in with a game plan that assumed Georgia’s downfield passing game wouldn’t pose a threat.  Unlike Missouri, though, it wasn’t built on playing a lot of Cover 0 and being overly aggressive; instead, their safeties played back, as they focused on shutting off Georgia’s perimeter game.  They were quite successful in that regard and it took Bennett a while to gain his bearings.  He missed seeing some open receivers and forced a couple of throws into coverage.  Given that the protection held up most of the day, decisions like that seemed more from frustration than pressure.  He finally found his bearings after his fumble to open the second half.
• Defensively, the front seven turned in a fine game, although I doubt the stats show much, because it seemed like Ashford was throwing the ball away every other snap.  No sacks, but they did get a ton of pressure.  They also shut Bigsby down completely.  Nolan Smith had a spectacular Bigsby TFL.  The only knock I’ve got is not being consistent with contain and allowing Ashford to gain some rushing yardage as a result.  Using Dumas-Johnson to spy on Ashford appeared to cut that down, though.  The ILBs really stepped up in Mondon’s absence.
• Admittedly, as I mentioned before, Auburn’s offensive line didn’t put up a whole lot of resistance, which made their center’s bragging during the week ring especially hollow.  I think they just got flagged again for a false start.
• Coverage in the secondary was solid, with a certain glaring example which shall remain nameless, which significantly contributed to Ashford’s throw the ball away count.  Really, take away that one snafu, and it’s likely Auburn doesn’t gain much more than 200 yards on the day.
• Special teams was something of a mixed bag.  The usually reliable Podlesny whiffed badly on a field goal, but was solid on kickoffs.  McConkey remains an adventure on punt returns, combining a muffed catch he fortunately recovered with a dynamic return that set up Georgia’s second touchdown.  Nolan Smith made a fabulous play to short circuit a puzzling fake punt decision.  And Brett Thorson was the man — five punts, all downed inside the Auburn 20, with no return yardage.
• Monken called a good game.  With Auburn overplaying the perimeter, it was hard getting Bennett untracked, so Georgia stuck with pounding the ball on short fields to get their first two scores.  As I’ve already posted, the call that set up Bennett’s long touchdown run was a fantastic way of turning Auburn’s defensive game plan against them, but I thought Monken’s best job of the day was Georgia’s first scoring drive of the second half, when he started the work to get Bennett untracked.  500 yards of offense and five-for-five on redzone touchdowns is nothing to sneer at.
• The defensive coaches did good work, too.  If Bennett doesn’t fumble and one of three (!) defensive backs at least managed to push Hunter out of bounds, the day likely would have ended with Georgia pitching a shut out.

Bottom line, once this team gets going, it’s hell on wheels.  We’ve seen that in the fourth quarter on the road at Missouri and we saw it in the second half Saturday.  The job from here is finding a way for that to happen earlier in the game.

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