Just looking over last year's stats, I feel pretty good about the receivers returning with more than 10/ypg from last year (stats from Georgiadogs.com):
RECEIVING GP-GS No. Yds Avg TD Long Avg/G --------------------------------------------------------- Tavarres King 14-13 47 705 15.0 8 80 50.4 Malcolm Mitchell 11-9 45 665 14.8 4 71 60.5 Orson Charles 14-14 45 574 12.8 5 36 41.0 Michael Bennett 14-4 32 320 10.0 5 27 22.9 Chris Conley 11-0 16 288 18.0 2 47 26.2 Marlon Brown 12-5 15 234 15.6 3 75 19.5
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| Tavarres King On the Move (Image: Hipple) |
If our source of concern is Malcom Mitchell not knowing the new plays, fine. The old plays worked pretty well. By my count, we are returning 181 of Georgia's 257 receptions. That's 70%. Last year we returned only about 45%. Tavarres King has 94 receptions, 1652 yards, and 12 TDs in his career. I'd not be surprised to see him end up with 55+ receptions this season and threaten Terrence Edwards' season receiving record (1004 yards).
Now, is it optimal to have 45 receptions and our top average/game receiver playing both ways? No, of course not. Will it give me pause, especially if we have a sloppy ass passing game against Buffalo? You bet.
When you think about Boykin and Smith's 10 receptions last year, plus the dynamic things you can do with them otherwise, having Mitchell step in as another change of pace type of play-maker makes sense. It is doubly so when you consider he may well be in the top three corner backs on the team when this experiment reaches it's conclusion.
If we are looking good offensively and he pans out as a DB, I don't see him moving back to the offense.
TD
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Edit note: Blutarsky kindly responds.
6 comments:
Wait... isn't Malcolm Mitchell playing defense. Another bright idea brought to UGA by CMR's staff.
I'm not concerned so much with the talent at receiver as I am the consistency and potentially the big play ability. The talent is definitely there. I think this group will be a pleasant surprise this year. Of course, having Mitchell back on the offensive side wouldn't hurt.
Five words: Dropped passes. See SECC game.
Anon- just from hearing Grantham talk about Mitchell's ability at DB, this may turn out to be an incredibly "bright move by CMR's staff". Of course why pay the coaches when anonymous commenters obviously know more about football.
Anon 3:31... dropped passes would be the consistency issue I referenced.
Outside of Mitchell, King is obviously going to have to be the play maker and deep threat. Yes I remember the drops in the SECC game but he was a pretty solid player last year overall. Marlon Brown shows flashes here and there but he's been way too inconsistent. Bennett and Conley aren't going to win the Blitnekoff (sp?) award but they are nice complimentary pieces and came up clutch last season. IF Mitchell comes back to offense (which I believe he will at some point), he and TK on the field at the same time will be hell for defensive backs. That's only going to help Conley, Bennett, and whoever else is running those underneath routes. Again, consistency is the key.
Ginny... IF they knew more about football we wouldn't be sitting on 67/68 scholli's before the season starts.
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