(Image: Jim Hipple)
The Gamecocks played a good game, and their secondary in particular played better than I expected. I don't want to take away from them, but once again the biggest culprit in this defeat was our own team.
Same song different verse
On offense...WRs dropping balls, QBs missing open men, and OL blocking problems. On defense a complete inability to stop the run directly up the middle and almost no production from the SAM or MIKE. If you thought the ending looked like UGA vs. UK last year, it did to me as well.
Many of the problems are correctable:
-- Dropped Passes: The Top 3 WRs (Bailey, Mo Mass and Henderson) have shown a consistent ability to catch the ball this season. Massaquaoi's catch on 3rd and 25 was as money as any catch that you'll ever see in college football. The other guys...not so much. Get the ball to our legit play makers with the game on the line, and we can improve here. I'll never understand why we are throwing the ball to our seventh best WR according to the depth chart, with the game on the line.
-- Play Calling: To borrow a line...Bobo is essentially a freshman when it comes to calling plays. There are going to be growing pains. Norm Chow wasn't Norm Chow when he was a 32 year old. I thought we got way too cutesy on the two fourth down plays, but there were other exceptional play calling moments like the wheel route to Moreno and the heaviest use of the Toss Sweep in Richt's entire career at UGA. (Clock Management will be covered later)
-- OL Play: This will get better over time, but it likely won't get better fast enough to solve all our problems. We start two freshman OL. Saturday night is what happens when you do that in the SEC. If you're looking for encouragement here, you should've seen the LSU vs. VT game. I watched it late tonight on DVR. Coach Searels recruited all those kids for the Cajuns, and they are dominating.
-- MIKE: When Ellerbe is playing Middle Linebacker (MIKE), we're solid to very good. Unfortunately, he spent most of the night at WILL as Marcus Washington secured the quietest 3 solo tackles in history. I haven't watched Dewberry close enough to see why he doesn't play more at WLB. But we've got to find a way to get faster guys than Washington on the field.
Some Problems are Tougher to Make Go Away
-- Clock Management: In the Ok State game, I actually agreed with the first half decision to let the clock run down when OSU had the ball. Gundy is known for being a gunslinger, and they are the heavy underdog. Why let them contemplate a trick play before the half? BUT, the decision to not use the timeout on 3rd down with two minutes to go vs. SC was dumb. It's just basic math there. (BTW -- I have no problem with kicking a field goal on 4th and 15 with 4 minutes to play and two timeouts. Plus, it sorta worked. We stopped them. If we had managed our timeouts properly, we would've gotten the ball back with around 1:45 or more left which would've been plenty of time to attempt a drive).-- OL Play: We don't own a time machine to make these talented young guys older faster.
-- SAM: Brandon Miller had 1 solo tackle. Once again, we get very little from the strong side linebacker spot. That's a trend that has marked the arrival of Coach Janeck in 2005.
-- Youth: Do you remember Paul Oliver vs. Tennessee in 2004 or Tim Wansley vs. Joe Hamilton in 1999? Even exceptionally talented CBs often struggle well into their sophomore years. Bryan Evans (losing the ball in the air several times) and Asher Allen (tackling) seemed to really struggle in this one. Only time and game reps will solve that.
-- Getting Mauled in the Middle: I have no idea from a scheme or personnel standpoint why we're getting so obliterated at the line of scrimmage for long stretches. I want to put it on LB play, but the DTs have to make some plays as well. I also don't understand why we were in the nickel when SC got the ball back with 4 minutes left in the game. Did Martinez actually think they would pass? It took three first downs on that drive to bring the 3rd linebacker into the game and bring CJ Byrd into the box to defend the up the gut run.Overall:
When you don't know what your young OL will give you from play to play, it wrecks your game planning. You end up attempting to be or being forced to be something that you're not. When you add bad passing, poor catching and penalties to the mix, it's an explosively bad combo. No one consistently looks good calling plays on 3rd and 10.
Stafford played poorly at times, but he put the throws on the money when it mattered most in the 4th quarter. He showed a lot of leadership is taking all the blame at the end. But a more realistic situation involves spreading some of that onto his OL who didn't give him enough time early on, his coaches who abandoned the run at times and his WRs who dropped way too many passes.
I want to be annoyed with the defense. However, if you hold the other guy to 16 points...you should win.
