Pre-season...if I told you

If I told you that we'd play the #8 team in the country without the following preseason starters:

LT - Sturdivant
RT - Tripp
FB - Southerland
DT - Owens
DE - Battle
MLB - Ellerbe (gone after the 3rd play last night)

Do you think we win that game? In retrospect, I was either way overconfident about our ability to absorb those personnel loses or maybe I underestimated Bama. More likely a little of both.

Bama is good, and we got whipped up front.

Some of what happened to our offensive line was the payment of the bill that comes due when you go three years while recruiting and enrolling extremely few quality offensive linemen as Georgia did from '04-07 (2004 recruits like Chester Adams would've been a senior this year). Over those three years, Georgia recruited 8 kids, and only 1 contributed last night. Some of that is on Richt. Some on Garner, and some on Callaway.

Some of what happened on the DL was injuries and personnel. I said two weeks ago that Marcus Howard "ain't walking through that door." And our pass rush would have issues until we figured out that personnel problem. Not having Rod Battle back from his neck injury by now, isn't helping fix that.

Some of it was scheme. It wasn't a good a plan on either side of the ball. Someone on a message board said, "Why didn't Willie adjust?" I would've liked to have seen more blitzes just like you, but how do you "adjust" for losing your run stopping All-SEC middle linebacker on the third play of the game? That's not exactly the easiest thing in the world to adjust.

It was a whooping.

The Good News:

• The East -- We can definitely still win the East. Florida has major problems offensively and defensively, and we match-up better against them and Auburn than we do Bama or LSU. Auburn, Tennessee, Vandy and Florida are all as flawed as we are. Just different kinds of flaws.
  
  
• Ticket Prices -- Well, the price for Cocktail Party tickets probably just got a lot cheaper. I was really sweating landing that ticket before yesterday.
  
  
• Injuries Heal - It sucks entering a bye week without momentum from a win; however, this banged up roster needs a rest.
  
  
• The Crowd - The opening of that game was as unglued as Sanford has ever been, and it was up there with some of the great SEC crowds that I've experienced in 200 or so games attended in person. The fact that so few booed and so many stuck by the team during the 3rd quarter attempted rally says a lot about how far the program has come.

The Bad News:

• Injuries - We don't know how severe things are yet.
  
  
• LSU's OL and DL is better than Bama's. Ricky Jean Francois is licking his sizable chops.

There are worse things than losing a game, and having most of your goals still obtainable.

PWD

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