WSLS Ep. 107: Dawgs House Missouri

We discuss offense, quarterbacks, off weeks, and how much Tony freaks out over stuff.

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Scott: twitter.com/jawavifilms
Will: twitter.com/williamfleitch
Tony: twitter.com/tylerdawgden

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Waitin' Since Last Saturday Ep. 52: Mizzou wrap up

Will and I wrap up the Mizzou game. Check out the Snapchat video that Scott provided on our WSLS podcast Twitter page.twitter.com/wslspodcast

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Missouri interacts with the NCAA: Hilarity does not ensue.

Missouri fans took me to task over this post. Now I see I was barking up the wrong tree:

The University of Missouri admitted NCAA violations in its men's basketball program dating to 2011 and banned itself Wednesday from the postseason this year and vacated all 23 wins from the 2013-14 season.

Hey, it's all fun and games until a booster takes it upon himself to help out some players.

I'm still shocked Frank Haith didn't get a show cause over the $10,000 he gave Nevin Shapiro at Miami, but hey, paying quiet money isn't quite the same as signing some footballs for $400. Gotta have standards, or Lord knows what those unethical student-athletes the NCAA are protecting from themselves will get into.

For the current unethical student-athletes, they find themselves not playing for anything but pride, which considering how Missouri basketball has looked this season, that is about all they were playing for anyway. The immediate impact is that the Tigers aren't likely to play in the SEC tourney, meaning they'll re-order the brackets in some way to accommodate 13 teams.
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WSLS Ep 017: Variety and defensive failures

We get Will's take on Bleacher Report, the Democratic presidential debate, and Iowa. Tony has some thoughts on Georgia's special teams play. Scott pulls an all-nighter to get the podcast out on time (he's the man). All of us pick UGA to win. Again.




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3 Questions Answered: Missouri

There are days when everything just comes together. Saturday was one of those days for the Georgia Bulldogs.

1. Can we keep Mauk off balance? Boy did we. Missouri was 0 fer on 3rd downs and didn't get past the Georgia 30. That started with making Mauk very uncomfortable with reading progressions, which were very well covered anyway. So shocking was our ability to cover guys, it stood out when Mauk had nearly five seconds late in the 3rd to throw, and he ended up throwing the ball away. When is the last time an opposing QB ran all the way through his check downs, couldn't find someone open, then threw it away. Stellar job by both ends of the pass defense.
2. Can our offensive line protect Mason enough? The nation's sack leader had zero sacks. That's enough, right?
3. Will Gurley play? Who? 

Just a great all around performance.

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Friday Morning Meltdown: Misouri

• Todd Gurley
• Todd Gurley
• Todd Gurley
• Todd Gurley
• Todd Gurley
• Todd Gurley
• Todd Gurley
• Our mindset going into Columbia with all of this crap going on.

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3 Questions: Missouri

1. Can we keep Mauk off balance? South Carolina and Indiana gave us a decent blue print on how to get Missouri out of their offensive rhythm. Keeping Mauk off balance is the key. Our secondary isn't great, but we have been ok except when we are in 3rd and middle situations. Missouri is terrible at 3rd and long. Put them in enough of those situations, we win.
2. Can our offensive line protect Mason enough? Seriously, can we?
3. Will Gurley play? I'm saying no, but who knows. What does that mean? Chubb and Douglas have to step up. And it wouldn't hurt for Mason to have that come out game we've been talking about.

Hey, we're a better football team than Missouri. No way around that. If the coaches can find a way to get guys on board with that, we win.

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Missouri game kickoff time announced for noon on CBS

Apparently, the SEC East is as bad in ESPN's eyes as it is everywhere else. Thanks Missouri for losing to Indiana.

