We'll get this out of the way pretty quickly so that we can move along to the game that really matters....the visit from the Tiger/Plainsmen/Eagles/A-holes from Opelika.Troy Thoughts....
Offense:
-- I am developing a massive non-gay man crush on Knowshon Moreno. The kid's anatomy consists of one oversized heart, 100 pounds of guts, ridiculous legs, 1 arm to hold the football and a head for his helmet to rest upon. There are no other body parts. Total badass. (Image: Hipple)
-- Turnovers. Despite the Dawgs giving up two quick fumbles and an interception, we are STILL ranked #1 in the country for fewest offensive turnovers (9). This season has seen the Dawgs protect the ball remarkably well. Stafford is also tied with Wilson (Bama) for second in the SEC with the fewest INTs behind Tebow. He's throwing 1 int per 42.5 pass attempts. That's pretty damn good.
-- When Stafford wasn't getting creamed at the release of the ball, he looked pretty solid. I only thought he threw one exceptionally bad non-pressured pass, and that was the INT in the end zone. He and the WRs worked the seams nicely all day for good yardage.
-- Sean Bailey is a warrior. The kid is playing on a torn meniscus (sp?). He's basically holding his knee together with bubble gum and duct tape, yet he makes sweet plays in traffic to move the chains and score points.
-- The offensive line didn't give up a sack, and I don't remember and offsides. They did give up a holding penalty on a long throw to Massaquoi, but otherwise they played pretty well. In the first half, Troy seemed to sellout and send more blitzers. They made a lot of contact and rushed a lot of Stafford throws, but no sacks. I don't remember either QB being under much duress in the second half.
Defense:
-- I've seen lots of hand wringing over the defense giving up 400+ yards. It's not ideal obviously, but they scored a comparable number of points against Arkansas and Florida. Plus, we were coming off a massive win, and some sort of hangover was natural.
-- Defending the bubble screen. If you missed the game, I can give you the highlights pretty quickly. Remember the 2003 game against the Gators where the Chris Leak threw about 25 of those WR screens horizontally across the field, and Van Gorder never figured out a way to stop it? Well, there you go. It was like that. They mostly nickel and dimed us on that play with two big play exceptions. The good news is that Auburn's QB doesn't have the arm to consistently execute that play as well as Troy did. The bad news...UK's QB does have the arm for that.
-- Turnovers: Unfortunately, we rank 104th in the nation in creating turnovers, and that is after we landed two interceptions and two fumbles vs the Pride of Nowhere Alabama. We have intercepted four passes on the season. As a point of comparison Vandy, Arkansas and Bama have picked off 15 passes so far.
On to Auburn.
See Also
-- An open letter to Knowshon - Bulldawg Blawg
-- Not all that cheesed off - HeyJennySlater
-- Recap - DawgSports.com
PWD
11 comments:
"Remember the 2003 game against the Gators where the Chris Leak threw about 25 of those WR screens horizontally across the field, and Van Gorder never figured out a way to stop it? Well, there you go. It was like that."
Well, it was a little different. Tory managed to pull off the buble screen without massive amounts of holding. I'm a big believer that holding could be called on any play but COME ON. You can't man hug the defender. The lack of holding calls during the Florida game that year reminded me of an old Big 8 game. Troy on the other hand used a few defter-than-they-should've-been moves to get the WR out a few yards on a consistent basis.
I do hope Georgia works on bubble screen D this week because it seems that Auburn is doing bad enough this year that Tuberville doesn't mind actually watching game film of his opponents and trying to exploit what they have issues with.
South Carolina used to do that crap to us too.
Just watched the first half on CSS during my lunch. One thought..."My God at the holding!"
Love your blog. If you want to check out another good UGA blog, check out the DawgHouse. www.firecwm.blogspot.com
So anon, you have a blog whose name calls for one of our coach's head yet you claim to be a UGA fan?
People like you make me sick.
A. FYI....that blog sucks.
B. Kno-Mo is a freak...looks like Cadillac at the same age, only faster.
C. #1 scoring defense in the SEC at Auburn vs. Staff & co. that are hitting stride and making plays
D. Gonna be a good one......
Like I alluded to earlier on a different post- the game this week will be won in the trenches. Both teams offense clicks when they are able to run and like we saw last year, knocking down Cox and catching his errant throws is a formula for success.
Our OL has to open holes for "New Jersey" and protect Stafford and our DL has to whip Auburn's youngsters up front.
Paul,
Could you please post a link to the pregame parachute video from the UGA/AU game two years ago. If that doesnt get you hyped for this game, I dont know what could. Only if the game ended as good as it began. Keep up the great work on the site and Go Dawgs!
Anybody notice that Special K got SEC Freshman of the Week - second week in a row.
One of the trainers from the 1980 championship teams sits behind me in the stadium. We had a discussion about whether Knowshon is the best since Herschel. It's debatable, since we had Hearst, Robert Edwards, and a host of others in the years between these two studs. Time will tell.
IIRC, zook used the screen about 95% of the time in the 2002 disaster, too.
for all urban's high praise and hype, i feared zook's offense way more than i do florida's O now. with urban, the spread is the spread, and the tebow runs aren't surprising anymore. with zook, you'd get ridiculous screens, dump passes, leak running horizontally for 30 seconds, double reverses that took 2 minutes to develop, holding, holding, more holding, more dump passes, dump passes a millisecond before a sack, more holding, etc. i'm surprised zook never pulled out a fake ball trick or had leak snap it to the center just...well...just because.
looking back on it, zook was a horrible coach most of the time, but when the cocktail party came calling, he did everything short of stripping naked just to beat georgia. up until this year with the celebration, we hadn't really returned the emotion in kind.
PWD - If it makes you feel any better I have a non-gay crush on the girl at the end of the dawgwear.net TV commercial.
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