There was enough for everyone to crow about and enough for everyone to complain. A few notes before I head off to bed:
- Logan Gray - Who is this guy? Does he exist? I heard he "could" start and then he gets to call a fair catch and hand off once to Carlton Thomas. I'm convinced the Grayhound is like the Loch Ness monster, except that I've seen better evidence that Nessy lives. Same for the freshmen receivers, Yeti and Swamp Ape.
- Stephen Garcia Loves Zone Defense - I'm not sure if Garcia completed a pass that was thrown more than ten yards beyond the line of scrimmage. He scooted around and took the underneath routes for a slow water torture of five to seven yard gains all night. Just my thought, but I think we weren't counting on Garcia's mobility and decision making. The D-line would crash the pocket, but Garcia would just squirt out of there and dump off another little short pass for a gain. The pressure seemed to work against us. Ryan Mallett, as I understand it, is like a log standing on its end. If we get the same type of pressure next week, I think we get a bunch of sacks. Welcome back, Justin Houston.
- Reshad Jones, Trampled by Zebras Again - For the second week in a row, I'm confused by a Reshad Jones personal foul. What exactly did he do to deserve a 15 yard flag on that sideline tackle? Bump Cocky?
- Branden Smith, Fast and Unwavering - It appears that any time Smith touches the ball, he is steadfastly attempting to break the sound barrier on the way to the end zone. This works well if you are getting a reverse or fielding a short kick. It ends in disaster if you receive the ball five yards deep in the end zone. Smith has a brilliant future ahead of him, but unless Brandon Boykin is hurt, I'd rather not see Branden on kickoff returns for a while. If he is in there when the ball is kicked into the end zone, Chapas should tackle him.
- I Thought They Brought Their Own - Good to see that the Georgia State Patrol doesn't change allegiances no matter what their duties require. (ht - Red Stripe Dawg)
We'll have some analysis tomorrow.
Quinton
55 comments:
To me, Cox seems like a cocky dude who thinks he has the accomplishments of Stafford and Greene just because he didn't transfer. Seeing him smile after bad plays, and interceptions because the D blocked the XP... I'm growing tired of him quick. I understand he played, but at times he made some of the dumbest mistakes possible. He still doesn't know when to just take a sack and almost cost us 6 points by throwing the ball straight to a SC linemen. And someone explain to me why we take out a guy who just ran a 100 yard return back to give someone else a chance? UGA really doesn't like sticking to things that appear to be working. And how bad is our secondary? If we play a team that can just catch and doesn't shoot themselves in the foot, we're in some serious trouble.
Give me some credit for getting that video up! :)
Trey... I think the reason why Branden Smith was in on that return was because Boykin was fatigued. He had that long TD return but was also on defense for nearly the whole quarter. One of the coaches needs to tell Smith to take a knee in the endzone. Offensively, I thought they looked much better. Samuel ran the ball hard, Branden Smith looks like Percy Harvin with that blazing speed, and Cox overall was efficient (threw a horrible INT, but he still looked better than Crompton of TN). 31 points in the first half after only managing 10 against the Pokes shows that the offense is coming together. Defensively, we still have some work to do. Left receivers and the tight end WIDE open, but the good thing that came out of it was that they did not allow a TD for the final 3 and a half quarters. It wasn't a pretty win, but they held SC for 4 plays inside the 10 to preserve the win, and they deserved it for that.
Whatever Jones did wasn't done as well as the sideline hit on AJ Green that knocked his helmet off. Clearly, THAT is what you're supposed to do, because it was apparently clean, judging by the dearth of yellow flags.
Reshad Jones=NCAA blacklist, apparently.
And honestly, how long does Martinez have? Obviously, OSU isn't that great of a team so lets not give him credit for last week. How do you let a team who scored a bare minimum against NCSU put up 37 on us? I love Richt and hope he never leaves our program until he retires... but I think he is too loyal to get rid of Willie. We are NOT going to be able to outscore teams like LSU (even though they didnt look great tonight) Florida, Tech... We're in trouble if we don't get it figured out on the D side.
The big difference, and why this game was encouraging other than it was a W, was that:
1. we can actually score the ball, and Cox can actually throw it; 2. while getting badly outplayed at several defensive positions and in the overall scheme, the defense played with a lot of effort and tackled well even when out there for such long stretches.
I hope the pro-blitz crowd will STFU after a game like this. A semi-intelligent QB can beat that 9 times out of 10.
I just finished watching the game for the 2nd time, and no, we did NOT tackle well. You should rewatch it if you think it didn't take 4-5 guys multiple times to take the ball carrier down. And did you not pay attention to our LBs missing Garcia in the open field?
Replay tonight (Sunday) at 6pm on ESPNU.