Good grief. 11am local kickoff. The only upside is that the home crowd in Columbia won't be awake.
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-Missouri tickets

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Weekend watching

Clearly, we'll be paying attention to what happens in Columbia with East Carolina coming to town. The Pirates have the same offensive philosophy, but no where near the offensive talent, that Texas A&M has. On talent alone, I expect the Gamecocks to win, but how do you think the folks over there handle it if it isn't a blow out? Or if East Carolina loses, but still puts up gaudy numbers?

On the flip side, Missouri is only getting 6.5 points on the road? That seems small to me, even though Toledo is a far sight better than the [fill in blank with random directional school][realize South Dakota is a state] random FCS school they played last week. If the Tigers can't handle Toledo, there is no way a trip to Texas A&M is going well for them. Probably the same could be said for their trips to Florida or South Carolina.

As far as the rest of the country goes, it is hard to imagine Tech losing to 0-1 Tulane, but the Green Wave lost to a decent Tulsa team. Keep a close watch on Sting Talk if that thing goes poorly.
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5Dimes sets Dawgs win total at 9.5

Makes sense considering the uncertainty at QB and in the defensive backfield. Considering their other win total picks, you have to think they are seeing UGA loosing 2 or 3 of Clemson (9.5), Auburn (9.5), Missouri (9.5), and South Carolina (9.5).

Other win totals of interest:
Florida - 7.5
Tennessee - 5.5
Alabama - 10.5 (tied with Ohio State at highest in nation)

Looking at the schedule, I can't argue with that, so they are seeing UGA, Missouri, or South Carolina representing the East in Atlanta.
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The only SEC Championship preview you need

The cat represents Missouri.

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Changes in defensive approach?

I'm working on a fairly in-depth piece on defensive scheme that probably won't be out before we get to Vandy, but I wanted to note something about our defense from Saturday against Missouri. We were much more effective when we set our defense and didn't wait for a call from the sideline.

At halftime, Coach Richt took his interview opportunity to note we needed to do things better on the defensive side of the ball. We came out at half time and only allowed one drive of longer than 35 yards or 5 plays (remember one score came off an interception). Compared to the first half were they had three drives of more than 50 yards and 4 of their 6 drives were more than 5 plays. I think that was a direct result of running pre-set defensive formations, and getting the coverage calls from the side line, as opposed to getting the formation and coverage calls from the side line.

Granted, I have no idea if that was something that was discussed at the half, but when you see Missouri gaining 1.5 yards per play less in the second half than they did in the first, you have to think something they did worked. As Blutarsky mentioned, we should plan on seeing plenty of the 4-2-5 (which is what got me started looking at schemes in the first place) with Moore and Mauger. If we have found something that allows us some confidence in (or advantage from, to put it another way) our formations by setting up before hand, that'd make me pretty happy.

When you consider so much of Grantham's defense is predicated on DB-LB communication and cooperation, the talk about communication breakdowns earlier in the nearly all season, and the slightly improved numbers we saw against Missouri in the second half, the same slight improvement can be a difference maker going forward. We know we won't see a change in personnel, but are we seeing a difference in approach that will make a difference?

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Sunday Morning Comes: Missouri

First, you have to give Gary Pinkel credit. They had a very strong game plan, made adjustments through the game on both sides of the ball, and came up with the big plays. I don't think Missouri is a better team than Georgia (and yes, I saw the scoreboard, so shaddup), but I do think they were better prepared and coached yesterday. You give a team like that a free touch down and give up the ball inside their 5 yard line, you'll lose 75+% of the time.

Second, I'm willing to say the injuries played a very big part in what happened yesterday. Especially as it related to Murray and his receivers' simpatico. By my back of the envelope count during the game, there were six incomplete passes because Murray and his guys were not on the same page. It is harder to say what having Gurley and/or Marshall would do, but considering run blocking was good enough for Douglas and Green to come up with 6ypc (against a team only giving up 3.25 pyc), I'd like to think it would change the play calling, at least.

Third, I have to give it to the crowd (with a few exceptions, namely the few knuckleheads booing Aaron Murray): Well done.

