UGA-USC Film Study...Opening Thoughts

Ok, let me go ahead and put this out there - I have not yet seen one second of the UGA-USC game. I was at work while the game was played, and I have not watched any sportscenter. If it weren't for the fact that I received zero texts complaining about our uniforms, I wouldn't even know that we'd gone with the classic red hats and red-on-silver. All I know is that once again, we failed to get it done.

However, I can say that our team definitely played better this week than last. Our defense gave up 24 points, and while that is not the mark of an elite group, that's eleven points better than last week. And, in actuality, it's markedly less than our offense achieved, 42 points. Still, the job of the defense is to prevent the other offense from getting into the endzone, and three times they failed at that job....and the "most costly" of those came in the fourth quarter. I put that term in quotes because in actuality, a first quarter td hurts just as much as a fourth quarter touchdown, though the perception is always different.

For whatever reason, Georgia just isn't a team that gets the job done right now. That pains me as a former player, and it pains me as a fan.

But, it will not prevent me from saying we'll go 10-2 this year. Glad we went ahead and got those losses out of the way.

Go Dawgs.

I'm not going to predict a USC victory.

I'm not going to. I know that right now, that's the "in" thing for the UGA bloggers to do. Right now, it's hip and cool to hate on Mark Richt and this team. Right now it's very "trendy" to pick against the Dawgs because at the end of the day, what matters isn't whether the team wins or loses, but how much face you can save as a prognosticator, right?

Idiots.

Morons.

Turncoats.

I won't do it. I'm not going to pick South Carolina. And, I'm not going to "not" pick South Carolina just to not pick them, I'm not going to pick them because I think Georgia is going to win. What's more - I'm going to think Georgia is going to win every game from now until the end of the season. I can promise you, if we are 0-8, I'm gonna pick us to win the 9th...and if we lose the 9th, I'm gonna pick us to win #10. Why? Because I understand one very simple, very fundamental thing that too many bloggers today are forgetting.

We don't know $#!t about the future. I can line up all kinds of reasons why South Carolina should bowl over us, and I can hammer out in-depth analysis on games in the series, games by Georgia after a loss, Mark Richt's record when there's a light rain on Friday evening, and his left shoelace is untied. (Ok, maybe I don't do THAT much research) I could also spout off numbers about how successful this defense has been against the run, and how terrible the USC secondary has appeared. I could use every tool at my disposal, and be just as wrong as if I threw a dart at a wall painted in Garnet and White on one side, and Red and Black on the other.

So, I'm gonna side with Georgia. I'm a Georgia fan. I'm a Georgia man. I'm not going to let one stupid loss to Boise, or a terribly played bowl game, or successive years of backsliding pull me from that. And I am DAMN SURE not going to root for us to lose just so we can fire Mark Richt.

At this point, it has nothing to do with faith or belief or any of that. The Georgia Bulldogs are not a supernatural being who will forgive my Sins. They are not a dust-sprinkling fairy who needs me to clap. The Georgia Bulldogs are a football team, and I for one hope they win every game from here on out. I hope they smash AL or AU or LSU or MSU in the SECCG, and then win whatever bowl. And then, I hope that the first words out of Mark Richt's mouth at the podium afterwards are:

"I told you I knew what the hell I was doing!"

Go Dawgs.

Did Mark Richt lose his hairbrush in 2005?

Ok, I know many of you are very puzzled as to the subject line of this one. But, I had a very strange thought earlier....

2005 - The last of the "Great" seasons under Richt (I've explained previously why 2007 is not included...and if you haven't been a longtime reader of my blog, hit the navigation bar over on the right and do some research!). The team drops a close Florida game (due to DJ's injury) en-route to an SEC Title game appearance against LSU.
We beat Lester Miles and Company, and earn a berth to the Sugar Bowl. Is it possible that this simple fact was the undoing of Mark Richt as the Head Coach at UGA?

I offer you this: At some point during the week leading up to the Sugar Bowl, an operative in the team hotel (and an LSU fan to boot) absconded with Mark Richt's hairbrush, or perhaps just a few locks from its bristles. The hair was then air-freighted to Baton Rouge, fashioned into a voodoo doll of some sort and a curse was levied against Mark Richt for the remainder of his tenure in Athens.

