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Second-guessing is second nature to college football fans, and there’s been a nonstop torrent of it in the Bulldog Nation ever since about midway through the second quarter of last Saturday night’s Georgia-Clemson game.
Talking with Georgia fans in the days since the opening loss, I’ve heard a pretty consistent chorus:
Why did Mike Bobo keep trying to run the ball up the middle when it wasn’t working? Why didn’t he make adjustments against Clemson’s blitz more quickly? Why can’t the Dogs’ offensive line pass protect or open up holes for the backs? Did all that moving around Will Friend has been doing with his players make a veteran — if not spectacularly talented — OL worse? Did Todd Grantham’s defense forget how to tackle?
And then there’s the ever-popular: Why can’t Aaron Murray win a “big” game?
Of course, that last trope ignores two straight victories Murray has engineered over Florida in Jacksonville (even with last year’s terrible first half). And if you look at the “big” games where Murray supposedly hasn’t gotten it done, a consistent factor is poor protection on the part of his offensive line.
It’s also true that most (though not all) of us raising these questions have never coached football and aren’t there at Georgia’s closed practices, so we don’t really know what all goes into the thinking of Bobo and the other coaches.
Let’s face it, an offense that racks up more than 500 yards and scores 35 points against a Top 10 team obviously is doing a few things right. And while even the coaches considered the tackling against Clemson to be poor (and addressed it with more contact work in practice this week), no one really expected Georgia’s inexperienced defenders to be able to stop the Tigers’ uptempo offense.
Granted, emotions run high after a high-profile loss and there’s also a certain amount of overreaction going on here. Georgia lost a game by 3 points to a really good team, and had it not been for some key penalties and a botched snap in the second half the Dogs might well have won the game. OK, let’s rephrase that: Georgia should have won that game.
Still, that doesn’t mean there isn’t something to the wisdom of the crowd, and the hope here is that against South Carolina we’ll see a game plan that will play more to Georgia’s strengths and minimize its weaknesses.
Like recognizing that this offensive line has some talent deficiencies and dealing with the defensive pressure that everyone knows will be coming from Jadeveon Clowney and company by calling more bootlegs, rollouts, quick slants or screen passes. Also, making quicker adjustments to what the other team is doing.
The crowd’s also right about Bobo’s need to open up Georgia’s running game with more sweeps. The middle of the Dogs’ OL just isn’t getting it done.
On defense, the return of Josh Harvey-Clemons will certainly help, but Grantham still needs to figure out a way to improve the Dogs’ perpetually porous run defense. True, Marcus Lattimore, who ran roughshod over Georgia the past three years, is gone. But his replacement, Mike Davis, had a pretty good day carrying the ball against North Carolina.
And as Georgia found out last year in Columbia, South Carolina quarterback Connor Shaw is a legitimate dual threat with those zone reads. The quarterback draw is a big play for the Gamecocks, but I’m sure Grantham is planning on keeping a spy on Shaw. (If not, he can be sure he’ll hear plenty about it next week.)
Yes, dealing with Clowney and the South Carolina pass rush is a must, but I think the most important thing the Dogs have to do in order to win Saturday’s game is contain Shaw.
As for the Bulldogs’ offense, as I told a friend the other day, I’m not nearly so down on Murray as many fans are. I remember how great he was in the Bama game, even if it wasn’t quite enough. It was the defense that let us down against the Tide. And if the OL had played even an adequate game against Clemson, I think Georgia comes out on top. Yeah, Murray was a little off-target to start with (though Michael Bennett’s great hands allowed a couple of those still to be completions) but for the most part
I think the Dogs’ quarterback played well enough to win.
Still, looking ahead to this Saturday I’m really concerned how the OL will handle the Gamecocks’ rush and hope that Bobo is scheming to deal with that and won’t wait too late, like he did against Clemson (as the crowd says). Maybe Georgia should come out with Murray in the shotgun throwing lots of quick passes to loosen up the defense. Perhaps some screens to Keith Marshall, who appears to need more space to get going. I think Bobo needs to extend plays by moving Murray around more. I’ve seen him throw some absolutely terrific passes while rolling out. Why keep him sitting in the pocket as a target for Clowney?
The Gamecocks’ strength is their defensive line, but their linebackers are relatively inexperienced. The odds favor the Dogs whenever they can get the ball past that line, whether it’s with Todd Gurley and Marshall running the ball or Murray getting it to his very talented receivers or dumping it off to a tight end or talented young fullback Quayvon Hicks. South Carolina isn’t Clemson offensively, so Steve Spurrier likely will find himself outgunned in a scoring shootout.
Despite the disappointment over the Clemson game, I found a resilient strain of optimism among Georgia fans this week. The feeling seems to be that if we see anywhere near the improvement that you generally get between Games 1 and 2 with the defense, Georgia should be able to come out on top in another closely fought match.
So, enough with rehashing the Clemson game. What do you think Georgia needs to do to beat South Carolina?