1. Boy, does James Franklin make that offense go. Mizzou does look like a nicely balanced offensive team. They ran about as much as they threw and were competent to spectacular. 
2. We were feast or famine defensively on first down. I don't think they were 2nd and short very much (just checked the stats, only twice did they have second and less than 4 yards). They also converted some of their biggest plays on first down.
3. I know the loneliest place in the world is one on one coverage during a trick play. Especially when you are giving up five inches to the receiver and let him get behind you by two steps. Just no where to hide. Also, give Missouri credit for running that play after Josey could have walked through that side of the defense on crutches from the gout had run through that side of the defense for the TD. 
4. Raise your hand if you thought we were going to win after Mizzou missed the extra point. I did.
5. I haven't seen the Herrera penalty, but if my dad is any gage, it was the boneheaded decision of the season to date. 
6. It was weird watching us play offense. We ran more passing plays, a natural result of being down 18 at the half, but it also felt we were very predictable when we ran the ball. And we still were pretty good at running the ball. Just a strange day.
7. As a fan, it is easy to bitch about stuff like linemen standing around and such, but it felt like several big guys were waiting to find someone to block (at best) or enjoying a very good view of the carnage (at worst) on plays. [I reserve the right to take this back or be more harsh after I watch the game on TV]. That being said, Missouri's speed rush is the truth. Also, give them props for their pass coverage. Of course, covering guys is easier when you are allowed to hit them before the ball gets to them.
8. If you want a sign of how we are doing, talent evaluation wise, on offensive recruiting, look at JJ Green and Brendan Douglas. Green was a 3 star athlete who was probably the fourth most sought after of the four horsemen from Camden that signed with SEC teams. Douglas was a last recruiting weekend swing from Georgia Tech.
9. I think our passing improves as Murray and the young receivers get to work together more. See above. However, Murray can't get better passing the ball when he is running for and in fear for his health and safety.
10. Did anyone notice that the trade off with Barber speeding up his kicking motion is 14 yards of punt distance? I get not hiring a special teams coach, but in our recurring feature of Georgia football special teams, we have a kid who needs some specialty coaching and we can't help him. I guess the good news for Barber is he'll end up chasing Ray Guy's records in the NFL when someone takes a flyer on him and fixes his leg swing timing or whatever.

Overall, Missouri is a pretty good team. Actually far better than I was willing to give them credit for. This is the team we thought we were getting from the Big 12 when we went to Columbia last year. Of course, all of that is out of the window now that James Franklin is injured. Strangely enough, with that one thing, we are not remotely out of the running for going to Atlanta, especially if we can get Gurley and when we can get Bennett back. 

Also, strangely enough, out side of the Gators, Missouri has one of the best defenses in the conference. 

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Welp....

Ok, so I'll definitely have more tomorrow, but a few things keep going through my mind:

• If it's all the same with you, I'll not take it easy on the offensive line. We knew Missouri was quick and had done a very effective job of putting pressure on the QB, but they did it all night while only rushing 4 most of the game. It resulted in four sacks and the most important play of the game. 
• And the defense. There are two thing I've noticed. First, we are much more effective in the passing game when we blitz. While the Dline is the best unit on the defense, that bar is pretty low. However, our best pass coverage is a QB throwing the ball away. Second, we looked much more comfortable in the second half when we ran our defense out of a pre-set, instead of trying to get a play in before the offense gets their play off.
• I wonder what Coach Richt was saying to David Smith at the end of the first half. I'm betting he wasn't using polite words.
• We did the things we couldn't and still win: turnovers, allow Franklin time to throw, got unnecessarily conservative on offense, didn't cover the drag route well.
• But seriously, the defense! I'm sure we'll beat the defense to death now that we've lost, but damn we looked over matched. 
• The same seems to look to be the case for Grantham. I'm going to re-watch the game before I get to down on CTG. My point when I wrote this was to give Missouri's offensive coaching props for continually adjusting to what we were doing.