You may recall, the Sugar Bowl was displaced due to damage at the Superdome sustained during Hurricane Katrina, and was played at the Georgia Dome instead. This means that the Dawgs had to return to the scene of their victory over LSU - and the place where the cosmic spirits would be most surely aligned against them - "Returning to the scene of the crime", as it were. During the first half, the Dawgs came out and laid a fat egg on the field at the Georgia Dome, but against all Creole odds, fought back to within striking distance. Then, the curse took hold, and the Dawgs somehow allowed a fake punt to beat them when everyone who'd ever heard of the sport of football could tell you the fake was coming.

2006 - The team plays like a group of kids lost in the wilderness. After enough damage is done, they storm through the end of their schedule, giving the UGA faithful hope for a renewed glory.

2007 - Georgia uncharacteristically loses to South Carolina and follows that up with a complete dismantling at the hands of a not-very-great Tennessee team who uses a cunning deployment of play-action rollouts (sneaky sneaky) to dominate. Again, Georgia storms back at the end of the season, but is looked over in favor of ...wait for it....LSU when the BCS ballots are counted. Still, with Richt in charge and the strong finish, Fans believe 2008 will be a year they've all waited for.

2008 - The Dawgs begin the season at #1, yet after winning 4 straight games, slide in the polls before being crushed by Alabama at home. Surprisingly, the Dawgs are able to beat the Death Valley curse, and whip the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge. Some would go on to say that this was purely because Jarret Lee himself is the most cursed player in college football, after he bookends the game with Pick-Sixes to Darryl Gamble. The difference in the game? 14 points. Early damage lasted, though, as the Dawgs drop two more games in the second half of the season (including Richt's only loss to Georgia Tech), and suffer through the kind of losses to injury usually reserved for undermanned batallions on the battlefield.

2009 - Newly annointed "Team Player" Joe Cox tosses the ball to the defense almost as often as the endzone, and the Dawgs are unable to muster any kind of true challenge in the SEC east. Notably awful is a loss to Kentucky whose 2nd half comeback is likely considered "miraculous" in Lexington...but looks awfully more like "accursed" in Athens. Even worse is a penalty levied against AJ Green for "excessive celebration. This penalty occurs during a game against...LSU...and defines what will become a forgettable season of mistakes.

2010 - The bad gets worse as Georgia loses its best offensive playmaker for four games at the start of the season to possibly the weakest NCAA investigation of all time. A spell appears to have been cast over the defense which makes receivers running wheel-routes completely invisible. A young quarterback looks amazing against low-level talent, but consistently falters against winning teams - call it a "big game" curse, if you'd like. Still, the young talent on both sides of the ball gives hope of a better future.

2011 - Well, it sure ain't started well.


I'm just saying...if there's some bad ju-ju floating around, we might want to find out who was working at the team hotel in Atlanta back in 2005.

Go Dawgs!

**** FOR ENTERTAINMENT ONLY - NOT TO BE CONSUMED BY THOSE WHO MIGHT THINK FOR SOME REASON THAT I ACTUALLY BELIEVE THIS. NOT EVERYTHING I WRITE IS FROM AN ANALYTICAL STANDPOINT. THIS ONE WAS FOR FUN****

Give Sulek his due.

Much attention has been paid to the fact that Jeremy Sulek, a walk-on, was called on to play in place of injured Alec Ogletree this week.

Let me explain something to you - first off, just because a kid is a walk-on doesn't mean he's not talented. The kid finished with 7 tackles on the day, and that's nothing to sneeze at. In fact, over in South Carolina, they're applauding the 7-tackle debut of Jadeveon Clowney. Also, throughout the entirety of Coach Richt's tenure in Athens, there have been walk-ons who have made good.

JT Wall, walk-on.

Verron Haynes, walk-on.

Tra Battle, walk-on.

Reuben Faloughi, walk-on.

There have been others, naturally...but these are four who have done much more than simply been "every now and again" guys. Sometimes a kid just slides under the radar. Coaches aren't known for just tossing in walk-ons for no reason.

