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rhclaghorn
✭✭✭ Junior
Was there any bright spot on offense this season? Fromm disappointing. Swift disappointing (versus his potential). Cook never used. Receivers disappointing. Tight ends disappointing. Offensive line disappointing. See a trend here? But we just need to recruit better and players need to execute better - no problems with scheme, philosophy, or player development? Looks like no major changes to the offensive staff are forthcoming. Best recruiters in the business, but can they get it done on the field next season?
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Betheredge
✭✭✭ Junior
The philosophy has been for years ,evenw Bobo, to be a balanced team. We want to establish the run, opening up the passing game and wearing down the defense.
While for the most part that has happened, the Dawgs have struggled to get the run game going early in games for the past four years. It worked only because up until this year, Georgia had two complimentary RBs. Fresh legs in the game every few plays along with hard running allowed the Dawgs to eventually wear down the defense.
The struggle this year was the result of one lone, beat up running back getting the bulk of the work which the defense keyed on Everytime he was in the game. That coupled with a fourth year of under achieving play by the O-line and you have the Georgia offense. While Pittman was a great recruiter, his on field product was the most underachieving group on the team in all four years he was here.
The Dawgs have been awful in short yardage situations since 2016. Just think of the number of goal line stands where we were 1st & goal from the one, or had 4th and a yard or two and failed to gain an inch. As Pittman said we outweighed the defense by 30+ lbs per man this year yet the line struggled to get any push. This was the worst year rushing the ball in years when this line considering the depth, size and athleticism should have been totally dominating. All we've heard for the past year is this is the best O-lines in the country yet we could only gain 61 rushing yards against an LSU team that gave up 400+ against Ole Miss and basically 150 rushing yards against every other team they played including Vandy, Fl, Auburn, etc...
In the long run, I do believe we will be better of with the Luke for Pittman trade.
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Doggone
✭✭✭ Junior
Interesting take. In the past we have had offensive units that have "won the day," outscoring opponents while our defenses have been average. We would have lost quite a few games had the offense not been able to put the points on the board. The past couple of years have been a bit reverse from that. It is not every year that you hit the home run with both. Point well taken.
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ReddenBlaque
✭ Freshman
"It’s nothing like that. You know this is the type of offense you’re going to have this year. Sometimes you might have a defense that gives up a whole bunch of points, and that’s what happens. This year we had a defense that was very stout, and offense aside, they didn’t put up as much points as we would’ve liked. Or as they would’ve liked either."
This is a point that doesn't get talked about with college football. Sometimes, winning championships is just about great timing and luck. Players come in they go out, chemistry gets changed from year to year, QB succession plans get tossed out the window, a guy who looked like a first round draft pick gets his deficiencies exposed...
Nick Saban's success at Alabama has warped people's sense of how this stuff is supposed to work. Dabo Swinney had a 6-6 season before he got Deshaun Watson to come to Clemson and eventually put the team on his back for a national championship, then he had a QB who was merely serviceable in the ACC who could be taken out in favor of another generational QB who won him another Nat'l Championship. Meanwhile, Georgia could have had Eason for three years with Fromm pushing him to be better for two of those and possibly could have been set up for Fromm or Fields to step in as starters as soon as he left and then that would have dovetailed into another QB. Instead, Eason gets hurt, Fromm does a good job helping the team get to the Nat'l Championship game and is good enough that there was no way Smart could have sat him for Fields. So, this year, without the receivers who made up for a lot of his deficiencies, Fromm looked terrible and the offense looked bad for most of the year. And now there really is no clear cut plan of succession at QB and nobody knows what will become of the offense.
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DallasDawg
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Reed speaks facts! Our defense was/is elite. Our offense was/is lame. The reasons, excuses, explanations have all been well vetted here and elsewhere. The sad part of it all (and someone else said this first) is that Kirby Smart is not going to change ANYTHING about the offense (he got a new O-Line coach only because he had to). All the offensive coaches will remain the same doing their same jobs. Any returning offensive starters -- yes, including Jake Fromm -- will start next year. He'll say at the SEC Media Days and other preseason stops that we've just "got to get better" at what we do as if just a matter of snapping your fingers and we'll be champions. Then next year we'll go out and be 10-2 in the regular season with losses to Alabama and, perhaps Florida or Auburn. (We'll beat SC and Tennessee because we have more talent, although both will show improvement).