Look at the bright side:
Auburn looks much more beatable now.
See Also
-- Richt says don't play the blame game - AJC
-- Kyle King's pretty different take - DawgSports.com
-- Lack of experience vexes Dawgs - ABH
-- In hindsight - Ching
PWD
(All images from Jim Hipple)
21 comments:
I certainly appreciate your blog and want to thank you for the time that everyone spends writing these articles.
If I may interject a few things about this past weekend. It seems as if I want to blame someone but can't find anyone to blame. Whether it was dropped passes or sluggish attitudes or even inconsistent play there does not seem to be any conclusive evidence that one of these things should have lost us the game.
Traditionally I don't hold to the theory that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts but it seems to me that clearly this is the case with the events that transpired last Saturday.
Upon watching the game on DVR this morning I saw a few things which did cause me to scratch my head thinking that maybe Fate has some other plan for the Dawgs. The penalty on the punt which took away a turn over was non-existent. Everyone was set. And the sheer lack of holding calls on both sides of the ball. This last comment I believe is the reason USC could run up the middle so often. Our DE couldn't cut across the face of the tackles and guards because they were being held to a degree that jerseys were clearly being stretched.
Any number of these things could be used to pass the buck of shame for no other reason than to make me and I am sure all of us feel better. But making myself feel better is neither constructive nor appropriate in this situation. It is simply, WE LOST.
I just want to thank you for the opportunity to present my frustration, rather than blame, for the events which took place between the hedges last Saturday.
Paul, totally disagree with you on the WR drops issue. I counted two drops. The majority of the blame needs to be on stafford. He forced balls, overthrew receivers and did not look comfortable. I am as willing to throw our WR under the bus as the next guy, but in this game, the blame goes on stafford.
Stafford didn't have a good game and missed with some throws. He did hit some guys in the HANDS when the game was on the line too. I don't blame Stafford because there were many areas where we didn't do our best. The screen pass on 3rd and 8 from the 12 I believe drove me nuts. Throw it in the endzone and give us a chance for a TD! Sean Bailey lolly gagging on that 3rd and 2 end around. Tony Wilson and Mike Moore. Not calling the timeout sooner. Etc.
I still felt like we would pull in out in the end just like last year's Tech game. Did not happen.
I agree with lawdawg1919 about the drops. This is more of a case of letting the past influence your thoughts about the preseent. I only saw one that I thought was a drop, but I wouldn't argue it could have been two. Most of the time, they were catching balls that weren't all that catchable or stripping the ball from the defender when the pass had been thrown into coverage. On several occasions, when a catch was made, the receiver had to break stride and reach back for a pass that was under thrown. Holding? Yes, probably, but isn't that always true? Don't good teams find ways to deal with it? Giving up one TD and a handful of FGs isn't the hallmark of bad D. Finding a legitimate single answer to give me someone who should be fired, hung in effigy, whatever, just isn't there. We lost. It sucks.
Paul, as to Martinez coming out in a nickel for SC's series after Georgia cut it to four, I thought that was a little strange as well, but he may have been reacting to what Spurrier did on the previous series when the OBC called five straight pass plays, used a time out and only burned a little over a minute of game time at a point when I thought he'd be trying to run the clock down.
Then, again, maybe Spurrier did that just to sandbag Martinez. I wouldn't put it past him.
Let me join the chorus of everyone who seems befuddled at this past weekend's game.
The Cockies just seemed like they wanted more than us. This game was eerily similar to the UT game in many, many ways:
2004 Punt Return TD nullified by Penalty
2007 Punt Fumble recovery in red zone nullified by Penalty
2004 DG misses RB in end zone for sure TD
2007 MS misses KM on wheel route for sure TD
2004 As bad as we played had a chance at the end
2007 As bas as we played had a chance at the end
I really don't fault CWM at all - with the exception of our not being able to stuff them on that last drive of the 4th Q - they kept us in the game.
My biggest frustration with Saturday is with CMB play calling. It had a (IMHO) a Jim Donnan-esque quality to it. Not staying with what works (Moreno second half), being too cute/smart for school when it was needed/called for (4th down fake, gator sweep), and for going to as you described the 5-7th best receivers in crunch time.
We need to correct what is correctable against WCU and get some confidence before the gauntlet starts: (Bama, Ole Miss, UT, Vandy, UF).