Case in point...2000 - I was the fifth Defensive End on the team. Charles Grant, Josh Mallard, Bruce Adrine and Demetric Evans all played in front of me. Nic Clemons was a true freshman, as were Will Thompson and Arnold Harrison. Clemons, Thompson and Harrison were redshirting. I can promise you, without a hint of doubt, that if all four of the players in front of me had gone down with injuries, I would still have been on the sideline. I can promise you that. Redshirts would have been burned, or positions changes would have happened. Why? Because our team would have been better off with four defensive tackles, or with one of the highly-talented freshmen in the position than with me. The guys on the other side of the ball were simply far bigger, and though I played with a lot of passion and a lot of intelligence, I wasn't going to hold my own for 60 minutes against guys who outweighed me by 100 lbs.

I say all of that to say this - If Sulek is the guy who gives us the best chance to win, then what does it matter that the kid is a walk-on? "Sulek did not hold any scholarship offers..." who cares? Perhaps he didn't grow into his body until he was 20 years old. I have no idea. Now, is he as naturally gifted as Amarlo Herrera? Probably not. But, if Amarlo Herrera isn't running the defense we're calling, will his talent matter?

Counter Point: There were a few plays on Saturday when Sulek was a bit confused about his coverages. Now, is it possible that if Herrera had been the one making the mistakes, he could have made a better recovery? Sure, that's possible. But, I'll take the less naturally-gifted kid who's in the right place 85% of the time over the highly-talented kid who is only in the right place 50% of the time.

Of course, this will cause the fanbase to argue: "But Dukes! We're GEORGIA! We should never be in a position where an injury to a safety-turned-linebacker leaves us without another high-quality athlete ready to step in. Our talent-base, history, and resources should always produce enough high-level recruits to never deal with that kind of dropoff." To this, I have to agree. And, in an ideal world, America doesn't suffer 10% unemployment, a tank of gas doesn't cost me a month's rent, and ice cream is a perfectly acceptable diet food. The fact remains that we are in the position we're in. We lost two linebackers (Dowtin, Samuel) as a result of off-season moves, and we apparently don't do nearly as much cross-training as I thought we did in the linebacking corps. Still, we are in the position we're in. As such, it is the coaching staff's responsibility to find the answer. And believe it or not, they do know a hell of a lot more about this game and this team than any of us do.

So, I'll defer to them. Coach Grantham has said he is in the practice of fielding the 11 players who give us the best chance to win. If one of those 11 is Jeremy Sulek, then damnit, support the kid and cheer him loudly. Another walk-on making good - proud to see it.

Go Dawgs!

But why not just run right over Boise State?

This is a thought that has haunted me since the opening snap (false start) against Boise. Why did we not just blow them off the ball and shove it down their throats? I don't understand it. I don't understand how we didn't line up, keep our pads low, and drive them backwards.

I play NCAA12 by EA sports. Now, aside from the game being horribly glitchy and an overall awful representation of what a finished product should be, it does a few things right. Namely, it does a great job of imitating Alabama's running scheme. The Alabama OL on that game is enormous, and they basically drive straight forward and pancake the defensive line. It's "video game football" at its best. My question - if we're gonna line up in Video Game unis, why not play video game football? Why would we not just pound the other team senseless?

Going into the game, I had a feeling we would pound the ball between the tackles, then, when the defense was tired, start firing it downfield to our speedy receivers. Doesn't that make sense? Would it be perfectly reasonable to expect our team to work to its strength and size, and then, only after we've tired the other guys out, start to beat them up in space? I think it makes sense. Apparently not. Apparently, the smart thing to do is come out in shotgun and try to run counters and traps, because the defense is "expecting" the pounding. This will catch them off guard and create success.

Ridiculous.

I believe I said in a blog last year that I believe in grabbing hold of a style of play, getting good at it, and then riding it until someone else can stop it. That's what the best teams do. You're not gonna see Oregon come out in a Power-I in the national title game because they've been running the spread all year, and Auburn would be ready for that. It's just plain dumb.

When you're bigger, stronger, and faster, be the bully. That's what I wanted to see - bully football. I didn't need pulling guards coming around and assisting on a block, only to completely avoid an untouched man in the middle of the hole. I didn't need to see a handoff six yards deep in the backfield instead of a dive where we rock guys off the line of scrimmage.