If we somehow make it back to the SEC Championship game, nothing will change after next year, either, because in Kirby's mind, making it to the SECCG only validates that his offensive and defensive philosophies work, it's the players that don't. Only if we fail to reach the SECCG (or someone miraculously comes along to hire away Coley), will anything change with our offensive philosophy. Unlike many others, I don't think that Kirby Smart is like Mark Richt except in one often overlooked area -- both are stubborn as mules (remember Richt's adamant refusal to hire a special teams coach at UGA, then he gets fired and one of his first hires at Miami was a special teams coach). Until his stubborn ways cost him games -- or his job -- CKS won't change no matter how loud us regular (i.e. not big bucks) fans howl because to him, WE DO NOT MATTER!
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williewolf
✭ Freshman
Chaney's gone and Fromm struggles. It doesn't take much though to figure out that letting go of a coach who mentored Drew Brees in college has really hurt the team. To make it worse UGA gets to look forward to playing against the same accomplished play caller when just a few bucks or a lot of bucks could have kept the offense and Fromm on track. Poor poor decision to replace Chaney with a rookie in this league. Now Bobo comes along and has a choice or maybe he doesn't have the choice to play for a control freak or a whooped down control freak. Muschamp is in a tight and has to be humble. Maybe if some people had been a bit more humble UGA would still have a competent offensive coordinator and QB coach and wouldn't have been blown out by LSU.
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1SICemDAWGS1
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Lol ShoottheHooch! If that's the case, he needs to stay away from the volleyball court lol
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Tom1111
✭✭✭ Junior
Makes one wonder why nobody tried to change anything. Even in the SECCG , most of our 1st and 2nd down plays were runs up the middle for 1 or 2 yards
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Qvox
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
For me it was game 4 and 6 that pretty much showed what we had. Game 4 against Notre Dame the offense wasn't good, and then of course the absolutely miserable performance and resulting lose against South Carolina at home. After losing to South Carolina I honestly thought it was the end of our chances to get to the SEC Championship. I didn't think our defense would be as good as it was against Florida, Auburn, Texas A&M. After the South Carolina loss I felt there was a real possibility that we'd drop more than one of those games. Thankfully we barely squeaked by those, thanks largely to our defense, and Blankenship's leg.
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GBAL
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
I agree with Reed. ppl should have recognized what we had after about week 5 and realized that we were going to have to make the best of that. Had receivers that left early ... 3 unexpected... Great recruiting cycle but cant expect the new recruits to fill starter roles. Then injuries on top of that at the position.
"National Media and Fans finger pointing".... don't leave out the local media guys. Each wrote a NC or BUST story preseason.
All of us evaluating, media and many fans, really missed on the effect of losses at this position group preseason. Of the 4 CFP teams, not a FR in their top 4 receivers groups. We were counting on 4 top receivers whom had a total of ZERO catches for UGA in 2018. ZERO.
Those wanting to finger point will continue... So It was a BUST!!!! what now? I say we overachieved an hats off to the D and coaches. Lets heal up, grow up, and recruit up some more receivers.
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Classof98
✭✭✭ Junior
"a same Auburn offense that later dropped nearly 50 points against Alabama"
Auburn's defense scored 14 points. It's amazing how readily and quickly sportswriters forget about defensive scores when they are talking about offenses.
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ShoottheHooch
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Last year we did have four NFL quality receivers. Fromm also had 70%+ completion percentage and was considered an early rounds draft pick. That's where I missed your point. This year when Cager was healthy and the only bona fide SEC quality receiver, Fromm was still considered elite by the experts.
That being said, if Fromm's regression is mental, I know a possible cause. She is a pretty blonde and is on the volleyball team. She certainly got my attention!
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osmosiphobe
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Yeah, it doesn't come off that way at all. There's no context for reading that statement this way.
