The class of ’24 has its long snappah commit.
I know some of y’all were worried about it. You can rest easy now.
Monthly Archives: July 2023
“Body out of control, it was just stupid.”
Things changed for George Pickens forever when he realized that he could just knock guys on their asses. It was his freshman year at Georgia, and Pickens noticed that in the first milliseconds after the snap, cornerbacks sat in a “toilet” position. So he just started pushing them down.
“That’s part of my game, the absurdness,” Pickens says. “Nobody ever thought to do this. Cornerbacks are worried about their feet, their hand placement, and they don’t realize they are on their heels in a seated chair position. All I have to do is push. And that was a shock to everybody because people are like, ‘It’s not illegal, but I never thought to do it.’ So it’s become one of my go-tos.”
Okay, so maybe that’s not exactly what he was referring to.
Anyway, read the whole thing. There’s more stuff about his Georgia days in it.
Filed under Georgia Football
Georgia on his mind
I tell you what — Jim Harbaugh sure has been thinking a lot about the Georgia football program. In addition to instituting the Beat Georgia drill, he’s got his eye on another mark UGA set ($$).
“I think we’ll have 20 guys picked (in the next NFL draft),” Harbaugh told me. “I bet we break that (draft) record. (Georgia) had 15 that year.”
Consider my eyebrow raised. That’s a bold statement coming from the coach whose team is ranked 14th in Bud Elliott’s Blue Chip Ratio. The more important question is whether Michigan has the goods to win a national title with that roster. You can’t dismiss their chances — as Feldman notes, they’ve whipped a more talented Ohio State team two years in a row now — but still, talent is talent, as this neutral observer explains.
NBC’s Todd Blackledge, the analyst for three Michigan games in 2022, including its lone loss of the season against TCU, has also called a lot of Alabama and Georgia games. He offered a nuanced take on whether not having enough top-rated recruits will prevent a team from winning a national title.
“I think I read some of those same things, and I get where they’re coming from,” said the former NFL QB. “I do think that Georgia and Alabama are a breed apart. The way they’ve recruited year-in and year-out. The way they continue to reload and never rebuild. When Clemson was winning national players, they had some elite players, but I don’t know if that roster top to bottom was as good. But they (Clemson) had the right pieces in place.
“I think Michigan is very talented. I don’t know if they’re as talented top to bottom as Ohio State, but I do think Michigan has a championship culture and I think they have a physical toughness. To me, that has been the bigger difference the last two years. Michigan has some intangibles that make them a special team. Is that enough to win a national championship? I think they have a quarterback now who is capable of leading them to that. He’s seasoned and he’s the leader. I don’t see elite wide receivers, but they’ve been excellent on the offensive line, got excellent running backs, excellent tight ends and defensively, they are talented. I think they’re capable.”
That’s a nice way of saying, “probably not”. We’ll see.
Filed under Georgia Football, Heard About Harbaugh?
Pick a flaw, any flaw
You may think the three-peat is a matter of inevitability, but, let’s face it, there are no guarantees in life. Seth Emerson ($$) lists three things that may trip up Georgia along the way this season:
- Quarterback (no crunch time game experience)
- Defensive line (plenty of experience, but no superstars)
- Schedule (does UGA have a problem with motivation?)
Surprisingly, he doesn’t blame Bobo. (I keed, I keed… I think.)
With regard to his list, I tend to think the schedule will be the quarterbacks’ (and, yes, I’m using the plural there) friend in 2023. There is sufficient time for someone, presumably Beck, to grow into the position. Besides that, with the wealth of surrounding talent around whoever starts there, Georgia doesn’t need a superstar, just someone who can play within him self and not cost the team any games.
Defensive line is the lowest concern of mine on his list. There’s too much depth and talent (on all three levels, honestly) for the Dawgs not to put forward an effective defense.
As far as the schedule and complacency go, yeah, I can see the argument there. Georgia almost got tripped up by Missouri last year and would have lost to a team with a better offense. Ohio State would have won with a healthy Harrison, Jr. a better defense. That said, Kirby has proven himself to be a master at motivating this team.
If you have to pick a concern, either one Seth cited, or something else, what would it be?
Filed under Georgia Football
Your Daily Gator is chagrined.