The officals called the foul on Reshad because Giles stepped out of bounds and they blew the whistle and he still tackled him...Im not saying it the right call, just stating how it looks watching it over. It was a bad call, 2 weeks in a row on him
South Carolina is ridiculously bad.
On the post game show they mentioned that Boykin was having some issues with cramping throughout the game. That was the reason we saw Smith out there to return the kickoff the next time after the Boykin TD.
I love the fist pump!
Was there anything this game didn't have?
How in the world is this team going to get up for Arkansas?
I thought the state patrolmen were a little unprofessional there.
Hilarious comments on Branden smith. Apparently nobody talked to him about when to down it in the endzone, where is the communication on this team??
hey there chg
Kudos to the Offense and Special Teams (THANK GOD WE CAN KICK IT INTO THE ENDZONE!!!). What the hell is going on with all that zone D. Garcia looked like Peyton Manning. Is it wise for the CBs to be standing IN the endzone to give Garcia an easier TD throw on the 1st S.C. TD? Did Martinez have money riding on this game?
NebraskaDawg
Good Lord people, we just won a football game! Is worrying yourselves to death about the future how you celebrate? There will always be something to fear, but lets support our team! They played with great heart, and as fans, that's something to cheer about!
I have to agree with chg. Especally with them that close to Spurrier. Keep it classy guys.
We still have problems on our D. Missed tackles being the biggest one. And our pass defense was pitiful. I'm also wondering some of the play calling that Bobo did. When you find something that works, like Samuel's rushing up the middle, stick with it until it no longer works. Samuel got 4 to 5 yards a carry. Why you won't give the ball to him is beyond me.
The GSP fist bump behind Spurrier was priceless!!
Quinton, the comment on Chapas tackling Smith in the end zone is hilarious, although I doubt Chapas could catch him. After his fumble, I was quoted as saying "Keep this kid off the field,I don't care how fast he is!!!" Then, after his reverse for a TD, I forgot about the fumble. This kid has blazing speed. If we could develop his decision making, imagine him on punt returns... And why only rush Samuel ~15 times. I thought he looked good and Thomas not so good.
I'm not sure if no one else saw this, but from the student section, it was obvious that one of the fullbacks waived Smith out of the endzone on the fumbled play. I don't know if you can see it on TV, but my friends and I were all completely stunned, because he very clearly pointed to Smith and waived him out, and then immediately Smith fumbled. Now, I'm not saying Smith isn't responsible for the fumble, but this is the 2nd week in a row our decision guys on returns made horrible decisions. Just an FYI for all the people mad at Smith.
Also, you can't be that mad at Martinez, as we did spot his opponent basically 17 points that the Defense couldn't really do much about. Shouldn't ever give up 37 points, but Martinez's scheme worked remarkably against everything but the TE (for a second year in a row). One of the touchdowns Brandon Smith bit on a play action HARD and that opened the TD for one of South Carolina's men, too. So while I agree about the tackling, this might not be the week to go after Martinez.
Smith is a true freshman, and will learn from mistakes. He is also the fastest guy I've ever seen wearing Red & Black. That touchdown run was superhuman.
Although I was really pissed at Branden for running that one out, you can't blame him for that. The kick receiver doesn't always know exactly where he is and if you notice the blocker in front of him is VEHEMENTLY waving for him to come out. Whoever that guy is should be doing mat drills every day for the rest of the season. Same thing happened last week too.
That fist bump was funny as hell.
For the record, Smith was waved out of the endzone on that fumbled kickoff return. So the fact that he took it out isn't really his fault. The fumble, though, is.
And are people seriously complaining about how "unprofessional" the GSP officers were? Get a freaking life. They aren't palace guards.
I'm so glad somebody else noticed the fist-bump by the cops! We backed that up over and over and just laughed our asses off at it. It was so perfect how they did it just as Spurrier turned toward them. Icing on the cake!
In re: allowing 37 points.
Fumble at our 23 sets up the first TD.
Fumble inside our 10 sets up the first FG.
The safety and the INT return were 8 points.
So that's 18 of the 37 points right there that you either cannot or should not hold the D accountable for.
As for the other 19, there was one 77-yard TD drive and four drives where we bowed up and held them to a FG. There's an element of the old bend-but-don't-break in there, and Lord knows we don't want to go down that road again.
But, all things considered, the last SIX TIMES they got in our red zone, they didn't get in our end zone. If nothing else, that shows a hell of a lot of fight.
And you can say we got lucky on the blocked extra point, but you make your own luck. Very few teams would even make the effort to block the kick in that situation. We did, and it probably won us the game, or at least allowed us to continue fulfilling God's will that there never be an overtime game at Sanford.