I think the most disappointing thing to me is I do believe this team is special. I hate that we'll not get to see how good they could be if they'd been healthy a full season. 

Georgia lost to a team that was better coached and ready to play. It'll happen some more if we don't figure some of that stuff out.

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3 Questions: Missouri

Time for old man football.

1. Will we get off the field? We've been talking about 3rd and 4th down. Missouri is 9th in the nation in 3rd down conversion with over 53% conversion rate. I think we can get into a race with them. What concerns me is the special teams issues and how we've been giving up TDs. Which leads me to number...
2. Special teams blah blah blah? Yeah. Gotta not do all that shit we've been doing. Seriously. 
3. Will we and the team take Missouri seriously? We fans have to show up. We have to be loud. We have to stay in the game. The team has to do. I've seen the right things out of the team and coaches, but am just concerned.

Missouri is 5-0. Yes, their schedule is much easier than what we've faced. If we had everyone healthy I'd not worry about this game at all. I'd still not have much confidence in the defense, but I'd have utter confidence in the offenses ability to keep give us the win.

I still think we win, but fully expect another heart burn inducing 4th quarter.

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Missouri Game kickoff and network set

The SEC has released the schedule for October 12th. The Dawgs will take on Missouri at noon in ESPN's national game.

With UF at LSU a near mortal lock for the CBS game, I figured ESPN would be choosing which game between us and Texas A&M at Ole Miss would be the noon national game. Unfortunately, they came up with that game for the 8:30 kickoff on ESPN.

Full weekend SEC schedule:

Network	Time	Game
ESPN	12 p.m. ET	Missouri at Georgia
SEC TV	12:21 p.m. ET	South Carolina at Arkansas
PPV	2 p.m. ET	Western Carolina at Auburn
CBS	3:30 p.m. ET	Florida at LSU
ESPN2	7 p.m. ET	Alabama at Kentucky
FSN	7:30 p.m. ET	Bowling Green at Mississippi State
ESPN	8:30 p.m. ET	Texas A&M at Ole Miss

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-Missouri Tickets

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Missouri is doing it wrong

No gif this week, just Georgia Tech level victory celebration fail:

Yes, that is a T-shirt design for Missouri's thrilling 33-10 win over Kentucky. At home.

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Yost Fired: A week or so later

I meant to do a post on David Yost falling on the shit grenade that is Mizzou football for Gary Pinkel taking the fall for the disappointing debut in the SEC, if for no other reason than to use this picture again:

You're welcome.

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Final Thoughts on Missouri

I finally got the chance to rewatch the game. I'll not go too much into the 4th Quarter, but it was as fun watching on TV as it was in person. Our conditioning and coaching had Missouri outmatched. Say what you will, but it was clear which team was best prepared, especially as the game wore on. Missouri's defense was ready to attack Georgia's offensive line and got into their heads early.  That was the only place that Missouri overtly played better than Georgia.

Yet, we found a way to counteract that and went 5/9 on 3rd down conversions in the second half.  Yes, we scored on some very short fields due to Mr. Jones, but we also didn't have multiple drives in the second half where we were just giving up the ball after two passes and a draw play.  If you are looking for a bright spot outside of Mr. Jones' continued domination of all things football, find it there.