Go Dawgs!!
This was a game where the stats are terribly misleading.
The first half of the game was the worst half of football I've seen from Georgia in a really long time. The fact that the score was 10-3 did not accurately reflect the way Georgia was outplayed in every aspect of the game the first two quarters. Teams like Florida and LSU would have hung 30 on them in the first half. Fortunately, UGA was playing South Carolina, who is still far from what Spurrier's offenses have been.
It's fine if you don't find fault in Martinez, but I'll need someone to explain to me why we play a soft cover two/three zone on second down and 5 or 2nd and 4 over and over and over. Why do we have Brandon Miller playing the short zone all by his lonesome against trips? Would you not kinda see a WR screen coming? That's just basic fundamentals. They have as many blockers as we have tacklers, plus the ball carrier. What about the tenth time it happens? Would you figure it out then? Apparently not. The defense didn't go to nickel and man up until the 2nd half. If you want to see how a defense can rattle a QB with pressure, while still maintaining adequate coverage, see LSU. They blitzed nearly every play, and Glennon had no answer. They covered the short routes, and he had no time to get anyone open. We took the exact opposite approach. We gave Mitchell all the time in the world to find an open receiver, usually covered by some dude wearing #12, not to name names or anything.
We didn't get any pressure on the QB, but we didn't (or couldn't) blitz effectively either. This may have been a function of the youth in the secondary, but at some point, you have to baptize them by fire and make Blake Freakin' Mitchell try to beat you. They didn't do that. They didn't adjust. They didn't have the right personnel on the field. They didn't have the right gameplan. This is the same song as last year, just a different verse.
For sure, all of the blame for the offensive woes cannot be heaped on the receivers. Howevah, sometimes a receiver just needs to make a play. If it hits the receiver in the hands, he should catch it. If he has to lunge for it to hit him in the hands, he should catch it 33% of the time. Good receivers will catch those balls 50% of the time, at least. Our catch ratio was far below that. As far as the drops, I recount Michael Moore had two drops himself... both at or in the end zone. Whether those fall in the first category of passes or the second, that's up for debate, but until I see otherwise, I'm going to refer to him as brickhands because the ball reacts so negatively to his hands that it might as well have been thrown against a brick wall. Tony Wilson dropped another in the endzone before getting his head ripped off. Tripp Chandler dropped another in the redzone. Sean Bailey had a drop or two. Et cetera, et cetera. That takes nothing away from the fact that Stafford was off in the first half. He missed some open receivers that he needs to hit to win ballgames. Of course, no quarterback is perfect, which gets back to the fact that the receivers have to make some plays for the QB sometimes. Marvin Harrison has to make some plays for Peyton Manning, and Peyton is arguably the greatest quarterback in NFL history. No quarterback will be dead-on 100% of the time. The QB needs to minimize the imperfections, and the team needs to compensate. It didn't happen on Saturday, and it sucks, but that's life in the SEC.
That being said, this team is young. If you were expecting an SEC title this year, your expectations are slightly skewed. They can still compete in the East, but they need to get their act together and grow as a team. They should be competitive with everyone left on their schedule, and there should be no shame in losing to the best South Carolina squad in a really, really long time. UGA should still win 9 or 10 games, which means 3 or 4 losses. If a loss like this makes you want to jump off a bridge, let me be the first to encourage you. The world and this team will be better off without you.
Saturday's loss proves that UGA goes as Stafford goes. He missed 3 TD opportunities to wide open receivers (1st drive to Bailey-inaccurate throw that could have been caught, but still a poor throw. Wheel route to Knowshon and MoMass was wide open in the middle of the end zone on the last drive when Stafford tried to hit Mikey in the corner, he never looked off Mikey). Having said that, this loss was not all on Stafford. He showed good leadership and took the blame for the loss (eventhough its not true). Stafford needs to be more accurate, especially on the deep routes. There were definitely more than 2 drops. The TE had at least that many. If the ball hits you in the hands, then it should be caught. Stafford was off but he wasn't getting much help either.
Red zone offense was bad as usual. It has been since Richt took over, no surprise.
The defense played well, with the exception of SC last drive. We knew they were going to run the ball (or should have) and had a hard time stopping the run, but finally did.
The old ball coach just jumped up and out coached us. Our problems just never seem to get better, ie dropped passes, bad red zone game plan/execution.