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reddawg1
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Our offensive philosophy was pound the ball up the middle and wear the opponent down so that in the 4th quarter we have our way with them. That pretty much worked until you have to score points and your philosophy goes out the window. With Cager we had a good go to guy for 3rd down conversions and we managed to skate buy some close ones, but it never looked pretty and it led to a few 4th quarter nail biters and UGA never passed the eye test. I think we all knew that brand wasn't going to play well against LSU. Now it ended up playing worse than even most suspected which is telling. And so some want to say they like this brand of offense? Well, it appears you are in luck because we don't really have any other options. Our receiving corp is either depleted due to a lack of eligibility left, or to a lack of skills, or to injury. So, smash mouth football philosophy, here we come. For better or for worse.
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1SICemDAWGS1
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
That was my mistake, I didn't specify the year. You are correct though, I was referring to last year's team. And I agree with ShoottheHooch, I saw maybe 1 this year close to NFL talent..Cager. Possible Pickens, and Blaylock developed into NFL talent in the future. Time will tell..GoDAWGS!
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GABirdDAWG69
✭ Freshman
Completey missed what he was saying, he was talking about last years team with 4 NFL caliber WR's not this years team. Cager is the only WR on this years team who could even sniff the NFL and I'm not sure he can stay healthy long enough to do that.
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GABirdDAWG69
✭ Freshman
Sums it pretty well can't disagree with anything said. My observations as well.
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GABirdDAWG69
✭ Freshman
Never mind the countless number of dropped balls, over throws, under throws, late throws and just simple poor execution across the board on the offense. But hey let's lay it on the offensive philosophy 🙄
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reddawg1
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Landers is a physical specimen at 6-5 and 210. But he plays like a finesse guy, as opposed to Cager who is going to out muscle his defensive guy.. I hope he makes huge strides this next year, we need him to, but I saw early on in the year that throwing to him was a wasted throw, that is, he wasn't going to catch it. Same deal with Simmons, just hands of stone like someone else said. But, with Cager hurt and Pickens out in a game or two, they had to play. I think someone didn't do their job recruiting them to play at a major school like UGA or else these two have taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Pickens should break some records before he leaves UGA but how we got him I don't think even he knows. Sometimes the dice roll your way.
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JoeFann
✭✭✭ Junior
Hooch, I think you misunderstand. 1Sicem and others were referring to the past two years, when Fromm had NFL-level talent to throw to, and clearly did not have that level of talent to throw to this year. Hence, the completion percentages were much higher one and two years ago. The four WRs referenced are likely Wims, Godwin, Hardman and Ridley. Go Dawgs!
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E_Roc
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
This is an aside, but here goes. I've seen quite a few references to Landers dropping that ball in the endzone (most recently below). Looked like great coverage to me. The DB's positioning kept Landers from being able to bring his right hand up to the ball. He made an effort to bring it in with his left arm, but it was knocked away. You could argue that if he had been able to position himself better he might have gotten two hands on it, but I think it's a stretch to call it a drop. Sometimes the defender simply wins the play, which is what that looked like to me.
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GaBoi69
✭✭✭✭ Senior
True AirmanE, but Fromm also on the 3rd play of the game missed a wide open Robertson running across the field that could have been s potential TD. Then he threw a short pass that resulted into a interception right before the half, which we could have gotten some points. Then he starred down a receivers and threw another pick that lead to a short field for LSU, which the scored a TD. It is a lot of blame that can be shared in several directions. The thing is...it is football that is played be humans. No one is perfect, but Kirby and his staff do not need to deflect that they had a problem on offense. Stop saying they lost their top pass catchers. Stop trying to push blame on receivers dropping passes. LSU receivers dropped some as well. It was an offensive effort that was bad all season. Plus, avoiding putting some of the blame on Fromm is due diligence because of Fields leaving and the support Fromm has earned playing the quarterback position.
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ShoottheHooch
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Which four are you talking about? I didn't see a WR in the group that would have been drafted if eligible in this year's draft.
Cager came to UGA rather than declaring because he wasn't ready for the NFL and played virtually the entire year with an injured shoulder and ribs. Simmons has hand of stone. Robertson hasn't proven to be a good SEC receiver much less NFL. Pickens and Blaylock were not early enrollees and played the entire year in the SEC with high schoolers bodies. They certainly have the potential to go to the league, but not even close this year.
Please! You or anyone else who make such claims, and there are many, name the receivers that could have been playing in the NFL this year. Coley, Fromm, and I would like to know!