How about Shane Beamer strutting around after the fake punt! Didn't his kickoff team get torched all night???
How about us falling for the fake punt from SC again? I swear they've done the same fake against us 3 times in the last four years; all of them on SC's side of the field.
If the State Patrol doesn't officiate the game, and they don't, then nothing is requiring them to be objective. They could've grabbed their crotches in front of Spurrier and said "Suck it" and I wouldn't have had a problem with it. Not like Spurrier has ever had any compunction about gloating over wins.
GATA, Dawgs. Not the prettiest win, but I'll take it.
Anyone arguing that the GSP should have "kept it classy" instead of briefly celebrating a hard-fought win over a Spurrier-coached team must not remember the numerous times Spurrier refused to "keep it classy" against Georgia while at Florida.
If he didn't like it, he could've brought his own home-based security detail--but then, it's not very reassuring to have Gomer Pyle watching your back.
CHG - State policy is for them is its ok to cheer for your team, that is mainly why they are at the game. It is a volunteer bases to be at the games for the State Patrol. So I get what your saying completely I still think its ok to cheer for your team. South Carolina Troopers did the same when they scored.
How'd you miss the top story?? We kicked deep all night. How did that happen? I had given up hope. Will we do it again, or was it a blip?
Castleberry, you're right, though the last KO was directed into the corner and received at about the 5.
It was probably exactly what they are looking for, because the hang time was very good and the ball was sufficiently close to the sideline that the returner was hemmed in pretty well.
Post-game, Richt made a point of mentioning, again, that their one long return was on a line-drive deep straight kick. I just can't figure out how that never works in our favor for our return team (as Coach Ball inadvertently pointed out last week).
It does make sense to try to use the sideline as a defender, though it just seems to make more to sense to try to kick so deep they can't bring it out.
Whatever. One game without any big returns would be nice, I must say, as would one game without putting the defense in a terrible position through special teams blunders or the offense's turnovers.
21-17 and folks would have been happy. Give me a 4 point SEC win anyday.
I agree, PTC Dawg. It was a great effort from both sides.
So who else noticed the new kickoff coverage team? I counted at least 5 different big names at one time or another.
Ryan: I noticed too. However, I swear I saw Logan Gray on a kick (can't recall if it was return of coverage. either way, WTF?)
I'm in the faculty section and the long run by SC on the deep kick was b/c our guys hadn't reached the 20 by the time he fielded it. This is the crux of CMR's argument that ya have to have better hangtime.
I haven't seen a replay, but the Smith fumble was also directly in front of me and it appeared to everyone in our section that Chapas was signaling Smith to take a knee. After the play Chapas walked Smith off the field talkin in his earhole too.
I've been hopin we would have one drive a game for Logan. Maybe he's not as good as advertised. The one play he had (a zone read) he made a mistake. The DE crashed on the play action, leaving that side wide open for a big run. Logan should've jerked the ball out and run it (see Stafford v Auburn 06)
anon 10:52, well said. Our d held them first drive and AJ promptly fumles it. Garcia's rep is that he's elusive and crafty, but bad at prorgressions and descisions. The pick 6 was ugly, though Norwood is a stud. I puked some BBQ into my own mouth on the safety.
Smith might be the fastest on field guy we've had since Champ?
I guess that win doesn't count for much. We dropped 2 places in the AP poll to #23. I don't think we're going anywhere until the LSU game.
You could definitely see Chapas waving Smith out of the end zone on that first kick. One of the coaches said last week that the FB is the one making the call whether or not to run it out. Smith might have made it down the left sideline for a good gain had he not fumbled it and ran head-first into the coverage.
Like somebody said earlier, Reshad hit the guy after he stepped out of bounds like 5 yards earlier, but I don't blame him for that. The zebras didn't blow it or wave it dead (or did so very meekly) so there was no way either the runner or Jones knew he had stepped out of bounds. Bullshit penalty.
Garcia was slicing our underneath coverage (or lack of it) up like swiss cheese, either by dumping a short pass or scrambling through. He is NOT a running quarterback and there is no excuse for the way our zone coverage was behaving. If he is in your zone, COVER him, don't give him a 5-10 yard cushion!
Our D did it's job in the redzone when it counted, but in the other 80 yards of the field, they looked pretty bad. Tackling was HORRIBLE, despite what others say. Their RB, Giles, made some pretty slick moves that we need to counter, and fast, before we face guys like Georgia Tech who rely on that stuff.
Samuel looked like someone lit a fire inside him and was bruising through tackles all night long! I was surprised to see that he only had 65 yards total though. Cox did not look like Stafford, but he had some good throws, some bad ones, made a couple stupid decisions, but in the end was a good manager of the game like he is suppose to be. Hell, we scored 41 points -- give him a little credit.