Imagine presenting this piece to a Gator fan after the 2020 season.
1. Kirby Smart (Georgia)
Last year: No. 2
Nobody is recruiting, retaining and developing talent better than Smart. No team is playing defense better than Georgia. Smart has implemented the Alabama blueprint to perfection. And if Smart, 47, leads Georgia to the NCAA’s first three-peat since the 1930s, he’ll have achieved something his old boss never did.
Nobody’s better at developing talent than Kirby Smart? Ah, how quickly we’ve consigned the Portal Master™ to the ash heap of history.
Filed under Gators, Gators..., Georgia Football
Again, with the gaps?
Another sighted in Columbia, South Carolina:
“We got a lot of work to do,” Beamer told CBS Sports at the SEC Media Days. There are some great teams in the SEC East. You could point to any of those teams and say that they’ve got a chance to challenge Georgia. We’re all trying to close the gap with Georgia, without a doubt. But when you have a quarterback, it gives you an opportunity. We’ve got a really good quarterback.”
You probably don’t need reminding, but last year Spencer Rattler turned in a turd of a performance against Georgia (13-25, 118 yards, 0 TD, 2 INT), in fact, his worst showing of the season. He wound up being benched late in the game.
That’s some opportunity you’ve got there, Shane. Good luck with that gap closing.
Filed under 'Cock Envy, Georgia Football
Not so amusing after all
Regarding that Georgia period they’ve initiated in practice, I may have to dial the Michigan mockery back. This is pretty flattering.
The Bulldogs have firmly established themselves as college football’s best, prompting Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh to implement a ‘Beat Georgia’ drill during the team’s practices this offseason.
“In order to be the guy, you’ve got to beat the guy,” Michigan senior defensive tackle Kris Jenkins said at Big Ten Media Days on Thursday. “In order to get to that point, we have to be able to build emphasis on places where we’ve lacked in the past. That continues to be building ourselves up and continuing to work on different things.”
The drill, which became news in June, consists of intense work in the trenches on both sides of the ball, according to Harbaugh.
“The emphasis is stopping the run and being able to run the ball when the other team knows you’re going to run the ball,” Harbaugh said on Thursday. “That’s what I really respect about that team — their ability to run the ball when the other team knows they’re running the ball.”
… Harbaugh will look to lead his team back to the College Football Playoff for a third consecutive season, where it figures to meet Georgia.
“Georgia is at the top right now,” Corum said on Thursday. “And if we want to be at the top, we’ve got to beat them. So, just implementing a Georgia drill, just keeping that in the back of our mind… just reminding us that, ‘hey, we’ve got more work to do.'”
Rat poison? I dunno. But it’s definitely not bulletin board material for Georgia’s offseason.
Filed under Georgia Football, Heard About Harbaugh?
The continuing saga of fine for me, not for thee
Ahem.
Let’s see if I’ve got this straight.
Schools can move to a new conference whenever they like, if the money is there, and that’s cool.
Coaches can move to a new team whenever they like, if the money is there, and that’s cool.
Player movement, if the money is there, is a bad thing and Congress needs to put their foot down to limit that.
I guess this would be a lot worse if the folks in charge weren’t doing this for the kids.
Filed under It's Just Bidness
Balanced
Something Bud Elliott tweeted yesterday got me to thinking.
That feels right. Nobody in the new Big 12 is going to be a year-in, year-out CFP threat, yet that conference looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun to watch. As David Wunderlich put it,
There is something to be said for conference stability and balance — maybe not for us Georgia fans currently, but if you were a fan of a Big 12 program, would it be so bad to train your focus on the conference race during the regular season? Honestly, that feels kind of old school. In a good way, that is…
Filed under Big 12 Football
The woulda national champion
If you tell yourself something often enough, you’ll come to believe it.
Javon Bullard’s hit on Marvin Harrison Jr. in the third quarter of the CFP title game turned the lights out on Ohio State’s championship hopes and is still being talked about more than six months later.
Harrison told CBS Sports at Big Ten Media Days that, “Yes,” had he played, “I think we go on to win that game against Georgia, and I like our chances in the national championship.”
Too bad it’s not that easy to change reality.
Filed under BCS/Playoffs, Big Ten Football, Georgia Football
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