Go Dawgs!
— Bill King, Junkyard Blawg ajc.com
Talking with Georgia fans in the days since the opening loss, I’ve heard a pretty consistent chorus:
Why did Mike Bobo keep trying to run the ball up the middle when it wasn’t working? Why didn’t he make adjustments against Clemson’s blitz more quickly? Why can’t the Dogs’ offensive line pass protect or open up holes for the backs? Did all that moving around Will Friend has been doing with his players make a veteran — if not spectacularly talented — OL worse? Did Todd Grantham’s defense forget how to tackle?
And then there’s the ever-popular: Why can’t Aaron Murray win a “big” game?
Of course, that last trope ignores two straight victories Murray has engineered over Florida in Jacksonville (even with last year’s terrible first half). And if you look at the “big” games where Murray supposedly hasn’t gotten it done, a consistent factor is poor protection on the part of his offensive line.
It’s also true that most (though not all) of us raising these questions have never coached football and aren’t there at Georgia’s closed practices, so we don’t really know what all goes into the thinking of Bobo and the other coaches.
Let’s face it, an offense that racks up more than 500 yards and scores 35 points against a Top 10 team obviously is doing a few things right. And while even the coaches considered the tackling against Clemson to be poor (and addressed it with more contact work in practice this week), no one really expected Georgia’s inexperienced defenders to be able to stop the Tigers’ uptempo offense.
Granted, emotions run high after a high-profile loss and there’s also a certain amount of overreaction going on here. Georgia lost a game by 3 points to a really good team, and had it not been for some key penalties and a botched snap in the second half the Dogs might well have won the game. OK, let’s rephrase that: Georgia should have won that game.
Still, that doesn’t mean there isn’t something to the wisdom of the crowd, and the hope here is that against South Carolina we’ll see a game plan that will play more to Georgia’s strengths and minimize its weaknesses.
Like recognizing that this offensive line has some talent deficiencies and dealing with the defensive pressure that everyone knows will be coming from Jadeveon Clowney and company by calling more bootlegs, rollouts, quick slants or screen passes. Also, making quicker adjustments to what the other team is doing.
The crowd’s also right about Bobo’s need to open up Georgia’s running game with more sweeps. The middle of the Dogs’ OL just isn’t getting it done.
On defense, the return of Josh Harvey-Clemons will certainly help, but Grantham still needs to figure out a way to improve the Dogs’ perpetually porous run defense. True, Marcus Lattimore, who ran roughshod over Georgia the past three years, is gone. But his replacement, Mike Davis, had a pretty good day carrying the ball against North Carolina.
And as Georgia found out last year in Columbia, South Carolina quarterback Connor Shaw is a legitimate dual threat with those zone reads. The quarterback draw is a big play for the Gamecocks, but I’m sure Grantham is planning on keeping a spy on Shaw. (If not, he can be sure he’ll hear plenty about it next week.)
Yes, dealing with Clowney and the South Carolina pass rush is a must, but I think the most important thing the Dogs have to do in order to win Saturday’s game is contain Shaw.
As for the Bulldogs’ offense, as I told a friend the other day, I’m not nearly so down on Murray as many fans are. I remember how great he was in the Bama game, even if it wasn’t quite enough. It was the defense that let us down against the Tide. And if the OL had played even an adequate game against Clemson, I think Georgia comes out on top. Yeah, Murray was a little off-target to start with (though Michael Bennett’s great hands allowed a couple of those still to be completions) but for the most part
I think the Dogs’ quarterback played well enough to win.
Still, looking ahead to this Saturday I’m really concerned how the OL will handle the Gamecocks’ rush and hope that Bobo is scheming to deal with that and won’t wait too late, like he did against Clemson (as the crowd says). Maybe Georgia should come out with Murray in the shotgun throwing lots of quick passes to loosen up the defense. Perhaps some screens to Keith Marshall, who appears to need more space to get going. I think Bobo needs to extend plays by moving Murray around more. I’ve seen him throw some absolutely terrific passes while rolling out. Why keep him sitting in the pocket as a target for Clowney?
The Gamecocks’ strength is their defensive line, but their linebackers are relatively inexperienced. The odds favor the Dogs whenever they can get the ball past that line, whether it’s with Todd Gurley and Marshall running the ball or Murray getting it to his very talented receivers or dumping it off to a tight end or talented young fullback Quayvon Hicks. South Carolina isn’t Clemson offensively, so Steve Spurrier likely will find himself outgunned in a scoring shootout.
Despite the disappointment over the Clemson game, I found a resilient strain of optimism among Georgia fans this week. The feeling seems to be that if we see anywhere near the improvement that you generally get between Games 1 and 2 with the defense, Georgia should be able to come out on top in another closely fought match.
So, enough with rehashing the Clemson game. What do you think Georgia needs to do to beat South Carolina?
Go Dawgs!
— Bill King, Junkyard Blawg ajc.com