Overall, I'd give the grades:
Offense B+ : Lively playbook was nice, Cox was a manager, and our receivers and RB's did their job.
Defense C+: Tackling was horrible, but didn't let the Cocks score a TD in the last 3 qtrs...way to not break.
Special Teams A-: Good blocking throughout our returns, but missed the wide-open lane on the SC fake punt.
Blair Walsh - A++++ Enough said.
If our Defense will come alive and tackle and hit like we know they can, we will be a good team who can fight with the best.
Remember that home game when SS dropped 50+ on us? I could care less about what people think about the State troopers! What goes around comes around! His quote after that game..." Nice ballyard up here" might be time to take it to the links SS. We gave up one Td in the 1st qtr zero in the last 3.
USC would have won this game had their freshman reciever, Gurdy (sp), not have dropped two passes that hit him in the hands - one would have been for a TD, the other for a long first down that would have completely changed the game.
JazDawg, we would have won by much more if x,y,z happened. We would have last week if a,b,c happened. It didn't.
The only thing about the fist bump that would have been better would be if the troopers were Bill Stanfill's sons.
Getting my complaints out today: am I alone in thinking Bobo seems darn near allergic to running the ball on first down? Samuel was getting a good 4-5 up the gut all night, but didn't sniff 20 carries.
I just wonder if running and running and running some more would've helped a gassed D more than, oh I don't know, an obvious pass getting pick-6'd on us.
On the plus side, Orson Charles is a beast up the middle when he makes the catches (let's hope for this week to be the norm from the TEs and not last week.)
Hale quoted Cox as saying:
“I knew we were going to throw the ball, and it was one of those things where I could work either side. I kind of saw Norwood and was like, hmmm, but I decided to throw it anyway and he made a good play.”
No Dubbayoo,
that young receiver made multiple mistakes at critical times. He was a major reason we won the game. Just a Reggie Ball.......well you know.
But normally your comments are right on.
Hopefully some FL schmuck will assist us much the same way.
the big concern for me on D is they really look like they think being in a zone simply means staying in an area and then tackling the dude if he catches it in your area...not engaging and defending as they come thru.
That TE was like 6'5 280 and somehow was invisible until he caught the ball
also this silly faceguarding with our backs to the ball and trying to not touch the guy is eventually gonna run out of luck...that CANT be a taught technique but multiple guys were doing it
pwd,
my opinion on not playing gray is it wouldve messed up the rhythm of the offense. im no expert but since we were on a roll pretty much the whole night, i never saw an appropriate time. i just remember when greene was qb and they put shock in it messed the rhythm up.
and what the heck was up with zone coverage all night??? we really need to fire martinez and get someone who can make in-game adjustments.
"also this silly faceguarding with our backs to the ball and trying to not touch the guy is eventually gonna run out of luck...that CANT be a taught technique but multiple guys were doing it"
--YEAH. That used to be illegal. When did they change that rule? Plus...speaking of rule changes, since when can the OL be "drawn" off by a defender, resulting in a offside penalty even when there is no contact and the ball isn't snapped?
I fully agree with comments about def. coordinator Willie Martinez. Dawgs look like they're playing a 1980's "read and react" defense. Very loose in the secondary particularly against a QB in Garcia with little ability or weapons to get the ball deep upfield. Plus no adjustment even after a whole half of 5-7 yard completions. The proof that this approach was wrong is in the fact that SC kicked 5 field goals. Once Martinez' defense was backed up against the endline and were forced to play a tighter zone and attack the line of scrimmage SC bogged down. Playing to prevent the big play is fine versus middle of the pack teams, but this is why the Dawgs continue to get lit up by Florida, LSU, Alabama and such. You can't play to prevent the big play all the time. You have to attack occasionally. This is also why the option has eaten up Georgia under Martinez as well (see Ga. Tech, WV Bowl game).
I'm happy to have Orson Charles. We've had some great TE's in the past but also some that had stone hands at clutch times. He looks like he can really grab some leather.
Y'all runners of the GSB should do away with individual posts. Apparently PWD writes everything; just be GSB.
May have been posted above, but per AJC et al, Rod Battle is done for the year with a torn ACL. Enormous loss. Houston will be back this week. But still.
To answer IrishDawg:
I may have my facts wrong here, but it's my understanding that Branden Smith ran a 10.5 in the 100-meter dash. Herschel Walker ran a 10.2 while at UGA. So I'm pretty sure he's the fastest to ever where Red and Black...while playing football, anyway.
talldawg...that type of coverage by the cornerbacks is taught these days.
Trooper shot priceless!
but he still looked better than Crompton of TN
Now that is what I call setting the bar at its lowest possible level.
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