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harleydawg
✭✭ Sophomore
In my opinion, this is what happened. We lost 5 receivers from last year, this year we had true freshmen (18 y/o) receivers, K.S. went on a transfer search, picked up a senior t/e and w/r. This should not have happened. He's a young h/c, gonna make some mistakes...this was one. Fromm had nobody to throw to, literally...that he was "in sync" with. Granted, they will "move into" sync, given time....but that's something we didn't have. Somewhere along the way, he lost confidence...easy to do when you hit them in their hands and they don't catch the ball. I don't know, at this point, what it's going to take...because, you say, they've had all year to "get in sync". They haven't...the LSU game shows you that if nothing else...6 dropped passes, of which most would have changed the game...don't know if we would have won it otherwise. But it sure would have looked different at the end. Fromm is taking this and putting it on him...it's Kirby Smart's "to bear". He's human, I think he's going to be the coach we need...as in anything in life, "the crime is committed" is when you don't learn from your mistakes...only time will tell. I'm looking at this Sugar Bowl as a game, not only do we need to win it...we have to win it. I don't want our guys to hang their head over this past season, they did the best they could...and almost pulled it off. Now we just need to finish. As usual...GO DAWGS!
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BornADawg
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
As much as I love my Dawgs, I’m not so sure I will be looking forward to the 2020 season as much as I was looking forward to this one. It appears Coley will be returning. However, I’m thinking it may have to be Kirby who is dictating how he wants the offense to look. If this is the case, Kirby may need to let Coley do his job. The offense did seem to show some different looks in SECCG. We’ll see what the Sugar Bowl is like. Go Dawgs!
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AirmanE
✭✭ Sophomore
Got to improve at wr. You can blame Fromm or coley but to me when you have a run heavy offense and the other team is bringing both safeties in the box you have to win. How many plays this year did jake stand back there with no one open or worse put the ball right on someone only to see them drop it. First play against LSU simmons drops the ball. The games 20-3 we’ve got the ball jake throws a perfect pass to landers should’ve been 20-10 but yet another drop. I don’t care if urban Meyer coached this offense we wouldn’t be explosive with those guys out wide.
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GaBoi69
✭✭✭✭ Senior
Reed made a true statement, when he stated you begin to know what you are by week 5. All things considering....Georgia offense did not improve throughout the year. Every since the Notre Dame game the offense never showed any consistency to include Jake Fromm performance. As a matter of fact, Jake performance regressed compared to previous years. We can say they lost their top four pass catchers to the NFL. A lot of teams loses their top performing athletes. However, teams recruit every year and they recruit the position they need help in improving. Bottom-line, Georgia did not evaluate well at the receivers position with the kids the recruited or they are not doing a good job in developing them. You have Trey Blount who was highly recruited out of high school and has not made an impact yet. Tyler Simmons never developed into a top pass catcher. Matt Landers with the size, never won many 50/50 passes that came his way. Kearse Jackson and Robertson still need some work of improvement. But they were considered good recruits. Jake numbers looked good because his accuracy was great the previous years. This year Jake had a habit of missing wide open receivers with over throws and short throws. He also held on to the ball waiting for complete separation instead of throwing the ball out of the receiver breaks. He had habits of staring down the receivers instead of looking down field. These are my opinions from what I have seen. Many may disagree, which is their right.
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Jaydawg67
✭✭ Sophomore
3/5 of the top offenses in football are in the playoffs. I contend that when we had the opportunity to sharpen our skills Kirby was calling off the dogs. I remember vividly making comments about us scoring 39 against Vandy and LSU hanging just south of 70! As I recall i was challenged by others that LSU also gave up 30 to the dores and people happy to win by 1..just keep winning. Chopping wood. Blah blah blah. I wonder how it could be so obvious to the fans early on and then the media finally caught on late. CKS never did. And we sit at home when the games really matter. A shame. And as long as he refuses to evolve , this is as good as it gets. “In this league they will chew you up if you can’t run the ball.” No. In modern day football you will get your teeth kicked in if you can’t spread em out and throw the ball so that you can run!
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oddsbodkin
✭✭✭ Junior
Need a new offensive philosophy change to take the next step. We need a grown up passing game like LSU, Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Ohio State. You know, the teams that are in the playoffs.
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1SICemDAWGS1
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
When you have 4 NFL talent WR's to throw to, your numbers should look good..