But, I don't make gameplans. No, I just complain about them.

To be fair to Mike Bobo, I don't think there's any way he could have imagined Aaron Murray would play so poorly. Let's be honest - the majority of Murray's mistakes were not due to a heavy pass rush. The majority of his mistakes weren't due to receivers letting him down. The majority of Murray's mistakes came as a result of his inability to produce under pressure. This game had a lot of hype on it. All eyes were on Murray. The gameplan was apparently geared toward letting him distribute the ball and make things happen...to take pressure off the tailbacks. But, the QB - supposedly the one absolute "sure thing" on the offense - did not hold up his end of the bargain. As an OC, you don't plan for that. You don't plan for your Freshman-All SEC and Pre-Season All-SEC QB to lay a fat steamer on the field at the dome.

That's the only explanation I have. Bobo must have built his gameplan around the wrong assumption - that when all else fails, Murray will deliver. He didn't. We lost.

Go Dawgs.

There's no reason to believe it will happen...

But I began to think about something today. Richt is 2-9 in his last 11 outings against Ranked opponents. Provided this season spins on a dime, and the Dawgs smack USC in the mouth, and provided they get a real run going and make it through the SEC title game, we could face as many as 6 top 25 teams between now and the end of the bowls. Winning those puts him at 8-9. Still a losing record, but how much better would we feel at that point?

A guy can dream.

Go Dawgs.

Richard Samuel starts again, and the blognation goes stupid.

I enjoy reading about the Dawgs, generally speaking. I enjoy fan criticisms, generally speaking. But, I tire quickly of reading a culture of sheep following the most incendiary of talking points right off the cliffs of insanity.

Isaiah Crowell played well on Saturday, but please - don't annoint him. When I saw his statement after the game: "I couldn't have played any better," I began to question him a bit. I mean, I get it. He's 18, he's a bit arrogant, and he thinks the world is his. I understand that. I played with some guys like that. Of course, we didn't win championships at UGA back then, so I don't fly the "played with guys like that" banner proudly.

If Crowell honestly believes he couldn't have played any better, then he deserves to be ranked #2 in the pecking order, if for no other reason than to put it in his head that he in fact COULD have played better. I honestly don't know how many people read my blog, or bothered to check out the extensive work I did on the play-by-play recount of the game. So, if you didn't, let me give you a quick run-down - Crowell's vision was less than stellar. He did make some good reads, and some good hard runs. He also left some yards on the field. More than once he didn't see how blocks were setting up, and cut into the wrong hole, or cutback when bouncing outside was the better option. In the moment, it's hard to see everything, so I'm not knocking the kid too hard. Still, to say "I couldn't have played any better" is just plain stupid.

It sounds like he's saying with better blocking, he would have been vastly more successful. There are some instances where that is likely very true. There are also instances where the blocking was there, and he didn't follow it. Then there was that blitz on which he whiffed. I'm not certain that is was the same play...but it looked a whole hell of a lot like the Washaun Whiff versus Arkansas. There were other pass plays when he picked up his man quite well. He's definitely still learning and is an obvious talent, but there may be some attitude issues to work on.

So, Samuel will get the start. Maybe the gameplan versus South Carolina will be different. Maybe we're going to line up and try to play powerball. I still don't understand why we didn't do that against Boise. You're not going to sell me on "our RBs are unproven, so put it in Murray's hands." I'm sorry, I like Aaron Murray - I think he's got a ton of heart. But, he's 6-8 as a starter, and has won zero big games. He hasn't flourished against good teams, and he hasn't led the team to anything. He beat up on some bad teams, and had limited success against good ones.

Our line was a question mark coming into Boise....well, what is it now? Looks like an exclamation point, as in "Oh, Crap!"

Remember how excited we were a week ago at the prospect of the I-Formation combo of Samuel and Figgins running behind a mammoth line? Maybe we'll actually see some of that this week.

Or maybe we can line 4 DBs in the backfield and play "who wants to run the ball"?

Go Dawgs.

PS - "Starting" really doesn't mean much when your backs are in a constant rotation.