I'm still trying to comprehend the logic behind getting the ball to the 12 via an extremely jacked up Knowshon Moreno in the 4th quarter, and then throwing 4 straight passes (including the penalty down), and kicking a field goal. SC had shown ZERO ability to slow down KM on that drive, so, why not keep feeding him. If he got it down to the 3 by second down, then I'da taken two shots with Brannen Southerland to get the first down/TD.
But then, I'm not an offensive coordinator...
I second Realist's point on the receivers. Yeah, Stafford wasn't particularly on that night, easily his worst game since Kentucky last year, but an elite receiver has enough awareness of the play to sense when the ball isn't going quite where it was intended and adjusts his route or his position accordingly. Our tight ends have been pretty good at that over the last few years; or, heck, look at Calvin Johnson. How the hell else do you suppose he became GT's all-time leading receiver with a numbnut like Reggie Ball throwing to him (and by "to him," of course, I mean "in his general vicinity")?
A lot of it, of course, is due to the fact that some of our receivers are really young and just haven't learned to make those adjustments yet, but based on last year's overall WR performance I'm not completely certain that ANYBODY in our receiving corps is going to.
It will take some HUGE improvements for UGA to win 9-10 games this year. I hope you are right, but I don't see it happening. In less than a year we have losses to Vandy, Kentucky and SC. No question that we are in a rebuilding time. I am troubled by the home losses. We should be able to beat SC @ home on a Sat night in Athens.
PWD - saw my props you gave for the week prior Pearl Jam stuff...wish we had another chance to do it last Sat, but Lomax was covered up pretty good.
A couple of comments and a solution. I agree that SAM tackles have dropped off with Jancek. Main reason is bc we take him off the field every time we play 5c or "tre" (3 down front) packages, which seems to be about 40% of the time. Hard to make tackles when you are on the bench.
Yes - the 4-2-5 package at the end was tough to take. If they complete passes on us, then I can take that.....and our DTs are not doing our LBs any favors on those plays. Garner gets too much of a pass, and Jancek gets the blame....but our highly rated DTs are not getting it done in crunch time.
One solution I would like to see since Martinez loves the 4-2-5 so much is to put Brandon Miller at Will, leave Ellerbe at Mike, and leave Dewberry or Washington. BVG did the same thing with Boss (taking Clemons out). Gives you more "Miami Fire" options with Mike/Will zone fires. BVG used more 3 man fronts in passing situations using Mike/Will zone fires with Gilbert/Boss and TD at as the dime. I would like to see more "Miami Fire" schemes with Ellerbe and Brandon Miller at Will if we are going to stick to the 4-2-5.
Scenic
I am a huge dawg fan, but willie martinez is the worst defensive coordinator in the league. He has the worst schemes. Several people have told me why don't we put pressure on the quarterback. I have my own opinion. Martinez played cb in college, so i think he has a soft spot for these players on the team wanting them to make plays and become superstars since he is the secondary coach too. If this were to happen he would get offered a job as head coach at another school and he would go. He has no loyalty to the program or history with it. I hope and pray that the athletic department will take donations to raise money for a "Bring Back Van Gorter Campaign". Ask this man how much it will take and let the fans now I'm sure you could raise more than enough money. van gorter was a real coach, in players faces making them stand on the sidelines during the games, hollering and screaming at refs. A mans coach. Unlike martinez who allows players who just gave up a huge play or just got embarassed to "go have a seat and think about what happen". Martinez is a garbage coach and coach richt needs to put friendship to the side. We want a national championship and we will not get it with Willie "No Blitz" Martinez as our defensive coordinator.
RE: 12:14 Anonymous
For Georgia to win 9 games:
Gimmes -
Okie State, Western Carolina, &
Troy
Should win - @ Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Ole Miss
Tough games - (win 2 of 3) @ Alabama, @ Georgia Tech, Auburn
If Georgia wins the gimmes, the games they should win, and 2 of 3 from the tough games, that would be an 8-4 season. That would put us right around the Music City Bowl, which would put us against a fairly average ACC team that Georgia should beat. That's 9 wins.
If Georgia wins all 3 of the tough games plus a bowl, that's 10 wins. That's assuming @ Tennessee and the trip to JAX will both be failures, which I don't think are foregone conclusions. Either way, Georgia needs to get better, but I don't think this will devolve into a 7-6 or 8-5 type season.