• From the very first toss sweep, we were losing yards. Gurley had 65 yards rushing on 10 carries. He lost 8 yards on two carries from toss sweeps. Take out the 44 yard run that got the "Old Man Football" chant started, he averaged 4.5 ypc (7 carries for 32 yards) on dives and other straight hand offs. It looked to me that either Missouri was keyed on those plays and were able to blow them up or our blocking schemes on those plays were not playing to our line's strengths (or more appropriately, don't account for our line's weaknesses).
• For a good sample, Georgia's second drive produced 38 yards of rushing, 9 of which were on 3rd and 12 which we ran out of the I formation and did a great job of blocking up front. Smash mouth football style. We did it again the drive after Missouri kicked their first FG, at least until another false start put us 3rd and 7 and we ran the swing pass that got read perfectly.
• Mitchell struggled early on the quick slants and outs with getting his hips in position to change directions with his receiver. He recovered nicely in the 2nd quarter and did a much better job as the game wore on.
• Robinson and Herrera were awesome over the middle.  They accounted for 18 tackles, 1.5 TFL and a pass breakup. Much better job than I could have imagined.
• Jarvis' impact was felt from the start of the game. The first fumble recovery was created because Jarvis disrupted the hand off at the mesh, causing Franklin to try to pull the ball out of his RBs hands.
• Bonner's interception was a beautiful play. Murray could have thrown the ball a touch higher, but as quickly as the play developed, Bonner just read the play action and QBs eyes perfectly. Murray has to better recognize when the middle coverage is there, but it was a very nice play by Bonner.
• Mizzou's first TD pass was set up by the prior pass play to TJ Moe. The quick slant in on the prior play got Smith to looking inside for the play and Franklin was able to get him to hesitate ever so slightly allowing Marcus Lucas to get away.
• There were at least three times that King got mugged in coverage, but none more blatant than the first and goal play with under a minute to play in the half. King was on the way to the ground by the time Murray released the ball. It looked bad in the stadium. I looked much worse on TV.
• Norman just fell down, I mean flat out tripped on his own feet, on the hail Mary to end the half.
• I didn't get a full sense of how bad a game Theus had. He consistently got beat inside and out. He probably just jumped off sides again. Hopefully, this game got his Freshman worked out.
• On Washington's TD, Bowman was on the coverage, but part of that was on Shawn Williams for leaving the middle of the field open to cover a receiver that was pinched to the sideline.
• The run blocking was much better in the second half that I remembered, although I still don't like the pitch over the hand off.

One other thought: Thank goodness I didn't have to listen to Matt Millen the whole game. Any chance he can run for office?

This is the kind of game that Georgia struggled in last year (think Tennessee or Vandy; although I think Missouri is better than both were last year). We have issues on the offensive line to fix and we have to find a way to get Murray keyed in from the start of the game, but overall, it is the kind of game that we can build something on.

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Other Thoughts on the Missouri Trip

I'll get a chance to watch the game again tonight, but I do have a couple of random thoughts to share:

• You could tell from the get go that Georgia's players were ready to go. That being said, Murray has to do shots or something before the game to get his eagerness out.
• Murray would have been in the neighborhood of 80% if our guys hold onto passes that hit them in the hands.
• The Missouri fans were so very nice. They are really, really happy to be in the SEC.
• But.....booing when an opposing team's player is down is very bush league. I get it, you thought he was stalling to slow down the offense, but booing him when he is helped off the field? Very Florida'esque.
• The Georgia crowd was awesome. While there were fewer people there than I would have thought (I guessed 10K) and they had us spread out in one large group and three other smaller groups in the other upper corners of the stadium, we were loud all night. Same goes for the band members there.
• In all seriousness, if you are a Georgia fan selling Georgia tickets in the Georgia section to fans of the home team for away games, shame on you. There weren't too many of them, but it still irks me. I am a big fan of the free market system; there are plenty of markets to specifically reach Georgia fans. Use them, please.
• Especially considering there were a number of Georgia fans on the ground that I personally saw refusing to sell tickets to Missouri fans above face value because they were waiting for Georgia fans to sell to. Which they did for face value.
• You can complain about Aaron Murray all you want, but the back shoulder TD pass was NFL quality. Standing in the pocket and taking the pounding while consistently delivering the ball, especially in the second half, was huge.
• Did you know Missouri accounted for 30% of their total yardage on the two long TDs?  Grantham still has some stuff to coach up on this defense.
• Columbia is a great town. Can't wait to go back in two years.

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