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Georgia football report card: Progress despite subpar execution and coaching
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Georgia football report card: Progress despite subpar execution and coaching
Georgia football had plenty of good things and bad things Saturday night, that was reflected in the report card for the game
Comments
Mike, I'd agree with all your grades except Secondary and Offensive Line which I would give a "D" grade to both. We had absolutely no running game (Bama racked up over 200 yards rushing against this same team 3 weeks ago), and we got picked apart in the secondary by an inexperienced QB. So, now this season Bama, FL, and Miss State have combined for 1,227 yards of passing against our touted "best-in-the-country" #1 defense. As you noted, we played 3 down lineman on defense most downs against State and still couldn't stop their pass attack until late in the game when we FINALLY got a pass rush in enough to cause some disruption.
I am very excited about Daniels but need to see more from him in the games ahead. Teams will prepare differently for the Dawgs now that they know we can pass. I want consistency on offense and our running game back to produce a more balanced attack. As much as I loved that we won, we should have never struggled against a depleted 2-4 State team that Bama annihilated 41-0 just 3 weeks ago. I always compare us to Bama, because that's where our program is supposed to be heading. If we get this excited about a somewhat lucky win against an inferior opponent then that tells me we've STILL got a long ways to go. Sure, I understand that we've got a new offensive coordinator and need time to develop a new QB. But that still doesn't explain the major lapses in our best-in-class defense now in multiple games.
Unfortunately, the way college football is today, our window of opportunity to get to elite status and back to the playoffs may be brief unless we can somehow master the formula for yearly success that programs like Bama and Clemson have found. We certainly recruit the talent to make a run every year. But, obviously something is still missing in our formula.
GO DAWGS!
P.S. I'd probably have to modify your "Overall" grade to a C or C+. Daniels and the receivers (despite dropped TD passes) were the only saving grace in this game, and JT won the game for us.
I agree with most of what Mike wrote with the exception of grades.
OL looked terrible—no push, several times I too noticed mugs standing around. No run blocking, missed assignments. And consider the opponent. Grade-D
Coaching: Defensive unit as a whole looked weak. Didn’t seem to play together, and to me seemed poorly prepared. Grade-D
There were other problems I won’t list that factor into my overall team grade—C
Here's the thing. If Daniels didn't play, we lose by 2 TDs. Seriously. We didn't stand a chance against them. It was a 25 point spread and would've been probably 35+ had Vegas anticipated a 400 yard passing game by Daniels. This was NOT a 'B' performance.
Our D got DESTROYED. We couldn't run the ball... at all. MS had very few backups/depth. MS had scored only 2 points to Kentucky (Bama scored 63 on them last week) and they were shutout by Bama. They had gotten 24 points against Vandy... a team that's 0-7 this year with very bad losses.
Sure, Will Rogers looked fantastic... but he was a 3 star TRUE FRESHMAN. Beck (who hasn't been involved in a single play) was 9th best QB, this guy was 24th. He completed 41/52. FORTY ONE passes for nearly 80% completion rate. That, right there, is unacceptable for anyone other than a Heisman candidate... and against our "#1 Defense"?
This was a complete coaching fail. I'm not one to be so harsh, but put this one completely on Smart. D is his bread and butter and he even stated that he made "no adjustments" at halftime. Smart gets a complete 'F' this week, especially when you consider how good Daniels played. He deserved to have significant playing time in the Florida game if not starting. Monken probably got a 'B', but this is the type of thing where you gotta start asking tough questions. Daniels likely saved Smart's job.
Here's the problem with the O-Line. The right side with Cleveland and McClendon are good, they seem to be the only guys who get to the 2nd level on blocks. The left side including center Hill, Shaffer, and Salyer are too slow and too fat!! They can't move, Hill was pushed into the backfield on several plays, he doesn't move his feet. Does any NFL line look like that, NO, NFL lineman are big and strong but they can move their feet. All 3 of those guys need to lose some weight. But it may be time to have some other faster/quicker lineman get some playing time, find the right combination.
I'm glad we won and I don't care for style points unless we play Florida.
We probably lose this game with Bennett or Mathis and that's why I'm glad Daniels was given the keys but I did not expect him to tear the roof off like he did.
Yes, Miss State has been terrible since the LSU game but like us, most of that has been due to poor QB play. Will Rogers is legit and once reason is he was willing to take his check downs underneath. I'm not sure KJ Costello would have been patient enough.