Bringing back Brian Van Gorder would be the worst possible decision Richt could make... especially if loyalty to the program is a criteria for being a "good" coordinator.
Well, I thought SC just wanted it more. It was a sloppy game by both teams, but at the end with the game on the line, 3 straight rushes by SC for first down sort of told the whole story.
We're just having to deal with a young team right now. At least we have a chance to correct the errors and get ready for the rest of the season. Next year looks much tougher, schedule-wise, so I'd like to make some hay this year, if possible.
And the Maggots scare me for the first time in many years. Are we sure Reggie can't come back for another season?
i'm a realist:
SC would go in the should win category: We are 0-1. I think the Kentucky game will be tough.
Believe me, I hope you are right with 9 wins. But based on Sat night's performance, that won't happen. Meaning if we play like that the rest of the season.
Is 8-4 and a trip to the Music city bowl a good season? Not in my mind. It certainly could be worse. There's talk of a National Championship run in 08 or 09. For that to happen we need to finish with a high ranking in the previous year so that we have a high pre-season rank at the start of the NC run. If not, we could get left out of the NC game like AU did a few yrs back and it almost happened to UF last yr. If you look at how things unfolded last yr for UF, they got lucky to even be in the championship game and they obviously deserved to be there.
Bringing back BVG would be stupid! Maybe someone with his get in your face mentality would be nice.
some want to blame the QB play, some want to blame the receiving corps, but in the end we have to look at this glaring problem that we have had for the past three seasons and that has been the inability to really stretch the field with our WRs to REALLY open the running game. Ever since coach eason has been here this has been an issue. i thought before last season even this was a huge issue and has become such an issue that ESPN and bob davie seem to mention it every time we play.
I definitely agree that our playmakers (mo mass, bailey, henderson) dont see the ball nearly enough and you would think with Moreno's incredible playmaking ability that we would even split him to the slot as a receiver from time to time (of course i know this would never happen until the day pigs fly).
either way i think bobo needs to understand that he cant call these bonehead plays we were losing the whole game. but at the same time i think we need to find more innovative ways for this young offense to work
Loving the comments and opinions.
As to the season, I think that Bama becomes the make or break game for us.
Win that game and we should be 4-1 going into Knoxville and hopefully facing a 2-2 UT team that is unfortunately coming off a bye week. A win over UT should spur us on past Vandy and to the bye week.
Lose to Bama and then it's 2-2 going to UT with a real possibility of being 3-3 going into the bye.
GO DAWGS!!
I sincerely hope our coaches and players are not doing the same thing the bulldog nation seems to be doing. . . overlooking games in the here and now and focusing on future matchups against SEC opponents. Sure Western Carolina is suppose to be a cupcake, but we really need to build some confidence in this game and get our offense clicking. If we are too focused on future opponents this could become a very long season. This is college football and you can rest assured the Appy State band wagon has underdog teams like the catamounts thinking they can upset the big boys.
It’s funny how the defense can turn in one excellent performance against OKST and one very solid overall performance against SC (I mean, really—UGA ought to be able to score more than 16 every time they play), and yet many still want to attack CWM. I have to say that I find it difficult not to do the same myself—I’ve never been sold on CWM as defensive coordinator, and I do think that it has to do mostly with his retiring, cerebral style as a coach. I think these are fine characteristics for head coaches and offensive coordinators, but I can’t recall any very successful defensive coordinators who most often comport themselves like they’re at a wine and cheese tasting on the sideline. And I do think that there are issues with game-planning, in-game adjustments, and scheme proportionalities as well, as several folks have mentioned here. But, mainly, from what I’ve observed of CWM-coached defenses, they’re just not tough when they most need to be tough, and that’s something we all came to expect as a matter of course from a BVG defense. And, obviously, this observation runs counter to the statistics that show that the CWM defenses compare favorably to the BVG defenses. But statistics can deceive. And, as they say, teams tend to take on the personalities of their coaches. If that cliché is true, then I think we’ve pretty much got the defense we’re going to get as long as CWM is directing it.
With Stafford, what can you say? To me, on the bad throws to wide-open receivers, it looked like he saw the TD, rushed a bit, didn’t get his feet set, and floated the ball. The wheel route to KM was obvious on that—he had more than enough time to make that throw.
Post a Comment