Finally, Miss State has put more starting D-linemen in the NFL than we have going back to the Mullen days. They had 3 first rounders in 2019. It is no surprise to me how their defense played as they usually are not cupcakes on defense. Gotta give them credit.
I've said this before and it bears repeating. We have had top 3 recruiting classes under Kirby every year. Supposedly right there with BAMA neck and neck and yet when you look at the games we play against the same opponents BAMA plays and they destroy teams and we squeak by or lose and look bad loosing.
I think most fans can take a loss where your team battled, it was close, but the other team prevailed. It's just when you look so anemic in certain areas of the game and yet you supposedly have similar or superior talent. It leaves you only one conclusion. Coaching.
Give me the coach who can take less and do more with them, than the guy who has more and does less. Who is the better coach?
There used to be an old saying about coaches who were truly great. "They can beat yours with theirs or they can take yours and beat theirs... or something like that.
Where has Miss St. ranked in recruiting these past few years? Certainly not anywhere near UGA.
Looks like you may have got the RB and WR mixed up on your grade.....if not, it should be reversed.
Sure, overall it was not a good performance. If we finish 2020 with no running game and a consistently porous defense, and this carries over into 2021, and it's preventing positive end results, then of course the program has significant problems and the outlook will probably be bleak. But does anyone honestly expect that from a Kirby Smart-coached team? I'm going to have to see it to believe it, and will hold off on freaking out until I do. As I mentioned in a different thread, assuming this performance in the passing game wasn't a total mirage (and there's no reason to think it was), then what Georgia needs to do to become elite is simply get back to doing what it's always done best, which seems to me like a pretty good position to be in. I just have a hard time imagining that the run game and defense will be down for very long.
If you could choose between the result that we got on Saturday and a 3 touchdown win where Bennett goes 7/12 for 100 yards, which would you take? I'd opt for the result that we got, and it wouldn't be a hard decision; it bodes much better for the future.
The only thing I'll say about the grades is I think C+ is harsh for the receivers considering 3 guys had their largest output of the year, including a true freshman who came up 9 yards shy of a program record. And I'm not sure how fair it is to count the personal foul against Washington. It looked to me like the defender ran directly into him as he was standing there, which would make it a really bad call.
Kirby has lost a lot of confidence from UGA fans and deservedly so. Much of it because of his horrible management of the press and trying to be cute and coy. Whether JT was ready or not and whether Kirby was trying to protect him....just come out and say so. If you made an error judgment then just say so. Fans don't trust Kirby now because of his own lack of communication. It's clear to me from Saturday that JT could have played against FL. I think we win that game with him at QB. But I also understand Kirby wanting to protect him. We can debate the decision, but I just want him to be honest. He's losing Dawgnation. Winning will help him get back in our favors but for the moment, the shine has been lost with Kirby.
Except for JT Daniels and the receivers, the whole team looked like they took a mighty regression Saturday Night.
The game's Report Card said "Georgia got beat at the line of scrimmage, even with the supposedly emotion-inducing black jerseys on. The zone defense looked woefully inadequate in the first half, and the play calling looked like a tug-of-war, with a incessant need to run into a stacked box on first down and put the new QB in third-and-long several times." Our coaching has to IMPROVE. Steve Spurier once said "With all the great recruiting that Georgia does, I wonder what happens to the players once they get to Athens." We have three games left; coach our offense with fundamentals (finishing the block, no **** penalties, no dropped TD passes, protecting the QB). And, for the defense, play your position, hit with a vengeance and tackle like he just cussed your mom.
We have been lackluster and sloppy against lesser opponents multiple times this year. It'd be great to see better focus for the remainder of this season, including the bowl game. And, hopefully, we'll have a restriction-free off-season with conditioning and spring ball to get everyone's focus level where it needs to be.
Looks like despite the win Mike, fans are pretty disgusted and fed up with these kind of lackluster overall performances when we recruit the cream of the crop year-after-year and pay top of the line $$ for our coaching staff. I don't blame the fans and feel the same. This is year 5 under Smart, so I'll once again go back and expect much better results NEXT season when we stop with excuses and produce wins week-after-week. Let's finally make our goal or AT LEAST get back to the playoffs! Good gosh. And I think I'm going to SCREAM if I hear Kirby say 'We've got to get better' one more time...
What's the only real difference between Bama and us?
Answer: Coaching and development....it certainly isn't talent.
To be fair, the wrs haven’t had a lot of catchable balls thrown their way this year. I think they were a little bit shocked. And they seemed to get in a groove just like JT as the game went on.